It’s not blood she’s looking for. It’s the sweet smell of fear. She knows what it looks like on the man. She’s tasted it from other people, but she knows what it looks like.

The bar is full. She sits at the corner and looks down it, waiting for the man, for his pressed collar shirt and handsome stubble that she knows the feel of. There have been too many who looked like him walking into the bar, laughing with their friends, flirting with a woman who is far out of their league, if not for looks, then for attitude. She sips a martini, her nails curling around the stem of the glass, eyes darting from this man to that.

She doesn’t see when he walks in, only when he leans against the bar, pushing between two other men. He’s already drunk, she knows by the wrinkle on his shirt sleeve and the nearly imperceptible lack of focus. She can smell it, too, bile and sweat, all the things to come when he’s too deep in. She leaves her unfinished martini on the stained counter, and follows behind him, watching his shirt tail shift with every clumsy step.

When he sits down with a woman young enough to be his daughter, she holds back, stopping next to a table and waiting, her hand on the top, nails tapping. The sounds of the bar float away. His mouth is moving but she hears nothing. She wants him to see her, to see her blood red nails, her mad eyes, her hair that falls just below the shoulder and caresses the nape of her neck. He needs to see her before she does anything.

His eyes run over her once, then flick back, stopping, widening. It takes him a moment longer than usual to relax, to pretend nothing is strange. The woman with him doesn’t notice, clutches his bicep playfully. He gets up, swats her away, and makes a break for the bathroom.

She smells it now. Thick. Sea-water, moldy thickness. Her perfume stuck to his neck. She smells it all. She follows him down the dimly-lit corridor to the men’s bathroom. He’s standing over the sink, clutching it knuckle-white. His fear smells like propane and rust. Or maybe that’s her fear. Whatever. She pretends it’s his.

He says something to her that she doesn’t hear. She stands in the doorway. He squares his shoulders and walks towards her. She pretends to grab for something in her pocket. He flinches backward, back, back to the sinks, where he’s stopped, but leans away, until he’s practically on top of them.

His fear smells like her blood on his hands. Deeply she breathes. And Feasts.