When Darkness Comes

by Wilbanks, G. Allen

  Although I had fed from the pig blood Andi provided before going to sleep, I still felt groggy and weak from my own blood loss, so it took a few bleary eye blinks before I recognized Andi standing beside the cot looking down at me. Her long golden hair fell in a curtain around her face, and her deep, dark eyes gazed at me with a fondness belying her previous treatment of me. I stared back, losing myself for the briefest of moments in that loving expression. The moment did not last long.

  My eyes tracked down her body and I saw that she was naked. I knew what was coming. Although a small part of my mind took the opportunity to appreciate and enjoy the soft curves and lines of her exposed form, the majority of my conscious thought was screaming inside my head that I needed to run, or fight, or perhaps beg for mercy. Outwardly, I did nothing. I did not move. As I said, I knew what was coming, and no amount of begging or fleeing would change the outcome.

  First would come pleasure. We would make love until Andi was sated. Then…. Well, the next part would be decidedly less pleasurable. I did not want to ponder that part.

  To my surprise, neither of those things happened right away. Instead, Andi leaned down and gently kissed my forehead. She placed an arm under my back, and one behind my knees, then with no more effort than a mother lifting an infant, she picked me up from the cot. Without a word, she carried me up the concrete stairs of the cellar and out into the cool night air.

  She brought me into the house and carried me to a large bathroom attached to the master bedroom. I did not really notice much around me as she bore me through the house. I had little interest in my surroundings. When she had lifted me off the cot, I simply lowered my head against her shoulder, letting my cheek rest against her smooth, bare skin. Then I closed my eyes, knowing whatever would come, would come. I didn’t move again until I felt her take one step up, then two down. As she descended, I felt myself suddenly immersed in hot water.

  Andi knelt in the middle of an enormous, marble bathtub. I was still cradled in her arms with my head against her shoulder. The wonderfully hot liquid steamed around us. The tub was wide and remarkably deep, perhaps three feet down. Enough water that if I had stood up, it would easily reach my waist; like a wading pool. A shallower ridge, wide enough to serve as a bench, ran along its circumference. Andi extended her arms and lay me down along the ridge, my legs dangling into the deeper water, then settled herself to sit next to me. She adjusted our positions until she had my shoulders and head cradled in her arms above her lap.

  Andi grabbed a bar of soap from the ledge of the tub and began to bathe me. She washed my hair, first building a thick lather of suds with her fingertips along my scalp, then using small handfuls of water to slowly rinse it clean. I inhaled through my nose, taking in the smell of the soap. I knew what it must be before the scent registered in my brain, and I was right: vanilla and lilac.

  When she finished with me, she washed her own hair, although more quickly and with more industrious efficiency. After she finished lathering she moved away from me long enough to submerge herself in the water to remove the soap. She reemerged, water streaming down from her head, and used her hands to try to move the long wet locks of her hair out of her face. Several strands clung stubbornly to her cheeks and over her eyes, refusing to cooperate despite more than a few attempts to brush them aside. After a moment, with an exasperated expression, Andi ducked quickly back under water a second time, turned her face up and popped back to the surface letting her hair flow in a thick blonde waterfall across her back.

  I laughed softly. This small battle with her own willful tresses was one of the few times that I ever saw Andi when she was not in perfect control of herself and her environment. I had lived for those moments when we were dating, as rare as they were. They made her fallible, relatable, and frankly, loveable. She heard my laugh and, unoffended, laughed ruefully with me.

  Andi drifted over to me. She once more picked up the bar of soap and, with a playful smile, she gently ran it along the full length of my body in lazy circles. She used her hands and the softest parts of her own body to lather my skin, cleaning me from neck to feet without missing an inch of exposed flesh. She used the same method to go back and rinse me free of the slippery, soapy residue. She took her time, seeming to take as much pleasure from the process as I did. Despite knowing where this interaction would inevitable go, I found myself responding to her loving caresses. I thought about pushing away from her, but my weakness and the baser needs of my body betrayed me. Instead, I raised my hand and traced a finger along her face, tucking a strand of wet hair that had escaped over her forehead back behind her ear. I cupped her face in both my palms, then let my fingertips trace the soft lines of her porcelain cheeks, down the strong straight muscles of her neck, and across every plain and slope of her lean, water-slicked body.

  My touches were slow and gentle at first, but they grew steadily more greedy and hungry as they progressed. I cupped her small breasts, and Andi moaned softly before pressing her mouth against mine. She pulled me from the narrow ledge into the middle of the tub, then worked her body around my own until she was able to climb on top of me. I grabbed her buttocks in both of my hands and positioned her over me. With almost no effort I was inside of her, thrusting up into her as far and as hard as I could go.

  Another small gasp escaped from her. Again she kissed me, pressing hard against me. She brushed her fingers along the back of my head then grabbed a handful of wet hair in each of her hands. Still holding the kiss, she forced me flat onto my back. Water rushed over us both and I realized we were fully submerged in the huge bathtub. At first, I wrapped my arms around her back and held her kiss, thinking at any moment she would break the contact and allow us to sit up. Andi continued rocking her hips down against mine, sliding the full length of my erection in and out of her in a gradually increasing tempo.

  As seconds passed and Andi showed no interest in relenting, I began to panic. I grasped at her shoulders and tried to push her away from me. Andi pulled her face away from mine just far enough to make eye contact. She touched a finger to my lips and shook her head slowly side to side. At first I wondered if she intended to drown me, but as my panic passed and I realized that I wasn’t actually in any distress, I smiled and nodded back to her. I almost laughed, but I knew that would be a very bad idea. Although I did not need to breathe, I was quite confident that a lungful of soapy water would still be a very uncomfortable experience.

  My hands slid back down to her ass and we resumed where I had so rudely interrupted us. Although Andi was on top and could have easily raised her head above the water level, she chose to remain submerged on the bottom of the tub with me. Even as we each reached our climax, Andi pressed her cheek to mine and silently rode out the tremors of her orgasm underwater.

  As we lay quietly in each other’s arms, enjoying the afterglow of our lovemaking, still we did not bother to come up for air; figuratively or literally. The longer we lay still in the tub, however, the more I became aware of the closeness of her mouth to my neck. I realized that I was just waiting for her teeth to find my carotid artery. It was only a matter of time. She had told me that. And the fact she had not already done it was increasing my anxiety to the point that I knew Andi could feel the muscles of body tensing.

  As if in answer to my fears, Andi began to twitch her hips in a gentle rotation. The movement was subtle but erotic; a question rather than a demand. Do you want to go again? My answer to that question was obvious as my growing cock pushed once more at the sensitive flesh between her legs. If my choices were have sex with a slippery, beautiful woman, or have my throat ripped out, it was not a difficult decision to make. Especially as I realized that I did not want to make love to Andi simply to delay her from feeding on me. I wanted to make love to her. It wasn’t sane or rational, but I wanted to be close to her. Needed to be close to her.

  We melted together a second time, still fully immersed in the hot, soapy water.

  Long pleasurable minutes passed, then all was qui
et and still once more. Andi pulled away from me, sat up in the tub and dragged me upright beside her. I saw her reach for something small and shiny laying on the edge of the tub, then she turned to face me. With her left hand she raised my right arm out of the water. I now recognized the tiny object pinched between her right thumb and forefinger, it was a razor blade. Andi rotated my arm so my palm was facing up and positioned the blade against the skin of my exposed wrist.

  I tried weakly to pull away. “No, please. I….”

  Fast as a snake taking an unwary rat, Andi’s left hand closed around my throat and pinned me to the dark marble tiles behind me. The back of my head struck the hard tiles with an impact jarring enough to cause flickers of silver to appear in my peripheral vision. I saw Andi’s face move in close to mine, her features twisted into an angry sneer.

  “Maybe you would prefer the alternative?” she asked with a low, dangerous tone to her voice. “You want a repeat of last night?”

  I did not verbally answer her question, but I let my body go limp; offering no further resistance. I raised my right arm and turned it palm up.

  Andi held my throat in her hand for a moment longer then gave me a brief shake before releasing me. The shake was not intended to hurt me, it was merely a reminder of the true nature of our relationship. She was a dog, shaking its toy. I was her property. Nothing more.

  Taking my offered arm, Andi held it out in front of her. With my surrender, her face relaxed once more into a friendly smile. The smile did not put me at ease. “This won’t hurt,” she reassured me. This also did not make me feel any better.

  She was wrong. It did hurt. Not as much as having my throat torn out, so relatively speaking it was not too bad. But I did feel it and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Andi placed the corner edge of the razor blade against my arm and paused, perhaps waiting to see if I would try to pull away again, or maybe just to savor her victory. She applied just enough pressure to depress the skin without cutting into it. I stared at the dimple the point of the blade made. Although I wanted to, I could not make myself look away.

  Finally, with a slow, steady motion she pushed the blade down and drew two parallel cuts from mid-forearm to my wrist. She did not pause long between the cuts; moving smoothly from the end of the first stroke to the beginning of the second. Each newly opened wound was about two inches long and they were spaced no more than a half inch apart. She cut deep, avoiding the rubbery tendons just beneath the skin, but neatly severing the fragile veins and arteries in her path. I watched with horror and fascination as the tissues in my forearm parted without resistance to either side of the moving blade. She knew what she was doing. Blood welled up from the wounds, flowing fast and red across my arm. After tossing the razor into the nearby bathroom sink, Andi lowered her head and covered the lacerations with her mouth. She sucked greedily, making loud smacking noises as she fed from me.

  I saw a few streaks of the precious ruby fluid that escaped the corners of her mouth. They ran across my skin before gathering in fat drops on the back of my wrist. When they grew heavy enough, they fell. I watched them turn instantly pink, and twirl and twist in on themselves before dissipating completely in the bathwater. I focused on the drops; counted them in an effort to keep my mind occupied with anything but what was happening right in front of me.

  I felt myself growing weaker. I was so tired. My eyelids grew heavy and it became difficult to think clearly. I lost track of how many red drops had fallen into the bath. Was it fifteen? More? For some reason it suddenly seemed vitally important that I keep track of the exact number. And then….

  And then I was lying on my cot in the storm cellar with Andi standing over me. She was wrapped in a heavy white bathrobe with her wet hair pulled back and wrapped into a hastily tied bun. When she noticed that I was awake, she held something out to me.

  My vision blurred and I had to squint to make out the red, square object in her hand. It was blood. It was one of the bags of pig’s blood from the little refrigerator in the cellar. I reached for it, missed, and let my hand drop back to the cot. I was so weak, so tired, I could not control my body. Not even enough to take the offered blood.

  Andi sighed loudly, then sat at the edge of the cot beside me. The wooden frame creaked alarmingly under her weight and for a moment I worried it would collapse under us. Against all reason, the flimsy construction of cloth and sticks held. Andi bit the corner from the blood bag she held in her right hand and used her other hand to help me raise my head. She brought the bag to my mouth. I felt like an infant being bottle fed by its mother. It was humiliating, but there was little I could do about it. I had all the strength of an infant at that moment, and I desperately needed the blood. Putting my pride aside I let Andi do all the work, and I drank.

  When the first bag was empty, Andi helped me with the second. Then the third. When the blood was all gone, she tossed the last drained bag onto the ground and stood up to leave. Before she left however, she paused to pick up the pillow that had fallen to the floor and place it under my head. She unfolded a rough woolen blanket – I didn’t see where it came from – and draped it over my helpless form. Kneeling down next to the cot, she brushed her hand through my hair with a surprisingly tender touch, and kissed my forehead. The gesture left me more conflicted than ever. Was I cattle to her, just a source of food, or something more? Did her act of kindness indicate she had feelings for me, or was she merely comforting a favored pet? There were no answers for my questions. Even if I could have spoken them aloud, Andi would most likely not bother to respond.

  With these thoughts swirling in my mind, my consciousness fled.

  I awoke to a feeling of weightlessness. Warmth surrounded my entire body and I had the sense of drifting untethered in open air. It was a pleasant sensation, and in the midst of the horror I had been experiencing during the past couple of days, I did not question it. I reveled in the moment as if it were my last.

  I thought at first I must be dreaming, but since being turned over a year ago I had never previously dreamed during my daytime slumbers. At least, if I did, I never remembered them upon awakening.

  The sound of a small splash caught my attention; the unmistakable staccato plink of drops of water striking a larger pool. My mind cleared and I came awake fully. I opened my eyes.

  I was back in Andi’s bathtub. I was draped once more along the shallow ledge with my head cradled in Andi’s arms. She looked down into my face and when she saw me gazing back at her, she smiled.

  “Hello,” she said. Her dark brown eyes were shining. “I wasn’t certain you were going to wake up tonight.”

  “I’m awake,” I croaked. My throat was dry. The words were barely more than a whisper.

  She leaned forward and kissed me. Andi’s hand stroked my chest, her fingertips trailing lightly across my bare skin. She reached lower along my body and touched more sensitive flesh.

  “Are you up for any exercise tonight?” she asked, hopefully.

  I barely had the energy to be awake at the moment, much less participate in any activity Andi might have in mind. I did not respond to her question, verbally or physically. I lay still and let my lack of response be my answer.

  “Ah well,” Andi said when she regretfully accepted that she would get nothing more from me this night. “I didn’t think so but I figured it was worth trying.”

  She reached a hand out to the edge of the tub and picked up the wicked little blade she had used on me before. I felt the first cut, but was unconscious again before her lips touched my arm.

  My next memory was lying in a bed. I did not know where I was and my mind reeled, disoriented and grasping for something familiar on which to anchor itself. My left cheek was stinging painfully.

  Another jolt of pain to my cheek cleared my mind a bit more. I had been slapped. Twice. Maybe more, but I could not be sure. As my vision focused, I saw Andi looming over me.

  “Wake up,” she growled. “You have to feed or you’ll be sleeping for a week.”

/>   Andi raised her hand to strike me again, but I raised my own hands up defensively over my head and she relented. When I saw I was not going to be slapped again, I let my arms drop back to the bed beside me. I was so weak I couldn’t raise my head or make any reasonable effort to sit up. I felt like a six week old kitten could have balled me up and batted me about the room without any resistance.

  “Here,” Andi told me, holding out a plastic bag of red liquid. “I keep a few pints of human blood in the refrigerator when I can. You can have this one.”

  I noticed that she was wearing a thin pink robe that hung to just below her hips. It was pulled closed by a flimsy strip of cloth that appeared barely capable of the job it was designed for. Ordinarily I might have found the image alluring, particularly given the amount of cleavage visible where the edges of the robe had pulled apart at the top. However, after the events of the past three nights, the only thing I wanted to put into Andi’s body was a bullet. Or maybe a nice long knife.

  I desperately wanted the blood though.

  I stared at it, but made no move to reach for it. I was too drained, physically and emotionally, to even try.

  Realizing I was incapable of taking it, Andi sat down on the bed next to me. As she had the night before – or was it two nights? Longer? – she held my head and fed me like a newborn. I gulped greedily, feeling the badly needed sustenance flow through me. Warmth blossomed in my stomach and radiated outward to my limbs. Any blood can keep me alive, but it is human blood that truly sustains a vampire and I could feel the difference immediately. I was still critically weak, but for the first time in many hours, I believed that I was going to survive this ordeal.

  The blood was gone quickly. I chewed at the bag fighting for every drop, but Andi pulled it away and tossed it somewhere across the room. I looked at her, willing her to give me more. She shook her head in understanding. There was no more.