Last Kiss from the Vampire

by Jennifer Mckenzie

  “Lilith,” the club owner said. “There are rules for this place.”

  “And rules can be broken,” she said, shoving a wad of bills into his hand. “Is that back room open? The one you only let special people use?”

  He looked at the money in his hand, took out a key ring and pulled off a key. He gave it to her.

  “Use it as long as you need to.”

  “Oh, I have all kinds of needs this one can fill,” she said, taking Steve by the arm. “Come on, killer whale, we have a date.”

  Lilith pulled Steve along with her through the club the other guests looking on with knowing smirks. She opened a door and took him inside, locking it behind them.

  “Do you think he had any idea what he’s in for?” Mr. Johnson asked his wife.

  “No,” she responded. “Too much of the headlight deer in his face. But he’s about to find out.”

  There was even less light in the room where Steve found himself. The tall Lilith grabbed him and pulled Steve down to a bed she was sitting on. She tossed one long leg over his.

  “So what’s wrong, big boy?” she asked. “Your blood goddess is losing interest? You can’t understand what you’re doing wrong because all you care about is what she needs?”

  “Who are you?” He asked.

  “Didn’t you hear? I’m Lilith, the queen of the night, baby. I’m the worst thing you can imagine and the best thing you will ever have. I make little boys grow up and take big ones home to play with me. The problem is, you don’t want to grow up.”

  Steve looked at her with absolute incomprehension. Who was this woman? Where did Megan go?

  “Let me explain something to you,” she said. “Getting your ass branded was the worst thing you could have done. I’ve never seen it last. Donor wants everyone to know, in private, he’s her personal suck toy because he gets off on it, not her.

  She looked at her wrist watch.

  “Dominic has been out with her for less than half an hour,” she said. “In about two hours he’ll have her clothes off showing what a real man can do for her. She'll be pushed up against the wall with her fangs out screaming as she cums. You ever watch two vampires have sex? It can get pretty hot.”

  “What am I going to do?” Steve started to blubber. “I just want to please her.”

  Slap! Lilith hit him hard across the face with her palm.

  “Have you not been listening to me, chuckle head?” She yelled at him. “She doesn’t want a guy who runs around asking her what to do. You need to start doing it right! And don’t cringe; I’m not going to hit you again. You might start liking it. Now get your clothes off.”

  Steve began removing his shorts, then his shirt. He didn’t have on much in the first place. When he was finished he stood there staring at the vampire woman with his manhood hanging out.

  “We’ve off to a good start,” she said. “Now get my clothes off.”

  Carefully, he took off her veil, then the shoes. When he had those off, Steve asked her to turn around and let him unhook her bra.

  “Wrong!” she yelled at him. “You don’t ask for permission at this stage of the game! Just do it, I’ll let you know if you’re doing something wrong.”

  He continued after removing her bra to slide her thong over her thighs. Now she they were both naked. And sitting on the bed

  “I’m going to do something,” she said to him. “And you get to guess what I want you to do in response.”

  She put one long leg on his shoulder. Steve began kissing down the leg, licking inside the thing, and then going up the other thigh, all the way to the other foot. This part wasn’t so different from what Megan liked. He continued working his way back down the leg and went right for the middle. Steve began licking until Lilith held his head in place. She had him continue for a few more minutes. Then pulled his head back.

  “Take me!” was all she said.

  Steve tossed himself on top of her, shoved himself inside the tall vampire and began making love to her as hard as she could. He pounded away, not knowing where he found the ability. Her eyes changed color and soon Lilith had her head back and her fangs out. Steven knew from experience what this meant. He felt her sharp nails scratch his back and draw blood. Then he heard her orgasm explode from inside and she held him tight enough to break his ribs, but released him, just as Steve came inside her.

  They held onto each other for a few minutes while Steve’s heart beat slowed down. Lilith, being a vampire, didn’t have a beating heart. Then she let go and they lay next to each other.

  “By the way,” she said to him, “I’m contagious. I should have told you first, but now you know.”

  “He leaned over to her. “Doesn’t that mean I’ll be one too?”

  “Just like us. Don’t worry I’m now your sponsor. I’ll get you signed up for a support group soon.”

  They finished putting their clothes back on. Steve was already feeling different.

  “We have to get going. I need to get you some better threads. Come on let’s go.”

  As they left the room, Steve asked her:

  “What did you say your name was?”

  “Lilith. Vicountess Lilith. Don’t bother to thank me, this is payback.”

  The Johnsons watched them leave.

  “Looks like Svengali found her a Trilby,” he said to his wife.

  “I think she used the old ‘contagious’ line on him,” she said. “It’s not easy to make another vampire, but he doesn’t know it.”

  “Best that he doesn’t.”

  Megan came home the next morning to find Steve all cleaned up and wearing an Armani suit in the parlor. She was shocked, just earlier in the evening; he’d had a tee shirt and shorts on. She had made her mind up to tell him she’d just been with Dominic and the two of them were finished. He informed her they were just getting started as he now was a vampire too and needed to make some lifestyle adjustments. They went in the bedroom and had an all-day sex session.

  They currently run the diner where Megan worked. Steve handles the day shift and her the evening. He never did figure out why being a vampire still allowed him to function in the day and whey Megan continued to need his blood. But they have a bid in on a house not far from where they live now and are planning on buying the diner from the current owners.

  THE END

  BONUS PREVIEW OF “SHADE OF DARKNESS”….

  Bev is my hero. She has been since we met, the first day on my new job. A new job was always a chance to start over for me, but working at Pendleson & Meyer was doubly so, since I’d relocated to a new city. I’d been there for four years, and Bev was the only true friend I’ made—men included. So much for fresh starts.

  “How about a steak dinner instead of hitting the gym?” Bev said, standing by my office door, her oversized purse slung over her shoulder. “It’s a rhetorical question,” Bev added. “Steak dinner is the correct answer.”

  And that’s part of the reason Bev is my hero.

  “Bev,” I said.

  “Yes Liv?”

  “How about a nice steak dinner instead of going to the gym?” I gathered my things and called down for a company car to drive us.

  “Hmm,” Bev replied. “Great minds do think alike.”

  To me, skipping the gym was no biggie. I’ve gone to the gym for years, off and on, but I’ve long since gotten rid of my teenage fantasy of one day being a size six. I’m a big woman. That’s that. Get over it. But Bev loves the gym—not for the exercise, but for the eye candy, and the possibilities. Bev is always open to new possibilities, and as a result, she often encounters them.

  One of the biggest reasons Bev is my hero is that we are the same size. My size sometimes bothers me, but her size never bothers her. Somehow Bev managed to avoid all the self-consciousness associated with being a plus-size gal in a skeleton-girl world. Although I always try to learn from Bev, I’m not always successful.

  The company limo brought us into the industrial side of the city. Well, it used to be
the industrial area, but all the manufacturers had long since vacated for cheaper climes. For a while, squatters, alkies, addicts, and artists were all that could be found below Seventeenth Avenue, by the river—those and the occasional street whore—but then the city became an appealing place to live again. Gentrification had turned many of the factories and warehouses into condos, and some of the unsalvageable ones got torn down. But the old Sugar Factory still stood tall in all its splendor, and it housed the best steakhouse in town—Vladstok’s.

  The Sugar Factory was a monstrous complex, built of red brick that was blackened from soot and time. Vladstok’s took up the first two floors. There was talk of reclaiming some of the unused space, but Victor Vladstok, the owner of both the steakhouse and the Sugar Factory it sat in, did not seem interested in changing things.

  Bev and I climbed out of the company limo and wished Stanley, our driver, a good night. A long-coat wearing man, complete with military style hat, opened the front door to Vladstok’s for us. His bearing was military erect, and he didn’t even crack a smile, but just stared with steely eyes straight ahead, as if he were guarding Buckingham Palace.

  Part of the charm of Vladstok’s lay in the absolute devotion Victor Vladstok had not to change things. There was an Old World elegance about the establishment, from the heavy draperies and marble busts along the walls, to the precise spiffiness of the wait-staff, and their punctilious attention to detail.

  “Gin martini, Liv,” Bev asked me as she dropped the company credit card on the black marble bartop. I didn’t answer. Bev knew what I liked. Besides, I was busy watching the middle-aged business man scoping me out. He sat at one of the mahogany pub tables, a gin and tonic in his hand. His eyes ran up and down my curves, and then returned to my midsection. I was digging his attention until then.

  Bev handed me my martini. “Did you see the gray hair scoping you out?” she said softly.

  “Yes,” I said, sipping at my drink. “Chubby chaser. Not interested.”

  “Not interested?” Bev asked. “Why the fuck not? He likes your body, clearly.”

  “Bleh. He likes my body like a fetishist likes a sex doll. I want more than that. Chubby chasers are just using women like us for sex.”

  “Yeah, so?” Bev replied. “That’s what I’d be doing too. Using them for sex. Seems fair to me.”

  A waiter cleared his throat. “Ladies, your table is ready. May I take your drinks?” The dapper waiter with the slicked back hair placed both our martinis on his polished tray and then glided through the crowded restaurant, guiding us to our table.

  We sat in the same spot, every time. It was up two steps from the main floor, and against the brick wall. Bev loved that table because it afforded a view of the maître d’s podium. It wasn’t the maître d’ who interested Bev. Oftentimes Victor Vladstok would check in with the maître d’. Bev couldn’t get enough of Victor Vladstok.

  It was Bev’s lucky night. Victor Vladstok not only went over to check on the maître d’, but he stayed at the podium while the maître d’ went off to do something Victor Vladstok directed him to do.

  Victor Vladstok was, hands down, the most handsome older man I’d ever seen. He was always meticulously attired, with an Old European sensibility. His pencil thin mustache was always trimmed to perfection, his haircut was so consistent I could almost swear it was a toupee, his custom tailored suits fit him so exactly that they might have been his skin, and even his nails were manicured. When he’d stop by our table—and he always stopped by our table—an aftershave that smelled stately and dignified wafted off him.

  I’d totally drop my panties for Victor Vladstok.

  “There is Mister Smooth,” I whispered to Bev.

  “I know. Order the rib eye.”

  “That’s too much,” I said.

  “Order it. He loves to watch us eat.”

  “Really?”

  “Trust me,” Bev replied, tapping her fingernail against her forehead, pointing to her big brain. “You won’t regret it.”

  My goodness! Bev was so right. Victor Vladstok kept looking our way as Bev and I devoured our meal, and I swear the old gent had lust in his eyes! My steak was rare, just the way I like it, and I sopped up the bloody juice with chunks of artisanal bread. The dinner was a delight—as all dinners at Vladstok’s were—but the heat of Victor Vladstok’s gaze made it all the better. I almost felt dirty, but that was part of the fun.

  When our dinner was done, Victor Vladstok approached our table. “Was everything to your satisfaction?” he asked.

  “As always,” Bev answered. I was too star struck. Victor Vladstok never talked to guests. Part of his cache in the finer dining society was his aloofness. Yet here he was, talking to us. Well, talking to Bev. I played mute.

  “I hope you’ll be partaking of dessert tonight. We received the most delectable Black Sea port today, and I’d be offended if you didn’t sample it.”

  “I’d love to taste you,” I said with a sigh, and then, a bit too late, heard myself. “I’d love to taste it,” I restated.

  Victor Vladstok was all Old World class—he acted as if he didn’t hear my Freudian Slip. Bev caught it. She had a grin that seemed wider than her face.

  “Please,” Victor Vladstok said, “allow me the pleasure of escorting you to dessert.” He pulled out my chair for me, and then Bev’s too. Soon we walked alongside Victor Vladstok, each of us on an arm.

  Victor Vladstok’s arm felt surprisingly strong. He didn’t look like a man who would deign to visit something as pedestrian as a gym, but there was no denying the quiet power in his arm. I couldn’t quite pin down Victor Vladstok’s age. I’d estimate it as older than me, and younger than Mount Everest. Walking beside him was like attending a Royal Dinner—we were awash in dignity and elegance.

  Another one of the restaurant’s many charms was that dinner and dessert were served in separate areas. I supposed that helped maximize the serving of four-hundred dollar steak dinners, but it also imbued the eating of dessert and drinking of port with an air of ritual that made the already delicious desserts so much sweeter.

  Normally we’d climb the grand staircase to the dessert room, but Victor Vladstok led us instead to a small elevator off a side hall. The elevator had the gate-type of door that was all brass and caged. Once we were inside, he slid the door shut with a clang, and we watched the hallway sink down out of sight.

  I knew from past experience that the dessert room was only one floor up from the main dining area, but the elevator ascended far further than that. We must have traveled up almost four floors.

  When the elevator finally stopped, we were clearly no longer in a public area of the old Sugar Factor. A large oil painting of Victor Vladstok sat on the wall—or perhaps it was of an ancestor, judging by how old it looked.

  “Are these your private quarters?” Bev asked.

  He slid the elevator cage-door open. “Yes, they are. You are both in for something very special tonight.”

  My goodness. My panties were clinging to me now!

  Chapter Two

  “Victor,” Bev said, placing her hand on his, “may I call you Victor?”

  “Please do me the honor. Yes.”

  “Victor,” Bev continued, “your taste it truly exquisite. Who is your decorator?”

  “This?” Victor Vladstok swept his powerful hand about with a gentle grace and almost balletic ease, taking in the sumptuous room, which was lined with scarlet cushioned fainting couches and a carpet so lush that I wanted to kick off my heels and scrunch my toes into the deep red pile. “This is a shadow of my former home.”

  “Was it a castle?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper, as if we were in a cathedral.

  “So precious,” Victor Vladstok said, his cool hand patting my own. “Yes, dear flower, it was a castle. And it overlooked a river, much like this building, but it sat on a mountainside, where it had the illusion of floating above the clouds. I loved it very much.”

  “Why would you ever leav
e such a place?” Bev asked.

  Victor Vladstok licked his lips, which I came to realize he did quite often, and lifted a crystal bell off the lace-covered tabletop. He gave the lighted of shakes, and the crystal bell rang with a faint delicacy that I was sure no one but us could hear.

  “If we do not change, we die,” Victor replied. “Perhaps not the mortal death that relegates us to the hungry earth, but we die a spiritual death, the hell where nothing ever changes, and all is banality. I left my castle in Europe because I wasn’t ready to meet my spiritual demise.”

  I didn’t know if I believed what Victor said or if it was all hooey, but I didn’t care. I’d listen to him read the phone book. His diction was precise and his phrases stopped just short of being melodic and poetic, as if were as close to unreal as possible without actually being unreal.

  “Bravo!” Victor said, clapping his sound hands loudly. “Here is Wrensten with your dessert.”

  Wrensten entered carrying a silver tray piled high with a samovar and all the necessary accouterment. The distinctive aroma of rich Turkish coffee filled the air. Wrensten’s straight-backed carriage lent a dignity to the dessert service that further fueled the magic of the night. He placed a sifter of brandy and a tiny glass of Black Sea port before both Bev and myself, and then poured the Turkish coffee into our demitasse glasses with their brass bottoms. Somehow Wrensten knew that Bev took two cubes of sugar, and I took none. How carefully had Victor Vladstok been studying us?

  “For Olivia,” Victor said—amazingly, he knew my given name, “we have a truffle infused crème brulee.” My goodness! If I had actually looked at a dessert menu, this was precisely the dessert I would have ordered. I almost couldn’t wait for Bev to be served—I wanted to attack my crème brulee immediately.

  “And for Beverly,” Victor said, “a praline ricotta cheesecake.”

  Bev squeezed Victor’s fingers. “How did you know?”