by Trisha Telep
“Professor Lenox,” I said, extending my hand. “My name is Nick Manos. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed your lecture.” If she only knew how much I couldn’t tell her.
She put her slender hand in mine. “Mr Manos, how nice to meet you,” she said. “Are you a vampire enthusiast?”
“You have no idea. And, please call me Nick.” Reluctantly I released her hand. It was warm and her skin was soft. Her light floral fragrance put me in mind of springtime in the Netherlands.
“Then you must call me Victoria,” she said with a smile that made me feel like a warm-bloodied creature again.
“Would you care to have coffee with me?” I asked. “I’d love to discuss the subject of vampires further.”
Her Cupid’s bow lips parted slightly to answer, but she paused. After a moment in which she searched my gaze as if trying to gauge my measure, she said, “That would be nice.”
I held the door open for her as we left the building. The coffee shop was a short walk.
“You’re not the typical student,” she said, Her quick once-over, though subtle, wasn’t lost on me. The glance took in my expensive Italian shoes, my 80-dollar haircut and everything in between. And I do mean everything.
“And you’re not the typical professor,” I countered, remembering my earlier assumptions.
“Tell me about yourself,” she said.
I gave her a quick version of my standard cover story, which actually happened to be true as far as it went. I’d inherited and then sold a family shipping business. “With no relatives left in Greece I decided to travel the world.” I said. She didn’t have to know that my last relative died before Christ was born.
“Travel the world doing what?”
“Why anything, of course. I yearn for knowledge above all things.”
“Are you mocking me? Her gentle laughter was like music.
“I’m perfectly sincere.” I laid my hand against my heart feigning shock at her accusation. “I think we might be kindred spirits, you and I.”
“Perhaps we are, at that,” she said.
When we reached the coffee shop, I approached the store-front carefully, making sure the light from the street lamps caused no reflections in the glass. Centuries of experience made such cautionary measures second nature.
“Oh, my,” Victoria said. “They’re closed.”
“That’s too bad.” I looked down the row of restaurants and bars on the opposite side of the street for an alternative.
“Would you like to have coffee at my place?” she asked. “The town house I’m renting is only a couple of blocks off campus.”
I thought it unusual that the professor would invite a stranger into her home, but modern women were an unpredictable lot.
“That would be fine,” I agreed, and we walked on.
“Why vampires?” I asked.
She gave me a sidelong glance that told me she’d heard the question a thousand times. “It’s like I said during my lecture. They’re fascinating creatures – seductive, powerful–”
“But they’re fictional creatures,” I said disingenuously. “Why devote your academic life to their study when there are so many . . .” I hesitated, searching for just the right word.
“So many real things to study?” she supplied.
“Well, yes.” I knew I was risking alienating her. She’d no doubt had to explain herself ad nauseam to countless persons, including friends and family, for years. But my curiosity was not like theirs. Not at all.
She shrugged. “Nothing else ever interested me as much as the immortal. But what about you? You admitted to being a vampire enthusiast. What appeal does the blood drinker hold for Nick Manos?”
I faked a sheepish grin. “Exactly the same as everyone else. It’s the immortality, I guess. I love Stoker, Rice, Nosferatu–”
“What about the killing, the violence?” she asked.
“What about it?”
“That’s what attracts men to the vampire genre in books and movies, right?”
“Maybe,£ I said non-committally. If any human were to ever witness death by vampire and live to tell the tale, the horror would render them a raving lunatic for the rest of their miserably short lives. “The attraction for women is different, I’m guessing. I suppose that was the seduction aspect you mentioned before.”
“You suppose correctly,” she said with a pretty upwards tilt of her elegant chin. “When it gets right down to it, doesn’t everything boil down to sex?” She stopped walking. By the light of the street lamp her beauty looked suddenly other-worldly, “Shall we?”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
She treated me to a lilting laugh as she produced her keys from her blazer pocket. We had just reached her door. She unlocked it and went inside. I followed, feeling like an awkward teenager on a first date, something I was entirely unaccustomed to. I feared I was being bewitched.
A quick scan of the rooms through which we passed revealed no mirrors or religious icons. We entered a room with a multitude of books and papers strewn about and a desktop computer facing a window. The air held the faint scent of old books – oxidised paper, a bit of mould – and I was immediately comfortable. This was the space of a scholar.
“You’re working on a paper,” I observed.
“I’m always working on a paper,” She placed her briefcase on the floor and shrugged off her jacket. “Make yourself at home.”
I took a seat on the sofa and noticed something I’d missed before in the corner of the room. A small table held a number of beakers, a microscope, glass slides and a few amber-coloured bottles of chemicals. I inclined my head towards the assembly and asked. “So, you’re a biologist as well?”
“I’m getting into the forensic side of anthropology. There’s a great demand for those skills in law enforcement, you know.”
I nodded, vaguely aware that several popular television programmes featured crime-solving scientists. I picked up one of the books within arm’s reach. She toed off her heels and joined me, drawing up her knees onto the couch.
“Vrykolakes: Vampires in Greek Folklore.” As I read the book’s title I became aware of an eerie and unaccustomed feeling I couldn’t identify making its way down my spine. “I guess I should know about this, shouldn’t I?” I joked.
“Definitely. What with you being a Greek vampire enthusiast.”
Her teasing manner was playing tricks with my imagination. I could have sworn she had put extra emphasis on the word ‘enthusiast’.
Gently she took the book from me and laid it aside. Her hand came to rest on my thigh. “You don’t really want coffee, do you?”
I must admit that her forwardness startled me. Naturally I was accustomed to the licentiousness of some young women, counted on it, in fact. The Girls-Gone-Wild effect, as I termed it, had secured me countless nights of good blood and better sex. But I hadn’t expected such wanton behaviour from her. Not from an intellectual. No sooner had I thought this than I derided myself for the hypocrisy of my double standard. Victoria was her own woman. Who was I to judge her?
“No,” I agreed, “I don’t really want coffee.”
“Then what do you want?” she asked breathily, running her hand higher up my leg and letting her fingers play against the inner part of my thigh.
“I imagine I want the same thing you do.” I put my hand over hers and pressed it hard onto my erection.
“Oh good,” she cooed. “I’m so glad we’re on the same page.”
She massaged my cock through the straining fabric of my trousers for a moment more and then turned to straddle my thighs. Running her fingers through my hair, she kissed me deeply. I slid my eager hands underneath her linen dress and caressed her derriere. She broke off the kiss and arched her back against my erection, allowing me to remove her dress in one quick motion.
A quick flick of my fingers and the lacy bra was history. I filled my palms with her full, ripe breasts for a moment before taking her nipples in my mouth and urging them to
the hardness of gems. She reached down to free my swollen cock and I ripped away the flimsy slip of fabric between her legs.
She gasped, wide-eyed, as I entered her with one fluid stroke. Then she moaned and wrapped her arms around my neck, riding me – experimentally at first – then harder and faster. Her passion and zeal overwhelmed me, not to mention the perfection of her body. The ardour on her face gave her beauty a savage elegance that I found both wildly exciting and disturbing at the same time.
She thrust herself onto me, her breasts rising and falling in a primitive rhythm that made me fear I would come much sooner than I wished to. I’d honed my sexual control over many centuries until I was a master of my own body and it’s responses, but with Victoria I felt myself as a schoolboy again.
As I struggled for command over my release, she arched her back again, exposing the tender, pale flesh of her neck. I could not only see the pulse beating rapidly in the delicate vein at the hollow of her throat, but I could see, feel and smell the blood there. I wrapped my arms around her and gathered her towards me, my fangs lengthening involuntarily. When she began to moan and writhe, I bit down on her neck, piercing her fragile flesh and began my own climax.
We rung every ripple of pleasure from each other as I sucked her blood. When we were through, I concentrated my powers of glamour onto her mind so she would not remember the bite. If the two small puncture marks were even noticed before they healed, they’d be written off as accidental scratches.
With a sigh of satisfaction Victoria asked. “Do you want that cup of coffee now?”
“Not really,” I said.
“Me neither.”
A wicked smile curved the corners of her luscious mouth as she took me by the hand and led me to the bedroom.
She said she liked to take turns being on top. So the fifth time we had sex she was astride me again. She also said she liked a little bondage. So my wrists were secured by handcuffs to the thick iron spindles running through the headboard of her antique bed,
When we reached our mutual climax, I closed my eyes and relaxed, savouring the rest. Even with my superhuman endurance, I was still exhausted and dawn was coming. I had to return to my secure resting place for my daylight sleep.
“That was wonderful,” I said. “Would you remove the cuffs now, please?”
She kissed me in the middle of my chest and moved up towards the place where my wrists fixed to the heavy iron. But instead of the clicks of the release mechanisms, I heard slithering sounds. I tried to lower my arms, but my wrists were still held fast. I looked above my head to see that my arms were not only still bound by the metal handcuffs but were now also secured by thick strips of plastic. I tested the bonds, putting my full strength behind the effort.
If the metal cuffs were all that bound me I could have broken them, but the plastic ones that reinforced them were problematic. If I applied enough force to tear them, I could literally sever my wrists. And vampire parts do not regenerate.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I demanded.
Victoria put on jeans and a T-shirt as she watched my struggle with rapt curiosity. “What’s wrong, lover boy? Don’t you want to stay and play some more?”
“I have to go. Now.”
“What’s the rush? We can finally have that cup of coffee on the patio while we watch the sunrise. Wouldn’t that be fun?” She went to the east-facing windows and threw open the drapes. I tried to calm myself and formulate a light-hearted reply that might inspire her to release me, something about the maniacal gleam in her eye made my blood run even colder than usual. A sudden conviction formed in my mind, one that both terrified and thrilled me.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“Last night on the walk here. You didn’t cast a shadow.” Her face registered delight, triumph even.
I cursed myself for my carelessness and roared in frustration not bothering to shield my fangs much less deny the truth. Victoria, by virtue of who she was, would see through my protestations. I strained against my bonds again, but only managed to bend the headboard while the heavy-duty plastic cut into my wrists enough to make them bleed.
Evidently my hostess found my display of strength and ferocity arousing. She leaned against the far wall with an expression of orgasmic ecstasy on her face. “Oh . . . my . . . God! I cannot believe that I have a naked vampire chained to my bed!” She opened a dresser drawer with trembling hands and withdrew a hand mirror. Examining her neck carefully, she cried, “I knew it! You bit me and sucked my blood.”
I stared at her, disbelieving. What had become of the learned professor who’d delivered the erudite lecture I’d heard the evening before? Her present aspect put me in mind of the fanatical followers of Elvis or the Beatles in their heyday. Her eyes were dilated, her breathing rapid, her face flushed.
“It started with you complexion,” she said. “You’re much too pale to be Greek. Your skin looks like flawless white marble. And then there’s the way you talk that has nothing to do with being a foreigner. You speak like somebody from a whole different time – an earlier time. But the missing shadow clinched it.”
For my part, I now realized I should have been more alarmed by her willingness to take me home after having just met me. The seducer had become the seduced. She didn’t lack for courage. I’d say that for her.
“Very well,” I said. “Your gambit was well played. Now let me go and I won’t harm you.”
“Let you go? You’ve got to be kidding. Do you know how many years I’ve been looking for a real vampire?” she asked breathily.
“Naturally, I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have, if you’ll just–”
She didn’t seem to hear me.
“For years I’ve travelled around the world as a guest lecturer or as a visiting professor, teaching only at night. I knew one of you would come to me one day.”
“How could you have possibly been sure of that?”
“You came, didn’t you? Was it curiosity? Amusement? To have your ego stroked?”
“I might have wanted to kill you, have you ever thought of that? Do you have any idea what I’m capable of?” Since friendliness hadn’t moved her, perhaps intimidation would. I issued a snarl to punctuate my words.
“I didn’t believe you wanted to kill me. I thought you wanted sex and blood which was just what I wanted to give you.” By the look of her, my display of menace only excited her further.
Although the sun was not yet visible, I could fell its approach like an itch underneath my skin. “Would you close the drapes, please?”
She blinked. “How much sunlight would it take to kill you?”
“Not bloody much.” Alarm warred with fury in my mind. I had to force myself to stay calm. “What do you plan to do with me? What do you want?”
“I want knowledge.”
I remembered her words from earlier in the evening, not to mention the microscope and the collection of slides and beakers. “You’re going to study me.”
She laughed and there was a hysterical edge to the sound. “I’ve been fantasizing for years about what I would do if I ever managed to capture a vampire. At first I decided that I would go all Doctor Frankenstein and dissect the blood drinker so I could study it piece by piece under the microscope on a cellular level.”
I resisted the urge to squirm. I didn’t relish being sliced and diced. Perhaps if I concentrated hard enough I could think of a tactic that would inspire her to free me.
“But then I thought of something else. What better way to find out what it’s like to be a blood drinker than to be one? I want you to make me a vampire.”
The thought of making this beautiful woman a monster repulsed me. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Oh, yes I do. And it’s not just that I want to learn about vampires. I wasn’t kidding when I said I thirsted for knowledge – all kinds of knowledge. Think of the possibilities. As an immortal I’ll have all the time in the world to absorb all the information
and wisdom that’s been accumulated in human history.”
A frisson of excitement shot through me. Here was a kindred spirit indeed. “I wasn’t kidding earlier. I am a seeker of understanding as well,” I said. “You might call me the eternal student.”
Coming closer, she sat on the edge of the bed beside me. She looked deeply into my eyes, as if gauging my sincerity. Her gaze was so intense I was sure that, if I’d had a soul, she’d be looking into it. “You’re not just humouring me, are you? You really understand.”
“I’m not humouring you. I truly understand your passion for learning.”
“What do you like to study most?” she asked breathlessly, her eyes gleaming.
“Earth sciences, art, social science, medicine – everything really. It’s why I live near universities.” The approaching dawn was starting to smoulder inside me. A faint crimson glow was bleeding over the horizon. “Please. Could you close the curtains now?”
“Will you turn me?” she asked.
“You’ll lose your soul,” I said. The solar sensation that had started as an itch was burning me in earnest now.
“I don’t care. What do I need with a soul when I can live for ever?”
I cursed her and her ancestors as I writhed on the bed, trying in vain to turn my body away from the window. “You will become a monster! A vicious, slathering beast with no conscience. It will take you years to overcome your bloodlust enough to resume your academic pursuits if you even survive that long.”
Victoria stared at me evenly, as if waiting for my narrative to worsen until I described a condition she couldn’t live with. This was how much she wanted immortality. I began speaking more rapidly, describing a kill in the most gruesome and vivid detail I could imagine. And still she could not be moved.
“What can I do to get through to you?” I demanded. “What do you need to hear to turn you from this path?”
She sprang to her feet and paced the floor alongside the bed. “I need to hear answers! I want to know how the universe was created. I want to know the meaning of life. I want to know if there is a heaven and a hell. I want to know if there is a God!”
