by Becket
Theo laughed at me, though not unkindly.
I hemmed and hawed all day.
Theo was patient, but finally he took me by the hand.
“It’s getting late,” he said. “We must go now.”
He guided me from the mansion. I liked being guided.
Theo took me to the center of Idyllville.
Village stores encircled the square. Most shops sold kitschy items like coonskin caps or sparkly stones or a miniature model of Idyllville in a snow globe. Cool Beans Coffee House was there. A restaurant called The Gnome’s Gastro was there. Tourists were everywhere.
Theo and I moved fast. We leaped up on the roof of a shop. We perched like hungry hawks. No one saw us.
Many tourists had gathered in the village square. It was evening. The stores would close soon. The square would empty soon after that.
Theo pointed to a teenage girl. She was walking alone. She was carrying a violin case. She was from the Academy. She was my china doll.
“My Madeleine,” I said softly as I exhaled.
Theo wanted me to pierce my china doll’s neck with my tongue, he wanted me to drink her blood, he wanted me to eat her memories. And that’s not a problem these days. But he wanted Madeleine to be my first piercing. And my first piercing was very difficult. The first always is. I was utterly terrified of the great thunderclap of deeper intimacy.
I didn’t think I could pierce my china doll. I wasn’t sure if I wanted her memories in me.
Sticking out my tongue, I could barely see the tip. I tapped it, but couldn’t feel my stinger.
Theo put his hand on my back. The touch felt good. “The Probiscus will come out when you’re ready,” he said. “It just happens. You can’t control it.”
He was drawn to the gravity of my china doll, just like everyone else. But he also thought she was as beautiful as a broken teacup. My china doll’s brokenness wasn’t beautiful. The potential to be repaired, that was gorgeous to him.
He thought that my china doll would be perfect for me. Maybe he thought that I was a broken teacup, too.
I was beginning to realize that I was hungry – very, very hungry. My body had begun to crave the taste of blood. Restlessness was growing in me. My hands and legs had started to shake. My bones seemed to be trembling. Behind my chest and in my stomach was a humming sensation. I could not tell where the hunger of my wants ended or where the appetite of my needs began.
Theo crouched behind me. He pointed over my shoulder. He smelled good.
My china doll was walking out of the village square. She was wearing ear buds. Music from a portable media player was blaring in her ears. She had a look that told others to leave her alone.
I ran after her. The feeling was a little too familiar.
Leaping from the roof unseen was easy.
I streamed fluidly through the hurrying crowd of tourists.
My step was light and softer than the wind rustling the leaves. No one saw me. None heard me. I didn’t want them to.
I wished I’d had that power in school.
I let my china doll lead me. It was another familiar feeling. I didn’t like it any more. So I ran ahead of her. She didn’t see me until I let her.
I stood around the corner of a shop on the edge of the square. I waved at her.
She saw me yet didn’t come toward me.
“Where’ve you been?” she asked. She didn’t really want to know. She said it to reply to my wave. Her tone was impatient.
I wondered what I’d done wrong. I was always wondering that around her.
Maybe that’s why she sought out someone else who might fill up the crack in her cup.
I waved her over again.
She turned away. I was not the one she wanted anymore. She wanted someone else to notice her. Someone else to bother her the way she liked.
For a moment I thought she hated me. I hadn’t had enough experience to realize that she could not hate the thing she never truly liked.
I went to her now the way I use to: Feeling insecure. She had only accepted me when I performed a function for her. I wasn’t performing for her anymore. So she didn’t want me anymore.
I walked beside her. She turned up the volume to her music. She glared at me through the corner of her eye.
Go away, her body language bellowed.
The eyes of a Blood Vivicanti see much. And I was beginning to see what Theo saw: My china doll had a crack.
It was a moment when I didn’t like being a Blood Vivicanti. Too much power in me exposes too many faults in others.
My china doll turned from me and began walking down a solitary road. Village houses surrounded us. Suffusing the air was the aroma of sappy pine logs burning in hearths.
I love that scent.
Theo was nearby. I couldn’t see him, but I could smell his scent.
No one else was around.
If I was going to pierce my china doll, now was the time. I thought about what it might be like to pierce her neck with the tip of my tongue. The more I thought about that, the more I fantasized. The fantasy was an urge to penetrate her deeply. The more I fantasized, the more I obsessed. The urge to pierce her churned in me. The more I obsessed, the more I felt the urged to act.
My urges started to simmer. Then they swelled. Then they exploded. My urges caught me by surprise too.
I moved fast and I grabbed my china doll. She was as light as air in my hands. I lifted her off the ground and I pinned her down to the road.
She struggled. “What are you doing,” she demanded.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was pure id in motion. I knew that I wanted. I knew what I wanted. And that was enough for the heat of the moment. I had become an animal moving by pure instinct.
It was the most human I’d ever been – and the least humane.
From the tip of my tongue extended my Probiscus – my little bee stinger.
Slowly, a tingling sensation flowed back along my tongue, down my throat, deep down into my stomach. Wave after wave of pleasure followed.
I leaned over my china doll. She was looking up at me. She had no idea what was going on. Her expression was wide-eyed and crooked mouthed. That was new. I’d never seen her look so afraid.
“Please,” she whimpered, “don’t hurt me.”
You know, I could have done anything I wanted to her. But I did what I always did for her: I did whatever she said. Sometimes it’s not the behavior of a bad habit that’s hard to break. It’s the association.
I was infinitely stronger than my china doll. But by the way she talked, by the way she smelled, by the way she looked, she easily overpowered me.
I sat back on my haunches. I couldn’t pierce her. My stinger withdrew back into its sheath.
Theo was standing by me an instant later. He bent low and spoke into my ear. “Just touch the tip of your tongue to her neck. Let nature do the rest.”
Nature. What was natural about drinking blood and eating memories?
“She won’t remember a thing,” Theo said. “You won’t hurt her. It’ll be the best thing she’ll ever feel.”
He was trying to be helpful. It wasn’t working.
I got off my china doll. She scrambled to her feet. I’d never realized people could be so graceless when they fled. I wondered if I looked that pitiable when I fled from suffering.
Theo shook his head. “You can’t let her go. She has to forget.”
In a second he sped after her, gripped both her arms, and sunk his tongue deep into her neck.
The look on my china doll’s face showed no hint of fear. I’d seen something like her expression before. But now she appeared more pleased than I’d ever seen her – eyes rolled back, mouth open, chest panting. She looked sincerely satisfied. I’d never seen her look so happy.
Theo was mending the broken teacup.
He and I returned to the mansion in silence.
We sat together on my bed. We stayed there all night. We didn’t talk
much. We didn’t sleep. We watched the constellations summersault across the nighttime sky. We watched the moon rise and fall. We planned to watch the sunrise, too.
Wyn still hadn’t returned to the mansion. He would stay out until dawn, Theo explained.
The scent of blood was strong on Theo. It was a good scent.
How did that happen? When did I like smelling blood?
I hadn’t pierced anyone. I hadn’t had any blood. My body wasn’t weak. I was just hungry. The way I get hungry when I feel lonely and misunderstood.
Theo had planned to pierce that cook. My first hunt had ruined his plan. I felt bad.
“I messed things up,” I confessed.
Theo waved it away. “I’ll pierce the cook next week.”
He was kind. My china doll’s Blood Memories were racing through him. She was a very good violinist and Theo was itching to try out his new skill. He’d never even held a violin before, but if he’d had a violin at that moment, he could have easily pranced through the sleepy streets of Idyllville while playing the Danse Macabre like some tempting devil.
Theo understood my hunger. He pitied my shyness. Then he took off his shirt. He had the confidence of my broken china doll. Yet he was flawless.
My heart beat faster.
His sinewy body looked milky white in the moonlight. He slid closer to me on the bed.
I stopped breathing.
“You’re hungry. You need to feed. You want blood.”
I tried swallowing. My throat felt tight. “Tight,” came the echolalia of my nervousness.
“Pierce me,” he said.
I didn’t know what to do. My sense of safety felt threatened. The desire for old habits began in me.
Theo leaned closer. “Pierce me,” he said again, his voice softer, more in control than I’d ever heard him.
The scent of blood rose from him like steam.
My breathing quickened.
He leaned into me. His skin touched mine.
That was all I needed: I transformed into the monster that I am.
From the tip of my tongue extended my stinger. Slowly it came out. Slowly it sent wave after wave of tingling sensations down my tongue, down my throat. Warmth bloomed in my stomach. Chills sizzled on my skin. Little hairs all over my body stood up.
I leaned closer to Theo.
He leaned closer to me. Heat radiated from him.
His hand touched the back of my head. He gentled me closer to his neck.
My lips touched his flesh. His skin, so white, so warm.
His voice was a whisper. “Pierce me.”
I opened my mouth. My tongue came out. Quivering.
My whole body was shaking, not for cold, just for fear. For the thrill of doing what I was about to do. It was as if I had been waiting my whole life for this one moment.
My stinger touched his flesh.
Theo exhaled.
I pressed into him.
He moaned softly.
My tongue made an opening in the side of his throat. My tongue slipped inside.
The opening widened. His muscles expanded around mine.
All I tasted in that first rush was warmth and wet and salt.
Venom now came from my tongue, seeping through my stinger, filling the opening in his throat, and soaking into his flesh and bone and mingling with his blood.
Now it was happening. Now came the peak of my pierce.
Theo’s eyes rolled back. His lips parted. He groaned. “Deeper,” was the only word he could mouth.
I did as he said. I was good at doing what he said. So I drove.
“Deeper.”
I drove and I drove and I drove.
His blood gushed into my mouth.
His memories filled me.
To be continued…
Coming next in
The Blood Vivicanti
Part 3
One night I snuck from the mansion to pounce upon my beloved family. Joe, Mary, Leah, Eve. I lived with the selfish attitude that they were my possessions, my dolls. Their blood, their memories. All mine.
But before I got to their house I saw Nell, the Pale Girl I’d seen with the Dark Man, Lowen.
I noticed her because she was watching me. No one saw me unless I let them see me. But she saw me.
Lowen was nowhere in sight. Couldn’t smell him or hear him either.
Nell seemed to know me. She knew the monster I was. She had no fear of me at all.
She smiled at me. She waved at me to follow her. She turned from me. She went skipping away.
I followed her.
She didn’t have Blood Vivicanti speed or strength. But she was elusive. She could hide herself from me.
If I lost her, she would appear from behind a house or tree, far ahead, waving for me to follow her farther.
She led me through Idyllville. She led me through the forest, around tree and rock.
She led me to the cliff where it all began. The place where Wyn had saved me from the two men. The place where I’d fallen and broken. Wyn had pierced me there. He’d saved me. This was the place where I started to become what I became.
Nell was on the edge of the cliff, balancing, walking back and forth on it like a tightrope.
She turned and faced me. Her toes on the edge. Her heels poised over the fall.
Her voice was high and soft and gentle. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
No one had ever been waiting for me.
She tilted her head to one side. She pulled her collar away from her neck, exposing the sweet spot on her throat.
“Pierce me,” she said. “Drink me, Blood Vivicanti.”
I was amazed. How could she know me?
“You’re a monster,” she said.
I was under the assumption that only Theo, Wyn, and Ms. Crystobal knew about the Blood Vivicanti.
Nell smiled at me, trying to be coquettish, but she seemed too pitiable. “A ghost told me about you.”
She speaks with ghosts?
“Only one ghost.”
Who would want a monster like me to drink their blood?
“I don’t want you to.”
Then why was she offering herself to me?
“I need to.”
Did she want my venom to make her feel better?
“I need to feel something.”
I understood how she felt, the poor thing.
She nodded sadly. “I am a thing.”
Nell put her face in her hands. She began weeping. “I’m not your friend,” she said.
“That hurt,” I said.
“Feeling hurt is feeling something.”
“I’d like to be your friend,” I said.
Nell looked at me through the divide of her fingers. A horrible sound came from her throat. I couldn’t tell if it was laughing or wheezing.
“You covet me,” she said.
I covet much.
“You shouldn’t pity what you covet. You should have it.”
Nell took her hands from her face.
“Have me,” she said. “If I give you my self, then I’m a gift to you.”
I was stunned. I didn’t know how to respond.
She pointed to her neck – the sweet spot.
“Pierce me,” she said again. “Drink me.”
Much was going on inside me. I was thinking of Joe and his family. I was thinking of Theo and Wyn. I was even thinking of my biological father who drank his way out of my house and home.
Ages zero to seventeen had been a life of making the best decisions for a girl trying to survive the thoughtlessness of others. But now that I had the power to move mountains, all my decisions had seemed so reckless while I struggled to survive crossing the threshold from girlhood to womanhood.
The urge to pierce Nell was as small as a grain of sand compared to all my other thoughts and feelings. Yet this urge was the lust of my body. I didn’t lust for blood, only for escape. It was the animal of my self-control that I fed until it consumed me. And I fed my self-control u
ntil my self lost control. My lust overpowered my reason.
I prowled closer to Nell.
She waited for me, showing only one emotion. Not fear, not worry. Just the phlegmatic acceptance of a courtesan who had a job to do.
I leaned close to her neck.
Her skin smelled like ice.
I opened my mouth. My Probiscus extended from the tip of my tongue. Wave upon wave of pleasure rolled down my throat and into my stomach.
The tip of my tongue touched her neck. Then my bee stinger pierced her skin. The flesh opened. The muscles widened. In slipped my tongue. Out flowed her blood. I drove down deep into her neck.
Nell’s blood tasted ice-cold.
Her Blood Memories were a black hole.
She had no heartbeat. She had only one thought… Pain. That’s all she felt – pure pain – the torment of the damned. So that’s all she fed me.
Into my mouth poured the brink of brokenness and the breadth of woundedness, the edge of rejection and the cut of replacement.
Nell was a creature bred to be forgotten, alone, and lonely. She was the furthest form of the thing I could have become.
And now she was inside me, her blood, her Blood Memories. Who she was was flowing through my veins. How she was was feeding my sinews and my spirit. I could not vomit up all the agony that I’d already swallowed down.
I released Nell. I fell to the ground.
I couldn’t breathe. I grabbed my throat.
The Pacific Ocean with her powerful waves had not been able to drown me.
But the gentle current of Nell’s blood smothered my every attempt at breath.
