The Other Kind (The Progeny of Evolution Series)

by Arsuaga, Mike

  “Can we compromise? I’ll call you Doctor Jim?” she countered and took a seat at my table. As she alighted, her blouse rode up in the back revealing white thong panties. For a second my Sam-besotted brain entertained an image of probing their warm and moist depths. I felt heat rapidly gather below. I realized I had better sit down and quick.

  “You worried me a little when you didn't return my calls,” I said, trying to sound casual as I offered my hand.

  She smiled sweetly. “That is so thoughtful. I'm touched,” and taking my hand continued, “I'm sorry to keep you in the dark, but I needed to leave town for a while, minor family emergency.”

  Funny, when I screened her it said she had no family.

  “I received an “A” on my paper,” she continued cheerily. “The faculty really liked your ideas. Two are considering calling you directly to discuss them.”

  I won’t be taking those calls.

  “I owe you one,” she continued. “What do you say I make you dinner at my place tonight?”

  * * * *

  For the occasion, I bought a good bottle of wine and a dozen roses. I broke out slacks and a Tommy Bahamas shirt I acquired and never wore, and worked a sweet smelling mousse into my hair. At seven-thirty, precisely on time, I knocked on her door. Instantly it flung open as if she had been waiting behind it.

  “Come in,” she commanded politely. Her pleasant demeanor put me at ease, banishing the entire middle-aged vampire first date angst.

  She wore a cotton sundress, drawn in at the waist, a vinyl belt, and open-toed sandals with medium heels. Her hair tumbled down in aromatic sweeping waves halfway to her waist. Brown makeup shadowed and outlined her eyes, making them glow emerald in her face. I noticed for the first time the prominence of her cheekbones. She applied a bright red gloss, giving her lips a fuller appearance, although for my money they looked just fine the way they were. Apparently she wanted to make a good impression, too. As she turned and led me inside my eyes drifted to the flawless curvature and motion of the hips working their way across the room. While we paused at the entrance, I tried to catch scent and learn what went on with her, but she quickly stepped inside. The burning candles blocked everything.

  After a few steps she turned and faced me. She did it almost too fast for vampire senses to follow. One second she strolled ahead, and an instant later she spun on the balls of those small quick feet. “I hope you like steak,” she said. She expected eye contact, but caught me focusing my attention significantly lower, admiring the outline of narrow waist, round hips and athletic thighs.

  “Yes,” I replied, quickly meeting her gaze. “Rare will do.”

  She smirked, knowing what I had been up to and continued our ingress.

  The red glass containers were gone. Bare candles illuminated the room with a pleasant uneven yellow light. Two candelabras sat on the dinette table, a half dozen more singles strung out along the living room mantel, and a few in each window sill. Several more glimmered in the next room and from underneath a closed door, presumably leading to the bathroom.

  In a mirror hanging on the closed door I quickly checked my appearance, smoothing down the hair behind both temples, and yes, vampires cast reflections.

  Like a small colorful bird, a memory alighted in my mind of Lois running fingers through my hair as we stood in front of a similar mirror, discussing our plans for the evening. I enjoyed its chirping and preening for a second before it flew away. I never forgot her gentle soul. Others occupied my life for a while, but when they left, as inevitably they did, my thoughts returned to her. She was the one I thought of during the thousands of life’s events, a move or promotion, or sitting idly in traffic, and wondered how much better it would be if she was around to share them. Last winter she passed away, surrounded by a large family with a grieving Professor of Mathematics hidden in the background.

  “I hope you will enjoy these,” I said, remembering the roses and wine.

  “How sweet of you!” The roses clearly impressed her. She came across as doubtful about the wine. “I'm not much of a drinker,” she said vaguely, putting the bottle aside on a shelf.

  “Me neither,” I answered to put the situation at ease. It was true for me, at least. Vampires who drank even small amounts did inappropriate things, like lose control of their fangs in public. Heavy drinkers burned out young or made stupid mistakes and got killed. I allowed myself a glass a month, taken alone. Water and milk were our beverages of choice. Safe and bland, like everything else in our lives, was how we survived. Sam put on a soft rock CD and cooked rare steaks with baked potato and green beans. We both went for the meat but only picked at the trimmings. I assumed Sam avoided the side dishes to be polite.

  When we finished, she sprang to her feet. “Care for some tea?”

  She served it with the antique tea set. After a cup or two she excused herself and went to the bathroom. In her absence, I examined the pot. On the bottom the craftsman inscribed his trademark, and Ypres 1898. Even with enhanced hearing of my kind I didn't realize she returned until her shadow fell across the tabletop. With the yellow wavering candlelight behind her I made out only the angles of her face in silhouette.

  “This is an interesting piece,” I said, replacing the teapot on the tray.

  The brush of her hand across my shoulder evoked a blatant and aggressive erection. Quickly I crossed my legs. For most of the past ten days I spent every minute wanting Sam and thinking how it would be when we got together. The other times when a female ignited a fire in my blood and created a plenary obsession, wanting her became everything, almost always making the conquest a disappointment. Once in a while I met one, like Lois, who broke the pattern. I wondered which kind Sam would turn out to be.

  She took my hand, coaxing me to my feet. “We have better things to do tonight than discuss old tea sets,” and led me to the bedroom, picking up where we left off when Maintenance interrupted.

  The room contained the usual furniture, well, almost. The shapeless hulk of a double bed occupied a quarter of the room. Even in the dim light I could tell it had seen better days. A dilapidated bureau and side table with a small lamp and alarm clock completed the drab ensemble. The time said 8:20 p.m. The hum of a large electric motor from the opposite wall caught my attention and curiosity. As my eyes adjusted, I made out the pale white enamel shape of a freezer with around a dozen candles on its top. The light reflected on its brass padlock and hasp.

  Before I could ask about it, Sam reached up and pulled my face to hers. We covered each other’s lips. Her mouth tasted faintly like cinnamon. An avid tongue slid over and around mine, painting the inside of my cheeks. No amount of burned candle wax could mask the readiness for sex exuding from her.

  Our faces parted. “I want you now,” she hissed in my ear before reclaiming my lips with hers.

  The subject of foreplay never surfaced. We blended into wanton passion; out of control as our tongues danced an erotic rhythm inside one other’s mouths. In her eagerness, Sam practically assaulted me. My type of woman. All the others required kissing and foreplay. Even the prey, until they realized what lay in store. Only with Lois did I make the effort to please, by using what I learned from Carole and others, but even with her I often fell short. I loved her for being too gentle a creature to correct me in any hurtful way.

  Sam parted her legs and pressed against me. The material of the sundress provided little barrier to the warm moist lips of her feminine core.

  “You feel so good,” I heard myself say.

  “Just wait,” she retorted. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

  As I stood there she went to work on my trousers. She undid the belt and top fastener, and slid small hands inside to bare skin. Her palms, pressed flat on my hips, were warm and sent an involuntary shiver rumbling from head to toe. She coaxed my pants and underwear down until I stood in front of her naked except for the shirt. She took my swollen flesh and examined it. By then it attained full size. A maroon shaft engorged with blood and
lust throbbed in her hand, so hard a cat couldn't scratch on it.

  She leered at it with approval. “Pretty good hardware you have there.”

  Now, I thought, I needed to respond in a way that would impress this brazen little creature. I lifted her in my arms, intending to bring her to the bed. She was nothing to carry, little more than a child. Her face showed a pleasant expression of wonder at the ease with which I lifted her.

  “No, wait,” she said, “I must do something first. Put me down.”

  She went into the bathroom, returning with a bowl of warm water and a wash cloth. She motioned for me to lie down on the bed. I complied, accompanied by a groan of protest from the bedsprings. She slid in beside me and rubbed my turgid shaft with the coarse wet cloth. I remembered a similar practice of European prostitutes in the days before condoms or antibiotics, especially in France. While she washed and dried me she glanced up several times with an almost schoolgirl snicker, as if seeking approval of her work. I did not question or protest what she did. The delay harmed nothing. As an old Navy buddy of mine from the shipyard days used to say regarding this sort of situation, “Ride the bus. Don't step in front of it.”

  “There,” she chirped. “Isn’t it better now?”

  Practically paralyzed by her ministrations, I uttered a quick. “Yes.”

  After finishing, she straddled me, spreading the sundress all around, settling a petite frame onto my hips. My eyes rolled, helpless and uncontrolled, as the hot pool at the juncture of her thighs closed in. When she leaned toward me a mass of red hair cascaded onto my bare chest. She sat up straight, reached behind exactly as I imagined in the fantasy, and inserted my aching shaft into the warm entrance of her womanhood, tented under the sundress.

  Vampires sense the slightest vaginal contractions. There was nothing slight about Sam’s. In all my life I had never been with a woman who could do what she did. Her hips rose and fell in slow undulating motions. With each stroke she ingested more of me. On the upstrokes, the hot wet muscles of her vagina pulled like a great sucking marine bivalve, relaxing its grip when she lowered onto me.

  “Where…did…you…learn…to…do…?” I managed to eke out from a relentlessly growing frenzy as she rocked on my straining shaft.

  A vampire male is born with the skills to delay sexual climax. Almost any human can do it, too, with practice and discipline. I prided myself on being able to control the onset of my orgasm to provide mutual satisfaction. To my embarrassment, I didn't last thirty seconds. A lot of it had to do with my obsessive thinking during her absence, but to give fair credit, Sam’s molten presence overwhelmed the diverse and refined techniques I developed over eleven decades. Before I knew it, I gasped and spewed a hard wad of semen into her rubicund cavity on each down stroke. I hadn’t come so long or so intensely in fifty years.

  When we finished she hopped off with a flutter of the sundress. I felt my organ slip out of her, making a soft slurping noise.

  “I'm sorry for losing control.” I said, “I pride myself on making…”

  She leaned down and placed two red nailed parallel fingers over my lips. “Don't give it a thought.” Winking, she added, “It was only our first try. You'll get better. Now, rest for a few minutes.” Standing erect again, she retired to the bathroom while I made myself comfortable in anticipation of a memorable night, thankful my first class the next day didn’t begin until five in the evening.

  I must have dozed off because when I awoke my hands were tied with scarves to iron rings in the wall behind the headboard. Sam washed me again and herself I realized, after her first close approach. She removed the sundress and stood naked, bent slightly forward over the freezer. I couldn’t make out what she did, but it involved the clink of teacups. At the sight of her I became instantly hard again. The top of her butt cheeks made nearly a right angle with the small of her back and curved around, joining the top of her legs with a slight uplift. The light and shadow created an illusion. Hot, insatiable, and with a life of its own, it stirred in the triangular darkness at the juncture of her legs.

  I tugged slightly at the wrist scarves. “Sam, I didn't take you for a B&D girl,” I said, trying to make it sound like a joke, but inside a vague worry crept at the fringe of my mind. No vampire liked to be restrained. It goes back to our fear of being buried alive where, in theory, one could be trapped for a year or so.

  She turned with a start. In the candlelight her hair appeared darker, close to a ginger color. It matched the thatch below, shaved to a narrow bar like an exclamation point ending at the lips of her womanhood. Her eyes appeared black. She poured and brought over another cup of tea.

  “Sam, I really don't like being tied down.”

  Ignoring my protest, she placed the steaming cup on the night table, and took her place in bed snuggling warm and close. I might not be strong enough to pull the rings out of the wall or tear the scarves, but now she lay within reach and I could make her untie me, using force if necessary. She rose on one elbow and faced me. With her free hand she offered to feed me the tea. “Are you sure you want to be freed?” she cooed. “I can make this oh so fun.” The tea smelled good and I let her pour it down my throat.

  “Loosen the scarves a little,” I requested when she emptied the cup. “They’re cutting off my circulation.”

  I have double joints in both hands. It’s a trait common to every vampire I’ve known. No handcuff can hold me but tightly tied scarves are different. Sam worked the knots with small nimble fingers. I convinced her to loosen them until I could slip out if I needed to.

  Now, undistracted by being tied up, I concentrated on making love.

  She climbed back on top, gazing down at my helplessness with a puzzling intensity. The erection returned, hard as before, and I slipped back inside. I thought how this bondage business seemed not so bad. She leaned forward until our faces almost touched. I smelled the rich cinnamon of her accelerated breathing. The scent of arousal was different and had a familiar sweetness I couldn’t place. Warm erect nipples, pink with the flush of arousal, brushed across my chest. Her forward move caused me to withdraw, tantalizingly close to expulsion. Only the hold of her inner musculature, fitting tightly around me like a wet and hot pink sleeve, kept us connected. Slowly she rocked backward. Her pelvis shifted its weight to my hips, and I plunged deep inside, filling her completely. From my foreshortened perspective she appeared as all sharp jaw line, out thrust breasts, and supple torso.

  “You…are beautiful,” I gasped between labored breaths. And I meant it.

  I could not make out her face, but judging from the whimpering noises she made, orgasm approached quickly. The wet friction of our movements caused seed and tension to gather hotly in my loins, lured by the undulating pull and release of a power for which wars were fought, empires fell, and history changed course.

  This time we came together. Powerful contractions pushed, one upon the other, through my body. The seed inside blew out through the end of my oak hard manhood and flooded into the world as she undulated ardently above. From her, a deep howl filled the room, an improper utterance, I thought, from one so petite. A minute later I understood.

  After climaxing, she relaxed for a second before springing to her feet on the floor beside the bed. A sound, making the crunch of my joints when I morphed seem like a whisper, filled the room. Even with the irregular backlighting I saw her grow taller. The dainty narrow shoulders inflated and widened like blowing up a balloon. The cracking sound came from the reversing knee joints and the expanding frame.

  Turning to me exposed her profile to the candle light. The small straight nose grew into a fanged snout and the eyes, still green, regarded me with dispassionate lethality. Ginger colored hair covered her body, glittering in the light. When she finished, diminutive Sam became almost six feet, two hundred pounds of hirsute ferocity.

  More fascinated than afraid, I watched her approach while I continued desperately to work the bindings free, knowing I had a surprise of my own. The academic pa
rt of me rejoiced finding a creature thought to be a myth by vampires as well as confirming my long held personal belief in their existence. On the other hand, my heart raced in fear. Hampered by restraints, the creature standing beside me represented the greatest danger I’d ever faced, comparable in strength and ferocity to me. I had to get free.

  She lifted a broad wolfish head and let out a howl. I swear it woke the sleeping for two counties around. When she leaned over, washing me in hot breath, rough hair brushed against my wrists.

  As she prepared to bore into my throat with bared teeth, I freed a wrist from the scarves, leaped upright, and showed my fangs. She jerked away and almost instantly returned to human form. For a second, I panicked, thinking I compromised myself in response to a sophisticated illusion. Her demeanor, however, quickly set me straight. I had witnessed the real thing.

  “What the hell are you?” she demanded.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” I answered between rips at one of the scarves holding my tethered arm.

  She pointed at me. “You’re a…” She couldn’t say the word.

  I finished the sentence for her. “I’m a vampire.” I freed the other arm.

  “I didn’t think you guys existed,” she said with bemused wonder. “It seemed odd when the first cup of tea didn’t put you down right away. To be safe, I tied you up.”

  For a few seconds I smirked inside at the irony of the situation but, remembering she tried to hunt me, my demeanor hardened. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”

  “Probably the same thing you did. A girl’s gotta eat.”

  I couldn’t help laughing. “Okay, so what do we do now?”

  She jerked a thumb in the direction of the bed. “Well, since we’re pretty good there, I think we can work something out.”

  Chapter Three

  The Man in the Coin Laundry

  Between episodes of lovemaking, we talked, sitting naked across from one another—she on the couch and me in the matching lumpy vinyl easy chair with the coffee table between us. We agreed it a waste of time to dress only to get naked again. Soon I realized it was a mistake. The proximity of the soft-fleshed, lithe little creature exuding inviting scents, kept me continuously aroused.