The Vampire Princess

by P. Mattern

  He was unbuttoning a long row of buttons down the back of my gown as he spoke to me in a low voice. I couldn’t immediately make sense of what I was seeing. Three beds instead of one, the central one completely rounded with a red and orange symbol embroidered on the white coverlet. A bedpan the left was blue and seemed to have hardware poking out of it.

  The third bed was ornately dressed but had thick iron chains running from corner to corner on the diagonal, making an X pattern.

  My first thought was, ”KINKY,” and I nearly said it aloud.

  The Prince had finished unbuttoning me and yanked my dress down to my waist, turning me around quickly so that he could fondle my breasts as he kissed me. His mouth upon mine was firm almost to the point of being painful, his tongue relentless.

  Ironically, despite the fact that there were multiple beds in the room, the Prince picked me up effortlessly, holding me against the cold stonework of the wall and plunging into me with a ferocity that may me cry out as orgasmic tremors overrode my sensibilities.

  When he had finished with me there, he carried me over to the central bed, ripping my gown off from where it was bunched around my waist and placing me face down in the center of it. I felt silver manacles rise up from some hidden mechanism within the bed and close over my wrists on either side. At the same time something seemed to elevate my hips so that my private parts were elevated and completely exposed.

  I could hear the Prince behind me getting rid of his heavy boots, clothing and belt. I wondered if he would blindfold me, and he did, winding a scarf twice around me head and tying it a little too tightly in the back.

  “I’m sorry for the blindfold,” he said, sounding not sorry as much as excited. I heard what I thought must be the Prince ripping off his mask and throwing it against the headboard.

  Before he began again, he whispered in my ear.

  “Tristina you are so beautiful—every part of you is lovely but do you know what I find the most lovely is the way your flower opens toward me—all your lips swollen and reaching to envelop me again, to feel me moving inside of you. I know that you are still angry with me—and still you want me with the same urgency that I want you…

  …So I want to hear you say it, say you want it , more than anything…SAY IT!”

  In the temporary insanity of the moment, as my hormones betrayed me and handed me over as a greedy desirous creature I cried out,

  “I WANT YOU MORE THAN ANYTHING…MORE THAN ANYTHING!”

  As he entered me his sex made me scream both in triumph and rage as overwhelming physical sensations swept through me. My rage and triumph had the same source…I recognized that I had lost my identity willingly to be immersed in the Prince’s endless pleasure pool. It was Yin and Yang, all of my beginnings and endings , birth and death and rebirth and sensations I had never felt before and could never have described.

  The sex we had after the sex on the central bed was quieter, more about him teasing me with sensation, telling me that I was exciting to him because I was a puzzle, a contradiction. He assured me that he would be willing to spend his immortal life finding ways of both figuring me out and pleasuring me.

  He told me that one of my contradictions was that I had a strong personality and loved to be in control, but that abandoning my control and yielding to his would afford me the greatest amount of pleasure that I could ever experience.

  Overcome by my pleasure fugue, and with legs too wobbly and boneless to support me, I let the Prince dress me and snuggled, completely satisfied, against his chest as he carried me back to my room and laid me in my own bed. I opened my eyes briefly to note that the sun was still shining brightly because we were in the endless summer season, and heard the Prince instruct my maidservants to see that I rest undisturbed for as long as I needed to.

  The last sensation I remembered was the Prince kissing me first on the lips, and then on the forehead before I heard the sound of his heavy boots walking away.

  And then I knew no more.

  EAVESDROPPING

  “What else can you tell me about the Cliff dweller Realm?” I asked Theda as I poured tea for both of us. The tea had a lovely cherry blossom fragrance and reminded me of a visit to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C. when I was a little girl. My parents—the parents that I knew—had taken me. I remember being entranced by the pink and white profusion of blossoms on the graceful trees, raining petals down upon us as we walked between them.

  Somewhere, wherever my parents had moved to, on top of the baby grand piano we’d had there was still a photograph of me at nine years old, my strawberry blond hair blowing in the gentle warm wind with a profusion of cherry blossoms pressed against my face.

  Or maybe not. Maybe the photographs made them sad and they had put them all away.

  “What don’t you know about this place?” Theda teased, ”Oh, that’s right—everything! The Prince either keeps you in the dungeons or in his bed!”

  We both giggled at her quip, and I could see that Theda was curious about my relationship with the Prince, but too shy to ask.

  “It’s strange,” I told her earnestly, “There is this pull between us, as strong as gravity. No matter how angry we are at each other it is there, like an undercurrent of lust waiting to drag us under. I can’t imagine sex being any better.”

  “What do you like about it the most?” Theda wondered ,”I like the way my Dragonguard husband seems to DEVOUR me, from head to toe, as if I were a delicious meal he were consuming.

  “I like the way the Prince becomes someone ELSE,” I responded, ”A man who has abandoned his title and self restraint and is into me one hundred per cent. To have his full attention as he is making love to me, causes ME to relax and abandon myself also. When we make love we meld together…we are not separate any more, and our differences fly away from us.”

  “Aaaah,” Theda responded, sipping her tea and taking a shortbread butter cookie from the tray.

  “That is what love between a man and a woman is supposed to be I think—a blending together of souls.”

  My mind jumped back to my original question.

  “Theda I think today would be a lovely day for you to give me a tour of the Silo—the Prince is obviously in an indulgent mood—he called off his guard—I haven’t even seen Oliver around today. I think he feels as if I can be trusted again. Can we?”

  Theda looked nervous as she piled lingonberry preserves over another shortbread cookie and ate it in two bites, the berries staining her mouth fuchsia.

  “Shouldn’t we ask his permission first? Just to be on the safe side?” she asked.

  “You’re probably right,” I sighed, “But we have to find him first. I will tell my ladies to stay behind though, and tidy up. I don’t feel like traveling with an entourage everywhere I go.

  …And Theda?” I queried.

  “Yes Princess?” she responded, standing up and curtseying dramatically.

  “I still don’t understand why you sacrificed for me…why you threw the fight and let me win, losing your eye in the process. This could be you standing here in this ridiculous dress with ten petticoats underneath it and silk pantalets. Why did you?”

  Theda sobered and gave me a long look before she answered.

  “Because it was all worth it to remain HUMAN-or at least half human,,” she said, ”Worth losing ANYTHING to know that I am still somewhat human, though I might be a part of this strange world now. I think your Turning might prevent you from focusing on what you have lost. I am still human enough to live among humans.

  YOU never can, Tristina. I am sorry but that is the truth!”

  I was quiet as I contemplated her words. Hearing the truth was harsh, but I appreciated her telling it to me anyway.

  I closed the space between us and took her two hands into mine.

  “Thank you Thea, please always tell me the truth, even if I don’t want to hear it. Promise me!”

  “I promise,” she answered. We stood for a moment hugging each other
, two teenagers from the New Millennia who had found themselves in an arctic wonderland, as far from our previous ‘normal’ lives as we could be.

  At least we still had each other.

  Holding hands we walked down the hallway. I felt as if a weight had been lifted. I had Theda back, I had a new friend –a very good looking friend, in my Whipping Boy Oliver, and I also felt that I was back in the Prince’s good graces. I wasn’t sure how an evening of torrid sex had increased his trust in me, but for once I didn’t feel like over analyzing or questioning anything.

  Theda and I had gone up the deserted hallway when we stopped abruptly. A sound was echoing down an adjacent corridor to our left, and it sounded as if someone was hurt or in pain.

  We looked at each other, our eyes wide, and Theda pressed one finger to her lips and pulled me after her down the much narrower corridor. It seemed to be a servants’ entryway, and there were some rustic looking shelves built into the walls holding cleaning supplies. The cries became louder as we ventured further down the curving hallway, until finally we could see a large door that stood about a third of the way open at the end of the hall.

  Theda grabbed me more closely to her and we tiptoed toward the open door. At that point it became obvious that the noises we’d heard were not the cries of a woman in pain but a woman in pleasure.

  Pressed up against the opposite wall, Theda and I stopped when we became close enough to glimpse what was going on inside the room.

  I had to cover my own mouth when I realized that Seth, completely naked, had his back toward us and was thrusting himself into a woman who had legs as white as milk wrapped around his waist. Seth was keeping up a steady stream of erotic conversation as he mounted the object of his attention. As Theda and I stood motionless we could hear him stop and say,

  “Now turn over!”

  We barely saw a glimpse of the woman turning over. She was lying on a roughly hewn utility table that looked hard and uncomfortable, but resumed her moans of pleasure as Seth grabbed her hips and pulled her against him.

  Just as Theda gently signaled to me that we should make our way back down the corridor, Seth stopped what he was doing and called out,

  “Oh PLEASE don’t leave now, ladies…the show is not yet over!”

  Theda and I turned at once and sprinted down to the place where the small corridor intersected the main one, and then kept running for a good distance, finally bursting into laughter. We laughed until tears ran down our faces.

  When I at last could catch my breath I asked, “Do-do you think that he knew we were there the whole time?”

  Theda wiped her eyes with a tissue.

  “I think so. Vampires have an enhanced sense of smell. Even as a human who was only tasted once, my olfactory senses and visual acuity seem enhanced, and I imagine yours is also since you are one of the Bitten. Seth has been a full on vampire for awhile—I am sure that he sensed us from the beginning.”

  I glanced uneasily behind us, expecting Seth to burst into the main corridor and chase us down, but we were far enough away so that we couldn’t hear any noises other than our own heavy breathing from laughing and running.

  We proceeded up the corridor again. There seemed to be more traffic—we passed several servants, and a man with a solemn face wearing a long robe of black velvet. He briefly bowed when he recognized me but did not pause to speak.

  To my questioning look Theda replied,

  “He is the First advisor to the King of the Cliff dweller Immortals. His name is Proctor Silas. He is a very ancient and learned man. He is charged with keeping order in the Realm.”

  “I have too much to learn,” I said sighing. I was about to speak again as we continued our walk around a curve when Theda threw her arm back and pressed me against the wall.

  Within seconds I realized why. I could hear the Prince having a conversation with Oliver just ahead of us. There were other voices buzzing in conversation, all of them male, but Oliver and the Prince were the closest to us.

  “Tell me the truth my friend,” the Prince was saying ,”And I will never ask again.”

  There was a silence after that, and I strained to catch Oliver’s response over the background noise of what must have been a Royal meeting letting out.

  “I won’t lie to you. She is beautiful. And in another time and place I believe that I could fall in love with her. But you are my friend AND my Liege…I would never betray you. You must believe that!”

  The Prince responded by saying ,”Then what I saw the other evening was an aberration?”

  “I won’t say that I wasn’t tempted,” I heard Oliver reply, ”Look—she’s wicked hot. But I know you and I know that despite the fact that we have saved each other’s lives countless times if I touched her I would lose a hand!”

  “I am glad to see that you are familiar with the punishment for touching any of my wives or concubines,” the Prince responded. I could hear a smirk in his voice, and I was baffled by what he had just said. Before we could be discovered I tugged on Theda’s hand and we retreated up the corridor to the Solarium and slipped inside soundlessly.

  I whirled around to Theda.

  “WHAT was the Prince talking about,? The part about ”Wives and concubines”? And which am I anyway?”

  Theda looked me directly in the eye.

  “You are the First Princess, the first female chosen and designated to be a Princess, by the Prince,” Theda told me seriously, “And unless you die or disgrace yourself in some irredeemable way—as you nearly did when you ran away—you will remain the Princess.

  But Tristina,” she continued, ”The Prince is allowed to take as many wives and concubines as he likes. I am told that when the King, his father was young he had thirty wives and more than twice that number of concubines. In fact he chose the Queen, the Prince’s mother, from among them!”

  “So the Prince will never be faithful to me,” I said bitterly, “I will always be competing with wives and whores for his attention!”

  Theda eyed me narrowly, “It’s no different than the modern world—men are unfaithful to their wives all the time. It’s a social norm. And wives cheat on their husbands, even conceive by their lovers though married.

  Didn’t you ever watch Jerry Springer?” She finished.

  “Of course I did,” I replied, “I just never intended to be in a situation that might qualify me for a guest spot on the show!”

  Anger welled up within me from a secret source, and I realized that I was still angry at Theda.

  “YOU slept with the Prince!” I said, raising my voice, “Maybe it’s time we talked about THAT!”

  “It was a duty, Tristina,” she said evenly, color rising on her cheeks, “I didn’t have a choice.”

  I felt a flush rising up my neck also.

  “Well don’t spare me any details,” I said, and continued on recklessly,

  ”How did you find him? Did you enjoy fucking him?”

  Theda seemed taken aback at my blunt language, but she wasn’t about to let me bully her. Squaring her shoulders she shot back.

  “It was GREAT! He rode me and I rode him! It was the kind of ride that you never want to get off—but I DID ‘get off’, REPEATEDLY! Is that what you want to hear?”she finished, her voice having risen to the level of shouting.

  “Not particularly!” I shouted back—and then suddenly we were both shrieking with laughter, doubled over in inappropriate mirth. We were still standing with our backs against the wall, rolling with laughter when the door opened and the Prince and Oliver entered, looks of concern on their faces.

  “LADIES!”

  The Prince’s voice reverberated in the Solarium and Theda and I stopped laughing and stared. The Prince looked unamused, his mouth set in a hard line. Only Oliver looked friendly, and he winked at me before the Prince began speaking again.

  “Princess—Theda—this is a Solarium and botanical garden. We could hear you ladies caterwauling clear out into the corridor. Are you inebriated?”


  I shook my hair back over my shoulders and smiled brightly.

  “Not at all. We were just having fun! And here’s a tip for you my Prince, NO ONE uses the word caterwauling any more. Not in polite company…or even in the new millennium!”

  Was that a smile twitching at the corners of the Prince’s mouth? I couldn’t be sure, but I also saw a twinkle in his dark eyes, in spite of the mask that he was wearing.

  “I shall try to keep up with the modern vernacular,” he told me, bowing deeply, ”It is good that you can laugh. I trust you slept well?”

  “I did,” I responded.”Wonderfully, in fact! Will I be seeing you later, Prince?”

  The Prince glanced at Oliver and then turned to me, a regretful expression on his face.

  “I am not sure how this evening will go…,” he told me, “There has been a peculiar sighting near the Ice Palace. We are not sure what to make of it, and I intend to go with a contingent of huntsman and soldiers to try and determine what we are dealing with.”

  The Prince had piqued my curiosity.

  “What is it?” I asked excitedly, ”Has anyone seen it? What did it look like?”

  The Prince held up his hands.

  “Tristina we don’t know at this point,” he told me, on the verge of laughing. As usual, I had amused him for some reason I couldn’t fathom. Taking a gentle tone, he took both my hands in his larger stronger ones.

  “I can tell you are anxious to know, so I promise a report. But I must warn you that since it is the summer season and we have perpetual daylight I may be out all night with the Watchers—I mean to see—what ever it is—with my own eyes!”

  Turning to Oliver he said, “Look after the Princess for me would you? And make sure that she gets adequate rest, even if you must call upon the Royal Physician for a sleeping draught—Night Bloom Nectar, or a bit of Fairy Wine should do it if she can’t sleep.”

  “I’ll take care of it ,” Oliver said, bowing slightly in deference.

  Theda gave me a hug and told me that her soldier husband would be free in the afternoon and that she must hurry to be with him. She had confided in me how desperate she was to get pregnant, and I knew she was anticipating sleeping with him. I watched her leave, and she fairly skipped down the corridor. She seemed very happy.