by Atha, DL
I have to say, he really looked human. No one in the room, I noticed as I surveyed the crowded restaurant, was paying us any attention other than the occasional female whose eye he caught in a quick lustful glance. He didn’t stand out in any odd way, he was very handsome, but other than being very fair-skinned, he didn’t look scary or overtly threatening when his fangs were hidden. But I knew from experience he could easily turn that side of himself on or off at will.
Tonight he was wearing a dark blue thermal pullover with stylish blue jeans and boots. I hadn’t noticed before but he was wearing a ring on the fourth finger of his right hand. It looked silver but it could have been platinum or white gold and the design, nearly worn away, was unrecognizable to me.
Several locks of his hair had fallen back across his eyes, adding to his absurd sex appeal as it gave him a look of innocence. I noticed he caught the eye of every woman that walked by our table on her way to the restroom. Apparently, a couple of the women needed to use the bathroom several times during the course of my dinner.
I had a thousand questions for him and I was burning with curiosity now that I had resigned myself to my death. Why should he not answer my questions? I could see no harm in it.
Feeling my eyes on him, he turned his regard back to me. “Fine. What do you want to know? I will answer a few of your questions. A few so you better make them good ones. It seems you are going to stare holes through me if I don’t. But make no mistake, I am not going to become sentimental about you. You may come to know me, think you understand me, and I will still kill you. It seems a cruel trick to play on yourself.”
“Don’t worry. I have no illusions about you, just questions. I’m a doctor, you know. Very practical and naturally curious especially about scientific anomalies such as yourself.” I spoke quietly. He laughed slightly and with a slight bow of his head, he prodded me forward. “How old are you?”
Taking a slightly deeper breath as if this question annoyed him, he answered, “I was born sometime in the year 1831. I died in 1858.” The smile that was on his face moments ago was now gone.
“Why does that question bother you so much?” I questioned in between a long draw of my soda.
Giving a slight sigh, he answered, “It is inevitably one of the first questions a human will ask. It gets tiresome after a while. You are all so predictably obsessed with age. Surely, Doctor, you can come up with a more interesting question.”
As any woman in her thirties can understand, that answer was irritating to say the least and I sighed back at him. “For someone who will never age or die, don’t you think you’re being a little judgmental?”
By that time, my second pie had arrived and deciding to go ahead and really splurge, I sank my fork into it with a little force, throwing back a large bite before saying anything else. “I thought you needed me to help update you on the twenty-first century. Is that really true because you haven’t asked much of me except for blood and sex?” I grabbed another bite of pie and waited for him to answer. He didn’t answer immediately so I continued on. “How many humans have you held hostage, killed, and why do vampires have sex anyways, and why would you possibly care about remaining up to date?”
He was staring at me now like I was insane. “You are quite morbid for a human and you are certainly the most brazen hostage I’ve ever had. Perhaps that explains why you have no mate at your home.”
Did he mean that as a jab or was that just an observation? Raising my eyebrows at him, I waited for answers.
Tapping his right index finger absentmindedly on the table, he began. “Can you imagine what it is like to exist in a world that is ever-changing but never change yourself? I was born in a time of lamps and candles where the world went to sleep with the night. Then I became a nightwalker and learned to live in the night, in a land of darkness by becoming part of the night and blending into it. And now you humans have lit the night up. At first, it was just the occasional dim lighting in the homes of the wealthy, but now it is entire cities and sometimes I feel like I cannot escape the light. And now, you have even recreated the sun.”
He paused here for a moment when the waitress refilled my drink again. When my glass was full and the waitress gone, he continued. “I am a nomad but every few decades or so, I realize that I have become so outdated that I must make contact with a human to remind me of our differences and why I will never be like you again. To learn again how you think and act. I fear that at some point in the future, the night will no longer provide shelter for my kind as it will be as brightly illuminated as the day.” He stopped now, studying various people in the restaurant again and I waited, but he didn’t resume.
“How many? Human hostages that is?” I questioned, my voice urging him to continue.
Raising his eyebrows slightly, he brought his lips together in a little smile before responding. “At most, I have revealed my true nature to less humans than I can count on two hands. I killed each one of them. These deaths I remember specifically, but as to how many humans I have killed in my existence, I do not keep a record. I do not have to kill to feed and so I do not always kill. If I had not found you in such isolating circumstances, chances are I would have drank a little and you would have lived, if I had even chose to feed from you at all. But you were too convenient. You can thank your choice of housing for your death.”
I supposed the old saying ‘mother knows best’ certainly fit here. I cursed myself mentally again for my lack of practicality.
His voice brought me back to the present. “Now before you decide that I have a conscience after all, you need to know the only reason I do not kill every time that I feed is simply that I do not want the authorities to become involved. And there are plenty of times that I kill simply for the thrill of it. Although it is unlikely they would find me, I do not see that it is worth the risk.”
He paused here as the waitress that replaced Lisa came to place the ticket on the table. Reaching into my purse, I pulled out some bills and handed them to her, indicating that I needed no change so she wouldn’t come back. When she was gone, I nodded for him to continue.
Smiling at me suddenly, he leaned in close. “As for sex, lust is lust whether it is for blood or sex. We carry the same desires from our human life into our vampiric life. Combine our lust for sex and blood and you have a powerful stimulant. Essentially, they are the same to us. It is hard to have one without the other. But you already knew that, Annalice, since you fucked me like a common whore today with your blood on my tongue.”
His eyes were intense and I could clearly see the desire on his face. I felt a flush explode on to my cheeks. I would like to say it was solely because I was embarrassed, but unfortunately I could also feel my own lust for him kick in. It didn’t provide me with any affirmation of my character.
Standing quickly to gain some distance from my own lust, my chair scraped roughly on the concrete floor, balanced precariously for a moment, then finally crashed to the floor. A hush fell across the restaurant as if someone had dropped an entire serving tray. I could feel Asa’s eyes on my face.
Looking down at him, I could see anger that I had brought attention to us evident in his expression. Smiling politely at the surrounding tables, I turned and walked out to the car. I didn’t hear his chair move or him get up but by the way my skin was crawling, I knew he was behind me.
We were about twenty feet into the parking lot before he jerked me around and delivered a resounding slap to my right cheek, sending my head ricocheting backwards. Knocking me to the ground, I didn’t have time to catch my breath before he had jerked me to my feet again. He was so angry that he was shaking slightly. Glancing around the parking lot, I was happy to find no witnesses either to the abuse or the sad state that I was in. I, at least, wanted to die with some dignity left.
“Now you worry about making a scene, but I know there is no one around; no one to see us because I have already checked, because I am not a weak stupid human,” he hissed at me, pulling my face around to look
at him. “Are you truly committed to this, Annalice, because I have my doubts? Maybe you are not as committed to your daughter as I thought.” His voice was low but harsh.
Trying to apologize, the words only half-way came out, such was the force of his grip on my face. He didn’t listen, but instead began to drag me towards my car.
We had parked on the edge of the parking lot, my Camaro pulled in facing the restaurant, and behind it nothing but a grown over lot. Despite my fear and having learned my lesson, I didn’t fight as he pulled me across the desolate space, bypassing the passenger door of my car.
Sure that he had lost all patience with me, I was certain he would kill me now. Although I didn’t fight, I couldn’t keep from crying and he wrapped a strong hand around my jaw, muffling my tears.
A few steps past the door of my car, he swung me around, forcing me across the trunk. A moment of relief washed across me as I realized he wasn’t dragging me into the bushes to kill me. The relief was short-lived when it occurred to me he was going to put me in the trunk.
Unable to control myself, I begin to cry harder and even his hand couldn’t muffle the sound completely and so he slapped me again.
Losing consciousness briefly, I came back to myself just as I felt the fabric of my panties rip as he jerked them off of my body. My pants were already down around my ankles and I was still bent across the hood. In my surreal state, I could see the restaurant a hundred feet away or so and it was like I was looking at a different world, another reality.
I could see people leaving the restaurant, smiling and waving goodbye to their friends. No one looked or even glanced in my direction as he knocked my feet apart with one foot and I didn’t try to get their attention. I had made enough mistakes for one day.
I wasn’t prepared or ready for him this time since we had exchanged no saliva, but still he pushed into me with force enough to cause me to cry out if I had been able to breathe. His weight constricted my respirations to the point that I was forced to focus solely on breathing as he stroked forcibly into me.
Tears continued to roll down my cheeks as he took me against my will. Pulling my hair to one side, he bit into the back of my neck. I could feel blood run in a small rivulet down my back as his strokes got faster and faster. Finally, I felt him stiffen and the car shook slightly with his orgasm. As he stepped away from me and was no longer holding me up, my legs gave way and I sank down onto the cold pavement, my knees striking the ground hard.
Kneeling down beside me, he whispered into my ear, “You asked the questions. If you do not like the answers, quit asking. I am giving you a second chance, Annalice, because I need this and so far you have been a fun date. But I suggest you not make mistakes like that one again.”
Shaking like a rag doll, I was finally able to nod at his back as he walked around the car and out of my line of vision. I heard the passenger door open, then felt the car settle down with his weight. Using the bumper, I pulled myself up and resting against it, I pulled my jeans back up as well.
Taking a deep breath, I let myself have a moment to calm my trembling hands before rejoining him in the car. It was going to be a long ride home both from my humiliation and the now-familiar hunger, induced by his fluids, setting in.
We did not speak as I pulled out of the parking lot onto the highway and as each mile rolled under the wheels of my car, the silence became heavier until I felt I would suffocate under its weight.
As I had expected, the trip was longer and lonelier. Maybe it was that there were fewer cars on the highway, making it seem darker. Or maybe it was knowing that I was again leaving all semblance of normal behind as I returned home to my reality now. Blood and violence.
At some point, I had started to think of each day as a number; day one and so forth. I was fast approaching day two. It was about midnight now and there were only four more days for me to live.
I continued to drive, turning off on the lonely dirt road that would eventually end in the circular drive at my house. No words were said by either of us so it gave me plenty of time to think.
My mind continued to stray back to the fact I would be dead soon. I didn’t think I was morbid, surely most humans my age would be thinking as I was. My past life now seemed so short and I thought about all the things I would miss. Mainly, Ellie growing up, her first prom, first boyfriend, graduation, choosing a college, her wedding, and finally, her children. Every time I thought of Ellie, it was with a mixture of regret and jubilation that even though I wouldn’t be with her, she would be alive and allowed to grow up.
And try as I might, I couldn’t help but feel the loss over the things I would never get to do. My twenties had been spent pursuing medicine and then in raising a child and building a medical practice. There had been no time for many outside interests or romance, hence my divorce, and now there never would be.
I looked over at the man beside me. No, not man. Vampire, monster, aberration. I’m not usually a person of much hate, but I hated him. I hated him with every ounce of me. I hated him for taking me away from my daughter, for putting me in this position, for raping me, and making me want him.
I had done nothing to deserve this. The rage boiled inside me and it felt like I would explode from the intensity of it. I almost felt like I could touch the emotion shimmering along my skin like currents of electricity.
For a split-second the rage was so intense that I forgot how weak I was compared to him and considered reaching over and breaking his neck. But Ellie’s face flashed in my mind and that is what saved me. I tried valiantly to push the rage to the back of my mind and after what seemed like an eternity, I managed to control it enough that my heart began to slow its race and the currents of electricity I felt running along my skin stopped.
“What were you thinking that made your heart race?” he asked, breaking the silence. I was surprised since I had been the one asking all the questions this evening.
My first impulse was to lie, but what did it really matter? I doubt he would be concerned that I wanted to kill him. He had probably grown used to that reaction over the years.
“Well, honestly, I was thinking about all the life I was going to miss out on and how I wanted to kill you. I’m sure you have had life enough for the both of us and it’s simply not fair.”
I heard his low throaty laugh but didn’t turn my head to look at him. I knew he would be wearing that condescending smile.
“You could not kill me. I am immortal. An unfair match for an ordinary human. So far, you have done well at accepting your lot. Except for that little mistake at the restaurant, but I taught you a nice lesson for that, right? It is what it is, Annalice. Do not forget what you are getting in return for your compliance.” He spoke into the quiet of the car. “Let us make this civil, Annalice. No drama or theatrics. It can be pleasant and I can promise you a painless end.”
I had nothing to say back to him, but I supposed I should be grateful that he was promising me a quick end.
I made the final curve in the road and the house stood eerily in the moonlight. Pulling into the garage, the heavy overhead door let down behind us. I felt like I was pulling into a crypt. I knew his gaze was resting on me. I could sense it without even looking over at him, but I couldn’t stop myself and turning towards him, my eyes locked with his. The hunger was easily visible and that was the best word to describe it. He was hungry again.
Jumping out of the car, I hurried towards the door. I, at the very least, wanted to be in the house before he fed again and not pinned down to the seat of my car.
Just as I was topping the last step into the house, his hands wrapped around my neck, jerking me around and throwing me back across the hood of the car. I slammed into the metal and the force caused me to instinctively close my eyes for a split-second.
Opening them, I found myself looking into his dilated gaze. His nostrils were slightly flared, lips parted and pulled back over the doubled fangs that were fully extended. They glistened even in the semi-darkness of the garage
.
Taking my left wrist, he brought it up to his mouth and kissed the inside gently. Then, holding my hand in his other hand, he extended my wrist joint and bit cleanly through to my radial artery. Though it is a very sensitive part of the body, it hurt only for a few seconds.
He drank more deeply this time, long swallows over about a minute. Dizziness began to cloud my mind and I dropped my head back on the cold smooth metal of the car. He brought his head up and a drop of my blood escaped the corner of his mouth, his tongue flicked out to catch it before it dropped.
Leaning down, he whispered into my ear, “You are going to be a hard one to keep alive. You bring out the worst in me. I doubt you will last the week. Sleep well, my dear.” In the next moment, he was gone.
I lay there on the hood for a few moments, partly because I was too weak to move and partly because I half expected him to come back. But he didn’t return and finally I let myself slide down the hood until my feet were touching the floor. Taking a few seconds to steady myself, I walked into the house.
The old wall clock struck one just as I walked into the living room. My heart paused in its beating as I was so startled. Exhaustion was all that forced me to make it to my bedroom and I collapsed on the bed. I was asleep before my head even touched the pillow.
seven
I dreamt of the sun. Bright, hot and shimmering. I had never seen it so vast or brilliant. The sky was a deep gemstone-blue and the golden orb took up at least a quarter of it with no clouds to shield the Earth from the power of its rays. It was mid-July or at least from the slant of the sun on the creek water and its intensity, I thought it was mid-July. The creek wound lazily through the Ozark mountains, the deep green of the trees reached up from the cliffs overhanging the water to touch the sky, creating the illusion that the world consisted of only the river in the valley, the trees, and the sun. There was no noise from the outside world and I lay back on the hot rocks that had been baking in the sun all day.
