Trail Mix: Amoeba

by Piers Anthony

  “And I am Vanja, of the Vampire clan. I spied this trail, and it tempted me, so I took it, and now I am here. Shall we continue on our separate ways, having discovered nothing of mutual interest?”

  “We suspect that we are being gathered here for some purpose,” Tod said, maintaining tight control of his irritation. She had surely been trying to make him react, and he was determined not to give her that satisfaction. “The trail beckoned each of us, as it did you, but there are some dangers along it that seem to make a group safer than individuals might be.”

  “Pooh. What I can’t handle, I can escape. Why should I want companions, aside from their blood?” Evidently modesty and subtlety were not parts of her character.

  “Some foods are poisonous,” Veee said. “And there are some ranging predators. We don’t know what else.”

  “I feed on blood.” Vanja flashed a toothy smile. “Not generally that of friends. I catch animals, and take only what they can reasonably spare. Few even realize they have been tapped, and if they do, they are not averse to repeating donations. As for predators, if they are land-bound I can escape them.” She shrank into the form of a large bat, hovered in the air a moment, then returned to human form, snug clothing intact. “Why should I need any of you?”

  Tod stared. She really was a classic vampire! But those were creatures of fantasy; how could she be here in the real realm? “Um.”

  “Intelligent observation,” Vanja said sarcastically. “Are you looking at my teeth or my torso?”

  Both, actually; she had caught him there. “You’re a made-up spook, adapted from the unreasoning peasant’s fear of bats and rabies,” Tod said. “That trick you just showed us is impossible; for one thing it violates the equivalence of mass. So what are you, really? An illusion?”

  Vanja gazed at him assessingly. “So you do not believe your eyes or ears. What evidence of my reality would you find persuasive, not that I care much for your ignorant opinion?”

  “Seduce him and make him forget it,” Veee said. “Within fifteen minutes.”

  Vanja smiled. “You’re his woman? For such a thing I will require his direct permission as well as yours. It’s a matter of professional ethics.”

  What a bluff! He called it. “You have my permission. Do your thing.”

  “Mark your timepiece.”

  Tod wore a watch with an elapsed time bezel he seldom used. He set it at the current minute and stood there waiting on her, but nothing happened. She did not even approach him. “When you’re ready,” he said, irritated.

  Vanja laughed. So, oddly did Vee, and Bem made a musical chime. What was so funny?

  “It has been done,” the vampiress said.

  “What has been done? You never touched me.”

  “Check your underpants.”

  What irrelevance was this? He checked.

  His undershorts were on backwards.

  How could that be? He had had them on correctly, because he had urinated not long ago and had no trouble with their fly.

  “Feel your penis.”

  Perplexed, he reached into his shorts. His member was flaccid and damp. In fact it was spent, as if it had just ejaculated.

  “Look at your timepiece.”

  He looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes had passed.

  Faced with this evidence, he had to yield the point, to a degree. “Exactly what did you do with me? Hypnotize me into believing an illusion?”

  “You will soon remember, as the potion wears off.”

  Tod looked at Veee. She gravely nodded. “She did you,” she murmured. “My fault; I asked her to.”

  He looked at Bem. “True. She approached you, undressed you, aroused you, and copulated with you while you were standing, so to speak. Then she dressed you. She bit you slightly on the neck, then resumed her former stance.”

  “To make you forget,” Vanja said. “For a few minutes. A small injection, and just a taste of your blood. A love bite, really, not a feeding bite.”

  Tod felt his neck. There was a small painless welt that had not been there before.

  Then the memory began to return. Indeed, she had approached him and stripped him. Somewhere along the way her clothing disappeared. She had kissed him on the neck, except that now he knew it had been the bite. He had stood unmoving, not cooperating, but when she had his pants off she had touched his penis with her extremely evocative fingers and made it stiffen instantly. Then she had wrapped her arms about his upper torso, lifted herself against him, wrapped her legs around his waist, and somehow set her open cleft down on his member, taking it in. She had kissed him on the mouth with seeming passion, her fangs retreating to mere eyeteeth, and squeezed inside, and he had erupted, ejaculating violently into her. Then she had lifted herself off, dropped to the ground, cleaned out the dripping ejaculate, and put his undershorts on him backwards. Then his trousers, forwards. And returned to her present place.

  And Veee had seen it all.

  Worse, perhaps, it meant the vampire had not been fooling about her ability to control males. He felt a muted passion for her that only his present depleted state suppressed. If she demanded a repeat performance, he would be overwhelmingly tempted to oblige.

  Vanja faltered. She wavered on her feet, caught herself, and wavered again. Then she faced to the side and vomited.

  Veee went to her, producing a cloth to wipe her face. “It is the sickness,” she said. “Sit down; it will pass.”

  “But how?” the vampiress asked between heaves.

  “You sipped his blood. We each sickened after first eating here. It seems that blood is not right for you, here on the trail; you must avoid it.”

  “I am weak,” Vanja moaned. “And cold.”

  “The blanket,” Veee snapped to Tod.

  He dug it out of his pack and brought it to her. Veee wrapped it around Vanja’s shoulders. But now the woman was shivering violently.

  “Body heat,” Veee said. “Tod?”

  “I don’t want to get close to her!” Tod protested. “If I do—” He glanced downward, indicating his concealed penis, which was coming back to life.

  “Bem,” Veee said.

  Bem glided there, became the warm blanket, and wrapped itself around Vanja. “Oh, that helps,” she murmured gratefully.

  Evidently Bem could control the heat, because a wisp of steam rose from the outer fringe. Vanja’s chill soon ameliorated. She looked blissful.

  “Your clothing,” Veee said. “What happened to it?”

  The vampiress smiled. “I wear no clothing. It interferes with my conversion and seduction. I merely color my skin appropriately.” She extended a white forearm, and in a moment it turned dark blue, with a sleeve line at the wrist. It looked just like a skintight shirt.

  “That is my kind of ability,” Bem said, his surface turning polka dotted.

  “Barely the shadow of yours,” Vanja said. “I can’t do shape or heat. Not beyond my bat form, or the natural heat of my body.”

  “And your fangs,” Bem said.

  “Them too,” she agreed, her fangs expanding into tusks, then retreating to obscurity.

  “Still, we can surely get along.”

  “Maybe we can. I truly appreciate your gift of warmth, Bem, and must say that you, Tod, are a good fuck. I may want to screw you again, when I recover.”

  “Do you have to use the crudest terms?” Tod asked. “I realize that the ambiance of the trail is translating them, but they remain obnoxious in mixed company.”

  Vanja smiled. “I rephrase: you are a good lover, and it would be no burden to indulge with you again.”

  “Thank you,” Tod said with mixed feelings. They had not made love, because there had been no love in it; she had indeed screwed him. But he preferred polite euphemism.

  The vampire glanced at Veee. “Where do I stand with you?”

  “Stand where you choose,” Veee said guardedly.

  “May I speak with candor?” As if she had not been doing so unmercifully throughout.
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br />   “Yes,” Veee said tightly.

  “I seduced your man in front of you, and you know now that I can take him from you any time I choose, and that I lack much conscience in this respect. To me, your kind is prey.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet when I sickened, you were the first to help me. You diagnosed it, and are treating it, making the others cooperate. You could have killed me in my weakness, or at least banished me. You could have been rid of me, and you knew it. Even now you could tell Bem to unwrap me and let me shiver, and Bem would do it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why are you helping me?”

  “We are being summoned here for a reason. We do not know why, but we will surely need all that are called. Your role must be honored.”

  “Even at the sacrifice of your man?”

  Veee winced, but answered gamely enough. “If that is the price of it.”

  “Perhaps. I think you have a soft heart.”

  Veee’s mouth quirked. “Yes.”

  “And an honest nature.”

  “Yes,” Veee said, almost smiling.

  “I want you for a friend.”

  Now Veee frowned. “I did not offer that.”

  “If you treat me this well when you don’t like me, you will be well worth my time when you do. Already I know I can trust you with my life.”

  Tod saw that the vampire was a pretty shrewd judge of character. But where was she going with this?

  “I do not want to be your friend,” Veee said. “I wish I had not dared you to seduce Tod. I thought you were bluffing.”

  “Never doubt the word of a vampire. But you are right to put a price on your friendship. I must buy it.”

  “Friendship can not be bought!”

  Vanja smiled, her fangs flashing. “Anything can be bought, if the price is right.”

  “I have no price!”

  The vampire considered briefly. “We shall see. I will start by giving you back your man, or as much of him as is feasible.”

  “Feasible?”

  “There are stories about vampires, often more exaggerated than accurate, yet usually with a kernel of truth. Such as that anyone bitten by a vampire later becomes one.”

  Tod nodded. He had heard that. Now he was worried, because she had bitten him.

  “Here is that kernel,” Vanja continued. “Anyone bitten by a vampire retains an interest, because of the hormones used to pacify them for the act. Women want to associate, to be friends. Men want to have sex. So there is a kind of conversion, but not to the vampire state. If I mated with Tod and produced offspring, they would be vampires; that’s how new vampires are made. Reproduction, not corruption. I have no intention of becoming impregnated, however, so it is academic. But his urge to be with me will inevitably grow, as long as he is in my presence, and I will be inclined to oblige it. We vampires are lusty folk.”

  “Then you can’t give him back,” Veee said, more tightly.

  “I can do so to an extent, in this manner: by telling you how to hold him, so that he is as attracted to you as he is to me. I realize this is half a loaf, but it is the best I can offer. The seed of desire has been planted in him, and it will not be denied. But we can share him, especially if we are friends. There need be no rivalry, merely understanding and acceptance.”

  “How can we share him?”

  “Don’t I have a choice here?” Tod asked.

  “No,” both women said together.

  “You must seduce him now, before the seed expands further,” Vanja said. “That share of him you win will remain yours, and will not be subject to further erosion. He will love us both.”

  “Now?” Veee asked, dismayed.

  “Time is of the essence. I urge you not to waste it.”

  “But how can you want to share him?”

  Vanja shrugged within the blanket. “He is not as important to me as he is to you. I am not the commitment kind; I normally have a number of enamored men around me. He is a mere dalliance I will oblige because there is no other man here and I need the attention of a man. It is easy for me to share; my feeling toward him does not approach yours.”

  “Mine?”

  “You are on the verge of love.”

  Tod could see by Veee’s pained reaction that the vampire had scored.

  “Then it must be,” Veee said.

  “You have not yet seduced him. For this purpose you must not wait on his decision; you must take him now. Your initiative is important.”

  “So I gather. But I am not accustomed to taking the initiative. In my society initiative is almost by definition male. I got in trouble for it when I tried.”

  “You are no longer in your society,” Vanja said firmly. “Here the rules are different, as I discovered the difficult way when I tasted his blood. We both must adapt”

  “True,” Veee agreed reluctantly. “But though I am not now in my society, my society remains in me. It is not my nature to act in such a manner.”

  “How badly do you want him?” Vanja asked shrewdly.

  Again Veee was plainly suffering. “I do want him.”

  “Then it is merely a matter of means, not of ends. You must take him.”

  “I don’t know how!” Veee wailed, frustrated.

  Vanja contemplated her as she might a grazing but alert deer, assessing ways and means. “Do you dance?”

  “I was never good at that. My proportions are wrong.”

  “I am good at it. In fact it was my secret vice, because I refused to limit myself to the dowdy traditional movements. I dance for the sheer pleasure of it, but it can be seductive too. I will teach you.”

  Veee grimaced. “You can’t change my shape.”

  “Your shape will do, properly enhanced. You have significant physical assets. Come here.”

  Veee paused, considering, then went to the blanketed vampire. They conversed in whispers.

  “Are you sure?” Veee asked when she had heard what Vanja had to say. She was clearly amazed.

  “Reasonably. Try it and see.”

  “But never in my life did I think to try that! I envied the dancers, but would have been punished had I openly copied their motions.”

  “How many times must I say it? You are not where you came from. The rules are different here, and your need is immediate.”

  Veee nodded thoughtfully. “Give me time to prepare.” She walked back along the trail.

  “What is going on?” Tod asked plaintively.

  “The courtship will intensify,” Bem said. “Veee realizes that she can no longer wait for mutual agreement. She must act now. You should remove your clothing to facilitate the culmination.”

  “This is ridiculous!” But Tod did doff his clothing, realizing that he valued Veee and wanted her to have her best chance. If she lost him, he would also lose her.

  “This is necessity,” Vanja said. “I would not have bitten you had I anticipated this complication.”

  “Complication?”

  “That I would want Veee’s friendship. I would have seduced you without biting you, though that would not have made you forget. My error.”

  “If I may inquire, during this pause,” Bem said. “What made you take the trail?”

  “Two of us vied for the favor of the vampire chief. My rival seduced him first. That made me outcast and unwelcome, since my presence would be a threat to the chief’s new wife. Especially since I had danced for him, and he would soon want more of that. I had to depart and find a new swarm. That was not a pleasant prospect. Then I saw the trail.”

  “But the trail was empty.”

  “It could lead to another community of vampires. Failing that, to villages of normal people, good for sustenance, and maybe some handsome men. I like sex almost as well as I like blood; it is my vampire nature.” She smiled briefly. “Some stories claim we are cold-bodied, walking dead. In fact we are the opposite, hot in more than one respect. That’s why I took the dare: it gave me a pretext to get a man into me without social complications
. Or so I thought.” She eyed Tod speculatively. “Fast is fun, but slow is better. I want to spend a night with you and keep you in me throughout while I dance.”

  “While you dance?” he asked, thinking he had misheard.

  “Dancing is not limited to external. I will demonstrate. Maybe tonight.”

  Tod did not want to admit how wickedly that tempted him. “I would not be, um, firm enough to do that.”

  “We shall see.” It was the same phrase she had used with Veee, evidently meaning that she knew better.

  “I am curious,” Bem said. “Does the ejaculate of a human male have similar appeal to you as his blood?”

  “You are one smart entity,” Vanja said. “Yes, its impact on a vampire is much like that of blood. When I seduce a man I acquire his semen, and that fulfills the same need that blood does, so to have him clasping me and delivering spurts of the divine essence is a continuing thrill. The beauty of it is that not only does a man not mind, he delights in making this contribution. I don’t have to bite him to have pleasure of him.”

  Veee returned. She had harvested trailside grasses and fashioned a skirt that barely covered her bottom, and a halter that hung across her breasts. She was otherwise nude. The apparel, slight as it was, wholly changed her body, making her look utterly feminine. The vampire was right: Veee did have significant female assets. They had been de-emphasized before, to an extent; now they were being boldly promoted. She had in effect changed from housewife to harem girl. Vanja’s advice had obviously been potent.

  “Tod,” Veee said. “I am courting you. Are you amenable?”

  What could he say? “Yes.”

  Veee began to dance. The motion animated her. She had solid female parts, as he had known, but now her torso was alive in a new way. Her hips rolled in a kind of hula, and the grass provided shadowed views of her midsection as the blades swished from side to side. She turned, and her buttocks flashed through the skirt. It was just about the sexiest thing Tod had ever seen.

  She completed her turn, and now her bosom bounced under the waving grass, the nipples peeking randomly out. The momentary winks were twice as intriguing as fully exposed flesh would have been. She shook her torso, and her breasts rippled, collided, and rippled back.