by Radclyffe
I quivered and whimpered. “Anything for the team,” I repeated.
“Me too,” Beelzebabe hissed. She rose halfway like a cobra and flipped us over. I was on my back again and I felt her tear the shorts from my body. She then hovered, her face just millimeters from mine. “I’ll ask you just once. Do you want this?”
My heart was pounding so hard, my left breast pulsed with it. My legs were stiff and locked into place. I couldn’t look away from her mesmerizing glow-in-the-dark green eyes. I realized how a hobbled bunny must feel right before the puma pounces. But between my hip bones—from my navel to my knees, I was a hot ocean. Waves of delight rolled from bone to bone, completely liquid. I tried to speak and only heard a click, so I blinked once.
“I knew it.” Beelzebabe grinned and kissed a sizzling, frigid trail down my body. She deftly avoided my bucking cunt and when she reached my upper thigh, she placed her hand on my belly and pressed me to stillness. I waited, my mind whirling and soaring, not attaching to any specific thought. Beelzebabe lowered her cool mouth onto my smoldering clit and obliterated everything I knew. I felt the piercing pain of a terrible bite on my inner thigh but she slid two cold, hard fingers into my molten cunt and I split my own eardrums and stripped my throat screaming. The razor-stabbing ache of the bloody wound and the delirious ecstasy mixed and mingled and created an infinite desire for more, more, and more. The pain gave a delicious edge to the overpowering pleasure. They became indistinguishable. I wanted Beelzebabe deeper, harder, sharper, softer, sweeter. If she wanted to eviscerate me, I wanted it too. If she wanted to eat me alive from breast to ass, I would open wide, surrender, and give her all I had. If she wanted to tear the flesh off me and fuck my bones, I would let her. I came and kept coming. I looked down and saw Beelzebabe’s bloody, beautiful face. My orgasm possessed me like an insatiable demon. I swirled, in orbit. Finally, in a second or a decade, the ecstasy ebbed and I began returning. Beelzebabe soothed me, murmuring softly, petting me gently. She climbed on top of me again and kissed me passionately. I tasted my own blood and essence. After a few minutes, Beelzebabe stood up and threw my clothes at me. “Let me bandage your wound before you go.” She got a first aid kit and dressed the bite.
“Now what?” I asked, hating myself for already worrying about where this was going and would she call me. What about the derby team?
“Now.” Beelzebabe finished and smacked my leg. “You’re on the team. You can skate like the rest of us.”
“How?”
“You’re a vampire and we can do anything.”
I laughed, my voice hysterical. “Vampire? There’s no such thing!” I continued laughing. “Even if there were, I’m not in the agonized throes of transformation.”
“That’s a myth we perpetuate to keep our numbers down. Becoming a vampire is a lot easier than playing derby,” Beelzebabe replied.
I stopped laughing. I smacked my lips. “I don’t have an insatiable thirst for human blood.”
“That will come…but we’ve cross-bred with humans enough that we can also supplement our diets with regular food and drink.”
“You didn’t bite my neck.”
Beelzebabe rolled her eyes. “I’m not here for Vampire 101. Why don’t you run along and figure it out as you go?”
“But…”
“Here’s a souvenir T-shirt.” Beelzebabe handed me a red shirt from a box in the corner. “We’re having a team meeting here tomorrow night. Come.”
I left without another word, my mind ground zero after a nuclear blast. I slept better than I ever had in my life, like colliding with a coma. I didn’t wake up until I heard my cell, underneath my body. When I moved to retrieve the phone, I cried out; my bandaged leg was awake too.
“Hello?” I hoped it was Her.
“You’re okay? Thank God.” Dr. Mendez’s voice was angry and relieved. She spoke to someone else. “She’s there. I’m talking to her. Don’t send the police.” Then to me, “What the hell happened? Are you sick?”
“Why?” I stretched like taffy and moaned with pleasure. “What time is it?”
“Six. You missed the whole day of work. You’ve never been absent without calling.”
“Six?” I sat up, alarmed. The team meeting was in an hour. “I slept for almost twenty-four hours?”
“Yes, are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Just really tired, I guess.” I laughed. My throat was starting to feel dry, my tongue thirsty. “I’m sorry, Maria, I’ll be in tomorrow.”
“Okay, chica. We’re just so happy you’re alive.”
I smiled to myself at that. “Yeah, me too. Bye.”
I rose and showered and dressed carefully. I put on a plaid miniskirt, mismatched argyle socks, and a T-shirt that I sliced up. The T-shirt that Beelzebabe had given me was still in my bag. Maybe I should wear it. Oh, well, I was late. I could change at the rink. The bandage on my thigh was soaked through, but I didn’t change because I liked that it was a badge.
At the rink, Josie wasn’t there, or any of the other mortal skaters. Just the ten fierce, beautiful veterans. They all stopped talking when I approached.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Beelzebabe’s latest pet,” a woman with long black curls snarled.
“Easy, Tatiana.” Blonde Ice laughed.
“Don’t think you’re special,” Tatiana said, raising her shorts to show me a scar on her upper inner thigh. I felt sick. “She will do anything for the team.”
“Grow up!” Annie Maul ordered Tatiana.
“And shut up!” Blonde Ice added.
Tatiana growled to me, “She better be right about you.” And then stalked away, bumping me hard.
“Forget about that bitch.” Annie threw her arm around my shoulder. “One look from Beelzebabe and she had her U-Haul filled and ready to go.”
I squirmed with shame, feeling sorry for Tatiana. “Are we gonna have a meeting or what?”
“All business, I like her already,” Blonde Ice said.
“Attention!” Poison shouted. “Sit! Let’s get started before everyone else arrives. We have a couple of new skaters.”
Two? I looked around to see Beelzebabe walking in with her arm around a petite, auburn-haired beauty.
“My, that is one tasty dish,” remarked a muscle-curvy skater called Blud Lust.
“Hi, so nice to see you all again.” The woman smiled; her voice was pure Southern honey. I glared at her thigh and I could see the white bandage through the mesh of her torn black pantyhose.
Beelzebabe grinned. “This is Candace. Can I pick them or what?”
“Can she even skate?” I shrieked.
Everyone flinched. “Ruh-roh,” mouthed Annie Maul.
Beelzebabe said smoothly as she and Candace sat, “So, to begin. Becoming a vampire and a derby skater all at once is a lot to handle. We’re here to help. So don’t worry. You probably have questions. Let’s hear them.”
“You’re the devil,” I murmured acidly.
Beelzebabe’s fatal green stare of fury scared me. “What was your first clue?”
“But I thought…” I hid my sudden tears by staring at the ceiling.
“You didn’t care what I was or what I did last night. But now that you see there are others, I’m Satan, is that it?” Beelzebabe’s eyes narrowed and I could see her body tense as if to spring. I realized exactly how dangerous she was. She hissed, “I asked you if you wanted this.”
“I should have been more specific!” I laughed deliriously. The other skaters patted me and muttered comforts. “It’s just an adjustment.” “You’ll be fine.” “Give yourself a while to acclimate.” “Wait until you’re on skates; this won’t matter at all.”
“Right. So I’m sure you girls are pretty thirsty. Skylar?” Beelzebabe called. From the pro shop, the thin guy with the track marks emerged carrying two IV bags of blood.
“Should be good stuff. I’ve been taking extra vitamins.” He placed the bags on the table before Candace and me.
“
What do I do with this?” Candace giggled.
“Drink it, pussycat,” Blud Lust said.
“Ew, no, I can’t. Not yet.” Candace made a face and pushed it away. I unclamped the clear hose, stuck it in my mouth like a straw, and pulled hard. The salty, penny taste was exactly what I needed. The thick, hot blood satisfied every craving in every cell, nerve ending, muscle fiber, bone marrow, and hair follicle. In a few seconds, I drained the bag flat. I looked up to see everyone watching me with their mouths open.
“You were right about her,” Tatiana said.
“I know.” Beelzebabe smiled, one ice-colored curl dipping to her dark eyebrow, her gaze curling my toes. Her eyes made me weak and limp.
“Fuck that, let’s skate!” I slammed my hands on the table, feeling a surge of power so intense that I knew I was indestructible. I could lift this rink right off the ground with one bare hand and crush it to rubble with the other.
“Slow down. We’re gonna go over some basics.” Beelzebabe stilled me with a fingertip on my wrist.
“You can’t go in the sun without tons of sunscreen,” Annie said. “You’ll turn blue.”
“From all the blood,” Blonde Ice added with a snake smile.
“We’re a breed of desert vampire who live all through Latin America and north to about Iowa. We don’t travel because we are very interdependent with our local environment and we have evolved with it, so we can eat local foods on a limited basis. But outside our habitat, we are wholly dependent on hunting humans,” Beelzebabe said.
“And we can drink Dew, thank God!” Blud Lust cracked open a bottle and chugged it.
“There is no God,” Beelzebabe replied coldly.
“That’s right, darlin’, we are atheists,” Poison told Candace with a smile.
“Almost as good as blood!” Blud Lust cried, crumpling the Dew bottle in one hand. Everyone laughed.
“But no matter how much human food you eat, it doesn’t change our nature,” Beelzebabe told me, stroking my hair. My entire body tingled.
“That’s where Skylar comes in, don’t you, baby?” Poison called to the pro shop where Skylar was changing plates.
He waved and called weakly, “Anything for the team.”
“That’s my boy.” Beelzebabe beamed.
“Okay, about derby,” Annie said. “We never get injured and we are, well, superhuman, so our challenge is to slow down and not use our advantages. That’s what we like…to see how human we can make ourselves. To be as mediocre as we can possibly be is so much harder than you would think. But that’s what we do.” Annie laughed with a shrug. “The draw of derby is so strong, we’ll do it no matter what.”
“And the majority of our skaters are still human,” Poison said.
“Who have no idea, and you better keep it that way,” Blud Lust added.
“When some dumb shit doesn’t wear a tampon, we put Vicks in our nostrils, so buy a jumbo tub,” Blonde Ice said.
“What about sex?” Candace asked with a giggle.
“Hot stuff, you didn’t get enough from Beelzebabe?” Blud Lust grinned. “Well, why don’t we hook up later?”
“Honey, being a vampire is the best birth control there is,” Blonde Ice cried exultantly.
“The best weight loss secret too,” Poison said. “Ever notice there are no fat vampires? I used to have such an uncontrollable jones for Ben and Jerry’s but now, all I have to think about is murder. Maybe I should write a diet book?”
“All vampires are rich too,” Beelzebabe said. “When you have an eternity to amass wealth, it has a very nice way of accumulating.”
“But it’s not all sex and skating and glamour,” Blud Lust announced. “Even vampires have to run errands, do laundry, and vacuum.”
“And practice derby,” Beelzebabe yelled. “Get your gear on!”
We all strapped on pads (you don’t need them but must wear them for appearance’s sake, Beelzebabe lectured) and laced up our skates. I withdrew the souvenir shirt from my bag and began laughing uncontrollably. I dropped it on the bench. I took one step on the rink and soared. I pushed and was airborne.
“Whoa, you need some practice controlling yourself, Maddy,” Poison told me. “That’s the hard part, looking like a human skater.”
“So I went from helpless klutz to skilled, invincible dynamo and I have to pretend to be a klutz again?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
I leaped and twirled and skated so fast everything was a blur. I knocked other veterans on their asses and laughed with glee. I had never felt such delirious elation. No wonder they wanted to keep their members low, because why would anyone want to be human? I skated to Beelzebabe, screeched to a stop a razor’s edge from her skate, and hugged her. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now rein it in, the other skaters are arriving.” She pointed her chin to the crowd of derby girls entering. “Veterans! Don’t hurt the fresh meat!”
“Yes, Captain.” I grinned and skated laps very slowly. Gliding at a snail’s pace felt comical and exaggerated, but I still passed a few human skaters. I saw Josie watching me carefully. I blew her a kiss and began doing backwards crossovers.
Lauren approached and I saw how truly awkward and hideous humans were. We skated a few laps together, me exhausting myself to stay slow and heavy with her.
“So, you’re back.” Lauren spoke awkwardly. “Did she make an exception?”
“No…I just had a private session with Beelzebabe,” I hedged.
“Then you’re on the team?” Lauren was jubilant.
“Yes, I am,” I said proudly.
“Because you’re so different! I can’t believe it!” Lauren marveled.
“Yeah, Beelzebabe was really thorough.” I felt my face form a seductive feline grin.
“Well, I need a lesson from her, then,” Lauren stated. I sprinted to the bench, picked up the shirt, and gave it to Lauren. “Here, for you.”
Lauren wobbled as she coasted and read the front aloud, “‘My best friend became a roller derby vampire and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.’ Huh?”
“Inside joke,” I said.
“Funny,” Lauren answered darkly. “So seriously, what happened? What’s the difference?”
I saw how competitive Lauren was and how miserably hungry she was for derby.
“The difference is…that I will do anything for the team. And you won’t.” I did a lightning fast pirouette. “Will you?”
Contributors
Joey Bass has been described as a prolific writer. While this denotes the quantity rather than quality of her work, she knows keeping at it is the best way to improve. After roaming up and down the West Coast of the U.S., she finally became civilised and is living in the U.K. with her partner.
Ronica Black (www.ronicablack.com) is an award-winning author and a three-time Lambda Literary Finalist. Her books range from romance and erotica to mystery and intrigue. Her latest, Conquest, is an erotic romance. Ronica lives in Glendale, Arizona, with her partner, where she enjoys a rich family life, raising a menagerie of pets and doing anything creative.
Mel Bossa is a member of the Bi Writers Association. She lives in Montreal, where she is at work on a new novel.
Valerie Bronwen is a public health professional who lives and writes in New Orleans. A freelance journalist, this is her first published short story. She is currently working on her first mystery novel.
Rebecca S. Buck (www.rebeccasbuck.com), from Nottingham, England, is the author of two full-length novels published by Bold Strokes Books, the latest being Ghosts of Winter, an April 2011 release. She is currently working on her next novel and has plenty of ideas for further works!
Sam Cameron’s (fisherkey.wordpress.com) young adult adventure Mystery of the Tempest features gay and straight teen detectives in the Florida Keys. Her work has also appeared in Speaking Out: LGBTQ Youth Stand Up and in numerous magazines and anthologies. She is the author of three science fiction novels and a Lambda Literary Award–w
inning collection of short fiction.
Lesley Davis (www.lesleydavisauthor.co.uk) lives in the West Midlands of England. She is a die-hard science-fiction/fantasy fan in all its forms and an extremely passionate gamer. When her Nintendo DSi or 3DS is out of her grasp, Lesley is to be found seated before the computer writing.
Jess Faraday (www.jessfaraday.com) is the author of The Affair of the Porcelain Dog, a novel of Victorian suspense. She lives and writes in the American West.
Jane Fletcher is the author of ten speculative fiction novels, for which she has won Golden Crown and Alice B Readers awards. She has also been included on the Lambda, Foreword Book of the Year, and Gaylactic Spectrum shortlists. She lives in southwest England with her partner.
D. Jackson Leigh (www.djacksonleigh.com) grew up barefoot and happy, swimming in farm ponds and riding rude ponies in rural south Georgia. Her most recent book, Call Me Softly, is a tale of Southern lies and family secrets set in the polo fields of Aiken, S.C. Visit with Jackson at www.facebook.com/djacksonleigh.
L.T. Marie is an athlete by trade. Born and raised in California, she resides in the Bay Area with her partner and two children. She enjoys three things: reading, writing, and Giants baseball. Her first book, Three Days, was released in the fall of 2011 by Bold Strokes Books.
Clara Nipper (www.claranipper.com) is a writer living in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her book Femme Noir was released in 2009 and the sequel, Kiss of Noir, dropped in 2010, both from Bold Strokes Books. She is currently working on a new murder mystery involving a horndog homicide detective, tentatively titled Murder on the Rocks. Clara’s hobbies include: fanatical gardening, candy-making for her artisan company, andyscandies.org, and skating under the name Cat Owta Hell for Tulsa Derby Brigade (www.derbystrong.com). Clara also enjoys wrestling plot lines into reluctant submission and collecting particularly creative rejection letters.
Meghan O’Brien (www.meghanobrien.com.) lives in Northern California with her partner Angie, their son, and various cats and dogs. She has written five published novels and many short stories, some of which have been featured in various BSB anthologies. Her latest novel is the paranormal romance/thriller Wild.