Lucius and Selene will arrive when he’s damned good and ready. We all work on his schedule. Even the bookkeeper works night hours. Theophilus, a vampire who works for Lucius and who is part of his inner circle, is actually the club’s general manager. Buuut, he’s a vampire. Meaning he can’t be here during the day when we need to handle maintenance or repairs while we’re closed.
Benny is one of the other humans who has a key, but he works directly for Lucius rather than the club. While he’s not technically club staff, he frequently accepts shipments from suppliers, goes on shopping runs, deals with maintenance or repair issues, things like that. Sometimes, I’ll come in on a day off and handle those tasks then take a night off later in the week, but it depends on the schedule. Lucius and Theophilus are very careful to not over-schedule me, since they know about my other part-time job.
I also keep Lucius apprised of any rumors I hear among shifters or other vamps in the area.
Heading upstairs to the second floor, I let myself into the office suite and make my way past the security console of video monitors to where my desk sits along the far wall behind a divider, giving me privacy. Most of the human staff aren’t allowed up here unescorted and only come up here at the beginning and end of their shifts to count their tills. I have an actual desk in a private alcove at one end of the main outer office, with my own sofa.
When I lock my things in my desk, I retrieve my name tag. After I peel the masking tape off it, where it still says PINK in black marker from my last shift, I apply a new piece of tape and write BLUE on it, and then pin it to my shirt, over my left breast. When I wear one of my blonde wigs, I go by Blondie.
The employees and regular customers know to call me by whatever color wig I’m wearing on any given night. The name tag is for everyone else, and for my amusement when I’m feeling like fucking with someone. Only Lucius and Selene know my real name. They’ve promised never to use it, and to prevent anyone else from knowing it.
Helps that I’m paid in cash and have a good fake Arizona driver’s license Lucius obtained for me. In the computer system, for the purpose of my security logins and the alarm, I’m known as Connie Doe, the same name on my fake ID.
Has a little more panache than Jane Smith, and my real name, Eilidh Connover, isn’t anywhere in their system, where I can be tracked through it. I do have a passport and ID in that name, in case I ever need them.
With that completed, I boot the computer server that runs the club’s POS payment system and make sure it’s up and running. Then I lock the office behind me and head downstairs to the first floor. It’s not unusual for me to end up in the office on my night off if I’ve been out running errands and I’m too far from home to make it there before dark. Plenty of times, I’ve spent the night sleeping up here curled on my couch, wrapped in a blanket, knowing I’m completely safe.
Lucius has issued standing orders to leave me alone and let me be, if that’s the case.
Next, I go through the first floor, turning on lights, checking supplies, booting the POS terminals, and making sure the closing crew from the night before cleaned everything, including the bathrooms. I don’t bother going through the small kitchen because that’s not my domain. I replenish anything behind the bar that wasn’t restocked before closing last night, make notes for Lucius and Theophilus of anything we need—or things not properly taken care of—and then take a deep breath before I head downstairs, to the basement.
The private BDSM club area is accessed through a secret passage of sorts, a staircase hidden behind the coat check area near the front entrance. Access is for vampires and staff only, and for any human guests the vampires bring downstairs. Most people don’t even know there is a lower level. The occasional shifter will go down, usually as a guest Lucius has invited, but that is extremely rare.
Every once in a while, Lucius has a shifter who works for him or who owes him a favor, and they’ll show up at the club. I don’t get involved in any of that, because it’s not my business.
Minding my own business has kept me alive while working with vampires, and I kind of want to continue that trend.
I flip on the “ugly lights,” the bright overhead fluorescents that starkly illuminate the space. The various pieces of equipment, the curtained private alcoves—I check everything. Behind the bar down there, I see whoever closed last night was on the ball, and I find nothing needing my attention.
I don’t work downstairs every night. In fact, I prefer not to. Not that it bothers me what goes on—the sexy BDSM play that can include full-on sex, and vampires feeding off their willing partners and submissives.
It bothers me I can’t partake of it.
Stupid, I know.
I won’t let any of the vampires play with me or feed off me. Nothing personal, but I have trust issues.
Once I’m happy everything’s taken care of downstairs, I turn off the work lights, which leaves the red mood lighting and the spotlights focused on some of the play equipment to illuminate the space, and I return to the office. I retrieve one of the tills from the safe, count it, and take it back down to the main bar in the nightclub area. In the quiet of the club, I hear the telltale beep from the back-door chime as someone lets themselves in.
My instincts tell me who it is. “Hey, Benny,” I call out.
He laughs and walks into the main room. “That’s fucking spooky when you do that…Blue.” That last word he delivers once he gets a look at tonight’s wig.
I smile. “Can’t help it.” I really can’t. It’s a blessing and a curse.
But even if it wasn’t for my special little gifts, it was logic. Craig, the other human with a key, has tonight off, and it’s still daylight out, meaning it was none of the vampires.
I look up and see Benny’s dressed as handsomely as ever. Dark brown hair neatly coiffed, and he’s wearing a suit and tie, the way Lucius prefers his men to dress. I’ve only ever seen Benny in jeans twice, and that was when the club was closed, and he was accepting a delivery from one of the beverage wholesalers.
If he wasn’t so close to Lucius, I’d be damned tempted to pursue a relationship with him.
Problem is, he’s too close to Lucius, and his allegiance is to the vampire king. Meaning if I’m ever forced to pack and leave in a hurry, I’d have to leave him behind.
No, thank you. I’ve said enough good-byes in my lifetime already. No reason to make it especially difficult on myself.
“Want me to leave the back door unlocked?” he asks.
“Please. House is ready.”
“Cool.” He returns to the back entrance and sets the door lock. Every employee has their own code to open the back door once we’ve “unlocked” it. Anyone else, if they don’t have a key, needs to ring the bell. That way, we can tell who’s coming and going from that entrance. It will open from the inside, of course, because it’s also an emergency exit.
We just installed a new, enhanced security system, which includes IR night vision and FLIR thermal camera modes that now pick up the vamps, too. Expensive as fuck, and military-grade equipment, but Lucius wanted the extra security.
He survived an attempt to overthrow him not too long ago. Of course, the big showdown happened on my night off, because of course it did. Fortunately, he has Selene to protect him now. Then there was that recent business with a rogue vampire, Arthur, and his merry little band of miscreant thugs who blew into town, murdered the grandmother of a local coyote pack’s Alpha—and a bunch of others—and nearly started a massive war between the shifters and vampires.
Benny and I are only two of a handful of humans allowed access to Lucius’ home. I don’t take that trust lightly. The reason I’ve been able to move between shifter and vampire communities is that they trust me and take me in. I’ve learned the politics between the packs and nests and always avoid entangling myself in anything that could make me an enemy of either side. Although it is unique for vampires and shifters to form such a close alliance the way they have here in Tucson.
/> I hope it’s a sign of improving relations between the two factions.
Hey, a girl can dream.
Like I dream that, one day, maybe I’ll meet someone who can give me some solid answers about who and what I really am.
3
Dexter
I awaken about four hours before safe twilight and spend the time handling work issues that arose before I did. Because of my age, it’s rare I sleep from dawn to dusk anymore, unless I’m exceptionally tired. It’s not unusual for me to stay up long past dawn, if I’m home.
The people working for me in New Jersey think I have a “sun allergy.”
No, seriously, it’s a thing. Look it up. Only six of my people know I’m a vampire, including John, my head of security, and Mark, my valet, both of who are with me on this trip and staying in adjacent suites.
Neither will accompany me to Club Toxic tonight. They’re humans, and while quite capable of defending themselves—and me—under normal circumstances, I’d prefer they have little contact with Lucius’ vampires, for now. They are too valuable to me to lose them in a misunderstanding, and I refuse to take unnecessary risks with their lives and safety. There will be plenty of time for them to become acquainted with the principals in the Tucson vampire nest once Lucius publicly announces our deal to his people. I prefer human employees to vampires simply because my experience is they’re more loyal and less likely to want to “empire build.” They’re also more easily controlled, if need be.
My people who know I am a vampire come from families who have served me for nearly four centuries each and who I moved to America with me when I emigrated from the UK following World War II. They are sworn to protect my secret. I, in turn, make sure their families lack for nothing by paying them well.
No, I never feed from them.
Only one member in each generation knows my secret, usually the eldest son, although my current valet’s mother was my previous valet. She was the only child her father—my valet before her—produced. I’m not being chauvinistic. I’m being practical. I would hate that a woman working for me might not be able to be home with her baby or toddler, and I definitely don’t want to put her more at risk while she’s pregnant.
I’m immortal, not evil.
I relegated Mark’s mother to staying close to home when she was pregnant with him, only assisting me when I was in residence at the hotel. I wouldn’t let her travel with me again until Mark started preschool. When he was a baby, after she returned from maternity leave, I let her bring him to work. I was “Uncle Dexter” to him and was careful to conceal my true nature from him until he was old enough to decide to work for me after he graduated from college. I would let him work part-time once he was a teenager, on weekends and during holidays, so he could earn his own spending money.
Since I avoid getting involved in anything illegal, which helps insulate me and my corporate interests, the other members of their families think that one of my forebears made a pact with one of their ancestors to work for me in exchange for lucrative pay and that I take those oaths seriously even to this day.
Yes, I guarantee each new generation’s loyalty with a few mental nudges early on, but I treat them well and never need to compel them to work for me. One time, the eldest son in a generation had no desire to work for me, thinking it was “beneath” him. He obviously didn’t know I was a vampire. So, the second oldest son gladly took the job and was thus initiated into the secret.
I don’t need to have my own security tonight. Lucius knows better than to let anything happen to me while I am in his territory, just like I would protect him with my life were he in mine on announced business. I’m on amicable terms with him, and it’s because I can afford to be. He might have the manpower, but I have the money and a corporate machine behind me, with plenty of safeguards in place that could ruin him—and many other vampires—should he ever try to fuck with me.
Which is another reason I’ve kept my distance from Lucius in recent years. Lately, he tends to attract the attention of law enforcement, due to some of his illegal enterprises, and I don’t wish to draw similar attention to me and my business interests. It’d prove an annoyance.
As it is, it’s difficult enough to ensure pictures of me aren’t taken. I have three body doubles I employ full-time to make public appearances for me, none of whom know I am a vampire. Video cameras are prohibited in the elevators I use and on the floor where my suite is located, and we instead use infrared and thermal imaging cameras for security. That way, the security team never sees that I don’t show up on regular cameras.
Yes, the personnel who monitor the feeds have also been given mental nudges to not think about why I don’t show up on video. It’s easier that way.
Except Lucius is the closest thing I have to family. I prefer the world with him in it, and thus we get along, even if we tend to have differences of opinion over certain topics, especially regarding humans. He tends to be overly lenient with his sired when they rebel and try to overthrow him.
Yet another reason I haven’t pursued turning more people. It’s difficult enough to maintain a normal life as it is. Bringing in someone who might want to overthrow me eventually?
No, thank you.
I, on the other hand, tend to view humans as commodities not for food, even though they are that, but for income opportunities. I have been virtually alone for so long that I don’t know how to live any other way, to be honest.
Lucius, I believe, desperately wants to not be alone. I understand that because it is painful to watch the world spin on, to see humans pass and have no one to share those weighty emotions with, and to know that many who are like you have taken a very lackadaisical approach regarding humans. I mean, you normally don’t mourn the passing of dairy cows, unless you have one particular pet cow you’re fond of. They tend to blur together with little to distinguish one from another.
I, on the other hand, intently have focused on amassing wealth. Lucius focused on amassing a found family, of sorts.
Dysfunctional and toothy, but who am I to judge?
I don’t know why I let Lucius talk me into going to his club tonight. The man really is a silver-tongued devil.
Oh, wait, I do know why.
It’s the same reason I’ve struggled to stay focused on work issues today—the mystery supplier of that most delicious ambrosia I’ve ever sipped.
I have to meet whoever Lucius procures that blood from. If for no other reason than I want to sit down with them, talk to them, get to know them.
Get to know the person who awakened my senses like this. My cock stirs again as I think about it, and I resist the urge to stroke myself to completion like I did last night.
The first such reactions I’ve experienced in…too damned long. The closest analog I have is how I felt about Robert when I first met him and fed from him.
In fact, when I pour myself a large glass of purchased blood tonight from the supply Mark stocked for me in my suite, it tastes flat and bland. I find myself longing for what I had last night, which is even more reason I need to take my fill now.
Just in case.
I must remain in control.
I wait until a little before ten to leave for Club Toxic in the rented SUV. Yes, I’m driving myself tonight. I’m no stranger to blood clubs and have visited the best around the world. Never wanted to get involved with running one, though.
Attracts too many of the wrong kinds of people.
Human, and otherwise.
I prefer to buy blood for regular feeding. If I end up sleeping with someone, I’ll feed off them, and then they think I simply got a little nippy during sex. I do get consent for biting, blood play, and “feral play.” I never take more than a little from them if I feed from them.
Of course, I can’t tell them I’m a vampire. Are you mad? I don’t like to wipe minds more often than necessary. I always make sure I’ve fed well before being with someone I intend to play with, so I’m not hungry. I refuse to make mistakes.
Have I killed people?
Countless.
Wish I was kidding about that.
Most of them in battle, or people who deserved killing—the worst of humanity.
While I’m sure early on there are likely deaths of innocents on my conscience, in the last seven or eight hundred years, I have not killed anyone without clear cause.
Or, in some cases, to put them out of their misery. There were quite a few in World War II who met that standard, mortally wounded and suffering, and I hastened their departure while giving them pleasure in the process.
Unlike some vampires, I refuse to kill humans for sport.
But I require my sexual partners share my interest in kink. Even if all I do is spank them and give them rough sex, vanilla really doesn’t do it for me anymore. I’ve been alive a long time. Missionary position gets awfully boring, after a while.
I’ve been to plenty of BDSM clubs around the world and have done far more in private. I especially love shibari, subduing a partner with intricate rope patterns, not even needing to use my powers on them to drop them into subspace and sweeten their blood—it’s exhilarating.
My skills with other implements are equally adept.
I have a lot of time on my hands to practice.
Lucius has decided to pair a blood club with a BDSM club, to give his special clientele more fang for their buck, if you’ll forgive the turn of phrase. They’re willing to pay to access sweetbloods—humans drunk on the high of subspace, their veins coursing not just with blood but endorphins and dopamine and adrenaline, along with all the other lovely natural chemicals that are intoxicating to my kind.
Ingenious. It’s a wonder more vampires don’t open BDSM clubs. In the wake of popular fiction taking the Fifty Shades phenomenon mainstream, you’d think this kind of cash cow operation would be a draw for our kind. A lucrative business paired with nearly unlimited feeding opportunities.
Her Vampire Obsession Page 3