Richard fell to his knees and begged, burying his head in my bosom, his fingers maggots crawling over my flesh. I extracted myself from his arms and left— but he wasn’t quite finished with me.
Ethan called from time to time and sent huge bouquets every day to my dressing room, the cards addressed to his “Bird of Prey.” Then, right before Ethan was due back, Richard got his revenge.
I awakened one morning, a few days before our last performance, very sick. I got up from bed, stomach flipping over, and ran to the bathroom to retch into the toilet. A cold sweat broke out as I sank to the floor, head between my knees. My period was almost two weeks late and I was always like clockwork. Now I had to call Richard. He agreed to meet me after the show that night. I didn’t tell why I wanted to see him. I really hoped I was wrong, but I was very scared.
At the theatre, I threw up again in the bathroom. Another actress ran to call the stage manager, a thin, intense, dark-haired man with a cigarette perpetually glued to his lips. The curtain was held for fifteen minutes. When we finally went up, I had difficulty concentrating. It was everything I could do to keep from running off stage to vomit again. I struggled to finish the show. As I sat removing my make-up afterward, there was a knock at my dressing room door.
“Mia, your friend is here,” called the ASM. “In the green room.”
Ethan! I was overjoyed, until I remembered the new twist in the plot. I had to see him, even if it might be for the last time. Tears welled up, as I ran to the green room.
A vision glittered before me, dressed in impeccable evening clothes. As he held his arms out the floor gave way. He stepped forward to catch me, carrying me to the small beat-up leather sofa against the wall. Laying me down tenderly on it, Ethan felt my pulse and laid his hand against my abdomen. Voices buzzed and someone went to fetch a glass of water. Ethan waved them all away. “Leave us,” he growled. Naked despair swam in Ethan’s eyes when I looked up at him. “How long have you been in this condition?”
“A few weeks maybe.”
“Anything I can do to assist you?”
I cried into his crisp white shirt. “You promised nothing would keep you from me.”
“Best I let you go now. I’m sorry but I must.” He caressed my hair.
I pulled away and rubbed at my eyes, sniffling. “I understand. It isn’t your responsibility. It’s Richard’s kid.”
Ethan frowned. “Have you told him?”
“Not yet.”
He reached into his coat, pulling out a black leather card case. He took out a card. “You can reach me here should you need assistance. I deeply regret things didn’t work out as we planned. Please— call if you need me.” Kissing my forehead, he rose, leaving me desperate.
Richard met me outside in his car with an amused expression on his face, enjoying my dilemma too much. He wrapped himself around me, exhaling a solution mixed with cigarette smoke into my face. “Get rid of it.”
My Catholic conscience recoiled in horror. “It’s murder!”
He went on smoking as I stared out the window at the passing traffic on the narrow street. “Fine, go to some home and give it up. You can kiss your career and your southerner goodbye, or you tell him it was a false alarm. I go on living on Katherine’s money. Everyone’s happy. What you wouldn’t do to feed your ambition— a role on Broadway and a rich pretty boy on the side. I’ll even pay for it, as long as you promise to keep your big Italian mouth shut.”
I couldn’t carry to term the child of a man I hated. No tender maternal instincts for this tiny monster feeding on my blood. I had to be free to join my Ethan. Demons howled at the windows calling me to dance with them. I let them in and opened my arms wide.
I lay there in misery, raw and bleeding afterward. I hated Richard for doing this to me, and how I hated myself. This was punishment for my sins. I was in hell. Selena was right again. They took Richard’s money and pushed me out the door. Richard walked me to the car and helped me inside. I couldn’t lift my legs, slabs of dead meat. He lifted my feet into the car. I must’ve passed out, because next thing I knew we were pulling up outside my building.
The cramps were worse. I couldn’t rid myself of the feeling something had gone horribly wrong. He came around to my door and opened it. His eyes were cold gray disks. One of us had successfully distanced himself from the act. He got me to my feet. I stood on the sidewalk, blinking, disoriented. It was late afternoon. That mood of that long-ago Greenwich Village street was relatively serene. Waning spring sun bathed stone buildings in rosy gold light. Branches of still bare trees trembled gently in the breeze. The cerulean sky was dotted with fluffy white pompons of cumulous clouds. At the corner store, buckets of multi-colored blooms burned brilliant as a Van Gogh. I’ve fixed that moment firmly into my memory. I wish I’d stayed there for just a moment longer.
The climb to my third floor walk-up nearly did me in. Cursing, Richard finally lifted and carried me the rest of the way. Depositing me on my twin bed, he tucked a pillow under my feet and covered me with a blanket. “Try to sleep.”
I awoke alone in the dark. My head ached horribly with a sound like blood rushing through it. Warm stickiness ran between my thighs, running and running, soaking the bed linens. Something was wrong. I tried to sit up. My head swam. Nausea overcame me, the cramping unbearable. Where was Richard, the sonofabitch? I shouldn’t have been bleeding this much. It was suddenly, sickeningly evident my womb was gushing from the spot where the thing we’d made had been ripped. I was bleeding to death.
I struggled to roll over and grab the receiver of phone on the night table next to the bed. With shaking, chilled fingers I dialed Richard’s number. It rang for an eternity.
I fumbled for the white card with Ethan’s number on it. Somehow, I dialed the phone again. It rang and rang, until he picked up. “Yes?”
“Ethan, it’s Mia. I’m bleeding— help me.”
The phone slipped through my fingers as I sank to the mattress in terror, unable to move from the spot. A cold, black hurricane swirled in around me. I cried for help silently, my voice not obeying my will.
Then a presence filled the room. A large, warm hand soothed my forehead, smoothing the damp hair back. I floated above the bed. I figured I must be dying, because I hovered, suspended in mid-air about to be borne off to the afterlife. But was I in the arms of an angel or a demon? It couldn’t be an angel, not after what I’d just done.
Through the fog of my semi-conscious state a voice flowed— rich and melodious— the voice of an outraged, avenging angel. His warmth enveloped me, staving off the creeping chill paralyzing my limbs. I struggled to open my eyes. Two frosty orbs of blue light looked down. I cried. He calmed me, kissing my forehead. “Hush now, rest my little broken bird.”
I clung to him with what strength I had left. “Ethan— I’m so scared!”
“You’re dying, little one.”
“Don’t let me die! I killed my baby. I’ll go to hell!”
“Hush, you’re not going anywhere without me. Did he force you to do this?”
Tears rolled down my face, as I confessed, “I wanted you so desperately.”
His voice took on this note of urgency, “Understand what I’m about to offer. It’s not something to be taken lightly.” I shivered. He held me closer. “Think Mia, before you choose. We haven’t much time, but you must to do this with the awareness of what we’re undertaking. You know what a vampire is?”
Why on earth was he asking me this ridiculous question? I reached in and pulled a name from the file drawer of my memory, a Hollywood icon. “Like Dracula?”
“A fairy story, Mia, look at me!” I opened my eyes wide and beheld the wonder he was. He spoke gently, not as forcefully like in the restaurant. “I’m what some call a vampire, but I’m a living, breathing creature— not a foul animated corpse. Immortal. I want you to become like me. You’ll never suffer from illness and remain young forever. But there’s a price, cara mia.”
I was still reeling, telling
myself this must be a nightmare. “Drink blood?”
“We take the life force so we may live eternally. Are you willing to do this, to kill and drink the blood of living human beings to survive? Are you ready to accept this and join me forever?”
Intellectually, I understood what he was saying but I was motivated purely by the flesh. “Would you stay with me?”
“You’ll be mine forever, to love and protect.” Then he said the most extraordinary thing. “I need you so, Mia.”
Well, that was all he needed to say. I was so terrified of being left alone and dying that his promise was the ultimate seduction. Eternity with that beautiful being? You gotta be kidding if you think I hesitated for a moment.
Taking great care not to jostle me, he laid me down on the bed and eased his body next to mine. The smooth swell of his perfect mouth met mine; rapture to finally be in his embrace, whatever the cost. Suddenly, his hands and mouth were all over me as he stripped the blood-soaked clothing from my torn body and licked me all over like an animal that’s given birth. The delicious sweep of that warm, wet tongue aroused in spite of the chill overtaking my body. He panted and shuddered, tearing off his clothes as he licked. Boy oh boy, the splendor of that incredible form, smooth, white and spectacularly hard. He gashed his throat. Drops of the old delicious claret beaded up along the edge of the wound. My body screamed for it.
Cradling my head in his hands, he guided my mouth to the wound. Heat radiated against my lips. Wonder of wonders, a vampire not cold like death, but so warm, so alive. Boom, boom, his heartbeat was strong and vital. He tasted of the sea, the source of life. I sucked and sucked, couldn’t stop myself if I tried, even though it was sickeningly hot and syrupy.
Then, a popping sensation started, a tingle in my flesh, goose bumps on the inside of my body, rushing through my veins and arteries. I actually felt my cells changing and healing.
The bleeding in my womb was stanched. It would never bleed again. A sharp metallic scent filled the air. Then, it happened, the moment of creation, an electric pulse galvanized my cells and gave birth to the vampiric. New awareness came over my awakened senses. No smell, no taste, and no texture you sense as a mortal ever comes close to the pure sensual, animal glory of the world we experience.
Ethan’s fangs drove into my wrist, an exquisite, hot pain. A climax rocked my body— ten times stronger than anything I ever experienced with Richard. All conscious thought evaporated. All that existed was he and I and the blood passing between us. Light blazed white-hot in him, around him and I rushed toward it headlong. It was the beautiful dreamtime state I couldn’t remember that first night with him. Sensations invaded me, desire, joy, glimpses of heaven inside of the demon, then in the shadowy edges of his consciousness, something veiled… ”
Joe stood up suddenly and rubbed his hand agitatedly against his forehead. “Whoa, now I have a few questions.”
She swallowed hard. “Whatever you want to know, Doctor.”
“You actually felt your body change?”
“Like a million orgasms all over and inside of my body— alternately horrifying and beautiful, ecstasy from the inside out.”
“You’re some kind of empaths? You actually see inside of the psyche?”
The line of questioning irritated her. “It’s different for everyone, but it’s not so much something you perceive intellectually so much as something you feel reverberating through you. Sometimes I remember distinctly, other times… ”
“You have some unique ability in this way?”
“I can see a lot more than most, but only if the other is unguarded. When someone keeps a demon very close, it’s locked inside the subconscious and the only way you can see is if they are unaware, like when they’re asleep or otherwise preoccupied, like really horny.”
“Doesn’t seem possible.”
She became very still. Was a tempest brewing? He watched for it yet her response was surprisingly clear and her tone ladylike.
“I’m sure you’ll find it’s just some biochemical magic. Can’t you just smell the Nobel Prize?”
Standing in front of her place at the desk, he continued to marvel, “This is incredible! I thought it was all about strength and agility, sensory apparatus, but a way to see into the mind… ”
“I don’t read minds.” She searched for the right words. “I… feel impressions of their memory. I’m told it’s almost exclusively a female trait and rare at that.”
He met her eyes. Dark mirrors glittered silently back. Before he couldn’t hold her gaze for long, but he was unable to turn away now. “Incredible.”
“There’s a down side. Think about it.”
“I can’t stop thinking! There’s so much I want to know. You perceive actual images?”
“Sometimes it’s a scenario, a real cast of characters and setting and all, other times it’s much cloudier. This first time, he was full of blinding light… but he was hiding.”
“How could you tell?”
She shrugged. “That’s how I remember it, like I was watching him on television. Suddenly the monitor went blank. When the picture came back, he’d switched the channel, new program.”
“Did it reveal anything about him?”
“That he had a lot to hide. I just didn’t know what. Eventually, I got around to figuring it out. Jungian psychoanalyst, that’s me. Dreams read and revealed, see the truth as it unfolds in gory Technicolor.”
“There’s a biochemical reason for dreams and for this— what do you call it?”
“Sharing essence.”
“Apparently there’s a chemical message sent to your brain via the blood exchange. Somehow messages from the brain of your partner are relayed to yours. Possibly the cerebral cortex is stimulated. The brains of syphilitics are sometimes tormented by spirochetes long after they are cured of the actual symptoms of the disease. They hallucinate, experience heightened sexual desire but I’m inclined to think your dream centers are stimulated. Push the right buttons in the brain and you can get all kinds of weird responses. The question is, what component in the blood carries this message to the brain, and so rapidly?”
She mulled over this idea. Someone had taught her a little science. Her vocabulary revealed that. “How can it help us, or you, for that matter?”
“Anything that helps us to understand the function of your brain is important. Clearly if you’re decapitated, you die. Obviously the brain is vital to your survival. It’s perhaps the source of your immortality. Other parts of your body can be injured and heal rapidly but not the brain from what you’ve said. Why not? This is something we need to find out. Also how does the brain control your behavior? The brain is like a computer, hardwired to perform specific tasks in a specific manner, some believe from birth, but other evidence points to crucial windows of development open to stimulation in the first years of life to form the neurons vital to normal human behavior and intelligence. However we’ve also observed individuals suffering severe injuries being able to regain functions that should have been lost because other areas of the brain have taken over the work, indicating that maybe the hard wiring isn’t so hard and fast. The question for you seems to be where has the wiring been switched and where has it stayed the same.”
A tantalizing smile appeared on her moist lips. “You make me sound like a machine, not a creature of flesh and blood.”
He looked at her, all too flesh and blood for his comfort. “It’s just a way of looking at things. We’ve been accused of reducing the soul to a circuit board.”
One feathery dark brow inched up. “What do you believe, Joe?”
He was taken aback. Just what did he believe? Was there a soul beyond the firing of the neurons? He couldn’t believe in anything he couldn’t explain, going through the motions of religion not to offend his family, but he didn’t really believe in God or an immortal soul. Still, what made an individual unique and human? That was certainly some kind of a soul. “I’m not really sure,” he admitted.
“Onl
y way to find out. Beats sex a hundred to one. Tempted to be my partner in joy?”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Let’s make it a standing invitation.” A secretive little smile twitched the corners of her mouth. “Shall I continue?”
Joe nodded and resumed his seat.
“The intensity grew to be too much, we pulled apart, gasping with pleasure as we collapsed panting on the bed, our bodies wet with perspiration, barely touching but very aware of the other next to it. Then Ethan pulled over me and slid into my… ”
Joe spoke up, “We can skip the next part.”
“Jesus! Well, just let me say this, my darling doctor, no mortal male can compare, for sheer endurance or intensity, and Ethan was unbelievably skilled on top of that. There’s no human equivalent.”
“Then why bother with mortals?”
“Blood is everything with mortals.” She leaned forward, provocatively. “Unless of course we see our own qualities inherent in them… Well, the honeymoon was off to an arousing start. Honeymoons, however, have this habit of ending much too soon.”
Joe interrupted her again, “How old was he exactly?”
“As a mortal, he fought as a cavalry officer with Stuart and then became a confederate spy. Quite a history but I didn’t learn much about it until later. At this point, it only served to romanticize him.
When we left my apartment that night, I left mortal existence behind forever. We went to the top of the Empire State Building to view the city. It was like a dream, overlooking it all from afar. I no longer felt kinship to mortals around us. A veil shimmered between us, through which I saw and heard in the abstract, like in a different dimension, one of light and air. They were plodding earthbound creatures— voices babble and faces featureless. Only Ethan was real.
All that night, we walked and talked together, along the waterfronts and through the parks, full of each other. Then as the sky began to lighten, we went to Ethan’s brownstone on the Upper East Side.
Cara Mia - Book One of the Immortyl Revolution Page 7