by Pepper Pace
Despite the discomfort I rode him quickly sensing that he was nearing the end. When his fingers dug into my thighs I stopped abruptly and bounced my ass hard and fast on him and we both came yelling; me in English and he in his strange unknown language.
When I could finally breathe I saw that Alexis was staring at me, flushed. I moved to climb off of him and his hands gripped me and held me in place. I relaxed again feeling him still hard inside of me.
"What was that move you did at the end?" He asked.
"The booty bounce?"
"Booty bounce." He whispered to himself. I guess he'd never been to a strip club in an all black neighborhood. Then I'd have to have him watch THE PLAYERS CLUB sometime.
"Mostly black women do it because they got some junk in the trunk."
"Junk in the trunk?" I held back a laugh.
"A big butt." I said. He was smiling at me.
"What were you saying when you came? It was in another language."
"Oh..." He blushed and it was adorable. "I...don't remember." He lied poorly.
"Next time, say it in English, okay?"
"Okay." He said. His eyes hooded and he rotated his hips beneath him. "It's next time."
"Alexis!" I started laughing and I guess the tensing and un-tensing of my muscles from laughing actually brought him again, just that quickly!
He gasped out, "Oh YES, my love...do the booty bounce! Do the booty bounce..."
After he came this time I was too tired to stay on top and I carefully rolled off of him and he cradled me in his arms. I made sure to note that his erection had deflated so that I could take time to catch my breath.
"Booty bounce." He said mostly to himself. "I love the booty bounce."
"In twelve hundred years no woman has ever done the booty bounce on you?"
He looked embarrassed again. "I haven't...been inside of a woman in close to four hundred years."
I had to sit up on my elbows for that one. "Four hundred years?! Why?!"
He stared up at the ceiling with a horrified look on his face. "I don't know...Am I insane?!" Then he peeked at me and smiled. I rested my chin on his shoulder. I loved Alexis when he was like this. My heartbeat sped up...loved?
"Why?" I insisted.
"Oh, Kim. It is not a story I would tell you now when we are still warm from loving each other. Later, my love." He stood up and gave me a hands up. I needed a bathroom right away to clean up. Alexis followed me into the shower and we washed each other. Of course that led to more love making which ended in the four poster bed.
"Alexis, do we...?"
"What?" He had been twirling a strand of my hair over his fingertip.
"Uh...our teeth."
He stared at me. "We're not Nera-Vampires here. If we were going to drop teeth and do all the things Vampires do, there would be no need for this place."
"Okay...because I'm hungry."
He smiled. "I am, too." He sat up. "I'm going to make us something to eat."
"You are? Do you know how to cook?"
He opened a closet containing another pair of white linen pants then tossed me clothes that mirrored exactly what I had been wearing before."
"Of course I know how to cook...You might not like it..."
"I'm kinda picky..." I grimaced. I hoped he wasn't going to make some boiled, old world food...
"Do you like eggs?"
"Yeah."
"Cheese?
"Oh yeah."
"How about an omelet?"
"Ooooh. Yum."
Alexis whipped up cheese omelets and we drank sweet wine. After I did the dishes (yeah, they didn't magically get clean and Alexis wasn't getting the concept of a dishwasher) we went back out to the beach to take a walk. We got back in time to sit on the Adirondack chairs and watch the sun go down.
Alexis built a fire in the large fireplace and we made love again on the rug.
Afterwards we went to bed holding each other and kissing softly.
Sleep was sleep...not death. I woke up once to the sound of Alex's quiet snores. I snuggled against his neck to the smell of soap and shampoo and he clasped me tight in his sleep.
CHAPTER 16
When I woke up the next morning...it actually was morning. The sun was shining brightly through the large window. I stretched, enjoying the feel of the oversized bed. Where was Alexis? I heard music from downstairs and smelled...coffee!
He looked at me when I entered the kitchen then pushed a frying pan off the burner.
"Good morning, love." He kissed me.
"Good morning. What are you cooking?"
"Pour yourself some coffee. Breakfast is almost ready." He went back to cooking his mystery breakfast while I had coffee. "How did you sleep?"
"It was great. I actually slept and not...passed out. How'd you sleep?"
"Good," He said absently. "I figured out the dishwasher." He gestured to it. "And I brought some of your music." Then I noticed that music was already playing and with a pleasant jolt I realized that it was Neo soul and Deangelo's sexy voice was crooning from the hidden speakers. I was feeling right at home.
He brought the skillet over to the table and spooned something on to the plate in front of me. He spooned some onto his own plate and then he put the skillet in the sink.
I stared at it confused. "What...is it?"
"When I lived on the farm we used to eat this almost every morning. Cow brains, steak, blood sausage and stewed oats."
I stood up and kissed his nose. "I'm just going to have some cereal. Can you mesmerize some Cheerios and milk?" He concentrated on me then glanced at one of the cupboards.
"Cheerios in the cupboard and milk in the fridge." He ate a great forkful of food. "You don't know what you're missing, love."
I made my breakfast but did end up eating the steak after I'd finished the cheerios.
"What are we going to do today?" I asked while loading the dishwasher.
"Make love."
"Oh." I said breathlessly.
We did make love. And we did the same thing the next day, and the day after that. When we weren't making love we played on the beach, listened to music. We even had a barbecue. We went fishing sometimes and one night we even took a bubble bath together.
***
"Alexis," I said one night. We had a blanket spread out on the beach and we were watching the stars. "When are we going back?" I had thought the question many times but didn't want to know the answer. This place was my haven. A part of me wanted to stay here forever...but another part needed to know what was happening back in the real world.
Alexis looked at me. "It's not time, love."
"Why?"
He turned back to look at the stars.
"Alexis?"
He looked afraid. He sat up quickly and watched me. "I would not hurt you for anything...if you go back now there will be much pain."
I swallowed. "What's going on back there?"
"You are fighting for your life."
"Am I going to die?"
"No." He answered quickly.
I looked at my tattooed wrists. "Am I...terribly scarred?"
He looked at me sadly. "Yes." My eyes closed. I felt his hands on my face. I held it there for a moment before getting up and walking along the shore alone.
After a bit he joined me. "Will I ever look the same again?" I asked.
"In time."
"Years?"
He didn't respond.
"Decades?"
"I don't know."
He took my hand and we walked quietly. He finally spoke. "Remember when you asked me why I have not made love in so many years?"
I looked at him.
"Yes."
"I will tell you now." We walked a while longer while he collected his thoughts. "My life began simply. I was the son of a farmer. We had a large family but there seemed to always be more work then we could ever complete in one day. I hated the work. It was endless and tedious." He stared out at the ocean and bid us sit on the sand. "I left
home to fight in the army when I was ten or eleven and ran away soon after. I became an apprentice to a..." He searched for the word. "Scientist and scholar. He educated and abused me so I ran away from him, too. Then because I was good with numbers I became the bookkeeper for a large tavern. Our land was always at war so I was...drafted to fight again. The Governor had lost so many of his workers to the war that when he heard that I could read and count he made me his accountant. Anything was better than the battle field. It was a great coup to work in the Governors castle. My job was to go from business to business collecting the Government's share of the taxes.
"All of the warring had put a strain on our lands and money was scarce. Many struggled just to keep their heads above water. They had nothing more to give the Governor. When they didn't have money they gave me other things; whatever I would take. And I would change the books to reflect their payment made.
"Mostly it was sex. Men sold wives, or sold daughters." He looked at me sadly. "Sometimes they even sold their children." He looked away ashamed. "Even though children was never my appetite I did, at times, arrange for them to be sold to the army or for the entertainment of others." I clasped my hands in my lap in shock. "Sometimes it seemed that I was nothing more than a traveling whoremonger. From town to town and city to city all I did was have my way with one person after another. Even when I returned to the Governor's castle, a young man still alive at war time was a rare thing and I was the play thing of every Duchess rather she was 16 or 60." Alexis stared back out to the sea. "Many years this went on. It was tiresome but...sometimes all a haggard woman with four kids and a husband that worked from sun up to sun down had was the weak pleasure between her thighs. In all my years as the Governor's tax man I never once met someone that I would love or that would love me...not once.
"And then one night as I was once again drinking to excess, an exotic woman from a foreign land spoke to me at the tavern. She was so pale. In those days paleness was a sign of richness. It meant that one did not have to make living toiling the land. She was the most beautiful woman that I'd ever met." He turned to look at me. "You know what happened next. I can bore you by telling you what happened for the next eight hundred years...but in truth nothing much changed. As an undead creature my desires were satisfied with much sex from humans and Vampires alike. Sometimes it seemed that all I lived for was to pursue pleasures." His brow furrowed. "Eight hundred years, Kim! Every night! Every week and Every year for eight hundred years.
"One day I found that I could not stand to be touched. Sex had long lost its appeal. When you can have anything you want, in any way...after a time you don't want it anymore."
"But what about love, Alexis? In all your years you have never loved?"
"I loved the one who had turned me...for hundreds of years. But she did not love me in return. I loved a human, but she would not be turned and her life was only a blink of my eye. There were others, Vampires. There was one in particular," Alexis was shaking his head. "It doesn't matter. If it was love, it was used only to pass the time...not like..."
He stood up. "It's getting late. We should get back."
I took his hand. "I'm so sorry, baby. I'm really sorry." He kissed the back of my hand.
About two weeks after this Alexis and I were skinny dipping in the ocean. We had become accustomed to the cold of the water. We'd just alternate between sunbathing and swimming. I had become quite brown from my constant exposure to the sun and Alexis, with his middle eastern heritage was not far behind me.
Alexis was trying to grab my legs and pull me under when suddenly my skin began to feel hot. Even though the water was chilly the burning became unbearable. I didn't know if something was in the water or maybe I'd been stung. But no, the sensation was everywhere!
Alexis laughingly grabbed me around my middle and I screamed out in pain.
"Kim! What's wrong?!"
Tears of agony began sprouting from my eyes as I tried to find my voice. "Ow! Alexis I'm burning!" When I looked at my hands they were turning an angry red and before my eyes my fingers began to melt away...
Alexis swirled around and looked at something behind him. "No..." I heard him gasp.
And then it was as if I were enclosed in fire. Oh my God! Was I still in the mesh curtain all of this time and my weeks with Alexis had been just another blink of his eye?
I struggled against something and my eyes opened. I felt like I had vertigo because the world wavered momentarily. The pain was so intense that I opened my mouth but no sound came out.
All I could see was a blur. But something was holding me down and it hurt to be touched.
"Please, Kim, don't move. Tony!" It sounded like Monica. I turned to the sound of her voice and tried to calm myself. I blinked rapidly and my vision cleared some.
I tossed my head back and forth at the all over pain. I was lying on a bed covered in a white sheet and I was wearing a long white cotton gown. When I looked at my hands they were gnarled and appeared incomplete...My eyes grew wide. Alexis? Where was he?
Tony suddenly appeared at my side. He took in the sight of me quickly. "Oh, Baby. Don't move...please. You're going to hurt yourself worse."
I tried to stay still but soon I was throwing my head back and forth in agony. I heard running footsteps and then my other blood donors were there surrounding my bed.
"What is she doing awake?! It's too soon. She's not healed." I heard the female voice but couldn't decide who had spoken. I reached out to take Tony's hand and heard him moan softly.
"I can't...touch you. The burns." I was a holy vessel, is that what he meant? Soon I realized that this was no longer a factor when he leaned over me careful not to touch me. His neck was inches from my mouth. I barely remembered sinking my teeth in to him. But as I drank I could feel myself becoming more invigorated. It seemed that too soon he pulling away from me and Monica was in his place offering her neck. I fed again, more controlled now but still frantic as if I were starving. I understood that my body needed the blood to heal itself. Each drop of blood repaired a blood vessel or renewed a cell. I would need many many drops before I was healed. When Monica's breathing became haggard she too was pulled away from me and another neck was offered to me...Tyler's, and after her another; a young girl that I did not recognize and then person after person until I could no longer feed.
I alternated between sleep and feeding but when I slept it was the sleep of death and I did not return to Alexis' home. Each time I awoke the pain was almost unbearable. And it seemed that I only woke to feed and then I slept again.
One evening when I awoke to cry out in pain a sound finally issued from my throat. "Alexis."
Another night I awoke quietly. My room was empty. Again my pain was severe but slowly I rolled until I could sit up carefully. I still wore the gown and was happy that I wouldn't have to look at my scarred body.
I stood slowly and took a tentative step forward. I glanced at my hands. My fingers were now present again, but still horribly scarred.
I walked slowly to the window and looked out at the stars. "Alexis..." I yearned to go back to our beach house. My eye closed. "I want to go home..."
CHAPTER 17
I fingered my sunglasses. It seemed that all I ever did was yearn for something. Right now I was wishing for my best friend. But I could not even call her anymore. When I was in my coma Monica had followed the instructions of the will. She had contacted Arnitra as well as the other members of my family and told her that I had been killed in an accident. She had given her my will and enough money to take care of her and every member of my family for a life time.
Julie convinced me that it was for the best. Oh Julie, she was my new Lieutenant. She had collected the most rogues. Out of the hundreds that had been captured how many had been put to death? None. Technically they had never run away since there was no commander to run away from.
Julie was surprising herself. She had been turned by a rogue at the age of twelve. She was forever trapped in a prepubescent body
. She was tough, though and that was due to the fact that she was over a hundred years old. And that she appeared little more than a child lowered people's guard and not just people, but other Vampires. Because of this and her skill as a vampire, Julie won the position of First Lieutenant.