by Del Howison
How to Seduce a Vampire
But seduction isn’t making someone do what they don’t want to do. Seduction is enticing someone into doing what they secretly wanted to do already.
—Waiter Rant
Vampires are naturally ardent, sexual creatures, and most are sexually promiscuous and polyandrous. This is not to say that they are indiscreet, or that they will have sexual relations with just anyone.
Seduction generally refers to a sexual act, and your relationship with your vampire would never have gotten this far along if he wasn’t interested in what you have to offer. But you may have sensed something holding him back. It could be his obvious awareness of your mortality or his fear of his own overpowering seductive powers and abilities. Seducing him, as the quote at the top of this chapter indicates, involves your ability to get him to overcome whatever obstacle is preventing him from consummating your relationship and allowing him to do what he wants to.
Vampires are not all the same, and their tastes in mates and their sexual predilections are extremely diverse. However strongly you may feel about wanting to bed a vampire—any vampire—the bottom line is that you will not be happy with one that is incompatible with you. Don’t hold back on physical contact, but don’t be clingy or grossly demonstrative; give your vampire some space. Be flirtatious, but do it with flair and not foolishness. Feel free to express your vulnerabilities, but don’t present yourself as a victim. Be confident and self-assured, utilize your charm and wit, look your best, and express yourself openly with regards to lovemaking. Make your needs and your limitations known. Any vampire worth your time will respect your boundaries, and if he or she doesn’t, move on.
One of your greatest allies in seduction is your charm and, surprisingly enough, your sense of modesty. Clothing that teases without revealing too much is a wonderful sidekick in a seduction drama. You need to tease but not give until you can tell that he is properly aroused and in a state of desiring you and only you. Your charm and wit will help you conversationally to tempt and steer the situation until his craving for you is almost at the point of no return.
Goethe’s poem “The Bridge of Corinth” appropriately exemplifies the power of modest seduction:
To the youth the goblet then she brought,—
He too quaff’d with eager joy the bowl.
Love to crown the silent feast he sought,
Ah! full love-sick was the stripling’s soul.
From his prayer she shrinks,
Till at length he sinks
On the bed and weeps without control.
And she comes, and lays her near the boy:
“How I grieve to see thee sorrowing so!
If thou think’st to clasp my form with joy,
Thou must learn this secret sad to know;
Yes! the maid, whom thou
Call’st thy loved one now,
Is as cold as ice, though white as snow.”
Then he clasps her madly in his arm,
While love’s youthful might pervades his frame:
“Thou might’st hope, when with me, to grow warm.
Een if from the grave thy spirit came!
Breath for breath, and kiss!
Overflow of bliss!
Dost not thou, like me, feel passion’s flame?”
Love still closer rivets now their lips,
Tears they mingle with their rapture blest,
From his mouth the flame she wildly sips,
Each is with the other’s thought possess’d.
His hot ardour’s flood
Warms her chilly blood,
But no heart is beating in her breast.
* * * *
Eros Ex Machina: A Discussion of Vampires and Sexuality
The primary method of reproduction for vampires is through the spread of the pathogen. Homo striga is a unique species in as far as they procreate through the transference of an infectious agent and are capable of mammalian reproduction with humans. For reasons that scientists have not yet been able to isolate, vampires cannot mate with one another and successfully produce offspring.
Both male and female vampires are fertile, though they are not as prolific as humans. A female vampire’s estrous cycle changes as she ages. The estrous cycle of a vampire is approximately 93 days for many hundreds of years. Once she reaches somewhere around 500 years old, her cycle extends, gradually, until it plateaus at approximately once every 800 days when she reaches roughly 1,000 years of age. A vampire’s eumenorrhea lasts 72 hours and is accompanied by chemical changes that augment physical strength, mental acuity, and vigor for the duration of her period. Menstruation in vampire culture is not hidden or shunned, and many rituals and customs have formed around this biological process.
Among some venerable Western European vampire clans, a ritual of seclusion is observed called the Cloistering, wherein a female vampire channels her amplified power inward, using the time for self-strengthening and introspection. Scandinavian Viking vampire women used the enhanced power they receive during this time to assist the Viking warriors on their conquests. Many sub-Saharan vampire clans celebrate the onset of a vampire’s menstruation with joyous sporting events that pantomime the hunt. Semitic Kabbalist vampires refer to eumenorrhea as the Gift of the Night Spectre, and it is a time when vampire women contemplate the Grand Lady of All Demons and the manifestation of the divine as matter in this world. Near the Mayan ruins at Chichén Itza, relics have been unearthed that point to Mesoamerican vampiric rituals in which stingray spines were used in blood sacrifice venerating Chicomecoatl, a goddess of fecundity and human fertility, but was also the patroness and Queen of Vampires, as she helped maintain the balance between the needs of the two peoples. These rituals were performed by vampire priestesses of Chicomecoatl only during the times of their menstruation. Very few of these rituals are in practice today, and they survive primarily among isolated, rural vampire communities.
Vampire males have phenomenally high sperm counts compared with human males, and their spermatozoa is aggressive and tenacious. Approximately 700 million to 1 billion spermatozoa are released at ejaculation. Despite this, human females have difficulty conceiving with a vampire, as vampire sperm is extremely susceptible to the lactic acid in their native microflora.
Pregnant vampires are extremely rare, and it is difficult for a vampire to conceive. Scientists at the Academia Secretorum Naturae have found that human sires with the AB Rh-negative blood type are most likely to impregnate vampire females. Gestation is approximately nine months, as it is with humans. The offspring of one vampire parent with one human parent is always a dhampyr, no matter which is the dam and which is the sire.
Shapeshifting: A Form of Foreplay?
I woke. she fled, and day brought back my night.
—Edgar Allan Poe
Arousal, psychological and physical, is what foreplay is all about, and it encompasses the all things that a couple does to heighten each other’s excitement. Foreplay signals sexual availability, but need not always lead to sexual intercourse.
While a vampire has an extremely powerful sex drive, enhanced senses, and a biologically driven sensuality, their basic needs and desires in this arena are very similar to a humans. It goes without saying that kissing, with and without bloodletting, is universally appealing, and physical enticement can encompass everything from gentle touching, teasing, and sensual massage to direct manipulation of erogenous zones, the inclusion of sex toys, and mutual masturbation. For some, foreplay can include bondage, role-playing, and rough play. And it isn’t limited to fondling; it can include verbal encouragement, ranging from subtle suggestion and clever double entendres to gloriously crass, filthy talk.
Many vampires, jaded by centuries of conventional sex, find pleasure in S&M and fetish activities. Some humans are also drawn to this, either because of the release found in power exchange and the ecstasy of erotic sexual denial or the dark joy of algolagnia.
When a couple is relatively new, not having been with
each other very many times in sexual situations, the foreplay may actually be very minimal. It could consist solely of looking at each other and stripping. But foreplay can also be an entire day of touching, bumping, smelling, and listening to each other while the romantic volcano builds to a point of no return. After couples have been together multiple times, they begin to know each others rhythms and triggers. Then it might just take a little hot breath on the back of her earlobe, some dirty words, and a skillful massage to start the ball rolling.
Vampires are notorious for their lovemaking skills, and while much of their reputation for skill, appetite, and enthusiasm is certainly warranted, there are some rumors that have arisen that have little basis in fact. During the age of Louis XIV, court gossip held that vampires’ sexual prowess was augmented by their ability to change shape into gaseous mists, raging wolves, or swarms of bats. The notion was perverse, but strangely appealing to the decadent and depraved. There are other rumors of vampires that can control other beings telepathically. These powers are generally attributed to the near-mythical Sanctus, the unimaginably venerable and most ancient of vampires. No vampire that we have met has been able to exercise such abilities, but we are not discounting it as a possibility. As Virgil said, nothing moves faster than gossip.
But theories of shapeshifting vampires have existed for centuries. In his Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas presents a particularly interesting case:
… corporeal matter does not obey either good or bad angels at their will, so that demons be able by their power to transmute matter from one form to another; but they can employ certain seeds that exist in the elements of the world, in order to produce these effects those transformations which cannot be produced by the power of nature, cannot in reality be effected by the operation of the demons; for instance, that the human body be changed into the body of a beast, or that the body of a dead man return to life. And if at times something of this sort seems to be effected by the operation of demons, it is not real but a mere semblance of reality.
Now this may happen in two ways:
Firstly, from within; in this way a demon can work on mans imagination and even on his corporeal senses, so that something seems otherwise that it is … Secondly, from without: for just as he can from the air form a body of any form and shape, and assume it so as to appear in it visibly: so, in the same way he can clothe any corporeal thing with any corporeal form, so as to appear therein…. This not to be understood as though the imagination itself or the images formed therein were identified with that which appears embodied to the senses of another man: but that the demon, who forms an image in a mans imagination, can offer the same picture to another mans senses.
St. Thomas Aquinas maybe onto something there, excluding the bits about demons and whatnot. Vampires are extraordinarily charismatic beings; their presence and force of will is astonishing, and their saliva and blood have soporific and anxiolytic qualities. These traits, combined with wisdom gleaned from thousands of years of experience, may enable a vampire to effectively hypnotize a human, using heightened suggestibility and diminished peripheral awareness to shape an individual’s perceptions. Perhaps a vampire cannot shapeshift, but he can influence another to believe that she can, or perhaps force a human to perceive that he, the vampire, has literally changed shape.
The rumor of some vampires being empowered to turn to a gaseous mist, however, may have some basis in reality. Folklorist Mathilde d’Ankou at the Société de l’Histoire de Vampire in Brittany published a paper in 2001 theorizing that the notion of vampires being able to take the form of gas or mist came about due to human shame. Humans were unwilling to admit that they had voluntarily participated in the feeding process and/or sexual union with vampires, and created the myth of vampires being able to change form as a way to explain a vampire’s presence as unwelcome or unwanted. Until the late twentieth century, sexual congress with vampires was social suicide, and humans could be ostracized, prosecuted, or slain for having a relationship with a vampire, and any human that chose to do so was in mortal danger.
Further, as we have addressed previously, vampires do not need to be invited into a building in order to be able to cross a threshold. Perhaps all they need are their extraordinary personal magnetism, glib tongues, and razor-sharp wits that have been honed by untold years of accumulated experience and socially imposed subterfuge. They are quite capable of talking their way into any building. Such verbal slights of hand may create the illusion that vampires are able to shapeshift and enter places they may not be welcome (and if that fails, they can break into almost anywhere, with varying degrees of subtlety, thanks to their augmented strength and dexterity). While a vampire may not be able to shapeshift, per se, that doesn’t reflect their lack of personality in bed. Their insatiable passion, physical endurance, moral lassitude, and rejection of convention makes them incomparably complex and limitlessly thrilling lovers.
Perfume or No: Should I Smell Like Prey or Partner?
I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning.
—Proverbs 7:17–18
One of the greatest senses we possess is our sense of smell. It can trigger emotions or flash us back to another time. It can make us smile or make us cry. But better than any of that, our sense of smell can make us love, or at least be in the mood for love, or it can tell us when our partner is in the mood.
Vampires have extremely heightened senses, and as predators, their sense of smell is unmatched. Their olfactory epithelium is much larger and much more sensitive than a humans. Their sense of smell is so uncanny and so precise that they can detect fine nuances about a person within moments of meeting them, including their dietary habits, the quality of their blood, and their physical condition. Vampires are the keenest of trackers, and can almost flawlessly pursue a human or animal just by scent alone. A vampire uses their sense of smell to determine whether a human is suitable as sustenance and whether they are sexually compatible.
In fact, in the late twentieth century, oncologists at Our Lady of the Thorns Medical Center in New South Wales invited a team of Australian vampire physicians to assist in a medical experiment that would determine whether or not a vampire’s keen sense of smell could aid hospitals in uncovering malignant cancerous growths too small or too new for medical tests to detect. Huang-di, the legendary Yellow Emperor of China and father of Traditional Chinese Medicine, discovered in 2699 BC that the simple but potent combination of myrrh and frankincense was a universal attractant to vampires.
Humans exude hormones called pheromones that are indicators of our readiness to mate. We cannot distinguish our own body odor from the secreted pheromones, and for the most part, neither can the person on the receiving end. But their brains pick up the scent, which is transmitted via the olfactory nerve. These pheromones subtly impact the emotional behavior of the receiving person, sometimes causing them to react in a sexual manner. There can be no doubt that a vampire responds positively to the scent of human sexual sweat, and MRIs have shown that the left orbitofrontal cortex, left fusiform cortex, and left hypothalamus in vampire brains respond very strongly when exposed to the sweat from a sexually aroused human that they find attractive. If you smell right to a vampire, he or she will surely be attracted to you.
In human males, it is believed that the majority of pheromone activity takes place through the sweat glands in the armpit, and in the female, pheromone production is believed to be concentrated in the groin area. If you are using scents to augment your own potential pheromone production, do not douse these critical areas in scent. Let your body exude its own natural odor in these places.
While your natural scent is extremely important, you can augment this attraction by wearing fragrances that vampires find appealing. The essential oils of Weinhefeoel (Vitis vinifera L), rose otto (Rosa damascene), and patchouli (Pogostemon patchouli); the absolutes of oakmoss (Evernia prunastri), labdanum (Cistus ladaniferus), and tolu balsam (Myroxylon
balsamum); sedum (Daemonorops draco) and benzoin (Styrax benzoin); the resin extracted from dragons blood; and raw clove bud (Eugenia carophyllata) are all pleasing to vampires. You can experiment with proportions and combinations to see which works best with your body chemistry.
Avoid garlic and other members of the Alliaceae family at all costs. The scent of garlic (Allium sativum) is nauseating to most vampires, and elicits an unpleasant physical response. Tonka absolute (Dipteryx odorata) and bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) are both toxic to younger vampires.
If you want to send scent signals to your vampire, you have to determine what signals you want to send. Do you want to tell him you are ripe for feeding or for mating? You must be very careful when wearing an oil or perfume as a mating call: Like the old campfire game Telephone, the message you start with may not be what is ultimately received on the other end. The problem comes with figuring out how he will unscramble the olfactory Morse code on his side of the equation.
What Difference Does It Make if the Lights Are Out?
Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.
—Magic: The Gathering
The real question here is, What difference does it make to you if the lights are out? It actually all depends upon your depth of sensuality, or on whatever it is that you do or don’t want to see. You understand, it makes much more of a difference to you than it does to him. He can see in the dark. You cant. So the real liability lies with you.