The compulsion for sexual gratification that dominated her life momentarily relaxed its grip, giving us a glimpse of what she would be. Perhaps she saw it, too. I was sure one day her presence would bestride the Earth like a colossus.
Chapter Nineteen
How It Ends
Six weeks later we relocated with new identities in a suburb outside of Tucson, Arizona. I played poker full-time. A member of the network, a vampire in Scotland, specialized in creating new identifications, simplifying a process previously requiring extensive tedious record searches. We lived in a house on two fenced acres in a development with fifteen similar homes surrounded by the desert. The house had a guest apartment and swimming pool with spa. Waldrup Enterprises, Inc. owned the house. It was the name on the documents of incorporation, taken from my mother’s maiden name, but to the members it was The Corporation, or in memory of the old coven-support group, Coven International.
The Corporation took advantage of the real estate downturn and bought several foreclosures around the country. Eventually we planned to own enough throughout the world to be able to move our people among them upon change of identity.
“Today is the day,” Sam reminded me. As if she needed to. I thought of nothing else. It reminded me of the week she disappeared after we first met.
Dr. Ortiz scheduled the little ones for a six-week well baby examination in conjunction with Sam’s post-partum. He recommended abstinence until the examination. We still enjoyed mutual pleasure with mouths and hands but it was over twelve weeks since we engaged in real intercourse.
From the minute she got out of bed she exercised to get back in shape. At first she insisted on doing it without me. “I don’t want you to see me fat.” She loaded the babies into the triple stroller and took off for a ruthless run in blowsy sweat pants and hood. She returned breathing hard, red faced, shining with perspiration. The ride put the babies to sleep. “Don’t expect me to be like I was before I became pregnant,” she consistently warned me. “But I’ll be pretty good, I promise.”
After a while she let me accompany her. “No workouts for old men here,” she taunted. At first I struggled to stay with her. It was hard, but I knew she brought out the best in me. This was no exception. Soon we clicked off forty-five second quarter mile sprints. Once I dipped below forty-three.
Actually the motive behind her anxiety confused me. She never lost the firm legs and booty. I didn’t mind that breastfeeding made her larger. The roundness of her face melted away, leaving the bone structure with the smooth taut flesh. Her stomach, she repeatedly asserted, remained a flabby wreck. She brushed aside reassurances I would be pleased with it no matter what.
“Men always say that until they see the flab and cellulite,” she retorted, resuming the sit-up set and not the girlie ones with bent knees. I watched the sweat stain growing on the loose workout pants and shirt in the area of her abdomen wondering how bad it could possibly be.
Meanwhile I entered my first tournaments. I made close to 120 thousand dollars in three months. I wore dark glasses and a hooded sweatshirt to minimize the chances of anyone getting a good look at my face. In the back of my mind was the possibility of needing to create future identities, but I said I did it to hide tells. These are signs a player unconsciously makes, such as a tic or wink betraying the value of a hand. An acceptable practice, it raised no unwelcomed curiosity.
Oscar reported The Corporation signed on its two hundredth member. From the new offices in Orlando, Florida with a staff of twenty, he also managed the professional sports careers of several members. Two major league baseball players, a couple more in tennis and volleyball, but the greatest success was a lycan from South Africa. He burst on the world soccer scene as a walk-on. Oscar earned every penny of his and The Corporation’s cut, keeping the stable of prima donnas from getting too much limelight.
The corporate operating agreement stated three goals: Fund research to discover alternative food sources for the purpose of divorcing from consuming humans, understand our reproductive system to optimize chances for pregnancy, and build the compound on the Arriago estate.
Last month Dr. Ortiz, who regained credentials as a medical doctor with the help of the Scottish vampire, confirmed another couple in Australia was in a family way. The female was a vampire. As a licensed physician, he accessed the test results and examination reports from the human prenatal caregivers. News of a second pregnancy took a lot of pressure off Sam and me, because up to then, two potentially destructive rumors circulated around the community. Either we were uniquely able to reproduce or I was the only male capable of fathering children.
For two thousand years, mating had been the pouring of seed into a barren cavity. Less than twelve months ago, we discovered how to make it an act of regeneration. The Other Kind, in its struggle to understand the processes, continued to sort through a lot of rumor and misinformation.
Dr. Ortiz, in confirming the pregnancies, published to the community differences between ours and human reproductive physiology he and his staff didn’t understand. Until they discovered the mechanism to trigger lycan-vampire pregnancy the only advice he continued to give was to keep trying hard and often. He also stated the second litter was, unlike ours, a single fetus.
I only wish he wouldn’t call them a litter.
Upon learning of the second pregnancy, Cynthia cleared her schedule for the next week, left her mother in the apartment they shared in New York, and hopped a plane to Malvina’s estate and the vampire bodyguard there. Her publicist released a statement she was visiting a private fertility clinic to investigate having a baby fathered by the sperm of a Nobel Prize winner. I am sure Oscar was hurt by the news, but Cynthia wasn’t totally heartless. Anytime she came to Orlando she brought him to her hotel. By morning he staggered around weak-kneed and trembling, but generously satiated.
On her last visit she told us about the compound Malvina was building. The place boasted over a hundred inhabitants and was 60 percent completed. Oscar supported it with a million dollars of The Corporation’s money, and scheduled an inspection visit for late summer.
* * * *
A week ago I got a shock in the form of an email from Carole Henson. It asked, “Forgive me?”
Of course I do, I replied. Since the babies’ birth and the conclusions I came to that same night, I could finally let go of my resentments for her.
“May I visit and meet your family?”
Older members of the community, like Carole, frequently requested to visit the triplets. The elders came like pilgrims to Lourdes, believing the infants possessed curative powers, if not physical, at least of a spiritual nature. The visitors might sit in the nursery and watch while the babies slept or Sam breastfed them. Afterward, most reported feeling rejuvenated with increased tranquility and inner peace.
Carole came to our home. As the shuttle van from the airport pulled away leaving her at curbside, she cut a slim erect image with almost no sign of bone deterioration although she was well past two hundred and fifty. Her hair was long and still glossy brunette, pinned up in a twist. She worked Sam and me over with deceptively innocent eyes although now more lines radiated from around them. Upon closer inspection, they showed the permanent watery glaze of age.
Sam met her at the door, still wearing one of the bell-shaped outfits from late pregnancy. Her hair splayed straight out and down her back, reflected flame red in the afternoon sun. “So good to meet you at last,” she gushed showing Carole in.
There followed a brief episode of mutual female bouquet exchanges while each, my former and present mate, sized the other up, to wit.
“You are so lovely,” Carole said.
“So are you.”
It ended a draw.
The protocol was to go straightaway to the back. After spending a half hour or so with the babies there might be a cup of tea, brief small talk and departure, but Sam told me, “This was Carole. She changed your diapers, presided over emergence, and deflowered you. You haven’t
seen her in over a century.” Sam prepared victuals for a longer visit. Since Carole arrived in late morning we invited her to stay for lunch.
The bedroom sharing a bath with Bertie’s room served as a nursery. Each of the babies lay its own crib and wore a white cotton pullover shirt that fit snugly and a diaper much too large for their tiny bottoms. Eddie’s little pink legs pedaled the air furiously while the girls dozed.
On seeing them, Carole turned to us. “They’re beautiful but they seem to be extremely active.”
“Many of the other visitors have suggested this,” Sam replied. “Of course, they know only from memories of their own childhood which could be unreliable.”
“Remember Tommy—ah—Jim, I took care of you from when you were three. Your son is more active now than you were at that age.” Carole suspended a hand over Eddie’s crib and snapped her fingers. The baby’s eyes cut toward the sound. “See what I mean, Jim? You didn’t do that until more than a year after I began your care. This baby is as alert as a human.”
I felt Sam beside me silently growing uneasy. “What could be wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing obvious,” Carole said. “They are healthy. That is the important thing.”
“Besides,” I added, “The local doctor told you they are doing fine and Doctor Ortiz will be here next week anyway.”
Sam relaxed. The matter appeared settled for now. After the visit, we retired to the dining room. Sam laid out the lunch tray and tea set. We gathered around the table.
Carole spoke first. “You have no idea what seeing your children means to me.”
After twenty similar visits I thought I did and I said something innocuous. “I am glad the visit was good for you.”
“You don’t understand. Visiting them means more than feelings of well-being.”
I sat forward in my chair studying the sincerity of her face. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“The elders who came before me have told you they feel better but do not understand why. The answer is simple. Your children are proof there is a future for our kind beyond a life of hunting, feeding, and fruitless mating. This knowledge gives a sense of purpose to what otherwise had been a long and almost meaningless life for a hundred generations of our kind, and is what brings peace to the visitors.”
I die knowing we will survive, Ed once said.
Did a merciful Fate guide Carole here to tell us this and in return grant her the opportunity to experience a measure of reassurance and purpose at her end?
I hoped so.
I last saw her waving cheerfully at us with a wrinkle of fingers through the rear window of a cab to the airport.
A week later an envelope arrived in the mail, addressed to me. I pulled a yellowed document from the envelope and a note from Carole. Sam, upon seeing it in my hand, raised a curious eyebrow.
“It’s a divorce decree from 1919,” I announced.
“What does the note say?” I handed it to her.
Tommy,
After my mind cleared, I realized our parting wasn’t all your fault and
took care of this last detail between us, in case you wanted to
remarry. I told the court you disappeared after World War One.
Carole
* * * *
I met Dr. Ortiz at the airport. He had not examined Sam since the day after the birthing. Having missed all the fun he grumpily checked mother and babies over, wrote out a few questions for Sam to ask her human doctor and caught the afternoon flight home.
As we pulled out of the airport parking lot he told me a third couple conceived. “They’re from Northern Spain,” he said. “See what you two started?” he asked in mock derision.
“Malvina must be ecstatic,” I said. I thought about Cynthia and her recent sojourn there to mate with her vampire lover. It was too soon for them to know one way or the other. It must be another couple.
“Oh, yes, dramatically so. She wants to be their godmother, too.”
She was godmother to our three. Dr. Ortiz was godfather.
“Is she already after the Australian couple?”
“She hasn’t spoken to them yet. I think she is—how do you say—biting off more than she can eat.”
Close enough. I got the point.
“Señora Malvina wants me to relocate to the compound on her estate.” He continued, “She can use influence with the Spanish medical licensing authorities and promises to build a clinic and research laboratory on the property. She also says two young vampires are willing to apprentice under me while the corporation funds their medical school. What do you think?”
“I think Malvina is highly dedicated to the growth and prosperity of The Others. My only concern with the idea of building a compound is living close together in large numbers increases the possibility of discovery. If the Spanish government learned the truth about us, how hard would it be for them to surround the estate and exterminate those trapped inside?”
“I think you might be correct my friend,” sighed Dr. Ortiz, “but such a clinic makes research and gaining insight to our physiology much easier.”
“Perhaps a better plan is to build the clinic where you are. Malvina should send the apprentices there. When they become doctors they can return to the compound.”
“But I fear Oscar Young will be hard to convince. He strongly believes in the Compound project.”
“Sam and I will talk to him.”
Sam waited for us in the nursery. She was breastfeeding Eddie. Claire finished and dozed in her crib. Cassie howled, letting us know her turn better come soon. Bertie stood erect beside mother and babies like a proud squad leader presenting troops for inspection. Downy red fuzz covered the heads of Cassie and Eddie. We weren’t sure yet, but their eyes appeared to be tending toward Sam’s color. Since birth, Claire showed a full head of black hair and her eyes, blue at birth, had clearly darkened like mine.
“I’m sorry,” Sam said. “I meant to have the feeding done. I simply cannot catch on to feeding two of them at once.”
“Do not be concerned, Señora Sam,” Dr. Ortiz answered, raising his voice over Cassie’s relentless caterwaul, and dug into his bag. “Here, put this under your tongue.”
He took vital signs and examined the babies, poking here, touching there. “They seem to be abundantly alert and active. More like human children than infant pre-emergents,” he remarked.
Sam clutched my hand. “Should we be worried?” Cassie, silent for a few seconds to catch her breath, resumed with a vengeance.
“I see no reason to. They’re perfectly healthy. It may be an effect of our unique cross breeding. Often a union between similar but unrelated specimens produces young hardier than either parent. The children may be an example of that.”
I felt Sam let out a silent sigh of relief. True, the human doctors told her the same thing, at least the part regarding the babies developing normally. A lot more medical technology supported their conclusions than what Dr. Ortiz’s brought in his black bag, but as it was with the rest of our kind, Sam now believed nothing medical was official until he said it was.
Eddie finished his feeding with a languid wet burp. I picked up Cassie exchanging her for him. The room went painfully silent as the child latched onto Sam’s nipple with tiny but ferocious sucking sounds. Dr. Ortiz excused me from the room. He knelt in front of Sam, parting her knees for examination. “Now is the moment of truth each husband must face…”
* * * *
Dr. Ortiz settled into the guest apartment, the babies slept soundly, and Bertie watched the movie Notting Hill on the large screen TV in her room. She was a big Hugh Grant fan. Sam and I, alone at last, owned a green light to pursue any activity within our imagination. She told me to wait for her in the spa area.
Our spa was indoors, separated from most of the pool by plate glass running from the ceiling and ending foot underwater. Beyond the lush green square of our backyard and the cinderblock fence, miles of sand and cactus rolled to the horizon under a cloudless black
moonlit sky. The scene remained vast in its scale and static with only the occasional tumbleweed rolling by to remind you it was real and not a huge landscape mural.
I sat on a wooden bench as instructed with a towel over my lap. The rough terry cloth material rubbed against my member and induced an anticipatory erection. The spa and swimming pool lights gave the scene a bluish hue like being at the bottom of a Pacific lagoon. The only other light came from the hall leading back into the house. In the background, music from a soft rock station quietly droned on, barely audible over the spa pump.
A shadow crossed the hall light. Sam stepped onto the cool tiles. She was buried inside one of the large bell-shaped pregnancy dresses moving within it like a small steel clapper.
“What’s this all about,” I asked apprehensively as I stood. “Why are you wearing that?”
“Don’t be cross. I tried my best to be attractive to you. I hope you won’t be disappointed.” She pulled the dress away.
The bombed and ransacked temple of my love goddess was restored, better than new.
She stood haughtily before me. Her hands rested on her hips with legs apart and firmly planted like a sailor on a rolling deck. The small straight shoulders, round uplifted breasts, the hard flat stomach, narrow waist flaring to perfect hips, all of it returned, as it was on the day I first laid eyes on her in the library, only better. She turned to show off her legs and butt. Rotating back to me stared pointedly at my erection and laughed. “I see we are going to have to do something about this bad boy.”
She knelt on the wet surface of the concrete surrounding the spa, taking my manhood into her mouth. With her tongue she caressed the sensitive spot her hands knew so well how to find. I gasped with each stroke of her head and my legs started to get weak. The hollows under her cheekbones deepened as the suction increased, and I felt my gland swell in her mouth like a deep sea creature brought too rapidly to the surface. One nick from the sharp edge of a misguided tooth and I was sure my member would explode into a bloody wet mess. As the erection approached the threshold of pain, I released. She swallowed the first spurt and, without interrupting my pleasure, took me out of her mouth and finished by hand. Seed rolled down the head of my penis and across her tan little fingers. It might not have been the torrents of youth but it was enough, thank you very much.
The Other Kind (The Progeny of Evolution Series) Page 22