by Aya DeAniege
“Do you want the whole list or just the key points?” he asked.
“Well, I know about Lu and Sasha. A little about Lucrecia. Did you sleep with Margaret as well?”
“During her retraining, yes. That was purely about sex, however. I suppose the pair of us would go well together. Both jaded, both have... daddy issues.”
“I think Maker issues are worse than daddy issues. My father can’t call me from across the world and demand I attend.”
“This is true.”
Fluffy curled up in my lap, purring away as Quin continued to stroke her.
“I’m guessing vampires don’t have STDs.”
“No, we develop rashes if we get close to latex.”
“You’re kidding! Allergic to latex. Why didn’t you mention that when we were going over the list of clichés? Or are you pulling my leg?”
“I’m not joking. Since the advent of latex gloves, Margaret has burned her hands no less than sixty times. She insists on doing her own testing, but wearing the gloves for long periods of time can cause the skin to slough off.”
“So, wrapping a vampire in what equates to be a giant condom?”
“Is the Council’s new favourite punishment. The process is worse than being in the box for ten years, I’m told. I’d like to avoid the experience.”
“I’m going to have to fact check that. Do you know how many guys claim to be allergic to latex?”
I was going by what Erin and her friends said during their girl’s nights in the apartment with wine. Every time they heard the line, for some reason they believed it.
“I’ve heard it can be a problem. There are alternatives if you wish to use them, though hardly necessary.”
Was that a hint?
It must have been a hint.
What do I do?
Retreat, I should have retreated and made an excuse to give myself time to think it over and figure out what was going on.
Being there, hearing his story, made me feel like I was close to him and knew him. It felt intimate. The wine and the fire didn’t help any. I tried to tell myself that it was nothing more than that. We were both projecting onto our relationship.
Sleeping with him would be a bad idea.
Then again, he supposedly had fifteen hundred years of experience.
He could have also just been trying to add another notch to his belt, so to speak.
Or is that supposed to be headboard? Look up term.
“Those items are meant to protect against certain problems, neither of which can happen. There will never be a miracle vampire baby. Nor cloning. No in vitro fertilization will work. You cannot genetically manipulate any of our donations, I think is what mortals call it, to create life. We’ve tried.”
“Really? Tried really hard, I’m guessing.”
“All those with male organs, such as myself, shoot blanks. I know for certain that’s what mortals call that. Those with the female organs never release the ovum, never generate the lining necessary. If you try to turn a pregnant woman, the baby can never be removed and live. The one time we tried, she understandably asked for suicide.”
“The only way to create new vampires is with vampire venom, but what about a human baby with your genetic material?”
Quin shrugged. “I know Margaret has tried it and that it has failed. Before we went public, we tried a great many things, you must understand.”
Something nagged at me. Vampires milked their venom, even traded it to other vampires who didn’t do so, like Quin. Venom moved across the world.
“What if someone stole venom and injected themselves with it, turning them into a vampire?”
“The Council would find the Maker. Depending on how quickly it was discovered, the fledgling might be killed. If it were too late, it would be added to the list to be executed, and until Death showed up, the weaning would begin. Once the Maker could cast out the fledgling, they’d likely employ the body condom, as you put it. Permanently.”
“Has that happened before?”
“One of Sasha’s lovers tried it about two hundred years ago. She ripped the man apart moments after she discovered the problem. Then she collected all the bits and took it to the Council, just in case he put himself back together again. She caught him in time, thankfully.”
“Have any of your mortal lovers caused problems like that?”
Quin considered his wine glass. Then my barely touched one.
“Is that a standard question, or curiosity?”
“Curiosity. They never instructed us to ask about lovers.”
“Oh, well, since it’s not an actual interview question, and I did question you about your past. Let’s see...”
Love is not normally a term that vampires apply to mortals with whom they have sex. We tend to keep the term to stock we greatly appreciate. We also love other vampires but do not have sex with them.
The term lover is simply what we use for a bed partner.
Romantic love is a relatively new idea for humans. Marriage was once about political advantage, or who wasn’t your brother or directly related cousin. You, as a young adult, would marry who your patriarch told you to marry. The weight of the female vote varied over the years, and of course, sometimes those about to be married had a choice.
The ugly one, or the slightly less ugly one. Though, you would have been strongly encouraged to choose the one with the most money.
For mortals, sex was mainly about procreation. Especially women, you having sex with someone besides your husband? Bad on you. He has sex with multiple women who are not his wife? He’s sowing his wild oats, and the women are shunned for being whores.
Our sex has always been better, plain and simple.
Sex was about lust for us. We wanted someone. We took them to bed. We never had to worry about them getting pregnant or sick, so all they had to do was keep their mouths shut and their reputation remained in one piece. We certainly didn’t band about what we did with mortals.
Early on, my eyes were opened to those who were gender fluid. Males who were born females, females who were born males and the few like Androgen.
Not always among vampire numbers, but I saw them.
Lucrecia is a sort of protector for that kind. Women and those who do not follow the binary genders find comfort in her home.
The males born females have been friends of mine, but never lovers. When it came to that, they disturbed me. I can’t even say why.
Disturbed, or turned you off?
Turned me off would probably be the modern equivalent.
I have been with females born in male bodies and several in between. At a time when they would have been shunned for expressing their identities, I treated them how they wanted without them having to ask. I was discreet. No one knew about us beside them, me, and whomever they told about me.
There were, of course, times and places for these people to exist without being bothered. For the most part, however, it had been a don’t ask, don’t tell policy.
Or in the case of some folk, don’t piss off your husband or wife.
Androgen is gender fluid. Meaning there was a time when he was a lord and yet another time when she donned skirts and chased me playfully.
I obliged.
If Androgen decides to be female again, I will be contacted. That was a fabulous fifty years. Completely sexless, and yet oh so memorable.
Then she broke up with me, cast off gender entirely and shacked up with Sasha on a more steady basis. I went on a murderous rampage and did the whole crying in the rain, begging Androgen to take me back, thing.
Because, yes, even vampires can be pathetic ex-lovers.
Why break up with you?
Androgen knew it was time to shed the sexual identity of the past fifty years, but also knew that I grew bored of the grey genders quickly.
I prefer females in one form or another. If you identify as neither male, nor female, I’ll give you a try, but it’s never as satisfying as hearing a woman purr in delight
.
I was forgiven for becoming a pathetic, whining mess. Even Lucrecia gave me a pass on that one. Normally she’d have me punished somehow.
Androgen is older than I am and had been in a similar situation before, so there was an understanding.
My error was understood, by Androgen and most of the vampire community. The Council had the area I rampage through sacked and burned because they couldn’t find Death, and they quietly shuttled me off to the new world.
It was my first trip to the new world before industrialization, but it wouldn’t be the last.
I had a fabulous time. Got mauled a couple of times by predators, tried death by snake. That was fun. High as a kite for days on end. Would not recommend that for mortals.
For the most part, I avoided mortals as lovers. The vampires were still new to me then, so I had plenty of choices. We have a lot of in-relationships. New vampires sort of get passed around.
You’d end one relationship, and suddenly there’d be a new vampire in the area when you were ready for another.
Sex with vampires can be both gentle and rough.
From Lucrecia, I learned how to please a woman. Oral, penetrative, massage, even how to speak to her kindly and draw her in. It was all so new and fantastic and didn’t result in my physical pain, so I went along with it.
But Lucrecia doesn’t believe men can enjoy sex. She believes, even after all these centuries, that men will come no matter what, so pleasuring them is a moot point. I never learned about my sexuality from her directly.
I learned about Sasha’s sexuality, and Lucrecia’s, even that of the female mortals I bedded, but I had to leave her house to discover that the world revolved around the male orgasm.
Everything was, and still is, about cocks and sex.
There are penises everywhere, or penis bait as Lucrecia calls it. Naked women on billboards, colognes sold under the facade that they will get you sex.
Yet humans repress their actual sexuality. All anyone talks about was the men getting on and then getting off.
When I went to the Devils, they taught me the meaning of rape. I enjoy rape play on occasion but have lost my appetite for the real emotion behind it. I like a woman to resist only in fiction.
Looking back, I believe I participated out of rage, doing to others what had been done to me my whole life. The Devils always worked in groups, so mob mentality took over and likely had some influence.
Ashamed about rape, but not eating babies?
Yes, I am.
You eat baby carrots and eggs. I eat baby humans, or did. I’m no longer allowed to.
You never eat stock babies, that’s bad for morale.
So, if vampires take over the world, sign up to be stock?
My mortal lovers have, as I said, been few. I’ve slept with many mortals, but have not sought them out on purpose. I have stumbled upon a few mortal women who have caught my attention.
The trouble with loving mortals is that we then must watch them grow old and die. Your mortality is ever present in my mind.
It’s not that we pity you for your eventual death, but that when we love, we love with all our hearts. The last gift is as much for the vampire to find closure as it is for the mortal to pass on. When a mortal lover dies, it is not because of the last gift. It’s because of nature or war or old age.
The last mortal woman I dated was when I was chasing Andy Warhol. What I was doing chasing him had little to do with his art.
His pieces are okay, but I’m not attracted to that kind of art.
What, did he know about vampires?
Might have, that was part of the problem. Anyhow, at a party I spotted this woman. She just stepped into the room, must have been sixteen at the time. Lied about her age, I went along with it. We ended up seeing each other for ten years.
Then one day she asked me when we were going to get married. I left in the middle of the night and never contacted her again.
I know, I deserve that pissed off look, but we can’t tell our mortal lovers that we are what we are. The Council forbids it, to start with.
Not to mention the fact that mortals tend to be assholes when it comes to vampires.
So many who discover the secret demand to be turned. Then they become irrational when we tell them no.
No amount of explanation changes their minds.
A war was once started by a mortal who was scorned by a vampire. Thousands of mortals died, and he tried his damnedest to kill her and make her stay dead.
I left the mortal woman because she deserved to have a life, to have children, and a husband that she could grow old with.
While I personally never contacted her again, I told my breeders to make an arrangement. They found her a husband and the two were eventually very happy together.
Now, in this era, we can be honest about what we are, and the laws are already out there. Mortals are no longer asking to be turned because they know it’d just be a death sentence.
Was that your worst one?
Goodness no. That was probably the best ending to a romance I’ve had with a mortal.
Way back, just after Margaret was turned, Lucrecia was upset with me. I had visited Lu and come back in tatters. She was yelling and screaming and crying all at the same time.
I left.
From her place, I went toward Asia, I meant to lose myself in the jungles, but never quite made it that far. The people I ended up among were not white, that’s all I know for certain. I stopped because their skin colour and the shapes of their faces reminded me of my mother.
Among them, I found a lover.
We were way out there, in between two territories in the grey area. The Council’s reach was not always worldwide.
So, one night, I let slip what I was and that I had to move on. She asked to come with me, said she was bored of tribal life.
I took her with me to the big cities. I spoiled her rotten. Spoiling her ate away at my funds. I was always on the lookout for new art, even when on the run. While with her, I purchased several pieces from a few masters whose names you would not know.
Of course, this was still early in my life. I was just learning to purchase various paintings. Some for me to keep, some for me to sell in a century or so when it got even more popular.
Or four or five centuries in the case of a few paintings.
Then wait for the owner to die and steal it back?
Exactly right.
It was more of a loan, if I remembered that I had sold someone the painting in question. They got to enjoy it their whole lives, and their children were too lazy to enjoy real artwork. When the father would get to be old, his sons would start selling his items.
From the masters, I purchased multiple paintings, and a couple from their apprentices as well. Half of them stayed with me. The other half was sent to my stock. They then shipped items to Lucrecia or Sasha, depending on the content. Until I was more situated and had a home of my own, like this one, I relied on others to care for my collection.
Let’s call this mortal woman of mine Lover.
Because you don’t want me chasing her either?
No, because I cannot recall her real name.
Everywhere we went, she would introduce us as someone new and exotic. There was enough strange about her for the people to think her telling the truth about everything. She wove tales of serpents with wings, and horned gods demanding sacrifice.
These tales earned her the attention of more than one lord, and she bedded many of them. For some reason, she thought I wouldn’t smell them on her.
I was not a jealous creature, however. I knew she was mine, no matter how far off she ventured. Those other lords could only keep her attention for a few days. Then she’d grow bored once more and return to me.
With gifts from her suitors, or coin lining her purse.
She’d never spend that coin. Any gifts she received from others, she’d sell off. The coin she received in return vanished like all the rest, but I made no comment.
Vampires are not the only ones with secrets.
Like many of those relationships, it started small.
She would throw a fit if we didn’t go out because she was only young a short time. Or if I refused to buy her something for lack of coin, she would loudly demand that I sell my paintings to get the item for her.
Things of mine that I had purchased began going missing. A small silver comb, a little brooch I was going to send Sasha when Lucrecia next asked me to write.
I’m no longer certain when she turned violent. I do know that if I had been mortal, she would have been no softer with me.
Some days I couldn’t go out because my face was smashed. There was more than once that she beat me mercilessly because I had expressed interest in going out, and she wanted to stay in.
To keep me in, she’d deliver a terrible blow to the head, or simply break my legs. My cries didn’t stop her. Off she’d go to her event, and when she couldn’t get the attention she wanted there, she’d come back and apologize to me, saying it wouldn’t happen again.
Like many, I was caught up in a trap. I was thinking of the woman I had met and projected that image onto Lover. She was no longer that woman, however.
She had a taste for power and craved every bit of it.
When she was younger than you are, she began to demand that I turn her.
Wait, when did you meet?
She was ten at the time. I saved her from an arranged marriage to a man more than three times her age. But that part isn’t important.
That’s actually really important.
Why?
This is still on. So, possible readers would want to know her background.
They can come and ask me, and I’ll point them towards the nearest cliff that they can jump off.
I don’t want to remember the girl I saved, the woman who misbehaved, or the bat shit crazy person she became.
Her people believed that if you were remembered, you would live on. She believed that as well, and I don’t want to carry on her memory.
Leave her fragmented, in case her people were correct. I won’t pass her memory onto others and let it carry on besides as an example of why mortals are just as psychotic as vampires.
Fair enough, but one question you will be asked: when did you start sleeping with her?