Dark Thirst

by Angela Allen

  I stopped her tug on my hand with superior strength, even in my boyish frame.

  “I will not soon forget what?”

  Meredith’s blue eyes glared at me, determined. Young and wealthy white daughters were well used to having their demands granted, particularly with the darker, African and Native races of New Orleans, of which I was a member.

  “You will do with me as I tell you,” she insisted, and pulled me forward again.

  I became curious, as any adventurous boy would be. So I allowed her to have her way with me. Once we stood under a large oak tree in the shade behind her estate, Meredith reached inside of my loosely fit overalls and pulled on my small genitals.

  “Do you have any idea what this is for, Martelli?” she asked of me.

  At first, I was surprised by the sharp pain of her trespass and hastily pushed her away.

  Meredith laughed, a wicked, girlish laugh that continues to haunt me.

  “He-he-he-he-he-he. Boy, I promise, I will not hurt you.”

  She took off her white gloves and reached for my private parts again, managing to stroke my insignificant penis with her soft, pink fingertips. Before I could move from her reach, the stroke of her gentle fingers excited me. Soon I could not control the rush of blood that surged through me and caused my dutiful erection.

  Meredith smiled and looked into my astonished eyes for reassurance.

  “That is what it does,” she told me.

  Before I could calm the desperation of my scrambling thoughts, Meredith sank to her knees and tasted my erection at its tip, sending shocks of bliss exploding through my unprepared body.

  “You like that, do you?”

  Meredith seemed excited by my pleasure as she continued to devour me. I found myself unable to move. I could feel the anticipation of something powerful, the most ungodly feeling a young human male could ever possess. When I had reached that point, it felt as if a thousand tickling feathers were exploding through the length of my shaft. I was driven so wild by this insane period of pulsations that it shook me in my stance and moved the earth where I stood.

  Meredith eyed me and was pleased by my urgent release. For explanations that were beyond my conception, I reached down and stroked her cheek and chin, as if to thank her for exciting me in such a way. It merely seemed the correct thing to do.

  For my appreciative tact, she smiled and said, “You will be a great lover, Martelli. I am sure of it.”

  And she was right. By the time I had reached my full growth as a man, I had loved hundreds of women of every race, class and creed within the province of Louisiana. I had mastered the human art of love and seduction, and I had loved them all. Possessively. Until I met my match.

  Abigail, an astonishing mixed breed herself, coffee-brown, with hard dark eyes and wavy hair as black and mysterious as the night, was not from Louisiana. No one knew her birthplace or family name, only that she was free and unruly. They called her “The Gypsy Woman.” And for whatever reason, they feared her.

  I had never met the woman, actually. I had only heard stories about her. But then she appeared over my horizon, like the morning sun, wearing a burgundy dress and no shoes.

  I will never forget her first words to me as I stood in the busy fish market of the Mississippi River.

  “I have been watching you, and waiting for you to become a man for a long time now.”

  She looked no older than I was, but her words made her seem as if she was much older.

  I asked her, “And why have you waited?”

  I would have charmed and loved her in a heartbeat. She was breathtaking. I could see how any man or woman could fear her. Her alluring beauty was intimidating. However, she had met her match now, and I would not turn away.

  She smiled and touched my chiseled arms with her hands when she answered me.

  “Some of our worldly desires are better served in time. You will live long enough to realize as much yourself.”

  “You speak as if you know my future,” I responded.

  She said, “I do know it. And I have protected you long enough to have your extended future for myself now.”

  I was immediately amused by the woman. She seemed my equal in vanity. Nevertheless, I felt a need to establish clarity in her words.

  “You’ve protected me when? And from who?”

  As a grown man, I stood over six feet tall, with solid, muscular mass. And I was not easily tussled with.

  She asked me, “How do you assume that you’ve been able to court so many women without repercussions from envious men? You have courted many treasured and wealthy daughters, Martelli, as well as beautiful wives.”

  I was stunned. I had rarely thought of the repercussions of my lovemaking. She was right. I had been trouble free in my various relations with women. But now I was curious.

  “And how have you protected me?”

  Abigail was a beautiful woman by any standard in the world, but I did not at all view her as a woman to be feared physically.

  She only answered, “I have my ways.”

  We seemed to converse in private at that moment. Her dark eyes had hypnotized me. I paid attention to her alone. No one else existed.

  That was quite unusual for me. Even when I appeared to give a beautiful maiden my full attention, my mind’s eye had always wandered. Not so with Abigail. My mind could think of only her, with images of our naked and intertwined bodies in a serpent’s dance.

  She read my thoughts and asked, “Is that how you think of us?”

  What could I tell her but the truth?

  “I think of every woman in a serpent’s dance.”

  “But I am not every woman,” she told me.

  Before I could respond, Abigail had disappeared and left me standing there in a daze. I came to my senses and searched for her like a desperate hound.

  “Did you see the beautiful woman in red? Where did she go?” I asked an old fish salesman.

  “What woman?” he responded, confused.

  “She was just here, standing in front of me.”

  The merchants and buyers at the fish market began to look at me as if I were a madman. Had I imagined her? Was it all an illusion?

  I spent the rest of the day attempting to convince myself that she was real. But when the daylight hours had faded, I had lost my battle of faith. I no longer believed she existed. So I no longer searched for her.

  I sat out alone under the full, illuminating glow of a silver moon and wondered what my fate would be in life. And she read my thoughts again.

  “You will continue to love and be loved for thousands of lonely nights amongst the humans.”

  Abigail appeared in front of me as mysteriously as she had before. This time she wore clothes of virginal white, as did I.

  I told her, “I no longer believe in you,” and turned away.

  Abigail laughed at me.

  She said, “I did not realize how spoiled you have become in your ways. You seem to lose patience far too easily.”

  I said, “I have patience only for that which is real.”

  “You mean that which is easily attainable and requires limited patience,” she responded.

  Her words filled my ears with a smothering warmth, as if she was right behind me. I turned to face her and found her standing beside me. Her movements seemed as swift as the wind. I took note of it.

  “I chase no woman in vain.”

  “Yes, I know. And since you have grown so accustomed now to having your way, I shall be forced to have you wait much longer than I had initially expected.”

  I told her, “You can expect to wait for an eternity as far as I am concerned. I do not play games of which I am not the master of its rules. If you have watched me for so many years, as you claim, then you should know this about me already.”

  She nodded and conceded.

  “Yes, but I seem to have underestimated how…bullish you are.”

  “I am not bullish at all. I am only an expression of true manhood.”

/>   Abigail did not bother to comment. Not immediately. She seemed to allow my words to settle on her mind a spell. Then she looked at me in what appeared to be a face of sorrow.

  She said, “I was a true woman once. And my arrogance took it away from me. I have not been the same since. That is…until you.”

  She had puzzled me. If she was no longer a true woman, then what was she? And she spoke as if she was twice as old as she appeared. So I began to wonder what childhood she had had to allow her such creative explanations of her fate.

  “And now you will have me wait with more arrogance,” I told her in spite. At that moment, I cared less about her personal history. I could only think of my own connection to her, and what I wanted.

  Abigail looked at me for the first time in a stare that I could deem as threatening. Her dark eyes turned into sharp, narrow slits.

  She said, “I pity you as I pitied the innocence of myself once. But I am no longer innocent. And I now know the ways of the wicked. So let us not prolong the inevitable.”

  In a blink of an eye, she kissed me. It was the most engaging kiss that I had ever felt from a woman. And it left me paralyzed in wonder.

  A cold chill rushed through my bones as I found myself falling weightlessly. I felt inebriated without drink. Her kiss was that powerful. And I remember my eyes drunkenly locked on hers before she viciously attacked my neck with sharp teeth that poked holes into my ripe veins.

  “Uunnhh!” I growled in vain. I squeezed her firm body with all of the strength that I could muster, trying to push her away from me.

  But I was powerless to release her grip upon me. My eyes rolled skyward toward the moon and the stars above us. I remember the pain of her hungry bite, as well as the rigidness of my body as she drained me of precious, warm blood, leaving me cold and weak.

  I had lost all of my defensive energy. My body hung limply against the strength of Abigail’s. I had no idea a woman could be as physically powerful as she was.

  “Now you will know the true meaning of loneliness and desire,” she told me.

  My fresh blood stained her lips, teeth and tongue as she spoke. She then bit her own lip with her sharp-edged teeth and kissed me again, intertwining her own blood with mine.

  The warm mixture of fresh blood squirted into my open mouth like a spring and nearly choked me. I was forced to swallow.

  “Uurrgghh!” I responded desperately. I could feel my life vanishing before me in a repulsive drowning of blood.

  “Relax,” Abigail whispered. “It is too late to struggle now. It has begun.”

  She bit into her lip deeper and produced more of her blood to feed me with. And I drank it, helplessly, until my insides constricted and burned with pain.

  “Uuunnnhhh!” I wailed.

  Abigail released her hold upon my weak body, sending it crashing to the dirt, where I squirmed like a serpent in turmoil.

  “Uuurrrlll!”

  “Ha ha ha ha ha.” Abigail mocked me with her laughter.

  Her laugh was deeper and richer than Meredith’s, but just as unforgettable. And when I had regained my senses, after what seemed like an eternity of agonizing pain, my entire body yearned to taste more of Abigail’s warm blood.

  The Hunger

  Abigail’s bite and blood-filled kiss began a drastic change inside of my body. I felt sick with nausea, cold at the bones and empty within my gut. I reached for my neck to find that I had stopped bleeding. The holes from her bite were still present, but they no longer pained me. And they were much smaller than I had imagined them to be.

  “What have you done to me? What kind of demon are you?” I asked Abigail weakly from the ground, where I continued to lie in recuperation.

  She answered, “I am a vampire,” with her teeth still exposed to me. “And I have shared with you my gift of eternal life.”

  Within my mouth, I could feel the strengthening of my own teeth and jaws. They seemed increasingly tight.

  “You witch! I did not ask to join you in a living hell! What gave you the right to defile me?”

  “I chose you because of your great passion and hunger,” Abigail informed me. “And I have always viewed you as my proper mate.”

  However, she had no idea what she had done. I had been hungry my entire life out of necessity, hungry for everything, including my freedom, the freedom from possessive desires. So I had learned to use the desires of others against them. In particular, I had learned to use the desires of women. And I had made myself appear more passionate than I was in reality, which was more vengeful. I had loved women to counteract their own lustful possessions of me. But in secret, I dreamed of peace and equilibrium, to be loved without possession.

  In a flash, I rose up against Abigail, only to have the fingernails of her right hand clasped tightly around my throat. She held me extended above the ground as her sharp nails broke my skin.

  She said, “You are still weak and young, Martelli. But in time you will be very powerful.”

  I said, “I wish to be powerful now to rid myself of you.” I managed enough strength to twist myself free of her hold. She then shoved me with such monstrous force that I tumbled backward through the air, landing hard against the earth.

  “Aarrgghh!”

  Before I could rise again, Abigail was quickly upon me.

  “Do not be foolish, Martelli. There is far too much for you to learn. You need my counsel,” she warned me.

  However, I was angry and determined to fight her.

  “I never asked for your counsel!” I spat, as I rose against her a second time. I was swift enough to grab her neck between my own nails. But with a violent slice of both her hands into my chest, she opened up twin gashes that were inches long and deep.

  “Aaahhhh!” I squealed in pain, immediately letting go of her.

  Abigail ate hungrily of the blood that squirted from my opened chest.

  What a bloody mess she had made of me. I readily expected to die when she had finished. It was the end of all life for Martelli the man, as well as the demon.

  But I regained my consciousness and found myself resting inside a barn with filthy pigs, fowl and cattle. And I was much weaker than before. But when I looked down and felt for my chest, it was nearly healed. So was my neck. They were both miracles.

  “You must eat now and regain your full strength, Martelli.”

  It was Abigail. She was still there with me.

  I looked up to face her to spite her again, but I was far too weak to continue in my challenge. She seized a young pig and opened the tough hide of its neck with one ferocious bite as she stood above me. Fresh blood poured out of the squealing pig and into my dry mouth. And as I drank, the other animals inside of the barn became frantic with fear.

  I had no choice. I was now a vampire, whether I wanted to be or not. So I emptied the pig of its blood and desperately moved on to the next one, and killed with my new, powerful teeth for the first time.

  “Yes, Martelli. You must eat until you are full. And you may find me after you have cleansed yourself of such foul blood of animals.”

  At the moment, I cared not about her insult. I only knew that I needed blood to fill the aching hunger within my gut. I savagely attacked and killed several squealing barn animals and drank their blood until I had satisfied myself and felt strong, stronger than I had ever felt as a human.

  The changes that I noticed within me were astounding. The vampire blood had heightened my senses. I could now see, hear, smell, taste and feel at least three times more sharply than before. I looked around me inside the barn and could see the major veins of every animal with pinpoint accuracy as they continued to scramble for their lives, away from my demonic thirst for their blood. I could clearly hear the tempo and the stress of their animal heartbeats. I could smell the stench of their fear, and the wretched foulness of their unwashed bodies. I could taste the panic of their warm blood pulsating through my enlarging veins that rapidly transformed their blood into a form of vampiric energy. And I coul
d feel every newfound inch of my recuperated body, even the pesky mosquito that hovered near my ultrasensitive skin, only to be captured in an instant within my nails and quickly eaten to test the sharpness of my razor-edged teeth.

  But as I stood there in the middle of the chaos inside of the barn and swallowed the tasty snack of mosquito blood, my new senses began to overwhelm me. It was all too much and too fast. Maybe I had overdone my first blood-hungry meal. The panic, stench, fear, taste and noise of the animals began to irritate me beyond my tolerance.

  “Eeeaarrrkkkk!” The noise grew louder and ate at my throbbing nerves until I was forced to cup my ears and scream out in madness.

  “What have you done to meeeee? You witch! You wiiitch!”

  As I moved forward to escape the torture of those squealing animals, I had no idea how powerful I had become. I literally flew from the barn and broke the hinges of the doors that contained me with no more than a forceful extension of my arms.

  Blooommm!

  “Where are you?” I hollered into the darkness. Abigail had taken me to a deserted acreage of farmland, away from the population of New Orleans. I was ready to begin my search for her, this time to exact my revenge for changing me into such a vile being. I cared not who spotted me, for I had not asked to become a vampire.

  “Where are you going?” Abigail questioned me from behind.

  I moved quickly to seize her as soon as I heard her voice. I planned to snap her body in two with all of the new blood power that surged through my veins.

  “You will pay with your life for what you’ve done to me,” I growled as I secured my grip upon her neck.

  But when I searched her face, I saw and smelled the fresh blood of a human that still wet the side of her lip. The raw aroma of her feast enchanted me. My nose flared wide, and I began to crave the sweet blood that I sniffed inside of her.

  She smiled and laughed as my hold became weak upon her.

  “Do you see the difference that human blood makes?” she asked me. “Animal blood can make you strong, indeed. However, it is not the preferred.”

  She did not have to explain to me what she meant. I could sense it. I fell weak with hunger within her arms again. I could feel the fresh human blood racing excitedly through her veins. And I wanted it. But as soon as I spotted the vein from which to draw the blood from her neck, Abigail fought me fiercely.