The Vampire Sextette

by Marvin Kaye

flock of crows. The flock was sometimes so dense that my own guardian vampire

  had no chance to defend her territory—but such moments did pass as my spiritual

  clotting factors cut in, never more than a little too late.

  I always got through the night, ready to return to puppet life in Phoneland,

  where even the harpies still touched me tenderly and the gorgons looked at me

  with naked pity.

  "Actually," I confided to Jez one night in the Countess of Cromartie, when I

  finally allowed him to bully me into letting him buy me a pint of bitter, "life doesn't

  go on. We begin to die as soon as we begin to live. It's death that whittles the

  embryo into human shape, death that clears out all the cellular compost day by

  day, as life takes its toll. Life doesn't go on at all—it just flows away, bit by bit,

  emptying us out even though we were never really full."

  "Yeah," he said wisely. "Too bloody right. That's why you have to make the

  most of what you've got. Fight it, mate. You might lose, but you've got to fight."

  He couldn't quite see that that was exactly what I was doing, far more cleverly than

  he could know. At least he had the grace to refrain from making observations

  about the number of pebbles on the beach or fish in the sea. He'd been out with

  the girls too many times to be under any delusions about any fuck being a good

  fuck. He didn't know enough to envy me what I now had, but he knew enough to

  envy me what I'd had before.

  "She was a grand lass," he said. "A bit strange, but who can blame her? We

  take our health too much for granted."

  "Yes, she was," I said. "And yes we do. Do you mind if I don't get another

  round in—no offence, but I think I'd rather be at home."

  "No, mate," he said. "Another time, eh?"

  "Another time," I echoed. That was where I was headed. I didn't necessarily

  expect to get there that night, but I intended to travel hopefully. Contrary to

  proverbial wisdom, it's far better actually to arrive, but the momentum of hopeful

  travelling does have its own compensations.

  When I got back to the flat, I made myself eat. I had to "keep my strength up,"

  as Mum would have put it. I peeled and chipped my own potatoes, although the

  processed peas came out of a tin. It had been a while since I'd been to the

  supermarket and the skinless sausages were a couple of days past their sell-by

  date, but I knew it didn't matter. English sausages have so much preservative in

  them that they keep for at least a week after they've supposedly given up the

  ghost—it's one of the nation's finest traditions.

  While I ate I put on the CD Davy had given me, and filled the flat with Sheena's

  voice. Afterwards, I put it on again, and then again. I wasn't always that obsessive;

  some nights I didn't play it at all, preferring other items from what had been

  Sheena's Gothic rock collection and was now—thanks to the generosity of Libby

  and Mrs. Howell—mine. Listening to the Fields of the Nephilim's Elizium or

  Dreadful Shadows performing "Sea of Tears" or anything at all by Sopor

  Aeternus brought back tender memories of listening with Sheena as well as

  creating an appropriately heartaching mood. Most nights, though, I arrived home

  without having been sidetracked, and there was something about drinking in a pub

  with Jez that smacked ever so slightly of betrayal, so I felt that I needed to

  mainline the real thing, to go directly to the source. I had mixed feelings now about

  Davy's decision to omit "Graveyard Love" from the album, because I had begun

  to think of that as the most prophetic and deeply felt of all Sheena's non-Byronic

  lyrics.

  Eventually, I put the kettle on to boil. Then I got the kitchen devil from the

  drawer and used the jet of vapour gushing from the kettle's spout to sterilise the

  blade. It wasn't for my own sake that I was frightened of infection, but I needed to

  preserve the purity of my blood.

  The inner surface of my left forearm already had too many scars crisscrossing

  it, and the outer part was far too hairy, and I wasn't sure I could make a neat

  enough cut with the blade in my left hand, so I took off my shirt before sitting

  down on the bed. There were hairs on my chest too, but they were mostly above

  nipple-level and I was pretty sure that I could draw a good line across my heart if

  only I could figure out exactly where it was hiding behind my rib cage.

  By this time I'd read enough about the circulation of the blood to know that

  Sheena had been right and I had been wrong about the pulmonary vein, but I

  didn't intend to cut that deep. Freshly oxygenated blood is undoubtedly the best

  kind—the vampire's champagne—but as soon as you open up the meanest, bluest

  vein the outflow sucks life from the air and becomes pure scarlet, pure

  intoxication.

  When I'd made the cut I lay back, closed my eyes, and listened. One day, I

  knew, I'd be able to lie back like that and keep on going: falling through the spacetime continuum, across the fragile borderlands that separate our own universe

  from all the parallel alternatives, not merely to Arcadia and Atlantis but to venues

  even more exotic.

  But not yet.

  For the time being, I was still an amateur, still a hopeful fellow traveller, not yet

  an initiate into the brotherhood and sisterhood of blood. For the time being, I

  stood in need of guidance, of education, of moulding—but that, at least, I already

  had. I had the best teacher in the world, perhaps the best in all the worlds.

  Although I could always hear and feel her, I didn't often see her—but that night

  I did. That night, she came to me vividly, in all her posthumous glory. Her face

  was pale but her lips were purple and her black hair shone as it tumbled vibrantly

  about her shoulders. She was dressed for the grave, in a shroud that had once

  been white, but the night had infected the filmy fabric, filling it with darkness and

  the stars.

  The lust in her eyes was limitless, but when she settled upon me and lowered

  her head to feed she was as light as a cloud and as dainty as a moth.

  When I first threw my arms around her, I hardly dared to hug her, for fear that

  she would break or dissolve into mist, but I felt the thrill in her flesh as she lapped

  the blood from the horizontal well, and I felt the force of her caresses, as she ran

  her delicate fingers over my face and my neck, my hips and my thighs.

  When we kissed, she nipped my lip between her teeth to prove that I wasn't

  dreaming. I needed the reassurance, because I needed to know that the ecstasy

  was real and not just a product of my wishful mind. Sheena had assured me that

  even the everyday was supernatural, and we'd had our moments of ecstasy while

  she was still imperfectly incarnate, but the supernatural is at its best when it's bold

  and blatant, and ecstasy achieves its greatest heights when it's properly unfettered.

  To get the best from a vampire lover, you have to do more than dream. You have

  to overcome your fear of true commitment.

  When I came, Sheena absorbed the milky fluid as easily as she'd absorbed the

  rich claret that flowed from the gash beneath my nipple.

  It's traditional for supernatural visitors to prove their reality by leaving behind

  some
physical token of their presence, and Sheena did that, too, but it was the

  substance that she took to nourish her own fugitive solidity that provided the

  firmer proof to me. It didn't make sense, but I knew that she was way beyond

  sense now, as truly supernatural as any creature that had ever defied the crippling

  demands of mortality.

  She had always been a vampire, but I never had before. The final proof of the

  preciousness of our love would be the future we would share, once we were

  united in nature and in purpose.

  When she had had her fill of me, she lingered, as only the most loving vampire

  can or will. She let me run my hands over her body and look into her fabulous

  eyes. As I looked, it seemed to me that I could see through her eyes, into the dark

  essence of her emotion and intelligence, where her lust for blood, life, and eternity

  was manifest in the tortured energies swirling around the event horizon of her

  appetites. The display was alight not merely with all the colours of the Atlantean

  rainbow but with others not yet manifest in any of the lives that she and I had

  lived.

  One day, I know, we'll find the identities that would allow us to perceive those

  colours, and more besides.

  That night, with all my heart, I wanted to be free, especially of myself—but I

  knew that the kind of freedom I wanted was the kind that had to be won, and that

  the winning of it wouldn't be easy.

  Silence fell while we held each other, but it didn't break the spell. Sheena still

  lay upon me, her head cradled on my shoulder, the weight of her slender torso

  pressed against my heart, and her legs parted to either side of my lumpen thighs.

  She was so very peaceful, now that she had fed, that I could have rolled us over

  and pinned her down, and threatened to detain her until morning, but she would

  have laughed at me, because vampires can't be caught like that.

  "There's no hurry," she whispered when she caught the stray thought. "We

  have all the time in the world."

  I know that—but sometimes it's hard to be patient. Sometimes, when you hold

  a vampire lover in your arms, you want it to go on—if not forever, at least until the

  sun comes up. But vampires are definitely creatures of the night, even though the

  notion that they crumble to dust in sunlight is something the movies made up to

  provide their tall tales with some sort of closure.

  "When will I see you again?" I asked, although I knew she wouldn't give me a

  specific answer.

  "Another time," she said.

  That's where I'm headed, for now and always.

  I truly believe that I'll get there. I'm changed and I'm changing, and it's only a

  matter of feeding the muse until she forgives me for the time it took to see her for

  what she really is, and to understand what I really am, even if I'll never be able to

  see it in a mirror.

  The inhabitants of other times saw more in light than we can see, and they

  heard more in music than we can hear. There's not much we can do to

  compensate for that, but we should all do what we can. We can all try our utmost

  not to think the way other people think, not to do the things other people do, not

  to like the things that other people like, and not to want the things that other people

  want. We can all feed the creatures of the night, and hope that whichever of them

  deigns to accept our loving offerings will eventually set us free, in one or another

  of the nine secret ways that only muses know.

  Sheena told me her secret even before she died: that the only way to get a true

  appreciation of what it means to be alive is to die a thousand times. Until I've lived

  and lost a million joyful moments, I can't begin to know what such moments are

  really worth—and that's not the kind of task you can rush.

  I'm working on it, but I know that even with her to help me, it'll take a lot

  longer than a single lifetime.

  Another time?

  If only.

  GLOSSARY OF LOCAL AND OTHER

  ESOTERIC TERMS

  arse: the English word mistranscribed by Americans as "ass" (in the nonBiblical sense). civvies: military slang for civilian dress.

  Dr Smith's Classical Dictionary: an invaluable reference book compiled in

  Victorian times by William Smith, D.C.L., L.L.D.

  Dry Blackthorn: one of the two brands of dry cider commonly available on

  draught in English pubs.

  ferret, slip the: penetrate sexually (by analogy with the sportsman who inserts

  a ferret into a rabbit hole in order to expel the rabbits from their warren; the word

  "cunt" comes from the old English term for rabbit —although "cunny" is

  nowadays rendered in script as "coney" and pronounced, euphemistically, as if it

  did not rhyme with "honey," while the similarly euphemistic "bunny" has been

  consigned to the use of children).

  Gap: a chain of clothing merchants whose products are aimed at young

  people.

  Headrow, The: the main street of Leeds, site of the Town Hall, the Central

  Library, and numerous imposing lampposts.

  hen party: the female equivalent of a stag party, in which "friends" of a brideto-be get her roaring drunk and play vicious practical jokes; because female

  imitations of lad culture (qv) tend to be a little less vindictive, a hen party's worst

  excesses of violence and calculated humiliation tend to be visited upon innocent

  bystanders (e.g., male strippers) rather than upon the bride-to-be herself.

  Jez: although "Jez" is used in the south of England as a contraction of Jeremy,

  Jeremys are very rare in Yorkshire; the likelihood is that the Jez in the story was

  actually christened Jesse but employs the harder pronunciation because Yorkshire

  slang tends to equate a "Jessie" with "a big girl's blouse" (i.e., an effeminate male).

  lad culture: an aspect of the male backlash against feminism that became well

  established in Britain in the 1990s, encouraged and sustained by such popular

  magazines as Loaded; it renews and magnifies the pride taken by young males in

  their love of association football, their capacity for bitter ale and their deep-seated

  fear of all things feminine, while simultaneously (and perhaps paradoxically)

  converting them into helpless fashion victims.

  lawy: a contraction of "lavatory" widely employed in regions of England where

  the word "toilet" is considered to be too Frenchified for polite use.

  letter, French: a slag term for a condom, used by people who consider

  themselves too posh to say "Johnny."

  Ml: the motorway connecting Leeds to London.

  naff: somewhat lacking in good taste, and therefore seriously uncool.

  New Labour: After nineteen years of Conservative government the Labour

  party finally won a British general election in 1998, having rebranded its ideology

  and policies as "New Labour"—i.e., indistinguishable from those of the

  Conservative party.

  Peel, John: a long-serving Liverpudlian radio disc jockey, held in such

  affectionate esteem by people who were young in the 1960s that he has now

  become a curious national institution.

  piss, taking the: holding someone or something up to ridicule.

  pull-a-pig contest: an alleged ritual of British lad culture (qv) in which a group

  of young men in a pub or nig
htclub place bets as to which of them can find, take

  home, and have sexual intercourse with the ugliest woman. Proof has to be

  provided in the form of Polaroid photographs, preferably displaying the unclad

  victims in supposedly hilarious, compromising positions, which may be submitted

  to an unbiased referee in order to determine who scoops the pool.

  Redondan Cultural Foundation Newsletter, The: a periodical devoted to

  the affairs of the Kingdom of Redonda, a loose-knit literary society created by M.

  P. Shiel (who was taken to the eponymous uninhabited rock near Montserrat in his

  youth and crowned king thereof by his father). Royal Redondan Naval Reserve Tshirts are, however, an American product.

  slag: a derogatory term for a sexually active woman.

  striker: an attacking player in association football whose job is scoring goals.

  Strongbow: the other brand of dry cider commonly available on draught in

  English pubs.

  sweeper: a defensive player in association football who never strays far

  enough into the other team's half to get scoring chances.

  Tesco: a supermarket chain.

  United: in Leeds, the association football club Leeds United; as noted by the

  narrator, the term has different referents in Manchester, Sheffield, and Dundee (not

  to mention Newcastle and Carlisle). The Leeds United stadium is in Elland Road,

  on the opposite side of the road from the only greyhound racing stadium in

  England whose track is so narrow that there is only room for five dogs to race on

  it, instead of the usual six.

  You learn something new every day: a popular English cliché which

  probably holds true only for people who take the trouble to read glossaries.

  S. P. SOMTOW

  Vanilla Blood

  In a profession filled with colorful authors, S. P. Somtow is one of

  the most colorful. Born in Bangkok and related to the royal family of

  Thailand, he has written many highly regarded fantasies and works

  of science fiction, notably Vampire Junction, The Pavilion of Frozen

  Women, Starship and Haiku, Mallworld, and Light on the Sound He is

  also a musical prodigy who has conducted several of the world's

  orchestras, and is an avantgarde composer whose music has been

  performed in more than a dozen countries on four continents. Now if

  you've been keeping count, it's been a close race in The Vampire