Immortal Pleasures, page 6
His blue eyes soften. “No. Don’t leave. I’ve dated much scarier women.”
I can’t help but chuckle. The taste of his blood lingers on my lips. He tastes like nothing I can quite discern. I want more. As he moves to clean his wound at the sink, he sees me eyeing his wrist. The scents of sex on our bodies and his blood cause my mouth to water and belly to leap with the hunger of a thousand leeches dying to be fed.
“Come here,” he says in a soft tone. I move close to him until I’m against his chest. Without thinking, I kiss the skull tattoo and rub my face against his chest hair. He sits on the closed toilet seat and pulls me onto his lap.
“Here.” He lifts his wrist to my mouth. “I don’t see why you can’t have all of me. I knew I was yours from the moment you offered to carry my books.”
My worst fear and greatest fantasy floats in his blue eyes that are no longer stormy seas but cool Caribbean waters that dare me to wade in. For years I have avoided visiting Europe, afraid of my lingering resentment from the days of Spanish conquest. Cortés. His name still sends me into a rage. I would travel to hell if I knew I could drain him dry of all his blood. It has taken this long for me to feel a sliver of peace to travel across the ocean.
In the spirit of giving myself to all that life has to offer, I take Colin’s wrist into my mouth and drink deeply. I have to learn to accept the love presented in front of me instead of dashing for the door. Love has been a sort of Hollywood version of a vampire to me—something legendary, something not real. But I have reached a stage in my long life when neither garlic nor crosses can keep the yearning away. Up to now, I ran as fast and hard as I could, choosing to be my own husband. Not once did I disappoint myself. That only lasts so long because I had to show up for myself every damn day. A hand to hold as the years grow longer would be nice.
Colin winces only once, then brushes my tangled hair from my face and neck. Lips with the soothing balm that only love can provide kiss my neck. The sticky juice that is Colin’s blood invigorates my body. He’s swimming through my veins, my heart, my brain. There’s no going back the longer I drink. You don’t find love when you’re looking; it waits in the shadows, stalking you by night, then devouring you whole when your back is turned. In that moment, I love Colin for his desire to give me his blood for sustenance. I love his kindness. When his eyes are heavy, I know it’s time to stop.
“Thank you. You didn’t have to do that. Why don’t we take this party to the other room? Want a beer?”
He kisses my bloodstained lips and pats my bottom. “Hell yes, I want a beer! And a shot of whiskey. And something sweet. My sister is fantastic at baking.”
I roll my eyes. “Baked goods, really? Why?”
“Yeah, you know when you donate blood you need something sweet after for the blood sugar? You practically drained me! I’d like brownies. I think I still have a few my sister left me the other day.”
Any concern I had is gone. “I barely scratched you. I’ll be waiting with that beer when you decide to join me.” I walk out knowing he’s watching my bare ass shake.
We sit at his table that seats two, and he wolfs down a thick slice of brownie. He is looking at me as if he is trying to read my mind or figure out what this will lead to.
“I have to ask you a few questions. If that’s okay?”
This moment was inevitable. I’ve decided to answer as much as possible, but a woman is allowed to keep some of her secrets. “You can ask. Don’t be hurt if I don’t respond or you don’t like the answer I give you.”
“I’m guessing we can only see each other at night?”
“That’s totally false. I love the sun. In fact, it’s a source of peace and calm for me. Next question.”
He’s thinking hard as he finishes the last crumbs of his brownie. Then he jumps out of his seat. “Hold on. This is good.” He walks to a drawer beneath the kitchen counter and pulls out a small pad and pencil. I don’t know if I should be flattered by his interest or wary of it. My story has only ever been told by others.
“How do you live? Like, do you have a job? How old are you?”
I wouldn’t accept this line of questioning from anyone else, but he’s not anyone else. I also want to return the favor of giving me his beautiful blood. Perhaps being open about my life will prompt him to tell me his life story too.
“I deal in antiquities. When the Spanish came to the New World, their mind was on nothing but plunder and conquest. Their lust for riches was as great as their cruelty. I was given to a very powerful Spaniard and privy to all the Spanish secrets the longer I served. The internet is a fantastic invention and expanded my business across the world. As far as my age, I became a vampire at thirty, which would make me over five hundred years old.”
He is scribbling on his notepad. “Only two more questions. Promise.”
I remain silent.
“How much blood do you need? Is it like the movies where you drain a whole body? You didn’t seem to need much from me.”
“That is different for every vampire just like it is for humans. When I feel full and satisfied I stop. Because we are dead, we have to feed more than you would eat. However, drinking blood feels better than eating food. It’s intimate and rejuvenates our bodies beyond what humans are capable of. The physical power can be intoxicating. That is why some kill—because we can.”
He no longer writes and stares at me with a look of wonder. “Wow. That is so fascinating. I thought you were only a tale in books. But to hear how it really is…Okay, last question.”
I nod for him to continue.
“Why are you here?”
I have to make a decision whether or not to tell him about the skulls. The tip of his pen rests on the paper. No one can write my story but me. “Because I am.”
He opens his mouth to speak again. I lift my hand. My desire to open myself to others will have to be taken in steps. “Later. Tell me more about your sister. I recall a photo on your desk. Are you close?”
“We are a very close family. Guess I got lucky that way. Growing up, we had our fights, like any siblings, but we always worked it out. Her son, Luke, is one hell of a kid. I always thought if I became a father, I’d hope I could raise one like him.”
This statement raises the hair on my arms slightly. As much as I like him, he is still human, and longs for an ordinary human life. Something I can never give him the way he might expect.
* * *
It’s the evening. We order Indian food for him because he’s hungry, then we curl beneath a duvet to watch Fright Night. For some reason he’s in the mood. It also happens to be one of my all-time favorite films. Since I have no spare clothes at his apartment, he gives me an old Van Halen T-shirt to wear. Not only is his taste permanently in my mouth, his scent layers itself on my skin from the moment I slip it on.
Telling a few of my secrets to someone after so many years alone feels as soft as wearing a twenty-year-old T-shirt with nothing on underneath. There is no reason to leave his apartment. I have all that I need in this moment in time. I’ve somehow moved in without moving. This is our island within an island.
His idea of breakfast in bed is by far the best sex I’ve ever experienced and the only thing I want every morning. While I lie on my side, still drowsy, he greets me from behind with his erect cock, the wet tip sliding between my ass cheeks. As my pussy becomes wetter from his cock entering and exiting, he slides toward my anus. It’s stimulated until it pulses like a little sea anemone trying to catch prey. His one arm casts around my own, so that his wrist rests on my mouth. His other hand, coated with lube, continues to tease my little puckered hole, sending shockwaves of titillation to my toes.
Once out of my pussy, he slides in and out of my ass, pumping to the cadence of a slow ballad like Foreigner’s “Waiting for a Girl Like You.” His breath on my neck and soft moans are a soothing lullaby. My fingers find my clit as he fucks my ass. I can’t remember ever being this wet. His blood is in my mouth and his cock inside my body. There is no part of him that isn’t part of me. I want to cry, to relinquish my soul to whatever demands the gods have of me, because I don’t want this moment to ever end. Dreams must exist, because this feels like one in the space of the day that isn’t night nor morning. We enter and exit each other’s bodies from the dark morning light until noon. I’ve seen the cruelty of how short life can be, so I don’t overthink what any of this means beyond this flat. The entire experience is some sort of emotional chrysalis. My heart and body speak to each other. Inside I am growing, sprouting new anatomy. I am connecting the parts of me that had once been severed by the sword of subjugation.
When I can tell I’ve weakened him too much from my feeds, I feel like cooking. Even though I don’t eat food, the aroma of it has always been a comfort to me.
It reminds me of my time with Chantico. When I was helping her, the rhythm of preparing gave me the same sense of peace as weaving. I’ve missed that peace but pushed the memory of it far from my heart and mind. Now the opportunity to feel it has arisen again. If we were in my homeland, I’d be preparing our traditional food, full of chili, onion, and maize. Instead, I have pulled up a few easy dishes from Pinterest.
While I’m at the stove, Colin kisses my neck and strokes my ass, a glass of wine in his other hand. He’s a creature of normality, making me feel desired so much more than the quick-fix fucks I’ve grown accustomed to. His allure is so potent, I’ve forgotten what other blood tastes like or that it even exists. This perhaps is what it feels like to be normal: You just live an average life day to day and hope for love to find you. I’ve been in hibernation far too long, and so I will give living at a slower pace another shot.
I read his books in bed while he writes. When he’s working, I only sneak to his desk to bring him dishes I’ve never made before. It has been centuries since I have even considered doing anything of the sort. But I humor myself with this act of domesticity, even while he is my food source. When I am hungry, he nestles next to me in bed as I take a deep bite into his wrist and feed until I am satisfied.
He’s writing something new, something with bite and blood and more gore than he ever had in a book before. I consume all his published books with fervor and then he allows me to read the stories no other eyes have seen. I feel privileged to be a part of something so deeply personal. The idea of doing something like that frightens me, but I am also intrigued to try. When my watch buzzes with an alert to a new email, I swipe it away. The thought of turning off notifications crosses my mind.
It’s time to live for the moment, not the hunt.
Before I doze off Colin whispers, “Good night, Mali, my Nahua muse.”
These words are wonderful to hear, yet I discover something I had not anticipated or experienced before: his human body heat next to mine for hours on end. That heat consumes the entire bed until the sheets take on the sensation of floating on a magma waterbed. As he lays draped over me night after night, it warms me to the point of needing to inch away from him. At first the heat makes me drowsy, almost like being drunk on love, but my body does not regulate at the same temperature as his. The cold doesn’t bother me, nor does the sun. But this body heat does.
I kick off the covers for some relief from my rising temperature. I close my eyes to meditate and try to rest, as uncomfortable as it feels. As vampires age, the need for sleep in the human sense fades; however, restorative rest is still essential. My body still finds itself resisting the heat. I try to tell myself this is something that will pass, an adjustment. Or is it?
Then there is also the sound of his heart. The constant patter of it booming between my ears makes it impossible to completely relax. Again, I tell myself to press on with this experiment of love, even if the sound of his pulse repulses me slightly. His breathing in his chest also makes a rhythmic whistling sound out of his mouth before it hitches. Humans are noisy as hell at night. His blood and oxygen irritate me so much that it makes me wonder what lying next to another vampire might be like.
After two days I broach the subject of leaving the apartment. “You have either been in bed with me or at that desk. It can’t be good for your health.” He stands and stretches his back.
“I think you’re right. And this can’t be that exciting for you,” he says.
Nearly naked, I shift my eyes across the room toward the door to remain cool and calm. I can’t tell him this time with him is priceless. How I find myself growing in ways I had once feared would end my life if I even tried. Finding him, on this tiny little island in an unremarkable pub, is a one-in-a-billion chance. Yes, there are many people out there that would be fun to fuck, but how many of them can we truly feel a connection with? He is in my life, whether I like it or not, and the gravity between us is more than theory. It now rules our lives.
But my mind can’t help overthinking, so I simply say, “Show me more of your town. Show me what I won’t find in a travel guide.”
His eyes sparkle when he looks at me. “You bet. Anything you want.”
* * *
The gauzy gray sky makes the city feel as though it exists only in a sad memory. The dark gloom that settles in the morning remains until the night. Not a speck of sunlight pokes through even once.
I would be lying if I didn’t admit to myself that I disliked the weather in Ireland from the day I arrived. The sun is too important for me. A creeping thought enters my mind. What if this is all he wants? This island and his bookshop? And a normal woman with normal needs on his arm to wear his T-shirt? Too enchanted by the last few days, I brush these questions off. The fragrance of what I hope is love is such a strong perfume it clouds my mind.
The skull in his bookshop also keeps popping back into my mind, reminding me of the skulls I had been searching for and that are now within my reach. Yet I continue to ignore Horatio’s emails. I can’t escape the uneasy idea that I cannot have both the dream lover and my career. Don’t forget your skulls! I keep telling myself. This entire trip was supposed to be about retrieving the obsession of my long, immortal life.
But instead, I walk hand in hand with Colin down the narrow cobbled back streets that he finds most interesting, but also so he can show me the clubs where he’d watch punk bands perform, his childhood neighborhood, his old school. We sit on the park bench where he had his first kiss. How different we are in our beginnings, our current situations, yet we share deeper similarities. Before his parents were born, my soul secretly yearned for this kind of companionship. I suppose all our souls do on some level.
I rest my head on his shoulder as we sit on the bench, a light mist of rain falling over us. I close my eyes and wish I could actually become my vampire blood as it enters his veins, mutating his cells until we are truly one and the same being. I want a shoulder to rest my weary head upon for years to come. But will this stay good long enough for us even to get through the entire Netflix catalogue of horror films? I dare not fantasize about it lasting any longer.
Because if I am honest with myself, part of me wonders if only another vampire will do for my lifelong companion. It’s hard for me to discern between my own voice and the voice of destiny. My worries about the complications of living alongside a human gather as thick as the clouds over my head.
“Tell me about the horned skull,” I say to him.
He smiles as he stares into the trees. The few other people that are seated get up to find shelter from the rain. We are now alone.
“Well, I suppose it’s what I might look like if you peel back my skin. All the things I feel, think, my regrets, the things that motivate me, look like that skull.
“A few years ago, I did a lot of hard drugs. I thought it helped me with my creativity, but one bad trip left me hospitalized. I felt like I was going insane. So I stopped. Stopped drinking for a spell too and took a road trip in America. This old guy was selling the skull in this little junkyard shop off the highway in New Mexico. I bought it straightaway and had it shipped to Ireland for an insane amount of money, but I couldn’t let it go. When it arrived in Ireland, I had my mate varnish it. It somehow helps remind me to always be honest with myself and others.”
Colin’s ability to reveal himself to me makes me want to feel even closer to him. I kiss his lips, unbutton his jeans, slip my hand underneath his boxers, while his navy rain jacket hides my little misdeed. I watch his dirty blond eyelashes flutter as droplets of drizzle catch on the tips. His perfect lips quiver and smile with every stroke of my hand. He leans back, letting the rain splash his face. His body tenses and his jaw clenches as the pleasure coils in his groin, and he squeezes my thigh. The rain saturates everything, including us, but we could be on fire and we wouldn’t notice. When he’s about to come, I pull his cock out far enough that I can wring every drop of cum from it with my mouth.
Now this park bench has two special memories for him.
On our way back to his home, I hear a small basement bar playing funk and disco. It feels like a poor man’s Studio 54 and reminds me of my time with Catherine. I turn to Colin. “We have to go in.”
He smiles. “Lead the way.”
The staircase down to the basement leads to a dangerously overcrowded club, the air humid with suffocating body heat. No one notices or cares about the overcrowding. We could all be celebrating in the afterlife in the middle of a field under the stars with an angel as our DJ. I drag Colin to the dance floor. At least I dance, while he watches me or shuffles his feet back and forth while sipping on a beer. He’s happy to humor me and give me a little twirl here and there, as long as I reward him with a kiss.
If I could relive any decades, it would have to be the seventies. It was a never-ending party of pleasure and music. I had met Catherine, my only best friend, in New York City during the seventies. She was so wicked and sensual. She possessed the wild emotional and physical abandonment of the music created in those times. My affair with Colin would meet with her approval. She was a complicated woman helping women in ways that would have been denied to them in centuries past, especially those down on their luck or looking to free themselves from fathers, brothers, and lovers. She believed women who were previously told they were heretics and liars. Yet in other aspects of her life she was so utterly selfish it ultimately might have led to her demise. She had no conscience when it came to killing, even the innocent. But Catherine’s life is another story for another time.
