Page 17 of Desperately Seeking Vampire
“Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt,” I said, changing my position so that it was more enticing. “But you said you just wrote this poem?”
“It is not a complete work, just a few lines that came to me as I was fetching Christian’s motorcycle,” he said, then lifted his head and stretched out his arm to emote again. “‘Sweet bird whose song lightens my loins, I mournest yet for when you leave my side—’”
“Sorry again, but are you calling me a bird?” I asked, flipping over onto my belly, kicking my heels over my butt, and sending him a come-hither look.
“It is a metaphor for you, yes. It is not the way of poets to simply call the object of their attention as they are,” he explained, then straightened up into his recitation pose. “‘Alone do I watch the night come as day recedes.’”
“OK, but you are aware that ‘bird’ is slang for a woman, right? I just didn’t know which way you meant it.” I rolled onto my side, and arranged myself in a mermaid pose, allowing the hem of the tee to ride up a bit on my leg. Not enough to flash him, but close to it.
“‘Taking with the day’s bliss your hips, your legs, your breasts,’” he said in a manner that made me think he was close to grinding his teeth. He paused and glared at me. I just smiled, and smoothed a hand down the pillow. “‘If thou couldst not guess how deep my sorrow—’”
“You don’t hear people use the word ‘couldst’ enough these days,” I commented, lolling back on the pillows.
He put his hands on his hips. “Do you want to hear the lines that I composed for you, or not?”
“Yes, of course I do. I’m a big supporter of the arts, literary included. I just have little experience with poetry.” I gave him a toothy smile, wondering what the hell it was going to take to get him into the bed. “Please, by all means, proceed.”
“‘When you hide your succulent form lest my fervent gaze caress it—’”
“How much more is there to it?” I asked. “Not that I mind if it’s long, but if it is going to take a while to get through all of it, then maybe I better visit the little cartomancer’s room.”
“You don’t want to hear this, do you?” he accused, his hands back on his naked hips.
“Of course I want to hear the poem you wrote for me,” I said, sitting up again since lolling did nothing but smoosh my breasts to the side. “It would be rude of me to want to romp in the bed instead of listening to it.”
He took a deep breath. I admired what that did to his chest, and thought about asking him to take a few more.
“Some would say it’s rude to keep interrupting a person who is attempting to recite the lines which he, at great mental cost due to concentration, composed just for their delectation.”
“See, that’s exactly what I mean when I say that you talk like a Victorian poetry book. It’s fun, Ivo. Sexy, even.” I patted the bed. “Why don’t you come here where it’s comfy, and you can tell me the rest of your poem.”
“No.” He crossed his arms and looked pointedly grumpy at me. “You don’t want to hear it.”
“I do,” I argued.
“You don’t. That’s why you keep stopping me.” His hair was ruffled as if it, too, were annoyed with me, while his penis remained at half-mast. I spent a moment eyeing the latter, then moved my gaze down to his thighs.
“You know, for a man who says he’s been snoozing away the last eighty-six years, you are in remarkably good shape. Exceptionally good shape, one might even say. Your thighs, for instance.”
He bent to look down at them. “They are thighs.”
“Yes, but they’re deliciously manly. They have thick muscles on the top that I just want to touch and taste and possibly rub my breasts upon.”
“‘All the woes of the world are named as mine / Until you return, my true spirit will fail,’” he said, the words tumbling over each other as he leaped onto the bed next to me, and pulled me over him. “You may commence tasting, touching, and breast rubbing.”
“Are you sure?” I couldn’t help laughing a little at the expectant way he lay beneath me, stiff as a board except his hands, which were even now attempting to pull my T-shirt off. I clutched it for a minute, wanting to make sure that he was fine with the whole idea of intimacy. “You seem to be having emotions that I don’t equate with the usual ones men feel.”
“I am not a usual man, and thus, I am eclectic. I am a Dark One. You are my Beloved, one who has been withheld from me for eighty-six years. Dark Ones deprived of their Beloveds die. Thus, yes, I wish to copulate. I also wish to feed, but I will not ask that of you if you are not willing to provide for me, although again, if you withhold yourself, I will have to return to a state of noctambul.”
“If Dark Ones die without their women, then why did you go to sleep, instead?” I couldn’t stop from asking. I was a bit confused about how it worked and, although I badly wanted to commence rubbing myself over him, needed to have this straight before I did so.
“We were not Joined. There are seven steps to Joining. We have only performed a few of them. I believe because of that, and the fact that you only fed me once, I was able to survive your loss, although I could not feed from another.”
I looked down at his eyes, now a beautiful mossy green with just hints of gray. “Wait, are you saying what I think you’re saying? You want to have sex, but you don’t want me to feed you?”
“Not unless you agree to do so,” he answered, his hands stilling on my back. “I would survive another parting from you so long as I don’t feed again. But to do so would bind me to you in ways that you may not wish to accept. It is a decision from which, for me, there is no turning back. But you have the choice. I do not. I will not feed from you unless you are willing to accept that I will require you to be an integral part of my life.”
I was touched, there was no denying that. And it went a long way to making me understand the sense of desperation that seemed to leach into the air around him. He was giving me the opportunity to decide not just my future but his, as well.
