Of course my favourite colour is black. What did you expect? Red? Red is for hunger. Red will be the colour of my eyes after I’ve sated myself on your delectable blood, my darling correspondent. Red is a meal. Do you sport a rare filet mignon as an evening gown? I’m sure you don’t; although we haven’t met. Not yet anyway.
The aim of your missives has clearly been to ingratiate yourself with me, glorious me. I’m flattered. You aren’t just another one of those fanatics who immerse themselves in gothic legends penned in tiny script and found in moth-eaten dusty old volumes on neglected library shelves. You value the living, so to speak, or at least the not yet obliterated. You have a depth of imagination, a certain je ne sais quoi I find fascinating.
And if you haven’t ferreted it out over the course of our long correspondence, dear incessant scribbler, I am a narcissist. I could tell you about my nasty obsessions, my torrid encounters and the torturing miscreants who have inhabited my dastardly domicile over the millennia, about our homage to the dark splendour of the unspoken, but I haven’t the patience.
Right now I’m stroking my cock. It’s become positively rigid within the confines of my tight suede mini skirt. Commando? For you, dear pervert pen pal,without question, with my massive hairy balls hanging below the short hemline, swinging and ready to smother your sweet ingénue’s gaping mouth. But I quickly lose interest and they shrink back to pocket-pool size. What can you do?
I’ve thought about getting a Prince Albert. Would the steel rod be painful when I’m erect? I hope so. Anything to eliminate the numbingly dull encroachment of so called humanity. Will it enable me to feel some kind of thrill when I’ve got yet another naïve rube bent over a dirty garbage can in the back alley, and I’m munching away on his pale neck while roguering his derriere with my fine upstanding prick?
I’m starving. Where’s Josephine, that slatternly wench, with my victuals? Out gallivanting all night as Joseph, no doubt. Hir breasts bound and packing a firm sock in hir slacks.
I miss conquests with Attila and drumming up conspiracy theories with Genghis. I miss Wilde & Baudelaire and our debauched nights of rut and conversation as we hunkered down amidst the opium, absinthe and strumpets to compare the elaborate knots of our cravattes. I miss rimming the rakes of the Hellfire Club. I should have made them all, but I was always so hungry for the new. I thought I would have an eternity of rogue companions.
Yet, here I am, in this desiccated era with hand sanitizers and the latest smart phone app as the main topics of conversation. My vampire sons and daughters are all germophobes; I had to convince them it was silly to wear dental dams when they suck blood from humans. What part of immortality don’t they understand?
There was a time when this cave was a hideaway for degenerates, each one of them willing to pay a high price to consort with the most flagitious of vampires. To be fucked and sucked into dark oblivion.
Was I the major domo of a house of ill repute, you ask. Was my abode a bordello for the bent? I am touched at your attempts to read closely between the lines, my dear depraved confidante. Perhaps we can have some fun after all, but I might have to make you beg before I can reveal more. I know how you love to beg me. You aren’t the only attentive reader, my filthy little pen pal.
Are you torturing your nipples for me right now, my masochistic slut? Are you making them hard for me? Do I have that effect on you? Would you do anything to please me? If I found you right now at a late-night vampire fan club, would you kneel for me and suck my cock, play the lascivious vampirette, your eyes big and round with adulation before I grabbed you by the neck and tore your throat out? Would your last breath be taken up with the sound of your orgasm as you climbed to your pathetic little death?
You see, I’ve found most people want to surrender themselves. They yearn to lose control, even for an instant. Think about that thrilling rush when the roller coaster plummets. The way your heart pounds just before, the sweat, the butterflies in your stomach. Scary but incredibly exciting.
Why do humans seek thrills at all? Why take up skydiving when you know how dangerous it is? Because, dear lascivious lech, they have a death wish or perhaps they just need a diversion, something to wake them from their stultifying existence. Perhaps Kurt Vonnegut was right when he said that people smoke because they know it can kill them.
It’s that need to test your mortality, to see how much you can handle. That feeling of free-fall when you have no control over what happens to you. All you can do is glide and hope you make it safely to the ground. It’s the tension of not necessarily knowing that you will survive.
What is more thrilling than seeking out a vampire, a creature of legend, a natural killer who will take you to the very edge of death if he desires. And maybe push you over that edge. Free-fall you into ecstasy. This is why you’re here, isn’t it, dear devil-may-care desperado. You want to plummet.
But I can’t give in to your hidden desires just yet, dear wretched epistler, so I’m going to toy with you instead for no particular reason than our mutual sado-masochistic delight. How does that sound?
The vampire, you understand, is a lover of life. How could it be otherwise? Nothing says joie de vivre more than drinking the dregs of pulse, feeling the heart’s brief flutter as your victim struggles and then finally gives in. Being responsible for the end of that infuriating iambic rhythm. The stench of copper on one’s breath after a good feed, the tongue’s discovery of stringy clot between the molars.
I have loved life so much I’ve wanted to devour it, to possess it, to make it bend to my will. Can I do that, you ask, my adorable sex fiend? You have no idea how much I can do. How much power I wield with a mere whoosh of my gloomy wings. And I’m getting tired of it.
There was a time when swooping down on a powerless victim would create that feeling of free-fall, but no more.
Josephine has brought home a handsome young troubadour. He’s resplendent with his ocean blue eyes and golden hair. A high-quality angel. I once took great pleasure in corrupting such resplendent innocence.
I go through the motions. He’s kneeling at my feet, licking the polish off my favourite Fluevogs, like a well-mannered boy. Yawn. If I had a watch, I’d look at it. But the vampire is the epitome of timelessness, is he not? No need to be too creative. Soon I’ll have him on his back, spread-eagled on my gleaming lacquer platform, hooked to the walls with steel manacles and chains. Predictably, he’ll salivate as he cries out for another lash of the cat-o-nine on his thighs, another lick of fire on his cock and balls. I will squeeze his ball sack so tight, he’ll scream in pleasurepain.
Yes, nitpicky reader, I meant that to be one word. Just as the Japanese have a word for the combination of bitter and sweet, umami, there needs to be something for the mingled sensation of joy and horror. This boy needs a word for what I’m doing to him, but I can’t give it to him. In bygone years, I would have tantalized him slowly until he cried out an appropriate variant.
But now I leave that to Joseph, who still seems to enjoy such torture. I have developed a short attention span, as you can see. I’ve been distracted by the new buxom serving girl who has a arrived with a carafe of blood. I watch as she bends her skirts for me and sets the blood pot on the side table. I remember how I used to enjoy the wide stare of fear in their eyes, the aroused flare of their nostrils, their intake of breath, like that of a horse about to gallop. Is she excited by what I’m doing to the boy on the platform or would she like to be the boy on the platform? I don’t really care.
I can’t be bothered to mesmerize this little slut with my eyes, dear disbelieving familiar. I merely have to curl my finger and she kneels, says “yes, Master,” as many times as I’d like. Where’s the challenge in that?
For now, I’ll stow her on the cross, wrap rough brown hemp around her wrists and ankles, cut off that immaculate maid’s uniform with my sharp claws. Let her squirm in her tight patent leather corset, garters and stilettos as I mock her tits, those giant jugs that ache for a suck. “You’re a little suck slut, aren’t you, maid?” I can’t even be bothered to learn their names. It’s just a parade of needy swains and groupies, one after the other.
She offers me her neck. Begs me with her eyes and those well-manicured eyebrows upraised in supplicant configuration because I’ve gagged her with the troubadour’s dirty tighty whities, smeared the soil of his asshole on her cheek. Later I’ll clean her up and then I’ll take her neck. Then I’ll take her. I’ll lead her into temptation, into the nebulous shadows. I know, what a cliché, I can’t help myself. It’s in my blood, or rather, in theirs.
What’s in it for me aside from a feast, you wonder. I’m asking myself the same thing. After all, these days I don’t have to hunt anymore. My progeny fetch my meals for me, still warm in a jar or still moving within the veins of a living plaything. It used to be when I was peckish, I was like a cat with a new mouse. I delighted in the chase, in batting the thing around between my claws for awhile until it died of heart failure. I’ve been known to play rough. I chose the ones who come looking for me, a fervent hunger in their eyes to be mine or to annihilate me because they loved me too much. Just like you, my dear huntress. But it’s become too easy. We’ve been turned into caricatures by novels and romantic films. Fans of the undead are desperately seeking us out. We’ve been mainstreamed. There’s nothing particularly dark or transgressive about our status anymore. Sigh.
It’s embarrassing all the folderol about dear old undead me finally making its way to social media. For years I’ve kept hidden, down in the depths of my caves with my fellow degenerates. We’ve lived a splendid eternity in our decadent dwelling, feasting on an international array of fine food: German hausfraus, succulent Swedish blonde berries, Norwegian nancy-boys. It was once divine. And despite the occasional tabloid suggesting that we were responsible for the disappearance, if not murder, of numerous humans, we have managed to come out unscathed.
Oh, there have been occasional detectives who’ve found their way to our cave, but we’ve handled them. Sucked on their inviting young necks for awhile and then obliterated their memories, but now we’re being tweeted about. Can you imagine? Surface dwellers are spreading vicious rumours about us, adding evidence from our forays to their Google maps. They have been close to tracking us down.
And now you are here, dear intrepid pen pal, our most persistent sleuth, in the antechamber, insisting on an interview with who? Why with yours truly of course, the major domo, the king or if you will, the queen, of vampires. Take your choice. You think you will slay me with that wooden stake you’ve so cleverly hidden in your trench coat pocket? I am old, dear naïve correspondent, older than anything you could imagine.
You think all those e-mails you’ve sent have fooled me? Your claims that you are just a scholar, intent on learning about vampires for an academic paper, are flimsy at best. I am no fool. I wouldn’t have survived this long if I were.
I can’t decide what to wear for your welcome to the world of the undead. I could don the classic black cape and dark suit, but how boring. For your awakening, I think it must be sequins and feathers. Or perhaps a black wedding gown with lace trim and a long trail. For tonight, my darling vampire lover, we could be brides together. I could even make you my widow.
You see, I’ve been lonely and your e-mails have heartened me. I enjoyed the photos of you I found on that Internet site for slaves looking for masters. There you were all curled up, your mouth gagged with a black leather bit, your eyes full of worship. Who were you thinking about then, dear subby scribe? Could it have been yours truly? Do you flog your little clit with your fingers while imagining my fangs at your neck?
I enjoyed the fan fiction story you posted on HotforVampires.com. About how you wanted to be a vampire’s blood slut. You’re a fine writer, yourself, dear wordsmith, very fine. I have often stroked myself to the tune of your excellent diction. Tonight for your edification, I will enact the basic vampire’s guide on how to capture and seduce its prey. Consider the instructions to be stage directions, if you will. After all, what is a vampire if not an actor? Are we not merely players? This is my stage, dear puppet.
1. Overpower the victim from across the room or in a dark alley.
2. Catch it when it falls.
3. Mesmerize the future morsel with the mind. It will be paralyzed but still conscious.
4. Tear its insufferable clothing from its heaving body. This step isn’t absolutely necessary, but I can’t stand the Walmart outfits these suburban house wives are wearing these days, or the metrosexual’s Tommy John undershirts.
5. Caress its pale white skin.
6. Circle its tender young nipples with sharp claws.
7. Press a claw inside a wet and wanting orifice, dear lascivious correspondent.
8. It will offer up its pretty little neck to be sucked, but I’ll delay it with my cock as I twist it in until I am balls deep inside, dear desperate reader.
9. It will beg for the pressure of my fangs on its major artery.
10. It will cry out with the need to be taken, to be mine and solely mine.
You want to feel the edge. That’s why you’re here. To be pushed over. Admit it, pissant epistolarian, you are here to lose control. You are here for the thrill. You are here because you want Death to choose you. Your life is even more humdrum than mine.
And I must confess, dear enthralled disciple, this is what I’ve been waiting for. Years ago I could have done what myriad vampires who’ve been unable to keep suffering the ennui of everlasting undeath have done, taken a stake to my chest and burst into flame. But there is something, something about life that has had me in its thrall. Even an undead life.
I’m a giver, you see. All around me are takers, but I never let the blood run completely dry. I’m an undead maker. My den of iniquity is lousy with vampire sons and daughters. And I’m growing tired of their endless banter about the latest in vampire apps.
I admit I’ve been thinking about it, thinking about the end, yearning for it. You see, dear scribbler, I can’t even remember what it ‘s like to feel vulnerable, to experience the threat of annihilation and I yearn for it.
How many times have you stood at the edge of a subway platform and a quick flash, a mere synapse spark in your tangled subconscious has you imagining the leap? Have you ever looked at the container of sleeping pills on your nightstand and, just for a moment, considered swallowing the whole whack at once? Or walked against the light at a busy intersection? Why is that, dear fatalist?
What everyone wants is to be chosen, singled out, noticed. Dying does that to you. It isn’t just the angst-ridden goth teen who paints angel wings on his back who is obsessed with death. It’s you, dear scribe. It’s me.
Dying isn’t being dead, you declare? I didn’t say it was a reasonable desire, did I?
Perhaps, just for you, dear attentive reader, since you’ve become my biggest fan, I will give you what we both most desire, I will surrender myself to you, my everlasting soulless self. Perhaps I will feign ignorance about the stake buried in your cloak. Perhaps I will have my way with you and then pretend not to notice as you pull the stake out of your side pocket. Perhaps I will be momentarily distracted by the sight of your tantalizing dark eyes looking up at me in adulation as you plunge the stake into my chest, into my heart. Perhaps I will surrender. Perhaps I will finally experience the thrill of being chosen by Death.
* * * * *
The vampire folds the letter and places it in an envelope on the bureau addressed to “My Assassin.” He opens the door to the antechamber and waits…
© 2012 Amanda Earl. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.
Bio: Amanda Earl is a Canadian libertine living in Ottawa, Ontario. Her smut has appeared in numerous anthologies including “the Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica” (Carroll and Graf, 2006 and 2007), “Cream, The Best of The Erotica Readers and Writers Association” (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2006), “Swing! Adventures in Swinging by Today’s Top Erotica Writers” (Logical-Lust, 2009), “Do Not Disturb, Hotel Sex Stories” (Cleis Press, 2009), “Surrender: Erotic Tales of Female Pleasure and Submission” (Cleis Press, 2011). For more information, please visit www.amandaearl.com or follow Amanda on Twitter @KikiFolle.