Vampyre's Gift
“Magnolia!” you welcome your friend into your apartment, stepping aside so she could step in. You’d recently reconnected with her after not talking for far too long. So you invited her over for an overnight stay so you could catch up in person. It was already starting to get late, but apparently she had a busy schedule of late, so she couldn’t get there till near twilight.
It didn’t take you two long before you were both talking like hardly a day had passed since you’d last seen one another, save for how much you had to catch up on. There was far too much for you two to discuss. Minutes turned to hours, conversations pausing only long enough for you to fix tea or snacks. Eventually, the conversation started to turn to slightly heavier topics, and it looked like Mag had something on her mind. “Penny for your thoughts?” you asked, somehow noticing it despite your normal difficulty at it.
She hesitated a moment, before turning toward you. “Are you familiar with Vampires?” she asked. Of course you were, they were one of the most popular pop-culture monsters. Popular as non-villainous characters these days too, but you didn’t need her adding “real ones, I mean,” to know she didn’t mean the creatures of fiction.
That said, you knew OF them. It wasn’t exactly common knowledge, but you knew there were at least communities of people who acted as vampires thanks to an old procedural you used to watch. And more than that, you knew there were deeper communities. Deeper communities where, well, you didn’t believe in the supernatural, but at the very least you had no trouble believing that at the very least THEY believed it.
“I know there are people who believe themselves vampires,” you admitted, “but I don’t believe in it myself.” Not that you had any intent to cast aspersions on anyone; as long as they kept everything consensual, you didn’t really care what they did.
Magnolia looked a bit offended, “Well, you’re looking at one.”
You took a moment to process, though it did slot in nicely with the wannabe hunter. “If you say so,” you said dismissively, not intending to push nor call her a lier. For all you knew, she really was one, but you really had no evidence. Heck, even if she had fangs, that wouldn’t really prove it. You could do a lot with implants or veneers these days.
“I can prove it,” she said, pulling a knife from her bag, ‘if you’re willing to try.”
A question about why she didn’t use the knife to defend herself drifted into your head only to be quashed by the ‘crossbow’ part of ‘crossbow wielding psycho wannabe vampire hunter. Your heart caught in your chest, nerves catching back up with you over just what she could have in plan. But taking a deep breath, you nod.
“I’ll…it depends on what we’re talking about, but…” you hesitate, trying to order your thoughts into something that won’t make you sound like a nonce. “But what sort of atheist would I be if I didn’t test my own beliefs, right?”
She looked a bit sour at that, but said “It’ll do, I suppose. I’m not exactly at my prime, but…you should experience a rush of energy.” Pulling the knife, a moderate length fixed blade combat-style knife, from its sheath, she placed the edge on one of her fingers and drew swift. A single, clean stroke across the tip of her middle finger. At first you weren’t sure if it did anything, only for crimson beads to form as if specifically to spite your disbelief in something so mundane.
Placing the knife aside, she offered the slit finger to you, droplets slowly but surely growing. You give her a look, hesitant and questioning, before looking back at the finger. On one hand, you were concerned about blood borne illnesses. On the other, you didn’t want your friend to think ill of you, and she seemed upset at your earlier disbelief. Besides, might as well put your metaphorical money where your mouth is going.
Taking one last steadying breath to ignore that little voice telling you how stupid this idea was, you lean over and wrap your lips fully around the digit, taking everything past the last knuckle into your mouth and you tasted, you experienced
Nothing.
There was nothing. No…rush of energy, no strange sensations even, not even the taste you’d expect of blood. Just complete emptiness. Not even the usual taste of human skin that you normally would get if you, say, did the same with your own finger. Even as you close your eyes and move your tongue around to lick the wound, you still get a grand total of nothing.
Unable to deny even your own mild disappointment, you pull your mouth off, and catch her gaze as she looks expectantly at you. For a moment, you’re tempted to lie and say you felt what she said you would, or even to just say you only tasted blood. But instead you answer honestly; “nothing,” you say as you shake your head, “no rush, no taste, nothing.” Even water tasted stronger than that.
Magnolia screwed up her face, clearly confused by the result. “Weird.” She’d probably been expecting the ‘rush of energy’ she had prepared you for, or even just the taste of blood at minimum, but for there to be nothing…
“Sorry,” you apologized on impulse, though there really wasn’t anything either of you did wrong. Still, it hurt to not apologize, hurt even if you pushed back on the impulse. “But if you really are a vampire would you…” you could’t stand the thought of your friend being upset with you, “would you wanna feed from me?”
She looked up, your offer interrupting her thoughts. “Are you sure?” she asked, “you don’t have to.”
You just shake your head, “I don’t see why I shouldn’t.” You pick the knife up again and offer it to Magnolia, figuring she’d need it.
She takes the knife and nods, “Go wash your shoulder,” she said, “don’t want it to get infected.”
You nod, taking the sound advice. It doesn’t take long either, even if it is a bit awkward and weird, using handsoap to clean your trapezius; there really wasn’t anywhere else to bite down on there that’d have much blood. Plus from what you understood, that part of the body bleeds well, heals well, and doesn’t easily scar. Wiping the site clean and dry, you step out, wearing just a bra, one strap pulled aside. It felt silly and perhaps counterproductive to put your shirt or the strap back on, risk of cross contamination, so you skipped it. You did, however, make sure to grab a big, patch-style adhesive bandage on your way back to your friend.
“Thanks,” she said, putting aside the bandage and directing you to sit in front of her. “I’m going to pinch the skin and lay the edge on it. Then, I’m going to count to three and push the knife forward. I want you to take a deep breath and, on three, breath out nice and slow, ok?”
You nod, not expecting it to be such production, but you’d come this far. Pulling your hair out of the way, you got yourself comfortable as Magnolia followed the plan she lay out, pinching and manipulating the skin of your shoulder, getting your body to increase flow to the area while also pinching it to draw it taught. You almost jumped as you felt the sharp, cold edge of the knife touch your skin.
“Ready?” Magnolia asked.
You nod in reply, taking in a deep breath to steady yourself, prepare yourself for the inevitable pain.
1.
You breath out again, working on steadying your nerves.
2.
You take a fresh breath in, trying to fill your lungs to capacity.
3.
The searing pain of a knife slowly, patiently moving along your skin, slicing through your flesh stabbed its way into your mind just as the blade cut open your skin. You slowly exhaled, measuring your breath to keep your mind focused on something other than the knife.
You hear the knife clatter gently on the table as its set carefully aside, the worst part already done. You feel yourself relax a little as Mag starts massaging and manipulating your shoulder again, stimulating the blood flow .
“You’re bleeding well,” your vampiric friend said, her voice having a tone you’d never heard from her before. You felt her warm, wet tongue moving along the slit cut into your skin, a queer sensation you weren’t fully sure how to process. “Mmm,” you heard her say, a hungry, wanting noise you knew you’d never heard from her before now.
Apparently, the painful part wasn’t quite over yet, as you felt her bite down on your shoulder, sucking and licking at the wound, trying to draw more blood from your cut. You’d find out later that she was also using her teeth to stimulate further bleeding, working more and more out of you. The pain was unpleasant, but bearable At least that’s what you told yourself.
And that’s when you felt her hand on your belly and trailing upward. Gripping and fondling your breast through your bra, her teeth sinking harder into the flesh of your shoulder. You can’t help but let out a gasp as her other hand wraps around your midsection, pressing you against her as she continued to feed from you. Feeling your face flush, you reach up and pull your bra’s other strap off your shoulder, then pull the whole thing down to expose your breasts, inviting her to touch you more directly.
The sensation of her warm palm over your breast was…you didn’t even have the words to explain it. The mere touch was enough to numb any pain you were experiencing, driving it from your mind and leaving only a duller ache to remind you that you WERE being bitten and your blood consumed. Her hands began to explore you properly, leaving an aura of heat in their wake.
Maybe you were just touch-starved. It was your best hypothesis as to just why it felt so good, why each movement of her fingers, light as a brushstroke, threatened to elicit a soft moan from you, and why so many did.
Then, all of a sudden, you felt her jaw release and hands slip from around your body. As you heard her go for the bandage, you venture a question. “Are you all done?” you asked, “Didja get enough?”
“Yeah,” she said, peeling back the waxed paper protecting the adhesive and applying the bandage over the wound she’d just been drinking from, making sure the edges were down nice and flat. “You taste good. Kinda fruity.”
“Well, I DO like girls,” you tease, starting to fix your bra, before shrugging and taking it off instead, putting your shirt on instead. “I….” you hesitate as you turn back toward Magnolia, though unable to look directly at her. “I…didn’t expect you to get so handsy though.”
“Y-yeah…” she said, an edge of embarrassment clear, “sorry. I…just got kinda carried away.”
“It’s ok,” you can’t help but saying, “I…it’s not like I mind. I was just…caught off guard, I guess.” You let the silence hang, not sure what else to say. “D-do you want anything to drink?” you ask, trying to break the tension as you stand up.
“You…already made us tea,” Magnolia pointed out, gesturing at the now tepid mugs.
“R-right,” you said, a flush coming to your face as you sat back down. You scratched impotently at the bandage on your shoulder, trying to relieve a mild itch that had spawned. “So, um…I…it’s been a few years since I last saw you,” you said, “you’ve really changed.”
Magnolia took a sip of her tea, “time changes us all.”
“And makes some of us vampires, apparently.”
“You’ve changed too,” Maggy pointed out. “the old you barely went outside, much less at this hour. And you’d never try a stunt like that back there.”
“Yeah, well, I…I realized that…that my world begins and ends with me,” you said, taking a sip of your tea and feeling the thickened liquid slip down your throat. “If I don’t make the effort, if I don’t do something about it, I’ll be stuck in the same little monochrome world my whole life. If I don’t break out of that cycle, if I didn’t, then I never would. I couldn’t just wait for someone to do it for me, I had to take that step myself.”
“You steal that from a game or something?”
“Yup. And a song, and an anime,” you say with a chuckle.
“Whatever works,” Mag replied, “I’m just glad to see you doing better. So what do you go by these days?” She looked you over, likely noting the changes your body had gone through over the intervening years.
“I…haven’t decided yet,” you said, “You can just use my old name.”
She shook her head, “Naw, it’d feel weird.”
“Well…I’ll…I’ll get you a blanket and some pillows,” you stated as you finished off your tea. “Assuming you wanted to stay the night, that is.”
Maggy nodded, and you headed off to retrieve what you promised. By the time you returned, she’d already kicked her boots off and was finishing off her own tea. You both stayed and talked some more before the hour finally caught up with you. You wished your friend a good night and retired to bed, cuddling up to the numerous plushes you’d collected over the last few years, a shark plush cradled in your arms. She always fit best of all of them.
—————————————————
You roll out of bed uncharacteristically early: sometime around noon. Even with the blinds perpetually drawn, the noon light peering through the gaps felt sharp and painful. Your feet drag on the carpet as you shuffle into the kitchen, seeking the one thing that made your “mornings” worth waking up to. Your morning cup of “Bean Tea”. Coffee, that is to say, just using a term you picked up off the internet.
“Morning,” came Magnolia’s voice from the sofa, a still steaming mug in front of her.
“Mornin…” you mutter. “You’re up early.”
“What, do you think we sleep in coffins too?”
“S-sorry, I’m not awake enough to think.”
“Hey,” Maggy replied, her voice softening a bit, “I’m just teasing.”
You just look away and start making yourself a mug of your ‘Bean Tea’, the brewer was still hot from its last use. You take some grounds from the grinder you got as a present from your mother last year, a nice burr grinder. Only problem was it was…loud. Really loud. Painfully loud. So you only ran it on rare occasions, doing bigger batches or else using preground. Definitely best fresh, but what could you really do sometimes?
Some minutes later, you were sitting next to your friend, nursing a nice, hot, deep brown cup. Even a single sip seemed to revitalize you like nothing else, waking you up to the point you could actually call yourself ‘conscious’. Call yourself “Human”.
“Didja sleep well?” you asked between sips of the thick elixir.
“Yeah,” Mag replied, “Well as can be expected after last night.”
“What…what was that all about, anyway?”
Magnolia fell silent for a bit, before trying to explain. “Vampyre Hunters are about as fictional as we Vampyres are.”
“That’s nuts,” you said, still too drowsy to work up the energy to properly exclaim anything, “why would anyone hunt down people like that? What’s next, goth hunters? Emo hunters? Otaku hunters?”
“Our power is every bit as real as their threat,” she said, “it’s only natural they’d be afraid.”
“If you say so,” you mutter, taking a sip, before downing your daily pills with another. “i’m still skeptical, but that…that loon last night was plenty real.”
“Tonight.”
You look over at your friend, raising an eyebrow as if to say ‘what on earth are you talking about?’
“We’re having a meeting soon. I’d like you to come as my guest.” She looked determined. Determined to get you to believe, you surmised. You couldn’t help but feel like she was still hurt you couldn’t believe her, not yet at least.
“A….Alright.” You hesitate, before adding with a smirk, “you’re not all gonna just pounce on me and make me a cursed immortal creature of the night, right?”
Magnolia chuckled, “of course not. That’s for next time,” she teased back. “I’ve got some things to take care of today, but I’ll be back tonight. I’ll walk you there.”
You nod and the conversation begins to turn to less serious topics, aided by whatever cartoons you found to watch. Before too long, you’re seeing her off, and slipping into your normal daily patterns.
At some point over the next couple days, you slip into the shower, the water dancing over your skin as you wash. As you do, your fingers travel over the bandage, feeling the edge peeling up. On an impulse, you grab that edge and start pulling. it hurts more than you expected, even with the hot water, but with a few good tugs you get it free. As you toss it away, the blissfully hot liquid pours down on the shoulder; no longer protected from their assault, the raw nerves scream at you, briefly asking why you did that before calming down.
As you get out and towel off, every touch of your wound sends spikes through your mind, even though you’re just trying to dry off. But as you pass the mirror on your way out, something catches your eye. A deep, dark purple patch on your shoulder. Drawing closer to the mirror to see better, your hand reaches up to touch it. Just seeing it sent a torrent of emotions through you, ones you didn’t quite know how to process beyond finding them good. Putting too much pressure on it still hurt, but…
—————————————————
Days passed and before you know it, the first orange rays of dusk are starting to slip between the blinds to dye your admittedly basic and mismatched decor a ring at your doorbell sounds. A check through your peephole showed you the highly distorted visage of your friend, back from her day’s activities.
“Welcome back,” you said as you open the door, happily bidding your friend welcome.
After some small talk, she asks you, “Are you ready to go?”
You nod and grab your things before heading out the door, letting her lead you through streets and back alleys you didn’t even know existed. At some point, you realize the architecture seemed…off. Antiquated like nothing else in the city; by that point, you weren’t sure if you could even navigate your way back home, much less find your way on this path again.
“Here we are,” Magnolia said, gesturing as an old, large church came into view; a large, imposing building with stained glass windows. But despite its seeming grandeur, it looked mostly unused in recent times, with overgrowing weeds and no real way for cars to arrive nor foot traffic to see. Aside from that, it did seem to be decently maintained, with its many walls painted black.
“What, you wanted me to attend some sorta black mass?” you teased, only having the vaguest ideas of the term, entirely founded on pop culture.
Maggy just seemed to think for a second, “something like that,” she said, before leading you through the grand doors. “We found this place a while back,” she elaborated, “no one was using it, so we fixed it up and took it for ourselves.”
The room was filled with a bunch of other people doing their own things, mostly chatting in smaller groups. There seemed to be less than 20 people in the room, including yourself. “So I take it they’re…” your already hushed voice trails off.
“Mostly. Some are Donors, like you.”
“I-I wouldn’t call myself a donor or anything…” you deny, “I-I just-“
“You gave me blood,” she said, “that’s good enough for me. Enough to join my House.”
She waved you off after that, just saying you could talk about it later. In the mean time, she introduced you to those who asked as a friend who was curious about everything. You presumed she meant the vampirism, but hadn’t she been the one to invite you? Semantics, you supposed, as you were curious, though you’d never expected something like this.
It seemed Magnolia was important around here, or at least that was the impression you got from watching her take care of and coordinate things. You were left by a wall out of the way. That was fine, you were used to staying by a wall somewhere, staying out of other’s ways. If Mag needed you, she could find you, and if not, at least you weren’t getting in anyone’s way.
On occasion someone would break off from their group and chat with you. It was never anything deep, just small talk, trying to make you feel welcome, you guessed. If nothing else, it was better then staring into the middle distance until the one person you knew got back.
Fortunately, it didn’t take her much longer to return. “Hey,” she said, handing you a drink, “I’ve been wondering, are you interested in trying some blood tonight?”
Sure, the question might seem normal to HER, but to you the blaséness of it almost made you choke on your drink. “I-I dunno,” you said, trying to recover.
“You didn’t seem to mind tasting mine,” she said, “And some of us Vampires and donors are heading into the back. I wanted to know if you wanted to join. It’s fine if you don’t.”
“I’m…not sure…” you think for a moment, “either way, I wouldn’t mind donating at least.”
She gave you a look-over, “you sure? You only just donated for the first time, and we’ll…be going a bit more rough than I gave you.”
Your hand moved to the shoulder she’d fed from without you even realizing, squeezing it lightly and sending a rush of pain and other sensations to your brain you weren’t entirely sure how to process. “I’m sure.”
She smirked as she caught sight of the mark on your shoulder, “looks like I really got you bad,” Maggie said, “it’ll probably be even worse tonight. You know, there’ll be a couple other…vamp-curious people there. You’ll be welcome to try someone else’s blood, if you decide you want to.”
You just nod, mentally debating with yourself if you really should. On one hand, you were curious, and how else were you supposed find out for yourself if there really was something to this ‘Vampyre’ stuff. On the other hand, all this was starting to get to your nerves, you could already feel your stomach starting to feel…off from it all.
“I’ll…consider it,” you reply, sipping the drink she gave you. She took the time to check up on you, make sure you were having a good enough time. You told her you were doing fine, that some people had chatted with you a little, you just weren’t very social yourself. Especially when meeting new people.
“Are you sure you’re going to want to join us in the back,” she asked, “you’ll have to take your shirt off in front of everyone.”
You nod, though you can feel your nerves in your chest. But…you want to do this. You want to give this all a fair shot. You want to…you want to know if there’s anything to all this Vampyre stuff after all.
“Then lets go,” Maggie says, extending a hand to you. After a moment’s hesitation, you take it, and she leads you into a back room, where five or six others were waiting. The room was dark, with dimmer lights than the main room, and the windows covered. A couple mattresses had been set out to take up the bulk of the room, leaving just a little space of bare flooring. Everyone else already had their shoes off, and Magnolia started taking hers off while you were busy taking everything in.
“Changing your mind?”
Maggie’s voice drags you back to reality, “n-no,” you protest, “just…sorry.” Thoroughly embarrassed, you start taking your own shoes off, setting them in the row with the rest before sitting yourself in some unoccupied space near the edge. Your heart started pounding in your chest as you notice some of the others in the room start taking off their tops. Your cheeks flush hot as you reach down and start taking off your top off.
“Ooh, nice tits,” someone says in your direction, bringing to your attention that you’d neglected to wear a bra that day. On reflex, your arm snaps up to cover your breasts. But as your brain processes, you come to realize that at least 2/3rds of the people in that room had neither top nor bra on, helping calm you down. Slowly, your arm lowered and you exposed your breasts. Seeing everyone else treating the partial nudity so casually helped you do the same. Didn’t help your stomach calm down though.
“So,” Magnolia said, “We’ve got about as many donors as vamps here, so feel free to pair up to get started, just try not to make too many extra holes in each other. Also, we have a few…vamp-curious individuals here, so if anyone would like to try, just ask. If anyone starts feeling lightheaded or faint, just say so. We don’t want anyone getting hurt. When we’re done, we have sports drinks to help our donors recover.” You were increasingly sure your friend was the, or at least A, leader among this little commune.
“This is your first REAL time,” you heard Magnolia say as she sat down behind you, “So I’ll get you started.” You couldn’t help but wonder what she meant as you felt her hand rest gently on the shoulder she fed from last time. “Do you remember what to do?”
You nod, “take a deep breath, and breath out on three, right?”
“Got it in one,” Mag said. “ready?”
You nod taking in a deep breath.
“One.”
You breath out, trying to steady yourself.
“Two.”
You breath in again, mentally readying yourself for the knife. Suddenly, you realize you hadn’t seen your friend with her knife. Or anyone else with one, for that matter. Then how?
“Three.”
Intense pain bloomed from your shoulder and spread its roots throughout your body, obliterating your near-realization from your mind. As the pain started to dull a little, you realizes you already felt Mag’s mouth on your trapezius, had she just bitten straight down? Were human teeth even sharp enough to do that?
You remember a bit belatedly to breath out, more ragged than last time as you struggle against your instinct to get away from the pain. You feel her arms wrap around you, holding you close as she fed. Your breathing slowly started to calm and steady as you focused on it, growing more smooth and more calm with each repetition.
Slowly you came to remember that you were in a room with a number of other vampires, along with others like you, other Donors. That’s what Maggy called them, at least. You start consciously relaxing muscles you didn’t even realize you were tensing. As you do, you feel Magnolia’s lips release from your flesh and a sensation like something slipping out of your tissue.
“Can you keep going?” she asked, to which you could only nod as your head swam, thoughts slowly coalescing back together. As she pulls away, you realize she felt unusually cool against your body, though that observation is shoved aside when you feel someone else take her place and put an arm around you. You found yourself pulled tight to her chest as her lips replaced your friend’s, drinking you with comparable fervor.
A light chill came over you as you felt the woman, the vampire behind you drink you like a juice box and…you had to admit you didn’t hate it. The night went on like that, one vampire after another taking turns drinking from you and the other donors.
“So,” Maggie said to the room, “anyone else want to try some blood?”
You hesitate, your stomach feeling a bit queasy, and knowing that blood was a stomach irritant made you pause. And you felt a little lightheaded, with a bit of a headache coming on. But at the same time you figured…why not? Others were already asking, so while they were pairing off, you spoke up. “I…I’d like to try.”
“Oh?” your friend said, raising an eyebrow. “can anyone handle one last go?”
One of the other donors ended up volunteering and ended up moving over and sitting in front of you. “Go ahead,” the woman said as she tilted her head to one side. Blood was beading out of two points on her soft shoulder, a sight which reminded you of your earlier thoughts. No one had been using knives which meant…had they really bitten each other, bitten you? Did they really have teeth sharp enough to pierce flesh like that?
“Just wrap your lips around it and suck,” your friend said, though you weren’t certain if she was speaking to everyone or to just you. “You can use your teeth to coax more blood out.” Well, at least it sounded simple enough.
You open your mouth and bite down on the still bleeding flesh, sinking your teeth into the donor. You licked at their skin while trying to coax the blood out with your teeth, just like Maggie said. But…still nothing. Maybe you just weren’t getting enough or something, but you still couldn’t taste a thing. Was that normal? wasn’t blood supposed to have a coppery, metallic taste?
You resolve to ask about that later as you start sucking harder, trying to get what you could. When you feel like you’ve had enough, you finally pull off, thanking the donor who let you feed from them.
“Well, someone was thirsty,” Magnolia teased, leading you to realize everyone was already patched up as she handed you and the other donor a bandage apiece. It only seemed right for you to bandage the donor up since you were the last to feed from her. As she stood up and move away, Mag sat behind you and took your bandage, applying it with what you presume was practiced ease. As she did, she leaned in and murmured to you, “you might want to clean your face, you’re a bit of a messy eater.”
Blushing but glad she kept it quiet, you use a thumb to check around your face, scooping up the blood into your mouth. You didn’t want it to go to waste, and you wanted to give this every chance you could, but…you still tasted your thumb more than you could taste the blood. Were you just broken?
—————————————————
After the get together wound down, you’d been given some pillows and a blanket to bed down for the night when Magnolia sat by your side. “So, did you enjoy yourself?” You could only nod at her. “How was your first real taste of blood?”
You sat quietly for a second, debating how to go about it. “About…the same as the last time, nothing,” you say noting the surprised look on Mag’s face, “maybe I’m just broken…it wasn’t unpleasant at least.”
“Weird,” she said, “well, I’m glad you came regardless.” She waited a bit before venturing a question to you. “Would you like to try becoming one of us?”
it takes you a moment to process what she was asking, what she was…offering. “I…I don’t know,” you reply, “why would you even want me? I can’t taste the blood or anything.”
“I saw how you went to town on Sophia.” That must be the name of the donor you tried earlier.
“I was just…trying to give this the best chance of working,” you explained, “I…want to see if there’s really anything to it.”
“Well, you could always take the next step. Dive in with both feet and see for yourself.” Your friend stood up, adding one last thing before leaving you to get some sleep. “You don’t have to answer right now, just think about it. Sleep well.”
—————————————————
You found your way home the next day with a little help from someone more familiar with the area, and your life started to go back to normal. You still chatted with your friend, mostly online, and started getting to know the others in the group; her ‘House” as they all called it. They all seemed pretty nice, though you doubt they’ll ever be much more than acquaintances.
When you first arrived home, your first order of business was to slip into a nice, hot shower. As you did, you catch sight of the woman staring back from the mirror. Dark brown tresses spilled over your shoulders, half-obscuring a vaguely skin-colored adhesive bandage, a little purple peeking out around the edges, darker than the admittedly healing one one the other shoulder. Did you have that pair of pinpricks under there too? Just like everyone else? Did the vampyres at the gathering, did Magnolia have fangs for real? And had she really used them on you? If so, why didn’t she the first time? Was she just holding back for some reason?
The painfully hot water stinging at your skin brought you back to reality, even though you weren’t totally aware of when you climbed in. With the water turned down to a more comfortable temperature, you were able to gather your thoughts again. Slipping into a comfortable routine, you wondered why those deep purples and cuts made you feel so strange. It’s not like bruises were anything new to you, not any more than they would be for anyone else, so why? If anything, you should hate them, you should be naturally disposed to avoiding behind hurt, so why, WHY did you feel…otherwise about them? How DID you feel?
Why couldn’t you piece that together?
Was there something wrong with you? And why couldn’t you taste their blood? Either Mag’s the other night or the donor just the night before?
You really are a mess, huh? Maybe…maybe you should just put all this ‘Vampyre” stuff behind you. Just detach from it all, forget what you and Mag talked about last night, forget everything that happened at that old church, just forget everything and be a regular friend to Magnolia. Nothing more, nothing less.
Maybe, but…maybe not…At the very least, you felt like you had to…like you owed your friend at least one more chance. You wanted to see this through to the end. One last try, give it the best possible odds of working, and if it doesn’t, things go back to “normal”. Maybe you’d keep being a donor for her, but that was it. It was nice to feel useful, after all.
Maybe that was why. Maybe that’s what you were feeling whenever you looked at those bruises, at the cut and bite marks; usefulness. Usefulness at being a donor, a bloodbag. At being her juicebox. And it felt nice to be useful…
Why couldn’t life just be simple? Why couldn’t you just have someone who’d tell you if this was a good idea or not, someone to help you figure all this out? But life just couldn’t be so easy, huh?
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A nice hot soak usually helps you sort your thoughts, but whether or not to take Mag up on her offer still weighed heavy on your mind. To join her and her kin, but…wouldn’t that be awfully permanent, come to think of it? If you took that chance, wouldn’t you be stuck as a Vampyre whether it worked out? Or was it something that would come undone if not maintained?
Was Maggy really serious about that?
How were you even supposed to decide something like that? It’s not like you really got that many details on…on what it’d mean, on what all it’d entail. How permanent it’d be, whether you’d still eat, like, normal human food, whether there was anything to vampiric immortality of lore, whether you could just go back, and so on. At least it seemed like drinking normal stuff was still on board, at least for pleasure.
Pleasure, huh? You…think you enjoyed being useful, being bitten and drunk from. Would you still be able to do that if you…changed? Would you have to stop? Would you have to drink from others? How were you even supposed to find a donor? How often would you have to feed?
After some more going around with yourself in circles, you make no real progress. Eventually, you’re forced to ask Mag for what answers you could get. It didn’t seem like you’d need to feed that often, and you’d still eat normal food, at least to start with. And worst comes to worst, you’d eventually go back to being human eventually as long as you didn’t feed for a while. She didn’t tell you anything about the immortality, but did tell you that if you were doing it just for the immortality, you shouldn’t do it at all.
You couldn’t say she was wrong.
But it also wasn’t why you were doing it. You wanted to see if there was anything to all this Vampyre business. You truthfully remained skeptical, but it was hard to deny what you’d seen and experienced so far, and now you were being invited even deeper in. You owed it to yourself and to Maggy to see just how much there was to this.
You’d do it.
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You arranged for Maggy to stay over again in a couple weeks. Time seemed to just crawl by, despite how relatively brief the period actually was, but the day arrived nonetheless. You did your best to make sure it was all go right, set aside money to order pizza, got drinks, made sure bedding enough for you both was available, getting it all done just before the doorbell rang.
You invited her in out of the deep orange twilight into dim shadows of your abode, the lights rarely coming on unless you needed them. Even though you talked online fairly often these days, it was still nice to see Maggy.
“Hey,” she said in a casual greeting. You’d both talked it over and agreed that you’d try to give your Turning the best chance it could. To that end, she’d brought a container of pork blood from the store, while you’d gotten a bottle of red wine and some cranberry juice to mix it with on her recommendation, you’d ever think to combine those ingredients, but then again, you weren’t much of a wine drinker, nor had you done anything but recoil at the thought of culinary blood before. But you said you’d give it your all, and you meant it.
The first order of business was to get the pizza ordered. The second was to get started on the feeding. Maggy was getting fed first, since she WAS the proper Vampyre here. Plus, then she’d be at full Vampyric strength when you drank HER blood, which should give you the best odds of feeling…something. Of Turning. Hopefully, you’d at least be able to taste it this time.
“Are you ready?” Maggie asked, setting out the aftercare supplies, as well as the knife you’d be using. The casualness she set everything out with spoke volumes about just how normal this all was for her. She already had her shirt and bra off, ready to go once she’s fed from you.
You nod in reply to her, your own shoulder freshly cleaned and dried. “I am.” You spoke confidently, but deep inside you were nervous, intensely nervous. You couldn’t be sure if you were more or less than you had been before, but you knew you were nervous, especially since this was supposed to be your big last attempt. Your big Hail (Bloody) Mary to make it all work, as ironic as that particular turn of phrase may be, all considered.
You take one last drink of water to try and help steady yourself before sitting in front of your old friend, tender flesh exposed to whatever she wished to do with you. “Then take a deep breath in,” Magnolia says, her voice from one side causing you to reflexively crane your head the other way, giving her free room and drawing the skin and muscle to taut, begging for a Vampyre’s kiss.
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Some part of you could scarcely wait those three long seconds before you exhaled and her fangs pierced your flesh, this time you being fully aware of them in advance. The pain stabs its way into your mind even as you expected it, a sensation you paradoxically wanted to avoid but at the same time looked forward to. Another sensation you enjoyed as Maggy’s hands began to explore your torso, cupping and roughly fondling your breasts. Hormones like dopamine and serotonin trickle into your system, dulling the pain not nearly enough as you feel your blood drain from your body and be as food for your childhood friend.
“Ahh~” just let a soft moan out as you slowly adapt, your brain unable to cope with the mixture of pleasure and pain, “P-please, take your fill.” You anticipated she would regardless, but you just felt better offering. Making it clear you wanted her to enjoy herself. And it felt like she truly was; you weren’t certain if it was just time seeming to pass faster as you grew more used to this, or if she was drinking more and faster from the fount that was your flesh. Regardless, it was almost unsettlingly brief a period before you felt a chill start to come over your body, your head start to spin and throb in a way you feel is telling you of a lack of blood.
And as if you’d told her of your state, Magnolia’s fangs slipped from your trapezius, leaving twin trails of crimson to burn their way down your skin. “Are you ready?” she asked, watching you recovering from how much she took from you. The knife waited on the coffee table, already prepped for you, all that you had to do was swap positions and let that sharp edge cut through Magnolia’s own skin. To let it draw forth her own Vampyric blood and drink of it yourself. Drink of her yourself.
Nervous though you may be, you couldn’t help but find yourself starting to warm up to the idea, at least doing it this once. You rise after she applies an antibacterial cream and bandage to your wound, pausing only briefly as your head spins again, prompting Mag to ask after your condition. After reassuring her, you take up your place behind her, feeling the weight of the knife in hand. It was heavier than you expected, though you couldn’t be sure if that was its true weight, or because you were weakened from your own loss, or even simply your perception; your mind turning the symbolic weight of what you intended to attempt into a perception of literal weight within your palm.
No, you’re just overanalyzing it again. Taking a breath to steady yourself, you place the edge on her skin and walk her through everything just like she did for you. When you tell her to, take a deep breath in, you count to three, and breath out. On three.
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The two of you breath out in sync, your wrist gently pushing forward with an even, steady pressure down and forward, slicing cleanly into her flesh. You can see your friend wince from the pain, from the blade gliding through and splitting the cell’s bonds, opening up a wound with little resistance. As the blade reaches the hilt, you raise the knife and set it aside, placing it on a cloth you’d prepared in advance. Blood beaded to the surface, gathering into a droplet that threatened to turn into a rivulet gliding down her body.
A tightness grips your chest, anxiety over what you were about to do, fears about what if you couldn’t do it, couldn’t taste it? And then you realize that, at least on some level, you really want this to work. Want to become a Vampyre like her, like them. To see that new world and everything in it with your own eyes. Before the crimson drop’s inertia could be overcome by gravity, your lips wrap around the wound, your tongue lapping up the wound.
And the taste, rich and savory and almost indescribable, bursts through your mouth and sinuses, filling your senses with itself. Mag’s moan is almost music to your ears, bringing to your attention that your teeth are already digging into her. Wrapping your arms tight around her, you drink and drink your fill, not stopping until this thirst that you’ve never known before was slaked. By the time you finally stopped, your breathing had turned heavy, you’d been more focused on drinking over even breathing. But it did spawn a small spark of pride when you noticed that you hadn’t spilled a drop, and the bleeding had all but stopped. At least you did better than fiction loved to show. It’s rude to waste food, after all. “So, how was it?” Maggie asked as you were applying the antibacterial cream, the human mouth had so many after all. “it was…” hard to put into words, “intense. I...don’t know how to put it into words.” “So what do you intend to do next?” You hesitate to answer as you put the bandage on. “I...want to…
“I want to know more. I want to be a Vampyre.”
author's note: This was written as a birthday present for a dear friend. Happy Birthday, and sorry it took so long to write.