Enchanted Dreams (10 page)

Vincent appeared to be falling under some kind of a hypnotic spell, and I saw his eyes roll up into his head as a look of pure euphoria came over his face. Then, in one quick, fluid movement, he buried both fangs deep into the engorged vein in the woman's neck. I could hear his groan of satisfaction from where I stood outside the window. He drank deeply, pulling in with his jaws and gulping greedily in an incredible feeding frenzy such as I had never seen before.

I have since learned that the human body can lose up to forty percent of the ten or eleven pints of blood it holds before shock sets in. At that point blood flow and oxygen is reduced, causing organs to break down and malfunction. Among the first of these organs is the brain. Consciousness is altered as a kind of lethargy blankets the brain. This is when the victim truly capitulates to the will of the vampire, readily and even eagerly. I have seen it time and again since that night, and I've come to believe that there is no more pleasant way to die.

With that first bite, Vincent fed for a period that was about as long as a person can hold his breath. I know this because I had inadvertently stopped breathing when I saw his fangs pierce the woman's neck, and I remained that way while he drew her precious lifeblood out of her. About the time that I was compelled to resume breathing or else faint, he, too, suddenly threw his head back and gasped for air. In time, I was able to estimate that these first feedings comprised somewhere between two and three pints of blood, which was not enough to kill the victim.

The woman had neither struggled nor uttered a sound. She appeared shocked and dazed. Dark red droplets of her blood shimmered on Vincent's lips. With his initial thirst momentarily quenched, he was once again composed, although still highly impassioned. He bent forward to kiss the woman's lips. This time, he kissed her more gently, almost tenderly, as he slowly and smoothly stripped away her clothes. She acquiesced to him entirely, yielding to his will as if she were under a spell. It was as if she had but one objective, and that was to honor his every last request. With what life she had remaining, she seemed determined to do her best to achieve this, and she only stirred when it assisted his efforts for her to do so.

At last she lay sprawled out before him, bare and pale and beautiful, as he, in turn, undressed. Naked, he took her to him, gently at first, but more savagely as she egged him on. She, too, was becoming more impassioned, seemingly reviving with her desire. She clung to him fiercely, provoking and urging him in turns, and becoming increasingly demanding. In a sudden turn of events, it seemed that she was now the aggressor, thrusting herself violently against him and digging her fingernails into his back. And Vincent, temporarily sated, acquiesced to her every whim, feeding off her responses and allowing her to dictate his movements. She struggled against him with her arms and legs, thrashing and tearing at him one moment and then clutching him in the next. He yielded to her completely, becoming deceptively patient and tender and sweet.

But I could see that his passion, which appeared to rise and fall in ever ascending waves that rushed and flowed like moods, was escalating again. He began to assert himself once more, grasping her hips to hold her still while he bartered for a kiss, or teasing her mercilessly until she did whatever else it was that he desired. I could see the terrible hunger steadily building in him throughout their lovemaking, and I became apprehensive as I continued to watch. He leaned down to kiss and lick her breasts, lapping hungrily at them with long, lingering strokes of his tongue. I knew his need could overtake him at any moment and I shuddered as I waited for what was to come. The woman, too, seemed to sense something approaching, and she clung to him with a desperate little cry. But he kept both of us in suspense for much longer than I expected, taking his sweet time while leisurely lapping at her breasts and circling his tongue aimlessly round and round the pink tips. It seemed that he would wear her skin away with his tongue, he worked at her breasts so fervently. I watched anxiously for that glimmer of white to descend from beneath his rosy lips yet again, and it did shortly thereafter. But this time, Vincent only grazed on the feast spread out before him, carefully piercing one nipple and then the next for a small sampling from each. The woman writhed beneath him, overcome with what must have been incredible sensations, I supposed. I waited breathlessly for her response, but to my surprise, all I saw in her countenance was pleasure. The incisions from his bites appeared to be so clean and precise that they hardly even left a mark, and the bleeding stopped almost immediately after he withdrew.

Meanwhile Vincent's passion still kept mounting and rising, and with each advance it seemed to me the woman was in a more and more precarious state. She had somehow revived, but was too caught up in the pleasure to notice the subtle changes in her unique lover. She pressed herself against him almost violently, crying out several times as her body shuddered and convulsed with the power of her orgasms. She appeared oblivious of any impending danger. Perhaps she thought, after all, that she had stumbled into the arms of an especially wild and adventurous lover. I bit my lip as I watched him get nearer and nearer the brink of that terrifying need that would erase the last of his control. But as for his victim, the closer he got to the edge, the more her pleasure seemed to intensify.

I gazed at them in a kind of aroused stupor, tormented by the conflicting sensations of envy and lust and horror. Strange, unimaginable thoughts raced through my mind. My very life seemed to flash before my eyes with the ideas that were filling my head. They were the fancies of a madwoman and yet I could not halt them. But I was distracted from my thoughts by the sight of Vincent picking the woman up and, with superhuman strength and swiftness, f lipping her body so that she was now lying on her stomach. Without missing a beat, he jerked her up onto her hands and knees and smoothly reentered her from behind. In this final shift, he was now once again the aggressor, and I watched him struggle against his wild, insatiable hunger with the last vestiges of his control. It was clearly beyond him, even I could see that. I think he realized it, too, as he reached his hands around her body and captured her breasts in his hands. He pinched the nipples teasingly, causing her to cry out with delight, before clasping on to them for leverage. With her now so fully captive in the most erotic of embraces, he suddenly let loose with long, powerful thrusts like those of a piston from a powerful machine. With each plunge forward he seemed to gain power and momentum, so that he was driving into the woman with impossible force. And she encouraged him, crying out with pleasure and actually meeting his thrusts head-on! I watched, transfixed, as they thrashed about like something in the wild, both mindlessly pushing toward the dreaded crescendo. And then I saw that terrible light appear in Vincent's eyes. I gasped at the sight of it. His hips bucked savagely one last time as he threw himself into her all the way, and in the same instant he buried his fangs in the back of her neck. She stared at the wall in front of her with an expression of astonishment. She appeared to be both surprised and euphoric, all at once. I had never seen pleasure shape the features in just that way. Her body rose up in a kind of ecstasy as he simultaneously filled and emptied her. His buttocks continued to thrust spasmodically with his orgasm as he drained the last of her life from her body. When he finished, he withdrew both his penis and his fangs at the same time. Her final breath was released like a whispered sigh of satisfaction. After a stunned second, she dropped in a heap. Vincent gazed down at her before turning abruptly away.

Suddenly he appeared to be angry. I hid farther in the shadows as I watched him dress in furious, jerky movements. As for me, my mind was once again bustling with strange thoughts and sensations.

I was alarmed and distraught and enthralled, to the point where I thought I might lose my mind. Somehow I was able to accept what I had seen. But as time wore on I realized that I had done more than simply accept it, I
appreciated
it. I began to consider my discovering Vincent's secret incredibly good fortune. It seemed to me like something nearing divine intervention. I would not go so far as to suggest that it was of a heavenly nature, but I was sure that it came from some otherworldly realm. Warnings of souls lost to the devil came to mind, but for me, the source of this fortune was not even a consideration. There had been so little of opportunity in my lifetime that I felt it would be foolish to look this gift horse in the mouth. Some may consider me evil, but perhaps by the end of my tale they'll have formed a different opinion.

During those weeks when I followed Vincent, I barely existed. It was as if I was living in the space that separates two worlds. I rarely went home, and then only to address the most pressing details, such as to shower or change. I did little to maintain my life—or what I had now come to think of as my former life—abruptly and without notice leaving behind employment, household chores and so forth. I had long since lost interest in that life anyway, so I suppose it was not surprising that I would so quickly latch on to anything new. I had no idea how this strange discovery of a whole other existence was going to affect me. For all I knew, embroiling myself in it might well end my existence altogether, and put me in yet another dimension of which I knew nothing. But this, too, was fine with me.

Up to this point, I was only acquainted with the legends. I began reading everything I could get my hands on about vampires, the undead and anything else that might explain what I had seen that night, and yet I was aware that most of what I read was only speculation. Even so, I could not get enough of it, and I would read late into the mornings, too exhausted and exhilarated to sleep after a night of following Vincent. The stories and legends put my mind at ease as I cut off the last of my ties, and slowly filed away at my softer edges, filing and filing until the pain was too acute to endure.

Watching Vincent was addictive. As I grew to know him better, I felt myself becoming more and more infatuated with him, obsessed even. I sensed a certain kinship with him, accompanied with a strange belief that he, too, would feel it for me. For all of his charm and outgoing nature, he was, I thought, as lonely as I was. And yet, somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew this was foolish. What I understood were his passions. I could relate to the desire and hunger that drove him. But, what he felt in those brooding, melancholy moments after his passion was spent, I never truly understood. At times, it seemed as if he hated his existence, but perhaps, in my desire to understand him, I had begun to confuse his thoughts with my own. And yet I could plainly see that he, like me, suffered.

The notion that vampires feed exclusively on blood, or that they kill multiple victims in a single night is false, or at least it was in Vincent's case. He had a varied diet, and he particularly favored French cuisine. He only fed on human blood out of necessity, usually about once every three to six days. I could always tell when he was ready again. There was a visible deterioration, a sort of rapid aging process that began to take effect. It affected him like a kind of depression, but perhaps only I noticed this because I knew him so well, for even in his weakest state he was still always the liveliest figure in any room. But after he fed! I often wondered that those around him were not frightened by the intense aura of power and energy that radiated off of him.

It might have gone on this way forever, with me lurking in dark shadows behind Vincent for the remainder of my life. I was never one to take action. Life always had to force its will on me. Those things that didn't simply happen to me didn't happen at all. It was the same with Vincent. Who knows what would have become of me if he hadn't intervened.

Like a car accident, it happened in an instant. It was so sudden and unexpected that my strongest desire became a stark terror for me when it finally arrived. In a swift turn of events, the follower was being followed. In a moment he was upon me.

I cried out in surprise. But I made an immediate effort to compose myself. Inwardly I tried to recall what I had planned in this eventuality, until I realized with dismay that I hadn't yet settled on anything definite.

"Who are you?" Vincent demanded in outrage.

"Ana," I said, dipping my head slightly in a nervous habit I had developed to hide my face. It was unnerving to have him standing so close that I could inhale his masculine scent, and even more so to have his fiery gaze fixed on my face. My heart was pounding so rapidly that I wondered if it would burst. It was becoming difficult to breathe. I began to feel faint. But with effort, I willed my heart to slow and I felt myself calming. Beneath the initial shock and alarm, I felt excitement…and even joy.

"That's not what I asked and you know it," he hissed angrily. He grasped hold of my arm but held it without hurting me. His hand was cool, but not deathly cold like I had expected. "Now,
who are you?
"

I was struck with a sudden fear. What if he simply ended my life right there in the street? I was the furthest thing from the women he normally chose. How on earth was I going to convince him to take me with him?

Yet I instantly disregarded this fear. Vincent was not a cold-blooded killer who would end a life for naught. And aside from this, I happened to know that he was hungry, and I had acquired a strange confidence from having seen some of his choices.

He was looking at me with a great deal of annoyance. Yet he appeared uncertain about what to do next. I searched for the words that would get him to take me with him to his house.

"I will tell you everything," I promised, speaking in the shy manner I had adopted of keeping my voice low and scarcely moving my lips. I struggled to overcome my nervousness enough to assert myself. "
If
you will take me to your house," I added firmly.

"How long have you been following me?" he whispered, looking me over suspiciously. It was clear that I had taken him by surprise, and he had no idea what to make of me, my manner, or how I spoke. I might have been Frankenstein to his Dracula, for the look he was giving me.