When I was 15 years old, my father killed the first girl I ever loved.
We had been best friends for years, drawn together by that inexplicable magnetism by which queers recognize each other even before we understand ourselves. She was my first kiss—me shy and hesitant while she wore an mask of experience and sophistication that totally had me fooled—and I’ll never forget how safe I felt confiding in her all my deepest secrets.
Maybe that’s why, despite knowing who my dad is, I was the first person she told about her condition. She came back sick from that vacation with her family, increasingly looking so pale, so hungry, staying indoors all day. Even before she told me, I knew. Deep down in my heart, I already knew.
It was midnight, and I had to sneak out to meet her, and I knew what I was doing. She confessed that she already killed her family, that she had no one else to turn to, and that she was putting me in danger just by allowing herself to be near me. I told her I didn’t care. I loved her, and I would run away from home to be with her.
She bit me. I knew she’d do that too. New vampires have no self-control at all. She promised she’d turn me too, make me just like her so we could be immortal and in love forever.
I knew how this would go. She didn’t.
To be born into my family is to inherit the legacy of the vampire hunters. You can’t turn one of us, no matter how hard you try, and no matter how much someone of such a cursed bloodline may desperately want that as well. At least we don’t die so easily, though. I would have let her drain me dry every day of my life, but I could never be like her.
She was so scared when I passed out and couldn’t be revived right away. Poor girl should have run, left me behind, saved herself. Instead she brought me home to try to save my life.
By the time I woke up, her corpse was ash.
The Carmine: you can recognize it at a glance as a vampire nightclub. The name alone gives it away, though it’s not quite as obvious as Sanguine Dreams or Arterial Spray—they just can’t help themselves when it comes to hiding clues in names, I think—but there are other signals.
The twinned symbol of Venus, of course, is another a strong clue. You’d be hard pressed to find a dyke bar dripping in goth aesthetic that isn’t a haven for predatory vampires. I’m told it all goes back to one of the oldest documented vampires, in a time before the Nine Wives even, who was prolific in turning all her many lady lovers, thereby ensuring lesbians have been overrepresented among bloodsuckers ever since.
It’s a cute story. I like to believe it’s true.
There, in the window, is the sigil of Clan Sarthe. It’s not the only clan in this region, but definitely the dominant one, founded and still led by one of the Nine. They adhere to many of the old traditions, with strict rules of behavior, such as requiring members to bear an identifying tattoo and to avoid overfeeding in their territory. The waxing crescent moon sign next to it tells patrons that feeding quotas are expected to increase again. I should expect those here to be hungry.
The bouncer lets me in after checking my ID and giving a cursory search of my bag. I’m just the kind of person they want here, after all: warm, pretty, and all alone. The dress I’ve chosen for tonight covers all the most obvious markings identifying me as a hunter, and the tattoos on my arms camouflage the rest.
Once I’m inside, I start to have second thoughts. This is the farthest I’ve ever gone to do… something like this, and the thing about being home-schooled by your dad, training to kill the undead for most of your life, is that it really doesn’t prepare a girl for the social scenes typical of other women your age. The crowds and loud music and flashing lights are honestly overwhelming.
I order a rum and coke at the bar and wonder what the hell I’m doing here, descending into a den of depravity all by myself. It’s completely different from finding a lone vampire or two stalking the night. Who knows how many there are in a place like this? This is a terrible idea, and I’m feeling less confident in myself by the minute. I don’t really want to dance, or to mingle with the crowd, or whatever it is people do at these places. I just feel out of place and very alone, sipping on a drink that I’m sure the butch behind the bar mixed double-strong to help make me an easier victim.
Nervous and awkward as I am, I must be sending all the right prey-animal signals to attract the attention of the tall, raven-haired beauty who glides up alongside me and offers to buy another drink. The look of gratitude I give her is genuine; it’s so much easier to have a vampire come to me than to try to figure out how to search the crowd for one.
“New here?” Even in this light I can tell how pale her skin is. She smiles at me just wide enough to avoid revealing how long those canines are.
“Yeah,” I confess. Easy enough to just tell her the honest truth. “I don’t really know how to socialize in places like this. It’s really nice of you to come say hi. You saved my life.”
The bartender slides my second drink toward me, and I don’t miss the wink she gives my companion. This one is even stronger than the first, tasting like mostly rum with just enough cola to color it brown. I can already tell I’m going to be a sloppy mess by the time this woman takes me somewhere private to have her way with me.
Her name is Victoria, and she’s honestly a lot of fun to talk to. Too many vampires don’t even bother trying to seduce a girl, but this one knows how to put on the charm. She puts her hand on mine when she laughs, and brushes my hair from my face when she tells me I have beautiful eyes. Her fingertips linger at the side of my neck, and I pretend I don’t notice the hunger in her stare as she feels my pulse quicken.
I tell her that I’m new in town, that I don’t know very many people here, but I’m so grateful to finally meet someone in the local queer community, and how lucky I am that the one I meet is so breathtakingly gorgeous. The more time we spend talking, the more she finds excuses to touch me, to get me used to her hands on my body.
It takes no time at all for her to coax me away from the crowd, to isolate me from prying eyes that might notice someone being victimized. She kisses me, and I resist the urge to explore her fangs with my tongue. Would she show as much self control if I pricked the tip and gave her a taste right here and now? She lets me lean against her and grope her ass while escorting me into the back, toward a part of the building that looks more like the hallway of a hotel than the back of a nightclub, dotted with an array of numbered doors on one side.
Victoria’s key opens room 117, and she guides me to the bed inside. Dark red bed sheets, dark red duvet, dark red pillows… I giggle aloud. “There’s certainly a theme here, and I think it’s ‘hide the food stains.’”
Now that we’re alone, locked in this room together, my companion flashes her fangs in a broad, predatory smile. “I’m sure I have no idea what you mean.” Pushing my back to the bed, she straddles my hips and strokes my neck with naked lust. “But now that you mention it, I could go for a bite.”
For a moment I worry that my new friend won’t choose to fuck me first, so I grab her by the back of the head and pull her into a deep kiss. She allows me, the big dyke, smearing her ruby lipstick across my blue.
I’ve had a few girlfriends over the years, in spite of my father’s best efforts, but they’ve all been human. Alive. Kissing them was enjoyable enough, sure, but kissing a vampire is a completely different experience. It’s cold and slick, like kissing a fish, I’d imagine. I swear their tongues are longer, too, some of them feeling like they could tongue-fuck my tonsils out.
I’m sure it’s not often a vampire gets a living human who’s quite so enthusiastically participating in sex. As I strip her bare, kissing my way between her cool tits, down her belly, between her legs, I quickly move past the point someone would typically realize something’s wrong. Most people who aren’t too drunk to perform oral sex at all must start to notice how cold she is down there, the complete lack of body heat much more obvious the more you explore her body. It’s one thing to miss the fact that her hands are so chilly, but it’s another to miss how this feels a bit like eating out a raw chicken straight from the fridge.
Most people have no taste, of course. They don’t understand the appeal of feeling how your own body heat warms her skin with every prolonged touch. They don’t understand how good it feels to meet up with someone like this, someone planning to make a meal of me, while right now I’m the one eating her. She could be my age, or she could be ten times my age, but either way her hips are pushing themselves insistently into my face, trying to grind on my tongue, with her thighs clamping my face in place. Either way, right now’s she’s at my mercy, and I don’t mean to relent in my attack until she’s spent.
I press the advantage, turning us around and getting Victoria on her back. She doesn’t fight back, enjoying herself far too much to stop me from doing whatever I like to her. She’s a real screamer too, which does wonders for my sense of pride.
I’m too drunk to notice my mistake before her eyelids flutter back open and she takes a good look at my bare chest. Oh no, when did she peel my dress down to my waist?
The mark of the hunter runs in a graceful swoosh across my body, from my heart down between my breasts, terminating in the ornate slashed spiral on my belly that any member of the occult night life must recognize. Its elaborated-upon mirror decorates my back. I watch her snap back to reality, narrowing her eyes in a murderous glare before throwing me across the room and diving for the bag I discarded at the side of the bed.
“Let me guess, somewhere in here you’ve got your silver, stake, and all that?” Victoria unceremoniously inverts my bag, dumping the contents all over the floor.
Ow, fuck. I rub the back of my head where it collided with the wall, feeling stupid for letting myself get too intoxicated to take the right precautions. “No, I left all that at home.”
Sure enough, there’s nothing of note in there, but the vampire doesn’t let down her guard. “Don’t tell me a vampire hunter wandered into this place completely by accident. I’m not that stupid.”
“No, you’re right, it’s no accident.” I scramble to think of something clever to tell her, and I come up empty. “Is it too much to believe that what we’ve been doing is all I want?”
“It is, yes.”
“Then how about this?” I make a calming gesture as though I imagine I can fix this the same way one would soothe an animal. “I knew someone would get preyed on here, and I’d rather it be me, someone who can survive it, rather than some poor girl who could die.”
“You think you can survive?” Gaining confidence as she sees no means of defense on me, Victoria stalks toward me, licking her lips menacingly. “With what? Your skilled tongue alone?”
“N-no,” I stammer. “I’m just really good at living through extreme blood loss. I’ll be almost completely recovered after a day’s rest, so you can drink me to your heart’s content.”
“Let’s put that to the test, little snack cake.” With a lunge, she pins me to the wall. Her fangs sink into the side of my neck, and reflexively I wrap my arms around her for support. Fuck, it hurts just as much as it did the first time. It always hurts exactly the same way it did the first time. A lewd moan of pleasure escapes me, no less erotically charged than any of hers earlier.
Before I lose consciousness, I beg her to kiss me one more time so that I can taste myself on her mouth. She obliges, and I faint with the flavor of blood flooding my mind.
I’m surprised to wake up next to Victoria still. I half expected her to leave me to the cleaners if she didn’t simply dismember me to ensure I never would awaken again. I could gather up my things and sneak away, content with having successfully infiltrated a vampire den and gotten what I wanted out of it. I could do that, but…
She stayed with me. Does she mean to test my confidence that I would survive her draining me? It’s gotta be a temptation to hang on to a bloodbag you can drain every single night without repercussion. I’m surely worth my weight in gold, right? And I am new in town, in need of friends or even a girlfriend.
Look, I know it’s too much to ask to date a vampire, right. They might fuck their food sometimes, but they won’t pursue us romantically if they can’t turn us. Still I’m lonely, and I can dream.
I put my arm around Victoria’s lovely figure and hold her close in this windowless room. Maybe when she wakes up we can find an arrangement that works for both of us.