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“You don’t piss off a vampire, girlie,” he says. “Maybe you think you’re protecting yourself, with all your bar’s precautions and your ‘stake,’ but you’ve been marked.”
As they leave, and I know they’re a safe distance away, I feel myself trembling. I lock the bar door. It’s a couple hours til close, but I’m sure my manager will understand, given the circumstances.
I return to cleaning, and for the couple hours left until closing, I think things have calmed down again. I can handle unruly bar patrons, but vampires are another thing entirely.
I stick my earbuds into my ear as I work, scrubbing countertops and wiping down dishes and glasses to the sounds of 80s music. During normal work hours, we’re discouraged from listening to music, as it draws our attention away from the customers, but we’re closed now anyway. So I don’t see the harm.
Out of the corner of my eye, I think I see the shadows around the kitchen fridge shift, but as I turn around, there’s nothing there.
I return back to my dishes, getting into a rhythm with the guitar solo in this synth song, when I feel a pair of hands around my waist.
Is this what a heart attack feels like? My mind is filled with a sense of urgency, as surges of adrenaline flow through me, and I’m drawn into action against this unseen force.
But as my earbuds are removed and thrown down onto the wet tile floor, I feel a calmness too.
“Shhhh,” a voice whispers into my ear. It seems familiar somehow, but I can’t place it.
I try to turn around in his grasp, but his grip on my waist tightens. He leans in, neck and shoulders turning, and I feel his mouth around my neck, giving way to fangs. They scrape against me, and a surge of pain fills me, but instead of screaming, I lean in.
Something inside me is reacting to this unseen force in a primal way.
“Why do you smell like other vampires?” He asks, his words cold and accusatory.
I struggle to respond, both overwhelmed by the pleasure uncontrollably surging downward, and wanting desperately to keep my life, which he now holds in his hands. I feel my pelvis shifting forward, as my hips gyrate on their own accord, desiring a penetration that never seems to come.
“Had to break up a fight,” I reply, words stammering. The necklace around me burns a warmth through me that I can’t comprehend, filling my mind with unknowable words.
“Did you like my gifts?” He asks.
And it dawns on me. The thing that’s been following me, trying to possess me and bribe me with gifts - it’s a vampire.
This vampire.
“Yes,” I say, not knowing why the words flow freely. “I liked them very much.”
I’m still staring at the overflowing sink, water dripping onto the floor. The water flows down into the kitchen drain. Looking down, I’m not sure where my earbuds went. They might have been carried down the drain.
It’s such a contrast - my mundane life standing calmly before me, as it always has, while this threat to my life that I grew so complacent with grapples onto me, potentially never letting go. I know that I need to run - to seek help - and I can hear Rory’s words of caution screaming into my ear, loud enough to be deafening.
“You want to escape?” He asks. “Go ahead. I’ll give you a head start.”
He lets go of me for a moment, and I command my body to run - command myself to turn around and see him - but I’m not able to move. I’m frozen in place.
“What have you done to me?” I ask him.
“Nothing you didn’t want,” he says.
I close my eyes. His hands return to my sides, and I am still unable to move. He plunges into me, penetrating my neck with his fangs. I yelp.
Blood flows freely down my neck, and he suckles it, never once relenting.
Something about my fear turns off, and all I can feel overtaking me is a desire for more. I am helpless in this man’s grasp, but the sensation of being in his hold - bound within his grasp, fangs diving deeper into me - is mind-numbing.
14
CASPIAN
My footsteps are muted, imperceptible to those who would harm me, and to her. Through the back entrance of the bar, I see dim, fluorescent lights countering the dark back area, flashing dully onto the kitchen tile. Dull, running water reverberates over the threshold, accentuated by the faint creak of the backdoor as I step inside.
