AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Irving positioned himself to the side of the room, leaning against the wall and releasing a sigh of relief. Although some vampires didn’t mind interacting so closely with humans, in fact, some quite enjoyed it, Irving didn’t count himself as one of them.
Sage took notice of his countenance. “Are you feeling okay?” she probed. “You don’t look very well.”
Irving cursed under his breath. Their date had just barely begun and already he was failing to appear human. Looking around, he saw the other vampire club members happily entertaining their company.
“I believe my brother is suffering from dehydration,” Cameron butted in, holding a glass of what he knew was blood, but appeared to be wine. “You’ll have to forgive him,” he continued, “the poor thing isn’t used to being around people.” Irving accepted the offering, watching in contempt as Cameron gracefully returned to his date. Sage was also eyeing Cameron.
“Is it just me or is he wearing body glitter?” she asked. “I’ve never seen someone sparkle like that. It almost hurts my eyes to look at him.”
Her comment cheered Irving up considerably. “It’s not you,” he said, “that nutcase completely slathers himself in the stuff. Avert thine eyes or you shall surely go blind.”
Again Irving’s ears were tickled with the joyous sound of Sage’s laughter. “All the same, he seems like he cares about you.”
Irving took a long swig of blood before responding, “Care is a strong word.”
In all honesty, Irving was grateful for the blood. Had Cameron not delivered the substance to him, Irving might have started to feel hungrier than usual. Although blood wasn’t as necessary to maintain his control as it would have been when he was first made, it did help, especially when Irving needed all his wits to act as humanly possible.
Sage reached toward a nearby table and picked up two food items that Irving didn’t recognize. She passed one of them to him. He sniffed it curiously. His impeccable sense of smell identified the contents as deriving from an ocean-dwelling creature. Though, it appeared as though the meat was contained within some sort of breading. Bread he recognized. He’d eaten it before his transformation. Fish too.. How odd.
How bad could it be?he thought, taking a bite. The taste was indescribably putrid. Irving choked, clasping his hand over his mouth.
“Oh, no!” Sage exclaimed upon seeing his discomfort. “Are the crab cakes not good?!”
For the sake of maintaining appearances, Irving forcibly swallowed the mouthful. He coughed as it burned going down his esophagus. Wiping the tears from his eyes, he said, “It’s not that. They’re perfectly tolerable, I assure you.” He then excused himself to violently expel the contents of his stomach in the men’s room just off the party room. Gripping his stomach, he gingerly returned to stand next to Sage, waiting for the nausea to pass. He moaned when he saw the horrified expression on Sage’s face.
“Was it really that bad?” she asked. “I wonder if the crab is spoiled.”
“It’s not your fault!” he cried. He hated seeing Sage so overwhelmed with worry. What felt worse was knowing it was his inability to act human that had triggered her anxious fit. “There’s nothing wrong with your cakes of crab.”
To prove his point, he gobbled down the remainder of the ‘cake of crab’, immediately chasing it with a swig of blood from his glass. He choked and gagged, but found that, with the help of the blood, the mortal food stayed down. “Delicious,” he stated in an unconvincing hoarse voice. He then glanced toward the table to see how many more of the foul creations he would have to endure swallowing. To his utmost horror, there were eight of the abominations remaining.
Sage watched as Irving remained poised in fear, staring intensely at the table. “Um… do you want another one?” she probed.
Irving clapped his hand over his ears as the faint sounds of knocking became gradually more intense. “I d-don’t very well have a choice do I?” he stammered, hysterically. “There’s eight of them. I have to get rid of them all!”
He packed each crab cake into his mouth, gobbling them down. What was most disturbing about this performance was the fact that Irving swallowed each cake without chewing them; it was a feat that most certainly didn’t appear human. The amount of food, paired with the speed with which he’d shoved it into his mouth, caused a block in the base of Irving’s throat. He choked and wheezed, struggling to breathe, as he massaged his throat in an attempt to open his airway. Near suffocation, he resorted to drinking a vast quantity of blood. The sudden surge of liquid pushed the food along its way, leaving Irving a gasping wreck.
When he at last recovered from the abominable display, he released a sigh of relief, smoothing his hair back casually as though nothing had happened. It wasn’t until he saw Sage’s gaping face of terror that he realized the obscenity of his actions. “Please forgive my behavior,” he rasped, coughing into his fist. He sipped tentatively on his blood supply, which was nearly gone.
“It-it’s okay,” Sage replied, quietly. “I think I understand why you were compelled to do something so irrational.”
Irving regarded her with surprise. “You do?”
Nodding, Sage delivered an explanation. “I’ve noticed since our meeting that you have symptoms of OCD. You’re tormented by compulsions involving numbers, doors, and lights. Details that appear trivial to most cause you great distress. It must be a difficult illness to manage.”
Speechless, Irving felt an intense warmth creep into his chest. Was he feeling heartburn from the grotesque amount of human food he’d ingested? No, this was something different. It was a happy feeling. It was acceptance.
“You can talk about it if you like,” Sage said. “I know that a lot of mental illnesses derive from a past traumatic event. Sometimes it helps to tell someone about it.”
Irving remained silent. No one knew the story of his past, save for his brothers. He wanted to share the experience, but he feared reliving it. Though he was physically strong, mentally, Irving felt weak. The bodily pains most humans experienced didn’t affect him, but the emotions he felt cut him like a fine tuned blade. Taking another sip of blood, Irving inhaled deeply. He needed a moment of preparation before unveiling the truth behind his condition.
“A lot of people from this club seem to be drinking the same kind of wine that you’re drinking,” Sage observed. “I’m guessing that’s one of the reasons you all look so young: hydration.”
“Yes,” Irving replied, absently. It was then that he pressed through his anxiety and decided to tell Sage the dreaded tale behind his vampirism without actually using the word ‘vampire.’
“You’ve met my brother Cameron, and perhaps seen my brother Blake,” Irving began, “but, what you don’t know is that I had a third brother named Aiken. He was murdered.”
A pleasant shudder shook Irving as Sage gripped his shoulder compassionately. “That’s awful, Irving,” she said. “I’m so sorry that happened.”
