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Vamps 1/2 (mf, ff, group, gothic)
All stories on this web site are purely FICTIONAL. The people depicted within these stories only exist in someone's IMAGINATION. Any resemblence between anyone depicted in these stories and any real person, living or dead, is an incredible COINCIDENCE too bizarre to be believed. If you think that you or someone you know is depicted in one of these stories it's only because you're a twisted perverted little fucker who sees conspiracies and plots where none exist. You probably suspect that your own MOTHER had sex with ALIENS and COWS and stuff. Well, she didn't. It's all in your head. Now take your tranquilizers and RELAX.
VAMPS
by Michael K. Smith
Hollywood, as usual, got it all wrong. Most so-called
vampires look nothing like Bela Lugosi, George Hamilton, or
even Gary Oldman. Nor does poor Vlad Dracul -- which only
means "Dragon," after all -- deserve the rap he's taken all
these years. Such preposterous errors do, however, provide
cover for those of us in the.... er.... trade.
The other principal misapprehension is that vampires
can function only at night. This is true only of a tiny and
unfortunate minority among us, numbering never more than a
few dozen at most. These heliophobes tend also to be under
great mental strain and frequently become unbalanced (which
is no wonder, given their enforced nocturnality), so they
eventually reveal themselves for what they are and the
public vents its fear and rage -- to their destruction.
A great scientist (I'll drop no names) suggested that
our theatrical night-dwelling brethren actually serve as a
survival mechanism for our species as a whole, which may
well be true. Certainly, few vampires ever are fertile and
our population therefore remains stable, but a handful of
the recessives nevertheless are born each century, to
replace those who destroy themselves.
The remainder of my kind revel in the daylight. We
require exposure to the sun in regular doses, in fact, since
we metabolize sunlight directly in a process not unlike
photosynthesis (but without the green complexion). And
that's the source of most of our advantages over the more
numerous species that is pleased to call itself homo
sapiens: hyperextended longevity, greatly superior strength
(which we camouflage instinctively, except for a few
individuals who choose to become athletic stars or
professional wrestlers), and our peculiar ability to
influence the minds and actions of men by what I think of as
"assertive suggestion."
I prefer tropical climes, myself, with as many sunny
days in the year as I can squeeze in, and I frequently see
friends and relations in Cancun and the South Pacific for
the same reason -- though nearly all vampires are related by
blood after so many centuries of interbreeding. I also make
an effort to stay in shape -- partly because a flabby,
overweight vampire is inherently ludicrous, but mostly
because some of the most beautiful women in the world
frequent those same beaches and one would prefer to think
one could acquire their companionship without resorting to
assertive suggestion. Such women generally are clad in the
briefest swimming attire possible, or in nothing at all....
and in dining, presentation is everything.
But to return to the subject, most vampires actually
appear quite ordinary. The shoe clerk standing next to you
on the bus may be surreptitiously admiring your throat. The
neighbors who come to your backyard cookout will be happy to
devour your porterhouse steaks but they might prefer your
personal tenderloin, given a safe opportunity.
Because that's primarily what all of you represent to
us. You're meat animals, a convenient source of the primate
protein and hemoglobin we require. It's nothing personal.
Some of my best friends are human. And as a farm boy may
grow fond of the lambs and calves he raises, even though he
knows their destiny, I am fond of the farm boy.
As long-lived as we are, it's not unusual to spend
twenty or thirty years in an occupation or a learned
profession and then to leave it for some endeavor completely
unrelated, such as manual labor. For a number of years, I
was an astronomer in Granada (and an astrologer as well, for
the two professions overlapped greatly in those days). When
Granada fell to Their Catholic Majesties, I decided to
abandon the life of the mind for awhile and became a sailor
in the Spanish fleet. My knowledge of astronomy, of course,
aided greatly my rapid rise in rank and I became a highly
prized quartermaster. Much later, I was a land developer of
some note in New Amsterdam and that was followed by a
restful career as a cabinetmaker and skilled woodcarver in
the Caribbean.
Why do we bother to labor at all, you ask? Surely we
could supply our every need and want literally for the
asking. True, it's perfectly possible to become one of the
idle rich and to remain in that state for a very long time,
and some of my people have done just that. A little
information-gathering here, a suggestion in the appropriate
ear there, the inborn gift of patience -- it's really not
difficult at all to amass large sums of money. Some of us
have come to prefer casual mobility to acquisitiveness,
becoming jongleurs or, more recently, hippies. Others --
many, in fact -- have wandered over the globe as hired
lances and soldiers of fortune. What better place for
anonymous nourishment than the battlefield, especially for
one in little danger of serious injury, much less violent
death? Sustenance is seldom difficult to find, one way or
another.
The great enemy, though, is boredom. One may while
away the hours.... but the centuries? No, most vampires
are as much driven as their human cousins by the need to
accomplish something lasting or noteworthy, or by a thirst
to create, or by the innate curiosity common to all
primates. And our branch of the evolutionary tree has the
luxury of time in which to do all those things, many times
over.
I've lived in America (most recently) for some
ninety-odd years. Around the Roosevelt era (the first one),
I became intrigued by the apparent course of development and
growth that technology had been set upon in this country.
So I involved myself in the fledgling radio industry,
eventually publishing one of the first-ever radio-oriented
periodicals (and, later, one of the most successful of the
early magazines specializing in pulp fantastic fiction).
That interest led to television, which took me into the new
field of solid state electronics. Fascinating work, but
after so many changes within what would ordinarily would be
a single lifetime, I felt the need for a break, a desire to
go out and play for a decade or two. In preparation, I sold
off the semiconductor companies I had founded and invested
heavily (but anonymously) in a handful of relatively new
ventures that seemed ready to burst forth. (I was an old
hand at the stock market, having bought large amounts of
AT&T the week following the sinking of the LUSITANIA.) Most
of those small operations flourished and some became
household names -- often with a bit of assistance in the
background by my humble self. It wasn't long before I again
had more income than I could ever hope to spend.
Having shopped around for a few years earlier in the
century, I acquired several comfortable but unpretentious
residences in such pleasant locales as La Jolla, Monaco,
Papeete, the Maldives, and (of course) Bahia. Brazil does
have the most astonishing beaches in the world. It's also a
"food culture" and Bahia is far more typically Brazilian
than Rio. I set about enjoying myself, though with no
particular goal or plan of action. I merely cast myself
adrift and relied on chance to carry me where it would.
An evening at the Monte Carlo casino in which I ended
up a winner (I usually am) brought an invitation from a new
acquaintance to join him and his other guests on a holiday
by motor schooner to Lesbos. My companions were well
educated, sophisticated, and uninhibited, and the sex was
easy and satisfying if uninspired. I was able to nibble on
several of the young ladies in the party as well as my host.
Most of the company, in fact, had become listless and anemic
when I took my leave for a visit to Istanbul, which I hadn't
visited since my janissary days.
Later, while relaxing on one of the smaller coral
islands of the Maldive group, I received a comsat call from
an old friend now residing in Sri Lanka, only 400 miles
away, inviting me for a visit. A human acquaintance, I
might add, who had published stories in my magazine in the
old days (though he was unaware of it) and who had once
written an article describing the very sort of satellite
communications system by which he had placed his call. I
refrained from drawing too heavily on his hospitality during
my stay, in deference to his advanced age, but he had a most
agreeable housekeeper.
From there, I ventured to northern India and made a
sort of pilgrimage up the Ganges, almost to the foothills
south of the region from which it is believed my species
emerged so long ago. I was distracted, though, by a
friendly party of young Brahmins with whom I fell in. They
had rediscovered the Kama Sutra, as every generation seems
to, and had become fascinated with it. So I assisted
several young women of high caste in their quest for sexual
nirvana. The Hindu culture takes its sex very seriously
indeed.
By the following January I'd moved into my penthouse in
the upper city, from which I could watch the sun rise over
Todos os Santos. Carnival wasn't until February and I
intended to soak up as much tasty sunshine as I could in
preparation for the long festive nights ahead.
So close to the equator, Bahia is always warm and
usually sunny and the beaches begin to fill shortly after
breakfast. It had become my habit to stroll along the beach
near the waterline, stopping to chat with acquaintances or
even with strangers and occasionally to snap off photos with
the aging Leica that hung on a strap over my shoulder. I'm
something of an amateur psychologist -- a useful skill for
any predator -- and making educated guesses about
circumstances and vocations from people's photos is one way
of keeping the brain muscle in tone.
I had observed during an earlier period in Brazil that
attractive young women on the beach there often greatly
enjoy having their pictures taken. It can also be a
convenient icebreaker. In recent years, thongs have become
almost a uniform among females who know they look appetizing
in them, and a thong seems also to encourage toplessness.
It's not uncommon to pass dozens of bare-breasted young
beauties during a hour of strolling. Being Brazilian, and
therefore creole, they come in a variety of lovely shades of
brown and most not only are willing to be photographed but
will even strike an out-thrust pose and flash the lens a
stunning smile.
I include in this pastime the pretty little adolescents
who are so proud of their growing breasts. And they love to
experiment with their newly found power of hypnotizing boys
and young men by the sway and jiggle of their tightly
muscled buttocks.
Such girls are fortunate and don't realize it. In an
earlier time, a fifteen-year-old would be regarded as a
grown woman and would have one or more small children
clinging to her homespun skirt in the field -- a baby-making
machine with never enough to eat and the expectation of an
early death from any of a variety of common ailments.
By the end of my third week in Bahia, I'd struck up an
odd sort of friendship with a particularly lovely young girl
in her early teens, without either of us saying a word. I
thought perhaps she assumed that, being obviously not
Brazilian, I didn't speak Portuguese (in which she would
have been wrong, for languages come very easily to me). Or
perhaps she was simply to shy to speak at the beginning and
it became a habit. She wasn't shy about her body, though.
When I first came upon her, she was playing
dodge-the-wavelets at the water's edge. Waiting tensely
until the oncoming sheet of foam was nearly to her slender
toes, then dancing back out of reach. Laughing and
splashing when the surf was too quick for her, skipping and
dancing to leave quickly-filled impressions in the damp
sand.
She kept her arms above her head for balance and her
gaze fixed on the encroaching ocean before her. Her
complexion was an uninterrupted cafe au lait, smooth and
gleaming in appearance, her hair a glossy, satiny black,
tied back in a long, thick mass that danced like a Carnival
headdress.
She wore an electric turquoise bathing suit that
consisted of a small triangular patch in front and a slender
north-south strip in back -- the latter seldom visible as it
disappeared between her flexing buttocks. The top of the
suit was simply two more tiny triangles held more or less in
place by strings the diameter of shoelaces. She was so near
to naked as not to matter, and might as well have been for
all the difference it seemed to make to her.
On the first occasion, I stopped ten feet away and
slightly behind her field of vision and exposed a couple of
frames of film. I thought she was unaware of my presence
but then she turned toward me with her hands on her hips,
cocked her head, and dazzled me with her small, very white
teeth. I shot two more pictures in rapid succession before
she could move, then lowered the camera and smiled my
thanks. She grinned, which made her seem much younger for a
moment, and returned to her game.
Two days later, I went back to the same stretch of
beach, frankly hoping to find my young model again. I'd
already developed the earlier roll and an enlargement of one
of her unselfconscious poses stood propped above the stereo
in my penthouse where I could admire it (and her) at my
ease.
I spotted her up ahead, wearing the same turquoise
suit. This time she was sitting crosslegged in the sand,
brushing out her long hair. When she noticed my approach
she pretended she hadn't and casually dropped the brush in
the bright canvas tote beside her. Then she reached behind
her neck with one hand and behind her back with the other
and just as casually dropped her top. She rose in a single,
fluid movement and strode into the water, small breasts
pointing straight ahead and jiggling not at all. When she
was knee-deep, she stopped, looked around, and seemed to
notice me for the first time.
She raised one hand, gave me a languid wave, then
returned her attention to the watery horizon. But she kept
her shoulders back, her posture upright, obviously hoping I
was aware of the delightful conical profile she presented.
Perhaps her nipples always were so engorged but I doubted
it. If I ignored the slender blue line over her hip, I
could believe she really was completely naked. From
attractive innocence, she had passed to Lolita-like
desirability.
Some of my thoughts must have leaked out, as they
sometimes do, because the girl turned and fixed me with an
open-mouthed stare that gradually went out of focus. Her
hand drifted uncertainly to the joining of her legs. I
walked closer, stopping at the margin of the surf and
consciously, carefully disentangled her from my unintended
mental web.
She had been leaning slightly toward me on the balls of
her small feet but now she settled back on her heels and
blinked. I smiled and circled around to get the sun behind
me, and her warming gaze followed me like a lighthouse
beacon. I knew I could have her with a gesture but I wasn't
going to do it that way. Consummated sex with one so young
and emotionally unformed usually results in a kind of
psychological near-enslavement; something in our seed, I'm
told. I preferred to seduce her with mystery by appealing
to the romance I was sure was part of her nature.
So I raised the camera and pondered her through the
viewfinder. The girl was either a natural or was learning
her wiles early, for she lowered her head slightly, watching
me through her long lashes. Her thick, raven hair fluttered
in the late morning breeze. And her nipples visibly
hardened and swelled even more.
A couple of shots and I lowered the camera and gave my
attention openly to her young breasts. She arched her back
and pulled in her stomach and looked pleased. The beach
wasn't yet crowded near us so I quietly beckoned her closer
and she came out of the water gracefully and without
hesitation. I gave her my most winning, worldly smile and
reached out slowly and carefully to stroke my index finger
across the tip of one dark brown nipple. Her eyelids
drooped as she inhaled deeply and responded with a delicate
shudder. And still not a syllable spoken between us.
I stepped back and calmly closed the leather case over
my camera but I also watched the girl from the corner of one
eye. She was unsure what to do -- step closer to me, wait
for me to move close to her again? -- she didn't know what
was expected of her. She rubbed the nipple I'd touched
between her fingers a few times before she realized she was
doing it and dropped her hand.
Should I take her back to my residence? Certainly she
must have a home and family nearby. She would be missed,
but she wouldn't care about that if I took her. And such
things happen occasionally in Bahia. But that would be
cruel, I thought, however much I might desire her. So I
nodded to her, gave a little wave, and moved on down the
beach. Glancing back a few yards on, I saw her abandoned
expression and knew that I would return in another day or
two and that she would be awaiting me anxiously.
But that was when Fate took a hand -- the chance I had
entrusted myself to. I met Maya and things changed.
I chanced upon Maya in the afternoon of that same day,
on a completely different beach. She was motionless,
stretched out on her back on a large towel, well up from the
water's age. She looked about twenty-five and wore dark
shades and a sexy but not unusually provocative bikini.
Thick, dark red hair that glinted in the sun and smooth,
perfect skin that was almost unnaturally pale and yet seemed
to ignore the ultraviolet assault it came under.
More important, she was one of my own kind -- I knew
that much instantly, of course -- but I had no idea who she
was. I walked up to her from the surf, drawn by a genetic
magnetism, and stood a dozen feet away, wondering if she was
asleep behind her sunglasses and searching my memory for her
likeness and a name to go with it. It bothered me that I
didn't recognize her; I'd thought I knew everyone who came
to the Brazilian beaches.
Then only her lips moved as she said softly in accented
English, "Are you going to just stand there? I know who you
are -- what you are, I mean. Pull up a piece of towel and
sit, why don't you?" And she smiled, amused in the
knowledge that she had me at a disadvantage and that I
wasn't used to it.
So I sat crosslegged on the foot-end of her towel,
setting my camera beside me. "My name, at the moment, is
Graeme Buchanan," I offered and her smile broadened. I look
about as Scottish as the king of Persia.
"I'm Maya," she replied. No surname. Well, I've often
gotten by with only one name myself, though that's become
much more difficult in this century, when everything is
recorded by the authorities.
"I haven't seen you around. May I ask where you're
from.... lately?"
Her lips twitched again. "Would you believe me if I
said I've been in total seclusion for a number of years?
I've been living as a Cistercian nun, actually. Very
cloistered. I went through a... traumatic patch and when
it was over I found I simply had to withdraw from the world
for awhile -- allow myself a quiet period in which to heal
my mind. I finally discarded my habit less than a year ago
and I'm still readjusting to this strange but interesting
new world."
A vampire nun! How delightful, I thought. Whatever
would the pope say? Still, she had chosen an ingenious
hideout from her former life, whatever it might have been.
Then Maya took a deep preparatory breath, let it out
slowly, and sat up. She removed the dark glasses and leaned
back on her outstretched arms so she could study me. I
returned her forthright gaze, mentally cataloging her
features and beginning to appreciate how lovely she actually
was. Her arching eyebrows matched her hair in color and her
eyes were the iridescent green one finds only in the purest
emeralds. She watched me watching her and her full lips
pursed slightly -- a dramatic and very erotic gesture.
"Graeme, do you know you're the first... colleague...
who has actually taken the initiative to talk to me? I've
seen a few others, but they steered clear of me."
"With your looks, I find that difficult to believe," I
replied with a gallant smile. "Seriously, if the others
haven't recognized you either, they simply may not wish to
involve themselves with you until they discover who you are
and where you've sprung from. I, on the other hand, am a
famous busybody." She laughed again and I was drawn to the
dancing sparkle in her eyes.
"I guess I'd forgotten how paranoid our kind can be,"
she said. "In a convent, you learn to take the sisters on
trust. It's the only way the cloistered community can
function. But paranoia has its place, I suppose, when
you're a-- when you're one of us." She glanced around to
see if anyone had overheard her near-slip, then saw my
gently mocking grin and blushed.
I leaned closer and said in a stage-whisper, "Wouldn't
be a touch of that paranoia, would it?" She grinned back --
those lovely eyes again! -- and relaxed. I felt suddenly as
if I'd known her for a very long time.
We chatted awhile and it developed that Maya had raised
only enough cash after departing the convent to get her to
the Southern Hemisphere. She had found a small, inexpensive
flat in a less fashionable part of town and had no plans
except soaking up a lot more sun. She hadn't even acquired
a car, so I drove her home. Then I waited politely in her
front room while she changed out of her bathing suit in the
bedroom.
I was surprised to see a row of three faded but neatly
framed daguerreotypes arranged on a window ledge. We're not
much given to family photos and mementos, except as props.
Maya hadn't even assumed a new public persona yet.
Examining the photos more closely, I decided the adult
male wearing the cheap suit with the over-the-shoulder
tricolor sash must be some sort of local official,
presumably in France. The woman wearing the highnecked
dress with the bustle in the second picture must be his
wife. The couple appeared together in the third photo,
looking much more relaxed, wearing the preposterous outfits
the Victorians called "bathing costumes." They were
accompanied by a little girl, perhaps ten years old, who had
turned her head while the shutter was open, blurring her
face beyond recognition. Who were these people?
Maya returned, humming and brushing out her
shoulder-length auburn hair. She wore a simple sheath that
stopped at mid-thigh -- the sort of comfortable,
inexpensive, low-maintenance dress worn by half the women in
Brazil on any given day. She sounded cheerful, almost
exuberant, until she saw what I was studying so carefully.
Then she stopped all movement and took on a wary expression.
That increased the mystery. I indicated the photos and
raised an eyebrow.
She took one of those deep breaths again, let it out,
and looked me straight in the eye. "My parents," she said
softly. "And me."
I didn't understand for a moment. How could the little
girl with the blurred face be Maya? Or did she only mean
she told outsiders that? No -- that couldn't be right,
either: Anyone could see the pictures were more than a
century old. She continued to stare at me solemnly and I
finally realized what she was saying.
I'm not often speechless but it just didn't make sense
and I couldn't think of an appropriate response. Finally:
"May I ask how old you are, my dear?"
"I was born the year his Imperial Highness, Prince
Napoleon, became President of the Republic -- 1848. I
entered the convent in 1870, shortly after we -- the French
army, that is -- was defeated at Sedan, and the Emperor was
deposed." One corner of her mouth quirked. "I guess that
makes me a child, doesn't it? Compared to you?"
I was thoroughly floored. This "young" woman seemed so
normal -- normal for us -- and she was claiming to be less
than a hundred-and-fifty? I was more than twenty times her
age. In all those centuries, the only "new-borns" I'd ever
heard of were the night-dwellers, but I'd met Maya under the
thundering sun.
"Where are your parents, then? Why don't I know them?
Are they in seclusion, too?"
"No, they're dead. My father died in the war against
Prussia. I received word of my mother's death when I'd been
in the convent about twenty-five years; she'd died of old
age."
I sat rather heavily on the rattan settee beside the
window. "You're saying your parents... they weren't...?"
Maya slowly shook her head. "But-- Homo sapiens can't
produce-- I mean, they *must* have been--" I stammered to a
halt as the auburn waves continued their negative motion.
"No, they were just ordinary people. Happy in their
ordinary lives." She glanced at the group photo. "I was
still ordinary myself when that was taken near La Rochelle.
I entered puberty at thirteen and I... changed. I changed
quite a lot. There were new hungers, new needs. I first
had sex at fourteen with a farm boy of twenty. I used him
up, in all senses. It was a mystery death that aroused the
neighborhood to a frightening degree. My father was the
local notaire so he organized a search for the 'savage
killer'... and he never knew what was living under his
roof."
It was obvious Maya had never unburdened herself like
this to anyone. I could understand why. A young girl,
suddenly discovering what to her would be horrible,
unnatural desires, giving in to what could not be repressed
or denied. And no one to tutor her in her role in the
world. Without conscious thought, I reached out and took
her hand. The look of gratitude she returned was nearly
unbearable.
When it became obvious she wasn't going to say anything
more for the moment, I stood and drew her up with me.
"Maya.... my dear.... you've been alone for so long. A sort
of loneliness I can't begin to imagine." Her features, held
carefully in control, finally crumpled and she buried her
face against my chest, clutching the lapels of my seersucker
jacket as she sobbed out a century of unhappiness.
"I don't want to impose myself on you in any way....
but I would like to suggest that you come and live with me,
at least for awhile. We can talk and I can... tell you
things, perhaps, things you need to know. You'd have your
own room, of course," I added quickly. "I'm not asking you
to, uh...."
She gulped as she got herself under control and tried
to laugh. "I understand what you're saying, Graeme. You're
a gentleman and I think I have nothing to fear from you."
She raised her head and tried to smooth out the wrinkles
she'd squeezed into my shirtfront. There were a few more
ragged breaths as she composed herself.
"I'd be pleased to accept your very kind invitation,
monsieur. I find I do need someone to confide in, someone I
can ask questions of. I've been in hiding for far too long.
That's why I emerged from that starched linen shell, isn't
it? I must discover what I am, out here in the world." Her
warm smile was breathtaking. "And I can certainly use a
gentle guide."
So Maya moved in with me. Though my penthouse was
spacious and her possessions few, I ordinarily would have
felt crowded with a full-time guest in residence. My many
liaisons with women were seldom of the live-in variety and
never for very long, and the few times I'd had a
relationship with a woman of my own stock, the question had
never arisen. For all vampires share a need for privacy and
prefer solitude much of the time.
But it was different with young Maya. I awoke thinking
of her, anticipating her tousled head bent over her morning
cup of richly aromatic coffee. She was a neat, orderly
person -- a legacy of all those years as a nun, I was sure.
Nor did she seem to have an acquisitive nature. She settled
into the extra bedroom with no embarrassment or fuss, which
pleased me, but her style of living was so spartan that even
after several weeks it would not have been obvious to a
cursory examiner that her room was occupied.
I sometimes returned from an afternoon of running
inescapable errands, for instance, to find her humming
contentedly as she prepared an evening meal. She turned out
to be a talented cook, too -- a skill I could barely manage
when necessary but an art I'd never shown any talent for. I
loved having her there.
Part of Maya's novel effect on me was undoubtedly
sexual, but even so.... It didn't take me long to realize
that my interest in her was becoming at least in part
paternal -- and that was *definitely* a new experience. I
took her shopping and insisted she increase her wardrobe. I
have a certain eye for fashion and she was happy to accept
my recommendations regarding what I thought looked good on
her. She learned how to enter a good restaurant as if she
owned it and how to give directions to a Brazilian taxi
driver that he would not ignore.
And when we were alone in the evenings, I would
sometimes lie with my head in her lap and she would ask me
questions about the things I had done and the places and
people I had seen. I discovered a great enjoyment in
telling her stories from my life -- something I could never
have done with an ordinary, short-lived person, of course,
and most of my own kind had had similar experiences in their
long lives. But it was all new to Maya.
So I relived my years as owner of a rubber plantation
in Malaya, and my career as a fencing master in Medician
Florence, and the quiet, peaceful time as a smallholder on
the Euphrates, and the occasionally *too* exciting period
during which I had commanded a Saracen archer company that
had helped to repel the infidels from Antioch. I told her
about glassblowing in China, and shoemaking in Prague, and
blacksmithing in Pennsylvania. All of it seemed to
fascinate her.
At first, she gently deflected my questions about her
own brief past and I didn't press. But when I was able to
convince her that I was truly interested in her history, she
began to open up. For instance, I asked, why had she
entered a convent, instead of simply accepting her true
nature and making her way in the world?
That amused her and she actually had to explain to me
the terror, depression, and hopelessness of her adolescence.
Eventually, I realized that I was as ill-equipped as she
herself had been to truly understand the plight of a normal
child suddenly become a vampire -- a thing of fear and
repulsion to the society she lived in. I had never been
anything else; it was the normal state for me. How would
*I* react, she asked, if I arose one morning to discover I
was changing into an "ordinary," short-lived human, facing
old age, illness, and certain death? She was right: I could
not imagine such an unreasonable condition.
In the quiet and stable environment of the Cistercian
convent, Maya had considered these things at length. After
the first half-century, when the aging process had gradually
slowed to a crawl, she had arrived at a sort of peace with
herself. God had created all things, including vampires.
Her metamorphosis must be God's will; he meant her to be
what she was. And she didn't *feel* inherently evil. The
rules were different for her.
So she continued to live as one of the sisters and fed
when she had to, selecting persons she considered of no
redeeming social value and carefully covering her tracks.
Reluctantly she had learned to lie and fabricate in order to
conceal her true age -- which must be easier in a habit, I
supposed -- and she became selective in what she confessed.
She also managed to avoid being photographed, under the
guise of shyness and an invented vow.
She had discovered early on that she possessed unusual
mental abilities and she made the moral and ethical decision
not to use her powers frivolously. But on several occasions
she was aware that other nuns who had gone from youthful
postulancy to old age in her company had become curious and
uneasy about her. Then she had planted false memories: The
never-aging sister actually had died years before and Maya
herself was simply a younger nun who bore a resemblance to
an unclearly remembered older woman. Then Maya would change
her name and "arrive" at the convent all over again, as a
new member of the community.
Changes in identity were becoming more difficult,
though, even for cloistered nuns. When a new Mother
Superior recommended fingerprinting the sisters for their
own protection, Maya had been forced to foment discontent
and anger in the convent over the proposal and it was
quickly and quietly dropped.
For more than a century, that had been the ordered
shape of her life. Then, a few years earlier, she had been
singing in the choir while a newly appointed local bishop
celebrated mass at the convent. Something indefinable about
the man had riveted her attention on him. He, too, felt
something because he kept studying the linen-framed faces in
the stalls.
Later that morning, the bishop took a stroll through
the convent's extensive herb garden and stopped to chat with
Maya, who happened to be weeding. It was far from
coincidental, of course, and Maya was astonished to discover
that she wasn't the only daylight vampire in the world. The
bishop, on learning of the circumstances of her birth and
later transformation, recommended, in the strictest
confidence, that she leave the Order and go out into the
world, before she was discovered -- which he was certain
would happen eventually if she remained in one place.
Maya thought about that for some time, wondering how
many others like her there could be outside the walls. The
bishop had insisted that he had *never* heard of one of his
people born to short-lived parents.... though surely that
was how our species must have begun, as a series of
mutations in the distant past.
She was also, finally, becoming bored with the
religious life, which she took as a sign that her vocation
was coming to an end. And so she made plans for her final
demise in the cloistered community. In the perceptions and
minds of the sisters, she began to experience the symptoms
of angina. A doctor was called in to examine her and he
announced sadly that her condition was critical and that it
was only a matter of time for the elderly nun. And
following her "death" from a stroke a month later, Maya had
lingered in the shadows at the rear of the small chapel and
witnessed her own funeral, listening with surprise and some
emotion to the heartfelt sorrow of her companions who
quietly eulogized her before the simple pine box that
supposedly held her mortal remains. Then she slipped away,
pretending to be a distant relative come to attend the
services. She had never looked back.
Maya's recitation of events were spread over several
evenings and by the time she'd finished I had developed a
profound respect for the courage this girl had displayed in
facing what she had thought was a unique loneliness, and in
resolving to leave her community after more than a century.
And she was still a "girl" in many ways, despite her
chronological age. I told her, quite sincerely, that she
could stay with me, as my friend and under my protection,
for as long as she needed to. And she wept on my shoulder
as I held her in my arms and comforted her.
A month passed and Maya and I learned a great deal
about the world in which our species survives -- she for the
first time and I from a completely new perspective.
Carnival came and we immersed ourselves in it, dancing with
the throngs in the street, scrambling for tin coins flung
from the floats, laughing at the garishly made-up young
crossdressers, and speculating on the everyday lives of the
young women who were gorgeous in their plumes and very
little else.
I took her up into the back country to witness rituals
of voudou and we rode a motor launch up a narrow branch of
the Amazon to marvel at the remaining foliage and wildlife.
We roamed all over Bahia itself, exploring neighborhoods
that even I had never seen. And, of course, we walked the
beaches, sometimes early in the morning but often long after
dark.
About two o'clock in the morning one February night,
when the air temperature on the sand was twenty degrees
cooler than it was five miles inland, Maya and I were
strolling in companionable silence along the upper boundary
of one of my favorite beaches. We had seen almost no one,
merely piles of old trash, some of it carried in on the surf
but most of it the detritus left by daytime visitors. The
occasional figures we glimpsed moved furtively, keeping to
the shadows. This part of the beach could be dangerous in
the dark, especially for solitary and incautious walkers.
We had disposed of several muggers on excursions like this,
pathetic young men in ragged clothing who had no idea what
they were getting into when they jumped us. For me these
were perfunctory opportunities to feed, but for Maya they
were necessary lessons in culling the herd.
As we passed a small grove of scruffy palms, Maya
stopped and touched my arm, scanning the undergrowth. I'd
heard the small sound, too. Then it came again, a low moan,
definitely human. We approached the trees carefully to
investigate; if some more ordinary pedestrian had been
attacked and left injured, we probably would attempt to get
them medical attention. If it was someone obviously dying,
however, we would take advantage of the opportunity to feed.
What we found was a small figure wrapped in a thin,
castoff blanket, hidden in a nest made of dismembered
cardboard cartons. A girl, by the length of the black hair
among the shadows, and not very old. There were thousands
of orphaned and runaway children in Bahia, most of them
living in packs for protection. The girl moaned again and
it seemed she was only having a bad dream. Then she rolled
over and I glimpsed her face in the dim moonlight: It was my
young friend from earlier in the season, the girl in the
turquoise thong who never spoke but who liked to pose for my
camera. Her brightly patterned tote bag was wadded up under
her head.
Maya noted my surprise and watched as I drew back a
corner of the blanket to check on the girl's condition.
There was no blood and no bruises, so she hadn't been
assaulted. I had to assume that this was her regular
sleeping spot. When we'd first met, I had believed the girl
had parents who would report her absence. Apparently not.
I hoped it wasn't too late to do something about her.
I could feel the psychological intruder alarms
beginning to clamor in the back of my young friend's skull
so I reached out with my own mind before she could waken and
suppressed them. She sighed and smacked her lips and sank
into a deeper, quieter sleep.
Maya was still watching, silent and curious, as I
gently unwrapped the girl and tossed the old blanket aside.
She wore faded, frequently patched blue jeans and a
once-white tee-shirt several sizes too large. Over that was
a nondescript man's dress shirt, torn and stained; the
collar was turned up and the long cuffs were pulled down
over her hands for warmth. Her feet were stuffed in brown
paper bags, tops twisted about her ankles, but she had a
pair of plastic thong sandals in her tote -- which also
disgorged a small towel with a hotel logo, several packets
of salted peanuts and ketchup, a carefully folded pair of
pink cotton panties (whether her only pair or a spare, I
couldn't say), three 100-cruziero notes wadded into a tight
ball (about enough to purchase one soft drink).... and her
ubiquitous turquoise thong, which seemed now to be her
principal daytime garment. All her clothing seemed to be
clean but smelled faintly salty; I guessed she was washing
her laundry and herself in the surf.
I considered what all this meant as I replaced her
meager belongings in the tote. I had to rethink my earlier
assumptions. The girl was no more than thirteen or fourteen
and obviously homeless, yet she didn't seem malnourished or
sick or abused. Perhaps she slept on the beach only when
she couldn't find better shelter. Yet, how did she feed
herself? She looked so young and sweet, I disliked thinking
about the probable answer to that. Still, she had seemed
cheerful enough when I'd taken my pictures, playing in the
waves like any middle-class kid her age. And she hadn't hit
me up for spare change, either.
Then I replayed in my memory our second encounter, when
she had deliberately displayed her small breasts to me,
almost as a deliberate lure. Was that intended to be the
beginning of a campaign of enticement? Was she using her
body as bait to snare herself a new provider? If so, she'd
certainly been cold-blooded about it. And then my
unintended mental "radiation" had apparently derailed her
plans.
I looked up at Maya's calm face and said quietly, "This
girl is someone I know and I don't want to leave her out
here. It's not safe. Would you mind very much if we took
her home with us for awhile?"
Maya had been leaning over the girl and me, hands on
her knees, watching my ministrations. Now she raised her
eyebrows and seemed surprised. "It's your home, Graeme.
Why are you asking me?"
"Because it's your home as well, Maya, for as long as
you want it to be," I replied patiently. I thought that had
been made clear. "I would not force an outsider on you."
Her expression softened. "I should have met you years
ago, Graeme."
"Maya, you wouldn't have been ready for me years ago."
We shared a smile and then she bent and picked up the canvas
tote. I carefully scooped up the nameless girl in my arms
and stood. We walked quickly the fifty yards through the
trees to the parkway and caught a cab. The girl slept all
the way back to our place.
I laid the limp young body face down across the foot of
my bed and worked the grimy man's shirt off her arms. I
glanced around for a spot to drop it but Maya took it from
me and stuffed it firmly in a wastebasket. Then I turned
the girl over and propped her up while Maya pulled the
overlarge tee-shirt off over her head. Lying on her back
now, her growing breasts nearly disappeared in profile.
She calmly unbuttoned the faded jeans and pulled them
down the long, slender legs. No, the girl hadn't been
wearing panties. And Maya showed no hesitation in exposing
the child's naked form, which was an indication of how far
her attitudes toward the short-lived had changed in just a
few weeks. She had found in me a template to model herself
after and she had been quick to adapt to it.
Now we both stood and appraised the body on the bed.
The girl's stomach was flat and muscular and only a small,
black, silky patch over her pubic mound indicated the
beginnings of maturity.
"She's lovely, isn't she?" Maya commented quietly.
"Is that how you know her? Is she one of your many
conquests?" Her green eyes twinkled and she stuck her
tongue in her cheek to show she was teasing.
"No, unfortunately not. She might have been -- she
*is* beautiful -- but then I met you, my dear." I thought
about that slim, brown body snuggled between my bedsheets
and decided not to tempt myself too far. "I suppose she can
sleep on the fouton in the study...." I said tentatively,
but Maya shook her head.
"It would be much better if she woke up tomorrow in a
proper bed," she replied firmly. "We'll put her in my
room." I didn't ask where she intended to sleep herself.
Maya led the way and I followed her down the hall, again
carrying the girl. The smooth, warm skin against my arms
was delightful.
So we put her in Maya's bed and tucked the covers up
under her chin. I reached into her mind and shifted her
into a deep, restful, and entirely natural sleep. Maya
moved a wooden vanity chair nearer the bed and draped the
jeans and tee-shirt over it and set the tote on the seat.
"So she'll be reassured when she wakes up," she explained.
She also laid a folded terrycloth robe across the foot of
the bed and when we departed, we left the bedroom door ajar.
(continued in Part 2)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 1994 by Michael K. Smith. Copies may be made and posted
elsewhere for personal enjoyment, but all commercial rights are reserved.
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