Daughter of Lesbian Vampire Cougars

Chapter 1: Tears

One week, just one week had passed since Regina brought me back from the Lilim, when we returned to the house Veronica was nowhere to be seen, I asked where she had gone and the others told me she had to go away on personal business out of town.

That was the last time anyone said anything to me, or made any contact with me, aside from eye contact, and usually the kind that puts a chill down your spine.

It's strange isn't it, maybe it's Regina and Veronica's blood, maybe I really came to love this place and its inhabitants, as cruel as they can be, but I miss them. I've never felt so lonely as I do now, I've never felt it this intensely either, it's like a crushing depression, like something integral is missing and physically hurts. I'm like Regina and the rest now, part succubus or something, I guess that means I need to have physical and emotional contact with others even more so than I did before to maintain my physical and mental health. God I would give anything for any one of them to just touch me like they used to, they could get a little rough, they could use actual, well not actual torture, but the kind they did when I first came here.

I look back at those days and I touch myself, I want so badly to go back there, so badly to feel their skin, to be touched and tickled and played with in a way like they know exactly how to do it to make it feel as good as possible.

Dinner was, as usual, another situation where I kept my head down and played no part in any conversation, I focused on my meal, which at least was the same the others were having. I didn't like the discomfort being this close to people who resented me, I tried to lose myself in the food while discussions went on passed by me. Just eat up and get out as soon as possible, like a ghost I was ignored when I came in and when I left, I guess I should be lucky there's no urine, saliva or broken glass or metal shards in my food.

I made my way up back to my room, Veronica's room technically, but it became our room. I kept my ear to the door, it took a while but I learned the time and pattern of when each member of the family bathes. I couldn't take this anymore, I had to take some kind of initiative; my enhanced hearing could make out not only voices but the sound of specific footsteps and the sound of the air as they passed through it.

Vanessa and Farah loved each other, but even during good times they need time apart, every third night they take baths separately and I could hear Vanessa's footsteps right on time. Veronica said, whenever she was away, just stay close to Vanessa, my 'second' mother, the only other one in the house who actually wanted me. I hoped, maybe, she still would, I was more comfortable with her than even Regina, she could be intimidating when she wanted.

I took off my clothes and wrapped myself in a towel and made my way to the bathroom, I composed myself before I made any move to enter, I can't screw this up, I can't afford to!

I knocked on the door and heard "come on in!"

I opened up to see Vanessa in the tub, a towel wrapped around her hair. A brief smile was quickly replaced with a nasty scowl, she quickly moved her head to the side to avoid eye contact.

"May I join you?"

"You know the rules, the bathroom is free to any family member at any time for any reason, it is a shared communal space."

"But that's not what I asked, may 'I' join 'you'?"

"You may enter tub, do not expect us to be intimate. Touching you is something I find rather unpleasant."

"Can we please just talk?"

"You may talk, I cannot guarantee I'll listen."

"I'll take that."

I removed my towel and sat next to her, close enough to be near her but not close enough for physical contact, I didn't want to lose a body part.

I waited for her to make the first move, I didn't want to offend her, I didn't want to give her ammo, I was just hoping that maybe she'd feel something like compassion, maybe it would remind her of the times we had a couple weeks ago.

"Why did you take my car keys?"

I guess I should be lucky she's not yelling.

"It was the only way I could think of, I didn't do it to hurt you, I just wanted to get away. I was afraid, I thought if I could just attract the attention of a cop-"

"You'd expose us? Slay the wretched demons who wronged you and degraded you? Is that what you imagined would happen?"

"I, I."

"Tell me, I want to know, what did you intend for us? What was it you hoped for?"

"Just to get help, just to get away. Nothing more?"

"Nothing more? That's not the behaviour of a human being, that's the behaviour of a frightened animal."

"I was, I was afraid, fear was all I knew. That's all I can say in my defence, I was a weak, pathetic mortal girl, I didn't know or think that any of you were going to make good on your word, I was certain you'd just get bored of me and let Farah have her way with me. I was terrified, I didn't want to die, I didn't want to lose my toes or any other part of my body."

"You still haven't answered my question, what do you think would've happened to 'my' family if you succeeded?"

"I don't know, I assumed you were resourceful enough to cover it up or flee before anything happened, the best I could have hoped was that you'd leave me and my family alone, but I knew it was more likely Farah would lead you all on a relentless hunt. In which case it was just stay of execution."

"That's what you think would've happened, but I want to know what you 'hoped' would've happened?"

"I, I, I just wanted to get away that's all."

She looked at me for a few seconds, but her eyes pierced me to the point in where the inside of my spinal cord froze, it was a very long few seconds.

"I'm getting prunie."

She stood up and was about to make her way out of the tub, I couldn't let this opportunity pass so in my desperation I grabbed hold of her legs like a little girl.

"Please don't go!"

This earned another sneer of contempt.

"Please, I'm sorry about what I did, can't you please give me another chance? Like Regina and Veronica have?"

"Veronica is barely more than a child herself, my little sister has a bad habit of picking bad bed partners, and Regina may be wise but she is full of love, and that blinds her to the worthlessness of outsiders. It's up to Farah, I and Devana to protect them from their own bad decisions."

"You've been in the same situation, with Venus, you know what it's like to be held hostage by someone with power over you and no way out. You know how frightening that situation is."

"That was also the same situation I was in when I first came in contact with Regina, I stayed loyal and I was rewarded in the end."

"But you didn't know that at first, you both struggled against her, tried to overpower her, it wasn't until you got to know her that you began to love her and form a real family."

"But still accepted her in time, we gave you time."

"You gave me a week, you and Regina had years to get to know and trust each other."

"What's your point?"

"Veronica told me when I first got here to always stay close to you, that you were the only other person in the house who wanted me. You treated me with kindness and compassion, more than anyone else in the house, you protected me and kept me safe, like a second mother. Please tell me that love is still there, please tell me you don't hate me!"

I could see in her face she was having trouble processing her emotions, she let out a sigh and started to chuckle.

"Since that night Farah has been nonstop finding more and more creative ways of saying 'I you so', she hasn't stopped you know. You are lucky, whatever spell you cast on Veronica and Regina worked on me too; don't think this absolves you, I'm still angry about what you did, doubly so that you did it in a way where I had to cop false blame. But at the same time, for some ridiculous reason I still have some love for you, Farah's right I am too soft and foolish."

"You're the same reason Veronica didn't run away, you're the same reason she feels she has a place here. Just like you were to her you are to me, I am her blood and I am Regina's blood and that means I'm your blood too."

"That's true, I had so many romantic ideas about what having a child in the house would be like, I thought you'd bring new life, a new member of the family to shower love upon. But then you had to do the things you did, now things are complicated. I've never felt the way you've made me feel, I wanted to be there for you, I wanted you to warm my bed with Farah every night whenever Veronica had to leave; now if I tried that I think Farah would do worse to me than she's ever threatened to do with you. I do still love you, but that feeling brings pain, real visceral pain, one day I promise we'll love and make love again, but that day won't come for a long time."

And with that she left the room and I was left alone in the tub, just by myself, starring at my body in the water and nothing really processing in my mind.

---------*---------

I hate small towns, I've never had good experiences in small towns. Cities are my natural habitat and coming down to Orange County is about as pleasant as a visit to Utah, which is to say extraordinarily unpleasant.

Emily never really told any of us about her life before us, she was always evasive and guarded, I didn't like that, I told her mine she should tell me hers. Tracking down her family wasn't hard, we actually intended the sacrifice to be a family member, but decided it would better to use her friend instead. We knew right away Emily had problems with her family, a lot of it stems that it's made up of just one person: her mother.

If I could find a person less qualified to be a mother, well there are a lot, but just because she isn't one of the more extreme cases doesn't mean Emily or her mother needed each other in their lives. When you spend as much time as I have around junkies, rapists, psychopaths, you learn to spot where they come from, people outside that world have a very caricatured impression of where these people come from, what makes them who they are.

It's true some just start out with drug dens and slavery, but most come from subtle and innocuous looking places. The thing about abusing children, especially your children, is that they're innocent, which really just means ignorance, they can't tell other people about abuse because they don't know its abuse. Children are born full of love, love for their parents, love for the ones who they're dependent on; and the problem with being dependent on someone is that they take advantage.

Abuse, enough to damage a person isn't instantaneous, it takes decades of abuse, just a harsh word can cripple a person if it's repeated enough by someone you love.

Thankfully, slightly, Emily wasn't that bad off, her mother wasn't a bad person, just a miserable wreck of a human being. I came to this town to get to know her, to know the woman who raised my daughter, it was a sad story: abusive childhood, a rape when she was a teenager, an abusive husband who in turn forced to her produce children who scorned her and worshipped him, followed by an attempt at suicide.

Marrying Emily's father and having Emily was supposed to be a happy ending, then he died and she left a single mother. She had no idea how to raise and child and her own set of emotional problems, it's a wonder Emily turned out as well as she did, that she didn't end up strangling the woman or didn't just drown the both of them in her car.

I don't want to talk about this anymore, it makes me ill. I may be a psychopath but I'm not heartless, Suzanna Hsu deserves a better life than she got, I'm not going out of my way to make it worse.

I need to get back home before someone decides to dismember Emily.

-------*--------

Regina, my only sanctuary and protection from the loneliness, possibly. Like the others I haven't had any contact with her since she brought me home on the day she let me drink her blood. It wasn't really a special occasion, when we came in the door everyone of course were either angry or just tired of dealing with me, Regina gave a rather lacklustre speech repeating what she said before, but unlike before I could tell she shared their contempt.

After the rest of the group departed, Veronica told me she was leaving for a week, I begged her not to go, I was terrified of what would happen to me alone in the house, I thought I'd go back into the dungeon and finally they'd make good on their threats. If only, at least then I'd have some kind of human contact.

I feared her more than the others, well maybe not that much more, but I feared what kind of monster she may be. She's kind, loving, but she has power over me, she told me that when Farah and Vanessa attacked her she used her powers to make them suffer, what else could she do to those who carry her blood; would she even need to go that far, I don't even think physical abuse was necessary, I'm not sure what it was but just the thought of her being angry with me, of shouting at me or rejecting me, it filled me with an almost crippling sense of dread.

But I couldn't just sit and wait, she was my last hope of having any kind of lasting safety in this place, if I couldn't secure Regina's affection I was as good as dead.

I knocked on her door to be greeted by a "come in!"

She sounds like she's a good mood, that's a good sign.

I entered the room, hoping not to be screamed at, I was greeted by the sight of Regina, her bedside lamp still on as she read from a book whose title I didn't know. She didn't raise her head to greet me, but she wasn't angry or shouting at me so I guess it's a good start.

"May I join you?"

"You may lay with me, but that doesn't mean you have the right to 'lay' with me."

Good enough for me.

I moved to the bed and slipped under the covers and snuggled up to Regina only to have her push away with her elbow.

"Don't touch me."

"I'm lonely."

"Don't be a baby, your mother will be returning in the next couple of days, it's her job to coddle you not mine."

"You don't understand, it's physically painful to be isolated. I can't just live on food or nice bed sheets or art, I need human contact. It feels like I'm starving."

This piqued her attention for a brief moment.

"That's odd, I didn't know that could happen to any my girls. I suppose we've never had that problem so it never came up before."

"I just, I'm worried, I'm afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"Being alone in this house, if I'm alone it causes pain, and I'm worried if I'm alone here with the others."

"You fear revenge? You fear that Devana or Farah will decide to use their superiority over you and have their way with you? You may be the bottom of the hierarchy but you still have some rights, permanent injury or death is out of the question."

"They can still do other things, Veronica told me Devana once bit her toes off!"

"They grew back."

"How can you be so cold about something like that?!"

"I told you, anything that doesn't kill or cause permanent damage is allowed, you're a vampire now, in fact you're a vampire who has my blood in her. I'm not even sure anything in this world can actually kill you."

"That doesn't mean it's alright to inflict pain or be cruel; that's abuse, its cruelty, its sadism!"

"It's a little late to be complaining now, you knew who were and what we do, you chose to take my blood, I'm sorry to say the sun is no longer an option to you."

"How can you allow this? Aren't you the mother? You're the one who goes on about love, but you let the older and more powerful women dominant the weaker and younger ones."

"Because that is the nature of love, it is the nature of my love, there is a hierarchy. Domination is part of love, a dominant-submissive relationship is key to all human relations, all relations in general, just as the parent has authority over a child the dominant love has authority over her lesser. You are the lesser, and for the foreseeable future you will always be the lesser, it is the way of things and how things should be, without it our lifestyle simply couldn't exist."

"So I'm just supposed to be the submissive for the rest of eternity?! How is that any different than before?!"

"Oh sweetie, considering how angry everyone is at you, your brief experiences as a human will seem like distant, happy memory."

"HOW CAN YOU BE SO CALLOUS!? YOU SAID YOU WANTED ME! YOU OFFERRED ME YOUR BLOOD, DOESN'T YOUR LOVE MEAN ANYTHING?!"

And then glared at me, I couldn't maintain eye contact for more than a second as it filled me with dread.

"Don't raise your voice in my presence, this is a sacred space and your right to be in my presence is something I can revoke should I choose; the same goes for my love."

"I'm sorry, I just, I'm scared, I barely understand what's happened to my body, let alone how to deal with everything else."

"What do you expect me to do about it? I may be the matriarch of this family, but my word only carries so much weight, I can't and won't force my girls to do something they don't want, especially when you have wronged us so."

"I've wronged you, yes that's true, there's no denying that, but how can I get your forgiveness? What can I do to fix this situation?"

"I'm ashamed to say I don't know, we've never had a situation like this before. But then again that's what I brought you here for, new stimuli, new ideas, new situations and things of that sort, so far you've done an admirable job. No I don't know how you can fix this, even giving you my blood had more to do with Veronica's endless begging than any part of me wanting to forgive you. While I don't hate you, I can't say my love and enthusiasm for you still remains."

"Then let's rebuild that together, how can I win your love back if you won't let me into your heart?"

"Can you win it back? I think Farah was right, I was in love with the concepts you represented, not you. I barely know anything about you."

"That didn't stop you from adopting everyone else."

"They didn't betray me the way you did."

"I was terrified."

"How can I trust a person who allows fear to dictate her actions, none of the others did what you did?"

"I was human, they weren't, I was threatened to be turned into dinner, they weren't."

"The day we met, I felt we had a connection, was that real or are you just a much better actress than I give you credit for?"

"It was real, I was planning on fleeing, that's why I took the keys, I did it in the early hours of the morning before we met. Up until that point that had always been my goal, but when I met you I thought, and still do, that I could belong to this family because of you, because in you I found a kindred spirit."

"Then why didn't you return the keys?"

"Veronica's blood made me high, my mind was completely clouded, the keys disappeared from my mind and all I cared about is losing myself in my new life!"

"Are you telling the truth now?"

"If you can read my mind do it, if you can sense it in my soul do it, do whatever you can to tell if I'm telling the truth, you'll see its true!"

"I don't need to, I can tell you're telling the truth now."

"Then, then you'll help me?"

"You know what my girls are like, do you think they'll do what say against their will just because I say it? I like to think of myself as a goddess, but I cannot compel or impinge another's free will, nor would I want to."

"Then you won't help?"

"I didn't say that, you have to understand eternity is painful when there are grudges, I came here to have a happy family, to live in a little slice of paradise for myself. I have to maintain a very careful balancing act, because I love my girls and they love me, and I want to keep it that way."

"What about me?"

"You are my blood, and your love is genuine, so that means you have a place here. I will take your penance into consideration in the future, but I will not tolerate any behaviour that threatens my family again."