My name is Cassandra DaCosta, and I set down these words in the event of my death. If you are reading these words, then it must mean that I have died, as so many of us must do, and that means that Count Dorin needs someone to replace me as His servant. It has been many years since He first entered my life, since He first demanded His offering of blood from my veins, and though I do not regret a day of my lifetime of servitude, I already know that you (whoever you may be) might recoil at first at the thought of serving a vampire--assuming you even believe such a creature exists. But I assure you, they do, and as you read my gospel of servitude, you will understand why I believe you will embrace the endless duty. I shall tell you now of how I became Count Dorin's slave.
When I first met Dorin, I was but a young and foolish woman in the city of New York. I had embraced ambition, seeking to climb the heights of power as an investment banker, and the attachments of a personal life were for others, not for me. I used my body's considerable charms to further my ambitions, but the idea of devoting my life to another was anathema to me. I wanted nothing more than to be fabulously rich, and thought nothing of working fifteen-hour days in pursuit of that goal.
That still left the weekend, and I recall well those heady days in which I packed a week's worth of hedonism into a single wild night. Drink, drugs, vapid young men with no ambition but an immense talent for pleasing a woman...moving from club to club as the night passed, dancing with fury, like a summer blossom on the wind...it is little wonder that I attracted His attention.
It is almost laughable, but our eyes really did meet across a crowded room. We were at a club, the name of which passes out of memory, but I was dancing, and I saw Him sitting at a table. He had no drink in front of Him--of course, He would not--and He did not dance. He did not even move. He simply stared out at us all with such hunger, as though He fed on our vitality without needing to drain even a single drop of our blood. He wore a plain, tight white shirt, against which His pale skin seemed to stand out as whiter still, and dark, tight pants. His body seemed perfectly outlined, and outlined as perfect. I looked into His eyes, and was lost.
Much has been written by the ignorant and foolish about the gaze of a vampire, but words cannot express the sensation. Upon the moment His eyes caught me, I felt as though the darkness in the apple of His eye had rushed forth to enfold me in a velvet blanket, as though the darkness had a tangible hold upon my body...and it caressed me. I did not freeze in place, for He did not will it to be so, not yet...I continued to dance, but I knew I danced for Him now. The motion of my body seemed to be to a different music; I heard it within His mind, not from the world around me, and I could feel His gaze penetrating me in a way none of those foolish men ever had. I felt oddly surprised that the people around us were not shocked; here I was, with my soul naked and being roughly taken by a stranger in the middle of the crowd, and nobody noticed? But of course, our intercourse was more intimate than any those rutting fools could have imagined. Though we never touched, He ravished me more totally than anything I had expected. In that eternal moment of total bliss, I recognized that He was the totality of my being, that He loved me in a way I had never been loved, not even by myself.
I scarcely remember moving, but I was suddenly at His side. He took my hand in His cold, pale fingers, and I trembled in pleasure at His touch. The two of us slipped through the crowd as ghosts, wordlessly, and were out into the alley in moments. He gazed deeply at me again, and I shuddered in ecstacy, my eyes rolling back in my head and my neck arching in pleasure. That was His intent, I now realize, for it was then that He bared His fangs and sank them deep into my throat.
There was no pain. There was not even the barest instant of pain. The sensation of His long, white teeth ripping at my flesh produced nothing but a rapture beyond anything sex or drugs had yet produced in me. Far from struggling, I pressed myself against His mouth, wishing to give Him all of me. The sensation of my lifeblood flowing out of my veins was like the throb of an orgasm, and I wished nothing more than for it to continue forever. Had I died that night, my last memory would have been the most perfect one in the world. He let me go, and without strength to hold myself upright, I fell to the ground in the dark, stinking alley, and stared weakly up at Him as though I had fallen onto a bed of roses. Without a single word, He left me then, and I simply lay there gazing up into the night, having been a part of the most wondrous communion imaginable.
Of course. How could I not remember the sign? It was visible to me, as He walked away. The club was called 'Dark Desires'.
*****
I do not know why He did not kill me that night, and when pressed, He will admit that neither did He. It was a near thing; He had drained well over a litre of my blood. Had I not been found soon afterwards, I would have died that night. But I have seen Him drink every drop of a woman's blood, drain them until He could not squeeze a single drip more of their vital essence and still hunger for more. He could have done that to me, yet He did not. Perhaps He noted something in me even then, some potential for a higher service.
In any event, I awoke in the hospital feeling as though I had passed a test of sorts. I had survived His First Communion, one where He drank of my blood instead of my drinking His, and though I could not forseen the ends of His grand design, I could see where my next steps lay along the path of servitude. First, I needed to recover. I learned quickly what foods would replenish my blood, what vitamins and supplements could restore me to health quickly after the draining experience. My doctors helped me out in this. Indeed, they were thrilled that their patient was taking such an active interest in her own recovery. Within a mere fraction of the usual time for such an injury, I was fully recovered. That meant that I could begin the next step. I needed to find Him again.
I had already traversed most of the clubs in the city, but always in the interests of mere decadence. Now, I searched them with a more analytical eye. It did not take long to find Him, to be honest. He made little effort to conceal His bloody path through the human cattle.
That night, I must have surprised Him when I found the table He sat at, when I surprised myself at my own boldness by joining Him. He glared at me at first, coldly, and I thought that He might lash out at me, perhaps even kill me on the spot--or worse, that He would simply leave without deigning to acknowledge my presence. But finally, He spoke.
"The girl," He said, his Romanian accent still thick on his lips. "From the club, two weeks ago. You lived."
