Sex and Violence

Chapter 2: The Awakening

I woke up with a start only to find myself in my own bed, in my own apartment. If the past two nights had been real, I was back here for a reason.

I looked around. With the blinds pulled tight over the windows my apartment was dark but empty.

For some strange reason, I could sense that I was alone and despite the darkness, I could see everything in the room with alarming clarity. My television set, a few, well thumbed cookbooks, my boring grey suit strewn on the couch...and then I noticed the box in the middle of the floor. It was exactly as I'd left it, only this time my outfit from the previous evening was back inside, the items neatly folded and stacked, as though they were waiting for me.

My hand reached up to my throat and stilled.

My collar was still in place which meant that despite all my cynicism, vampires did exist, and presumably, I was one of them.

At the time, I didn't know what to do. I was groggy, but awake, and more self-aware than I'd ever been. So I did what I'd do on any other day. I got out of bed, and went to take a shower.

The hot water felt great on my skin, and as I lathered and soaped my breasts, back and shoulders, I felt the aches; aches that could only have come from long nights in bed with someone after a long period of celibacy. As I stepped out of the shower the aches vanished and suddenly, I felt completely healed. Pulling on a pair of jeans, a bra, and shrugging into an old shirt, I headed to the kitchen in pursuit of something to eat.

To my surprise, every cupboard had been stripped bare. I had gone grocery shopping several days ago and knew I should have at least had a box of crackers. I checked my fridge and found several bottles of thick, dark red liquid. The label on the nearest bottle read simply:

"Drink Me" in bold cursive script.

I pulled the bottle out of the fridge, unscrewed the cap and smelled it. It was blood alright, and in spite of myself my mouth watered. I stared at the bottle in my hand and felt a twinge of sadness.

I'd be drinking this stuff for the rest of my life.

No more chocolate, no more ice cream, no more steak or sushi.

I resisted only for a second, contemplating starvation…but I was a woman who stuck to the decisions she made and toasting the powers that be, I put the bottle to my lips.

To my surprise, the blood was sweet, like a thick, rich hot chocolate… and I couldn't get enough.

As I drank, the last memories of the blood's owner came to me in a rush.

Her name was Irene; she was an exotic dancer. As she swirled acrobatically around the long metal pole in one of Montreal's more prestigious strip clubs, her lush breasts and long legs tempted men and made her the envy of all women. She loved the looks of lust and longing in the faces of customers, and sought them with every move she made.

She had long red hair, full lips, and eyes like emeralds. She loved her job but felt she wasn't getting enough money. She was beautiful, acrobatic, and deserved far more than she was getting. She'd tried cheating her boss, not knowing he was a well connected vampire. He'd taken her to the King's mansion and watched as the other vampires seduced her out of her clothes.

As I drank, my own nipples hardened beneath the cups of my bra and I grew wet as the woman was placed on all fours, her legs spread as wide as they could in her prone position. A naked blond slid beneath her and with an eager tongue teased her nipples while another woman with smooth ebony skin moved behind her holding a large glass dildo. As the blond sucked on her nipples, the black woman teased her victim, sliding the toy over her pussy lips, now swollen and drenched with her arousal. A male vampire with close cropped brown hair and a dragon tattooed on his chest moved in front of her and unfastened his jeans. Without hesitation, the redhead opened her lips and—

"Amazing isn't it?"

I jumped with a start and hastily pulled the bottle from my lips. I knew instantly who spoke to me. Even from across the room, I sensed him; smelled that combination of heather and country air that was a fundamental part of Lachlan's scent.

"How did you get in here?"

In the darkness I could see his features clearly; his lush, dark red hair falling like a bloody waterfall over his square shoulders; his fine boned features and pale skin, revealed by the satin shirt that all but matched his hair. Around his neck hung an ankh made of black onyx identical to the one hanging from my collar. The pendant bore a sharp contrast to his lean, muscled chest. In his black leather pants and army boots, he looked like some effeminate Goth rock star and completely out of place in my apartment.

"A Rock star, huh?" Lachlan said with a smile, when I only stared at him, his grin turned mischievous, "I take it you haven't realized one of the many side benefits of joining the species…"

we're telepathic

.

Stay the fuck out of my head!

I jumped when he sent the thought and had sent one back without thinking.

"You'll learn to block me soon enough, Morgana" he replied, his Scottish burr thickening as he pronounced my name.

"How did you get in here?" I repeated.

Lachlan shrugged.

"You had a key on you the night we turned you. We cleaned you up, brought you home, stocked your fridge, and got rid of all the old food. You won't be able to eat much human food until you've acclimated yourself to the changes your body has undergone"

"What exactly am I supposed to do now?" I knew I was a vampire, and that for some reason I had special status, but I had no clue what the hell that entailed.

"Do exactly as you always did. Go back to your boring job, wear those ugly things you call suits, but toss your old reading glasses; you don't need them anymore. The sunlight won't bother you as long as you've fed, so make sure you have blood with you at all times. The master made sure you had enough for at least a week or two. You're no use to him until you've gained your full strength, and that won't happen until you've hunted for the first time"

"If that's true, then why are you here?"

Lachlan smiled and with slow, measured steps, he glided towards me.

I could feel his lust… and with my newly heightened senses, it was all but crippling. Combined with the effect of the blood, the arousal I felt from him rooted me in place.

Lachlan stopped right in front of me, a blatant look of intent in his blue eyes, and with a delicate hand, he took the bottle from me and put it on the counter. He slid his long, cool fingers up my arm to my shoulder, over my collarbone, and under my hair. With alarming strength, he used his grip on my neck to tilt my head back, forcing my body flush up against his. Through his leather pants I could feel his erection, but instead of aggression, Lachlan's moves were smooth, an erotic contrast to the commanding brutality of the King.

With a touch, he moved my collar to taste the skin of my throat. His clever mouth seduced its way up the side of my neck until he met my eager lips with a kiss as seductive as it was hungry. He moved his tongue slowly, as though savoring me. Lost in his ministrations I was shocked to feel my breasts against his smooth hairless chest. He'd gotten rid of my shirt and bra without breaking the kiss, and I finally found the energy to touch him, yanking the satin from his shoulders to run my hands eagerly over the delicate muscles of his back.

You were chosen as a gift, Morgana

, his thoughts rang in my head;

a gift for me, and for my Master. He has had the pleasure of you, and I'll be damned if I go another night without tasting you myself.

We were up against the bed now, and with his arms around me, he lowered me to the mattress without ever breaking the kiss. His mouth moved slowly to my jaw where he nipped the sensitive skin before moving down to my collarbone. There was something strangely loving about the way he touched me, and I was uncomfortable with his casual affection; uncomfortable with the way he seemed to know exactly what I liked, but as his lips moved to my breast, I didn't care. My back arched, and my mind reached out to him of its own accord.

His need for me was blatantly obvious and Lachlan didn't bother hiding it from me; that strange mix of jealousy for the master and the women who'd stripped me the night we'd met combined with raw, feral lust and something else, something he was very deliberately blocking. I couldn't see his memories; they were tangled up in whatever he was blocking, and as he kissed his way over my belly, gently biting, before he pulled my jeans over my hips, I hissed and temporarily broke the link. His tongue was smooth like the rest of him, and as it slid over the ring of my clit and under it, I moaned. Lachlan worked my clit with slow, careful licks, teasing the sensitive underside. As I reared up on the brink of orgasm, my telepathic abilities peaked, and I finally figured out what Lachlan had been hiding.

He was lonely.

If he knew my mind had probed him, and when I think about it, he probably did, it didn't seem to bother him, because he continued to touch me. I barely knew the man, but having been in his mind, my heart went out to him. Planting my feet on the bed, I thrust myself on top of him. He reached up to me, his eyes a combination of lust, shame and something infinity deeper. Before his hands could close over my breasts, I took hold of them and laced our fingers.

Lachlan

, I entreated,

let me love you.

Lachlan's eyes widened, but he submitted, his arms falling to his sides. I kissed him slowly, savoring the taste of my lust on his tongue and moved my lips over his face, enjoying the coolness of his skin. I moved my hands over his chest and torso, savoring the feel of his cool skin and subtle muscles under my palms. I was too impatient to bother with much foreplay. This beautiful Scottish vampire with his clever lips and tongue had pushed me past that. But I could do something else; give him the kind of gentle loving that could only be had from another vampire of equal status. With a firm hand, I jerked his heavy belt buckle aside and pulled his seven thick inches from his pants. As my tongue s lid over his neck my fangs slid out of their sheaths of their own accord.

It's alright Morgana.

As my long legs straddled his hips, I took one lick of his neck and when my fangs sank into his throat and I tasted his blood, I took him inside me.

Lachlan's blood was sweet, like sugar water. However, like sugar water, I knew instantly that I couldn't live on it. Through the link of my fangs in his throat I sent him my thoughts; thoughts of lust and the affection I felt but didn't fully understand. My body accepted him instantly, there was no pain, only pleasure… combined with that overwhelming sense of fullness a woman feels when she takes a man. Tearing my lips from his throat, I licked them slowly and smiled down at him. Lachlan smiled back, and then, as I raised and lowered myself slowly on his imbedded shaft, his eyes hazed with lust.

Determined to be as gentle as he was with me, my fingers dug holes into the sheets as I fought the urge to move faster. I moved at a gentle rhythm, slowly going back and forth, back and forth, ignoring the madness caused by the head of his penis rubbing my g-spot. As his hands crept up my ribs to my breasts, I moved harder, deeper, but never faster. I kissed him deeply, and as I felt his hips drove desperately upward, I knew I didn't have to be gentle anymore. I threw my head back, pausing only once to see the tears drying on his cheeks before I thrust my hips in a fast, violent rhythm that had my fangs sliding out of their sheaths for the second time as I cried my pleasure into the night.

I came violently, and with a thought, the bottle of blood I'd set aside reappeared in my hand. Lachlan's hands dug into my hips as he came, leaving bruises that healed as quickly as they appeared. While he finished, I drank the remaining contents of the bottle, savoring Irene's last breaths as she came violently to the feeling of a dildo deep inside her while her old boss harvested her blood through a catheter attached to the type of bag used at blood donation clinics.

Rolling off of Lachlan, I set the bottle aside and realized I didn't need time to recover. I looked at Lachlan, and while satisfied, he seemed vaguely embarrassed by what had happened between us… so I made it easy for him.

"I'm going to take a shower, and then I guess I'll try my hand at hunting. You're welcome to watch me try and possibly screw up"

"Don't be so critical of yourself, Morgana" he said from his perch on the windowsill; Lachlan had dressed and moved in the blink of an eye. "You're more incredible than you've ever been" and then he was gone.

If I'd been in his shoes, I would have done the same.

Post coital dialogue was never my forte.

Chapter 3: The First Feed

I was alone in my apartment with Lachlan's come drying on my thighs.

Outside my window the sounds of Montreal's nightlife hit me from every angle, and with my advanced hearing I caught snippets from conversations from the street below. I wasn't used to it, and it was giving me a headache; young women talking about the guy they were sure would call; the guy bragging about the blond he'd banged last night; the police bitching in French about the taste of convenience store coffee; I was getting details from conversations no human would have been able to hear, and the sounds hit me like blows to the head. With the noise came their thoughts; the guy bragging about his sexual exploits had actually gotten drunk and passed out before he could get to third base; the young women were having daydreams of diamonds, lavish weddings and a man in a suit with a bouquet of roses; the police officer just wanted to go home to his kids.

There were too many voices, too many thoughts, too many feelings.

It was too much.

I fell to the floor clutching my temples and focused on the silence.

It took what felt like hours, but I finally managed to expel every single voice but my own.

The process took all my energy, and I realized that despite my long and eventful weekend, I had to go to work in the morning. It seemed like such an inane reality after all I had experienced, but Lachlan said the people who turned me had no use for me until I came to my full strength. One by one my newly acquired senses were coming alive, and if a few stray thoughts were crippling me, I had a lot to learn…so I went to bed, and hoped I could continue blocking them in my sleep.

For the first time all weekend, I dreamed.

I dreamed of the King dressed in gleaming armor and of ancient battlefields bathed in blood. I saw beings of light with golden wings duel with beings of fire, sending bodies and beams of energy in all directions. I saw human history from a viewpoint few had ever seen; ancient temples and beautiful priestesses making offerings to forgotten gods and illicit affairs between people of different social classes. As a soldier, I saw the Emperor Chin and his armies ruthlessly unify China, and Judah and the Maccabees defeat the Syrians. I saw Cleopatra, her golden skin, curvaceous figure, and rich brown eyes lined with kohl, and as one of her slaves dressed her in her queenly robes before she committed suicide with the help of a friendly snake. As a lowly observer in an inn, I saw a drunken Roman centurion fall out of his chair and find God, and as one of his mistresses, I witnessed the Emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity. I was among the mourners who watched William Wallace's slow and painful death while the English authorities leered and spat on him, and was present at the establishment of the Shogunate in Japan. As one their Generals, ordered noble samurai to cut themselves open so I could taste their blood, and as a fisherman, I witnessed Magellan arrive and die in the Philippines. I saw the many deaths of Rasputin and watched him laugh and swing his assassins around in a dance before disappearing into the night. As a soldier in Stalin's army, I was the first to stumble on Hitler's charred corpse at the end of the Second World War.

I realize now that they were the collective memories of the entire vampire race. Even in my dreams, through my altered blood, I will never be free of them. No matter what my dealings with other vampires, they will always be part of me…but at the time I assumed that my dreams were delusions associated with my new body.

When I woke up, the sun was shining, and the slivers of light seeping from the space between the blinds made my eyes ache and made my skin redden and burn painfully. I saw smoke rise from my skin where the light hit it, and ran to the fridge to grab one of the bottles inside. The blood in this one wasn't particularly tasty. The victim was an overweight male security guard enjoying his donut when the owner of the building decided he could find someone better for the job. He told his personal assistant to fire the man. She had a better idea… and with the utmost discretion she moved him to a private facility where she drained his blood, bagged it, and brought him to a cell where his body could replenish its supply.

His blood tasted like one of those health shakes; not particularly flavorful as the man had been apathetic when it was taken, but it filled me up and lessened the sting of the sun.

In minutes I was showered and dressed for work. As a precaution, I slathered my face, hands and legs with sun block and put on a pair of sunglasses.

I realized I'd have to be pretty freaking stupid to get myself killed on my first day out.

"What the hell happened to you Morgana! You look great!"

It was the first compliment I'd ever gotten from a coworker, and I wasn't entirely sure how to take it.

"I got laid," I said dismissively.

Aisha's mouth dropped open.

She was the graphic artist for the company I worked for, and the closest thing I had to a friend. I sensed her shock and then her amusement but decided not to probe her mind any further. She had always been nice to me.

"Are you alright?"

Aisha shook her head.

"I'm fine, but you're coming with me for lunch to tell me all about it!" it wasn't an invitation, it was an order.

When I went to the bathroom on my first break, I looked in the mirror.

I'll tell you right now that the superstition about vampires having no reflection is exactly that, superstition. I did have a reflection and outwardly, my appearance

had

changed. My hair was its usual dark brown, but instead of hanging limp as it usually did, it had become fuller, thicker, and had a decided bounce to it. My skin was as golden brown as ever, but it had a healthy glow it never had before, and my lips were redder than ever. My eyes were the same; slanted like the typical Asian woman, and a brown so dark it was nearly black. I knew now that in the dark my eyes would bear that same silvery sheen all vampires had.

I agonized over the lunch invitation all morning and my new telepathic abilities didn't help matters. I wasn't fully in control of them, and as a result, caught every stray thought from every Tom, Dick and Harriet that passed my desk. Headaches aside, there was something oddly empowering about being able to read minds. For the first time, I knew where I stood with everyone I worked with; I knew who was prejudiced towards Asians and receptionists, and who had fantasized about fucking me. Between that and answering phones, I agonized over what I was going to do at lunch. I couldn't eat, and I couldn't give Aisha all the details of what had happened, so I worked up the best set of lies my confusion would allow.

Luckily we went to a fancy cafeteria for lunch.

"You're not eating?' she asked in surprise.