The Story of the Vampire, L (Completed | Featured )

Part 4 - To Die For Him, To Bleed

This evening I was lying in bed writing,  on my side, and I felt a fly land on my arm, or the touch of a fallen hair. I twitched it, and the annoyance went away. Then it landed again, and I twitched. It landed again, I twitched, and when it landed again I reached out my hand to swat it. And another hand touched mine, stroked it, sending a tingle up my arm and into my head, and the hand was Leechtin's. He covered my fingers with his, and stroked me, and his voice rumbling me, said, "What are you doing, little bird? No, go on as you were doing before, but tell me. But pretend I am not here."

I lay there, half twisted, gazing up at his darkly lined eyes, his hair pulled back in a loose black braid. He was wearing an overlarge t-shirt and yoga pants, definitely not his clothes. "I'm writing about you, sir. But you don't look the part."

"Say it again now in Latin," he commanded. "I do not understand your accent in English."

I did, and he nodded, dragging his fingernails gently over my wrist, which made my head twist sideways. "What can I do for you?" I asked him.

"No," he said to me. "I do not understand." He leaned in a little, and I kissed him briefly on the lips. Lips so red. "You must write that you were always a good boy, and not afraid."

"But I was afraid. It wouldn't be true."

He looked at me a little while then, unreadable expression, his lined eyes narrow. "Where is your brother?" he asked me, quietly, sounding confused.

"Nonus is in Cyprus," I told him. "Cassius, maybe he is not on the continent. Aulus, he is gone. Escha, I don't know."

"I don't know either," he said, but he seemed a little reassured, warming to me again after the funny moment of coolness. It is known among us that Leechtin does not accept that Escha is dead, and his body ruined.

"I will ask the gods for you," I said, unsure of what else to say to his confusion, to his grief. "Maybe I will ask Cupid first," tilting my head and winking, deeply sad for him, too deply.

"Oh that will be good," he smiled. "That will be good, Iovita."

It is strange for me to be in a position of comforting him. Matters are still so awkward between us. I am not sure how he wants for me to relate to him, because I am unwilling to be either confidant or friend. He took my hand and placed it against his face, which I am still nervous to touch. "Sir," I said, softly.

"Do you have everything you need?" he asked me.

"I do."

"There is nothing I might provide for you?"

"There isn't."

"Be good in your work," he said, tenderly, slipping his hand from mine slowly.

"That I can do," I told him.

The little master, our own flower of life, our little lotus, says that Leechtin often whispers that "This century has been too strange, and too long," and that he prays for a return to old ways or an upheaval to change the new. I fear that the gods listen to Leechtin more than us.

I prefer familiar patterns. It is still a comfort to play a role. He, the master, it is his duty to provide for me. Myself, as servant, it is my duty to minister to his house. If we are living together, this is still how it will be. It is beyond habit, or acceptance. It is how I am built, and not only for his pleasure. Service is how I can understand the world, and without it, I do not know my place. I prefer not to be confused about that, for existential terror is dangerous. But there was a time in my life where Leechtin demanded terror, and I remember it keenly, even though he attempts to minimize it in his account. There are faces he hides.