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

Part 4 - A Love Story

I had only recently begun to dream of anything. I confessed to him, without breath, "I do like it. I do like men like that."

"Well that is very fine," he told me, imitating my breathlessness without mockery. "I tell you I would have had him away, and I told him as much when he had been a younger man, but he told me that he had a responsibility to his wife, and his children, and his title, and his King, and by the time the King passed, and he had such uncertainty of the regency and its strictures, it was too late. He was growing old then, and his temples gray. He said, stay with me until I die, weakly, without the sword, would you? And I told him that I would. Darling boy, understand that if a body is too fragile, becoming like us is dangerous. It is very easy for the living to die, don't you think so?"

I nodded and he kissed my temple.

"By then I had loved him forty years as you now know, and he had grown very old. I had come to know him through liaisons at court who knew about my thirst for blood and for money. How could I have known what I would get myself into with this young man who when I met him I thought, oh he is a man, and he will not like me. I thought surely he had his own thirsts I could not satisfy, but he was satisfied. He told me that I was beautiful, and made me believe it as if hearing it for the first time. Some men, they can do that. I saw how he had risen at court with only his charm. He would have made a handsome and successful courtier in any age. He wanted me in every place, and I gave myself to him at his pleasure. I did not feel used. Does it make you uncomfortable to hear this?"

"No," I whispered.

"My darling, I encourage you to use your body before you lose its pleasures. Your Leis will entreat you to be chaste when you mature for the love of God, but do not listen to him for foolish things. But do not fear, for I will tell you that when you are like us, you will find that there are finer things than what you can imagine now. These things are far subtler but do not be afraid. You will not be without pleasure of your body. I will teach you when you are ready, but that is far in future. And in any case, my lover remained ignorant of them. He did not let me prick him with my teeth when he was young, though he knew me for bloodthirsty. He kept me well in house and in silver, and for many years, I slept most nights with him in secret. I painted myself for him and wore what he liked, and felt almost as if I were alive and as if I were a man again which then I longed for, and not the sexless creature that I am. When I met your Leis, I was Marie's, but I want to explain to you without making excuses, that your Leis changed me with a look and a word, and made me want the dark again, and to run rivers of blood for him, and be together wards of the evening. You cannot understand his pull. At that time he was an innocent new to darkness, and I found it so thrilling that I felt driven mad."

"Is it because he's handsome?" I asked. I only knew about love from stories.

"My dear, there are things far more interesting than bodies, but yes he is the most beautiful boy I have ever seen."

"You," I told him, "are the most beautiful man or woman that I have ever seen."

"Oh, dear heart," he said, "you will be long-lived. There is time. So your Leis, who was so new, and did not know anything of what he had become, asked me to stay with him and no others, not even for my life, and because I felt so intoxicated of him," and he whispered on that word intoxicated as if it were illicit, "I lied to him and said that I would."

"Why did you lie to him?"

"Because it was impossible, because I had interest in living. Because I had made a promise to many others and to Marie that I would watch after them. You must understand that under me my lovers felt protected, and that we creatures need blood to live. You will need it. I loved your Leis but in the beginning, I wouldn't die for him or suffer."