There is no way Jessica could know that. Danny could not have told her. He is the only one who knows. I tried to not be suspicious, but suddenly I had this feeling she knew way more about me than I currently did. All the weird physical changes. All the things I ignored to focus on finding her.
Done with my pulse, Jessica intertwined her fingers with mine. An intimate gesture of affection that made me forget her question for a moment. Her cool fingers laced in mine made my heart dare to hope. So loving and intimate. I stroked the side of her finger with my thumb, very lightly.
"Yes." I finally answered. Her finger's skin is so smooth.
She gave a slight shiver. "Stronger as in more than you can even understand? At the gym, you can do more and more weights? You work out, and all it makes you is hungry? Red meat is something you crave?"
"Yes." I flushed. Like admitting this change in me is embarrassing. A secret out that needed to stay hidden. A bridge had just been crossed and then blown up behind me.
Her eyes raked over me quickly. "You look like you lost weight, but you haven't? Maybe even gaining weight?"
Her questions unnerved and distracted me from how her fingers feel woven with mine. "Jeez, Jessica! How do you know all that?!?"
She rolled her lower lip under her upper teeth and bit lightly and heaved her shoulders ever so slightly.
She brought my hand to her lips and kissed my fingers lightly, closing her eyes. Then she opened them and met my eyes. "I have bad news and good news. You know how I said that my life is complicated and that we couldn't be together?"
I nodded. I dared not hope, but I did.
Another shoulder roll. "Well, turns out in light of new facts, it would probably be better if we are together, at least for a while. A couple of years at the very least." She seemed so emotionally down about delivering to me the news I wanted to hear.
"So, that is the good news... two years. Two centuries. However long you'll agree to. I would have married you on our first night. No lie." I ventured.
If she noticed my comment she gave no sign, wrapped up in her worries. "It comes with a very heavy price, Adrian. Extremely heavy." She looked down at the wooden floor, then back at me. "You may have those centuries though because you are not human anymore."
She waited. I waited.
I could literally hear a clock ticking someplace.
I broke the pregnant pause first and asked a question without any joking. Not joking is hard for me, but I am not going to mess up being with her even if she is a little crazy. "What am I?"
"You are a newly turned Vampire". Not even a slight twitch of her lips. Serious as a heart attack.
Jessica waited. I waited. I went first last time and got that for an answer. It is her turn.
"So... you seem to be taking it well..." she said tentatively.
If it meant I can be with her, I would accept having to have a 3rd eye inserted in the middle of my forehead. "I am waiting to hear why you have reached this conclusion. I admit suddenly being far stronger without doing anything to get that way has me confused. Can a human even bench press seven or eight hundred pounds? I don't know. I can."
I continued "Then there is the question of why I did not die after that beating. I pondered that in the odd moments when I was not just being happy about finding you again or moaning quietly... Arnold thought I should be dead."
"Or moaning not so quietly sometimes..." Jessica contributed.
"Not so quietly when you are inspiring me. Still, all of these weird things: All something I wondered about. I just did not care, because I found you."
I looked Jessica up and down. Remembered her naked body. No flab, but not bodybuilder either. "There is the issue of how you can carry me around like I am a laptop computer. So... I am ready to hear more. As long as it ends with I get to be with you for as long as you can stand me, I do not care. I would prefer not to morph into a cockroach. I hate that story."
"No Kafka..." Jessica proceeded to have a short conversation with herself. "I let you see my strength. Several times. I told you my birth name... Never done that before.... I must have known at some level. Maybe I smelled it? Now that I know it, I am getting the first scents of it. It is kind of is like mine. A hint of my scent? I did this... Never turned anyone before. humm. Interesting."
I listened and waited for clarity because that conversation was one-sided and unenlightening.
Conversation with herself done, she came back to the room. "All right. Here is the short form. I am not a human either. Not anymore. Like you, I am a Vampire. I am young as these things go. I am one hundred twenty-three years old. I inadvertently turned you into a Vampire as well. Not that there is anything I can do about it now but, well, sorry?"
So much there to ask about, but one word hovered. "Inadvertently?"
"Yes. I have no control about turning. No Vampire does. I would not intentionally steal your humanity. Human-species-ness I mean. We Vampires have no control over turning someone. It sometimes happens. It is nothing like the Vampire fiction, where it is a choice, or there is a master Vampire draining all your blood and replacing it and all that. All turnings are accidents. Every bite of a human by a Vampire has the possibility. The chances are millions to one against for a male. I have not turned anyone ever as far as I know. I have only bit about one thousand men."
"You don't control it?"
"No. Not at all. It's like this... you know about HIV?"
"Virus. It attacks the human immune system. Related to SIV. Causes AIDS."
"You know how a virus replicates itself?" Jessica asked.
I didn't know there would be a test. "It takes over cells. Makes them ignore their own DNA and use its cellular machinery to create new copies of itself instead. The human genome is littered with all sorts of fragments from viruses, bacteria, and the like. There is controversy about this so-called 'junk DNA' and whether or not it's used for anything. Some think the purpose of a gene is to preserve itself."
That got a warm smile. "Exactly right. Do you know about Epigenetic's, gene expression, RNA, and so forth too?"
I hated to admit I did not know something "A little but not much. Just what I read in a general science magazine like Scientific American. I am the family computer boy. My mother is the epidemiologist and physician."
"Yes, well computer boy, gene expression and DNA sequences and coded proteins: It is all very complicated and it is all not entirely about what you are born with. DNA is not destiny. Outside influences can change things. Example: Being sick one day with diarrhea can change your genetic code. Look at HIV: Outside the human body that virus is very weak. Requires direct body fluid contact to pass it most of the time. The virus complex that causes the Vampire mutation is far weaker outside the body than that. It seems to require certain sequences to pre-exist in the DNA or perhaps other gene expression sites before taking hold. It is mostly sex-linked. About one in four or five thousand women bitten by a Vampire is infected. A number of those don't survive the transition. For men, it is far lower. One in many millions. Males have a lower transition survival rate than women as well. That would probably be different in modern times since there are support therapies now. IV's and O2 bottles and feeding tubes. There are maybe...40 male Vampires alive today in all of North America. It may not be that many."
"You think I you infected me, then I survived the genetic alteration caused by the infection?" I asked.
One nod. "Yes. But you were in the hospital. That increased your chances getting through the change."
I flexed my hand experimentally. "That is why I am suddenly stronger...?"
"You'll get stronger still. Not jump over building powerful or anything. Male Vamps are typically two or three or so times the strength of a very strong human, after a number of years. The changes take time. Your bones need to get stronger to adapt to your new muscle strength. Every single cell in your body will be replaced over about ten years. The changes are rapid at first, and slow down over time. Physics and biology are the limits. Your heart will still beat, and you will still breath, just less often unless you need resources from them to do more. At rest, you'll be cooler. Active you will be hotter than human norms."
"And, my sense of smell is more sensitive...?"
"Yes: increased, denser, and more sensitive ganglia in the brain descend in the nasal cavity. Your brain is becoming denser and more interconnected as you absorb minerals as well. It's why you could smell the gangrene of your roommate in the hospital room."
"That explains why only I could smell it. Anything else?"
"Your pulse is low. About 62 when I just checked. Will probably drop to 30 or 40 at rest over time"
My normal sense of humor finally surfaced. "So, not undead?"
She did not laugh or even grin. "No: Never dead. Amazingly fit. New kinds of bone densities and muscle tissues. You'll absorb most metals over the years and put them to use. Nothing magic. Just the next step in physical evolution. Nothing that some other animal someplace on the tree of life can't already do just concentrated all in one genetic rewrite."
"What else will happen?" I asked, still not quite on board.
"Seeing in Infrared, in low light, in ultraviolet. Have you even noticed we are sitting in a dark room, with only light from the kitchen, but you can see everything in the room? You helped me pull off that dust cover in near darkness." Jessica pointed out.
I looked around, saw it was true, and then remembered reading the magazine in the near dark in the hospital. She watched my visual scan and knew that was the clincher. As fantastic sounding as it all is, I suddenly believed.
"You are young. A veritable baby. The changes keep going over the years. Right now your brain is taking the new visual information and mapping it back to the colors it knows. The room just looks well lit, even though some of the light you can see is coming from our body heat. Later, As your nervous system modifies you'll start to be able to tell Ultraviolet from Infrared. I cannot explain it. It is like trying to explain color to someone that has been blind from birth. You'll just have to wait and... err.. see."
I smiled at the unintentional pun.
I looked at this woman I am so crazy about. She did not seem a day over 27 at most. She is 123? She is YOUNG for a Vampire? I thought I was not-stalking a younger woman!
"You are one hundred and twenty years old. You look maybe one hundred or so less than that, give or take. Long life comes with this package?"
She smiled. "One hundred twenty-three. Barring getting killed by a jealous human or something, you are going to live a very long time. Not forever. Nothing lasts forever, not even the planet Earth. Your new life is potentially a long one though. The oldest Vampire I ever met is over two thousand. They looked twenty-five."
Jessica looked a little somber. "No one really quite knows for sure how long you could potentially live because death for our kind usually comes from accidents. Or suicide. Very common in older Vampires...." She saw I was about to ask about that last statement and shook her head "...We'll get into that later, Adrian. We have time. Let's stay focused on your situation. Your changes."
She indicated my body, chest to hips. "You are being 'tuned' to heal much better than a human now. Your immune system and cellular repair mechanisms received several new, additional mechanisms for self-repair above and beyond the human mechanisms. Damage is fixed according to the new blueprint. As far as we know, Vampires don't get cancer. Beneficial bacteria are left alone. Invaders are destroyed with extra verve. You can get a cold, but it won't last long. The new checks and balances include damage caused by age. Your body will treat damage aggressively and replace anything out of place. Thus your hair line coming back to its previous location. If you cut off a finger, it will grow back eventually."
My eyes must have gotten really wide because Jessica smiled.
"I know. Try not to. Still hurts like hell. You are going to revert to a biological 25 or 26. You will be in your physical prime, not even counting the extra strength. Hearing will get turned up . More frequencies, more sensitivity. Not hear-through-walls Superman stuff, but I could go upstairs, whisper your name, and you would hear it. I blow a dog whistle you'll eventually hear that too."
"I am not sure how much you know about Vampire lore from literature and popular media. Most of it we just made up and is misdirection. Holy water, stakes, silver, all that ...?" Jessica asked.
"I am not a horror fiction fan, Jessica, but I know the classic Vampire weaknesses from one place or another."
"All garbage. You get stabbed with steel or silver or wooden stakes, it will hurt. You might even die if enough damage is done. Cut off your head, and it is over, just like for a human... we are not magic. You can be killed, but you will be able to take far more punishment than a human."
Jessica pivoted to a new topic. "When I turned, I lived in a different, time. Girls rarely educated at all. My mother made sure I could read and write and I even taught for a while as a human but I had to learn science and medicine over many years. I am one of the first female medical doctors. I studied dentistry decades ago and not even in the US."
I ran a finger along my gums. "You felt in my mouth" remembering her fingers, and wondering about the way she had done it. I have felt less professional dentists poking around.
"Ah yes... the reason you lost those two teeth is that you were going to anyway. They were just helped along."
I felt in my mouth. Felt the bumps under the skin. "Fangs... really?"
To demonstrate she smiled, showing her white teeth. Behind her incisors, needle-sharp fangs descended. A clear liquid dripped from the end of one.
I was morbidly fascinated. "We have to drink blood? That is real?"
"Yes and no. With iron supplements and the availability of good quality meat and all of modern life, many of the reasons for drinking blood are gone." She smiled and touched her chest. "Vampires evolved to prey on humans... and now, we don't actually *have* to. We are like sports cars. We use more resources than a human. Vitamin. Minerals. Calories. To maintain our elevated metabolisms, and to power the polymers in our muscles, we need to have more of everything. We are the highest on the food chain, therefore we are the most inefficient."
She touched my wrist with her free hand. "Most of the time male Vampires don't need as much in the way of blood nutrition. That varies a little I am told."
"Females Vampires need human blood more than males. Who knows why? Maybe it is some trace nutrients or micro-organisms that we can't get any other way. There is a genetic compulsion to feed. We get insanely hungry for blood 5 or 10 times a year. It's a drive that starts out feeling like you have not been laid in a while and it escalates. When we can safely indulge, we do. It's more than just drinking blood: it is a need to bite and suck and smell human scents."
Our first night together. I looked at her accusingly. "All those bug bites I had. Everywhere. I mean everywhere. You?"
Jessica looked embarrassed. "I can honestly say that never happened to me before. You are delicious. Better than chocolate. Fuck: I could not stop drinking from you. A bite in a fleshy area yields a small amount of blood. " She looked off into memory. "That first bite, when I helped with your pain? So damn good."
Jessica licked her lips.
She fanged me and I did not even know it. Knowing it now put a different spin on that night. Our first night together, I was prey. The reward system for prey in Vampires is impressive.
She came back to now. "It's different if we are going into an artery. These fangs are not huge, but they can cut, the same way a Vampire bat can, and that can be deadly. We never get or give rabies. The whole fang system is pretty interesting. They are not just sharp and strong: they are hollow in the same way a hypodermic needle is. They are connected to glands that produce small quantities of a couple different, for lack of a better term, drugs. One of the liquids we can inject is a powerful hypnotic. The other is injected without volition and helps humans to heal faster. That is this liquid here." She extended her fangs again and pointed at a drop on the end of her fang. "I could tell you not to remember the bites, and they would heal quickly."
"You told me to forget something... about that night? Our first night? THE night?" I was suddenly very irritated. I did not like the idea of my mind being screwed with, and I really did not like the idea that I could not remember some detail of that particular night.
She had the good graces to look downcast. "Yes." She admitted quietly. "I told you to forget my teeth and about being bitten and to think of it only as love bites. You seemed quite willing to remember it that way." She noted with a wry tone that also challenged me about getting mad about it. "You repeated that phrase. Love bites. You seemed to like the idea."
Of course I fucking would. It implied 'love'. I did not recall repeating that though.
She waited. I did not challenge that statement, even if I internally fumed about missing details.
She correctly interpreted my silence "You have to remember that, at the time, I had no idea you would be turned. I had no idea that we would ever be together again. Vampire life is one of chance encounters, and as much as I enjoyed that night, I did not think there would ever be a repeat, no matter how tempting that was. Don't get me wrong: I was open to the idea of a repeat of that night. Many of them even. I was just not sure how that could come to be, or how long it could possibly continue. We were different species..."
"Why couldn't you stop? Biting me I mean." I asked.
"It was more than just how you tasted. Sex is the same for Vampires as humans more or less." She ticked off a finger. "There is just sex. Physical fulfillment, nothing more." Finger two. "There is sex with caring and affection for the other involved. Much better."
She dropped the fingers. I guessed that meant there are only two kinds of sex for her. "You were so gentle Adrian. Kind and funny and tender and loving, but at the same time, you were willing to keep getting up and back into my bed or wherever, and to try to give me orgasm after orgasm. You always tried to wait until I got there. It is like you fed off my orgasms the way I fed off your blood. You don't know what it is like to have a man treat you like that. A long life with many men and so many of those men were such... pigs."
She grinned. "Anyway, for a Vampire, sex with an emotionally positive element often involves biting."
I laughed. "In that case, you were very affectionate! I wanted that night to mean as much to you as it did to me. What you were making me feel, I wanted you to feel."
"You did... reach me, Adrian. Touch not just my body but my heart. I did not even really know it at first. When I realized I was thinking about you days later and... well, by then I had problems of another sort to deal with. A reminder of the problems of human male entanglements and Vampires." She grimaced. "I was unhappy in a way I have never been before: to know that it could never be between us. You were human, and I am Vampire."
She looked me in the eyes. Utterly sincere. I felt a little shudder. "It is different now. Arnold is a human problem. We are now the same. We have time. Vampire rules and common wisdom about human/Vampire relationships do not apply anymore to us."
She rubbed her hand across my shoulder in a light, reassuring way. "No matter how much I wanted to be with you as a human and continue being loved like that... after 20 or 40 years? You would age, and you would hate and resent me for how I always looked the same. People would think you were married to a woman your daughter's age and later, your granddaughter's. Worse, I could be exposed. Total Vampire no-no. We Vampires hide our existence from humans. The Vampire secret is the ultimate conspiracy: One that is known by many, most of them Vampires, and it is kept absolutely" She paused to verbally underline the next bit. A finger speared my shoulder. "It is kept ruthlessly. If humans knew we existed they would hunt us like dogs."
I was starting to realize that this meant I would watch Danny and my family grow old and die while I never aged.
"Any other things I should know about being a Vampire?" I asked, almost afraid to know.
"Well, there are the Pheromones. Most humans cannot resist us." She made it sound offhand,
Shit! Had I fallen for Jessica because of the way she smelled? Would I keep feeling this way? I was afraid of the answer, but I had to ask. "Wait. Hold on there, beautiful. Are you saying I feel the way I do about you because of the way you smell to me?"
"No Adrian. If I wanted to seduce you, you would have had little to no choice, but I did not use them on you. I did not have to. You made that clear the moment you saw me. Once you figure them out, they are mostly under conscious control. A Vampire adaptation. I just wanted to be with you. You looked like a nice guy, and you were. You wanted to be with me all on your very own. I just stood there at first, and your body told me the rest. No, my baby Vampire, you are as willing a victim as there has ever been. That is all on you and your ever so willing self. As a male Vampire, you are probably not affected by them as much in any case. Your new sense of smell, brain wiring, and all. The pheromones are for letting us get in close to a human we want to feed on, not another Vampire. The hypnotics are so that the next day the humans do not hunt us with pitchforks."
An association clicked into place from left field.
"Ohh...Ohhhh.... I get it. Arnold. You said he is not completely responsible!"
"Si. You have decoded it, my soon-to-be fanged lover. I was in a very compulsive place about needing blood. I had been over two months without at the time, and I was really feeling it. The longer without feeding, the worse the compulsion gets. I got pulled over for a speeding ticket. Secluded part of the road. The guy seemed nice enough at first, so I pheromone whammied him and then asked him if there was not something I could do to get him to change his mind. He suggested the back seat of his cruiser. That suited me: I needed a private place to have a drink and get some hypnotic fang juice into him. When I got into the back seat of the car, he slid in, and then he turned into a complete asshole."
She paused the story to explain. "Pheromones is not mind control. Not like Juice. Pheromones reach directly into the gray matter and activate where sex is centered. It's not a gonad thing. It's biochemical warfare delivered directly into the skull by the most primitive route of all. Married, single, virgin, priest, whatever. The pheromones make humans desire sex in a nearly irresistible way. They are still themselves. They are not changed. They are just turned on more than they have ever been in their life. It lights sex drive on fire from the brain outwards. Whatever their idea of great sex is, it is amped up to eleven. It is an almost unimaginable sexual pressure. Sex starts in the brain. It's like a deer in rut, running in front of cars because they have lost their minds, but far, far more potent. Humans like to think they are not animals, but with their big brains, they totally are. The smarter you are the harder you fall."
She looked at me and gave me an evil smile "If I had dosed you when you were human, there on the beach, it would have been very different. As much as you think you could not control your body then? You would have attempted sex with me right then and there. However, Pheromones are not directional. Out in the open like that, I also would have affected the guy laying there reading the porn. If the woman he was with was Bi? Into women at all? Her too. Orgy at the Hollow: My loving arms would have been full. For Vampires? Orgies and Poly relationships are fairly common things."
I thought about that for a second before saying: "OK. Holy shit. With great power..."
"Comes great responsibility. Yeah." Jessica finished. "It's good for getting in close though. Usually."
She returned to the story at hand "Arnold thinks hurting women is a turn on. He started by reaching out and twisting really hard on my nipples. Even through my clothes and bra, it hurt like hell. Just because I am Vampire doesn't mean my nipples are not sensitive... as you well know..."
I smiled. She smiled back in a slightly shy way. Jessica had that same shy expression in the hotel room. I think the Jessica of her long ago human youth must have been shyer than the one of today.
She continued "He started talking about all the things he wanted to do to me. Doing things I did not want to do turned him on. I might have had sex with him if he was a decent guy. I am a healthy Vampire after all. He blew his chance. I managed to bite him as if he had a choice about that, and suggested using the Juice that we had mind-blowing sex and that it was the best sex he ever had. I was angry. I told him all of his best sex ever in his life involved straight, conventional sex. I bit him again to inject extra juice and I told him that sex would never feel right unless it is stuff she wants to do. Not to take anything from any woman not freely given. I literally drained my hypnotic juice glands dry pounding that idea home. At first I thought I was at least going to get my fill of blood from this asshole. He had really pissed me off, and I was of a mind while I had him under control to take a pint or more. Leave him weak perhaps. Nothing he did not deserve."
She then stuck out her tongue and made a face. Didn't see that one coming. "He tasted terrible, so I stopped. I reminded him how great it had been, told him to have a nap, and then got back in my car and pulled off. He was probably late ending his shift, just sleeping it off in his car."
While her story pissed me off, I did not quite get it. "Why does this make him beating the shit out of me not his fault?"
"The hypnotic is potent, but not always predictable. What you tell someone to do is merged into the complex mass of impulses that is the human mind. What is possible with the Vampire hypnotic is a very wide range of things. People freed of inhibitions are able to do things they do not know they can. Staying close to the way you want to view the world is nearly foolproof. For example: Telling you that I was not fanging the fuck out of you fit your worldview. Telling you that all of it was love play the same as what we were doing in bed or on the table or when we went outside and tried to break the railing did not bend anything about you or who you are or what you wanted with and from me. I did not want to change the night for you, but you could not know about the fangs and the bites." She looked apologetic.
I understood. It still galled me that there is a single moment of that night I cannot recall.
"Whatever a Vampire instructs someone who is under the Juice, It has to integrate with who they are. The hypnotic is not mind control. It is more powerful than hypnosis, but not absolute. From an evolutionary point of view, it's there to make humans forget they have been bitten. Most humans are happy to do that. Who wants to remember that? Other than you, I mean."
She heaved a deep sigh. "This time was different from anything I have ever seen before. His mind... broke. I told him to do things that were against his nature. The human mind adapts to conflicting information in weird ways. Something had to give. He internally resolved who he is with what Juice compelled him to do. He became focused on me. Even though I never directly suggested it, he took the 'best sex he ever had' to mean 'the best that he ever could have' or something like that. Made him insanely jealous. Sex is very basic. Very powerful. I suppose now that sex with a woman who is not me would feel empty. Hollow. Missing something, even if it filled his sicko carnal desires."
"It did not happen right away. It took time for his mind to work out the compromise and to become completely obsessed. Once he did though.. Well, cops have a different kind of power. Vamps generally steer clear of them except when we become one. That is more recent. One of the nice things about women gaining more equality is Vampires ability to penetrate all levels of power, and not just through a man, but directly. This obsessed cop had my license plate and tracked me down to the boat. Both are in my Jessica Diaz name. He was watching when you and I swam over from the Hollow and went aboard 'Nightwing'. I didn't notice because I was distracted by my pretty new boy."
Another thing clicked into place. "A cop cruiser followed me the next morning. The same kind that ran me over."
She looked angry at the mention of my being plowed by his car. "It was him. No doubt. Probably ran your plates, got your picture, the whole thing."
"When I found the boat shed at the lake, he was waiting there for you, his one true love and he saw me. His rival."
"I did not see you. I was focused on him this time. I saw him. Waiting. Watching. Creepy as hell. I moved the boat to another dock and returned in time to see him putting a body... Your body as it turned out... into his trunk. Knowing he is insane I followed him to the meat packing place. Then I ran and got my car."
"You followed... without a car?" I asked, not understanding.
She made a 'so what?' kind of gesture. "Sure. It was not far from the Marina, and the speed limit on that road is only 35."
I held up my hands to slow her down. "Back up there Vampire Jill. You can run 35..."
"I can run 50 or so if the conditions are right. I didn't have to go that fast. The road is all curvy around there, following the hills. 'S' curves and switchbacks. I could take shortcuts. Besides, it would not do to be seen running that fast. Vampires hide such abilities carefully. I ran along the road, in the trees, and behind the rocks."
She seemed to be missing the point about this being a new Vampire capability she did not tell me about. "Better and better."
"There is a reason I always have coolers of food around. When I work out like that, I eat as you do. Have to when you run that fast and that far. Any time you use a lot of energy. We are not magic."
I figured we 'd come back to the speedrunning later. I pulled her back to the story. "So you got back with the car, snuck in, saved my ass, and only then you realized who the poor beaten up guy actually was."
She agreed. "Yes. Exactly. I did not recognize you at first. In my defense, you were kind of bloody and beaten up. You lost weight. You were upside-down. I needed to really look at you after I got you down to see through your clever blood disguise. I was thinking he went even crazier and that all men were now threats. When I cleverly penetrated the disguise you put on I reconsidered what happened. With you showing back up all the time, a man he knew spent the night with me, he had a very specific, targeted threat in you. We made love on the afterdeck! If he had night vision binoculars, he could have watched. It probably is not just the one time at the marina even. You were looking for me in places he would see you. You kept showing up around me and my haunts."
"I sound like the stalker I was so trying not to be. Uh... he has my plates. That means he has my house, He can hurt my cats... or Danny, who has been taking care of them and the house...Damn it. I think I may have put Danny in danger."
Jessica disagreed. "I am his obsession. I don't think he'll go after people that are not involved. He'll have you staked out for sure. He wants you, dead if possible. Danny has not been anywhere near me. "
I was not so sure. "Unless he gets desperate. You said it yourself. His mind is not working right."
She frowned unhappily but nodded in agreement. "It is a possibility. If it comes to it, I may need to go back and take down Arnold in a permanent way. We need to try and avoid discovery first though. By that, I mean the discovery of what we are. Where we are for the moment as well, but it ALWAYS is about making sure he does not figure out WHAT we are. We'll see how laying low works out. Give us time to plan. Work things out. Let you heal up some more. Grow out your new fangs. Make love."
Jessica had a point. Until I am healed, I am limited in what I can do. I liked her Coda too.
A change of subject seemed at hand. Hearing of all these new capabilities, and being a science nerd: "So... everything we can do. All physics and evolution and such."
"We are infected with an organism that overwrites our DNA. Written records being frowned upon really slows down things like research. We don't know much about this, other than we know that our DNA is changed. We become a new species. We cannot breed with humans."
"Yes, you can. You did! Many times." I asserted.
"Not that way, goofball. I mean a human man cannot get me pregnant. If they could I would have a LOT of children by now. You can no longer get a human woman pregnant." She paused, then teased "Well, maybe if you hurry. Going from a germ cell to a mature sperm cell takes around 2.5 months. You should be firing human sperm for a little while yet."
I noted those comments and mentally marked them for a later, separate discussion. She was teasing me but there is also a note of wistfulness mixed in. I did not want to lose my main track though.
"I did not mean it that way either. I don't make sexual references every time I open my mouth." She looked at me dubiously. "What I meant is that Vampires, as a species, grow out of humans. You 'created' me, for lack of a better term. Or maybe the caterpillar and butterfly are the better analogy."
"Not the same thing. Not exactly anyway. I see your point, but trust me. These are not new thoughts. They are as old as we are a species. The Council talks about it all the time. The Council is what passes for a ruling body for our species. All women on the Council by the way. We did not use protection our first night and it is not because I am on the pill. It is just that despite your best efforts you could not get me pregnant and I am immune to sexually transmitted diseases."
"I don't have any STD's and I felt bad about not asking you if we should have used protection the next day. Another reason I had to find you: if you were pregnant, I wanted to let you know I would not check out on that. I would be there. Funny."
"I know. You asked. I wish you could have." She assured me. I was not as reassured as she would have liked because that meant I forgot another thing about that night.
"I did? Well... Fuck me."
"I did." Her smile was sad, as she knew why I am unhappy. "I did not tell you to forget that. It is just that right before our first sexual intercourse of the evening, I was nibbling on your shoulder with fangs out and telling you to forget that, and you were worried about getting me pregnant and I told you not to worry about it and to get thee in me. Sorry."
I shook my head and went back to the subject at hand
"So: I guess there is always adaption?"
"Oh yes: Many, many babies around the world that are adopted go to Vampires, and recently this has gotten better with the requirement for two parents of the opposite sex being reduced or removed. We are mostly women. All female families, by necessity. Poly groupings. Vampires, with our longevity, are often people of means. Educated. Children raised by Vampires usually want for nothing. A Vampire as a parent has to be careful. These are human children, and we do not age. Makeup only gets you so far. Once the children are of a certain age, they have to lose their parents in what seem like tragic ways. We cannot stay with a child we have raised for more than say.. Forty or so years."
"Did you have any babies before you were turned?" I asked.
One negative shake. "No. I was pregnant once. Lost it fairly early in the pregnancy."
"I'm sorry"
"It was a long time ago. Back when I was human." Despite her words, all this time has not eased the pain. I could hear it in her voice. Feel it.
"I don't have any kids either. Just my two furr-children. Ralph and Princess. That is too bad. You would have been a great mother. Your beautiful skin would be a real gift in these days of global warming too."
Jessica grinned. "Being dark has not always been a social gift. Matters less these days, but not enough. My mother was fairly dark skinned, especially for an Irish woman. The term 'Black Irish' came about because of the group of Irish that are darker haired and darker skinned than most in Ireland. My father also fairly dark, having most likely a share of Aztec or Inca in him as well as Spanish."
Jessica rubbed her eyes, looking slightly tired. She drove the whole way while I slept and healed. Vampire healed as it turned out. "There is so much to talk about. So many things. It is late, and we have time. Let what we have talked about sink in. I do need to tell you one last thing right now though."
"What is that?"
"Vampires are not registered, at least not exactly. We don't have written records anyplace about who we are, or where we are. Vampires do have a ruling council, and you will have to go before them. Male Vampires especially have to go in front of the council."
"Why male Vampires especially?"
"There are a number of reasons. Not all are good reasons: some based even on legends, tradition, and oral history. Male Vamps are rare, and they like to know when one is created."
"I like to think I am rare" I interrupted.
"You are, but shush baby Vampire. Let the adult Vampire talk. The council likes to know who created one. They will assign someone, hopefully me, to teach you. Make sure you understand the rules about staying hidden. All new Vampires get a guide for a while as far as I know. I did. It is complicated, and I do not know all the in's and outs of it. Male Vampires and how they are dealt with by the council is something of a secret. You are rare."
"Nothing mysterious about that at all. While I very much like that idea of you being my Vampire guide, I hate to be a burden"
"I am sure I will find a way to be compensated for my guide duties." She looked me over as if evaluating me. She licked her lips around fangs that slide back into sight.
"Be gentle... I'm still kinda busted up here."
She continued to study me like I am a buffet "Male Vampires are rare. Very rare. I wonder if you are a delicacy?"
"Healing here!. Need my blood where it is!"
She pursed her lips. "Well, I would not want to do anything to slow your recovery. Still, we'll find some way...Did I mention that I am a healthy Vampire?"
Her eyes drifted down. She licked her lips and fangs again.
"Before you use me like the willing strumpet that I am, I am curious. What would happen if I did not appear before the council?"
Her fangs went in. "You would be hunted down and killed."
So stone serious, I had no snarky comment. "Oh."
"Yes. Oh."
"Sounds like I should do this then."
"Ya think, my willing strumpet?"
"Why? Why hunt me down if I don't meet the council?"
"It's long and complicated, and I'd rather talk about it when I'm not tired. Again: we have time, and you, my tasty creation, are going to appear if I have to drag you there."
My chances of not going before this council are zero. Jessica carried me around easily. As strong as I am, I know she is stronger. Faster. She can apparently run at 80 kilometers per hour. To be with her, I have to do this, so it is really a no-brainer.
"You won't have to drag me, Healthy One. I'll be good."
"Good. Let's go to bed. Now, please? A Vampire girl has needs too you know."
I looked around. Saw no doors to other rooms. "Upstairs?"
She pivoted from lechery to concern. "Yes: Bedroom is up there. Can you manage the stairs?"
"Jessica, if you are going to be in bed up there, I'll crawl if I have to."
She stood quickly and reverted instantly back to lechery. "Then get to crawling my little Vampire. I'll be up there, naked and waiting. The bed in this condo is pretty nice. Lots of room. The same model as the one on the 'Nightwing', now that I think about it."
She disappeared up the stairs. For someone who is supposed to be tired, she is fast. I was able, despite my ankles, to follow her up the stairs fairly quickly myself. I am motivated and there is a trail of her clothes in case I got lost. I inhaled her scent, wafting down the staircase. I don't know if she is releasing Vampire pheromones or not, but rational thought was giving way one desire: her.