Kiss of Blood

I

It happened when I was in my final year of high school. I was a guy like any other, had a girlfriend like everyone else and didn’t work very hard to get out of school - just like everyone else.

The first time I saw him was at a party. It was at the house of someone I didn’t even know, but that didn’t matter, because practically the whole school had been invited.

Spread throughout the house were the many different groups, of which the nerds, who had immediately located the computer, and the popular guys, who were trying to impress the popular girls that were dancing were the most prominent. I was hanging with my friends, amongst which my girlfriend Anne. We were talking, drinking, dancing, and were generally having fun. The drinks were good, and so were the snacks and the music.

There was one other group; the gothic, hardrock, heavy metal kind of people that were jumping up and down to music so rough and loud that it made my ears hurt, as I walked by on my way to the bathroom. Thankfully, they were doing so in a separate room, so their loud music wasn’t causing the rest of the party any trouble. The door was open, though, and I looked inside while passing by. Only one of them wasn’t dancing, I noticed. He seemed to be of about my age, and was leaning against the wall. He wore jeans, a black shirt and a black leather jacket. His hair was black as well, and so were the sunglasses he was wearing even though it was was 2 am in the morning, and he was inside. And maybe it was the light, or maybe make-up, but his face was awfully pale. And what was even stranger was that though I couldn’t see his eyes, it felt like he was staring directly at me. It took me only seconds to walk past, but it felt like minutes, perhaps even hours and I was relieved that after two steps there was a thick, solid wall between us.

When I walked back to my friends, he was gone, and no one at the party seemed to remember him. I didn’t either, when I went home an hour or so later. But that didn’t last long.

Later that night, or rather, morning, I woke up by a strange ticking sound. It seemed to come from the direction of my bedroom window, and I thought it had to be a branch of the old oak tree outside. I turned over and tried to get back to sleep.

But it didn’t stop, and after a while it became so annoying that I decided to go and have a look and see if I could make it stop. I sighed, got up and went to the window. I opened it and looked around. There was absolutely no chance the sound could have been made by the tree; there was no wind at all and the tree was just a dark shape within the shadows of the night. But if it hadn’t been the tree making that irritating sound, what had?

‘Nice night, isn’t it?’ a voice said right beside me, startling me. I jumped back and only then I saw him sitting there, in the tree. He was still wearing the clothes I had seen him in earlier that night, but now he didn’t have his sunglasses on, and his eyes were fixed on me. They were strange eyes; very light-coloured, almost white, and with large pupils. His face was still very pale, but now I could see it wasn’t make-up.

‘Who are you?’ I asked. ‘What are you doing here?’ He smiled, and it was a bright, commercial-like white smile. I felt my eyes drawn to that smile, and when he answered I hardly heard him.

‘My name is Daniel,’ he said, ever smiling.

‘Did you follow me here?’ I asked breathlessly.

‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘How else would I know where you live?’

‘But... why?’ I almost screamed the words. Alright, so his name was Daniel, but who was he, following me from the party to my own house in the middle of the night, and waking me by throwing stones at my window? What kind of a madman was I looking at?

His smile grew larger, and glittered in the moonlight. He really had the most perfect teeth I had ever seen.

‘Madman?’ he asked. ‘No, not a madman. A bit foolish, yes, perhaps, because usually I don’t go through all this kind of trouble when I’m thirsty, but...’ The look in his eyes softened, the hard white became a little blueish. ‘But I just had to have you.’

I stared at him, disgusted. He just had to have me? Was he gay as well as a madman?

He laughed. It was a soft, tinkering laugh, and it filled the air around me as if I was swimming in water.

‘Oh, you beautiful, ignorant young one,’ Daniel said and suddenly grabbed my head with his two hands. I tried to back away but he was amazingly strong. He frowned and shook his head at my struggling, and then pulled me closer to him.

‘Don’t resist it,’ he whispered and before I realized what he was doing, he kissed me.

I fought back, but he was unnaturally strong and held me tightly. But just kissing me didn’t seem to be enough for him, and I uttered a muffled scream when I felt something sharp pierce my lower lip. In my fear and surprise I was able to break free for a second - but only a second. Daniel smiled and made a sound I could only describe as a hiss and then pulled me back, pressed his mouth against mine and started to suck on my lip. I could vaguely taste my own blood and as it left the small, fresh wound while he drunk it, it gave a strange prickling sensation.

I tried to push Daniel away, but he was strong and inflexible as granite. I was feeling sick, very sick, and I knew that if he didn’t stop soon he would be drinking my supper as well. I hoped he would choke in it.

But as he went on and on, for I didn’t know how long, I began to feel lightheaded and faint. How much of my blood had he drunk already? How much blood did I have anyway? Why was he taking so long? He seemed to actually enjoy it, and not just because he was thirsty, as he had said only moments before.

And then the most unexpected, unexplainable, wondrous, magnificent, luminous, ecstatic, perverse thing happened. My sickness disappeared and was replaced by a sensation of pleasure, of lust. I grabbed Daniel tightly, offered myself, my blood to him, and he drank greedily, and everything disappeared except for the flow of my blood to him, and his heartbeat and mine...

When he let go my legs gave way and he had to grab me from falling.

‘Don’t stop...’ I begged him.

‘If I take more, you’ll not survive it,’ he said. ‘You’re already very weak, you have to regain strength.’ He smiled. ‘If you invite me in, I can help you to your bed.’ It was tempting, it really was, to invite him in and know he could come in anytime he liked, surprising me, taking my blood when I wasn’t expecting him... but some part of me still resisted him.

‘No! No...’ I said.

‘Fine,’ he said and with his finger he removed a tiny drop of blood from my lip, and licked it. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow.’

Then he let me go and disappeard, as I fell down, too weak to stay on my legs or even crawl to my bed, too weak to do anything but faint.

My mother found me like that the next morning, carried me to my bed and immediately called for a doctor. I didn’t wake up until he had finished examining me, and I could hear him talking to my mother. Something about what to give me to eat today. I didn’t pay attention and went back to sleep.

I dreamed of Daniel. I slept almost all day, and all the while my dreams were filled with Daniel. At the rare occasions that I was awake, my mother tried to feed me, and although at first I didn’t want anything, later on I began to feel ravenous and ate as much as I could before falling back asleep again.

And then, somewhere at night, my dreams turned into reality.

I woke up suddenly, and somehow knew he was there. I managed to get myself upright in bed, and saw him sitting in the open window.

‘Good night,’ he said. ‘Slept well?’ I said nothing, just stared at him, while my confused mind tried to make out whether I wanted to go to him, or stay safely in bed.

‘What are you?’ I asked, to gain time. He laughed.

‘What am I?’ he repeated me, giggling. ‘Come on, Thomas, don’t you read? Never heard of Dracula, of Lestat, of Cain, or even Lady Margolotta?’

‘Yeah, but that’s just... books...’ I felt rather stupid while I said it; I had never believed those books, and yet it was very hard not to remember last night. ‘Wait a minute, how do you know my name?’ Daniel sighed.

‘Mind reading, my lovely boy,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you know? We all can.’

‘But then... you... I..’ I stammered. Daniel grinned.

‘Oh, I just love to see your pretty mind all confused,’ he said. ‘So, when are you going to make up your mind and come here so I can suck your blood? You know you love it.’

‘I... don’t love it,’ I tried to convince both him and me, but neither of us was fooled. He laughed again, briefly, but then became almost frighteningly serious.

‘Come here, Thomas,’ he said in a low voice, thick with what had to be thirst and longing.

And I went. Wasn’t as if I could do anything else, not with last night fresh in my memory, and him sitting there, confident he had me and could order me around. And he had me. I didn’t fully realise it then, but I was his from that moment, the day before, when I had started to like his drinking my blood.

Once I stood before him, still a little unsteady due to lack of blood, he reached out a hand and took my face in it. He was gentle, not forceful, this time, sure I would not resist when he pulled me closer and his lips descended on mine, and his teeth pierced my skin, and my blood started flowing, and this strange mixture of shock and arousal washed over me as I clung tightly to him, barely able to think anymore.

And at one point, while he was drinking, I thought I heard, very soft, two words, like a whisper: So sweet...

At that moment, he broke our kiss, but still held me close.

‘Do you even know what you do to me?’ he panted. ‘How good you taste, how hard it is for me not to just grab you, bury my face in your neck and drink until your body is nothing but an empty shell?’ He words filled me with fear, but what was most frightening, was that deep down, I longed for him to do that.

‘Then... why don’t... you?’ I managed to say. I saw him smile.

‘Oh, no, Thomas,’ he said. ‘Not yet. This is far too good to end already. I want this to last for as long as possible.’ He chuckled. ‘Or at least for as long as I can control myself.’

I closed my eyes. Like the night before, I was absolutely drained of energy, and I slumped forward, deeper into his embrace.

‘Poor Thomas,’ he whispered. ‘So tired already... maybe I should stay away tomorrow, to give you time to regain some strength.’ He pushed me away slightly and looked me into the eye.

‘If you invite me in,’ he repeated his words from last night, ‘I can carry you to your bed.’ His eyes gleamed, the pale moonlight let his face glow like a pearl. He obviously dared me to say no again, and this time, I didn’t resist him.

‘Yes,’ I whispered.

‘Can I come in?’

‘Yes,’ I said more clearly, and before I knew it, I was lying on my bed, Daniel hovering above me.

‘Sleep tight, beautiful,’ he said, and was gone in the blink of an eye.

note: I wasn’t so sure about a vampire knowing Terry Pratchett, but I figured why would he not? I do. And I thought it would be fun.