Kiss of Blood

II

I remained unconscious for most of the next day, only to wake up around 5 in the afternoon, in the hospital and with Anna, my girlfriend, by the side of my bed.

‘Thank God,’ she said when I saw her. ‘We thought you’d never wake up.’

I said nothing, just watched her. She smiled feebly.

‘How are you feeling?’ she asked. ‘The doctor said that somehow you’ve lost a lot of blood... Thomas, what happened?’ I could see she was worried out of her mind for me, that she was afraid she was going to lose me - but she had lost me two days ago, and never knew it.

And maybe I’d never been hers to begin with.

Anna didn’t like my silence, and fidgeted uneasily.

‘Thomas, have you... have you been using drugs?’ she asked finally. It almost made me laugh, so stupid was that idea, and some of my amusement must have been visible on my face, because she turned quite red.

‘It isn’t a joke, Thomas!’ she said loudly. ‘If you have been doing dangerous things, I want to know! I deserve to know!’

‘Whatever you think happened...’ I managed to say - my throat was awkwardly dry and hoarse. ‘It isn’t any of that.’ But what would be the point in telling her the truth? I mean, she would never believe me, she’d just think I’d lost my mind. Which wasn’t so far beside the truth, in fact, but still not completely right.

‘Then what is it?’ she demanded. ‘What the hell is going on?’

‘Nothing!’ I said. ‘Absolutely nothing! Just... leave me alone, will you?’ She stared at me, crestfallen, but I couldn’t care. I turned on my other side and ignored her until she left.

They kept me in the hospital until the next morning, and then sent me home. According to the doctor, I should be fine now, and there was no need to worry; it was probably just stress, or something like that. If my parents kept an eye on me and made sure I ate the things he ordered, it probabaly wouldn’t happen again.

What did he know about it.

Daniel came again, that evening, and I was waiting for him by the window. He looked at me closely.

‘You look better than I expected,’ he said, his eyes shining despite of the darkness.

‘They took me to the hospital and gave me new blood,’ I said.

‘Did they?’ said Daniel, cupping my chin in one hand. ‘I must have drained you more than I had meant to... I’ll have to be more careful.’ He moved in, his lips brushing against mine. I felt I was getting dizzy again at the prospect of what was going to happen, but unlike the first night, it was a good dizzyness; I liked it, loved it, and wanted nothing more than that he would just do it.

But just before his teeth pierced my skin, I said, ‘Daniel?’

He hissed impatiently and took some distance.

‘What?’ he said, almost snarling.

‘Why do you... I mean... why don’t you...’ Damn it, why couldn’t I just say it? To make myself more clear I gestured vaguely at my neck.

‘Ah,’ Danile said, a wide smile spreading across his beautiful face, that only a moment before had had an almost vicious expression. ‘I do, sometimes. When I’m in a hurry. When I’m hungry. But not when it’s like this... when I want to savour every moment, every little drop of blood.’ His hand moved from the back of my neck to my lips, and carressed them. ‘It’s the same for you... isn’t it? When you eat... To take someone in the neck is like... fastfood to me. But this...’ He moved closer again, took my lower lip between his teeth, and bit down. ‘This is... haute cuisine...’

I shuddered, gasped, clutched at him, welcoming the bliss, the ecstacy. I closed my eyes, feeling how my blood left me and swirled round inside him. Everything was intensified; the night seemed much brighter than it was, and my lips were somehow more sensitive than lips usually already are; I thought I could feel the structure of his lips, of his tongue when it lapped the small wound, when it licked up my blood. A pointy, raspy tongue it was, and whenever it touched my lips it made a shiver go through me. And I felt his tongue a lot; sometimes he wasn’t so much drinking from but as downright kissing me, intense and demanding, before turning back to the little fountain of blood in my lower lip.

He stopped much too soon to my liking; it felt like, when he was drinking from me, I could go on forever, but once he stopped I immediately became as weak and limp as a dishrag. We stood there, leaning against the window, for a while; me gasping for breath and desperately trying to stay awake, and Daniel just in some kind of afterglow, a smile on his face, his eyes closed, even now in the bliss I wished still enveloped me.

Finally, he sighed and took my face in his hands to look at me.

‘Perfect,’ he said, for a fraction of a second looking like a happy child. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow.’ He helped me to my bed again, and then disappeared, and I just lay there, somehow feeling depressed and extremely happy at the same time.

He did come back the following night - and the night after that, and the night after that. For more than a week, Daniel visited me every night, and every day I tried to fool my parents and Anna that I was reasonably all right. Maybe they could see I wasn’t completely at full health yet, or anymore, but if they did, they never said anything to me about it. Anna was extremely cool at me, but then again, I’d almost completely lost interest in her anyway. Nothing seemed important, interesting or worth it anymore.

Except for Daniel.

I only lived for the nights when he came, only lived to be slowly killed by him.

On the ninth night, he surprised me when I had just gone to bed. Usually he came much later, at least an hour or two past midnight. I never asked him what he did before he came to me, but I could guess.

Silent as ever, I didn’t hear him come in; all I knew was that suddenly he was lying next to me, leaning on one elbow, his head held up by his hand. He smiled his perfect white smile at me.

‘Are you ready?’ he asked. His other hand was playing with a strand of my hair.

‘Yes,’ I said, but before he could move in, I backed away a little. ‘Daniel? Would you...’ I took a deep breath; some part of me was still frightened by him, as much as the rest of me loved him. He just looked at me, curious and bright-eyed. ‘Would you drink from my neck... this time?’ For just one heartbeat, he merely stared at me, and then swiftly moved so that he was sitting atop of me. His right hand stroked my cheek, slid down to the side of my neck, to the back of my neck, his fingers crawling through my hair.

And suddenly, he made a fist, yanked my head to the side and attacked my throat like a wild animal. I think I screamed, but it was choked down by the force of his fangs cutting open my throat, and his mouth sucking and biting. Drinking.

I was lying rigidly underneath him, my body in shock, trying to get away from him, but my mind crying and screaming for more. How had it ever happened, how did I become so addicted to this that I wanted Daniel to do it in this most painful way? And why did I still love it, even though my body was sending up signals that this was too much, that this was going wrong? Why didn’t I care?

And as it went on and on, I realised I didn’t care that I didn’t care. Because all I really cared about, was that he didn’t stop drinking.

But then he did stop, pulled back like he had done all those nights before, and I didn’t want him to stop, like I hadn’t want him to stop all those nights before.

‘No,’ I whispered, my voice faint and fading like the wind. ‘Don’t stop...’ He stopped anyway, but it was to look at me. I was too tired, too much in the grasp of a burning fever to open my eyes, but I felt him looking at me. I felt his eyes gliding over my face, as clearly as if he were touching me.

‘If I don’t stop now, I will kill you,’ Daniel said softly. ‘Is that what you want?’

I couldn’t care. All I wanted was to have the ecstacy back, the love, the lust of him drinking my blood. I wanted his face against my throat, his lips, his teeth buried in my flesh. I stretched out my hands trying to pull him closer, but my weak, human hands couldn’t move him.

‘Listen to me,’ he said, taking my head in his hands and forcing me to look at him. His pale skin, his black hair and silver eyes were radiantly beautiful.

‘If I kill you, you will be dead, gone forever. You will have died. You will fade and disappear, and you will only be a memory to me. Is that what you want?’

I didn’t answer, not in words anyway. I was so far gone that I hardly heard his words, let alone that I could understand what they meant. Death was only a word to me, only a sound.

With my blood, whatever fear of dying I had had was gone, and besides, if I died while Daniel was drinking my blood, that sensation would be the last thing, the only thing I could remember and I would take those lustful feelings with me as I died, and they would last forever, like that moment before I died. After all, that last moment would last eternally, compared to whatever a short life I had lived. If I wanted Daniel to drink from me forever, why not in a stretched, smeared out moment?

Daniel of course hard all this, and he laughed.

‘You are dying already, Thomas,’ he said. ‘You are being delirious. It would be grand, yes, and magical, and it would seem like eternity, but in the end it would only be a moment, and it would pass.’

‘I don’t care...’ Honestly, I didn’t care! If he would just go on and drink from me...

‘I can still save you,’ Daniel whispered, his fingeres caressing my face. ‘I can leave now, and alarm your parents. They would take you to the hospital where you will get new blood.’

No, no, I protested silently.

‘I could also give you my blood,’ Daniel went on. ‘It would be an even better sensation than me drinking from you. It would give you strength, and if I give you enough, I could even make you like myself...’

But I didn’t even want that. If I drank his blood, I would be the one in control, I would take his life. I didn’t want that. I wanted to be the victim.

Daniel kissed me, on my lips.

‘Ah, you are sweet in your desire to be taken, swept away, conquered,’ he said, his breath coming more heavily. ‘It makes me...’ The rest of his words drowned in a flood of blood as he, unable to control himself any longer, pressed his face against my throat, ripped it open with his fangs and drank like he had never drunk before. ...want you, his mind told me. It makes me want you like mad...

And I put my arms around him, wrapped myself in the pain, the lust. My eyes were wide open but I couldn’t see anything except a brilliant, radiant light that seemed to be coming from Daniel.

No, beautiful, Daniel said, it’s because your own light is fading that everything seems to be lighting up.

I heard the words, but they meant nothing to me. I just bathed in all the sensation, staring at nothing in particular, watching the visions and beautiful colours I was seeing in the moment of my death. For I was dying, I could feel it clearly now. I felt empty, breakable, and at the same time, filled with something strong, filled with light, lust and love. I felt as if I could live forever, and I could feel everything around me, including Daniel, I could taste my own blood through him, feel the extacy and pleasure his feeding on me gave him. And it was magical, wonderful. Dying is the greates adventure of them all.

By now I was hearing a heartbeat, loud, but slowly, and slowing down even more; my own heartbeat. The light became unbearably bright and I closed my eyes to it, which didn’t help. I struggled for breath and finally, in those last moments, I was afraid of dying, and my body faught it. But my mind welcomed it, urging Daniel to take that last sip that would make my heart stop.

But he pulled away, once again, and I thought I heard him say ‘I can’t... I can’t do it, can’t let you go,’ and next thing I knew something warm and wet was pressed against my mouth, and instinct took over and I drank. It was sweet, salt and bitter, and it gave light, rang like a bell and flowed hot like lava through every vein in my body. Some part of me realised I was drinking Daniel’s blood, and that this was indeed even better than being drunk from. I loved him, Daniel, longed for him, but above that all was the lust, the thirst for his blood. I clutched at his arm and drank and drank and drank and soon a warmth crept into my body, a warmth that turned into a heat, almost unbearable.

And then Daniel pulled away his arm and attacked my throat again; and I let myself be swept away by the feeling, loving it, wishing he’d never stop. And when he had enough, when I was almost drained again, he offered me his wrist again and I drank the blood that was partially his, and that had partially been mine.

We exchanged blood for hours on end; but there wasn’t enough blood between the two of us to be satisfied, so he took me outside and into the night we went, like in a dream, and then I took my first victim, and drank from him until I nearly bursted. Afterwards, we lay in a park on the grass, staring at the nighttime sky, the stars and the moon.

‘I couldn’t let you die,’ Daniel whispered. ‘I need you too much... need your blood, give me your blood...’ He held me tightly, and I could feel his hunger, his longing, for I felt them as well. I smiled, kissed him and nibbled at his throat.

‘If you give me yours,’ I said.

And he did.