A/N: Review responses at the end XD alongside my eternal thanks. Free O positive blood vials for everyone! Huzzah! This chapter is short. I'm sorry if it disappoints. Long day. XP Poor inspiration. Oh. If you’re the insightful sort, you probably noticed I renamed the story. No real reason why. It’s not much of an improvement either. Anyway, names of the chapters – all come from Milton’s Paradise Lost. I’m a literature geek, what can I say? XD

This is not my bed.

It’s a fairly simple fact to ascertain. The sheets are silk, the color of vanilla cream, and as I blink wildly, shifting onto my back – gossamer black curtains obscure the rest of the room from view, like a luxury mosquito net – I realize the silk fluidly slides over my skin, soft and warm and…I am nude. Trust me, it’s quite easy to recognize when you have expensive sheets rubbing against parts of your body you normally keep covered. And I know I went to bed in checkered boxers, climbing on top of a spring mattress. I am not the wealthiest scientist in the world, but I do fine. But this…dark wood, nearly black, an antique finish that warmly contrasts white sheets, with…woven double-cane panels and beaded accents on the four posts of the bed – it is an enormous bed, at least a King. The crown of the bed, the headboard, is decorated with delicate, carved accents, curves, soft and elegant. It seems a bed out of the eighteenth century, the private quarters of, perhaps, Louis XVI or another monarch of similar sumptuous tastes…

They call them a love affair with furniture, these French designs.

That thought is not mine.

I’m almost afraid to do it, but I can’t help myself. I have to know.

I turn my face to my left, towards the thought, strange as that sounds, and it’s him.

Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, all my apprehension vanishes. I don’t want to run. Ordinarily, running would be my first response if I woke up in a strange man’s bed.

Obviously.

But instead, I breathe his name, and that is all I breathe.

“Julian.”

On his stomach, he braces himself up with his forearms, torso sinking into the feathered pillow. The curve of his back is fantastically elegant, as much as the bed itself. From broad shoulders, flawless skin, warmed by candlelight from God knows where, and my eyes hungrily devour the sight of him, even to the sheets, casually slung over his hipbones. I can see his pelvis peeking out slightly, and the curve of his ass – my god – beneath the silk. He’s naked too.

Oh my God.

Oh my God.

What did I drink last night?!

(Whatever it is, I should drink it more often…)

I take a shallow breath, and am reluctantly drawn back to his face, not that I’m complaining. He looks so young, all smooth skin and curved stone, with lips and teeth carved from the gods. I love his lips. Mine are so thin in comparison. His eyes, even though the smile seems innocent enough – they are not. Hooded and dark, they show me what his face cannot. Black lust, and a roaring desire so strong it’s as if black panthers are trapped inside his pupils, snarling to free themselves. His gaze is so dilated, his eyes seem like drowning obsidian, and my throat tightens.

There is something. Something that surpasses even the lust. A deja-vu complex that has been haunting me, racking my mind with questions…I know that face. I have seen it somewhere before…

But I’ll be damned if I can remember where.

I have to look away from the intensity in his eyes, but I move, bolder than my state of mind, propping myself up with an elbow on my side. I am facing him, and I vaguely realize the sheets have been dragged down by my movements, baring a slim figure, white skin. He…is staring, and I…hate to compare myself. I am lean, I am not perfect. He is perfect, exotic sinew and liquid strength.

“You are so enticing, Hyacinthe Solomon,” he murmurs, in that soft, sexy voice, an intangible accent sifting over the words. It's the sort of voice that makes you supple and pliant with promises, so many silent, whispered promises. “You could make a man bend over backwards just to please you…”

I gasp, nearly inaudibly, at the stiffening of my groin, and drag my eyes to his lips, and linger there. “What are you doing?” I sound strangled and hoarse. I try to clear my throat – I can’t.

“Tempting you, I would hope.” I don’t look at him, but I can hear him smile. I swallow. Hard. One of my hands anxiously toys with the sheets between us, beneath us, twisting and picking at the smooth fabric, just for something to do.

“Is this real?” I manage to whisper, pleadingly, and I don’t know what answer I’m pleading for. I flush – embarrassed by the quaver in my voice, and he doesn’t answer, at first. But I see and feel his palm, his hand, enclose my wrist, and I don’t protest (how could I?), when Julian slides his fingers between mine. I look up hesitantly, to see him brush the side of his face, the curve of his eyelid, his ear, with my hand in his. It seems my fingers spontaneously spasm, grasping strands of hair of their own accord and he…turns his face towards my hand, my palm cupping his chin.

“Does it matter?” His lips are on my wrist, and he shudders, slight as the tremor is, eyelashes fluttering momentarily. And then he’s staring at me and I see flashes of teeth, white teeth, sharp teeth, teeth that graze lightly over the branched veins. And then, he kisses the pulse, lips easily covering those phantom fangs, and smiles against my skin. With the way he’s looking at me, does it matter? God, no. I can’t say it; my lips won’t even form the word. But that doesn’t seem to bother Julian. He seems to hear me just fine.

Julian slides his palm from my wrist to my forearm and I know in the back of my mind that he’s moving now, like some serpent – I groan silently at my choice of imagery – beneath the sheets. He crawls forward as smoothly as his hand travels up my arm, pushing me down on the bed. I comply, my elbow buckling uselessly as I sink back into the silk pillow cradling my head, and he leans over me, one hand on either side of my skull, handprints pressed into the mattress. His naked torso hovers over mine at an odd side angle – he’s not straddling me, he’s just leaning over me, close enough that his knee brushes my thigh, and if I discreetly look over, I can catch a glimpse of the line of curly, dark hair that teases its way down to his cock.

My mouth is dry.

He’s not covering up very well.

I’d be annoyed if I wasn’t painfully aroused, and if he wasn’t looking at me like that. A drowning man. Or a starving one. He stares at me, and I swear to God his eyes pin me to the bed. I can’t move, even as his fingers gently press against my right cheek, turning my face to the side – and I am looking at the lines of his body, and beyond that, the empty warmth where he had laid next to me, and the curtains on the other side and…my hands. My hands have to do something, especially as Julian begins trailing the most delicious kisses on my neck and his lips, his lips are so cool, how could lips be that cold? It makes me shiver, involuntarily, as tongue and teeth run along the underside of my earlobe, suckling, pinching, licking…

The whimper chokes my throat and I squeeze my eyes shut, pressing my hands to Julian’s chest. It’s cool and hard, like marble, like I expected it would be, and greedily, I run my fingers over every inch of his torso, squirming against his tongue brushing the crook between shoulder and neck, and his breaths – cold, so cold. I ease my palms over stiffened nipples, convulsively pinching the skin when I feel teeth scraping my collarbone. He mumbles something to me, rubbing lips and nose against my skin as if to bury himself in the warmth.

His mouth finds the soft underside to my jaw, and my hands glide over the slope of his shoulders, easing my arms around his neck, around hi…his…

“Agh!”

Pain.

Rips through my thoughts with scalding intensity, fire splitting my veins…I…I cry…out, his…his name…

“S-s-stop…stop…p-please, Julian…Julia-ah!”

His fangs – I know they’re fangs, despite the burning fog of my pain - sink into my neck, shoved in from tip to hilt, and his teeth grip my skin, tearing it…tearing the holes…the gaps…my…

I groan, arching my back, forcing my chest flush against his, and dig my nails into his back hard enough to make him pant against my throat. I twist my head – to no avail. He keeps it steady, unmoving. I might as well try to shove a skyscraper. My eyes roll back in my skull, and I whimper. I make these…these…useless gasps and sounds and…an-

Julian plunges one frigid hand beneath the sheets hugging my waist, though oddly enough, his fingers are…warming up…slowly bu-agh! Ow! Fuck! It fucking HURTS! It fucki-oh.

“Uuuuh, uh-“Language skills, out the door, “-mmmm, don’t stop. D-don’t stop…”

You taste better than sex.

I moan throatily, a whore’s compliments, incomprehensibly, because his hand is on my shaft, and in time with his sucking, each time his fangs dig a little deeper into my skin, he’s…well…for lack of a…jerking me off. His thumb scrapes against the underside of m-oh God-he squeezes the swollen mushroom of the head, precum dribbling down like spit, an-and oh Jesus I’m in Heaven, writhing against his hand, twisting the sheets between my legs, against my calves an-and I’m in…I…I…can…t…breathe. It’s all lightheaded and fuzzy and blood, blood drips dow-

The alarm screams.

I wake up.

Again.

Alone.

In a crappy apartment.

With soaked boxers and stained bed-sheets, and a hard-on that brings out th-

“GODDAMNIT!”

xXx

Julian

My only regret is that I couldn’t be there to watch him orgasm.

We can’t enter homes. Not without permission.

Mmm. But I fondly remember the dream: the human mind is so…easily…persuaded during sleep. It was…intriguing, and if the doctor is truly that well endowed, and tastes that good – the proper mix of iron and sugar and…something else, maybe - I could get drunk on him, I muse to myself, licking the blood off my knuckles, tongue swiping bone and muscle before the wounds knit back together.

Michele slumps on the black marble floor, his bruised and bloodied arms clinging to the porcelain toilet like a lover. The sound of his dry heaves thunderously echoes in the bathroom – though in truth, it is the size of a bedroom itself. I am grateful that he hasn’t splattered crimson all over the steps to the Jacuzzi, but he has made a mess. An arc of red spray dries against the mirror, which is split with a knot of cracked glass, ruined by his skull. His lip is busted, elbows scraped into ribbons from the deliciously sharp corners of my black porcelain sink. The shower cubicle is clouded by fog and blood against the frames and wall. I keep the nozzle running, steaming hot water, because the sound overpowers his whimpering, and I love the mingled scent of steam and meat.

I beat him the first day. I hardly used a fraction of my strength – a black eye, chipped teeth, and a limp wrist. A few bruises around his stomach, his thighs, his shoulders.

The second day, I showed him the finer arts of cutting open scars.

It hurts, you know. Tearing through rough, healed skin. Moreso than ordinary wounds.

The third day, I stripped him and bathed him in the shower. I dressed and stitched his wounds.

The fourth day, I reopened them. All of them.

Today, I pinned him against the shower wall, and I took a stunning, slim, black leather whip with me.

The lacerations were lovely. Water always makes the skin slicker, easier to cut.

I whipped him. Thighs. Back. Shoulders.

Five days. Five days of his screaming and his blood and his pain, and five days in which I have received no calls, no e-mails, nothing from Dr. Solomon.

I tell the boy that if Cin has decided to reevaluate our business relationship because of that “incident” he pulled, I will make him very, very sorry. I believe he already is sorry, but I must get it through his head that crossing me for attention is unwise. Trust me, if I wished to hurt him, I could do it much easier than physical pain. I know the human body’s limits. And fortunately, he doesn’t heal nearly as quickly as I do – at times, I admit, my frustration leads me to punch through windows, and the like - which, as I’ve told him, is a good thing. I don’t feel obliged to hurt him as much if he heals slowly.

I do not rape him. I do not touch him sexually.

I do not bite him.

I think that is the real torture. So much pain, and I won’t even take advantage of it.

I have self control.

I’m not dominating him, I am teaching him the consequences of interfering with my business life.

The sooner he realizes this, the better it will be for him.

I make a mental note to strangle Felix the next time I see him – it should be soon, he is opening a new club within the week; this servant is worse than the others. Pathetic. He’s psychologically damaged to such a degree, it will be extremely trying to ‘fix’ him. At least, to make him passably independent. They must have taken him when he was quite young.

Often times, I don’t think people realize how thoroughly formative the childhood years are.

Humans might not. Vampires do.

If you get your hands on a child, you can bend their will like putty, twist their mind inside out, and turn them into something wholly terrifying and wretched. To such a degree that nothing will ever persuade them to leave you. It may sound charming. It isn’t. You don’t think vampires can be sociopaths? Some assume we all are. Pedophiles?

We have our scum as well, and theirs are the human servants you never want to encounter.

Imagine. Or don’t.

It’s disturbing.

I don’t expect the doorbell to ring.

I know Ayako went out for groceries.

She has a key.

Perhaps she forgot it?

“We’re finished, Michele.”

“Yes, Mas…sir.” His voice is barely audible. Hoarse and riddled with bullets of pain.

I leave him to clean up after himself, as the doorbell pings again, this time seemingly more insistent. Barefoot, the smooth wood feels cool against my skin, and I smile, faintly pleased, undoing the various latches of the door. Had I been paying more attention, I would have sensed the thoughts befo-

“Mr. Julian, h-oh,” Cin. He flushes a dark shade of cranberry, “I-um, is this a bad time?” He stares at me, and his defenses are nonexistent in the face of what he is…It’s better than the dream…though the pants…the pants, damned tease, you couldn’t have taken those off instead?

I raise an eyebrow.

Instantaneously, shame chokes the rest of the compliments, which is disappointing. Lingeringly, the mumblings of aesthetic pleasure (It is theoretically imposs…I envy those pectorals. I wonder how long he trains…does he? Is it natural endowment, or does he sweat for those shoulders and that stomach? Mmm…) and water droplets (I’ve always been inclined to feel heavily at home in the water…I could feel heavily inclined to be in the water with that body…) threaten to interfere with his blushing attempt to keep his eyes above the neck, and his arms stiff at his sides. A pity those arms are the only stiff things I can see.

“Not at all,” I pleasantly reply, giving no indication of the fact that I’ve physically tormented someone for five days waiting for the good doctor to contact me. His timing is mediocre. It’s poor breeding to come by unannounced, though I can’t say I’m upset by it. Per se. “I did not expect you to drop in without notice.” The disapproval laces my words, but I won’t bring myself to seem too disgruntled. Cin stands before me in slacks and a striped navy blue shirt, with a black jacket over one arm and his obsidian tinted hair tousled as if he’s been running. Or anxious, or perhaps…

“Yes, I know, I do apologize…I realize it’s terribly poor manners-“ You unprofessional sod, you’re lucky he doesn’t throw you out on your ass. A man of his means must be in high demand. He probably has some beautiful, buxom redhead in his bed right this very second, the cheap whore. “-but I thought you’d like to know as soon as any decision was arrived at, and I’m afraid your phone number was not at my disposal at home so-

“-you’re bleeding!”

The doctor conquers whatever lustful thoughts he’s reigning in – better than I can - because he suddenly steps into me, and he’s…touching me, my side. I look down, as surprised as Cin’s tone, and yes, he’s correct. Just below the left armpit where, dribbling trails of Michele’s blood are beginning to dry against my…

“So I am.” I mumble, amused. His breath vaguely brushes my torso and I reach my own hand down to smear in the blood, brushing the good doctor’s fingertips lightly. I raise my fingers to my lips, coated in a light, watery red smudge. I suck my digits clean subtly – I’m not salivating all over myself. It’s no more scandalous than a mother kissing her child’s paper cut.

Well.

Perhaps slightly more scandalous.

But not overt enough to scare the doctor away.

Only enough to catch his attention.

And I do. Admirably.

“Just a nose bleed,” I say, showing clean fingers to his dark, wide eyes with an indulgent smile, “No gaping wounds. It’s nothing to get…excited…about.”

“O-of course not.”

There are other spatters of it on my skin, though I’m surprised. I stepped under the shower, after punishing Michele. I would have thought I washed all the blood off. I believe it is a declaration of my talents that the doctor does not question how I managed to smear a ‘nosebleed’ on my side. Not even in his head. He’s thinking of much naughtier things.

Which accounts for the fact that once he realizes he’s resting his hand against my torso, that his thumb is lightly, unconsciously stroking a line of my skin…

…he recoils like I’ve burned him.

Flushing and stumbling and silently damning himself for what he presumes to be an overly forward gesture, one that will likely get him fir- I catch his fingers, also stained in blood, and for a moment I consider licking his clean too, which coincides with his own fascinating, silent, Please.

“I appreciate your concern.”

He pulls his fingers away, awkwardly. Tries twice, before he gets out a stiff, “Think nothing of it.” There is something not quite…right. I’m not one to make presumptions about someone I don’t know personally, and I am definitely no expert on the…others- What others? I want to press curiously. I don’t. But I’ve seen my fair share of horror films…I’ve seen…people talk. People talk of pulselessness, and bloodstained wet dreams, and beautiful, unnaturally beautiful skin and…

Well, this was unexpected.

And somewhat irritating.

Most humans wouldn’t jump to such conclusions, even if the doctor tiptoes around the word – VAMPIRE – I did not expect him to come to terms with the…inconsistencies so quickly.

I should not have orchestrated the dream.

It was…hmm…foolish.

But it did bring him to me. So perhaps not a total loss.

“Would you like to come in?” I ask evenly, in as human a tone as I can supply, “You could wash your hands.”

“I…I’m fine, actually. It’s…fine.” Cin wipes his hands on his pants to indicate as such, If I walk inside, I might not leave. That doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me, but apparently the doctor views sex dreams about his business partner improper behavior. So he’s punishing himself.

And me.

Humans are inherently masochistic. They want something, but they constantly deny, deny, deny.

“I really just dropped by to let you-“

“Let’s take a walk.”

“What?”

“A walk,” I enunciate simply, “Let me get my shirt.” I don’t wait for an answer before retreating from the door, and snatching up my button-up shirt from the couch. I can hear his doubt, and his arguments, and I can also hear that he is weakening. After all, it makes no sense to give the news standing in the hallway. You’ll look like a fool. True.

Reluctantly, Cin agrees as I shrug on the shirt, and he watches me button it up with an almost mournful expression for the loss of naked flesh.

“Do you need a coat? It’s…chilly.”

I wave that comment away. When one has a base temperature of about sixty five degrees, the concepts of cold and hot are worthless – unless blood is involved. I close the door behind me, but I do not lock it. Michele will not touch anything, and should anyone break in – very, very unlikely - their scent will be more than enough to track the thieves down, slaughter them, and take back what is mine. If Cin questions my decision, he says nothing about it, and it’s a companionable silence down the stairs, outside, into the parking lot spilling out onto the street.

“I assume you haven’t explicitly discussed our arrangement, correct?”

I nod towards the sidewalk, and Cin catches up to me. I live in a gated community, or something similar – so the roundabout surrounding my apartment is all faux tranquility – sidewalk, streetlamps, and grass. Apartment buildings arch up at various intervals, and I can taste smoke, exhaust, in the air. Delicious. The sounds hum from every which direction, voices, songs, dishwashers, sex. There are some damnable aspects of immortality. The art of enhanced senses is not one of them.

“No,” Cin answers finally, honestly, “But my colleagues are so overwhelmed by your benevolence,” he dryly continues, “I believe they’d each give you their first-born child, if that was the condition.”

I laugh. Surprisingly.

Cin smiles in delight at my response, clenching his teeth against the shiver. His laughter is like satin inside my skull. It aches, it feels so good...

“Tempting,” I reply after a brief interlude. I’m lying. Could you imagine me, surrounding by…infants? They shit and cry and eat. A continuous animalistic cycle. The only difference between matured humans and babies that makes the latter more tolerable is the fact that at least infants don’t speak. Hallelujah.

“And, ah, there’s a…” He trails off, embarrassed, and I politely do not read his mind as we cross beneath the commercially identical trees stationed every few feet on our sidewalk-tour. “…a brunch, to honor our benefactors, to…peruse this year’s budget and goals, and…it…um…” Christ, this is worse than being burned at the stake. He swallows again, “…if you would like, I could take you. There are…complicated directions, downtown. We coul-“

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” I gently reply, cutting the doctor off before he injects another ‘we’ into the stumbling dialogue.

Heat floods his face, I can smell the adrenaline, and the humiliation.

Silence.

Silence.

I am an idiot, a buffoon. I…my God, could I have phrased it any more awkwardly?

“Of course. You’d want to go with your wife, or ah, a girlfriend of some sort.” He laughs. Painfully tentative.

I glance at him and smile. “Actually, I am disinclined for other, less sociable reasons.” When Cin drags his eyes to mine, I remind him, “Work.” And the unsavory knowledge that brunch, that is, midday, would result in my turning into a pile of ashes. Not the most enjoyable way to spend the morning.

“Oh. Oh right. Of course.”

The atmosphere relaxes.

“Do you have a wife, Doctor?” I know he doesn’t. There is no ring on his finger, and, more importantly, I can read his mind before the words even come to his lips,

“Work hardly permits time for me to date at all, let alone commit to matrimony.”

We both skirt the question of men.

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

In fact, the rest of our promenade is spent in silence. Awkward for him, amusing for me – I entertain myself with his thoughts, which tend to linger on the dream, much to my pleasure. He asks about Michele, and I easily close that subject with a lie about a vague interview with a psychiatric ward…silence…silence…

“I should express your regrets then, to my colleagues?”

“If you could, I would be obliged.”

“Of course.” Silence. “They will be disappointed.” I will be disappointed.

“I’m sure they will survive.” Silence. I lick a smirk from my lips, “Your scintillating conversation will more than make up for my absence.”

Cin stops dead where he stands, crossing his arms. “Are you being sarcastic?”

I grin, enough to flash teeth – but not fang. “Perhaps. Forgive me?”

He flushes. “I don’t know yet…” A considering drawl to his voice makes me smile again.

“What would I have to do to warrant your forgiveness?” I turn around, so that when we begin to walk again, I move backwards, and maintain loosely eye contact with my partner.

Flashes of his dream flicker foremost into the doctor’s mind, but he has the grace instead to give me a nearly pleading smile, almost innocent, “Reconsider your refusal?” My colleagues are pompous and overblown, looking down on anyone without a proper degree or a certain number of zeros in their checking account. It…disturbs me, about this line of work. Meeting with people higher than myself is a real chore. I can’t…stand the falseness that the profession brings with it. You learn to cope quite nicely, but you never grow…fond of the experience. Especially when it comes to mouthy wallet-wavers, such as the type I can anticipate at this gathe-

“I am sorry.” And I do mean it, quite sincerely. It surprises me - that I sympathize with his frustrations. Probably the reason for my lapse in judgment when I add, “I have a similar engagement Saturday night.” That is, two days from now. “A good friend of mine is throwing a celebration for a recent business venture – into the ‘clubbing’ scene. I’m expected to appear, and…” Cin is staring so intently at me, I believe he’s holding his breath. How cute, “…I probably won’t know a single person present. I would be grateful for a companion.” And I would like that companion to be you.

There is no need to read his mind; I can see the display of emotions easily.

Blushing flattery, pleasure, apprehension… “Would I be intruding?”

“Absolutely not. I believe we’re all expected to bring someone-“ A snack, a date, a whore, it wasn’t exactly specific, “-and I just happen to lack someone I can stand for an extended period of time…except for you.” I smile demurely. “I’m certain his friends will be unbearably arrogant and self-absorbed, and you may well have a miserable time…”

“I would love to.”

He smiles. I smile. Victory.

The remainder of our walk, the short few minutes it is, uncharacteristically bearable in the silence. I promise to call, with explicit details of time and dress and such, and my...date...my date, for lack of a more audacious term...I don't date. I've never 'dated'. This is purely a business opportunity, correct? Of course it is. He's...it is endearing. He is endearing. Which doesn't bode well for his opinion of Felix. Mmm, I do hope he behaves himself.

Oddly enough, despite my own better judgment, I am looking forward to Saturday.

A million thanks to endesaut (Ehm, I'm sorry I made it uncomfortable for you. -sheepishly scuffs his feet on the ground- but thank you for what you said, I'm flattered), MidnightsScream (I will take NONE of that nonsense. I love your writing. "Vampires are Easy" is incredible. And you COMPLETE works...which awes me, because I have so much trouble doing that. -gives you jellybeans-), random-nerd15 (ROFLMAO! As SOON as I read your review, I busted out laughing. Which was kind of bad, because I was in the middle of eating barbecue chips and it...went everywhere and I choked and it...was not pretty. XD lol. YES, I know what you're talking about! Thank you! That's...brilliant. Haha. EXACTLY the right kind of facial expression. Bwhaha.), nonaccount (you found me!!!! XD You're so clever, you've already figured out the secret, haha. Yeees, Cin has been reincarnated - as to the body being recycled, I'm still kind of iffy on whether or not that should be the case...but I'm leaning towards yes. Thaaank you for reviewing me!! It's exciting, haha, I love you! In a completely non-creepy way, of course.) and lexy (Thank you so much! Sorry the update is kind of late...).

.foh.u.: lol. Baby brains are delicious. What nutrition is made of. Haha. I'm sorry about the whole having to get to the bottom before you get the translation. I'll try not to use as much pesky non-English words). You are definitely right...though you pointed something really good out to me, which I'm going to go back and fix in Chapter 2. The italics are his thoughts, but there were times in the chapter that I did italicize something that wasn't Cin's thoughts...and that's kind of confusing. So thaank you so much for pointing that out so I can fix it. You're awesome. I love your reviews. XD

XOMagicMoonXO: Oh magic moon, my savior, and queen of brilliant reviews. Who, I ask you, does NOT like chocolate chip cookies? You actually made me crave them like a madman. Haha. I want some! I completely agree with you when it comes to mythology...I like when people get it right. Minerva and Athena are not the same, though Hercules was good. Meg was a babe. Ahem. Awwkward. And yes, Cin is pronounced as Sin, which I actually didn't figure out until halfway through Chapter 2 because I'm a dimwit. Haha. But the fact that one of your characters also shares the name? Great minds think alike...we're on the same...you know, mental wavelength...thing. lol. Psychos and bastards are...definitely winners. And right, Cin...and his shifty thought processes. XD He is human…just not your garden variety human, I guess. (shifty voice. Ahem.) I'll try to de-mystify that soon. I'm also like you when it comes to the science...I never was really good at science in school anyway. More of an English kind of guy, but I think it is kind of odd how scientists manage to marry the two together, religion and science. Etc. Oh. And...confetti, I believe, is due to you with my congrats! On getting the Japanese pre-translation! I'm...trying to learn it too, and I'm doing a terrible job. So yes, I might definitely be taking advantage of your "mad skillz". As to the "Michael" - yeah. Haha. THANKS for pointing that out...seriously. Ehm, I originally had him named Michael because it WAS the first name I could think of...and then I Italian-ied it...and forgot to change it. Awesome. It's so cool to meet another history nut, haha, it makes me feel not...as...lame...about doing research for this writing, because you'll probably know exactly what I'm talking about! lol. You, my friend, are grand. The best. Amazing. Thank you. XD