Deadline

My space.

I confess, I did not stay around to watch the outcome. Perhaps, at the time, I believed I would protect her from harm; but in my infinite state, time passes by quickly when you are confined to a coffin for the better part of undeath. The sun rose and fell, then fell again; and I heard and saw no signs of the starlet. I passed by her house one evening and though I heard her pleading with someone, though I sensed no one else in the room with her, so I assumed she was handling it over the telephone. Perhaps it was mercy that stayed my hand. I still had not drank. I did not wish to bring her any more trouble, and I did not wish to harm her abuser, not really, not if it meant killing him. It was this hesitance, I soon learned, that would bring about my first real test as a vampire.

It was a cold grey night when it happened. It had been nine days since the telephone call, and I admit I had forgotten about my dalliance with the mortal. In that time I had fed off the blood of rats and the occasional bit of poultry I found in neighbouring yards close to my estate, where the rivers met with the frontier houses and offered wide acres for raising animals. All the speakeasys were open. Prohibition was in full effect. I could smell the alcohol on the blood of men and women for miles around, and I was drawn to it like a mosquito to a drop of blood. In truth, at this point I was practically feral; clad in the clothes of centuries past, relics I had recovered from my Master's house, I must've looked a sight as I passed through the gutters and the bylanes of the city. I leaned outside of a tavern for some several minutes, but the lights inside hurt my eyes. Candles have a nauseating effect on me. They remind me of my own immortality; how I appear to the humans; and eventually I gave up on trying to coax one of the mortals outside. Alcohol dulls their senses, making my thoughts harder to reach them. And as I was walking along the lane and back towards my dwelling to spend the rest of the dying evening inside my coffin, I heard it.

A three-tiered flash of lightning came from the studio to my left. It was accompanied in threes, as well. First by the sound of gunshots. Rap, rap, rap. Then by a long, thin, horrible scream. Then by a dull, muffled thud and the sound of a backdoor opening and someone escaping down a long set of corrugated stairs. I heard then a car door opening and tires squealing as the killer took flight. There was no ambiguity about it. Someone had been murdered, and I went up towards the studio through the second floor window without hesitation; and realised at once it was the same room I had been in several nights ago, only now the bed was covered in blood, and lying in the quilts was the small, terrified angel I had set upon all those nights ago. She reached out to me at once.

As I fell upon her, I realised at once the extent of her wounds, and that she would die. She was almost as cold as I was, gasping through broken lungs. She pinned her eyes to mine and sought words that did not come. I could guess them. The director had returned; I could read her thoughts. He had told her to submit, and she said she wouldn't. And that she did not blame me, it would've happened the same way no matter the cause. She had been meaning to escape... to drive somewhere very far away from Paris and stop her career in the films and perhaps return to the Americas. She smiled as she reached out and touched my cheek and held me, and her breath stilted and I felt her death arrive. I knew then she was in a terrible pain--and stricken with guilt--and morose with sorrow--I did the only thing I could've done when faced with a tragedy of my own making.

My lips sealed hers in death's loving kiss. She kissed me softly in return, already dying. Her nails caught my skin, clinging for dear life. And her lips were soft and wet, both with blood and with fear. I tasted her immediately. The copper of her blood. The thickness of it. The sweet voluptuousness of its eternal promise. And as I kissed, I started to go deeper. Further down and into her neck. And it was then she was resurrected. For a brief, fleeting moment her body throbbed against mine. Her arms fell limp to her sides and she shook in my arms. My abstinence ended. I drank human blood for the first time since becoming an immortal. Her eyes stared towards the ceiling as she gulped as I gulped. It was as if she was mirroring me, listening to the sound of me drinking her own blood. Her body curled in ecstasy; I saw her small feet in those nylons curl and begin to quiver badly as the toes curled too far back. Then a dying breath ripped through her as I crunched down on her jugular and took it all. I did it badly, looking back. She died then with one eye open, the other fallen, her lips curling to one side and her arm flopping drunkenly against the bed. And like a monster I fed upon her. I told myself I was some horrid beast who feeds off've the living to ensure his own hell. And I began to sob into her carcass--then slowly, I felt something. A kind of peace came over me. A warmth filled my stomach I had never felt before. And as I ripped my teeth from her skin and threw my head back, I felt powerful. I felt like I had the strength of three or maybe even four men coursing through my veins. And when I looked down at her, she was not so terrible as I had imagined. She looked entirely peaceful. Her little eyelashes cuddling her cheeks, her face forming a vague smile, her gentle hand wrapped in mine--peace from her abusive lover achieved. And I felt her energy coursing through me, and I began to believe it would live on. That the blood I had drawn was now a part of me and so was the memory of our meeting. Our brief triste, our terrible affair. I laid her down in the blood-soaked sheets and she curled like a petal through roses. The last touch of a blush touched her cheeks, and her throat was red with blood, and she was very much dead. Though I felt no pity for her. No sorrow. No guilt. Only love and a fleeting awareness of the fragility of the human race, and that all these lambs would die eventually, and that perhaps this is what my Master meant for me when he brought me back. To show little mercy nor pity towards these poor creatures, for their lives are such brief and squalid affairs, and that my kiss is a gift too precious to withhold. As I stood up and left her, her fingers fell from my arm and she seemed to be at peace.

I left, and for the first time since becoming a vampire, felt I belonged in my own skin. I went out into that night without fear or loathing, and killed indiscriminately until dawn. By the time I laid down in my coffin, the streets were red with blood. Seven victims had been claimed by the authorities, all of them with deep and mysterious wounds, some of them men, some of them women, rich and poor alike, but all of them guilty. Guilty of what? Guilty of sin. I had done what I should have done before. I had found men and women like the director; abusers, killers, thieves of essence; and like a dark harbinger I had lured them into alleyways and quiet shops that kept their blinds open after dark, and I had fed upon them until they told me their secrets and bared to me the private matters of their souls. I had found the director at home, in bed with his wife, and I killed her first; for she was a money launderer and a drug abuser and her blood tasted oily with the perfume of pharmaceuticals. Then I woke the director and had him show me the gun. And in a dispassionate voice he told me everything. I held his strings, listened to his words, then had him intimately caress the gun in his own mouth; and when he pulled the trigger, he told me he deserved it. That she had been a nice girl, a good girl, but too tempting, and too sweet. That he had promised her the world; and given her nothing instead. The gunshot rang out throughout the landing, but by the time he fell to his knees I was already gone.

I sent the director's inheritance to the starlet's parents in New England. I found the address in one of her vanity drawers when I returned to the studio just before dawn. They would arrange the funeral, I knew, and put her body to rest. Then I fled home and fell into my coffin and dragged the scraping tombstone back where it belonged to block out the light that was already spilling into the mausoleum; and I slept like I had not slept in years. In satisfaction, and bleak amusement, and dark pride.

I dreamt of the scarlet. She was laughing in my dreams.

My space.

My first kill was a beautiful thing. A starlet. I could tell you the whole story, but I'll keep it brief. It was 1936. I heard her crying through the walls of an old studio outlet. I could hear thoughts then. I could look at a building and tell you how many humans were sleeping inside. I was not powerful enough, as I am now, to convince them to come outside. But sometimes I would slip through the window, or leap up onto the balcony-roof from street level and enter their homes. I would preoccupy myself with their possessions. Snuff boxes, little hand mirrors, the latest fashions, and the odd bit of hose or silk. They would sleep not far away; the smell of their blood in my nose as I tried their instruments. A guitar, or violin, too softly for them to wake, loud enough to stir a dream. This woman in particular--this starlet, she was crying when I entered, and I believe she thought me an illusion.

The redness of her eyes met mine, and she whimpered something. A "no," or perhaps a "who?" Maybe even a "where did you come from?" I think she knew me then a creature of hell. Yet she was entranced. I did not know then I had a certain ability to manipulate the will of humans as I do now. That even when she saw me slip through her window, my white fangs shining with hunger--for I had not drank three days due to some pitiable loving sentiment I still held for mortals--she still did not quite believe I was real. I sat by her on the bed, and she simply looked at me in fear and loathing, and a small measure of doubt. I could see then that her director abused her. That he had kissed her on set, made her do things to acquire her latest role, that he had made her swear not to tell anyone; and I felt a burning hatred towards this man. I had a sudden urge to promise myself to her. To protect her. To ensure no harm ever came to her again. I reached over and took her by the wrist, and she--to my surprise--commanded an incredible will.

"No!" She pleaded, hitting me with her bed lamp. It broke across my face, drawing blood. The blood spurted onto my collar, and she at once gasped, slapping her hand to her mouth like one of those old movie characters would. Perfectly theatrical; a lust of regret and concern in her eyes; and a small, bridling fear as she watched as the wound on my cheek vanished. As the blood in my clothes thinned to naught. And when I sat there, dark-eyed, hardly breathing, the red of my lips faintly parted, she let out a long sigh, her shoulders wavering, and fell suddenly into my arms in a dead feint.

She was draped in lace. That was the first thing I remember. Her small, sound body had been ripe with curves and made plush by her nylons. Her hair was a tangled, curly affair, like a Rossetti painting. I held her roughly against me until she woke, and when she did she struggled. Her eyes glared into my own pathetically and it took my hand about her throat to settle her. It was at that moment I perhaps became self-aware about some of my growing power. For as my nails touched her skin and caressed the fatness of her jugular, she went tranquil, like a newborn lamb. Her black eyes pebbled. Her lips had finally formed a curious expression. And she stared into my soul with all the receptiveness of a child. I spoke then, at length, I believe. Perhaps for hours. Reassuring her of her future and how this man would never again harm her; and the more I spoke, the more she softened. Soon she was cradling my fingers to her chest, her warmth against my cold, cuddling my thumb and forefinger, until eventually she grew so enamoured with me that she pressed my knuckles to her cheek and sighed, drinking in my words. And her body extended towards me erotically--throat-first. And I realised by then I was already lowering myself. Already moving for a taste. Before my lips could touch her skin the phone rang and I realised it was the director. I did not know how, but I somehow knew; and her eyes sprang alive with fear and she leaped up into a bundle in my arms, staring at the phone. So I reached across to it and answered and made her speak. And I made her tell him she would never see him again, and that was that, and to never call ever again.

As the words left her lips, they did so robotically; as if she had been possessed. As if she was my little marionette and she hung from strings suspended from my immortal fingers. Once the director had raged and raged, I put the phone down for her, and she looked me dead in the eyes and whispered through her confusion:

"He will kill me for that?"

I looked at her boldly, and she stared back at me. Then in horror and anxiety, she flung herself towards me and huddled herself into my chest, nursing her chin against the folds of my shirt.

She knew, of course, what I knew. That what she had said was not a proposition of my own making, but hers. That I had merely coaxed the truth out from her lungs and given it voice. And for that, she hated me; and was elated by me. She looked up at me then in terror and delight, afraid of my potential and drawn by my sheer will. And she held onto my chest as she searched her thoughts, trying to make sense of the incredible.

My space.

Sometimes I think I'll regret what I've done. All the mortals I've killed. My glass nails, like serrated diamonds, slipping across their throats. The wounds that follow. The gaping red. The blood spilling out in fat spurts. The voluptuousness of it as it rushes against my mouth. Candid. Vicious. Longing. The tight coil of their bodies that comes after. I hear them gasp their last breath, bitter and weak. I tell them, "it will be okay." But it is a lie. A tranquil lie. Like a knife between the ribs. A mercy to end all doubt. In fact, when I hunt, I'm sure to end it quickly. A single lunge; a kiss so deep that there is only the steep path to Heaven that follows.

It is damning, this gift. As one of the undead, my skin is always cold, and perhaps I needn't tell you how good it feels to hunt a mortal. To recall the life I once had and remember, for one damning second, what it was like to be one of them. It is perhaps this we vampires crave the most. Don't worry. I don't miss the irony in that statement. That I need to kill to feel alive. But you've never felt this hunger. This thirst. The pumping, throbbing ache of your own body and how nothing will sate your lust. Imagine, if you will, how hard they try to fight. How their nails grab at your throat, struggling to protest. How their fingers slide down your chest, caressing at your clothes. How in their nausea and confusion they begin to mistake you for a lover. They say things they'd say to their mother. They beg you for more, whilst asking for it to end. The women do not cry, but look at you with reverence and fear. The men go inwards, their faces turning pallid as they realise their strength will not avail them. It is a desperate scene--never exactly the same, always kindred, always beautiful, but for me... the game is an amusement. I admit, the chase--playing with the humans--telling them things I know will convince them to come out from the safety of their homes--it thrills me, though it shouldn't. It has been like this since the moment I arrived in France. The city became blissful once I realised I could pass as one of them. That, despite being undead, I could move among the crowds and they would for some reason convince themselves that I was one of their own. They saw my white skin, yes, and the deep wrinkles imbedded around my mouth, and the brightness of my eyes, yet for some reason they rarely questioned it. I believe that is within our power. That as immortals, the truth would terrify the living, so they shroud themselves in lies. For example, sometimes I forget myself and open doors too quickly. Sometimes I cross rooms just a little too elegantly. I see their eyes flicker towards me in a brief warning gesture, but then the lie fills their faces and they grow tranquil, like cattle. Yet, they are not that simple. Do not get me wrong. I both love and respect humans. I adore their humanity, and in the beginning, I was reluctant to even drink from one of them.

My first kill was one of mercy.

My space.

Nothing means anything,
Blood does not mean marrow
Kisses do not equate to love
A lasting symphony does not instil the bones
With a sense of tranquillity
Only killing brings on a feeling of being cut-throat

Washed in sins, forgive me
I can't help what I am
Black as dark, sharp as a blade
Whispering an eternal facade
You don't know who I am

Only roses spring in bloom
For the lover hidden beneath the cloak.

[MxF] [Seeking 1x1] She was supposed to be his gift, but he refuses to acknowledge her.

She sat in the room trembling, a hundred miles from home. The bed was unfamiliar. The drapes on the windows too dark. Her dress was white silk. Her hair had become dishevelled from the stress. She tugged at the blonde curls, chewing her lip in restless motions as she went from door to window, door to window.

"Why does he not come?" She asked the servant. She then fussed with her slippers, too tight.

"He will come when he wishes to, my Lady. The master is often busy."

"But it is our consummation? Should he not... at least have a word with me beforehand? To let me know his thoughts? If he values me... If he loves..." Her voice trailed off. She could not continue. A worried nip of her finger spoke the rest of her thoughts.

She felt so small in that tower. Dumped there by her father. Given like a dowry, a prize to be won. She had caught a fleeting glimpse of her husband. Tall and powerful, with dark luscious hair and an open, tousled shirt. He walked with broad shoulders, curling fists, and had the slight gruffness about him of a man who spent his days unshaven. Even now, the thought of his rough hands taking hers in even a minor curtsey made her tremble. She resolved to be strong, at least, for their first encounter. She owed it to herself. Even if this was against every value she held dear, she would at least present herself as propriety demanded.

There was a sudden knock at the door, and the maid shot her a warning glance. She turned at once, tugging at her skirts, trying her best to seem attentive and alert. The maid went over to the door and opened it, bowing her head at once.

"Master--"

"Leave us."

"... Yes."

The maid threw her one last glance over her shoulder. She felt her hairs stand on the back of her neck, like a cat faced with a particularly vicious predator. Then it was them and them alone.

He walked in and closed the door. He was in a navy silk shirt, with frilled sleeves, an open front, and dark filigree trousers. His riding boots were speckled with mud. He was yet wearing gloves. He took them off whilst eyeing her mildly past his hair. He did not look pleased to see her. She wondered if he ever looked pleased.

"My Lord, I--" She began, her voice a pathetic notion, bordering upon superstitious fear.

"Quiet," he advised, walking by her. He took the candelabra from by the window and lit a few more braziers hanging about the room. This threw his tan, unorthodox features into sharp relief. His face was smoothly lined, with thick lips, dark eyes, a light scar or two by his chin and eyebrow, and the intense seriousness of his complexion. She fell away from him almost naturally, staggering into the wardrobe.

"I frighten you? How convenient. That your father should send me a meek bride."

Her breath lurched. It thrust itself into her throat. The indignation of it made her blush wildly. She was a small thing, a willowy blonde of no great proportion, but meek? She went to argue, yet he reached up and rested his fist about the small of her throat, and she fell into his palm helplessly, clutched by him.

"Wives..." He began. He then seemed torn. Torn either by satisfaction; or disappointment, she did not know. "... Are for breeding. I will return. Perhaps by then you'll have grown a stomach..."

He shoved her off, and the porcelain fell from the cabinet. As she gasped, it shattered. He had already strode from the room, but he stopped at the door to check on her. She did not know whether he stopped to see if it had harmed her, or if he was simply stunned by the noise. But he gave her a brief, fleeting look before staggering off down the hall.

Once he had left, she sat there in the shattered porcelain, feeling numb, groping at her throat, too warm in her belly and paralysed in her mind. She felt both cold and eerily numb from the excitement, as if the adrenaline had left her struck dumb. His words repeated themselves, callous as they were: "Wives... are for breeding." The very thought gave an ill sort of apprehension she could not escape. And as such, she pressed her fingers to her lips, then got up, ran, and immediately locked the door, as if she were afraid he might return.

"Why, father?" She whispered to herself at the window, curling herself into her hair. "Why leave me with this monster? This... shadow of a man? Can't you see, you have done me no favours." She then rested her face to the sill, dreaming of home, alone with her thoughts; and of the man who moments ago had placed his hands upon her....

My space.

-

My space.

Pain. It is pain that shatters the mind

There is mystery in the hedge maze,
In the dull upholstery and frayed edges of this ancient house,
Of the rows of dark oak and greased willows that drive up from the river,
Cusping upon the bridge and the old wooden door.

A fine young woman walks the alleys,
Through the avenues, hands upon her hips,
Bodice holding her all-in; a dress not too fine, more grey than blue
The house whispers, as she whispers, in the aches of her own mind.

A governess, who knows that
To love is to lose and risk pain again
To die and wilt like the cull of sun-bleached roses.

She circles these woods, dark as they are
Recalling how he first fell off his horse
Unaware of the creature held within his cellar,
Tended to and loved, sharing none of his hope
"My own demon," kept trapped, the incineration of his very standing
Morals lost, thoughts decayed, trapped within the walls of his estate.

What truth has he to tell her,
What gifts can he manifest?
While the demon yet lingers
As he holds his new wife to his chest
Rot becomes the sanctity of his mind
Escape impossible. Amnesia brought on by laudanum
Taken like whiskey, stealing the breath

At night he dreams of setting the tapestries alight,
Of digging an early grave for them both
Somewhere deep, earthworms cower
Listening to his mistresses cries
For she found the door to his private sanctum
And saw the truth in his first wife's eyes:
The madness yet lingers, and whether it's his fault is the question

Who is Rochester...? And what if he lies...?

My space.

What fated look,
In ill-abashed sympathy
Causes the restlessness between us?

The caress of the frill,
Your hand that crosses mine, too warm
Descends into coldness at the mutter of a line

Dismissed to your room,
Restless, you think of me
Staring at the nakedness of the angel in oil

Thus I descend: my truth,
Pressed upon thine lips
A stillness in wait, a promise too certain to unfold

The final clutch. Your fingers grazing mine
Plead for a breath
The latitude of a kiss.

My space.

Who am I but your monster?

You press me and press me, barking at me for an answer. Always cross. Always plunging the dagger into my skin. Hasn't it ever occurred to you that there's a possibility that you might be attracted to me? That you're in love with the way I tell you "no" and to "stop your constant dwelling and infuriatingly unwarranted accusations...?"

Don't you remember the time when you scorned your governess and made her feel small? And I came over to the carriage in my leather gloves and all my person and took your hand from the window and turned you to face me? And I told you that what you had done was not good or righteous or well-done at all? The look on your face, the sulk and the tears. It drove a blade right through me. I felt cold and guilty and angry with you all at once. And I knew from then I loved you. Perhaps I did not say it, but I knew I had transitioned then from a friend and a brother into something more.

It is your silence that grabs me. Your games that grab me. How you gossip with your friends and do your private studies in the garden. How you walk by me and ask for one of my cigarettes and wait for me to light it for you. How you hold it at odds with your person as you study the windows and consider what Mrs. Bennet might be doing with that man who came to visit yesterday, and if they're already having an affair with one another and how good it must be for them. And how you look away from me dismissively and continue on your route. The same conversation could be had with you giggling like a child with your finger between your teeth. It varies from person to person, your moods everchanging, the twinkle in your eye darkening, the fabric on your thighs shifting from barest silk to darkest nylon. I want to run my fingers across you. Your indifference--that's what pains me.

So as you walk now into the parlour and settle down beside me and ask why I took your friend out dancing I say, "why not."

And when you say "well, why should you? If only to mock her--" I interrupt you and say: "Why not?"

And as you stand and rave and shout and say that it was not good at all of me to get her hopes up only to make me throw myself up out of my chair and demand why I should not dance with her, the look in your eyes tells me all I need to know. That you are jealous. That you do not know you are jealous and that you act on your own authority out of mistaken concern, when actually all you wish to decree is that you wish we could've danced together instead.

But you do not ask. And your eyes are filled with lead. And then I must tell you I only danced with her because one of the other gentlemen snubbed her and I would not see her embarrassed in public, and that's that, and if you wish to have such a conversation with me, it can be done far better. Thus I bid you good-day. And as I walk out, I sense the hesitation and small tremble of your lip as you stare at the back of my shoulder blades.

And I know you wish to say sorry, but you are too proud.

I swear, this will be the death of us both.

My space.

They called me "Crystal Child,"
"Gifted," "Special;"
Like I carried the weight of the world with me...

In my youth, I played between the trees,
My feet running over grass, dipping my toes in swamps
Digging up earthroots, speaking to worms
I lived inside the Heart Tree. It knew my name
I was the boroughs and the canopies
I was the song, every branch was pointed at me.

But now the sun falls to the bitterest shade,
The darkness spreads through the leaves, turning them grey
My name falls from the lips of the Dryads and the Fae
Accusations run wild. I am no longer a part of their plan
I am traitor, betrayer, the woods themselves don't care for me...

God: What did I do so wrong?
I don't know. I can't see
I am blindfolded, ignorant to my own lies
I try my best, and always fall short of your plan....

I beg of you: Let me dream.

Let me dream of running through forests again,
Let me get in touch with your plan. The veins of the trees
Whispering collectively to me. The wolves in the glen
I need to feel your touch again,
Otherwise I'll
Drown, drown, drown
Crushed by the Maker's plan
I'll drown, drown drown
Drown: In the maker's plan
This can't be my hell
A denial of everything that made me whole
A refusal, a lock, purgatory...
Please. Breathe into me again
Lift my body up, reignite my soul
Remind me of what made me feel so whole
God, I know you hear me, so:

Release me from my pain,
Remind me of the golden thread
And breathe into me again...