Kine (Work-in-Progress)

I stared wide-eyed at the puncture marks on my wrist, watching as twin streaks of bright crimson ran down my forearm and intermingled with the sudsy water. Carmen's pale fingers danced over my forearm, her black stiletto nails tracing arcane shapes. I bit my lower lip and clenched my thighs involuntarily, feeling a surge of pleasure at the sheer amount of danger in this situation, and with the knowledge that with every love bite, with every drop of blood Carmen stole, I drew nearer to becoming hers for eternity. She kissed my wrist and looked into my eyes, a smile stealing across her lips. "You still have time to back out, you know," she said. I snapped out of my reverie and looked at her. White steam from the bath water rose and circled around Carmens pale face, making her look a little too apparition-like for my tastes. A little toowelldead. "What do you mean?" Carmen sighed. "You remember that spiel I gave you about consent, like, a year ago? How all kink is based on consent, and it can be freely given or taken away at any time?" Of course I remembered. It was the first thing I had learned even months before jumping into the scene, when I had been nervous to try something as relatively simple as getting my wrists bound, and too shy to say what I wanted. I nodded. "Well, that goes double for what we're doing here," she said, giving my hand a squeeze. "Once you become one of us, there's no safe word. No going back. You're alive, you're dead, and then you're undead. That's it." My thighs clenched again when she said, "one of us." I pouted and held my wrist to Carmen's lips, and she grinned, flashing those sexy-as-fuck fangs, and suckled. I moaned and twisted my nipple, feeling a bolt of pleasure lance from my wrist to my nipples to my pussy. She licked the bite mark on my wrist closed, then looked up at me again. I growled in frustration. "No more kisses until we talk about this. God, how I want to drain you dry, but this is serious." I swallowed and cleared my throat. She was talking about killing me, and it was making me want to come. "Okay," I said. "I hear you. I know becoming a vampire," I hesitated, "is serious business."

Ash M. Shepard

"Do you?" Carmen replied, letting my arm fall back into the warm water. "Try as you might to understand it, there's no way you'll even come close. Imagine living forever. Forever. Until the end of time should nothing catastrophic befall you. All those bible-thumpers down South love to fantasize about how great Heaven is and how awful Hell is, but they have no fucking clue. They go to their graves believing they're destined for one or the other, when all they're destined for is getting sealed in a box and rotting down to dust and bones within a few years. The only ones who even come close to glimpsing eternity are us, the ones in the middle." A strange, wistful look had come over her features, and she stared into one of the tall white candles flickering in the corner of the room, watching the flame dance and throw sinister-looking shadows on the walls. I said nothing, still jazzed from Carmen's vampiric ministrations, not to mention her gentle caresses and her lavish kisses. Any sort of philosophical musings about life, death, and the nature of the universe, blah, blah, dripped through my brain as lazily as the droplets of water plinking into our bath one at a time from the ornate silver faucet behind me. Carmen scoffed, watching the shadows flicker on the wall through the steam. She hadnt noticed the glazed look in my eyes, or if she had, she didnt care. "Sure, you think it's going to be awesome. You think it's going to be the biggest fucking power trip in the world. You think it's all art and money and fucking and power and love and travel and debauchery and a million other bullshit things," she said. She locked her dark eyes on mine again. "I know," she said. "I know this is what you think, too. I was exactly where you are, once." I swallowed again. A single bead of sweat ran from my forehead down the side of my face. "You think it's going to be all those things," she said, "When the truth is, it's eternity. It's night after night after night of the same shit, over and over again, until you inadvertently wake up early one night and waltz out the door right into the setting sun without paying attention, or some Jesus freak who fancies himself a pious avenger or some shit stakes your ass, stuffs your mouth full of garlic, and slices your head off. "Some of us can't take it. They last a couple of decades, maybe even a century or two, before they honestly just get bored with it all. They run out of things to do. The same pleasures even the bloodjust aren't what they once were anymore. So, they take matters into their own hands. They'll pick a night, have one last drink, then just sit outside on the roof or go for a long

Kine (Work-in-Progress)

walk and wait for the sun to come up, obliterating all physical evidence of their existence in a swirl of ash and dust." I flexed my toes. I drew in a breath, feeling the rose-scented air fill my lungs, making my chest expand. As my breasts rose and fell, I couldn't help but notice Carmen glancing down at them. "Now you're starting to get it," she said. Inhale, exhale. I scooted closer to my lover and took her hands in mine. Despite my arousal, she had made her point. Even something as simple as breathing would be impossible, soon, if we kept dancing on this knife edge. "Are you sure this is what you want? You can still change your mind. You can always change your mind. You have always had that right, and no one can take it away from you. Not even me." "Did you ever think about changing your mind?" I asked. "About...becoming a vampire?" "Yes," she said, after a moment. A frown crinkled the corners of her red lips. "I considered it, but ultimately, this was what I wanted. I just wanted it too damn badly," she said, smirking. "Not like I really had a choice in the matter, though." "What? You mean your sire" She nodded. "I won't get too much into this since you're not even a neonate yet, but it's illegal to turn someone without their consent. It's like the worst form of rape you could possibly imagine. Siring someone against their will is a crime we punish severely...well, assuming you get caught." "Oh my god...so you were sired illegally..." Carmen smiled thinly. "Yes, technically. It's what I wanted, true, but the tricky thing about consent is that it's not really consent unless it's freely given. You have to be free to say no. I wasn't. A vampire has no business siring their own children if they can't grasp this concept." "So what happened to your sire?" "She still lives," Carmen said, "Though I don't know where she's gotten herself off to these nights." That isnt fair! Isnt there something you can do? Some kind of...um...vampire police you can call?

Ash M. Shepard

No, Carmen sighed. "I didn't know about the rules, back then. And by the time I did, it was too late to say anything about it. It seemed silly anyway, given that if she had given me the opportunity to withdraw my consent, I would have gone through with it anyway. What's done is done. A drop of blood in the bath water." I laced my fingers with hers, and drew her close. Her lips brushed against mine, and I could smell the floral shampoo in her hair, which shimmered black and wet in the candlelight. "I want this," I whispered, taking her lower lip between my teeth. Carmen mewled, her tongue darting out, seeking mine. We kissed and tasted one another, and my tongue brushed gently over her razor-sharp incisors. The taste of my own blood on her lips was making my head swim, and I could feel the blood rushing, pulsing in my temples. If I held my breath, I could hear my heartbeat hammering against my breastbonethe very pulse that my beautiful, immortal lover was stealing from me every day, beat by beat. "Yes," I said, coming up for air and looking into her eyes. I moved her hand between my legs, and gasped as she cupped my vulva, gently rubbing and pushing on me with a growing urgency. I reached between Carmen's legs and traced her labia with my fingertips, causing her to shudder and moan. "Yes," I hissed, "I want this...so much. So fucking much." Our open mouths pressed together again, tongues exploring, tasting one another. We moaned and gasped into each other's mouths, grinding and rubbing as our orgasms built. Carmen grabbed the back of my neck and gave my hair a tug so that my head jerked toward the ceiling. She clamped her lips over my exposed jugular, but merely grazed the skin with her teeth. My eyes popped open. "Ohhhhhhhh goddddddd..." I cried, my whole body spasming around her fingertips curled into my core. "I'm gonna...I'm gonna..." "Yes, Lucy, you are," Carmen whispered into my ear. "Soon." Then she sank her fangs into my neck, and I screamed.