Excerpt from AWAKE: A Vampire Tale
launching Halloween 2015 - available for preorder now
Girl. I realized. It was definitely a girl, though I couldn’t have told you how I knew that.I turned around in a full circle and saw her. She was standing on a bridge going over the I-5 highway, half a block from where I stood. She wasn’t looking at me, she was leaning on straight arms on the stone railing and looking south, maybe gazing at the Space Needle, the unique shape in the generic cityscape.
It was like she had no door at all. Her mind, memory, thoughts, and feelings were completely open and unguarded. I walked towards her trying to understand why she was so without opening myself. I was afraid that any opening in me would bring the Thirst.
She wanted to jump. She was a beautiful girl standing on a bridge thinking of suicide, but it didn’t feel desolate, she didn’t radiate anger or despair, but rather excitement and curiosity. It was so much more than that, so much more complex and, open as she was, it was there for me to know: Death had become something real and concrete to her. She was going to die anyway — and soon — from a disease. There was not a cure, there was no fight to be made. She was just dying slowly and very, very fast. She had known for a time and was beyond mourning it. What happened after that line of life/death was crossed had taken hold of her.
She radiated a feeling like the night before a big long trip. Everything was settled and packed and ready, and before her loomed a great adventure that she was longing for. Death had become as insatiable for her as the Thirst was for me.
I kept walking slowly toward her, I didn’t want to disturb her or startle her into closing herself. I was entranced.
She was thinking of the people she loved, she lit candle flames for them in the sanctuary of her open mind. She hoped that they would join her in this death-adventure someday, but she was not so afraid of loosing them that she would stop walking her own path.
Her longing went to the open blue sky, with the ground miles below and only a parachute keeping her aloft. She had loved that ride down the one time she had gone sky diving. It was freedom to her, it was why she had decided to jump: To embrace that freedom. There was a small ego floating around the idea of jumping too: She was contemptuous of fighting the unfightable to the very end, of dying in a hospital bed battling for first weeks, then days, then hours, then minutes only to be defeated by Death, as a foe. She would have felt selfish burning through money and medicines, taking doctor’s time and the machine that could be used by someone who was battling a disease they could beat. Her doctor had subtly indicated that in order to keep her comfortable once the pain started in earnest, he would prescribe her morphine that would be fatal if she took more than the prescribed dose. The idea seemed wimpy to her, something for a debutante or the elderly. Jumping was ballsy, it embraced the death. She wanted to embrace Death and be embraced by it.
I was next to her now and I opened myself to her. I didn’t fight the Thirst: It was a part of my desire. I wanted to give her a Death, to ride with her right up to that line. I was her Reaper, her Charon. The Thirst rode this desire, it swam in it and intertwined in it. This was everything I wanted and I opened myself up as completely as she was open to me. To have this girl walk into my arms, to have me be her answer, to be able to feed the insistent Thirst without twisting and perverting desires was my deepest lust.
I could feel her moment of pause as she felt me open to her, this strange phantom that had come out of the night, a fantasy of a fantasy. And in this, her very moment of revelation.
I didn’t know if it would be something pleasant or something painful. I had never done this before and I just didn’t know. This would be a kind of a death for me too, I realized, but we could share it. We could walk to the point of Death together and beyond that she went to this adventure alone. I recalled my own jump earlier that evening. The bridge was much higher off the I-5 then my apartment was from the sidewalk, but compared to the jump out of an airplane, it was the same. It had been so fast. Not flying — dropping.
I didn’t hold back my life from her or any part of it. Everything I was, the flash of images that I didn’t understand from last night, and everything that had happened this night was my gift to her, open for her to take or leave as she wanted, just as she had been open to the world when I found her.
I felt her desire shift, in the smallest way. I was beautiful to her, a demonic golden angel of Death and to walk into my arms was everything she had wanted in the jump. Either way it was just one step. Either one took balls and required submission.
Her skin was young and smooth with a slight darkness of ethnicity, but her face held something beyond age or race; a regality of certainty. Black hair, short and choppy blew, in the wind from the cars and trucks rushing by below us as she stood there on a mental ledge. She studied me, her Death embodied, with eyes that held no trace of tears, only a peace that made time irrelevant. She had the time she had, she did not try to rush the moment, nor hold it. She held my eyes as she stepped to me, taking Death into her arms.
She was shorter than me and, as she embraced me, I ran a hand through her hair and kissed her temple through it. We held each other long, comforting each other and letting our desires mingle together, becoming one thing. She turned her face to mine and I gently kissed her full lips. I tasted her aliveness, I tasted slightest hint of green tea, and a little bit of her sickness, and I could smell her blood beneath her skin. Her tongue flicked onto my lip, a quick wetness, then flicked into my mouth, getting nicked a little bit on my razor sharp fang.
She pulled her tongue back into her own mouth and tasted her own pain, the little death of the wound, her lips still against mine. I started to pull back afraid the reality of pain would change what she wanted and not wanting to force this thing. But she reached up and brought me back to her with a hand on the back of my head, gentle and firm. She kissed me with the blood washing between us, almost pushing me beyond the point of sanity to a place primal. I held onto myself, anchored by a thread in a tornado.
She broke the kiss, then, and looked up at me, her eyes dark and seducing. Seducing Death. I kissed her lightly on the mouth again, my hand cupping her face. She leaned into my hand and revealed her neck to me. I kissed her jaw and I kissed her neck and I could feel the pulse beating strong in passion, beating still defying death by continuing. I licked her neck, like a cat. I tasted the salt of her skin before I bit.
Fangs sunk into her flesh and I opened my mouth wide. As soon as my fangs were out of the wounds, the blood spurted into my mouth. It was brandy and port and the finest of wines that have ever existed. It was fresh-squeezed orange juice from a fruit just picked off a tree in the sun. It was hot cocoa with melted marshmallows and it was precisely what the Thirst wanted. I let it flow into me, effortless.
The pain had been nearly nothing for the girl, who had become used to needles and tests and IV’s. She pressed herself against me and held me in her arms as I took her into myself in gulps.
I pressed her tight to me, as though I would absorb her. As her fount slowed, the body involuntarily fighting Death even yet, I sucked the wound, drawing her life blood into myself. I fought to give her this death and reveled in the battle.
She floated now on wave after wave peaking as her mind changed the feeling of pain each time I sucked deeply at her neck into a pleasure. I felt from her what a truly fine line pain and pleasure really were. She felt she was becoming incorporeal, as the feeling left her arms and her legs. The waves peaked higher and higher as she came closer and closer to that line, and I felt a haze descending on us both.
It was like she had no door at all. Her mind, memory, thoughts, and feelings were completely open and unguarded. I walked towards her trying to understand why she was so without opening myself. I was afraid that any opening in me would bring the Thirst.
She wanted to jump. She was a beautiful girl standing on a bridge thinking of suicide, but it didn’t feel desolate, she didn’t radiate anger or despair, but rather excitement and curiosity. It was so much more than that, so much more complex and, open as she was, it was there for me to know: Death had become something real and concrete to her. She was going to die anyway — and soon — from a disease. There was not a cure, there was no fight to be made. She was just dying slowly and very, very fast. She had known for a time and was beyond mourning it. What happened after that line of life/death was crossed had taken hold of her.
She radiated a feeling like the night before a big long trip. Everything was settled and packed and ready, and before her loomed a great adventure that she was longing for. Death had become as insatiable for her as the Thirst was for me.
I kept walking slowly toward her, I didn’t want to disturb her or startle her into closing herself. I was entranced.
She was thinking of the people she loved, she lit candle flames for them in the sanctuary of her open mind. She hoped that they would join her in this death-adventure someday, but she was not so afraid of loosing them that she would stop walking her own path.
Her longing went to the open blue sky, with the ground miles below and only a parachute keeping her aloft. She had loved that ride down the one time she had gone sky diving. It was freedom to her, it was why she had decided to jump: To embrace that freedom. There was a small ego floating around the idea of jumping too: She was contemptuous of fighting the unfightable to the very end, of dying in a hospital bed battling for first weeks, then days, then hours, then minutes only to be defeated by Death, as a foe. She would have felt selfish burning through money and medicines, taking doctor’s time and the machine that could be used by someone who was battling a disease they could beat. Her doctor had subtly indicated that in order to keep her comfortable once the pain started in earnest, he would prescribe her morphine that would be fatal if she took more than the prescribed dose. The idea seemed wimpy to her, something for a debutante or the elderly. Jumping was ballsy, it embraced the death. She wanted to embrace Death and be embraced by it.
I was next to her now and I opened myself to her. I didn’t fight the Thirst: It was a part of my desire. I wanted to give her a Death, to ride with her right up to that line. I was her Reaper, her Charon. The Thirst rode this desire, it swam in it and intertwined in it. This was everything I wanted and I opened myself up as completely as she was open to me. To have this girl walk into my arms, to have me be her answer, to be able to feed the insistent Thirst without twisting and perverting desires was my deepest lust.
I could feel her moment of pause as she felt me open to her, this strange phantom that had come out of the night, a fantasy of a fantasy. And in this, her very moment of revelation.
I didn’t know if it would be something pleasant or something painful. I had never done this before and I just didn’t know. This would be a kind of a death for me too, I realized, but we could share it. We could walk to the point of Death together and beyond that she went to this adventure alone. I recalled my own jump earlier that evening. The bridge was much higher off the I-5 then my apartment was from the sidewalk, but compared to the jump out of an airplane, it was the same. It had been so fast. Not flying — dropping.
I didn’t hold back my life from her or any part of it. Everything I was, the flash of images that I didn’t understand from last night, and everything that had happened this night was my gift to her, open for her to take or leave as she wanted, just as she had been open to the world when I found her.
I felt her desire shift, in the smallest way. I was beautiful to her, a demonic golden angel of Death and to walk into my arms was everything she had wanted in the jump. Either way it was just one step. Either one took balls and required submission.
Her skin was young and smooth with a slight darkness of ethnicity, but her face held something beyond age or race; a regality of certainty. Black hair, short and choppy blew, in the wind from the cars and trucks rushing by below us as she stood there on a mental ledge. She studied me, her Death embodied, with eyes that held no trace of tears, only a peace that made time irrelevant. She had the time she had, she did not try to rush the moment, nor hold it. She held my eyes as she stepped to me, taking Death into her arms.
She was shorter than me and, as she embraced me, I ran a hand through her hair and kissed her temple through it. We held each other long, comforting each other and letting our desires mingle together, becoming one thing. She turned her face to mine and I gently kissed her full lips. I tasted her aliveness, I tasted slightest hint of green tea, and a little bit of her sickness, and I could smell her blood beneath her skin. Her tongue flicked onto my lip, a quick wetness, then flicked into my mouth, getting nicked a little bit on my razor sharp fang.
She pulled her tongue back into her own mouth and tasted her own pain, the little death of the wound, her lips still against mine. I started to pull back afraid the reality of pain would change what she wanted and not wanting to force this thing. But she reached up and brought me back to her with a hand on the back of my head, gentle and firm. She kissed me with the blood washing between us, almost pushing me beyond the point of sanity to a place primal. I held onto myself, anchored by a thread in a tornado.
She broke the kiss, then, and looked up at me, her eyes dark and seducing. Seducing Death. I kissed her lightly on the mouth again, my hand cupping her face. She leaned into my hand and revealed her neck to me. I kissed her jaw and I kissed her neck and I could feel the pulse beating strong in passion, beating still defying death by continuing. I licked her neck, like a cat. I tasted the salt of her skin before I bit.
Fangs sunk into her flesh and I opened my mouth wide. As soon as my fangs were out of the wounds, the blood spurted into my mouth. It was brandy and port and the finest of wines that have ever existed. It was fresh-squeezed orange juice from a fruit just picked off a tree in the sun. It was hot cocoa with melted marshmallows and it was precisely what the Thirst wanted. I let it flow into me, effortless.
The pain had been nearly nothing for the girl, who had become used to needles and tests and IV’s. She pressed herself against me and held me in her arms as I took her into myself in gulps.
I pressed her tight to me, as though I would absorb her. As her fount slowed, the body involuntarily fighting Death even yet, I sucked the wound, drawing her life blood into myself. I fought to give her this death and reveled in the battle.
She floated now on wave after wave peaking as her mind changed the feeling of pain each time I sucked deeply at her neck into a pleasure. I felt from her what a truly fine line pain and pleasure really were. She felt she was becoming incorporeal, as the feeling left her arms and her legs. The waves peaked higher and higher as she came closer and closer to that line, and I felt a haze descending on us both.
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