A Change of Seasons

That was it of course, she was tired, kind of drunk. She just didn't see him right. Or maybe she had, and it was just a weird birth defect. Whatever. She was alive. She looked out the windshield. The corvette still sat there. She was sure it had to be his. It would finish the image off. Whatever, she would leave him. Too risky to be with him. He might not be altogether upstairs.

She reached for her keys. "Where did they go?" she muttered under her breath. She found them sitting on the box on her front seat. Dawn's lilac carress lit the interior of her car.Wasn't it dark a second ago? Her skin iced over like a wasteland, the chill horror froze her veins again. She would have remembered putting a box in her car. Especially one gift-wrapped with a card and a rose on it. A black rose.

Chapter 2: Embrace

She just stared at it. A solitary black rose and a package wrapped in gold with a card on it. Karyn couldn't remember if it was there when she dove into the car or not.I'd have remembered that... or would I? her thoughts were panicked... muddled. She reached for it then froze. Almost afraid to touch it for fear that it would bite her. She picked up the card. It was sealed with wax and a crest was pressed into it. Just like in those old movies. The wax imprint of the dragon cracked apart as she opened the letter. She glanced up from the piece of paper in her hands as she heard the Corvette's engine roar out at the night. Soon even the tail lights could not be seen. She looked back at the letter. A flowing script wrote:

"My Dear,

I regret that we fought. It was, up till that point, a most enjoyable night. You were right, I did think you to be too young to understand. But you were also wrong. I am different. Your twentieth century mind will flood you with hundreds of reasons for what you saw. That I am a genetic freak. That the light was bad. That you hallucinated. It will try to obliterate the one true thought your instincts have. That I am a vampire. A predator. That I live on blood. These are the same truth. I was wrong to think you so incapable of understanding. You will believe what you want. I will tell you that I have lived through what your mind would call several eternities. I have done what is necessary for me to survive. I knew the instant I saw you that I loved you. When you live as long as I have, by yourself, you learn every last detail there is to know about yourself. You see with painful clarity that which is missing in your life. Gods. I speak of living and of life. I know nothing of either. I can not die. I am already dead. Yet undead also... or is it unliving. You are that piece of me which has been missing. I need you. In the package you will find a gift. If you want me. If you need me to come and visit you. Wear it and I will be there. I await your call.

Love,

Sylvaine"

With still cold, shaking hands she lifted the lid of the golden box. Nearly screaming as a spark of silver slipped to the car floor. Her keys. Lavender scented gauze wrapped whatever lay in the box. She parted the gauze and looked. Widening blue eyes fell on dark blue satin shot through with gold thread. Somehow she knew the thread was real gold. With trembling hands Karyn pulled it out of the box. The box was filled with lingerie. No, that isn't quite right. It was all meant to be worn as an outfit. A costume.

Maybe he likes to play with his food came the sudden thought... terrifying and amusing at the same time. She marvelled at what the material felt like in her hands and wondered what it would be like to feel this gentle caress against her body. She almost craved it.Would his touch be as gentle? Would Sylvaine's caress feel as unearthly? She let the fabric slide from her fingers back into the box, like liquid night pulling from the dawn. She closed the box. The spell seemed broken. All the revery over what his hands would feel like upon her seemingly sealed away within Pandora's box.

She reached down and picked her keys up from the floorboard. They slipped into the ignition with a familiar click and with a flick of her wrist she turned over the engine. The clock on the dash read 5:55am as she pulled out of the bar's parking lot.

What were her friends to think? She stumbled in the door at almost six-thirty in the morning. No one saw her leave the bar. "I was in the parking lot." she said as she tried to get in her room. The other girls said she was out of her mind, they searched all over, including the parking lot. And where did she get the box anyway. What was in it? Isn't black a kind of morbid colour for a rose? They barraged her with questions.

"I'm tired. I want to go to sleep." She said quietly as she opened her door. Stepping into the room, she looked over at her roommate's bed. It was empty.She probably went home for the weekend, came the unconscious thought. She could still hear her friends voices in the hallway, even after the door closed. Hushed so she wouldn't hear them... supposedly.

"Do you figure she was with some guy?"

"She didn't seem that drunk to me."

"I'll bet she doesn't even know who she fucked."

"Karyn? Fuck someone?! Get real!"

"I wonder what she got?"

The voices finally faded down the hall to another room.

She was so tired. Slow legs kicked her shoes off into the corner. Arms weighted with drowsiness unfastened her jeans and peeled them down her legs. She was at least awake enough to carefully unbutton the satin blouse and drape it across the back of a chair instead of just dumping it in the laundry basket. Karyn unfastened her bra, removed it and tossed it into the basket in the bottom of her closet along with her jeans and other laundry.

The room was cool and the smells of coffee, deodorant, and perfume were clipped and muted. She was almost completely naked. The sky was starting to get brighter. So was her room. The sound of dry hands on soft skin whispered as she crossed her arms over her naked breasts and rubbed her shoulders trying to stay warm. She looked down at the box and thought about what was inside it.

Her mind travelled over the offers and promises it implied.Maybe I should wear it. Then she pushed the thought aside. It didn't feel right...not now. She dragged open a drawer and wrested a light peach night gown out from it. Fatigued limbs slipped it over her head. Throwing the comforter back on her bed, she slipped under the sheets and fell asleep almost instantly. Her last conscious thought was of Sylvaine's glowing face in the lamplight. How his eyes seemed ancient. She lost herself then in slumber, and fitful, terrible, erotic dreams.

Karyn lay comatose in her bed till well after noon. The sun was pouring in through the shutters. A watery bright spot splashed on the ceiling. Her sleep clogged eyes traced the reflection back to the gold box on the floor. The rose and letter still sitting on the lid where she had left them... dreamt she had left them. At least she had been hoping...fearing... that it had been a dream.

She crawled out of her bed and pulled back the lid on the box, guarded cautious movements. It hadn't changed. If anything, the garments were even more stunning than before. She slipped the lid back on the box and put it in her closet.Where the monsters live. She laid the letter and rose on her desk, grabbed a towel, soap, and the rest of what she needed to start the day, then she walked down the hall to the bathroom and took her shower and thought about the night before.

Strange, a hot shower usually unmuddles my brain. Things weren't much clearer as she slipped the sweatshirt over her head. She was definite on one thing though. She didn't want her friends to know. They wouldn't believe her.Hell, I can't believe it myself. She really didn't feel like being laughed at. Not this time. She went down to the dining hall and grabbed some food. At least that was what they passed it off as. Actually, it wasn't that bad, for something with the aroma of damp cardboard. It just seems like some unwritten law that you criticize cafeteria food. Her friends were there and they pried at her with questions about the night before.

"I really don't remember anything."

A few comments were made about being drunk enough to erase a night's memories, and then the subject was dropped. By them at least. The same thoughts just slammed around in her head though.Sylvaine... a vampire. She ran through the rest of the night with her friends with her body on auto pilot while she kept thinking about Sylvaine. They all wanted to go out again.

"I don't think so. Not tonight.", she told them politely.

They said they understood, and let her off the hook. At least they did after a few jokes about alcohol at her expense.

She walked into her room and closed the door behind her. She left the light off. The full moon shone from a crystal midnight sky. It lit the room with a pure silver light. She walked over to the window. It had been a warm day and a gentle breeze still teased at the sheer curtains through the open windows. Hinted scents of "Indian Summer"-dampened soil trickling to her. She thought about Sylvaine. It was night.

He must be fierce to behold when he takes his prey... an animal... a killer. She thought about that. There was a wrongness to it that she couldn't quite understand. She couldn't get him out of her mind. Her eyes nervously flitted around the room and lit upon the box. Karyn remembered the feel of the satin in her hands.I want to know what his carresses feel like. Will he come? He said he would.I'm going to do it. He said if I wore it he'd come to me.If he talked that was fine. But this time she would take what she wanted. At least that was what she told herself.

She set the box on her bed, and looked at the gold colour of it in the moonlight. She stripped her clothes from her body as if she were in a trance. Denim and cotton almost misted from her body to the floor. For a long while she just stood in front of her bed looking at the box, letting the night winds stroke her nude flesh.

She let her thoughts drift over Sylvaine.Do I really want to see him tonight? Was she being a fool for believing he would come if she dressed in these pieces of satin? The more she thought about him, the more Karyn realized that she needed him to be with her tonight. Unconscious fingers traveled down her belly and then slipped between her legs. Her body was screaming for him. A gasp slipped from her suddenly moist lips and her left thigh spasmed with a delightful shudder. She still wasn't sure her mind was up to it. Frightened fingers pulled the pieces of lingerie from the box.

As satin poured from the box the realization struck that all she had seen the night before was a satin robe. It couldn't help but be noticed now that not everything was made of satin. There were laces and silks... all luxurious... all that deep midnight blue. When the last piece slipped from the box, she looked then at what he had given her.

There were silk stockings and a satin garter belt, delicate lace panties and bra. A lace edged silk camisole and the robe completed the contents of the box.One things for sure, she thoughthe sure thinks like a living man. Maybe he isn't as dead as he likes to say he is? She thought about it for a moment.What does he want from me. How is he going to know that I'm wearing his gifts. Finally she decided that she didn't care.

The lingerie was beautiful. She had to know what it was like to feel it against her skin. She fastened the garter around her waist, then slid the stockings over her legs. Next she slipped her arms into the straps of the bra and fastened the clasp where it hooked in front. Karyn picked up the small lace creation that were the panties. Holding them up to the moon she easily saw it's silver eye through them. They were like gosamer midnight... so delicate. She stepped into them and pulled them up her legs. As she pulled the waistband over her hips she could tell without looking that the lace barely covered her soft golden brown pubic hair. Karyn looked over at her mirror as hands, unfamiliar with the garters, fastened the straps to the tops of the stockings.

The full moon gave enough light that she saw herself clearly. These undergarments were definitely not designed for function. They were created to make her the most desirable creature to walk the planet. The lace of the bra and panties concealed nothing. She could see every part of her body as if it were still naked in the moonlight. Her breasts got no support from the bra, not that they needed any. Her nipples stiffened as a chill breeze swept through the room. She reached for the camisole and pulled it on over her head; now she was covered... a sheath of night sky draped from shoulder to thigh. Yet, it subtracted nothing from her desirability.

Finally, reluctantly, Karyn put on the robe. The robe flowed over her like liquid nightshade. The occaisional flash of incandescent blue-white reflecting from the shining fabric.Almost seems a shame to cover all of this... hell, to cover me. She was wondering how long she would have to wait to find out if Sylvaine would try to contact her. Would he phone her, or would he call out to her from below. The dorms were locked now. No visitors. She finished belting the robe.

"You are still so very beautiful."

She whirled towards the window. There he stood. Sylvaine had come just as he had promised. The moonlight made his skin glow like pearls. She ran past him, over to the window and looked down to the ground three floors below. There were no ladders, no ropes. Not above or below.

"How did you get here?" She asked.

"Why not ask what you really want to know."

"I really want to know how the hell you got up here. It's just not humanly pos..." her voice died... her eyes widened... she glanced over at him.

"And can you now accept this." openly smiling now, his fangs a terrible white in the moonlight. "I will live past the deaths of your grandchildrens' grandchild. I will remember everything. I am eternal. My memory painfully lucid. I will remember what it feels like to see your body exposed to me as those glorious wrappings are pulled from your body, to see the moonbeams bathe your breasts. I will remember the feast you will provide me. I won't be able to forget any detail of it. Not even if I desparately wanted to."

"Y-you sound so sure of what I will and won't do." caution had crept back into her voice.

"How can I not? I have seen you in hundreds of various faces and guises. Your soul craves me. It can not be whole without being forged in my evil." seeing her expression cloud over "Oh yes. Don't ever mistake me for anything other than a killer. It is the soul of my existance."

"Then why do you wish to see me dressed as you requested?", she found herself lapsing into the archaic English almost naturally.

"I thirst for blood. It is my life. Though others label it as a perversion of the natural order, I crave the passions of the flesh. There are those of my kind that would sooner die than visit again the hellish cravings of passion. I, on the other hand, am obsessed with them."

"What are you saying? What do you want?", her eyes started to get a wild cast.

"Don't worry, I want only to bed you." his voice was casual. His eyes, however, those were wrong. They looked at her as if she were something to be devoured.

"I won't! I won't let you do this to me. I don't want this!" her mind shrieking... her voice a whisper.

"Yes!", he hissed as he unbelted her robe "You will do this!"

Karyn reached down between them and grabed his hands. They weren't warm like a normal man's. She couldn't even budge them. He grabed both her wrists and pushed her back against the wall of her room. She tried to struggle, but he effortlessly overpowered her. The breeze and moonlight both ran over her body... along with Sylvaine's hunter's eyes. He leaned into her, his mouth open... his tongue ran over his fangs. She gasped as she felt him brush those teeth against her throat. His lips slowly laid small kisses along her neck. Occaisionally, he teasingly bit at her neck, though not enough to break the skin.Damn those are sharp! Her breathing was becoming more and more ragged. Sylvaine still had her hands pinned against the wall above her head. And then something in Karyn changed.

Even she wasn't sure when it happened. Arms that were, only moments ago struggling against Sylvaine's shackling grasp, now tried to pull free to embrace him. She leaned her head back and gave him freedom to do whatever he wanted to her throatIf he wants to kill me, she figured,he would have done it already. Again, those two sharp points trace their way along her neck. The vampire pressed his body against hers, his free hand slipping gently between her legs.

Sylvaine ran his fingers over the crotch of her panties. They were moist and hot. She couldn't deny this to herself anymore. She really did desire him. When Karyn stopped struggling, he freed her hands and slipped the robe from her shoulders. As it hit the floor he drew her into his arms, and pulled her face towards his and kissed her deeply. Her tongue grazed over the fangs in his mouth she found herself getting more and more arroused. She began to grind her hips into his, an action that she had never done with any other man.

She could feel his erection through his pants. Unbuttoning his shirt she pushed it back off of his shoulders. Firmly, gentle hands lifted the hem of her camisole over her head and pulled it off her body to drop it on the floor near her robe. The image of her framed in the mirror flashed into her mind... a beautiful woman... clothed but thoroughly naked. She knew that Sylvaine could see her nipples and the light hair between her legs easily. A blush pulsed to her cheeks.My God, what do I look like to him?

Sylvaine gasped as the camisole touched the floor. The moon lit her body exquisitely. He could have seen her even if it were pitch black, but this was much better. Her nipples were stiffening.Hopefully not from the cold, he thought. The midnight lace of the bra and panties gave the illusion of clothed civility. She was nude though. She knew it too. He could see the blood flooding through her cheeks in a rush, colouring her cheeks.

His eyes saw like it was daylight. A predatorial gaze watched her firm breasts rise and fall with each gasped breath. Sylvaine easily saw the golden tuft of hair through her panties. Strong arms pulled her back into his body, his right hand finding its way back between her firm young thighs. Opening his mouth he kissed her again. He could feel her tongue dancing over the tips of his fangs. She seemed to be fascinated by them.They must arrouse also, I can feel her geting more and more moist between her legs. As he broke off the kiss he trailed his tongue, lips, and teeth in a graceful dance along her jaw to her throat. Again he was amazed at how excited she seemed to be getting.

The vampire reluctantly pulled his hand away from between her legs. Karyn ground her crotch into his body as his free hand unclasped her bra. The cups pulled back off of her breasts. One caught briefly on her nipple then even that almost covered piece of her body was completely exposed to him. His gentle hands pushed the straps off her shoulders and the bra fell to the floor where the rest of her clothing seemed to be heading.

Sylvaine pulled her into his embrace and lifted her slight body off of the floor. With arms enfolding her, he playfully kissed and nipped at her sensitive throat. Through the fabric of his silk shirt, her stiff nipples brushed against his chest. As he lowered her back to the floor, he reached around behind her and ran his hand over the cheeks of her firm bottom. The panties she was wearing, the ones he had given her, covered next to nothing. Long fingers slipped between her legs from behind, teasing her. Lips and teeth were never far from her mouth or ears or throat.