Beyond Nocturne Ch. 01

You could leave right now, she thought, you could leave him right now and go find a couple gang bangers to drain dry...

But I miss this, she replied to that small voice that had somehow escaped the bondage of the thirst, I miss knowing what it is to be loved...

This isn't love, the voice told her, This is a lie.

Lydia looked into his eyes as he massaged her breasts and gently kneaded them with a tenderness she had never known existed until now. He seemed so sincere as he touched her, and that sincerity both intensified her need for him and her guilt over her actions. Lydia could hardly breathe as the battle for Steve's life raged inside. It was a losing battle to be sure, and she knew this even before she gave in and released her body to the thirst.

Steve knelt down and began kissing her left breast delicately, working his tongue over and around her sensitive nub in small circles. Lydia tilted her head back, completely lost in his touch and a powerless slave against her nature. Before her mind clouded over with the blind physical attraction she was feeling, she felt the need to cry, to lash out and mourn this man. She knew that when this was done, he would be dead. She would be truly guilty of murder and that would be the simple truth.

She pulled him up and began to undo his slacks. When the belt wouldn't give, she sighed and flexed the powerful muscles in the fingers of her right hand. A moment later, five one-inch long claws sprang out of small openings in each of her finger tips. With one deft move, she sliced the leather of the belt. The claws retracted immediately as the fabric and leather ripped part under her otherworldly strength. Amazingly, he didn't even get scratched in the process and never saw her nails retract. He wore no underwear, and the sight of his manhood made her flush red.

"Hey, those were good pants," he protested as Lydia tore his shirt off, exposing his body. She felt the lust inside her becoming as prominent as the craving for his blood. Lydia kicked her boots off and removed her pants as they embraced as lovers. Their skin was a conductor, a perfect channel in which their sexual energy could pass and jolt their bodies. They back up through the living room, never breaking the kiss and somehow made it to his bedroom. She threw him to the bed and felt dizzy from all the wild sensations that were overwhelming her.

Time seemed to slow down as she felt closed her eyes and felt them coupling. Her heavy breathing echoed through her mind like a voice in an amphitheater as the distinctive feeling of being penetrated tickled her. Thus followed the hot presence of Steve within, not just physically but emotionally now, the both of them truly connected and sealed as they expressed their feelings.

It's a lie, an echo faded away just beyond her hearing.

Lydia could feel Steve's heart racing as she found her rhythm and made love to him, her hands braced against his chest. It was beating so hard, so furiously as they joined. She could sense his feelings for her, and now she realized that they were feelings he too had long been denied. He was a lonely man, forever apart from other people and yet desperately wanting to be with someone. He wanted to be loved as badly Lydia wanted to be, maybe even more so. And Lydia was taking advantage of that very human need now.

She wanted to believe that what he was feeling for her was real, that she had somehow earned it and it was as pure as he believed it was. But she knew better. She that no matter what happened, his love for her had been planned and artificially cultured. It had been an elaborate hoax to hide the fact that she wanted to take something from him that did not belong to her.

But oh, how she wanted to believe.

She felt the stab of self-loathing as she tilted her head back and shook under the heat boiling up inside her. She felt a sudden bloom of intense heat from her inner sex, an undeniable flowering of a seed long since forgotten. Her lips trembled and she knew that she was close to the plateau of a climax. A wave of sadness threatening to crest the physical fire of her fruition rose up against her. She ran her hands over her body, slick with a fine mist of sweat and struggled to find some way to keep from shaking as she was. She slid her hands up to her neck, feeling the twin puncture wounds just below her right ear

In the middle of the storm inside as she reached her point of no return, Steve spoke three simple words that cut through her heart like a hot blade and changed her life forever. He whispered, "I love you."

Lydia paused for a moment, and realized that she had just destroyed him. She had violated him not only physically and mentally but now emotionally as well. The power she felt inside him was love, and it was a gift he had been saving for someone else. It was a simple, priceless treasure that she had exploited and plundered. She had taken his most precious possession from him and now, as she stood poised to take his life along with it, she felt pure unbridled hate for what she had become.

A tear rolled down her cheek.

I love you...

She threw her head back as the orgasm seared through her body.

I love you...

Lydia cried out.

I love you, he echoed in her mind as her body was ravaged under the heat of her culmination.

Her teeth unsheathed, growing longer and she could hold back no more.

"I'm so sorry," she wept and buried her fangs in Steve's neck as deep as they could go. She ravenously fed on him, swept away in a bloodlust that seemed to go on forever. His blood exploded from the wounds and pumped out in a long stream from under the seal of her lips to his skin. She drank deep, his connection to her ebbing and losing power as he struggled against her. He convulsed and tried to hit her as she fed on him, and she could sense his mind spinning as he screamed in pain and ecstasy. Ecstasy turned to fear as the toxin secreted from her fangs paralyzed him.

Lydia was an animal now, her humanity shredded and reduced to nothing more than a memory as the thirst commanded her and took control of her ever action. After a few futile jerks and spasms he slowly began to be still. Gurgling, shallow breaths bubbled from his mouth as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and snail-trailed to his ear. His beautiful black eyes rolled back into his head as she drained him, his skin turning a pale white as his life slowly left his body.

I love you, he had said to her.

Of all things Lydia had imagined saying in response to that very rare phrase over the last three hundred years, "I'm so sorry" was the very last reply she had ever wanted to give. Nevertheless, it was the honest truth. She was so very sorry for what she had done.

I am sorry, she thought as her cold tears ran down her face and mixed with his blood, I'm weak and sorry.

She continued for an hour, sucking and feeding, appeasing the darkness within as she clasped his dying body to her own. She would not let him become what she was; she could at least give him that. She would kill him and spare a lifetime of loneliness and hate. She would make certain that the virus that damned her to eternal hell on earth could not establish itself in this man's body. No matter what, he would not suffer her evil anymore than he had to.

A strangled gurgling sound drifted from his open throat as his eyes fixed on the ceiling. Lydia felt the essence of his life pass out of him like a warm breeze and into the next life, a place she was cursed to never see. She envied him.

One last rattling breath hailed his departure from this world, and he was no more.

Lydia stood up, naked and streaked with blood. Her eyes glowed blue, and reflected in the window of his bedroom. She looked down at his body and the horrible wound she had made, so bright and raw against the white skin of his corpse. Tears were flowing heavily down her face as she came back to her senses. Lydia clasped a hand to her face, covering her mouth as she tried to control the sobs that heaved her chest. Her eyes burned with tears and her stomach felt sick despite the content fullness of her thirst.

She knew the police would be here soon. She suspected that his neighbors probably heard him scream when she bit him. Even if they didn't, hanging around the scene of a murder was never a good idea. She walked around the bed and mourned this stranger. She placed her hand gently on his chest over where his heart was now silent and still and cold. She leaned in and put her lips to his in a kiss that she knew she did not have any right giving him. The kiss last only for a moment and then she closed his eyes with a delicate sweep of her fingers. She stood back and could look at him no more. She covered him with one of his blue satin sheets and left him there.

She had committed murder.

The thirst had been fulfilled, but it was still murder no matter what anyone said or how she tried to justify it. Steve hadn't been a rapist or wife beater or sex offender. He was an innocent man who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. After a few minutes of standing there, she decided to stop rationalizing it. She was a murderer, and she felt it was disrespecting him even more by trying to label it as anything else.

She showered in his bathroom, her body caressed and soothed by the stream of hot water. The blood fell from her body as she washed the physical evidence of her sin off. The blood-tainted water circled around the drain and disappeared into the blackness and out of sight but unfortunately not from memory. It swirled the open hole in a hideous vortex that cried out her guilt. That steady jet of hot water caressed her skin and enveloped her in a plume of steam.

She had become accustomed to killing, to taking lives and feeding. Her prey had always been men of a murderous nature, wife beaters, rapists, and criminals. Lydia had consoled herself and justified her actions by attacking people who sought to hurt and take life. Their blood, soured by their malevolence was never as fulfilling as the pure, sweet blood of the innocent. But she knew if she crossed that line, if she started feeding on the innocent and giving in to the thirst completely as she had so foolishly done tonight, she would lose what little bit of herself she had been able to hold on to.

So Lydia went after the evil in the world, searching for atonement in weeding out the bad. Really, she was doing society a favor, she had reasoned. The world loses two more assholes a week every week, and she got to live that much longer. She had feasted on the bad men of the world for over three hundred years now across two continents. She had saved lives, and she had known the appreciation of those spared by her nocturnal nature. Sometimes she even felt like she was winning over the darkness in her heart. Sometimes, she almost felt like a hero.

But not tonight.

Tonight her dark half had gotten the best of her so easily that she was in shock. Tonight she had crossed her own self-imposed line. She had fed on an innocent man. A good man.

Lydia dressed and left the apartment, taking great care not to look back at the man she had just murdered.

Once she was back out on the street, she found the rain had stopped and a lonely fog was rolling in from the ocean. It was viscous and thick, seeming to have a life all it's own. She walked away as the sounds of approaching wailing sirens filled the night. The police were racing to the scene, hoping to save a life and nab a bad guy. They would bring forensic experts and investigators but would find nothing. They would never find fingerprints or DNA samples, as she had none to give. She was a vampire, a creature outside of humanity and therefore no longer subject to what made a woman human.

Inside her, she felt the darkness abated and slumbering silently, giving her peace for now. As she walked down the street, she felt a new emptiness inside her. The moments in which she had felt Steven's misguided love for her had touched her deeply, and as result left a scar.

"Maybe that's the price I have to pay for this," she said to no one, turning down a blind alley and letting the shadows hide her. She added, "Maybe to be damned is to never know love again."

For all the amazing things she could do, for all her strength and knowledge and intuition, she couldn't hold the thirst back. She had let her guard down for a moment, and it had slipped by like an experience thief.

She thought again of Steven and wept.