Bitten Ch. 03

Chapter 3 - Unwanted Questions

Years passed relatively uneventfully. Sarah and I completed our educations, and even managed to be assigned flats in the same tower. I eventually earned myself a place within a large technology firm based here in New York and started the slow process of climbing the corporate ladder. Being a vampire may have helped me get my lowly job within the company largely run by vampires but my 'reputation' certainly wouldn't make getting somewhere in the company easy.

Sarah had become an architect. Her artistic eye helped her quickly move up within her firm and within a few short years she was leading the project designing the new towers to be built within the heart of New York. These four new towers were to be home to just over one million new apartments and thousands of shops replacing about a dozen buildings that were becoming too expensive to maintain. The towers were built in a quadrangle surrounding a multi level central garden with hundreds of park benches, promenades, and a few well placed cafe's designed to provide a green space to retreat to when someone wanted to get away from the rigid sterility that was mecca living. 'Greenscapes' such as this were expensive to build and were a huge beacon of a City's wealth. The apartments within these buildings would only be assigned to those in high standing within the society. Scientists, engineers, ceos, and directors would be given prime pick of the apartments that graced the upper floors. The subterranean floors would house the service people. The men and women who ran the shops, maintained the machinery and made sure that life ran smoothly for the 'higher ups' literally. Everyone chosen to live within these buildings regardless of their relationship to the surface was walking into a massive upgrade from where they were coming from. They were moving further into the city.. further into safety.

Sarah and I were both part of the lucky group chosen to live within these new buildings. By the time their construction had been completed I had managed to climb my way into an assistant directors job at NERO TECH. It was a windy September day when the movers came to pick up my modest possessions and move them to my new apartment. I was excited. Sarah and I had been planning this for months. When finalizing the design of our apartments Sarah and I had built them next to each other and in mirror image to one another with the living rooms sharing a common wall. She'd had a large set of mahogany french doors built into that common wall. That way when we held parties we could open up the two rooms to each other and create one large entertainment space. We soon found that we left the doors open more often than not. It was nice to have company since neither of us had family in the building.

Even back in prep school Sarah had been a promiscuous girl. Changing partners like you or I changed clothes. According to her it was a wolf thing. The pack mentality doesn't let them settle on one person long until they find their one mate. The night before the blood moon Sarah opened the french doors and found me brooding staring out my window at the rising moon. I could already feel the moon's call, I hated it. I looked over at Sarah perched in the doorway like a cat ready to pounce. A stunning couple, her current playmates, heading toward her bedroom naked bodies completely entwined.

"Come join us Lina!" Sarah pleaded from the doorway. "You look like you could use some fun!"

I shook my head, uninterested in joining in on the 'games.' This was not the first time I'd been asked to join in, and I am sure it would not be the last despite the fact that I always declined. Sarah groaned her defeat. "This is not over my friend, we will continue this discussion when I am done entertaining my guests. The door's always open should you change your mind." With that she retreated to her bedroom and her company.

I rose and headed for the kitchen, poured myself another mug of steaming hot tea. As an afterthought I grabbed a tall glass from the cabinet and snagged a dark wine bottle from the fridge. The plain black label only had two lines of white text upon its front. VD 332 - 1742 the initials and age of the source and the date bottled. All blood is labeled like this. Black labels indicate vampire blood, red labels are for human blood. The dark green glass of the bottle hides the color of its contents making it safe for us to store out in the open.

I carried the chilled blood, my glass and my mug of tea back to my chair by the window, pausing to close the double doors on my way as the sounds of sex reached my ears. By the sounds of it Sarah and the male were giving the other female a royal screwing. I latched the doors muffling the sound and retreated to my chair, quickly pouring myself a glass of the dark vampiric blood.

Years of drinking the stuff had meant I no longer needed the chaser of human blood. I welcomed the burn in my throat and the heat as the venom raced through my veins. I no longer needed the blood to heal, the scars on my back turned invisible to the human eye years ago. I now drank the stuff to sleep. Like liquor for humans the venom creates a sort of high. Enough of it and you pass out. One advantage of being a vampire is you don't need much sleep, but you do need some. Having hypersensitive senses being bombarded for too long a period can overload the brain causing headaches. A few hours once a week is more than enough to keep the headaches and grumpiness at bay.

I casually sipped the blood and my tea as i watched the moon creep across the sky as i tried to ignore the passionate screams resonating from next door. This time they were Sarah's. I pictured her perched over the man riding him to oblivion while the woman played with her nipples or ass. Sarah was definitely not a passive lover. She liked control.

Eventually the noises quieted and I sunk back into the silent stupor I was in before I'd been interrupted. The blood had grown warm in its bottle, the tea gone cold in my cup by the time I heard the doors open again. I looked up at Sarah as she approached me and watched her slide into the chair across from me still naked. She stared at me for a long moment and I could tell she was trying to decide how to say exactly what was on her mind. I waited not really wanting to have the conversation I knew that was coming. Sarah had gone down this road before and I knew she'd never been satisfied with my answers.

"You never come play with us." She stated matter of factly.

"I know" I answered flatly and took a sip of my tea and grimaced when i realized it had gone cold.

"Why not?" she asked.

"You know I don't like it," I grumbled knowing she wasn't going to accept that answer either, she never had.

"Okay," she said, "So you don't like the group thing, but I haven't seen you show an ounce of interest in someone in years. You've got to be.. " she chose her word carefully. "Lonely"

I sighed, "I'm really alright Sarah." I got out of my chair and fetched some ice for the blood knowing I was going to want it at the rate Sarah was going. "Why is my personal life under scrutiny? Why do I NEED someone,?!" I shot back at her as I came back to my chair.

"Do you really want to be alone for the rest of your life Lina? A spinster for the next several hundred years?"

I scowled at her and said nothing taking a big drink of the blood purring as it burned down my throat.

She looked at me for a moment trying to figure out another plan of attack." What about that man I saw you with at school? He was cute. what happened to him?"

I curled tighter into my chair as I processed what she asked. I knew who she meant. It was the only time she'd ever seen me be 'social.' She was asking about Damion. The man the council had chosen to be my first 'consort' he had come to the college a few weeks before the blood moon the year after my botched ceremony. He had come to discuss what would be expected of me at that year's ceremony, despite the fact that I didn't have any interest in going. It was tradition and vampires are all about tradition. Sarah had seen us sitting in one of the cafe's making plans over coffee. I didn't go home that night. She assumed I was with him and I had never admitted it to her that she'd been right. As gentle as he was any woman would have found pleasure in his touch, but I didn't. The scars of the previous year both physical and emotional left me broken and raw after the experience and I decided then that I never wanted to lie with someone again even if it meant being alone. Somehow Damion had understood.

I looked up to realize Sarah was still waiting for an answer. "He had a place in vampire society that could not include me." I answered her. Sarah would never understand the type of relationship Damion and I now shared. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair and waited for Sarah's next question that never came. We both stared out the window as the sky lightened with the rising of the sun. It wasn't until the bright pink streak of sunlight hit the window in the building across from us glaring into my apartment did Sarah surrender. She rose from the chair, kissed me on top of my head as she passed. "Good morning Little Lina, be safe tonight. I'll see you after the blood moon."