Dining at the Devil's Backbone

He crossed his hands at his hips, as though to pull of his sweater, and there was another flurry of movement. The lights went out so the room was as dark as that night.

I cried out, "No. I want to see you."

"Shh, Vivian." His voice came from all around me. In my next breath all my candles were lit. By the time my eyes adjusted, he was laying next to me, unclothed. He stretched out on his side, his head propped on one hand, and his leg flung over mine. His free hand tracing a long elliptical path down my stomach to my mound and back up again. He brushed the tips of my breasts. My nipples hardened and elongated, standing out farther than I'd ever seen them. His lightest touch bringing me closer and closer to an orgasm.

He shifted a little lower, and I felt him pick up the nightstick which had landed conveniently between my legs. I stretched my arms over my head, holding on to the vertical bars of my head board. I clamped my mouth shut, knowing that if I attempted to say anything to him it would be incoherent, unintelligible, verging on gibberish. He smiled, and there was a sweet kind of evil in that smile that made my heart thump louder. He laid his head down on my chest, his ear on my sternum, as though he wanted to listen.

He slipped both hands down the length of my torso, then used one tease open my lower lips. He picked up the billy club with the other hand and put the tip at my entrance. I shuddered, from his touch, the memory of the other night, and from the anticipation. Perhaps I should have been bothered by my primal need for that hard intrusion. I might have been worried if a friend told me she'd been pleasured in that way. Certainly it was possible he could have hurt me, either intentionally or through carelessness.

But as soon as the tip met my inner lips, as soon as that hard width breached my entrance, my body demanded more. My body demanded all of it, as much as could possibly fit. He made a few small circles of the baton, right at the outermost edge of my vagina. Then he spun it in place. My juice dripped down and my hips bucked up, I pushed at the headboard trying to guide him into me. I groaned, loudly. He slipped that wooden rod into me, achingly and desperately slowly. He stopped as I felt the end meeting the top of my tunnel.

He pulled the truncheon out, almost as slowly, spinning it in time with the withdrawal. Then he reversed, pushing it back into me with another twist. In and out, spinning slowly, out and back in. I was spinning. I clung to the headboard because my nerves had made a detour for my pussy. Every nerve I had now ended where that wooden rod moved in and out of me. I heard someone panting, muttering, and distantly realized that had to be me. He moved the rod again and an orgasm crashed over me, crashed through me, shaking me.

Vlad turned his head, shifting his upper body so that he lay face down. He propped himself up with one arm, while continuing to move the nightstick in me with the other. He started kissing me. He ignored my lips and my face. He began at my throat, kissing a line around my neck, and down part of one shoulder. He kept kissing, softly, but drawing my skin into his mouth and tapping with his tongue. He trailed down, onto my breast, then licked around my nipple.

I might have screamed, if I had breath. His tongue on my nipple set me on fire. I exploded. Then he closed his lips around and suckled, softly and then more insistently. I felt his mouth opening wider, and him taking more of my breast into him. For a lot of reasons, I'm thinner than average and my breasts aren't large. But they're not tiny either. No man I've been with has taken even the majority of one of my breasts in his mouth. But Vlad seemed to be. The suction grew, the strength and the rapidity of the pulses. I swear that I felt his lips and his teeth on my chest wall.

He moved the truncheon in me faster, taking longer strokes. I bent my knees, spreading myself even wider, tilting my hips up. I arched my back and would have pressed his mouth more tightly on my breast but I couldn't figure out how to move my arms. I couldn't make my fingers unclasp the headboard. I felt his tongue take a long flat lick up the underside of my breast, then he let go except for the nipple. He sucked my nipple, hard, flicking the tip of his tongue around it. I bucked into him, groaning. He twisted the truncheon and I shattered again.

He let go of the wooden rod, leaving it inside me as he shifted to attend to my other breast. His teeth scraped gently on my skin and he kissed all around the base of that breast, then laid a line of light kisses over the side, across my nipple and down the other side. By then he was kneeling between my legs, and my pussy had been pushing the nightstick out of me.

He looked up at me, and as soon as we made eye contact I knew what he needed, and I knew what I needed.

"I need YOU," I moaned. "You, inside, please, now."

He shoved the billy club away somewhere, and replaced it with his perfect prick. He slid home, full length. It hadn't been an illusion the first time, I could feel his head at my cervix again, could feel the stretch, could feel the sense that my sheath was made exclusively for his penis. I arched my back, pushed down onto him and wrapped my legs at his back.

When I looked at him again, there was a hollow, fundamental hunger in his eyes.

"May I taste you?" he asked. His lips didn't move, and his voice was inside my head.

I nodded, unable to figure out which word would most enthusiastically convey my permission. I hoped he really could read my mind, that he could know how much I wanted that for him.

To my surprise, he didn't move to my neck. He lowered his head to the breast he had just been attending to. He licked all around, and then laid his head down on my sternum. His teeth sank into the flesh of the inner part of that breast. He sucked, and I felt his tongue pulsing against my flesh, licking up the blood I knew was leaking out. One of my hands finally let go, and I cradled his head, pushing his mouth more firmly into my flesh. With his every suck, another orgasm rolled through me. My vagina gripping and pulling his cock deep inside me, my hips rocking up into him.

I thought I'd known pleasure before, but that was a shallow pool compared to the oceanic waves of climax crashing down on me with Vlad's every subtle movement. He managed to remain latched to me even as he started moving his penis, thrusting in me. At first he made small motions, but as I continued to respond and use my body to encourage him, he became more forceful.

He let go of my breast, bracing himself over me and using the leverage of his hips and legs to pull out of me almost completely and then push back in. I grabbed his neck and pulled his face down to me. I made him kiss me, made him let me lick the traces of my blood off of his lips, off of his teeth. I made him let me feel his fangs with my tongue. Something went wild in him when our mouths met.

I planted my feet on the mattress so I could push myself up to meet his downward thrust. We crashed together, over and over. The sound of our pelvises meeting was joyous and obscene and I wished it could be endless. His hand clamped onto my butt, steadying me so that he could grind into me more, harder, faster. I don't know, I lost count, of how many orgasms I had.

All I know for sure is that when he finished, when once again I felt his seed coating me, I was practically paralyzed. He jerked to a stop, and lowered himself down. He kissed me gently again, and I opened myself to his tongue. He pulled his prick out of me and settled on his side, our bodies still touching.

I laid on the bed, arms and legs still akimbo, my breath coming in ragged spurts, and my mind still spinning. My body vibrated, every muscle shaking. He placed a hand on my stomach, spreading his fingers, and once again I had the sensation that he was drawing off a flame that might otherwise have consumed me. I covered his hand with mine and looked at him, grinning drunkenly.

"Finally," I said. "I finally know why the French call orgasms 'the little death'."

"That," he answered, "or sometimes, 'seeing the angels'."

I made myself roll over to face him, searching in his crimson eyes.

"Oh, no. I'd much rather see devils."

"I'm not a devil," he said almost sounding hurt.

I put a hand on his chest, suddenly sorry for my joke.

"No," I whispered. "You're not a devil. You might be my savior."

He looked at me for a long moment. "And you might be mine."

He kissed me deeply, and I fell asleep in his arms.

When I woke up, it was almost noon the next day. Vlad was gone, and I wasn't surprised. What did surprise me was that the apartment was completely cleaned. He'd organized and put away all of the clutter in my bedroom. He'd straightened the mess that was the living room. My cat was curled up next to the pillow he'd lain on, purring contentedly. He didn't leave a note. But I knew I'd see him again.

*~~*

He showed up again about four weeks later, on another night when my roommate was away. I felt him coming up the stairs before he knocked on the door. My cat greeted him like they were old friends, winding between his feet and purring. We made love, and this time I managed to keep my senses. We took our time this time. The truncheon remained on its hook on the door. He let me look at him, and I drank in the sight of his long limbs, his pale skin, and his lack of body hair. His prick was a thing of beauty, uncut and as thick as my slender wrist. He stayed the night, and we spent all of it talking and touching each other. He asked me to pick a number between one and fifty. I picked forty two, and he told me a story about the celebrating the US Bicentennial.

Another month passed until his next visit. I greeted him at the door, and he swept me into his arms, carrying me to bed like a scene in the best kind of cheesy romance novel. After I'd recovered my strength, we sat up in bed and I found myself babbling to him about my life. I found myself telling him secrets and fears and fantasies that I'd never dared speak out loud. Nothing I said bothered him. Nothing I confessed to changed his regard for me. He listened intently, without judgement, and I believed I was safe with him. But I didn't tell him everything.

Thinking about it now, it's striking the things I told him, and the things I didn't. I talked almost exclusively about my present and my plans for the future. I didn't tell him about my family or my past or how I'd wound up where I was, in the circumstances I was. I complained about working two crappy minimum wage jobs, about needing to have a roommate at almost thirty. I talked about wanting to go to college, but not why I hadn't been able to already. I talked about wanting a family, and nothing about the one I'd come from.

I talked of the future, while he talked of his past. He talked about things he'd seen and done. He talked about the ways he'd had to adapt, the languages he'd learned, the things he does to live unnoticed. But he didn't talk about family either.

He asked me to pick a number between fifty-one and one hundred. I picked seventy-three, and he told me about fighting on the beaches at Normandy, in World War II. Could he have been reciting something he read in a history book? Maybe, but I knew that wasn't it. I didn't say the word, but I knew what he was.

Two weeks later he was back. After that he visited more frequently, never more than two weeks apart, but always when my roommate was out. He started showing up earlier in the evening, I'd feel his arrival soon after sunset. I don't know why, but I never asked him where he came from. I never asked him how he knew where I lived.

One night I mentioned wanting a way to reach him when we were apart.

"Check your phone," he said.

I did, and he'd put his information in, with two phone numbers, an email, and no address. His contact photo was the truncheon and he'd listed his name as Bram Stoker.

"You're hilarious," I said. "When'd you do this?"

"December."

That was the first time he'd visited me at my apartment. I'd looked at my phone hundreds of times in the months since then, and I'd never noticed. It was situations like this that I felt the differences between us most acutely. He observed everything, nothing escaped his notice. Nothing escaped his understanding. His mind was quick, agile, taking in new information and remembering everything so well.

He'd just finished telling me about the terror of the Yellow Fever epidemic in Philadelphia, in 1793. It was the latest round in his game of having me choose a number from a range and telling me something that happened that many years ago. His way of leading me to understand how many years he'd witnessed.

Next to him, I felt slow, dull, and weak. No match for his strength. I felt like a receptacle, a vase he enjoyed admiring, but had to be careful with for fear of causing it to shatter. A question formed in the back of my mind, but I didn't ask. I looked into his eyes, his soft gray and red eyes, and lost myself for a moment. I put the phone down, crawled over to him and kissed him. I straddled him and took him deep inside me.

"Taste me," I asked, and he did. He lifted my arm and sunk his fangs into the flesh of my forearm. He let me watch his face as he drank. I saw waves of primal pleasure and hunger coloring his eyes and flushing his skin. I don't know what he saw on my face. I know that I felt a deep yearning for him to do more than taste. I know that the pulse in my neck jumped, jealous to be ignored.

He tasted me almost every time he visited. He never bit my neck. Mostly, he would suckle at one of my breasts until I begged him to bite down, usually while his prick was deep inside me. Each time his bite would seal itself almost immediately, and the mark completely disappear in a few days. He didn't take much more than a tablespoon of blood, or that's what it felt like to me. He was careful, considerate, and more than repaid me in pleasure. But almost every time, I wanted him to take more. I hungered for him to devour me, to bring me to the brink, to suck me nearly dry.

The months went by, and his visits became more frequent still. In May my lease was up. My roommate moved in with her boyfriend, and I moved into a smaller apartment across town. I didn't bother to tell him. I knew he'd find me.

He did, and his only comment was that it would be nice to have real privacy. He stayed the whole weekend. He slept during the day. We talked, touched, and screwed all night. I got an answer to one of the questions that had swirled in my mind since his first visit.

Sunday evening, barely past dusk. I heard him stirring, and listened as he wandered down the short hallway to the living area. My cat, having been asleep in the bed with him, padded next to him, then jumped in my lap, purring. He sat on the couch next to me.

I turned sideways to look at him, and drew in a breath.

But before I formed the words, he said, "I was hunting."

I raised my eyebrows, my mouth half open. I couldn't decide if I loved or hated that he always knew what I was thinking.

He turned toward me, took my hand in his. "I'm a predator, you know that. I was hungry. I was hunting."

He rubbed his thumb across my knuckles, then turned my hand over and did the same over the pulse in my wrist. He looked at my hand, not making eye contact. "I could smell your fear for miles. It smelled. Delicious. So appetizing. And the closer you got."

My stomach growled, even though I'd just eaten some cold pizza. We both chuckled; I'd started to expect an inexplicable synchronicity in our needs.

He looked at my face, finally. "The closer you got, the more I wanted."

"So," I said, "why didn't you?"

"You stopped being afraid. And then I felt something else. Something very rare. A different instinct asserted itself."

He brought my wrist to his mouth and kissed it, tapped his tongue on the pulse, hummed against my skin. I gasped, and then my breath shot out of me like I'd been punched in the gut. I moved toward him, annoying the cat, but I kept moving until our legs were pressed together. He held my hand in his, and cupped my neck with the other.

"Something in your blood matched something in mine. Speaks to something in mine. In me. As soon as I tasted you, I knew I couldn't take you. That you were special somehow."

"They say vampires mate for life. For eternity."

"Who is 'they'?" he asked

"You know, the lore, or the modern lore, anyway."

"Oh," he laughed, mirthlessly. "Most of that is bunk."

"Most of what?"

"The myths humans have come up with. The stories you tell yourselves about things you can't explain."

"Oh," I said. "But, 'Twilight' is a documentary though, right?"

"What?"

"The movies, and the books. You know, vampires and werewolves fighting over the same girl or something. Vampires sparkle in the sunlight. That's gotta be true, right?"

He stared at me, sure I had lost my mind, wondering if I'd suddenly turned into an idiot. I managed to keep a straight face for five or ten seconds before I burst out laughing.

"Next time you visit," I said, still laughing. "We'll watch it. We'll do a marathon of all the vampire romance movies, and you can tell me the parts they get right. It'll be hilarious."

He was so serious all the time. Physically, he looked about thirty. But there was a weariness in his eyes and his movements that hinted at his age.

Finally he laughed too, a full body guffaw that boomed across the small apartment and I grinned along with him.

"That sounds like a fine idea, Vivian." He managed to finally say between chuckles.

Two weeks later, that's what we did.

*~~*

It became the routine. He'd show up at dusk on Friday, and we'd spend all weekend having sex and watching TV shows or movies about supernatural creatures. I also read passages to him from books. He usually tried to distract me.

He usually succeeded. It was difficult to keep reading while he touched or kissed me. One night I had a book in hand and he was using his mouth on my pussy. I thought I did pretty well, only stopping in the middle of the orgasm when I really couldn't breathe. So he redoubled his efforts, laughing that he was going to make me drop what I was holding.

His tongue and lips teased and pleasured me until I shook. But I managed to keep grip on the book, I even sputtered out a word or three. Then he sank a fang into my labia. The second that he drank, that pulse of his tongue and the sensation of my blood in his mouth overwhelmed me. I came so hard I passed out cold.

When I woke up, he was stretched out next to me, his hand on my heart. He tried to look concerned, but mostly his expression was smug self satisfaction. I was too wrung out to be annoyed with him. He gathered me into his arms, fitting himself around my body. I slept deeply, more secure and content than I could ever remember feeling.

When I woke up he was still curled around me, but he'd freed an arm and had been reading the book. I don't remember which one it was. I found the courage to ask him the other question that I'd mulled over for months.

He felt me shifting and put the book down. He kissed me lightly.

"Are you hungry?" he asked

"No, not really. Are you?"

He shrugged. I sat up, put a hand on his chest.

"I'm serious. Are you hungry?"

His eyes narrowed and he clenched his lips into a thin line. "Don't ask me that," he said.

I pressed my hand into his chest more firmly., I felt safe enough to be reckless.

"You could have me, if you wanted," I said. I didn't see the danger.

He sat up, shaking his head, his eyes wide.

"No, I couldn't."

"I'm telling you. I'm ok—"

"You don't know what you're talking about," he interrupted.

"I want to be like you, Vlad. I want you to make me like you. Drinking me is the first step..." I trailed off because of the fury I finally recognized in his eyes.