Teachings in Blood

"Don't be silly, I won't drive you out of your own bed. Or, is it too small for two?"

"Well, it is a double, actually. The previous... tenant left it here. But, are you sure?"

"Don't worry, love. I'm sure you will be a perfect gentleman."

"Well, right this way then, my lady," Andy replied with a bow and a flourish.

In the bedroom Lee dropped her coat and backpack on the only chair, and while Andy dug up a spare blanket and pillow from the closet she sat on the bed to untie her sneakers. Then she unceremoniously pulled off her trousers and was suddenly standing before him in only the tight top and a pair of black panties. Andy blinked in surprise, and started, a bit self-consciously, to pull off his own clothes. Lee watched him as she adjusted the scrunchies securing her pigtails to a more comfortable position, and when he dropped the kilt she smiled slightly but remained silent. She lay down on the bed and pulled the blanket up to her waist while Andy checked the sunproofing on the window, and was almost asleep when he slipped down on the other side of the bed.

"Good morning then, kitten," he said as he stroked her hair just once, and then he too lay down and let the daysleep carry him away.

*******

Andy woke up slowly, lying flat on his back in the bed. He felt the lethargy leaking out of his body, and sensations returned to his numb limbs like water soaking into a sponge. Or like blood soaking into a living room carpet. He sensed movement beside him in the bed, and was at first startled and alarmed, but then he remembered that he had company. He slowly turned around and got up on one elbow.

Lee was curled up in a fetal position, almost like a sleeping cat. She had gone to sleep lying flat, and he could see her stirring slightly, so she must be waking up as well. He reached out and softly pulled her hair away from her face, and she twitched a little. Andy slid himself up to sit with his back to the headboard of the bed and continued to watch her for a few minutes. To actually wake up next to someone was unusual for him, it had happened rarely even before his change. After the change, staying with someone until dawn was of course completely out of the question.

Lees top had slid up a bit to reveal her lower back, and Andy could see the dark blotches where blood had pooled inside the skin during the night. He knew he had them himself, it was a reminder that the blood no longer circulated on its own. They would go away when he started moving around, of course, but he still hadn't gotten used to them. He reached out and touched her skin where the blotches were. It felt smooth, and slightly waxy. Around the dark marks, the skin was nearly perfectly white.

Suddenly, with lightning speed, Lee twisted around and grabbed his hand. A snarl distorted her face, and she raised the other hand to slash at him. Andy knew that his best bet right then was to remain still and let her wake up properly. If he resisted, she would treat him as a threat and defend herself. He kept himself very still, and slowly the haze faded from her eyes and she relaxed.

"Andy? Good night... what happened?"

"I'm sorry, Lee. I was just looking at your gravity blotches when you woke up, I guess I startled you. Shouldn't have done that."

"Gravity blotches?" Andy pointed at her calves, where she would be able to see for her self. "Oh, gross! I've always hated those! They're on my back as well?"

"Whatever part of you that's been facing down. Don't worry, they'll go away after a while, or you can rub the tissue with your hand to force the blood away, like this." He demonstrated on her calf. "I do that sometimes, I'm just never able to reach the ones on my back and shoulders."

"Oh well," she smiled mischievously, "if you'll do me, I'll do you".

She quickly sat up with her back towards him, and pulled off her top. She then lay down on her stomach and motioned for him to begin. Andy hesitated for a moment, and then placed his hands on her shoulders. There were large blackish marks around her shoulder blades, but the very spots where they had touched the bed were completely white. The pressure had closed the capillaries and prevented the formation of bruises. He started rubbing her smooth skin, gently at first but slowly applying a little more force. The bruises faded away under his fingers. Lee sighed and turned her head to one side.

"That feels really good, you know."

"Well, I was aiming for 'not uncomfortable', and if I reached 'good', I'm happy," he replied with a smile.

As he moved further down her back he had to shift position, and ended up straddling her legs. When he reached her buttocks, he realized that if something like this had happened a year ago he would have had an erection the size of a small country by now, but there was not even a whisper of arousal from his groin. Lee was very beautiful, and he knew that he would have had a hard time keeping himself from simply pulling off her plain black thong if he had still been mortal. He said nothing, just kept up the massage.

When he had finished, he lay back down next to her, patted her back and smiled.

"Your turn, love."

She got up, covering her breast with her arm, and Andy rolled over on his stomach. She immediately straddled his hips.

"I see what you mean about the blotches fading on their own, but they're still very visible on you. We'll have to do something about that, won't we?" She wiggled her hips playfully on top of his bottom, and started rubbing his shoulders gently.

As she rubbed, Andy felt himself relaxing from tensions he hadn't known he was holding. He suddenly realized that this was the first time since the change that anybody had touched him like this. Sure, he had been "intimate" with others, but that was only with humans who he intended to feed on, and he was usually the one doing the touching, the one in control. This was not something done for gain, it was just something between two friends, and it was a rare thing for him these days.

As Lee moved down and started rubbing his buttocks, she giggled a little.

"A few years ago, I would probably have killed for an opportunity like this," she said.

"You're not the only one," he said into the pillow. "To get a massage from a steaming hot lady like you? I'd have wrestled a tiger for that!" Lee's hands froze on his bottom for a moment, and then continued. When she rose to move down to his legs, he flipped himself over with blistering speed onto his back, to look her in the eyes. She started to pull her arms back, but he caught her wrists and restrained her, still straddling him. She struggled briefly, but he kept her in his grip and did that mind trick he used to calm down fighters in a brawl, until she relaxed a little. He then let go of her wrists and instead placed his hands gently on her thighs.

"Relax, Lee. If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done so already, and you know I'm not like that."

When he had released her hands, she had wrapped her arms around her, covering her breasts. Now she sat slightly hunched and looked down, not meeting his eyes. Andy knew that by staying on his back, allowing her to keep straddling him, he presented himself as less of a threat even though they both knew he was physically stronger. He deliberately didn't grip her, just rested his hands on her legs.

"Look, I know we've talked about this before. You're hot, you know it, and I don't understand why you won't use that tool to the fullest. I get the feeling there's something else going on, that you're not telling me. I'm your friend here, OK? If there's something bothering you, I'd like to know about it, otherwise I'll just keep saying and doing things by mistake that'll hurt you. And I don't want to hurt you."

Lee was shivering now, he could feel it. She slid off him to sit cross-legged on the bed, and he sat up to put the blanket over her shoulders. Not that the cold bothered either of them anymore, but he wanted her to feel comfortable. He then lay back down next to her, and patted her knee. She took a couple of deep breaths, and started talking in a voice that shook with emotion.

"It's just... it's just that I'm so scared. You know, of... loosing control. I'm afraid I'll... let the Beast out, you know."

"Why would that happen? Unless you're in danger, or wait until you're starving before feeding, staying in control shouldn't be a problem. It's never been for me. Has someone told you that is what happens?"

"No, but... I don't know how to do it anyway."

"How to do it? You do it just like when you were mortal, you just need to concentrate a little since it's no longer a reflex... uh, you have done it before, right?"

Lee hesitated. "Well... look, this is difficult for me, but I'll have to tell you from the beginning, or you won't understand. Have I told you I was only nineteen when I was turned?"

"No, you hadn't."

"Well, I was. I guess you could say my childhood was... well, I'll tell you more another time, but I was living on the street by the time I was 10. I was just like any other street kid, really... or, there was this thing with the animals. You know I love animals, right?"

"I had noticed." Andy had indeed. Lee was constantly attracting all sorts of animals; stray cats and dogs, birds and even rats. This wouldn't have been a problem if the animals had liked Andy as well as Lee, but this was not the case. In fact, most animals seemed to hate the very sight of him, and he had heard from other vampires that it was like that for most of them.

"Okay. Well, because of that, I got in touch with this guy called Antonio, or Tony, who got me a job at a zoo. That got me off the street as well, you know. I stayed with Tony for a few years, and we got involved... or I suppose I got involved." She suddenly sounded bitter. "I guess he just thought I was annoying, but he was the only one who had done anything nice for me in... well, ever, really. His 'kindness' made me love him, and when he rejected me I just tried harder. I suppose, on some level, I felt that I owed him... Anyway, I just kept throwing myself at him, until one night... my glass became half empty, and I became a woman." Venom was practically dripping from her voice, she was staring at the wall with a hate-filled look on her face and Andy could hear the fabric tearing in the corner of the blanket she was wringing between her hands.

"Until then I hadn't believed in vampires or anything else supernatural, and afterwards I didn't even care: I believed that he loved me like I loved him. It didn't matter that I could barely walk for a couple of days, or that it took a couple of weeks for some of the wounds to heal." Andy winced at this, but Lee didn't seem to notice.

"I practically worshipped the ground he walked on, so he walked right over me as well. I can hardly believe the things I did, the ways I humiliated myself just to get his attention." By now she was shredding the blanket between her fingers.

"A few months later I turned nineteen. Since that first time, Tony had barely touched me, much less come to bed with me, but that night he was all different. I'd almost say he was acting like he was drunk or high or something. That nigh it was he who threw himself at me, saying I was the love of his life, that he would love me forever... I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Yeah, right. He turned me that night. He fell on me like a mad wolf, biting, tearing and thrusting, draining me and filling me at the same time. At last, when I felt my life slipping away, he bit into his wrist and let me taste. The blood trickling down my throat was searing, freezing, it was... god, I can't even describe it. My body changed in ways nobody was ever supposed to experience."

The torn blanket, now nearly forgotten, had started slipping down her back, revealing her alabaster shoulders. Her long, red pigtails hung down in front, disappearing in the dark beneath the part of the blanket still staying up, obscuring her breasts which she no longer remembered to cover up. Lee was staring up towards the stained ceiling with unseeing eyes, and as she sighed Andy could just make out her sharp fangs sliding back into their little recesses.

"As we both slipped into daysleep, my first, I was so happy. He loved me, really, he had said so. My best birthday ever. As we woke up, and he realized what had happened, he became furious. I thought he was going to rip me limb from limb, and he shredded every piece of furniture in the room. I fled before he could finish me off. The last thing I heard was him screaming that he would kill me if he ever saw me again." Her eyes were now rimmed with red, as she struggled to hold back the blood tears.

"The next night I was picked up by Vladimir, who became my first mentor, and I've told you the rest before. Now, do you see why I won't have sex with the mortals? I could never inflict that sort of thing on another person, even if it is to feed. I'd rather just hunt them properly and fight them for their blood. I can't understand how you can do it either; you always seem like a nice guy."

Andy had been gritting his teeth and trembling with the effort of suppressing his rage during the last part of Lee's tale, but this last remark startled him.

"What? You don't think all sex is like that, do you?" Andy quickly got to his feet.

"Well..."

"Just because some fucking wanker who didn't deserve to have balls in the first place treated you worse than shit it doesn't mean it always has to be like that!" He began pacing in front of the bed.

"If that's your only experience I can see why you're so afraid. Dammit, this kind of shit really pisses me off! Fucking 'men' who have no respect, no decency, and no idea of the consequences of their actions! What a waste of skin! I'd like to run him over with a really big truck! I want to rip his head from his shoulders and cram it up..." Andy suddenly realized he was standing over Lee, who was cowering before him on the bed, her eyes big with fear. He was seeing her through a red haze, he could feel his fangs fully extended, and he had gripped the metal pipe that made up part of the bed frame so hard that it had crumpled in his fist.

"Oh shit! Shit... I'm sorry, Lee!" He let go of the bed, and got down on his knees. The red haze dissipated almost instantly. "I didn't mean to go off like that. I just got so angry with this Tony, what he did was... unforgivable. I was never going to hurt you, I swear. I never would, you're my friend." He reached out his hand to her, careful to move slowly and not startle her. Slowly, she sat up and grasped his hand.

"I... I know, Andy, but you see what I mean now, don't you?"

"I do, but you are wrong, Lee. Not all sex is like that. What Tony did to you, it wasn't lovemaking, it was... more like rape, I'd say. Most people don't act like that. I don't either. I'm so sorry that had to be your first experience. Even stiffs like us don't have to behave like that, unless we want to."

Lee stared incredulously at him. He got up from the floor, sat down on the bed and gently put his arm around her shoulders. After a moment, she slid her arms around him and pressed herself against his cold, unmoving chest. He wrapped her in his embrace, and held her fast.

None of them spoke for several minutes, until she whispered uncertainly: "Show me."

"Uh, what? I... don't really think this is a good time..."

"Don't you want me?" She looked up into his eyes.

"It's not that, it's... Well, actually, I don't want anyone like that; it goes away after you're turned. Haven't you noticed?"

"Well... I just thought it was because of... you know..."

"Oh, no. It's just, well, we still have all the equipment and everything, it's just the desire to use it that goes away. I only use it as a hunting technique. I'll admit that it's a lot more fun than smacking somebody upside the head, most of the time."

She laughed shakily, but sobered up immediately. "You said you were sorry that I had such a bad experience. Won't you help me get a better one?"

"Well, yeah, but... are you really sure?"

In answer to his question, she reached up and kissed him.

Her lips and mouth were completely dry, like his, and soft. He answered the kiss, and she slipped her tongue inside his mouth. When kissing mortals, he had long since learned to wet his mouth with whatever he was pretending to drink that night, to avoid complaints about his mouth being this dry. He had in fact never kissed another vampire, and the sensation was very unusual. There was no saliva lubricating the lips and tongues, and he could feel them rasping slightly. It felt... peculiar. And pleasant.

"I like you, Andy, and you're one of the few people I trust. If anybody's going to help me get over what Tony did to me, it's probably you."

"Okay. Okay, love, I'll do it. But be sure to tell me if anything gets uncomfortable, all right?"

They kissed again, and Andy slowly pulled the blanket off her.

As she lay down on her back and stretched out before him, Andy gazed at her lithe body with appreciation. Her skin was a pearly white all over, and her breasts were small and firm. He now noticed that both nipples were pierced, with small steel rings stuck horizontally through them. The only time she hadn't covered them up before him, he realized, he had been busy keeping her from hitting him. The nipples and areolas were a dusty pink, and he guessed that they had been a darker red when she was alive. He let a finger trace her lower ribs and travel down across her flat stomach. He let it linger on her hip bone, and caressed her thigh which rested on top of his folded legs.

Lee's dark eyes were fixed on his face as he placed both hands on her shoulders, and gently moved them down to caress her breast.

"Can you feel it? Concentrate on the sensation, focus on my hands," he said as he slowly started fondling her breast a little more firmly. When he stroked her nipples, she closed her eyes and drew a short breath. "That's it, concentrate."

Andy continued to gently squeeze and caress Lee's breasts for a few minutes, and then leaned down and carefully took one nipple into his mouth. As he sucked it gently, and pulled at the ring with the tip of his tongue, she sighed, and when he gave it a quick bite she moaned aloud. He smiled around the nipple, and continued sucking. His tongue rasped against the uneven skin, and that gave him an idea.

"Don't go anywhere, I'll be right back!" he said and lifted Lee's legs off him. She opened her eyes in surprise, but he just winked and walked out to the kitchenette. He filled a glass with water and brought it back into the bedroom. She gave him a puzzled look as he sat down next to her again, but he just took the smallest sip of water and set the glass down on the night stand. He swirled the water around in his mouth, just enough to wet the tongue, and bent down to lick one of Lee's nipples. As he let go of it he met her gaze, and smiled mischievously as he gently blew cold air over the now wet nipple. The chilling effect, prominent even through the relative desensitization of the vampiric flesh, made her draw a delighted breath.

"You might want to remember that little trick, it's popular with both men and women," he told her with a wink.

"Oh, I think I might!" she replied. She was visibly relaxing, and Andy smiled at her. He then leaned down to kiss her stomach. He let his lips trail her figure all the way down to her feet and back up on the other side until they landed on the other nipple. He gave the ring a slight tug, and sat up again. He caressed her sides until his hands rested on the waistband of her panties.

"Ready?" he asked, and for a response she simply lifted her hips from the mattress. He gave her a satisfied smile, and pulled the plain black thong off her. As he did so he realized that he was actually enjoying himself, almost like he would have when he was still mortal.