The Sweetest Darkness

She now had that look of a furious girl under five five who suddenly tries to look mad as hell but only manages to pull off "Care Bear cute" with a frowny face. It didn't matter she was standing before an undead fellow possessing combined strength of around fifteen men. She had half a mind to fucking deck him!

"Now look," he said raising his hands and eyebrows, "I knew I was wrong but I was intrigued by you and one night when you snuck off to the toilet down the hall, I distinctly heard you cry out and then whisper Karl Karl KARL under your breath?"

"Wait, you could HEAR?"

"Well, yeah... it's like I hear, smell, see everything much better than you and everyone else like you. It's a bit of a hassle for me to be up in the day and for me to even be outside in the day, not because the sun would destroy my body... that's a load of bunk told by theologians. It's because during the day you constantly hear and notice everything... it's harder to tune it all out. Like being constantly plugged in to everything occurring in the world. It saps your strength and weakens you to the point where your senses and abilities are the same as any normal human."

As his last bits of explanation unfolded in her head she realized something else. That flitting shadow at the corner of her vision when she was beating her clit senseless... that had been...

"YOU WERE IN THE STALL WITH ME? WATCHING ME TOUCH MYSELF?"

He smiled. He also looked cute. She bit her lip, made the angriest fucking face she could twist across her lips jaw and nose... and punched him in the fucking chest as her scowl melted into a fucking smirk; the blow landing as harmlessly as if she'd smacked a yoga-matt.

Shit motherfucker was built!

"Okay," he pleaded, "now will you come on?"

They continued down the street passing a multiple businesses closed for the night. They passed the drugstore. They passed the Post Office which was boarded up after a new one had been built as part of the city consolidation effort of the mail service. Then then came to the old church.

The church was old as the city itself. It stood tall and stony in stark contrast to the more modern buildings around it, quaint and crooked with its old fashioned cemetery of hallowed ground surrounding it. It was abandoned and dark, a thing of a bygone era and one more casualty of an ever growing secular society, forgotten and yet with historical significance. Some of the earliest citizens of the city were buried right here on these grounds, their stones solemn testaments to the lives they'd lived.

"Come," he told her as he led her around to a set of side steps going down. He grasped an ancient looking door knob and with deep concentration, moved the lock and bolt with his mind. He also gave it a little shake with his hand as there was a trick to this, he'd seen from a local caretaker.

"This isn't exactly legal?" she asked.

"You a cop?" he replied as he pulled the door open and ushered her inside after flicking on a hall light.

"That joke is lame... hey, the lights still work in this place?" she asked.

"I have other talents," he explained, "in my life back in the old country I was an electrician when the science of it all was still in its infancy."

He led her down a corridor. Then they ascended a spiral staircase with another flick of a light switch. The stairs ran round a full circle downward and stopped deep in the bowels of the church.

Karl threw a switch at another box and still more lights illuminated in the vastness of an immense room with an arched dome for a ceiling. The place smelled of wet and mold. Kristie could immediately see the shapes of elongated rectangular vaults lying on the floor, like oversized stone refrigerators resting on their sides running off in all directions and a few anti chambers to either side of the space. It took her only a half second to put it all together, they were in the crypt.

At one end of the chamber Kristie noticed a vault that was in disarray. Well... not exactly disarray, to be more accurate... the lid was off and pushed to one side. Karl saw her eyes and decided to answer the question in her head,

"Yeah, it's mine."

They walked closer. After coming to a couple of paces away Kristie could see down inside. The coffin below was open with the lid up, ruffled white fabric and a solitary pillow clearly visible. Strangely enough, Kristie noticed its interior size straight away. It didn't look like any coffins she'd ever seen at the funerals she'd attended.

"Isn't that a bit, spacious for a casket?" she asked.

"I'm undead," he replied, "I didn't say I had to exist humbly,"

"You sleep here?"

"I do," he admitted, "unless there is reason for me to be out during the day. That's few and far between lately."

"And I assume you are older than you look? You said you lived in the early last century?"

"That's correct, problem with older men?"

"Not when they look like you," she replied back before adding,

"...and have your erectile function!"

Something else was gnawing at her, the fact he'd gnawed upon her neck. She touched her bite marks. Her facial expression changed to worry.

"Ermmm another question,"

"Yes?"

"You bit me?"

"I did," he replied.

"So, won't I die or become like you?"

"You won't die because I only took a very little," he replied, "its like bats in South America taking only what they need to survive. The cattle live. It ensures future meals. The others in that club might not be so scrupulous however... they are as gluttonous with their food as they are about their sex. They don't know when to quit.. which was why I made it clear to them you were indeed mine tonight. One reason why I re-directed that homeless man earlier and sent him to his aunt's, (those individuals in the club and those out on the street would have made a finger sandwich of the poor devil)."

She listened in shock at the realization of how close she'd come to being consumed by those beautiful cursed fiends, all wriggling and humping one another on the club's floor. It had all been very real... and had all been REAL CLOSE! If Karl had not been there... she put it out of her head and allowed to him continue,

"As for you becoming like me, that would only occur should you take in my own blood. I mean there is always a risk, but the fact that you did not drink any of my blood puts the odds in your favor of not becoming like myself."

That was a relief. She wasn't going to sprout fangs or "transform" after what had just occurred, not yet anyhow. She was luck it was he that had seduced her and not another. This really had been all a shock; what she'd seen, what she'd experienced, (and what had almost happened). It was so much for her to process and..

MEOOOOWWWW!

Kristie and Karl both turned their heads. Perched upon a stone vault not ten feet away was her cat who'd padded in and made himself comfortable. Kristie's face wore a look of surprise, Karl's not so much. He'd heard the approach of the interloper the whole time as they were speaking and quite frankly had been expecting him.

"Hello Oreo," Karl greeted Kristie's pet before striding over and gently picking up the black and white purring ball of fluff and whiskers.

"You know my cat?" Kristie exclaimed.

"I do," Karl said, stroking Oreo under the chin, "you mentioned him at work and I recognized his spots from the photo on your desk when he started coming down here. He is a regular here; there are too many mice and rats nearby for him not to snoop around this place. He comes down from your apartment and makes the crypt of this church part of his nightly rounds. We've become fast friends,"

"That explains at least one place he goes on all these nightly jaunts," she said more to herself than to Karl.

"He gets around," Karl agreed as the contented Tomcat rubbed his face against Karl's chest affectionately, "and I suspect a good portion of the time is keeping local female felines content and well-fucked."

"Well," she said, "you know about me, I mean.. you fucked me better than I imagined anyone ever could without them being battery-operated and covered in vinyl. You took me on an experience I can never forget unless you chose to erase my memory. You also know everything about my cat.. and Oreo loves you. Okay, you made a favorable impression and yes, I now believe you. You are a vampire..."

She saw Karl stiffen. A little micro-expression formed at the corner of his mouth for the briefest of seconds. She caught herself,

"I mean, a nos... nosfro..."

"Nosferatu," Karl said being helpful, his look of irritation having passed, "and thank you. Vampire is such a made-up word. Demon's destroyed by the sun, children of the devil, cannot touch garlic, destroyed by holy water and crosses, all that nonsense."

"None of that is true?"

"Nope," he said handing Oreo to her.

"Well," she said taking her cat and stroking him in her arms, "what do we do now? I mean -I want to see you again and I don't want to forget any of tonight. I know you said you can do things with my memory to make this all go away but I don't want it to."

"We can do as you wish," he said now escorting her back to the stairs with Oreo cradled in her arms, "we can make it so we see one another and you ...well, you'd just have to keep things a secret."

"Oh I can keep a secret," she said with a wink and a raised little finger, "pinky swear."

"The only problem," he said, leading her and Oreo up the stairs, "is you'll understand that if we were to do anything long term, you bare the risk of one of my friends making a snack out of you permanently and of course as you get older, I will of course stay the same. Its as much an awkward heartache for me as it is for you; more so even. Over the years I have had several lovers grow old and die, (my last two are in the graveyard up top). Meanwhile I stayed the same, only able to mourn them."

"But there is another option," Kristie commented at the top of the stairs, "isn't there?"

"There is," he said, nodding at the obvious course of action, " and I have done this sort of thing before, but I suggest we do this only if you truly want this to happen. I can convert you, but I'd like it to be your choice.. your life will not be the same afterwards."

"My life?" she smirked as they moved down the hallway to the exit stairs from the church's basement, "My life is no life. Its an existence...."

"Well," he replied, agreeing with her, "I understand you are less than content with the way things are for you, but let me give you some time to think on this."

"Some time," she said, "how long?"

"A few weeks maybe," he answered, "there is no need to..."

"How about I think about it today and tomorrow?" she answered, "I can meet you tomorrow night and we could... we could.. you know?"

"You really got that cranked up did you?" he smiled as they arrived at the door leading up to the stairs.

"You have me bat-out-of-hell horny," she replied, "and I would very much like to have more of a life than the one I have now. In fact, I don't see any reason why we need to put things off. If I decide I want to get rid of my boring old self and become, eternally beautiful and young... my prerogative. You'll do this?"

"I will," he said opening the door an ushering her through, up into the night air," but only if you think this through."

"I will," she said, "but I already know my answer."

She paused at the top of the stairs, standing in the light drops of rain that were still falling from the dark churned up sky. He stopped with her and looked up, examining the black heavens, boiling clouds rolling with the city's glow reflecting on their undersides. He then turned and looked her way.

"You know," he commented, "I can get sex and food any time I desire. What I am looking for,"

"Is love," she said finishing his thought.

He nodded. He led her from the churchyard, Oreo in her arms, his arm in hers; a true gentleman escorting his lady love. The walk home was a quick one and done in serene silence. They for some reason didn't need words.

At her door she and he turned to face one another and she fumbled for her door key. She handed him the cat and then retrieved the key from her purse. With a turn of the key, the click of a bolt and the opening of the door, she was ready to say Good Night.

Odd, saying good night to a vampire.... ermmm Nosferatu.

He set Oreo down. The cat scurried though the door into the darkness beyond, seeking his kitty bowl. Karl turned to her and she lifted her face up to his, closing her eyes. There was a deep kiss. A tongue kiss. Karl couldn't help it, he let his tongue go wild inside her mouth, tongue-fucking her like he was alive once again; an adolescent eighteen year old school boy in Vienna wooing some Austrian school girl out of her virtue.

Kristie felt that kiss. It was a good kiss, one she felt up and down her body. It made her nipples ache and her clit throb so very hard. It was kiss she felt in her backbone and her toenails. She collapse in his arms like a crumpled rose petal, then she turned her head up to him again and kissed him on his jaw.

"Tonight?" she said happily.

"Tonight," he replied, "ten o'clock here at your door. Use today when you finally have gotten some rest to consider this choice carefully. This could very well be the last normal day of your existence."

She hugged him close, kissed his cheek. He nodded strongly, as a strong gentleman would but with a rakish smile on his face, then he turned, and stepped off into the night, disappearing from the glow of the porch light above Kristie's door. She stared in the direction of his departure, then turned and stepped inside, closing her door behind her.

***

She slept until late in the morning. Saturdays were like this for her. Sleep late and recover, the only thing she had two lovely bite marks on her neck to recover from... well, that and mind-blowing sex.

Oreo leapt off from the futon where she lay, just as she was waking up. He exited through his kitty door, ostensibly to go out and spray something or try to snag a bird in the park next door. Kristie remained for a good long while, thinking of all that had transpired the previous night.

She took Karl's advice, and considered what this would all mean. To be truthful to herself, she really did feel a bit of trepidation of what it would entail giving up; the normal world, a normal life. She was fearful of it as well, that great unknown leap into an unimaginable void of perpetual existence. Then of course she balanced (or confused herself), it with the pleasure she felt concerning it all... Oooh Karl made her insane with ravenous fuck-hunger!

She made a cup of coffee and returned to the covers. A girly-wank might help her think. So she dropped a hand down between her legs and diddled herself on the covers between sips of hot Joe... wrestling with her thoughts, her clit and both her nipples.

It was about then that she looked across the room and saw herself in the mirror, abusing herself with selfish zeal that she noticed something. Two little dots. Two little red dots were clearly visible when she splayed open her puss-blossom.

He'd bit her there too? WHEN? Oh wait, yes... back at the office? Holy shit!

She finished her furious rub-out session some while later, with a hand-humping leg-shaking gasp. Did that clear her head about this? Oh hell no. She still had her doubts, fears, and her desires tugging at her every which way intellectually and emotionally.

Morning became noon. Noon became afternoon. Afternoon melted into early evening for her.

She took a phone call from her mother as she watched the sun set. Was this a goodbye phone call? No... even if she did the change she told herself, she could see her parents, yes? But would it ever be the same? She was loaded with angst when she tearfully agreed to meet her parents this time next week for dinner, (hiding distress and sadness by laughing into the phone as she said good-bye in an effort to mask what she truly felt). Hanging up she watched the sun sink on the horizon as a tear trickled down her cheek. Then oddly, she became calm.

She bathed, made herself as lovely as possible. She tarted herself up with more than a bit of makeup. If she was to go out of this world, than leave it like a proper hoe, she figured. She fed Oreo and then waited for the hour to arrive. Ten o'clock came, and with it his knock...

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK....

She greeted him at the door, dolled up and dressed to the nines. He noticed. She noticed he was particularly handsome, or was it just her being smitten and under his mind fuck spell.

"Shall we?" he asked.

"Where to?" she replied.

"Same place," he answered, "but we are going to get there faster. Take my hand,"

She'd barely locked her door and done as he'd asked when she was swept upwards towards the heavens and into the blackness of the night. Better than any cab service. He was the Nosferat-Uber she giggled to herself as they soared through the nocturnal skies above the metropolis below.

"What's so funny?" Karl asked over the rush of the wind,

"Oh nothing," she giggled to herself.

A second later, Karl sputtered with laughter. He'd read her thoughts and he agreed; it was a good pun. She was clever; he liked that. Now that they'd bonded through the medium of fuck and orgasm, her thoughts were a tome for him to leaf through at his leisure, for as long as he chose to read.

The trip went quickly across the night sky as the city lights streamed by them below and the soupy angry rainclouds rolled and threatened to dump from above. She found it captivating and wished the ride would have continued longer, but shortly she felt the both of them descending. She could make out the shadowy and misty street below with its garish neon light piercing up through the night fog.

"Seat backs and tray tables up," Karl joked.

She sputtered a nervous giggle. They descended as lightly as a pair of dandelion seeds, down through the buildings of the street. The pair touched down ever so softly to the pavement as if they'd only stepped out of a cab.

She now felt the firmness of the street beneath her black heels with the red soles. She's splurged a year ago for good fuck-me heels but had never had the excuse to wear them; save her for showing her cat Oreo, (and he frankly failed to see what all the fuss had been concerning her new footwear as she walked back and forth in front of a full length mirror in the apartment). She had an entirely different audience to see the shoes tonight however; an audience that would indeed know the significance of those heels, (and who'd appreciate the significance of them pointing skywards as they flashed their lovely blood red soles).

Karl took her by the arm and slowly they stepped across the street, to their destination for the evening. Otto was there at the door of Club Perpetuity, pale as ever but with a broad grin of expectation. He was pleased to see them both. He made another one of those sweeps of his hand like the grand circus ring-master he'd been back in his mortal days, and Karl taking his lead nodded politely and stepped past him with Kristie; both disappearing from the crowded street through the club entrance beneath the establishment's flashing neon sign.

They stepped into the middle of the club as the OOT! OOT! OOT! pounded away and the music vibrated Kristie's ribcage. They began to move. They danced as impossibly beautiful and tragically hip beings whirled and flailed and whirled some more all around them. They all seem joined together on that floor as one throbbing hive of dance in a sea of pulsing techno, strobes, and red light. It was a joyful uber-hip yet sad chic (the vibe of this place), and to be honest with herself; Kristie adored it. Its fun to be the sad death hipster; a sort of permanent Momento Mori performance artist, she thought.