Rating: NC-17 overall (some entries as mild as a G)
Disclaimer: While I have taken the liberty of adding a few characters of my own creation, all of the original BtVS characters and their world belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and The WB. All are used without permission (I'll return them all unharmed) and no copyright infringement is intended (like most who post, I'm broke, so please don't sue).
Summary: It's the year 2047 and Aishling Rosenberg has recently discovered that her grandmother left behind a vast collection of letters, stories, research notes, etc.
Distribution: You want it, it's yours, just let me know where it's going to be living.
Feedback: Beggars can't be choosey, and I'm begging, so. . .
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Entry No. 10
Well, this one had been very easy to find. I'd only been meandering about for an hour when I tripped over him, literally. He was sitting on the marble ledge of the planter behind which the giant Rockefeller Center Christmas tree would soon reside. His legs were stretched out in front of him and because I was more interested in watching the ice skaters than in watching where I was going, I didn't notice his outstretched appendages until it was too late. He too must have been mesmerized by the skaters. Or it more likely the flashes of the lights off the ice and the shining skate blades that appealed to his drug altered vision. I could smell the cocaine as its by-products seeped from his pores along with his sweat. He didn't call out a warning or move his legs before I had a chance to hook my right foot beneath his left calf. Had it not been for some wild wind-milling on my part and his quick lunge forward to catch me, I would have fallen, face first, onto the pavement.
Instead, I found myself awkwardly cradled in the arms of a stranger. I quickly pulled my self out of his lap and began to apologize profusely. While offering his own apologies in earnest, the young man also rose quickly to his feet and in doing so dropped a sketch pad that had been resting in his lap.
As we both swooped down to retrieve it, we collided, our heads connecting with a bang. Suddenly we were both sprawled on the ground, laughing. Looking through a haze of tears, caused by both the laughter and the force with which our heads had impacted, I found my self gazing into a pair of eyes that looked like sapphires. They were half hidden behind the long blonde locks of hair that had fallen forward over his brow. I'd never before seen human eyes that were so blue. Even veiled by the glaze of the drugs he'd recently used, his eyes sparkled. Here was a young man with a lust for life.
He was pretty, in a masculine way. His face was full of nice sharp angles that were still softened by his youth. And perhaps they always would be softened by his large, open smile; a smile which he wore now even as he rubbed the rising lump on his head.
"I am really *so* very sorry," I said through my laughter and tears. "No, it was my fault. I shouldn't have left my big old hoofers sticking out like that." His voice was husky, almost gravely, which contrasted nicely with his boyish good looks.
<Oh, yes, I like this one . . . >
"Well, if I'd been watching where I was going instead of -" I was abruptly cut off.
"Please," he said softly, then rose to his feet and extended his hand to me in an offer of assistance. Without hesitation, I placed my hand in his and allowed him to pull me to my feet. (Don't tell N.O.W., but I am a devout lover of chivalry.)
"Let's just say, " he continued, "that it was an accident, which it was; however, it was an accident with a positive outcome."
"And just what would that be?" I smiled and took his bait.
"I got to hold a beautiful woman in my arms, even if only for a moment, and then she graced me with her laughter and her smile."
"Oh, and aren't you a master of flattery."
"Oh, *no*," he said with mock seriousness. "If that were the case, I wouldn't be sitting here all alone on Thanksgiving."
He flashed me a big grin which told me his words were not meant to imply that he was lonely, simply that he was there alone and would welcome my company.
"Well, now, that doesn't seem right, " I replied with a mischievous smile of my own, letting him think I'd fallen for another one of his lines. "May I join you?"
"Sure, I'd like that."
As we both settled down on the edge of the planter, I saw that he had, at some point, picked-up his sketch pad.
"Are you an artist?" I asked.
"Aspiring . . . Daniel Rich. Remember the name. You may see it in a gallery some day."
"Well, Daniel, may I have a look?" I gestured toward his pad.
<What the hell was I doing? I shouldn't have been doing this, getting to know this boy. All I'd wanted to do was feed.> <Shouldn't play with your food.> <Shouldn't be here at all! Our kind doesn't do this . . . >
"Ah, sure, why not?" A slight blush rose to his cheeks as he passed the book to me. "I've never shown them to anyone other than my best friend, Ben. I'm not really sure that they're any good."
"Do you like them?"
He seemed some what taken aback by my question, as though he'd never considered what his own feelings toward his work meant. After a few minutes of silent reflection, he began to nod his slightly as he answered.
"Why, yes, I do. Very much."
"Then that's all that really matters, Daniel. An artist expresses himself in an attempt to fill some void within, to meet some need of his own. Even if an artist were to say that they worked to create something of beauty for all the world to share, I truly believe that it is the artist's need to share, their need to give to others, that inspires them. What they get back is of little consequence. But, what do I know. That's just I how feel. I'm not so sure, now that I've actually said it aloud, that it makes much sense."
"No. Well, yes," he stumbled over his reply. "I mean, I think I understand what you're trying to say. An artist must speak to himself first before he can speak to others."
"Not really, " I said gently. "But what you've said is just as important. I think both ideas go well together."
I opened his sketch book and began to look through the work he'd done. Some of it was really quite good. It might be even better if he'd stay away from the drugs. I could tell which works he'd done while under the influence of one mind-altering substance or another. They lost their clarity, their detail, their hold on reality. Ah, but that's my style and my need to be met, not necessarily his. So, keeping that last thought in my mind, I looked once again at the drawings he'd done.
"They're good," I offered. "I especially like this one, " I said as I returned the pad to him, left open to a sketch done in colored pencils.
It was a picture of kites flying in a blue sky, high above the tree tops. But the scene was viewed by the artist as he lay upon the grass beneath some of those very same trees. It was an interesting perspective. But it was the vivid colors he'd chosen to work with and the sharp clean lines he'd used on the edges of everything that really appealed to me.
"What were you on when you did this one?" I asked pointedly.
He was truly surprised by this question but answered honestly anyway.
"Coke. Some very *good* coke. And a lot of it. How'd you know?"
I couldn't very well tell him that I could just smell it on the paper. That fact he would find just a little bizarre. So I gave him a simpler answer.
"I can see it in the colors."
"The colors," he pondered my reply. "Yah, I guess so. For someone who doesn't appear to be any older than I am, you sure are perceptive."
"Oh, Daniel, you'd never believe just how deceiving appearances can be."
Thinking about how he'd react when he discovered just what I truly am, how his fear would taste on my tongue mixed with the drug already lacing his blood . . . well, it sent a shiver of anticipation up my spine. He misread this physical reaction to my thoughts.
"You're cold," he said, concern in his voice. "Me, too. Let's go some place warmer," he suggested.
"Let's walk."
"Well, sure, that's a good way to get where you're going. And where are we going?"
"Everywhere," I replied, enigmatically.
"Then I guess we'd better be on our way." It was his way of saying he was up for the challenge of following wherever I might lead.
I couldn't help but smile at him.
We must have wandered about the city for the better part of two hours. And Daniel's questions never seemed to stop. Did I live here in the city? Did I go to school? Was I an artist, too? Did I ever get to travel? Where had I been?
I tried my best to answer his questions truthfully but without supplying an overabundance of information. After all, if I'd tried to tell him everywhere I'd been over the years, well, he wouldn't even know a quarter of the places I listed; some don't even exist anymore, at least not under the same names they held when I was there!
We ended up in a little coffee shop just after 9:00 p.m. It felt nice to get into somewhere warm. With a twinge of guilt, I realized that if this respite from the cold was enjoyable to me, a vampire, it must have come as quite a welcome relief to Daniel.
We'd ordered nice large cups of steaming java, cappuccino for him, latté for me. Then he excused himself and headed off in search of the men's room.
When he returned a few minutes later, I knew instantly that he'd done more coke while sequestered in the restroom. And now I wanted some!
I was pleased when upon his return he chose to occupy the seat next to me. After sipping on our coffee and enjoying a few more minutes of chitchat, I took one of his large, warm hands into my smaller, colder ones. This drew his eyes to mine. He cautiously reached out and removed my colored glasses. He gave a nearly inaudible gasp as he looked for the first time into the eyes of a vampire.
"Your eyes . . . " He whispered the unfinished thought.
"Hum, they are quite 'different', aren't they?" I responded softly.
"I don't think I've ever seen that shade of green before."
"Shush. I think it's just the coke."
"Oh, yah . . . well . . . " he mumbled, a guilty blush coloring his cheeks.
By then he was lost in my eyes.
"I'm going to kiss you now, " I stated simply.
"I'd like that."
The kiss started out gently enough. I moved in and tenderly pressed my lips to his. He parted his lips, then, only slightly, but it was all the invitation I needed.
I slipped my tongue between his lips and began to explore his mouth. I could taste his coffee along with the cinnamon and sugar he'd put in it. His mouth was sweet and spicy. His teeth, smooth and hard against my tongue, offered a wonderful contrast to the warm softness found everywhere else.
Soon his tongue was tentatively reaching out to touch mine. Our tongues played there for a few minutes, twirling about in his mouth, before I began to slowly withdraw mine.
As I had hoped, his tongue gave chase. Our lips never parted and as he pushed his tongue into my mouth, the passion of the kiss increased. I allowed him to kiss me deeply, willing him to taste and feel my mouth as I had done with his. As he continued on his reconnoiters of my mouth, he attempted to mimic my actions by running his tongue along my teeth. This venture was met with ruinous results. The first fang he reached sliced through his tongue like a scalpel. The cut was deep and the blood quickly began to fill my mouth. I pulled hard on his tongue, then, keeping it in my mouth. I swallowed his little cry of pain just as I began to swallow as much blood from his wound as I could get before the flow began to subside. And subside it did, rather quickly as my own saliva worked to heal his lacerated tongue. Only then did I release him from our kiss.
The cocaine hit me pretty fast, and it was glorious! The sudden clarity, I knew it was artificial, yet it was amazing. The exaggerated vibrancy of colors, and the subtle sense of euphoria - I could see why humans became addicted to this stuff. Oh, I'm quite sure vampires could, too.
<Oh bad - bad, bad girl.>
I very rarely took in alcohol. I never did drugs. Well, okay, once before - but that was almost 300 years ago! I'd been living with an artist, in Paris, and I'd tried a little bit of laudanum that he had about (that's opium) and I hadn't liked it, at all. It had just left me feeling sleepy and disconnected from my body and everything around me.
<Oh no, you naughty girl, it's not what you took, it's how you took it!>
Yes, all right, worst of all was how I'd gone about getting my "hit". It'd taken it from Daniel. I'd taken the drug along with his blood. And that was bad, very bad. I'd taken his blood. Oh, shit, what am I doing?
I pulled my hands away from Daniel's, put my glasses back on, then took a long, slow sip of my coffee. I had to get the taste of his blood out of my mouth before I was tempted to take more.
Daniel was just starting to clear his head. I was truly glad he'd done as much coke as he had. I got a great hit from just a little blood and it gave me something to blame - some way to "answer" any questions he might ask.
"Now, that was a kiss," he said with a smile.
He didn't seem to even remember the short-lived pain from the laceration of his tongue. <Good.>
Of course I am going to sit here for a while and rationalize - or should I say I'm going to try to justify my actions. No, maybe I should simply say I'm going to explain some things to you.
You see, as a vampire, my body does not metabolize substances the way a human body does. Well, maybe the process of the metabolism is similar but the needs as different.
Blood. That's all I ever need to sustain my life. But you know that. The legends, the stories they've been around, well, almost as long as we have! Now, just because I said all I require is blood, that doesn't mean I can't ingest other things. I do. Quite often. I love food - the tastes, the textures, the memories that eating certain foods can invoke . . . it's wonderful. But, beyond the oral sensations these things produce, most of these items are completely useless to me, they offer no nourishment. Oh, unless they contain some amount blood - like a nice *very rare* steak. Now that's always a good food choice when dining out. It curbs my appetite for blood in an "acceptable" fashion. But, I'm old, even by our standards, and with age comes some freedom from the lust for blood, a decreased need for it. I've never really had much of an appetite, anyway. Until recently, that is.
Actually, it's been more like a craving - a yen - to try new things, things I've always shunned until now. Things like alcohol and drugs. Now, these are substances, which when consumed in large enough quantities, will affect a vampire in much the same way that they affected us when we were mortal. But, I'm talking about *very* large quantities.
If alcohol is your vice of choice, that's not really a problem. You can order in or you can go out to a club any night of the week and drink to excess without anyone being the wiser. But, with drugs it's a different story. It's much easier and much more effective to take a hit off someone whose already taken the drugs and had it absorbed into their bloodstream. Sort of like having it predigested, is that makes sense. Since the drug's already in their blood, our bodies metabolize it quickly and efficiently.
So, you see, I only bled Daniel for the coke.
<Yah, if you believe that one, I have this nice piece of land in Jersey I'd like to sell you . . . >
Okay, so my rationalization does not make my actions any less criminal. You see, among my kindred, the taking of human blood is forbidden. We don't hunt or feed on people like other vampire clans do. We don't need it survive. Animals' blood provides adequate nourishment. Of course, human blood is always preferred - our demon hungers for it always, just like the rest of them. But being of a feminine nature, our demon is easily shamed, made to feel guilty for such longings, and she is therefore easily denied that which she craves.
My kind only consume human blood when it is given, offered freely as a gift from one family member to another. Or sometimes from a spouse or mate, if they know your true nature. What I'd just done with Daniel was taboo.
So far, my transgression was minor. Were it to be discovered, it would be forgiven (all be it, after countless hours of berating and lecturing from my elders.) But, had I taken more than I did, or if I were to bleed him again, I'd risk banishment from my clan and perhaps even death.
So why, you may ask, was I doing this?
I could tell you I was doing it for him - for Angelus. That I wanted to try some of the things he's tried, to do some of the things that he's done in an effort to understand him better. But I won't. I can't. I can't do the things that have made him who he is. I cannot - no, will not - take a human life. I will not give in to my demon or forfeit my soul. I won't forsake my God and I don't see myself going to hell and back any time soon. <Okay, so maybe that last part is a lie, but at least I wasn't sent there. Nope, nobody said to me, "Hey, Aoífe, go to hell!" Nah, stupid me, I fucking asked for my round-trip-ticket and, *surprise*, the powers that be gave me one . . . oh, but that's not what I'm talking about right now, is it?>
No, I was doing this for myself. I'm giving in to the minor temptations that have plagued me for centuries, because I'm afraid. I'm afraid that if I don't do it, if I don't indulge myself while I can, than later, when I need to be strong, when I need to resist the lure of truly great temptations, then the little things I lust after now will add-up and all things combined will be more than I can handle. Let's just say that I know I have bigger demons to face <Ha, ha . . . if you only knew!> than the desire to experiment with a little coke. Or partaking of a little stolen blood, for that matter.
Well, I've strayed from my story long enough. I've used an excessive number of words to shed very little light on my actions. I'm starting to feel a tad petulant, now, and you can't see it, but I've got "poutie lip." I mean, gosh, it's not like I even really *took* Daniel's blood. Sure, I may have bewitched him a bit. And, well, I may have even tricked him into slicing open his tongue. But once the blood was there, in my mouth, what was I supposed to do? Waste it? I mean, it's not like I'd actually buried my fangs into his soft, warm flesh and forcefully drawn out the blood I now craved. At least not yet . . .
<Oh, bad - bad, bad, wicked woman!>
Turning my attention back to Daniel, forcing myself to focus and overcome the effects of the coke, I smiled at him - perhaps a bit too wickedly because he looked startled.
<Gee, I'm not showing any fang, am I?> Quick tongue check. <Nope, they're retracted.>
I know that with all my rambling on, it looks like I took a long time to respond to Daniel's last comment, when in fact only a few seconds passed before I replied. "Yes, it was a *very* nice kiss. Thank you." My voice was thick, my tongue a bit slow. Now was that from the drugs or the bloodlust?
I still couldn't get over how blue his eyes were. In the light of the coffee shop Daniel's eyes looked even more like gemstones than they had earlier. Blue, like sapphires. Turned to azure. Then suddenly I was seeing amethysts and emeralds, shades of crimson and scarlet, amber and gold. But these weren't gemstones. They were richly colored pieces of glass - stained glass - in the Rose window of Saint Patrick's Cathedral. And there was my fallen Angel, standing below it, outside in the cold, crying for his lost God. His soul wanted to take comfort there in the church but his conscience, his guilt, would never allow it.
I knew I had to capture this image. I asked Daniel for a piece of paper from his sketch pad. Next, as discreetly as possible, I conjured-up (quite literally) a wonderful set of drafting pens, pulling them, ostensibly, from the folds of my cloak. I knew the pens would be filled with inks which would match the hues I saw in my mind.
Then, working at an inhuman pace, I transferred the picture in my brain onto the paper beneath my hand. Daniel looked on, fascinated by the scene unfolding on the paper. He assumed, I'm sure, that the speed with which I drew was simply an illusion created by the drug in his system. Which was good; I told you we'd blame a lot on the coke tonight.
Done. I sat back to admire my work.
"Wow." That one word was all Daniel seemed able to say. Then, obviously without thinking, he reached out and touched the drawing.
"*NO*" I hissed. "It's still wet!" The words came out with a menacing growl.
But, it was too late. As Daniel pulled his hand back, I could see some of the colored inks on the tips of his fingers. And, there was one small area on the edge of the window that had been smeared.
For an instant, the rage that engulfed me was unlike anything I'd ever felt before. I felt but one moment's worth of such pure hatred for this boy that I'm certain, had we been alone, I would have killed him on the spot. I could feel my fangs elongating against my will, and then, just as quickly as it had come, the feeling was gone.
<Holy shit, where did that come from?>
I was scared, *really* scared. Now, don't think I've never been angry before. Yes, I do at times have quite the Irish temper. However, it usually takes a great deal of provocation to even start to raise my ire. That, or a very strong phase of the moon; you know, those times when the pull of the moon makes for unusually high or extremely low tides. I mean, if you think a human woman with PMS is bad, you don't ever want to see what the phases of the moon can do to some female vampires!
But this was not the same. This emotion had been overwhelming. For split second I had held every human in abomination. And I didn't know where this feeling of utter contempt came from. And it scared me, because I knew that I would feel it again, and again, and again in the days that lie ahead.
<Oh, what am I getting myself into now? And why can't I just stop and walk away? >
This game I'd been playing with the pictures had gone on long enough and I was obviously taking it all much too seriously. I'd wanted to kill an innocent man simply because he was not Angelus and had dared to touch what was meant to be only for Angelus. But that was my fault, not Daniel's. I should not have drawn the picture in front of him. I should not have put it on display if I had not wanted Daniel to see it. It had been like putting a beautifully frosted cake in front of a child and expecting them not to stick a finger in the icing at the first chance they got. I was the one to blame. And now I felt terrible.
Yes, I knew the game must end. In fact, it would end tomorrow night, for sure. I'd already seen to that. And perhaps that's another reason why I was so upset about the little smudge on this drawing. I was afraid it might be the last one I ever did with him in it and now it was flawed. <Oh, an omen perhaps . . . not good. > I knew that after tomorrow night I would never draw another picture of Angelus again, unless he asked me to.
I was afraid that once all my plans were put into action, I might not survive long enough to ever give him the chance to ask me.
So, why do I continue on?
Two words. I had uttered them more than two centuries ago. Two simple words. I'd spoken each one in his presence, but I said them separately, almost a quarter of a century apart.
I gcónaí . . . grá. (Always . . . love.)
End
Entry Ten