He nods. “Good girl. Come with me to the kitchen. I prepared something for you.”
He extends his hand like a gracious host, and I manage to scrape myself off the floor to follow him. The kitchen has the same sort of gothic feel, except that there are modern appliances: a microwave, a large stainless steel fridge, a bread machine (I can’t fathom why he has this), and a glass-top stove that just heats up and glows, not the old-fashioned kind like my mom still has in her apartment above the bakery.
His kitchen is immaculate, which I suppose can be expected. I’m not sure if he eats or not. Or even if he can. I mean, besides blood. My dream comes back to me, or parts of it that I couldn’t figure out before. Like when the woman said: “Snack?” She’d been asking about me, if Christian intended to feed. She’d told him to do it out back so there wouldn’t be a mess.
Are all vampires so neat and tidy?
“Sit,” Christian commands.
I sit at the table and watch as he takes a large pot from the fridge. “I made you a beef stew.”
This shocks me, both that he cooked, and that he cooked something for me. I assumed he’d feed me frozen dinners or things out of a can as if I were some cat he’s irritated he has to bother tending to. But he’s taken time and thought to consider what to feed me and is giving me real food. For a moment I latch onto this and think it’s a form of caring, something I can trust. But then he speaks again, shattering the illusion.
“You will eat what I cook for you. You will eat organic. You will drink water or tea, occasionally wine or other alcohol if I allow it. You will not be drinking soft drinks, or eating sugar, or packaged or processed crap. Humans who eat crap taste like crap. You’ll be my primary food source, and I want you to be gourmet.”
I can’t stop the new tears as they flow down my cheeks. “Will it hurt?”
He stops for a moment and looks at me as if I’ve grown a second head. “Biting you?”
I nod.
“Of course it will hurt, you little twit. Sharp teeth piercing flesh hurts. But I will heal you afterward. And when I’ve finished feeding and playing with you each night, I will give you some of my blood so you’ll heal and won’t grow weak.”
I wipe the tears off my face with the back of my hand. I’m ashamed he probably sees me as weak. Maybe too weak. Maybe he’ll kill me if it annoys him too much. He waited so long, and I know he must be reconsidering his choice. Still, I ask the question.
“Why me?”
He ladles stew into a bowl and pops it into the microwave. There is a long pause before he answers.
“Even though I can’t read a human’s thoughts when they’ve had my blood, I can still hypnotize them. Keeping a pet who doesn’t have their own mind feels like being with a wind-up doll. I want genuine emotions and reactions. If I order you to do something hard or frightening, I want to feel your reaction to that. Puppets are boring, and I’m too old for such silly games. I haven’t met someone who could resist my thrall in a long time. I tried to control your mind that night but couldn’t. I decided then that I’d wait for you. When you touched my face, though, that sealed it. Your curiosity about me overcoming your fear was too novel to ignore. I was awestruck.”
He is silent for several minutes. I think he’ll continue, but he doesn’t. The microwave ding breaks the spell and he places the food and a bottle of water in front of me.
I don’t want to appear ungrateful, but I ask anyway, “Do you have crackers?”
“You cannot have crackers. But I have some homemade bread.” He takes a tray from the fridge and slices off a generous piece and hands it to me.
I dip the bread in the stew and take a bite. Then I try a spoonful of the vegetables and beef. Holy God. For a moment I forget I’ll never see my mother again. I forget school is a distant memory, and that I’m both the captive and food source of a vampire. For this one moment I’m in heaven because this is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.
I have no power to choose my fate here, and there are horrible and frightening things about my situation: captivity, pain, and probably death. But there are also tiny silver linings in the clouds, assuming he doesn’t keep me in a rat-infested dungeon. But that seems unlikely. If he’s obsessed about his food having a proper diet, it would be stupid to keep me in dirty living conditions. It would hardly improve the quality of his food.
He sits across from me at the table, watching me eat. When I glance up to him, I note that his eyes stray occasionally to my jugular. I take a slow, deep breath. I feel like a pig being fattened for slaughter.
The silence is too much for me. “Are you going to kill me because you’ll get bored with me?”
“I don’t get bored. When you’ve lived this long, you learn how to not get bored or you go mad.”
“Then why?”
He glares at me, leaning forward, seeming to eat up the small space between us in his growing impatience. “Do not speak to me as though we are equals. We will never be equals. Why WHAT?”
I shrink back as his voice rises.
If he kills me, it will be due to my inability to address him in the way he wishes without prompting. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to just talk to him that way. It’s too foreign, and frankly rather weird. Though I’m sure once he’s hurt me, once I understand the situation, the word will fall from my lips naturally and easily. Anything to appease him will be my stance at that point. My self-preservation instincts can’t be that weak.
“Why, Master,” I say.
He sighs and shakes his head at having to prompt me. “It will just happen someday. I won’t be able to help it. At some point I will lose control; it’s what I am. I’m not a comforting fairy-tale. There is no such thing as a noble or good vampire. I am a predator. You are my prey. When I am finished playing with you, I will kill you. But it will probably be years; it usually is. You have nothing to fear for the foreseeable future. Except pain.”
I eat as slowly as possible because if I take my time, it will prolong my pain-free existence with him. But finally my spoon drags across the bottom of the bowl, taking the last bit of vegetable and beef broth with it.
“Would you like more?”
His generosity startles me, even though I know the purpose in it: his own feeding pleasure. Still I’m grateful for an extension to my reprieve.
“Can I have just half a bowl more? And a little more bread?”
He nods and takes my bowl from me. I feel weird, him waiting on me. Is this normal for a vampire/pet relationship? Then again, when I had a cat growing up, no one expected the cat to self-feed or do anything except be a cat. I wonder if I’m even allowed to get food on my own.
After the second half-bowl and piece of bread, I push it away. My anxiety begins to climb because there seems to be nothing left in the way between us. No more preliminaries or explanations, and no new ways to stall have presented themselves. Whatever he’s going to do to me, he’s going to do. Soon.
I’m nervous about what he’ll do, but I’m also nervous for more mundane reasons. I know he’s going to fuck me. I’m nervous because I’m sure every girl is nervous about her first time, especially when she’s waited so long it’s become built up too big in her mind. Even though I know I don’t have a choice, my brain can’t call it rape because for whatever reason, the idea of him inside me, makes me wet. If he doesn’t already know that, he soon will.
He takes the bowl and places it in the dishwasher, along with the spoon. “Finish your water,” he says, his back still turned to me.
I don’t even think about protesting. I down the rest of the water and hand the bottle to him, which he puts in a recycling container.
“Would you like a tour of your new home?”
I nod, not able to hold eye contact. It’s not that I’m afraid he’ll suddenly be able to hypnotize me. It’s just that his eyes are so scary. They aren’t red right now. They are a very dark brown, so dark that it’s hard to see where the iris and pupil meet, and that’s just as terrifying as the re
d.
He takes my hand and leads me through the house. My new home. It feels so wrong. It’s as if he’s wrapping my captivity in some nice, civilized box. By now I’m sure I won’t be locked in a dungeon because it doesn’t seem to fit Christian. I have no doubt I will have the opportunity to gaze into the abyss, to see the full truth of his darkness. I have no doubt he’ll hurt me. But he’ll do it on clean satin sheets in romantic lighting.
I think about my mom again. I think about 4:30 a.m. coming and going. Of me not showing up to decorate the cookies. Of never getting to lick frosting off my fingers again, or even eat a cookie if he holds true to his no crap diet rules.
I wonder if she’ll be able to open the shop when she discovers I’m not in my off-campus apartment oversleeping. I hate the idea of being a six o’clock news sound byte. It’ll be worse at school. Rumors and stories will spread like wildfire. Even if Christian lets me go, I’m not sure I could face all the eyes forever on me, wondering what happened and what I’m not telling. I try to blend. I’ve worked so hard at it. After this I could never blend again.
He’s pulling me through a dark hallway with old paintings that are probably members of his family. They’ve got that feel to them. I find myself tugging back, resisting as the panic builds. I want to convince him to let me go, at least partly. If this goes through to the morning, I know I can never leave even if I managed escape. I can’t live with all those eyes on me—both camera and human—asking questions and whispering. I just can’t.
“Master, please. Please just let me stay at my apartment. Let me live my life and you can have me at night. I’ll do whatever you want. But I have to be at the bakery at 4:30 during the week… ” I trail off because this is so stupid—asking to be his part time prisoner. For a terrifying minute I’m afraid he’ll kill me or hurt me badly for even thinking something so ludicrous, but he just laughs.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. You see, I’m a very jealous sort. When I’m sleeping during the day, how do I know you wouldn’t be fucking that pussy, Devon?”
Devon. I can’t believe I’ve forgotten about him. Christian could have killed him, but if he’s worried I’d sleep with him, he must have left him breathing. I feel a small bit of relief settling next to the guilt.
My eyes are on the ground again because the vampire is looking at me too hard. I’ve never been looked at like this before. I can barely cope with it.
“I... I wouldn’t. I swear I wouldn’t. I would be faithful to you.”
This makes him laugh again. “So you want to be my part-time pet? Live with me when it suits you so you can keep the rest of your life in order? I waited six YEARS for you!” His voice has risen, causing me to cringe.
“Please… I’m sorry, Please… ”
But he’s not done. He forces my face up to his, and I squeeze my eyes shut, wishing I hadn’t been so stupid.
“Six years,” he says quietly. With my eyes shut, the only thing I can process is his voice as it drops over me like a blanket. “It’s not a lot of time to a vampire, but it’s still a long time for a sentient being to be lonely after you’ve found the one you want. And you have to watch her laugh with others and hold hands and have crushes. And you can’t be near her during the day, which is when most of her life happens. If she’s in danger during that time, you can’t stop it. I’ve been driven nearly mad waiting and now you want to be mine on a part-time basis? Am I understanding you correctly?”
The tears are choking me, making it hard to get any words out. “I’m sorry.”
I think he’s going to do something awful, but he’s quiet. I realize I’ve let down my mental shields when he speaks again. He’s seen it all. Every ridiculous thought that led to my request.
His hand is on my cheek now, forcing my eyes to meet his. I start to shut them again, but he shakes his head. “Don’t, Juliette. Look at me.”
I force myself to obey him, trying to buy back his good will, if he had any of it to give to begin with.
“Listen to me and hear me. You will never be free. Never. The people will talk. Let them. The news will sensationalize. Your parents and friends will mourn and finally let you go. There is no window of opportunity where you can go back where no one knows. You can’t keep all worlds happy. It’s them or me. And that isn’t your call to make. It’s mine. As are you.”
I don’t push him out of my mind again. I’m too afraid. And I know he’ll feed me his blood which will stop him from getting inside my head at all. I can be patient and wait for that even though the idea still disturbs me. I just nod, trying to stop shaking. I can barely comprehend that this is my new life, imprisoned with a literal horror movie monster that even now electrifies my nerve endings by his mere presence. Some part of me hopes he loses control tonight and drains me because I don’t know how I can stand this for months or years. It’s too much.
“Death wish already?”
Of course he’s in my head. He’ll suck up every thought I let him have, and I’m too scared to try to deny him access.
“That’s smart. Keep being smart, Juliette and perhaps I’ll forgive you for your insulting request.”
He takes my hand again and leads me up a staircase and down the hallway to the last room on the right. “This will be your room. During the day, while I sleep, you’ll be confined here. Once we are connected by blood, I’ll feel it if you need me, but I warn you... if you panic about something during the day, it had better be an emergency. Disrupting my sleep will not endear me to you. Eventually you’ll sleep on my schedule. It may be hard at first, so there will be books and a television and healthy snacks in a small refrigerator should you need any of that. I want you to be comfortable when I’m not with you. The bathroom is off to the side there.” He points. “You’ll have plenty of time to explore it all when I’ve gone to bed for the day.”
I only have a few moments to take in the luxury of the room. It’s got a large picture window and I can see, even at night, that we are in an isolated area, someplace where me having a window doesn’t pose a threat to him. I still can’t help but feel that giving me sunlight is a nice gesture. The windows have heavy drapes that can be pulled closed to block out the daylight when I do succumb to his sleep schedule.
The bedspread is a lavender brocade with gold and dark purple embroidery. The pillow cases confirm my suspicion about satin. I’m lost in thought about this beautiful room and how my life will be long, lonely days in here trying to sleep and nights with Christian as the only other being I’m near.
“It won’t be like that. Soon you’ll adjust to sleeping in the day. And we will go out. We won’t stay inside all the time.”
I look up. “We won’t?”
“I am the most lethal thing you will ever be alone with; I don’t need to keep you hidden in a closet. We will go out where you are not known, and you will obey me to the letter or you’ll watch humans be slaughtered, knowing it’s your fault they died.”
Before I can respond, he takes my hand again and continues the tour. It’s wrong, but his skin against mine still comforts me, much like it did that night.
We walk through countless elegant rooms, many of them bedrooms, but also a dining room, ballroom, parlors, a room with an entertainment center, several nice bathrooms.
A vague hope flutters inside me that someone else comes here, someone who cleans the house and takes care of things, someone who could discover me and free me. But the house feels dead, like a museum, and some rooms have a healthy amount of cobwebs. Much of the house is clearly not in use.
Even if someone did come here to clean, it could be another vampire, or somebody under Christian’s thrall. As old as he is, he would think of a loose end like that.
We pass one room without going in. The door is shut.
“What’s in there?” Someday I will learn to keep my fucking mouth shut.
He turns toward me so fast I know I’ll never forget he isn’t human. His eyes are that fire-red glow again. His fangs edge out from between his
lips, and it takes everything in me not to try to run for it, even though I know such an act is beyond futile.
“That room is private. It is none of your concern what is in there.”
I think it must be a dungeon.
“No. You’ll see the dungeon when I’m ready for you to see it. It’s not the dungeon.”
I’m horrified, though not all that surprised that there’s a dungeon. Of course there’s a dungeon. He was probably around when dungeons were en vogue and everybody who was anybody had one.
I try to blank my mind of all thought so there simply isn’t anything for him to see and know. We go on in silence until we reach the last room in the house that I haven’t seen, besides the forbidden room. I know this last room is Christian’s and that it is where I will be spending the rest of the night.
He ushers me in and the door shuts with a loud finality. I spin to face him and find myself backing up.
“Must we play this game, Juliette? You back away, I move forward at that maddeningly slow pace. You try to run, convincing yourself you have some hope. I play with you a bit and let you think it before finally closing in? Really. I’ve done this for centuries. Just stand still and let me come to you.”
I wish whatever causes me to freeze in terror will start working again because now that I’ve been ordered to just stand here, every muscle fiber in my body is twitching, poised and ready for flight. Mercifully, he doesn’t do the maddeningly slow advance. He moves so fast it’s as if he teleported across the room. Maybe he did. I’m only human. What the hell do I know about vampire travel? He breaks all known laws of physics anyway; a little teleportation added to the mix seems trivial.
He’s standing mere inches from me. I can smell him. Rich, dark, spicy. Somehow I know this is just what he smells like. It’s not a cologne or aftershave. It’s just one hundred percent aroused male vampire.
And though my eyes haven’t strayed to his pants, I know he’s aroused. It’s in the look in his eyes, the flare of his nostrils, and the sudden reappearance of his fangs. He’s hungry for me. This is both terrifying and somehow alluring. I will not lie. I know I’m pretty. I’m not one of those pretty girls who is either insecure or lies to themselves about their charms. I know I’m desirable.