Chapter 3: Août 1688, Versailles

It was a beautiful late summer’s day six months later that I found myself in Aurora’s (for that was l’Comtesse’s given name) bedchamber.

I had long since read Newton’s brilliant ‘Principe’ and was still digesting his equations that among other things explained so much that had mystified astronomers since Ptolemy. In short, he proved that the planets orbited the Sun, which had long been understood, but not in the circular motion that had always been assumed, rather in ellipses. That explained and solved so many of the inconsistencies that had plagued earlier planetary calculations. It was if the entire universe was a great clock run by mechanisms finally revealed.

I sat naked in an ornate chair, upholstered with costly embroidered Belgian silk cloth, reading, while Aurora lay naked in her afterglow, her skin marble-white on the bed. Her golden hair spread out around and above her head, while her rounded breasts, topped by the most delicious pink nipples, pointed towards the ceiling. Her eyes were closed and her unblemished limbs were entangled in the sheets. She lay unmoving, a short trail of blood dripping from her arm where I had used my scarificator to bleed her.

Her voice broke the silence of the summer afternoon.

She raised her head off of the pillows and looked at me, as I took a sip from the crystal glass.

“Christian, the pleasure that you give me is more than I could have ever imagined possible. It is almost unbearable at times.”

She continued on, “And Christian? You know that I love you deeply? Oui?”

I smiled and nodded at her, for I loved her as well.

“Je t’aime aussi. Aujourd’hui et pour toujours. I love you also — today and for all time.” My words were true then and were still true today.

“I am pregnant with your child,” she stated flatly, as if she was not sure how I might take the news. “I have not had my flows for two months.”

“Are you sure it’s mine?” I asked, not sure myself whether to be pleased or concerned. “It can’t be your husband’s?”

She laughed her magical laugh that made my affection for her so complete.

With her eyes twinkling at me she responded.

“The child is most certainly NOT my husband’s! He is not interested in me that way. Young men are more to his liking. Due to his indifference, you are the only man to have ever had me. While I am just a simple farm girl, not a learned physician like yourself, that would seem to point to you as the father.” A ‘simple farm girl’ indeed!

I looked at Aurora and I could see the anxiety in her face, awaiting my response to her announcement. I allowed my joy to show on my face. I sat upright in the chair and leaned forward to take her hand and kissed her palm.

“You make me feel humble, for you have freely given me the greatest gifts that a man can receive from a woman; first your chastity and then a child. There is a joy in my heart that I had never expected to know, my sweet flower, my dearest love.”

Her face shone with joy at my response and it made her even lovelier if that was possible.

“I assume that your husband is also aware of the basic mechanics of how a woman becomes pregnant. Will he be jealous or angry when he discovers that he has been cuckolded?”

She laughed again.

“He would be more jealous of my having you than of you having me, I’m afraid. Sometimes it seems so sad, but he doesn’t care a whit for me.”

“Then why, in heaven’s name, did you marry him?”

“It was arranged,” she replied, the regret palpable in her voice. “He is quite handsome, you know. And very rich, as well, which my family was not.” She paused and looked away from me before she said in a sardonic voice, “I can’t tell you how disappointing our wedding night was.”

“I hope that you and I have made up for it since then,” I replied with a sly smirk.

“Now you are fishing for compliments, mon amour! But you are right, and you have made me the happiest woman on earth. You are my world. You are more than a mere mortal man to me.” She looked at me oddly and tapped the side of her nose as if she discerned a great secret.

I raised my glass to her and took another sip of the blood that I had so recently drawn from her. It was still warm and carried a bouquet of her essence, a unique taste never to be duplicated. A vintage finer than any wine produced at any vineyard in France.

As for my being more than a mere man, I agreed. I was, and for that matter, am, what is called in the common parlance, a vampire. Yes, I was both more and LESS than a mortal man.