Chapter 5

It was a little after ten about a week later. I'd just gotten out of my evening shower and was contemplating whether to spend the next several hours studying or playing the PS2 or going down to have some fun with my friends. At least Larry was at another one of his frat parties, so I could go back to my actual dresser to get changed. I emerged from the bathroom into my dorm room, shut the door behind me, and turned on the light.

There was Michelle, sitting on my bed, wearing only a pink silk nightie.

"What are you doing here?" I said in surprise. "Aren't you supposed to be with Larry at that frat party?"

"Larry's still at the party, having a good time," she replied. "I don't think he even knows I left."

"And you just decided to come back here to wait for him," I concluded. "Wearing that."

"Please," she scoffed. "I came here to wait for you."

"So you came here planning to cheat on him?"

Slowly, sensuously, she arose from where she sat. "Larry and I have been history since the moment I saw you again. He just doesn't know it yet."

For a moment, the only sound that could be heard was the light, barely audible sound of her bare feet moving closer to me across the carpet. It wasn't until she was within two feet of me that I bothered to move, which I did by brushing past her towards my closet. "Oh, this is crazy," I said.

"What's the matter?"

"Look, I'm sorry, but you have to remember that you and I are over," I said as I began pulling out some clothes.

"Is there someone else?"

I stopped everything. What was I going to say to that? Part of me knew I should have said yes. I should have said I was with Alicia. But another part have me wouldn't have felt right about saying that. As long as I continued to do stuff like I did last week, she and I would never be officially an item. Frozen with indecision, I said nothing.

She took that to mean no.

"Vincent, the only reason we broke up was because we were going in different directions. We're not anymore. I'm here. You're here. I don't see anything keeping us apart anymore."

"Michelle, I can't ask you to do this. I'm not the same guy you dated in high school. I've changed."

Her arms came to rest on either side of my neck. "Yeah, I've seen. You've learned a new disappearing trick, and probably a few other things I haven't seen yet. You've fallen in with a slightly different crowd, I get that. But you're still Vincent to me. That's all I care about. You're still the guy I loved enough to be my first ... you know. I didn't stop loving you when I left; I didn't stop loving you when I met Larry; and I still love you now."

Her hands placed themselves on the back of my head and she pulled me to her lips. The logical half of my brain was screaming at me to fight her, to push her away. The other half wanted nothing more than to embrace her to me. Torn between pushing and pulling, my hands essentially just held onto her sides, doing nothing, leaving me pretty much at her mercy. She began throwing her weight on me, and as a result I stumbled backwards, twisting around a bit, and landed in a sitting position on the bed, with her seated on my lap.

I caved.

My hands moved around to her back and pulled her against me, accepting her tongue as it probed my mouth as my own probed hers. Her hand reached down and pulled apart the folds of my robe, allowing my piece of equipment to rise like the Sears Tower, and as she continued making out with me her hand began stroking it, while my hands slid the straps of her nightie off her shoulders and took hold of her cute little breasts. We didn't keep that up for very long, though. We were eager, and excited, and we wanted this to happen, no matter how much I knew it shouldn't. A slight movement of her hips, and she lowered herself onto the thing she held in her hand.

She moaned her lovely little moan, and her body began to shiver. That was one of the little things I remembered about her from the one and only time we'd done this before; the way her body tended to shiver when her southern region was stimulated. I found it to be an adorable little quirk. She kissed me again, her lips quivering against mine and her breath coming in the shortest little gasps I'd ever heard. I held her tightly to me, her soft little breasts feeling like a warm cushion against me. She slid away from my lips and began to nibble on my earlobe.

"I've been waiting for this for so long," she whispered into my ear, before a small cry escaped her mouth and I began running kisses along the side of her face, down to—

Yeah, I hear you out there going "Uh-oh, he's gonna bite her!"

And your expectations are not unwarranted. As the little noises of pleasure flowed into my ear, I could smell her blood pumping. It was right in my face; it was not only full of blood, but sexually heated blood; the most tempting kind. I planted light kisses on her neck; I could almost taste it! My lips pulled away from my teeth. My jaws opened. I drew closer to her...

I didn't bite her.

I caught myself at the last possible instant, and in a flash of sanity, shoved her off of me. I ran to gather the clothes I had begun collecting from the closet, while she picked herself up off the floor in utter confusion. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry," I breathed, throwing on clothes as quickly as I could, "I just can't do this."

"Vincent, what's the matter? Is it me?"

By now was already pretty much fully dressed, and still spouting apologies, much as I had after the time I first bit Alicia. "I'm sorry, it's not you, I just ... I can't stay here!"

With that I bolted out the door, down the stairs and out of the dorm building. I ran. I had no idea where I was going; I just ran. I had to get as far away from Michelle as I could. When I finally stopped for a breath, I'd managed to reach the more urban area of the city. I must have been running for twenty minutes.

I looked around me. There were people. People out enjoying the nightlife. Hapless cattle. Whatever my stance on life may have been, my encounter with Michelle just then had stirred something up in me. I had to feed, and now. But that didn't mean I wanted to go back to the school, down to the SVA and ask Nigel for a glass of B+.

I wanted live prey.

I wanted to hunt.

I began prowling the streets, scanning the crowds. There were plenty of people to choose from, but I didn't want to just grab a random stranger. I wanted to pick the right victim, if there is such a thing.

What I was looking for ultimately came to me. I was just wandering along when I was spotted by a trashy-looking hooker with light blonde hair and a cigarette in her fingers. "Hey, junior," she said, "interested in a good time? I'm one of the less expensive girls around here." I took one look at her. This pitiful woman, selling her body out to whoever was interested in paying for it. A worthless human being. She'd do perfectly.

I took a quick look around, and when I was sure no one would see, I knocked the cigarette from her hand, grabbed her by the neck and clamped a hand over her mouth. "I'm very sorry about this," I said to her suddenly terrified face. I dragged her over to the alleyway behind us, and when I was certain again that I could continue unobserved, I took hold of her by the head and shoulder and bit into her throat in a flash.

She was too paralyzed to even scream.

I'm not sure how long I kept this up for; probably just a few minutes. It was really all a blur; all I know was that I loved it. When I finished my meal, I let her drop from my hands and tilted my head back with a big sigh. My God! I'd never felt so alive! At least not since...

Not since the first time I killed someone.

I looked down at her, at the pathetic corpse of a pathetic person who had lived a pathetic life. I struggled for a moment to feel any kind of sympathy for her; I couldn't. All I understood just then was the thrill of the hunt and the joy of the kill, and for just that moment, Tanya's way of thinking began to make sense. Maybe she—

"Oh my God!" someone screamed. I spun around. I'd been seen. A thirty-something couple was standing just outside the alley, staring at me. The woman's eyes were the size of golf balls, and her hands were covering her mouth. The man began shouting, "Somebody call the cops!" Suddenly all the people walking the street were gathering around, staring at me.

What was I going to do?

To hell with concealment! I acted purely on impulse, not caring how many people saw me. I bared my still bloody teeth and snarled at them all. All of them reeled back in fright. That's right, humans! I'm a big scary monster! That done I turned, flickered up to the fire escape, climbed the wall, hopped to the adjacent rooftop and ran. Looking back on it, that was probably the stupidest thing I could have done in that scenario; nonetheless, it was fun!

I ran along, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, ultimately dropping back down to the street when I was sure the coast was clear. I just stepped off the edge, landed on my feet and walked away. You know, for as long as I've been a vampire, the ability to do that is still as cool as hell!

Anyway, I continued on back to the school, in much less of a hurry this time. I just walked. And that gave me time to think. If nothing else, I understood now that Michelle and I could never happen again. I mean, my logical side had always known that, but now I understood it completely. If I wanted to have any kind of real relationship, it would have to be with Alicia. She was ready and waiting for me, and now I was ready to accept. I'd done enough fooling around; it was time we got serious. So perhaps I should find her and do something about that.

I got back to the school, and for a moment thought about returning to my dorm room to call Alicia, but I didn't want to risk running into Michelle just yet, so I decided to go down and see her in person. I descended to the SVA and went to check Alicia and Elizabeth's room. No one answered when I knocked. Fortunately, Vanessa happened to be returning to her room just then, with her arm hooked under Jonathan's. "Hey, Vincent! What's going down?"

"You seen Alicia around here?"

"Last I saw her, she was going for a dip with Elizabeth."

"Oh, great, thanks!"

I immediately went off in the direction of the pool, and stepped through the doors. I spotted Elizabeth right away. Not that she was doing anything extreme; she's just Elizabeth, and she tends to get noticed. She was just gliding around the water in her black string bikini. Alicia, however, was nowhere to be seen.

Well, at least one person was sure to know where she was.

"Hey, Elizabeth!"

Her face brightened in an instant when she saw me. Not that she was dismal or anything before, but she suddenly went from casual to sunny, and waved at me. She bobbed her head down and glided through the water like a penguin, then leaped up out of the pool and wrung the water out of her raven mane. She hopped up to me like a kid hops up to an ice cream truck, and all she said was, "Hi!"

"You seen Alicia?"

Elizabeth looked in the direction of the shower rooms. "Um, last I saw her she was—" As if on cue, the doors to the showers opened and Alicia emerged, fully dressed and carrying a small bag, presumably containing swim wear, her hair still a little wet.

Elizabeth grinned, obviously as amused as I was by the irony of her timing. "Hey, Alicia!"

Alicia smiled and came over to join us, albeit with a little less of Elizabeth's schoolgirl enthusiasm. "Hi Vincent! What's up?" For a moment I thought something looked a little different about her ... ah well, anyway...

I took a hesitant look towards Elizabeth before speaking. "Uh, Elizabeth ... you think you could maybe ... like give us a moment?"

She shrugged, still smiling. "Sure, no problem." She turned and walked back in the direction of the pool, sitting down on the edge and dipping her legs in the water. It actually disturbed me how easily she'd complied, but decided against dwelling on it.

Alicia looked at me, clearly curious and certainly worried about what I had in mind. "What is it?"

"Look," I said, "we've just been fooling around with each other for a while, and sure I've had fun with it, but I think now it's time we started to change things." I paused a moment. She looked like she didn't know whether to be intrigued or worried. "I think we should get a little more serious with it now. I mean, you know ... I was thinking we could maybe do something tomorrow night, just you and me ... like in a date capacity, so to speak."

I got the impression from the look in her eyes that she liked that idea. "You mean it? You're ready for that?"

"Absolutely! What do you say?"

Her answer consisted of a beaming smile on her face, followed by her arms being thrown around my neck and her lips upon my own. When she released me she said, "Right now I was going to go get started on my homework for Monday, but now I can't wait for tomorrow! Where did you want to go?"

I realized suddenly I hadn't stopped to think about that. I managed to quickly find an answer for her by saying, "How 'bout you wait till tomorrow to find out?" She smiled again, and headed off the other way with a giggle, waving at me on her way out the door.

"And I was beginning to think it would never happen!" Elizabeth practically came out of nowhere, go figure.

I looked at her suspiciously. "Were you listening to all that?" She answered me with another of her wicked smiles, and I said, "Yeah, okay, dumb question."

"So if you're going to start going steady with her, does that mean you and I can't ever..."

"Can't ever what? Don't tell me you're suddenly interested in commitment?"

Elizabeth scoffed. "Heck no! I just meant if this means we're not going to be doing it anymore."

I shrugged. "It probably does." She made a pouty face; not an especially genuine one, but I understood what she was thinking. "Don't worry, you'll get over it. I know I'm not the only guy you—"

"Yeah, but you are still my favorite. You're a good friend, Vincent, and a good lover too. You wouldn't be so cruel as to deny a girl one last tumble?"

"Hey, slow down now, I am trying to make things work with Alicia—"

"Vincent," she slowly purred, leaning in closer, "if you do this for me, I'll help you set up your date tomorrow night. You want it to be special, right? I'll make it into a night she will never forget!"

Boy, when Elizabeth wants something... "Where?"

She took me by the wrist and hurriedly led me in the direction of the showers. The shower room, by the way, doesn't actually have two separate rooms for guys and girls; just a bunch of individual privacy stalls that have room to get changed and everything in addition to a shower. There were a few showers going, and I worried for a moment that even with these privacy stalls we were sure to be about to attract attention.

But if that doesn't bother Elizabeth...

The girl wasted no time. She pulled me with her into one of the stalls and shut the door. In the time it took me to barely begin unfastening my belt, her bikini was already on the floor. Rather than doing what she normally would have done, which would have been to help rip off my clothes, she left me to do that on my own while she went over and turned on the shower. When I gave her a curious look, she responded by saying, "I need to take a shower after my little dip anyway, I just thought I might as well enjoy it."

"So I suppose this is the part where you ask me to come wash your back, huh?" I said as the last of my clothes hit the floor.

She scoffed again. "Hell with that, just get over here and fuck me!"

I faced the briefest instant of indecision. I was trying to finally commit myself to Alicia, so what I was about to do here would be cheating, wouldn't it? But as soon as Elizabeth placed her hands on the wall of the shower and thrust her ass out to await me, all my indecision went bye-bye. I'll commit after I'm done with her in here. I stepped into the shower, and slid into her back entrance.

"Aaahhhh..." was the instant gratification I got. Elizabeth's eyes rolled back and fluttered shut and she tilted her head back as I began pounding away at her. All at once the reason I loved having a friend like her came rushing back to me, and I quickly found myself realizing that one way or another, this would hardly be the last time she and I did this. I mean hey, Alicia has already proved that she enjoys threesomes every bit as much as I do, hasn't she? I smiled, and pumped in and out of Elizabeth with a song in my heart.

"Oh, yeah," she moaned. "Oh I love it ... Oh, keep fucking me!" She took hold of her left leg and lifted it from the floor, starting to twist herself sideways. I took the message and placed my hand on her leg, freeing up her hand to be placed on the side of my neck so she could look into my eyes as I continued pounding her. "Oh you're such a naughty boy! Ooh, you're gonna make me cum!"

Which of course I did, very shortly afterwards. And no sooner did her juices start dripping off my balls, then I pulled out of her with a jerk, ready to give her my own present. She understood immediately, and dropped to her knees, opening her mouth and rolling out her tongue. Seconds later, her face was covered in ropy white streaks.

She smiled and giggled a while, letting the rush of water wash my seed off of her face. "So," I said, "what was that you were saying about if I did this for you?"

She grinned up at me. "Just leave everything to Elizabeth."

As usual, especially for the weekends, I slept in the next day. It was close to three when I woke up, and found the room not entirely empty. Larry sat on his bed. Michelle stood at the far side of the room. And they just seemed to be staring at each other. The first thing I sensed in the room was hostility; there didn't seem to be any kind of sympathy between these to parties. It seemed Michelle was attempting to finalize her break-up with him, and both of them appeared to be fairly pissed off with each other.

"Boy, if somebody sneezed here, all out war would break out," I said suddenly, breaking the silence. Both pairs of eyes immediately turned to me.

"Well good afternoon, Mr. Anti-sunshine," Michelle quipped.

"Hey, Vince," said Larry, "Michelle and I were just having a little break-up spat."

"That was my supposition."

Larry gave me a stupefied look. "Your what?"

"That's what he guessed, stupid," said Michelle.

Larry looked at her coldly for a moment, then turned to me. "Apparently she snuck away from the party without me last night and got X-rated with some other guy on campus." I suddenly found myself smiling at the poor lunkhead.

"You hear yourself?" Michelle snapped. "'Apparently!' You didn't even notice I was gone!" For a moment she just let him stew in the pain of how she had reflected his words at him. Then she added, "Anyway, I don't think it was all that X-rated, considering somebody cut it a bit short. Wouldn't you agree, Vincent?"

Larry suddenly started staring at me. "You mean you walked in and caught her in the act?" he gasped.

I remained silent for a second or two. "Not exactly."

"Well then why is she aski—" The answer hit him like a bus running over a Pinto. He pointed a finger at me, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. "No!"

"By the way, Larry," Michelle said, looking at me with a raised eyebrow as she started this sentence, "Did Vincent ever happen to mention that he and I used to date in high school?" Of course, this got his stare turned back in her direction. "Or that he happens to be the guy who made me into a woman?" she added. He remained fixated on her for a moment longer before slowly adjusting his gaze back toward me.

"Larry," I said rather heavily, keeping my attention on Michelle the whole time, "why don't you leave the two of us alone for a minute." I needed to finalize things with her myself, now that Alicia and I were going to be getting serious.

He took a couple seconds to look back and forth at the two of us before slowly rising up and saying, "Sure, no problem." With that, he stepped out the door and shut it behind him.

"If you want to talk to me," Michelle said, still clearly rather miffed with me, "you can at least have the decency to get out of that bed. It's fucking almost three 'o clock, for God's sake!"

"All right, but not until you close those blinds," I replied.

Her shoulders hung and her head tilted to the side. "What's up with you and those stupid blinds?" I said nothing, just gave her one of those looks. You know, of the "don't argue with me, just do it" variety. She rolled her eyes and said, "Fine." She walked to the window and closed off the deadly light pouring into the room, and I arose from my bed and grabbed my pair of jeans off the floor and began sliding them on.

"I just want to know one thing," she said to me. "What the hell happened last night? Why did you jump ship in the middle of what we were doing?"

I sighed. "I wish I could tell you. Right now, the only thing I need you to understand is that you and I are of the past. I can't allow myself to be tempted to get close to you."

She shrugged in a wide-eyed sort of way that still demanded explanation. "Why not?"

"Look, what I said before still stands, Michelle. I've changed. I've been pulled into a whole different world since we broke up, and if we keep this up I'll end up pulling you into it too."

"Well you seem to be doing more-or-less okay, aside from the part where you're sleeping all day. How do I know getting pulled into this world of yours would be a bad thing?"

"It's not as simple as..." I stopped. I looked away from her eyes, groping for a way to explain the situation without telling her the whole truth. But wait, what if I did? What if I told her what I was, and she expressed interest in joining me? What if she decided she wanted to be turned? No, I couldn't so casually give out that truth on the possibility that the recipient of the information would be intrigued by it. She'd probably freak out instead. Besides, even if I did let her join us there was...

Alicia.

"There is someone else," I said at last.

Now that she understood. Her head rolled back with an angry grunt. "I knew it," she growled.

"I'm sorry if you're disappointed that I didn't wait for you," I said, "but I've moved on. I've got my own life now, and you're just not a part of it anymore. I'm sorry."

"Fine. I understand," she muttered. "Then I guess this is where I excuse myself from your life." And so she marched over to the door and yanked it open. Both of us were expecting there to be someone standing there when she did, but we both thought it was going to be Larry. It was actually someone else entirely, just getting ready to knock on the door when it opened.

It was Elizabeth.

"Well how 'bout that," Michelle fumed. "I guess this must be her, isn't it?"

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. "Her who?"

"She's just a friend," I said sullenly to Michelle.

"Name's Elizabeth," she said, extending a hand which Michelle did not take.

"Well, Elizabeth, I hope you'll make Vincent very happy. Have a nice life, both of you." With that she proceeded to storm out as Elizabeth stepped inside.

"What was that all about?"

"Ex-girlfriend, transferred here to see me, wanted to get back together. I said no."

"Oh." Elizabeth needed no further explanation.

"So was there something you wanted to see me about?"

"I was hoping you could join me down in the lower levels, so I could show you the preparations I've made. Alicia's still sleeping, at least last time I checked, so you don't need to worry about her."

In walked the big lout with an armful of beer cans. "Hey, if you two are finished about now, why d—" He stopped suddenly, seeing Elizabeth where he expected to see Michelle, and instantly turned on his I-laughingly-use-the-word "charm." "Well, hellllooo!"

Elizabeth looked at me, clearly repulsed. "Roommate?"

"Roommate."

The slob took a few eager steps toward her. "Hey wassup baby? I'm Larry! And you are?"

"Suddenly very eager to be gone from here."

Larry took a step back, reeling from that wound. Elizabeth looked at me in a pleading sort of way. "Just give me a minute to shower and put on some clothes I didn't just sleep in," I said. She nodded, and turned and walked out the door.

I was just starting to turn to head for the shower. "Hey, is it darker in here than it was a minute ago?" Larry said. I reflexively turned back to him in response, not really thinking anything of it. Then I saw him notice the blinds. "Oh, hey, weren't those blinds open?"

"Larry, don't—"

Before I could stop him, Larry had pulled the string. I instantly dove for cover behind my bed as deadly white-hot light came flooding into the room. Now that I look back on it, I probably overreacted a little; considering what time it was, there wasn't all that much sunlight coming into the room anyway, but I guess it's a natural vampire reflex to become panicky in the presence of daylight. Anyway, Larry looked at me with more than a little suspicion. "Y'okay?"

"Close those blinds Larry, now!" I shouted.

"Dude, what the fuck—"

"CLOSE 'EM!"

Obviously baffled, Larry consented. As soon as the lethal rays were gone, I stood up and sighed. "Dude, what's up with you, anyway? Out all night, later than even me, mortally afraid of the sun, hangin' out with weird goth chicks, you sure didn't used to do all that."

I just looked at him a moment, pondering my answer. I idly imagined for a moment if I were to tell him the truth. It was a comical idea; I knew he'd never believe it—So why not just tell him? Since he's not gonna believe it anyway, no harm, no foul! "You want to know?"

"Yeah."

"You sure?"

"Yeah!"

"You absolutely sure you want to know?"

"Dude, fuckin' spill it!"

"I'm a vampire."

For a moment, he just stared at me. Saying nothing. I just looked back at him, waiting for a response. And it finally came in the form of Larry just cracking up laughing. I couldn't hold back a smile, and added, "That's right, I'm an immortal, bloodsucking creature of the night." He laughed some more, of course. Just watching his reaction was actually pretty entertaining.

When he finally started to calm down, all he could say to me was, "Man, you are one crazy motherfucker." What made it more amusing was that I actually knew exactly what he was going to say before he did.

That's when things stopped being so funny.

I turned around again to head for the shower. I had not even taken a step when I suddenly heard the shuffling of blinds and felt a burning pain on my back, and instantly leapt away from the rays that Larry had just allowed back in. "Goddamn it, Larry, I told you to close those blinds!"

He gave me the most incredulous look he was capable of. "Dude, the joke's over!"

"I'm not joking with you Larry, close the goddamn blinds!"

"Vince, stop with the stupid vampire game, what's your fuckin' problem?"

I glared at him, and—I don't know now why I decided to do what I did—thrust my hand into the sunlight. I just held it there, feeling the pain of it starting to burn. My hand trembled as smoke started rising from it; I gritted my teeth in agony, which I think meant my fangs were on full display, and finally yanked my hand back with a grunt when I just couldn't stand it anymore.

I glared again at Larry, who had eyes the size of golf balls. "I won't ask again, Larry. Close-the-god-damn-blinds!" Larry obliged me again, and I had a good feeling he wasn't going to open them again.

He began slowly working his way towards the door. "Dude, I think you need to go to a fuckin' doctor or something, get that looked at, you know ... And then maybe see a dentist, or something—"

I was not about to let him just walk away from this. In a flash, before his startled eyes, I flickered up to him, grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the ground. I don't know if I've mentioned this, but one of the little things that happens to you when you become a vampire is that your strength goes up at least five fold. Or maybe it's ten fold, I'm not really sure. Whichever, the result is more-or-less the same: you become a helluva lot stronger. And I seriously doubt I could've lifted Larry off the floor with one hand like that when I was still human.

Larry stared down at me like a scared puppy as I snarled at him, fangs fully exposed. "Now you listen to me very fucking hard, asshole," I growled. "First of all, when I say I want the blinds closed, that means you had better keep them the fuck closed, because the next time you open them in front of me is going to hurt you a helluva lot more than it is right now. Secondly, what you're seeing right now stays here between me and you, because there are more of us on campus here, and if word starts getting around that somebody knows about us, someone's going to track you down, and I'll leave the rest of that up to your foul little imagination. Do we understand each other?"