"That girl was fucking delicious," Pam said, thoroughly satisfied with her meal.
"The girls here tend to have more fruit in their diet," Eric explained. "The blood tastes a little sweeter."
"Huh," she said, considering this. This was their first night in the tiny coastal town and she had to say she was enjoying it so far. While she didn't enjoy the beach, she loved the coastal air. Here it was cool, salty, and reminded her of home.
She looked at him as he lay beside her on the bed they had borrowed from its occupants. They normally found abandoned homes or glamoured a place to stay from the owners. She would have killed them, but Eric generally preferred to leave no trace of where he had been. A trail of dead homeowners tended to give someone away.
She smiled at him and leaned closer. "Thank you for dinner," she whispered, brushing her lips against his. She opened her mouth as he responded, moving closer to him so that they lay together side by side, pressed against one another. But as soon as she was starting to pick up the pace he pulled back from her.
"You need to rest," he said. "It will be dawn soon."
"I haven't started bleeding yet," she protested. "I'm fine."
"Go to sleep," he told her, kissing her forehead. "You need the rest, my baby vampire."
Pam frowned at him but did as she was told. She laid down and shut her eyes, knowing he was going to go about the house and make sure it was secure for the day. Sighing to herself, she tried not to think about her frustration with Eric as she drifted off for the day.
TRUE BLOOD
"This is a beautiful gown," Pam told the woman.
"Thank you," the woman said mindlessly, caught in Pam's glamour. She'd only been a vampire four years and the fun of glamouring people had not yet worn off, though Eric had assured her it would.
"You don't like it anymore," Pam said. "You think it's hideous." The woman nodded. "You gave it to charity."
"I did," the woman agreed. "Gave it to the less fortunate."
"That's right," Pam said. She took it from the closet and watched as Eric rolled his eyes at her.
"Are you quite ready to leave?" he asked impatiently, though she could see his attitude was more for show than a genuine desire to leave at this particular moment.
"Go to the parlor," Pam told the woman and watched as the little robot wandered off. "Almost," Pam told him. "I need to put on my new dress."
She moved to slip her dress off and frowned as Eric turned his back to her. She let the dress fall from her shoulders and stepped out of it before pulling the new one on.
"Help me?" she asked and Eric turned away from the trinkets on the dresser.
He said nothing as he pulled the laces of the dress tight against her back. When finished he pulled her hair back over her shoulder so that it fell down her back in gentle curls.
"Are you ready now?" he said, smiling as she admired herself in the mirror.
"I am," she confirmed.
"Good. I have a place I'd love to show you."
TRUE BLOOD
He had taken her to one of his homes in America. He told her he eventually wanted to show her his home in Sweden, but the travel would take a long time because they had to go by ship. For now he would show her one of his houses in the country.
It was pretty but above all it was safe. She never exactly felt unsafe in his presence, but moving around so much made her uneasy. She feared that one day they would not find somewhere light tight for the day, even though Eric assured her that at the very least they could dig a hole in the ground if it came to that.
Eric told her they could stay for as long as she wanted. As he had seen most every place there was to see, he was content to go where she pleased. For now, she wished to remain.
So after three weeks they found themselves in the basement bedroom of his house. He was reading a book that he had long since forgotten he had ever owned and she was trying to brush the tangles from her hair. Surrounded by his things, she finally found the courage to ask the question that had been on the tip of her tongue for months.
"Are you growing bored of me?" she asked. She did not turn to face him but watched in the mirror as he looked up in surprise.
"What makes you ask that?" he responded, putting the book down.
"Are you?"
He frowned and moved to sit next to her on the sofa seated in front of the boudoir's mirror. "No," he said sincerely. "I have not gotten tired of you."
She nodded but he could tell she wasn't really satisfied. "What is troubling you?"
She looked down, her eyelashes casting pretty shadows on her cheeks. "Why will you no longer touch me?"
He smiled sadly as she continued to look away from him. He took the brush from her hands and placed it on the table. Smoothing her hair over her shoulder, he asked, "You think we need to have sex for me to be interested in you?"
He could see that she was confused. "Isn't that why you keep me with you?"
He felt his heart break a little at her question. "Listen to me, Pamela," he said. She turned to face him and finally looked at him to show her attention. "You are here because you are my progeny. As your maker I have a responsibility to teach you how to survive and to keep you happy. You're not a toy that I'll tire of and toss out. You're family."
"Do you no longer wish to have sex?" she asked.
"Oh, I want to," he said. "But I don't want you to think that's all you're here for. And if I can prove that by never touching you again, that's what I will do. You're more important to me than a fuck."
She turned away from him quickly and he watched as a hand came up to brush a blood tear away from her face. He had not seen her cry before but knew she must have at some point as she was not surprised to see the blood on her hand.
"May I ask you something?" he politely inquired.
"You can make me answer or do anything you please," she said.
"I don't wish to force you to do things," he said. "I want you to want to tell me."
"Ask me," she decided.
"How old were you, when you were first with a man?"
She froze for a moment but eventually answered, "7."
He nodded, unsurprised. "The age of consent is 10," he observed.
"My uncle was a pervy cretin," she replied, wiping away a few more tears that had fallen.
"I'm sorry," he told her, feeling genuine pain in response to hers. Being a maker was turning out to be nothing as he had anticipated. He had imagined he would feel burdened and tied down by a progeny, and while she was a responsibility, she also gave him a sense of purpose. He felt an undeniable need to protect her and a connection to her he had never thought possible.
He had eventually come to notice that she constantly used sex as a tool; she used it to thank him, especially, and she never laid beside him without expecting him to initiate. While he had been content with their relationship the first few years of their life together, he now wanted to become closer to her. Interestingly, he believed the only way to do that was to not sleep with her. Too much of her life had been centered around intercourse and he wanted her to see that he could be trusted to care about her without it. He wanted to teach her that she had value as a person and not only as a sexual object.
Pam's head was turned down to her lap. She had grabbed a handkerchief so that she could catch the blood falling from her eyes before it stained her nightgown. He reached around her and pulled her close, resting his head on top of hers. He offered her silent comfort for a few minutes as she regained her composure.
"We will have sex when you no longer feel like you need to have sex with me to earn your keep. You are more than that, Pamela." She turned her gorgeous blue eyes to him. "Do you understand?"
She nodded, throat tight, and he pressed a sweet kiss to her forehead. She was touched beyond words. She cared deeply for Eric. He had rescued her from a life she loathed. He had been responsible for more happiness in the four short years she had been with him than she had experienced in the thirty-four years she had been human. She had done nothing for him, yet he continued to protect and take care of her, the only person who had truly ever done so for her. She vowed to herself that she would always strive to repay his kindness.
She hoped she could make him proud of her. She wanted him to never regret making her his progeny.
A/N: According to some quick research, the age of consent in most US states in 1880 was 10, although it was as low as 7 in Delaware.