Disclaimer: All of the following is thoughtfully rearranged from the original works of Charlaine Harris. So I cannot scream MINE.

"Lover, I must take this call," Eric said.

I nodded and smiled, and turned my attention to the bar, listening idly to the patrons.

Sitting about two tables away from me was a young fangbanger, totally engrossed with the vampires and the atmosphere surrounding her. She was contemplating Maxwell Lee, thinking how wonderful he looked, how professional he was, and how happy he must be.

She sat there and wondered how exactly she could get a vampire to turn her.

I thought she was a fool that shouldn't be basing this on what it looks like in a tourist bar in Shreveport.

I thought if she ever spent some time getting to know vampires, she'd never volunteer at all, but cling as hard as she could to her humanity.

The clarity came for me when I compared the Eric I knew in those few days in my house and my bed, to the Eric I knew before and after that time. The weight of centuries had been erased for those few days, the coping that was done to shield himself, the changes to his essential person that had made him a much grimmer vampire. I pondered the reason for the difference, and found more reason to die in due time, to stay human.

.*° o O 0 * 0 O o °*.

One day, thinking back to the night I washed his feet, it occurred to me that that was the only time I saw Eric react to a small amount of pain in a negative way. This tough vampire had been shot in front of me, and hadn't done more than flinch, yet his painful feet had elicited winces. Perhaps he had particularly sensitive feet, I thought at first, but that seemed silly. The key to defeating a thousand year old vampire couldn't be small cuts to the feet. No, it was that in his memory-less state, he'd forgotten what pain felt like. My mind boggled when I thought about all the pain he must have endured over his lifetime so that being shot meant nothing. Having had a few beatings, and one staking, not to mention a spectacular torture session, I knew that there must have been a lot of that old friend pain in Eric's life if he didn't even flinch anymore. I couldn't even imagine getting to that point, and didn't want to.

Not only did Eric forget all the physical pain in that time, he was lucky enough to forget the emotional pain too. He was carefree in that time, and told me that that was the happiest he'd been in hundreds of years. I wasn't arrogant enough to think that was all my doing. At least part of his happiness came from the fact that he forgot all the terrible things he endured. I'd seen Godfrey weighted down with the terrible weight of the centuries he'd been alive. Thalia too seemed to find no joy in life. I noticed some humanity in Jake Purifoy, the person he used to be was still there. Vampirism didn't change his personality – but then he hadn't had a lot of time in order to have his humanity stripped out of him. I doubted that vampires stayed that way. They had more and more taken away from them, their barriers removed until there was nothing human left. Bubba too, was what I had before termed a kind vampire, altogether similar to his human personality, but for the rage of the loss of his human life. Due to his discombobulation, he had vampires being kinder to him than I'm sure was the usual reaction. The dead are often unhappy to be that way it seems.

I noticed too that the majority of vampires were beautiful, but I'd also seen some that were not beautiful. Sigebert and Wybert were not beautiful, and some vamps I'd seen around had unattractive features. The Berts, however, were turned for a specific purpose – to protect the Queen and her child Andre. That was their job – to protect the Queen, and their only job. They were picked for their fighting skills and their desire to fight – they told me so themselves when I asked. Sophie Ann too was turned with a purpose, she told me, to rescue a vampire who had sold her sexually for many years.

So what part did beauty play in turning vampires? I knew from all the stories I heard that vampires didn't turn humans before the Revelation that they knew, but rather chose based on looks. Beauty played a part in the drives of vampires, whose very basic instincts are for blood, and for sex. They chose beautiful people to kill, those they found attractive, and then held them enthralled for the rest of their death for sex, and got their blood elsewhere. Lorena kept Bill enthralled for eighty years, and I had no idea how long Appius had kept Eric. So beauty got you killed and then you served your murderer in bed until you could take it no longer, and were driven away.

I've thought long and hard about what Felicia told me too – that other vampire leaders were insistent that their female subjects "service" them. Without going rogue, there is no escaping the vampire hierarchy. You had to sign in. Once you did, then you would be subject to the service of whichever vampire took a fancy to actually make use of you. When you're smaller and younger, consent isn't an issue. The vampire world isn't kind to humans, and I have no doubt that it's even worse for vampires. I notice that quite a few of the female vampires I know are more interested in other women, than in men, and all vampires are interested in being with humans. As I said, when you're smaller and younger, consent isn't an issue. Like abuse victims, they passed the cycle on into eternity, creating more victims of the abuse, both human and vampire. Tara was proof of how that passed on.

I glanced over at Eric again, speaking in some language that was guttural to my ears. Eric was the unusual vampire leader, the unusual sheriff. Felicia told me that Indira had recommended him because he was so very different. Knowing his own experiences, I had a real appreciation for the fact that Eric chose not to continue that trend. Pam too made it clear that Eric allowed her to chose whether or not the tie was sexual, rather than giving her no choice. That was a choice that Eric never got to make. He didn't want sexual services without consent. The fact that this was unusual gave me a deep chill that this wasn't the norm. I know that the oath of fealty allows the vampire leaders to enter your home, so there's really nowhere to hide.

I had my own reasons not to be turned, on top of the serious drawbacks that came with being a vampire. I knew, better than anyone, what it was like to be different, to be shunned, to be hated, and to be a minority. As a telepath, I'm in a minority of three. Listening all my life to the awful things that people thought about me, and wanting to be less supernatural – not more. I just couldn't imagine how I would endure that for eternity, or for as long as was given me. It was a surprise to Hadley, but I've known what it was like to be shunned for a long time. Sure, maybe my telepathy would be easier to deal with, or maybe my telepathy would go away; but that's a lot of maybes to base the rest of my unlife on. I don't know that I could deal with the idea of hearing all the hateful, soul grinding things for the next hundred years, let alone the many hundreds on top of that.

Further to that, who exactly chooses to call their boyfriend "Master" forever – no one except some secret groups whose heads I try to keep out of – that's for the bedroom. That's of course if my boyfriend stays my boyfriend. Bill loved his wife, but claimed he found love with me. I doubt the idea that a relationship could endure the absolute pressure of centuries and centuries of being together. Would I want to be like Waldo? Heartbroken because Sophie Ann moved on, pining after him long after he tired, or it could be me that dealt out the heartbreak. After all, I'd found new loves in my short life. There was no guarantee that there wouldn't be more. Hadley turned for love, only to find that love shared, and not for her alone. I don't know if I could live that way, as one of a series of favourites, a relationship to reminisce with the newest love.

So I resolve, to stay human, and I hope this fangbanger investigates further before someone takes her at her word and she takes such an irrevocable step. Final death would be better than the life of a vampire, even if I could give up food and sunlight, and freedom.

Eric called Pam over and gave her the phone. He turned to me, and I gave him a kiss before he could say a word. I tried to pour all of my appreciation for his difference into it, and the fact that he knew I would die and lay in the Earth without him, and still allowed me to choose.