Kasie sat by the window, watching as the sun set along the horizon. She sighed. For some reason ever since she had left BloodBar she had felt lonely and forlorn.
The last 8 nights were a haze of dirty dreams revolving around Nathaniel. In almost every one they had sex, and Kasie was embarrassed to realize it turned her on, that she wanted it.
"Oh, I'm so excited. This will be his third visit." Devun's gushing voice drifted in to disrupt her thoughts. She was talking about Marcus, her new beau, who was just head over heels for her, according to Devun, and him. Ever since they had met, about 10 days ago, they had wanted nothing more than to spend every waking (for him=night) moment together. It made Kasie want to barf.
"Yep, well, I'm getting in the shower, have fun." Kasie stood to leave.
"Wait! I need to run to the basement and find great-grandma's pearl necklace, it would go perfectly with this outfit." Kasie resisted the urge to roll her eyes and just nodded.
She headed down to get the shower ready. She was standing in her robe setting her new shampoo into one of the corners when a knock came to the door.
"Just come in!" She yelled. Marcus had arrived a little early.
Kasie heard the front door slowly open and then close.
"She's in the basement. It's the blue door with the painting of a Prairie Dog on it!" Kasie wasn't in the mood to actually interact with him, he was a vampire, and sometimes it felt like he was staring at her neck, it freaked her out.
She started the water. She left the door open a crack, so the steam could escape and humidify the rest of the dry-aired house. She let her robe slide to the ground and climbed into the welcoming warm water. Sadly this shower wasn't as caressing and intoxicating as it had been at BloodBar after Nathaniel had given her his blood.
She forced thoughts of him out of her mind. She was never going to go back there, not after all that crap. She had no interest in becoming a fangbanger, or any of the other stuff that happened. In fact she had been a little more defensive around guys, trying to distance herself even more than before.
Since the house must be empty, because Marcus and Devun had to have left by now on their date, Kasie decided to enjoy herself. She began singing in the shower. Her voice flew through the air carrying the words of "Breathe No More" by Evanescence through the house.
She had just finished the song when she started to get the feeling someone was watching her. She looked up to see Nathaniel nonchalantly watching her. She couldn't help it, she screamed.
In less than a millisecond the curtains were thrown open and his hand clamped over her mouth, silencing her. She tried to bite his hand, to get him off of her, but it was pointless, he had her, again. His other hand slowly released her waist and came up to rest with his forefinger pressing against his lips in the universal 'shush' sign.
Kasie bit her lip and kept quiet. She quickly turned away once free and shut off the water.
"What the hell has that, you pervert, watching me shower, and how the hell did you get in here?"
"You told me to come in, and about some door with Prairie Dogs on it. That was not perverted, I just followed your sweet voice and it led me here, you just happened to be in the shower at the time, so I reasoned to let you shower in peace, I just wanted to see how you were."
Kasie could have kicked herself for her blatant stupidity. Instead she turned her head to glare at him while still keeping her backside facing him. "You could have waited in the living room or something, rather than barge into the bathroom and go peeping tom on me!"
"Well if I hadn't I doubt I would have been informed of this storm of new cuts all over you." He sounded angry and disappointed. Kasie just brushed it off, after all it was none of his business what she chose to do with her body, and it belongs to her and only her.
"It's none of your damn business. Fuck off!" Kasie pointed at the door and turned away to face the wall she was pressed up against.
"Fine, I'll be in the living room." Nathaniel made almost no sound as he stalked off, which surprise Kasie, he was huge, and they had fairly squeaky floors, she was about to ponder it, but instead shrugged.
She closed the curtain and turned the water back on. She finished up quickly, not wanting Nathaniel in her home for a moment more than necessary.
She wrapped herself in the robe she had stepped out of only 20 minutes ago. She then headed out to the living room, not bothering to waste time getting dressed just yet.
She found him calmly lounging in Kasie's favorite chair, the dark blue one with denim-like material covering its big plushness. She leaned against the doorway and glared at him.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Her words dripped with venom.
"I simply came by to see that you were okay. You seem the type to be unable to take care of herself in the capacity of recovery from injury." He cocked his head to the side not bothering to disguise that he was checking her out in the tight, short red-violet robe.
"I'm fine. I was fine before I even left BloodBar and you know as much. So what's the real reason?" She wasn't going to swallow even a drop of his bullshit.
He sighed dramatically. "Is it so impossible for you to just accept kindness from another?"
"I'm no fool. You are not acting out of 'kindness,' I know your kind of vampire. All you care about is blood, sex, and business."
Nathaniel was suddenly there, towering over her with his height and her lack of it. His hands slipped around her shoulders pulling her up towards him, lifting her feet off the ground. On instinct she jammed her elbow into his solar plexus. She might as well have hit steel, his muscle were rock solid and flexed, ready for her assault. She felt her eyes water a little and she worked hard to resist the urge to cry out and cradle her injured elbow.
"Heh, you're still a firecracker. You smell very nice, quite citrusy."
"Let me go!" She was not about to go through this again.
"You're wrong."
"Huh? About what?" Her mood was souring more and more every second.
"I don't only care about blood, sex, and business." He started nuzzling into her neck, and she had no way to stop him. She felt those walls she had been rebuilding and fortifying start to crack and fall once again. She wanted to cry out, but she didn't want to give him the satisfaction of pulling even one sound from her.
"Get off! And what else do you care about, asshole." Her anger was raging through her veins.
"Oh, you're so mean." He pulled away a little and looked down into her eyes. "I care about you." He said it like it was the most obvious thing ever.
She gritted her teeth. "No you don't, now release me and leave." His chuckle only made her clench her jaw even tighter.
"How can you tell me what I do and don't care about? I am over a thousand years your senior, do not think to treat me like a child. You are the child here, and don't you forget it." Danger and irritation coated his words, and he punctuated it with a quick low growl.
Kasie felt a chill run through her body, from fear or lust she was not sure. For some reason this man was starting to seem less terrible and more attractive every second. She felt bad for being so mean to him, he hadn't really done anything wrong, just snuck a peek.
"Stop trying to glamour me!" Her voice was almost pleading, but more anger than anything.
"Hmm, still fighting so hard. It's quite amusing, how long do you intend to keep up this cat and mouse charade?"
"Just stop. I hate you, you self-serving, peeping tom bastard, fuck the hell off!" She tried to squirm away, but she didn't budge.
"That mouth of yours can be very displeasing. If you were a vampire you would be punished severely for such disrespect of an elder, especially one as old as I am." His voice was almost as cold as his eyes, ice.
"Well I'm not, and I never will be, so it doesn't matter. So just put me down already."
His response was to slowly slide his left hand down until it cupped her ass, whilst the other remained firm between her shoulder blade pinning her to him, and in a second they were standing before her bed, and she felt dizzy.
"What the hell? Let go of me!" She glowered at him, and made sure to keep her fear buried and not let in show in her eyes.
"I don't want to, you will be mine." His eyes blazed with desire and power, so much that it made Kasie involuntarily shudder.
"I'm not yours, I never will be."
Nathaniel started lowering her to the bed. His lust burned within his eyes. Kasie felt fear slamming through her veins and eating at her nerves. Her mind raced trying to grasp at anything that would stop this.
"You cannot fool me. Your breath, your eyes, your body all ache for my touch." His words were smooth poison in her ears.
"I don't want you, I don't want this. You're wrong. Please let me go. I don't want it to be like this." She felt tears start to burn in her eyes, and despite her valiant efforts a few escaped to slide from her eyes. A small sob escaped her lips.
Nathaniel's eyes widened in surprise. It didn't make sense, every woman he had met had wanted him to some degree, even after resisting a little they all caved eventually, what was wrong with this girl? He was doing it all perfectly, but still she struggled and squirmed trying to be freed.
"What am I doing wrong?" His voice shocked Kasie to her core. Her eyes burst open and she stared at him in confusion.
"Don't you see? Everything, all of this is wrong." She had to catch her breath a moment before continuing. "I don't love you and you don't love me. I'm a human, you are a vampire. I hate your kind and you feed off of mine. How could you have seen anything else?"
"No, this has never happened. All of you humans have wanted this. I have seen your kind pretend not to want it, play hard to get, but you always give in eventually. Don't lie, you want this, I can see it in your eyes."
"Maybe, but not like this! There is nothing but physical attraction for you. I don't want my first time to be empty! For having a thousand and some odd years of supposed experience you sure are clueless to some things."
Nathaniel pulled away, releasing her at last and moved to stand by the door. "I'm sorry, I thought...never mind. Just forget about me, I shall leave you alone." He turned and started to leave.
"Wait! Don't leave...yet." He turned a puzzled face to look at her. Kasie wanted to bite her tongue off. Why the hell did she blurt that out?
"Make up your mind, do you want me, or do you want me gone?"
Kasie's mind scrambled to find the right words. "I don't want to have sex with you, but I don't want you to leave just yet either. Just...stay. Please."
"What do you want?"
"Not to be alone. I hate when I'm alone in this house at night, so please stay." The words felt like vinegar in her mouth, but they were true. Then Nathaniel was there sitting beside her. She started a little at his sudden appearance, but relaxed when he made no move on her.
"What do you want from me? I am not some pet to keep you company."
"I know that, but, maybe, you can be my...friend...or maybe just an acquaintance."
"I thought you hated me."
"I hate what you do. How you keep trying to glamour me, and have sex with me. I'm not a piece of meat to hump, and I'm not a blood sack to feast on. I'm a human, like you once were a millennia or so ago."
"Alright, I'll give you that, but it was a very, very long time ago that I was a human, but I was never like you. First of all I am male, and second I was a warrior. My life was nothing like this posh convenient world you live in."
Kasie stared at him for a while trying to imagine him as a warrior. Somehow chainmail and animal skins actually seemed to suite him, even though he looked crisp and clean in his black suite jacket over a white button-up and iron-creased pin-stripe pants, and his hair tied back from his handsome face. Ugh, now she was complimenting him in her head, she was in more trouble than she thought.
"Just because it looks 'prettier' and seems nicer does not make it easier or 'posh' as you say. This world is just as vicious as it was back then, even more so, the only difference being the form of this ferocity."
"You make a good argument. Sadly you are wrong, these mental and emotional battles you wage do not end in death as victory or defeat, but some strange semblance of tipping the scale in the one's favor, thereby making them triumphant. It's all very twisted and silly."
"Hmm, you make a point, but the death part is not true, it has just changed from murder to suicide. The problem is that the suicides are not always intended by the ones who cause them. This supposed victory is not about tipping the scale, but bringing better points, reasons, facts, and more to support your side. Even then that doesn't always make the 'victor' right, often it is quite the opposite." Kasie was starting to relax as she reveled in their repartee' and his sultry, seductive voice. Ah, there she goes again, she barely quelled the urge to smack her forehead in exasperation with herself. This is building the potential to get bad for her.
"Suicide and murder are very different, and killing in battle is not murder."
"Oh, I doubt that, many failed suicide attempters are overjoyed to survive, and does a person not rejoice when they escape death at the hands of another, such as in battle?"
"I was not a murderer, I was a knoble warrior. And suicide is merely a coward's way out of doing what they should, such as surviving."
"If you killed them, it is murder or homicide if that makes you feel better. A warrior is a killer, a killer is a murderer, it's quite simple. How can you say it's cowardly, what about terminal patients who are in constant pain and destined for a slow, excruciating death, what about them?"
"I was only doing what was my duty. Pain is nothing, it passes eventually." He glanced away, and stared off, as if recalling some distant memory.
"Pain is not nothing, it is powerful, pain can make a person do things they never imagined they could do. Pain can cripple, blind, deafen, and destroy. I know its power." Kasie's voice shook a little as she reached the end of her statement, but did not falter. Those memories stayed locked away, she was not going to be sucked into them again, especially around Nathaniel.
"Very well. Sadly it is nearing my time limit, I must be heading back to BloodBar, and I fear your sister will return soon and I have the impression she is not very fond of me."
"That's right, oh gosh, did she see you?"
"No."
"Good, cause she would freak on me. Not that she's one to talk with her late night escapades with Marcus. If he bites her...I'll...I'll...do what I must. I've told him the rules, he will follow them or I will go to the local Officiate. Who is our local Officiate? We have only been here a few months, I don't have everything figured out yet."
"Hmm, I believe it is Ashton, but I wouldn't go to him about that, he isn't very human friendly. He has a tendency of tasting every human he meets, especially women, and even more so virgin women."
Kasie shuddered and laid back, her legs dangling over the edge of her bed.
"I don't get why that turns people on. It sounds like it would be unpleasant, and painful, plus how do you know they won't suck you dry, or try to turn you. I wouldn't take the chance."
"Oh, really? I hear it all depends on the vampire, some are skilled enough to make it almost painless and there's always more pleasure than pain, effect of our saliva."
"I don't know. It all seems crazy to me. Sometimes I still have trouble believing that you guys are real. I mean, I've always been a realist, but this just defies that out the window."
"We are very...different from you humans. I, for one, don't believe that is a very bad thing, in fact I think it is good, that way you humans don't get too big of a head."
"Good luck with that. Have you seen our politicians? Or those Christians, especially the Church of the Sun fanatics, crazy fuckers every last one. Yeah, I hate vampires, but it's personal for me, they just hate them because they are different, and because some egghead with influence has named you devil spawn and all that shit."
"Yes, they are quite irritating."
"Do you really have to leave? Now?"
"I should, but I don't quite have to. Perhaps if you can offer me something in exchange for my continued presence." He lifted his eyebrows suggestively at her and winked. Kasie grimaced and scowled at him.
"Behave. I have told you, I am not a piece of meat or a blood bag, so if you are going to try and treat me like one then you better get out and never come back."
She heard a soft laugh come from him and he smiled at her.
"I apologize, it's just that you are so much fun I can't seem to help myself, I just have to tease you."
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Make fun of the human virgin girl. Did you ever poke sleeping bears with sticks as a kid?"
"No but I did other animal, bears were too hard to find. Now badgers were funny."
"There's a shock." Sarcasm saturated her words.
"Says the little pixie-like twig."
"Hey, I can't help that I'm tiny and my body refuses to gain weight, not that I'm complaining, I'm in great shape, for a human girl."
Nathaniel nodded and smiled at her. "I never said it was a bad thing, in fact I'm willing to bet that many men have pursued you just because of that lithe little body."
"Yeah, or my pretty face, but once the get to know me, or see the scars they run fast as fuck in the opposite direction. Not that I'm complaining, I prefer it that way. I don't want some stupid guy to get in the way of me living my life the way I want to. Besides all they care about is sex, sex, sex, and I'm not putting out." Kasie was surprised at the conviction in her voice, the determination behind those truthful words. No matter how hard she tried she still felt that twist in her heart remembering all the people who had abandoned her.
"That sounds...awful. If it has proven so difficult why have you continued to pursue what inevitably leads to pain?"
"Because I hope. I keep trying because I have hope. This hope is that one day I'll find someone who likes me for me, and doesn't mind my scars."
Nathaniel stayed silent for a long time, as did Kasie. After a while Kasie let out a nervous laugh. "Heh, well, it's not like that's ever going to happen, so now I just do it for entertainment mostly. It can be fun playing the game, knowing I'll win, sort of."
"Really? Something tells me it is quite opposite a sweet victory. Perhaps it is actually a little bitter."
"Well, yeah. I guess it sucks when my victory is when he runs. I'm fine with never being held again, by a man. I have my sister and female friends, what need do I have of some man? I mean all they seem to do is hurt me, so there's no point."
Next thing she feels Nathaniel's there, tenderly brushing a tear from her cheek as it tried to roll down her cheek. He stared into her reddening eyes as he kissed the tear caught on his pale finger. Kasie's small right hand came up and cupped his left cheek. Her eyes kept focusing on one of his eyes, then the other, unable to stay still. Softly, slowly her thumb brushed across his cheekbone. The bed squeaked as she began to lean forward, moving about a millimeter a second. It was like she was trying to push through chilled molasses. Her heart was shoving blood through her body so fast it almost hurt. His hand was behind her, supporting her back as Nathaniel started to force her down onto the bed. She retreated down but still grew ever so closer to him as the seconds past.
Her head finally came to rest on one of her worn but comfortable pillows. Finally their noses touched and she tilted her head just a little to the side. Her small body was completely covered by Nathaniel's long, lean, and powerful frame. He could feel his pants tightening almost to the point of breaking, and it took all his control not to groan in want. Kasie could see the lust in his eyes and it matched her own. Her mind was raging in the background, but she ignored it, not wanting to be released from so comfortable, so welcoming a hold. She had resigned herself to never again being held tenderly and here she was. Part of her wondered if she was being glamoured, but she knew she wasn't.
Nathaniel's knees slid between her own and started to force them apart. A part of her mind said that it was scared, she knew why, but she was so tired of her empty world, she wanted him to fill the hole, to fill her. Their lips were just about to touch when she heard his fangs unsheathe.
Panic raced through her, she turned her head to the side and pulled her hands up to force them between their two sexually charged bodies.
"I can't, not you. I'm sorry, but your fangs terrify me. It's not personal, I just can't. There are too many memories." Kasie fought tears as she spoke. Nathaniel sighed and in a moment he was sitting beside her.
"What is it about my fangs? I won't bite you unless you ask me to, if that makes you feel better." His voice was a little extra husky from sexual frustration.
"It's not that, fangs in general scare me, and the vampires attached to them. Honestly, you can be frightening, all of you can be. Look at a few nights ago, one was drinking from one of my best friends, and might have even been planning on draining her dry. Hell, she was probably going to do the same to me if you hadn't...saved me." She paused for a long time before continuing, and Nathaniel waited patiently. "I don't think I can ever thank you enough for that, it was like being in a nightmare."
"It was nothing special on my part, I just did my job." Nathaniel's lie slid out like buttered Teflon.
"Then again you tried to have your way with me later, and that was equally, if not more, terrifying. I thought-...never mind."
"Hmm? What did you think?"
"I thought, many times, that you might end up raping me, just to get what you wanted. Or that you might kill me."
Nathaniel was stung by her words but showed no outward sign of it. Instead he leaned a little closer to her. "I thought about it, but I am not the type. I want the woman to enjoy it to the fullest. Often they enjoy it more than I. I thought that I might be able to persuade you with a little push or shove, but I was wrong. You may want, but you won't allow yourself."
"Something tells me you were once a womanizer of the highest degree." She put a little jest into her words in an effort to relax the tension in the air.
He smiled and turned his full attention to her. "Yes, I was. I used to be renounded throughout and beyond my tribe's territory for my sexual prowess. I have met few women that did not want me, and all but one of them were lesbians."
"What about the non-lesbian one?"
"Well, I'm not sure. That one is the enigma." Nathaniel kept to himself that it was Kasie herself who was that one, the enigma, his personal puzzle of a person.
"Hmm. Did you ever have sex with a virgin?"
"Yes, quite a few actually. Mostly when I was human. Since I was turned I have lost sexual interest in them, for the most part. They still taste wonderful though, when I get to drink from one."
"Oh, you're not interested in virgins except for feeding on them."
"It's not like that. I have simply found it hard to...they are very inexperienced. They also tend to be very innocent, and that can be...annoying, they act like little girls, and I feel...wrong, like I'm trying to bed a child."
Kasie nodded her agreement, it did make sense. "What about me? Do I act like a little girl? I know I look like one."
Nathaniel watched her for a long moment, gauging how to properly word his response. "You are nothing like them. You only look young. At times you almost make me wonder whether you are a vampire or something, you have wisdom far beyond your age. At the same time you are still very young in other ways. That is shown by your wonton attitude towards me sexually. All in all you are by no means a 'little girl' type. You are the 'scarred heart' type and I'm not talking about physically. Obviously something horrible happened in your past that forced you to cut ties with men, serious dating, and all of that."
Kasie was surprised by how perfectly his words hit home. She slid off of the bed and went to stand by her window.
Outside the stars blanketed the dark sky with their bright lights. Nathaniel slid off of the other side and came around to stand beside her.
"They're so beautiful. It seems crazy that they are masses of exploding and imploding gases."
"I agree."
"I guess, that my body suites my title of 'scarred heart,' right?"
Nathaniel turned to her, with her body like a bird's so small, so fragile. He looked at her long purple hair, there was more blonde at the roots, but it didn't look bad or trashy, it looked pretty. He wondered what she looked like fully blonde.
"In a way yes, but that does not define who you are, by any means. It is just a...concept. By your reaction I would say that I hit the nail on the head."
"Yeah." Her voice was emotionless, hollow. She turned blank eyes on him. "The events that did this to me are in a long story about a short summer, the worst summer." She let out a pained sigh.
"You don't have to tell me. Besides, if I don't leave in the next few minutes I'll be in a LOT of trouble, so, sadly, I must depart."
Kasie nodded, staring at the stars with sad eyes. "I-...Will you be returning?"
"I may come again when I am able. Take care of yourself between now and then."
"Okay. Goodbye."
"Farewell."
Like that he was a blur, and then gone. Kasie looked at the stars, going over the night in her mind, making sure to memorize every little detail.
About an hour later the door to the front slowly opened and she heard Devun and Marcus giggle their way in. She turned from the lovely stars and headed downstairs, entering Mom-mode as she went.
"How was your date?" She called softly.
She was greeted by the sight of Marcus's hands all over Devun as they heavily made out before the open front door. Kasie's right eyebrow shot up.
"Excuse me!" The two split reluctantly.
"Hi mom." Devun sneered out the last word, like it was meant as an insult. Kasie was used to it, and so it didn't affect her any more than it usually did.
"I guess I don't have to ask if you enjoyed your date. I think the mutual throat tonguing said as much."
"Kasie, shut up." Devun's whine rang in her ears and Kasie sighed.
"Thank you for returning her a little early Marcus. I'm sure you both are looking forward to your next meeting, and want to prolong this one, but Devun, and I need our sleep. Work is not for the unrested."
Kasie turned away, not wanting to watch their sappy goodbye and headed back to her bedroom. She knew they wouldn't dare take longer than she gauged proper. She was right. In less than a minute Kasie heard the front door close. From her window she watched Marcus leave.
She sighed then turned away and went to her dresser to get her sleeping clothes. She changed into a tank top and a pair of pajama pants. Then headed to the kitchen and opened the medicine cabinet. She pulled out her sleeping pills and her other medications. She took her normal dose of two sleeping, plus one extra because she knew without it she would lay awake for much longer than usual. Then her various other necessities, half she was unsure why she needed, but had taken them all her life, so she didn't question it. She knew the one was because of the surgery she had to get when she was 15.
She heard the dryer beep its finish and went to retrieve them. She carried the clean laundry to her room and began folding them, and separating them between her own and Devun's. When she came upon Nathaniel's shirt and pants (capris, pants on her) she stopped short.
Rather than try to puzzle out what to do with them she folded them, as well as Jezzabelle's purple panties, and set them on her reading chair in the corner of her room. She figured she could return them to Nathaniel next time he visited.