CH14
It was 1 week later now:
Lanie pulled a blood bag out of the refrigerator and popped it into the microwave. "Want one?" Lanie asks Kate who was sitting on the sofa looking over her class load for the first semester.
Kate still didn't know if it was enough or too much. "No thanks I have a date in a little bit." Kate answers her question. "Plus we need to be careful with those. We only have just so many."
"You intend to bite him." Lanie isn't really guessing, but still wasn't sure this was a good idea.
"Rick made me promise that if I got thirsty I would bite him. I think he's jealous that I might like some other man's blood better. It's kinda sweet actually." Kate's throat was actually burning at the moment, and a blood bag did sound tasty. However Rick's blood sounded even better.
"So what are you doing this time? Going back to the Zoo?" Lanie couldn't help but tease Kate while trying to swallow her laugh.
"Oh funny." Kate glared at her friend. "No, the three of us are going to an art class. At least that's what he called it." Kate didn't know what to expect. It was the most she could get out of him about where they were going.
Kate was soon at Rick's front door giving the door a couple of knocks.
The door soon opened and with it came Rick's smell washing over Kate as she breathed him in. It had been almost a week since the last time she saw him, and his smell was almost overwhelming.
It made Kate weak in the knees and it also brought out her fangs, since her throat was burning.
Rick didn't notice her weak knees but he did notice her fangs. Rick moved quickly to take Kate in his arms, which only made things worse for Kate.
Kate instantly buried her face in his chest and breathed him in, filling her lungs with his smell.
He still smelled heavenly and Kate still didn't understand why he had this kind of effect on her. However it also caused her to want to bite him to sooth the burning in her throat.
"You need blood?" Rick whispers his question. Feeling Kate nod her head.
"You can bite me before we leave." Rick offers.
Kate however shakes her head. "If I do it will put you to sleep for a couple of hours and we have a date." Kate reminds him of the effect on him if she does bite him.
"But you need this. Are you in pain?" Rick didn't understand what she was feeling.
"My throat hurts. It's like a burning sensation. The pain becomes worse the longer I do without." Kate answers his question talking into his chest.
"We can schedule this for another day, after you have had blood." Rick offers.
Kate however shakes her head. "I've gone without for a lot longer than this, and I haven't seen either of you for a week." Kate forces her head off of his chest to look up at him. "Please Rick, I want to spend time with you two."
"Only if you promise to bite me after this." Rick offers a compromise.
"I have blood at home, I don't have to bite you." Kate tells him.
Rick looked into her eyes. "Either you bite me now or later. The blood you have at home isn't mine." Which suddenly gave Rick an idea. Time to do some research.
It got Kate to smile at him. "Where's Alexis?"
"She's up in her room, still getting dressed. She'll be down in a minute." Rick guides Kate in through the door and closes it.
When all three of them entered the room there were a number of easels scattered about along with a number of small flat desks or tables. "What kind of class is this?" Kate asks with a questioning face looking around.
They were not alone, there was another couple already sitting on stools. "It's a painting class, water colors to be precise." Rick answers her question, looking like a kid in a candy store.
Painting!? Our date is to learn that she can't paint worth a damn? Great! I'm doomed!
There were no other people coming so after they sat down their instructor got right to work. Teaching them how to mix and how much water to add to get the color they wanted.
Kate was being tentative, while Rick and Alexis had dived in head first.
The instructor was walking around trying to give everyone a little undivided time and get Kate to come out of her shell. When suddenly Kate felt something go down her exposed arm.
"Ooops, sorry. My brush slipped." Rick offers an apology. Kate could now see a long stroke of green down her arm, so she glared at him.
Not too long later she was being poked in that arm with the very same brush. "Oooops sorry, must be my nerves. I haven't done anything like this since I was a kid." Rick apologizes again.
"You're supposed to paint the canvas Rick, not me." Kate points out.
"Canvas, not you. … Right." As if he was actually trying to learn something.
A very short time later there was something trailing down her left arm. Kate quickly turned her head and found Alexis painting a line of orange down her other exposed arm. "Sorry Kate." Alexis tells her, except Alexis was trying to hold back a serious case of the giggles.
Oh I see how this class works now!
Kate deliberately took her brush and drew a line of red down the side of Alexis's face. "Oh I'm sorry Alexis, my brush slipped." Kate apologies.
"That's ok Kate." And Alexis promptly dipped her brush into her water color of choice and flicked it at Kate getting little dots to hit Kate all over.
Kate promptly changed from a little brush to a paint brush and got it wet and flicked it at Alexis, getting paint dots all over her and a little on the floor.
Then Kate felt wet spots hitting her body from the other side, turning to see a grinning and not very sorry Rick holding a paint brush just like hers.
It was now 4 hours later:
A giggly and extremely happy Kate unlocks her front door and closes it and re-locks it and steps into the living room, see Lanie watching TV. Some kind of new channel by the look of it.
"Have fun with your art class?" Lanie asks, then turns to look at Kate and instantly starts laughing her ass off.
Lanie started out all over the sofa pointing at Kate and laughing, and was now down on the floor after having fallen off the sofa. And was now on the floor pointing and laughing.
Kate wanted to be mad at her, but Kate's smile that she had walked in with only got bigger. Kate had no idea what she looked like, but considering what Rick and Alexis looked like, Kate had a pretty good idea.
It took a few minutes for Lanie to calm down enough and sit back down on the sofa. "What happened, …. (laugh, laugh, laugh), what happened to you." Lanie was doing all she could not to end up on the floor laughing her ass off again.
"It was a water color class and apparently Rick and Alexis think the canvas for this should be a person and not the paper." Kate was holding in her own laughing, but it was a struggle.
"So I suppose those two look just like you?" Lanie was struggling to hold it together.
Since Kate was long since dry, she sat down on the sofa. "It started out simple enough. Rick's hand slipped and painted me instead, and then Alexis soon followed.
I got back at Alexis using a bigger brush and flicked paint on her all over. We were all soon using bigger paint brushes to flick paint at one another or just brush it across some part of the body.
Then it elevated to throwing entire bottle of watercolor paint at each other. At least until we ran out." Kate explains. Watching Lanie trying to hold it all in, as she is squirming all over the sofa with her hand over her mouth.
Kate still had a huge smile and was almost ready to bust out laughing herself. "Then we had to spend the next 2 hours cleaning up our mess. The other couple that attended the class left about the time the first bottle of paint got tossed." Kate adds, still smiling.
Lanie couldn't take it, and burst out laughing once again, taking Kate with her.
It was minutes before either of them were calm enough to talk again. "Then what happened?" Lanie asks, still smiling and holding in laughing.
"We drove to Rick's place and Rick dragged me and Alexis into his bedroom. Rick sent Alexis into his bathroom to get ready for a bath to get the color off, when Rick begged me to bite him.
He already knew I needed blood and didn't want me drinking someone else's blood.
I swear Lanie, his smell and taste is the most delicious and purest thing I've ever had." Kate instantly went from trying to keep from laughing again to trying to keep from crying.
"It knocked him out so I gathered up Alexis and put her in bed with her father and came home." Kate concludes her date with Rick and Alexis.
"Please tell me he has a brother, or at least a distant relative." Lanie pleads.
Kate however shook her head. "Sorry Lanie, only child." It did hurt Kate to know that Lanie didn't have what she had. She didn't get to smell or taste what she did.
"I'm going to go shower and get changed." Kate tells her and heads for her room with her own on-suite, just like Lanie's bedroom had.
Lanie was just sitting there working on recovering from all the laughing, wiping away the tears, when Kate suddenly screamed. "MY HAIR!"
It got Lanie to fall on the floor laughing yet again. Kate had come in looking like an 8 colored abstract work of art, from her head down to her shoes.
"DAMN, NO PICTURES!" Lanie moans.
Rick was still multi-colored and was helping Alexis take a bath to get all the color off of his little girl. "Did you have fun?" Rick asks her, while working shampoo into her hair, to try and get it back to just one color.
"It was great dad." Alexis was smiling wide. "Kate is fun dad."
"Yes she is, isn't she." It got Rick to think about all the things he did like about her. Kate being a vampire only added to her mystery.
"Can Kate come over again?" Alexis really did want to spend time with her.
"She's starting school soon, so she is going to be really busy." Rick needed to calm his daughter down. He knew Kate couldn't come over whenever Alexis or he wanted her to.
Alexis deflates a little. She had to go back to school herself tomorrow. The weekend was over. "Dinner?" Alexis offers an excuse for Kate to come over.
Rick stopped cleaning her. Kate couldn't or didn't eat, so food was out.
It got Rick to wonder just how much longer they could keep Alexis in the dark about Kate? "How about a movie night instead?" Rick offers something else.
It got Alexis to brighten up. "Can we call Kate?" Alexis was excited now.
"Sure, just as soon as you are clean and dry." Getting Rick to chuckle.
Alexis was soon clean and dry, best part about water colors. Rick grabbed the house phone and dialed Kate's number and handed the phone to Alexis. "I'm going to go get clean. It's all in your hands pumpkin." Rick heads for his bedroom, grinning.
Kate ran for the phone dressed only in a towel with another towel wrapped around her head. "Hello?"
"Hi Kate!" Alexis responds sounding excited.
"Hi Alexis." Kate sat down on her bed. "Are you clean yet?" Kate was ginning wide, remembering how many colors Alexis used to be in.
"Yup! Dad gave me a bath." Alexis was still happy.
"Me too, we were both in a lot of colors." Kate was still glowing from how much fun she had, had.
It got Alexis to start giggling. "Where's your dad?" Kate asks since Alexis was on the phone.
"Bath." Alexis simply states.
That got Kate to twist her head. "Does your dad know you are on the phone?" Was Alexis sneaking around behind Rick's back?
"Yup, he called and gave me the phone." Alexis was still smiling, knowing she had a question and hadn't done anything wrong.
"Ooohhh." Kate responds. Alexis must want something.
"Kate, … can you come over for a movie?" Alexis asks softly, worried the answer was no.
"I just finished a date with you two, and you want me over again?" Like tonight? Kate is wondering.
"Please." Alexis gives Kate her best puppy dog eyes, even though Kate can't see her.
"Don't you have school tomorrow?" Kate knew she did, and would need to go to bed early.
Alexis deflated, that question meant nothing to her. "Yeah, … please?" Alexis tries again.
Kate did want to spend time with them and school classes started soon, limiting her free time.
"How about Saturday when you are out of school, we can have a movie marathon. Watch all the movies we want to watch." Kate offers, spend the day with Rick and Alexis. It had Kate smiling at her own idea.
It also had Alexis smiling. Spend the entire day with Kate watching movies. "OKAY!"
"Great, it's a date. I'll come over right after lunch and we can spend the day watching movies." And cuddling with her two favorite people. Kate added to herself.
"Thanks Kate." Alexis already wanting it to be Saturday.
"Night Alexis." Kate hangs up the phone.
"YES!" Alexis leaps up into the air, beyond happy. She was going to get to spend the entire day with Kate!
Kate was smiling as she put the phone down and went back into the bathroom. It was only now that she noticed the wide smile that was on her face. Remembering how it got there only got it to grow wider.
Kate walked out into the living room where Lanie still was, back to watching TV.
Lanie watched every move Kate made as she sat down on the sofa with a huge smile on her face too. Just for a different reason. It earned Lanie a whack in the face with a throw pillow.
They both settled down smiling while watching TV.
The early news turned into Touched by an Angel, changing the channel got them Sabrina the Teenage Witch, changing the channel again got them Spin City, followed by changing the channel that got them Millennium.
"This planet has one serious imagination." Lanie points out turning off the TV after Millennium ends.
"We need to understand this planets idea what a vampire is. Rick thought I was dead, or undead at first." Kate points out, still confused how he could think a dead person could be up and walking around. Dead was dead, wasn't it?
"We have access to the University Library." Lanie offers.
"We'll go tomorrow, we have a lot to learn if we want to fit in. We also need to come up with a plan on how to get more blood bags. All we have is what was on the ship and in our Go Bags." Kate points out.
Kate and Lanie spent the next three days at the library, reading. Since they didn't eat or drink (except blood), they had no reason to leave.
Real Vampires by Daniel Cohen
Dracula by Bram Stroker
They Thirst by Robert McCammon
The Hunger by Whitley Strieber
Slave of my Thirst by Tom Holland
Hellsing, Vol #1 by Khota Hirano, Duane Johnson
"Guess that explains why Rick thought I was dead, or this undead." Kate comments.
"You really know how to pick em' Kate. An entire planet that thinks vampires are blood sucking killers, bent on eliminating all of humanity." Lanie points out. This was only 6 books out of countless others. Six books selected at random.
It got Kate to inhale deeply and then suddenly deflate. It made her question why Rick was the exact opposite of all this, and what was Alexis going to think if or when she found out?
Maybe it was best if she didn't see Rick or Alexis again. They were human and she was a blood sucking vampire.