"A Vampire's History of the World" (closed)

[PennySaver]

Twice, the police happened upon Michael as he was searching the seedier part of town; they warned him to get off the streets or at least get back to the touristy portion of town, promising to keep him up to date on their own search for the missing American girl. Incidents like this that reached the Press and -- worse yet -- the internet were not good for the economy of the Azores, so the police were just as eager to find Jessie and get her and her male companion off the island as was that male companion.

The Captain stopped by Michael's room a couple of hours after dark to inform him that they'd had no sightings or news of either Claudia or the supposedly missing man. "We will keep looking, but in the mean time, I beg of you Senhor … please remain in your room. The department has begun a … what is the word, tab...? In the tavern below … for food and for the room. We will be covering all of your expenses while you are in our city, but please … do not go out into that neighborhood again."

###############​

The knock at the door came at half past two, followed by a whispered, "Senhor Hanes … Senhor … are you awake?"

 

[Knightmare27]

It was generous of the cops to pay for room and board. Even though they were essentially paying him to stay off their streets. That was hard work, with his beloved somewhere out there...

The knock came in the middle of the night. A man he had never seen before handed him a note. Claudia's handwriting, definitely. An address. He was tired, and had no idea where that address was, but the thought of meeting her did not let him fall asleep. Five minutes later, he was clothed, had looked up the address on his phone and was on the way into the warm darkness of a summer night, following the directions like a sleepwalker.

He sleepwalked right into a truly terrifying part of town. At this time of the night, it was the realm of drunks and women in very little clothing selling their services. He checked his phone (carefully, since he feared there were thieves about). No, it had to be. A strip club. Claudia really had a strange taste in locations for dates. Or whatever that was going to be. He entered the seedy little place, bought a cheap beer and waited.

 

[PennySaver]

Michael was barely sat and served his beer when a stripper approached and -- without hesitation -- straddled him and sat in his lap. She had expected him to object, knowing who he was and why he was here, so she quickly leaned in close and whispered, "Claudia..."

That seemed to have an effect, reassuring the woman that Michael was Michael. She moved in closer on his lap and began a slow grind of a lap dance, asking him, "Você entende a minha língua?"

When the answer to whether or not the man spoke Portuguese was an obvious no, she said to him in broken English, "You pretend be man want lap dance, yes? I tell what go next."

 

[Knightmare27]

He did as he was told, wondering more and more what kind of game Claudia was playing. Just when he thought he had a handle on her, she went and did something utterly insane. It occurred to him that centuries of life had to be hard on your mental health...

Suddenly, the stripper's top popped open and Michael had big, bouncy, cappuccino-colored breasts grinding rhythmically against his face. The stripper had a certain exotic beauty to her, with the curly black hair and the smooth, light brown skin. And she was grinding against him, her hips gyrating in a rhythm that made his boner go wild. If Claudia did not turn up soon, she would find him with a very embarrassing stain on his pants...

 

[PennySaver]

The exotic dancer as her boss identified her on her independent contractor paperwork come payday leaned in close to Michael's ear, called out over the booming music, "My name is Candy. You are Michael?"

She pulled back again, looked down in between their bodies at the damage she was causing him, smiled, and said, "You big. Not just say. Me see many men … impressed."

Leaning back in close to Michael's ear again, Candy said, "You girl Claudia … she is sangue bebedor … blood drinker … vampiro."

Leaning back again, Candy grasped one of Michael's hands and pressed it upon her generous, all natural bosom; it was firm enough that he might have thought the titty to be from a box, but as the stripper continued to grind against him, picking up speed and intensifying the pressure, she told him with a big smile, "Me, too."

 

[Knightmare27]

Oh, great. There was a vampire grinding on his lap. A hot vampire who knew Claudia by her real name, so she had been here before. Now all he could do was hope she was not thirsty - or if she was, to be kind enough to inject him with that painkiller before she started drinking. How many vampires were there anyway, if such a tiny island had one?

She seemed nice enough, so, after a moment to collect himself, he stammered: "W...where is Claudia?" That was all that interested him at the moment, and all he could think of with these big boobs in his hands. They were elastic, soft, and the smooth feeling against his palms made it impossible to think as all his blood rushed downwards, eager to do something. Or someone. He forced himself to think of Claudia instead of the huge breasts he was holding. It was not easy.

 

[PennySaver]

"W...where is Claudia?"

Over the steady beat of the booming music, and answer came to Michael's question, but it came not from the stripper grinding him closer and closer to orgasm, but from a man who suddenly plopped himself into the adjacent chair.

"Your girl, Marianna … she come to us for help," he said, using yet a third name for the American's vampire lover. Unlike the vampire in his lap with her Portuguese accented seductive tone, this man sounded more like the typical Cold War Eastern European spy from the movies. He continued, "We give help … but help not free."

He reached a hand in between Michael and Candy -- incidentally brushing across her nipples, which made her draw an obvious breath of excitement -- to point to a couple engage in yet another lap dance a half dozen chairs away. The male half of the pair had his head back and was breathing heavy from the orgasm the dancer had just caused him, and a moment later, that dancer bit into his neck, as Claudia had Michael the two days before their cruise had started.

"You pay … debt paid," the man said bluntly, "and you get Marianna back."

 

[Knightmare27]

The grinding became too much. He came, trying in vain to hide a loud gasp of pleasure. Suddenly, her head shot towards him and he felt pain... pain that died immediately. And then he died. Wait. He died? No, he could still feel...something. Everything around him had just gone black for a moment. He woke up again, sadly not in heaven, but in...this. Still.

He felt a little week, and felt his neck, confirming his fears. That vampire had drained him in more ways than one. He got up, and nearly collapsed from the blood loss. He crashed back into the chair, tried a second time... staggered "home" and collapsed on the bed. When he woke up, it was bright day already. Recollections of the previous night came back, but they made no sense at all. Except for the bite marks and his...wallet?

Fuck! The moment he opened his wallet, he noticed that all the cash in it was gone. He remembered the man having said something about a "debt". Whatever it was, he had apparently helped himself to a repayment. Michael sat on the edge of the bed and tried to fight back tears. Lost on some stupid island. The love of his life gone. Robbed. Vampires. And still no clue where Claudia was. It was just too much.

 

[PennySaver]

The door to the low end and yet still expensive little hotel room flew open, and Claudia rushed in to fling herself into Michael's arms. He teetered, still suffering the effects of the night before; Claudia caught him before he toppled over and -- with the strength of a pair of men his size -- nearly carried Michael to the bed, sitting him on the edge before wrapping herself around his torso.

"I was so afraid for you--!" she began, but then suddenly pulled her head back with a panicked expression as she checked his neck. She grasped his jaw and turned his face none to gently, looking to the wounds; she drew a deep breath through her nose, picking up the various scents that told her exactly what had happened the previous night. Growling, she murmured, "Fucking vampire bastard whore."

Claudia could see that Michael was both confused and weak. She stood, helped him to his feet, and bed him toward the tiny bathroom telling him, "I'll tell you all, everything … but first … we need to get her off of you … and out of you."

As she began undressing Michael, Claudia told him the tale of the previous day. She had gone out to meet with an old friend -- "Yes, a vampire" -- when she'd been jumped by four men, not three, who told her We've never raped an American, but there's a first time for everything. Because she hadn't fed since Boston, she had acted on instinct; after she had surprised one with a punch to the temple, knocking him unconscious, she'd lunged at one of the others, sunk her fangs into him -- without any pain relief, causing him to scream out in pain and terror -- and began drinking so much, so fast that he'd instantly passed out from a lack of blood to his brain.

"The other two men tried to help their friend, coming at me with knives," Claudia said as she was filling the little bath tub with hot water and helping the now naked Michael inside. Her story contradicted what the one thug witness had claimed; it was true, whether or not Michael believed. "I avoided them by holding their friend between us long enough to feel his life force within me. I threw him at one guy and fought off the other until they both ran away."

Claudia had only learned later that one of the four men had been the Constable's son, thus the reason why the thug witness had claimed he'd only been strolling about with two friends. As she herself quickly stripped to the skin, Claudia continued, "I couldn't leave a dead body in the alley, so … I ran … taking him with me. I needed a place to hide the body … to hide my self … so … I went to Rickov. You met him I'm sure, at the strip club."

Actually, Michael hadn't, not that he would know. The normal everyday human male he'd met was the club's new owner, a loathsome man who used and misused vampires for his own gain. Just as with Claudia, life sometimes got hard for blood suckers, and if you could find a regular ol' person to help you...

As she'd been hiding out for the past 16 hours or so, Claudia had realized and contemplated the similarities between her current life and that of someone like Candy. As she began running a soapy rag over Michael's body, cleaning the vampire's stench off him, Claudia began to sob, pleading, "I'm so sorry, Michael … so sorry … please … please do not leave me here … please do not leave me."

 

[Knightmare27]

Such language! He managed to grin weakly through his tears. "So I...guess she is not a friend of yours? Because I thought she was. She knew your name and everything. And then that 'whore' summoned a guy who looked like he plays a Russian gangster on TV. He growled something about 'debt', and then she bit me. That is all I remember. Oh, and someone took all my cash, too. So, yes, I have had a rough night."

He had no idea what she meant by "off and out of" him, but he was too weak to question her and just followed. Probably another weird vampire thing. He was getting sick and tired of vampires by now. Though, in a way, it had been his fault. Why had he assumed that Claudia was the rule for a bunch of blood-sucking monsters, and not the exception? Clearly, some of them really were as bad as the legends claimed. That had been a painful lesson.

The fight had gone exactly as he had imagined it had gone. It was still hard for him to visualize this slip of a girl brutalizing four men, but he knew she was capable of it. And it did not make her seem scarier. In a way, imagining her kicking that much ass was strangely...hot. He caught himself in the thought that he would have loved to witness that brawl. No, he wouldn't have. She was the unstoppable engine of destruction. He would have been demolished by them in seconds.

He was relaxing a little bit now that Claudia was with him again and the warmth of the water began seeping into his body. The fog around his thoughts cleared up somewhat, though he still felt infinitely tired - obviously, the fucking vampire bastard whore had been quite thirsty. And greedy. He still had no idea how he would get his money back. Or if he would get it back. Or what was up with that stupid "debt" thing.

Under other circumstances, Michael would have gone rock hard the moment he saw his vampire girl naked.... but not now. Now, all he did was nod. "Yes, I...met him. This...Rickov, is it?...was the one who kept talking about debt."

He started to realize exactly who had run up that debt. Someone naked. Someone who would have a lot of explaining to do once he had enough strength to argue again. In a few months, the way he felt.

Apparently, the menacing Russian had not been Rickov. That had just been your standard menacing Russian. Well, he did not care. He had been bitten and robbed. For a noble cause, sure - what cause could be nobler than getting his beloved out of trouble? - but she had still lured him to a place where she knew that all these things would happen to him. She could have just asked him. But, again, her instincts from so many years on the run had kicked in.

Claudia's tears could have softened anyone's heart. He would probably get angry at her later... now, she was nothing but a desperate young woman who had just had a terrible night, just like him. Comfort now, he decided. Some very hard questions later. He sat up in the bathtub and pulled her closer for a kiss.

"I am not going to leave. We are going to have a talk later." - he surprised himself with how much he could make the word 'talk' sound like 'interrogation' - "but I will not leave."

 

[PennySaver]

"Yes, I...met him," Michael mumbled regarding the strip club owner. "This...Rickov, is it?...was the one who kept talking about debt."

Claudia didn't explain it right now, but she would later. She had needed to hide a body; she'd sucked two pints from him in seconds at the assault scene, then sucked another three after she'd fled a few blocks, killing the man. But with only the basic knowledge of the island and more than a century between the last time she'd been here and today, she'd needed help. She hadn't known whether Rickov would still be here or not, but she'd known his Family would be; this was their island and had been for over 300 years, regardless of what the government and the people living on it believed.

Candy's new master -- who Claudia hadn't met and hoped not to meet -- had disposed of the body the way they had so many times in the past and would continue to in the future. Then he'd hid Claudia away and got word to Michael. For that, Candy had gotten fed and the new club owner's wallet had been filled.

"I am not going to leave," Michael promised Claudia, causing her to release a gasp of relief. "We are going to have a talk later ... but I will not leave."

Claudia moved into Michael's lap, wrapped her arms about his torso, and laid her head into his neck and chest to hug him tightly. Almost immediately, though, she pulled back with the expression a young child dons when faced with a food for which they don't like the smell.

"I have to clean you," she told Michael. "You reek of vampire."

She snatched up the soapy rag again and began scrubbing him without a great amount of concern for gentleness. She ran the rag over every inch of him, making him shift his position often, which was tough in the tiny tub with a second body present. When she was finished, she drained the tub, wiped down its surfaces, refilled it, washed Michael again, and repeated the whole operation. When the tub was filled with lukewarm water a third time, Claudia crawled back into her lover's lap again.

"This will hurt a bit … but not for long," she whispered to Michael … before biting into his neck again...

################​

Ten hours later, as the afternoon sun was spilling in through windows that lacked shades, Michael awoke to find himself in bed; Claudia was dressed and sitting in an old arm chair that was supported in one corner upon a stack of old hard back books; her knees were drawn up, her arms wrapped about them, holding them tight to her bosom.

"Feel better?" she asked timidly. She knew he would feel better than he had since so much time had passed since Candy fed on him, but he would still be weak from what she herself had done. Talking almost like a doctor explaining a procedure post-op', she told him, "I didn't feed from you but I did flood you with another chemical I produce. It's not anything with a name … but … it's sort of a, what … like an antidote."

She hesitated for a moment as her eyes welled over, ready to tear. "Michael, I haven't been honest with you. I told you I went to lab student and had him analyze what I dispense from my fangs, remember...? Anti-inflammatories, anti-coagulants, pain killers, anesthetics, hallucinogens and such...?"

A tear ran down her cheek as a single sob escaped. "I didn't tell you about one other thing I put into you when I fed upon you. It's … I don't know how to explain it. You know that song … Love Potion #9…?"

Claudia saw the instant understanding on Michael's face, and she had to divert her eyes, unable to face him. She sobbed again, felt another tear streak down the other cheek, then explained without facing him, "It is something we do … to ensure that those people who we choose to fed from repeatedly … go along willingly."

She was sobbing now uncontrollably. Claudia barely managed to get out, "Candy put it in you, too. But … she put so much in you … I had to get it out. That's what I meant by antidote. I had to … I don't know the word … counteract...?"

Claudia finally looked back to Michael. "I bit into you last night, not to feed … but to get rid of what Candy put into you … to make you want to be with her again."

She stood suddenly and moved to drop to her knees at the edge of the bed as if preparing to pray. Instead, the grasped at Michael's hand, pleading, "Michael, believe me! I cleaned your blood of my own … potion. You are clean. You are not being influenced now. Please … please! Please don't hate me!"

Claudia pressed her face into the bedding and began sobbing … knowing that what she had with this man was over … and that she'd likely end up living in and working out of the strip club for the next century.

 

[Knightmare27]

For some reason, she was scrubbing him down as if he had just walked through a nuclear explosion. When she was done cleaning whatever it was off him, she crawled onto his lap and sat on it for a second. He was much calmer now, and managed to look her in the eyes and smile. He was so glad she was back again! Her weight in his lap reassured him that it was really her sitting on him. That the nightmare had not been followed by a dream.

Another vampire's bite. A very welcome vampire, this time, but he had had enough bites for some time...

It was a very long time before he woke up again. He turned his head to see Claudia huddled in a chair, as if trying to make herself as small as possible. What was up? She was normally much more exuberant than that. It was quite unlike her to curl up into a ball. Oh well. The events of the previous night had probably been rough on her, too. By the light coming through the window, he had slept for quite some time, it seemed.

She sounded different. Concerned. A little...shy? The word antidote made him sit up. "Antidote? Antidote to what?", he mumbled, still a little confused. Something was off. What was it? Him. It was him. He was still in bed, not over there, hugging her. He felt no need to. Probably the exhaustion. Or whatever poison that other vampire had apparently given him. Yes, that had to be it. He sank farther back into the pillow, trying to process this new information.

Why was she crying? What terrible secret had she been keeping from him? It had something to do with her bite, obviously. What else was in her mouth, aside from the crazy cocktail she had already admitted to injecting him with? It had to be a terrible secret, or Claudia would have told him. Then he remembered how she had run away without a word when he had asked her a question that had threatened to expose her as a vampire.

A love potion? She had injected him with some drug? Was that why he was so wild about her? Had this all been just one gigantic vampire trick? Had the happiest days of his life been a lie, concocted in the venomous mouth of a centuries-old monster? He turned to his side, away from her, and began sobbing unashamedly. No need to hide how disappointed he was. He felt betrayed by her and did not mind if she knew.

He hated vampires. Monsters. Took the form of pretty girls and pretended to love him, when all they were worried about was their next meal. "Go along willingly..." ha! He had been such an idiot to look at the woman and miss the vampire. Of course she had not given a fuck about him. He was just another source of blood and shelter in an endless string. Enslaved by her venom without even knowing.

He could hear that she was crying, too. Why? Stupid whore. He was the one who had been hurt. Drugged, rendered into nothing more than a farm animal. Now he was stuck in a foreign country, robbed, trapped in a room with a soulless predator. And the soulless predator was crying. Why? She would just move on to another blood source, another idiot she could inject with poison and abandon as soon as she was done.

So she had sucked out the other bloodsucker's poison! He was supposed to be her only blood source. Her victim. How charitable of her! He did not care which of these two monsters got him in the end. He had stumbled into a world of monsters like an idiot, and now he would get bounced between them. He remembered that she had never told him how to actually kill a vampire. Now he knew why.

He heard her desperate pleas. What? So he was under no vampire's spell anymore? That would explain why he could hate her like that. He did. Hated everything about her. Her youthful charms she had used to lure him close. The housewife act she had put on to keep him. A love story had turned into nothing but a vampire feeding ritual. He heard her pleas, but he could do nothing about them.

Stop kneeling, he thought. Stop appealing to my heart. My heart got me into this mess in the first place. He turned away from her. The crying had drained him of the ability to feel anything anymore. He was glad it had. It allowed to lay there motionlessly, trying to work through the thoughts racing through his head. Pictures from the past weeks floated through his mind, but nothing fit together anymore.

"Leave me alone", he whispered tonelessly.

 

[PennySaver]

Claudia had made a hard choice, to remove her love potion from Michael and leave him to determine whether his love for her was real or not. Of course, she'd known that even if it had been real, even if the potion had been moot, that he likely would have been hurt, disappointed, angry...

But she'd had to do it; whether he would believe her or not should she tell him, Claudia was very much in love with Michael. Of course, telling him that here and now while she knelt at the bed sobbing -- while he did, too -- would have been ridiculous.

No, she'd done what had to be done, and Claudia had gotten her answer.

"Leave me alone."

She released another sob; it was a real reaction, not an act. She sat there for a long moment, then stood, hesitated, found her shoes, and left the room. Claudia would give him Michael some time to process what had happened to him … to them. She would stand here outside the door for a while … maybe go downstairs to the tavern for a beer and a late lunch, to give him time to realize that he actually was in love with her, that the potion had had no more effect on him than would have been a drug trial placebo.

But … she didn't. In her heart, Claudia knew she'd lost him. She fled the hall, the cheap hotel, the building, the neighborhood. She wandered the city until dark, wondering what was next; what horrific, homeless, loveless life was she going to lead now?

I should have left it in him, she thought to herself repeatedly regarding the potion. She thought of Bernard André d'Amboise, wondering, Would my life have been better if he'd not disappeared, if he'd remained in my life to train me properly, to teach me how to be a proper vampire?

Vampire...

Just the thought of the word caused Claudia to grimace, to clench her jaws, to loath what she was. And yet … by the time midnight had rolled around … she found herself walking into the no-name strip club and asking for the owner. Of course, they'd known she was coming; Claudia had beyond human senses, and yet she hadn't detected the vampires who'd been watching her since leaving the club.

Rickov was at the door to great her upon her arrival, inviting her to his office to talk. Once alone, she confronted him about the theft of Michael's money, to which he reminded her that he'd hidden her murder of the local boy as well as literally hidden that local boy. "You owed, friend paid. Done. Move on."

"What do you want?" she asked. "I need a place to hide for a while. I have no papers now. My name … my alias is known by the police. What do you want to hide me until I can find a way off the island?"

"Man does not want vampire lover no more?" he asked regarding Michael.

There was a chance that after he got over his anger and disappointment and pain, Michael might come to realize that he was truly, deeply in love -- or at the least in lust -- with Claudia. But Claudia -- hurt as well by what she'd allowed to happen -- didn't expect it. She had hurt him so horribly. She felt so stupid; she had tried to relieve her own self of the guilty of having drugged Michael by telling him, when she should have removed the potion from him without his knowledge and then see if his love was true. Idiot!

"No," she told Rickov. "I am alone."

"You will dance," he told her as he stood from his desk and gestured her to follow. He passed through a door directly into the dressing room for the girls; the six girls in various stages of undress barely registered his presence as he led Claudia through and opened a locker. "Stuff go here. Dresses go there."

He pointed to an empty, standing closet rod, but even as Claudia was turning to look at it, a hand grasped her around her neck and lifted her off her feet, slamming her against the lockers with her feet dangling three inches off the tile. It was Candy, and while her initial expression had been one of murderous anger, it mutated over the next dozen seconds or so to a playful smile … all while Claudia was gasping for air and clutching the other vampire's wrist, trying to support herself and get some air to her lungs and blood to her head.

"Welcome," Candy said simply when she let Claudia drop again to her feet. The stripper moved in to press her delicious body to the teen-looking one of the American, pressed her mouth to Claudia's in a hard, wet kiss, then pulled back just enough to free up her lips to say, "You and I will have much fun."

Rickov did nothing to stop the introduction, instead only telling Claudia, "You feed when I say feed, only when say feed. You follow rules, you live. You not … I get rid boy's body … I get rid of you body."

Candy, who had stepped away, threw a tiny costume which Claudia caught instinctively. The smiling blonde commanded, "Dress. You go on stage five minutes."

The pair turned away, and Claudia looked at the tiny, exotic dancing costume … and she realized that this was her life now.

 

[Knightmare27]

It was a long, miserable flight back home. Michael, not a heavy drinker by any means, had decided to see if alcohol would make this any more bearable. By the time he had filled the third airsick back to the brim, he had to agree it was not. Well, at least it made him drowsy enough to slip into a dreamless slumber and only wake up during the landing, greeted by a pounding headache. And no Claudia. Remembering why she was not there was the worst.

He drove home and collapsed into bed. Fortunately, he was too exhausted to cry or do much.

He was still on holiday from work. The holiday he had originally meant to be a sort of honeymoon with that monster. He had nothing to do, and, while he briefly considered taking up alcoholism, his experience on that plane, as well as what was left of his rationality advised strongly against it. No, he had to do other things to keep his mind off her. To rebuild a life and stay mostly sane while he put this brief, horrible episode behind him.

He decided to bury himself in work. Never a lazy person, he fell into a feeding frenzy, eating up all the primary sources he could get his hands on, writing and writing. Papers, but also notes on a historical novel he had planned on writing for a long time. It also allowed him to rip out all the notes she had left in his books. They were probably all lies, anyway. Not to mention that spotting one stung his heart every time.

He started to exercise even more fanatically, beyond reason, beyond what his aged body could take. Only when, one day, his urine had turned red (rhabdomyolysis, the doctor had called it, and strongly advised him to reduce his activity) did he scale it back to a level that was more appropriate for an old man. For he felt older than he had ever before, and no amount of physical exertion could stop that.

Finally, he was allowed to go back to work again. He had always love his work, but now he was desperate for it. Every meeting with colleagues, every lecture, every new work assignment, made his life feel more normal and allowed him to write off the whole vampire encounter as just a bad dream. Nothing more. One he had woken up from quite a bit poorer, and quite a bit unhappier. But one he had recovered from.

He was even poorer than he had thought - the day after he had returned, he had discovered that cash was not the only thing missing. Those low-lives had also taken five hundred dollars from his credit card. It took quite some convincing, negotiating and even pleading to get it transferred back. A little victory. It felt like closing this dismal chapter to him. He was free now, and would never have to see a bloodsucker again.

At a conference right after his return to work, he even managed to strike up something resembling a relationship. He met someone who was warm, and intelligent, and most definitely not a vampire. Her name was Florence, and she was a fellow historian. A tall, thin good-looking woman in her late forties, they had come to each others' attentions after she had held a talk on "Politics, Religion and the Hussite Uprising."

It was not a love affair yet, but they certainly met quite often in cafés (not the one he had met Claudia in. He never went back to that one), drank tea, talked history, laughed at each other's jokes. She had quite a dirty sense of humor hidden under that proper lady act she liked to wear in public. They got along famously. Maybe, one day, one of them would work up the courage to make more of it. After all, they were both divorced.

He had a good life again. The punctures on his neck healed, his heart was mended, (most of) his money was back. The whole Claudia episode really was only a terrible episode, now faded and filed somewhere back in his mind together with other memories he never wanted to see again. He hoped it would rot there, in the company of other "favorites" like his brother's death, or the false cancer diagnosis.

 

[PennySaver]

"I like your place," Florence called toward the stairs, up which Michael had scurried for some reason he didn't explain. She wondered whether he was making his bed in hopes that he might be leading her to it after the dinner he'd promised to make her tonight. "How long ago was that you were divorced?"

She'd actually wanted to ask How long ago was it that you'd had another woman here? But she resisted. It really wasn't any of her business; after all, they weren't lovers … yet. She smiled at the condition of his deck and most of the horizontal surfaces, upon which his work was scattered. He was what some at the University called a beautiful mind for some of his recent and incredible work. There were others, though -- conservative historians -- who doubted much of the recent knowledge he'd uncovered and about which he'd written in preliminary reports.

"When do you think you'll be able to publish?" she called again, just before she caught sight of and heard him descending the stairs. She smiled, telling him, "If you can find two independent sources to some of what you've been telling you believe to be true, you are going to knock the socks off the Big Blocks."

That was what she called those conservative historians who refused to acknowledge most of the new research coming out of historians such as Michael. Big Blocks of concrete that refuse to be turned over so that you can show them 'See! There it is! New stuff!'

"I hope I'm not invading your privacy, but..." Florence said as she leaned down to a stack of mail Michael had brought in but not looked over before dropping it on the coffee table. She lifted a letter and pointed to the stamp, which featured a colorful bird. "I recognize this bird. Isn't it beautiful? Pyrrhula murina … the Azores nut finch."

She was looking at the envelope, not Michael, so she didn't see his reaction, if there was one. The envelope didn't include a return address, let alone a sender's name, and Florence asked casually, "Do you know someone in the Azores?"

######################​

Wearing a metallic auburn wig, a black lacy bra, semi-sheer boy shorts that almost match her temporary hair color, thigh high stockings, and five inch heels, Claudia -- now going by Daisy -- urged her client back onto the king sized bed of his upscale hotel suite, then crawled up into his lap. She whispered with a seductive tone, "Tell me what you want."

"I want to watch you touch yourself," he said, tossing the American money onto the mattress. "Finger your pussy … let me watch."

Claudia scooted up the man's body until she was straddling his belly, reached into her panties, wetted her fingers between her folds, and proceeded to give the man what he wanted. Of course, he didn't want it for long; he was paying top dollar -- $100 was the going rate for a full service whore in Ponta Delgada -- to watch her pleasure herself, obviously. He grasped Claudia's wrist, threw her off him to the bed, got to his knees behind her, and after hurried stripping his pants and underwear down his thighs, went to work ramming his cock deep inside her.

It didn't take long for him to groan out in orgasm, but he still had 52 minutes left on his hour, so Claudia went to work once more, riding him in a number of positions that resulted in two more orgasms, the last one timed by her to ensure his hour ended appropriately.

She dressed, snatched her money, and left; the client was passed out before she closed the door. Out in the hall, she stuffed the bills into her bra … then began sobbing. It had been, what, four months now since Michael left her behind in the Azores? Claudia didn't blame him, of course. She'd lied to him. Worse yet, she'd manipulated him. She'd been too afraid that he wouldn't accept her and had used her love potion chemical on him twice. Just twice! she tried to tell herself. But then … she'd only fed on him three times, so.

Rickov had essentially forced Claudia to work as an exotic dancer in the strip club those first weeks. She had an innocent school girl act she used to earn her some incredible tips, but all the money in the world wasn't going to get Claudia a passport unless Rickov okayed it. Then the police raided the club and shut it down after an EU Minister who'd been robbed there threatened to pull the port's permit to allow portage of cruise ships.

Rickov could have let Claudia go, but instead he'd put her to work doing tricks for foreigners and robbing them in the process. She'd gone along with it originally, but after a couple of weeks of that -- and after getting beat up six times -- she'd had enough. One night, while entertaining Rickov and his gun thugs, Claudia fed on one of them in a back room, then stepped out into the living area and very quickly, very skillfully, very silently killed them all.

She'd fled to one of the other islands -- not needing her papers to do so -- and was now supporting herself without the Russian taking 60% of what she earned before making her then pay for her room and board. It had taken her several more weeks at street walker wages to earn what she needed, but Claudia finally had enough money to get herself a fake passport and a ticket on a boat heading for Lisbon.

Claudia was getting away from the Azores.

Even more, though, she was going home … to Boston.

She'd sent a letter to Michael six days ago, telling him she would be in Boston the 2nd Thursday from now. She told him, I don't expect you to want me back. But if you will at least sit with me, I'll be at our coffee shop. Love, Claudia.

 

[Knightmare27]

Michael told Florence about his divorce. Unlike some other memories, he could pull those out entirely painlessly. As he thought about the demise of his marriage to Claire, he felt...boredom. It had not been a big, dramatic battle. They had...drifted apart. There really was nothing more to that. To use a tired cliché, he had been married to his job, and when she had discovered that bigamy, it had been over. And then neither had had the courage to admit it.

He noticed her bemusement at the mess his house was in, but he did not mind. He had always taken comfort in the saying he had heard attributed to Einstein: "If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, then what is an empty desk a sign of?" He had no idea if the great physicist had said it, but it was exactly how he felt about the matter. It was so much better to have everything scattered about than to have nothing.

Florence had no idea, of course, that she had now gripped an invisible dagger in his heart and was twisting it. She had no idea who that source was, or why he was wincing in pain now. "Yes. It will be quite hard to find anyone to corroborate this, clearly. I can not really tell you where I got the information from. I have been asked to keep that a secret, so please do not take it personally if I do not tell you."

She nodded, but chuckled a little as she said: "Really? You have top-secret sources? Mike, I never took you to be the James Bond type..."

He felt reminded of the way he had wondered why...she...had been so secretive about where she had gotten her information from. Even if he had been willing to risk ridicule by claiming "a vampire told me", he did not want to go back to that time. She would have to wonder just as he had done back then. Only there was no chance he would ever tell her.

Of course, he knew exactly who that letter was from. No way he was going to open it. He had closed that chapter, and he would just as soon rip his heart open with bare hands as slit that envelope. "No idea who sent me that. I was on holiday some time ago. Must be an ad for the little hotel I had stayed in back then. They are lovely islands, but I don't want to go back any time soon. What a waste of a beautiful stamp."

He put the letter out of his mind until Florence had left. Then he picked it up. Stared at it as hate and love and regret and sadness twisted themselves into a ball in his mind and bounced off his skull. He sat down, still looking at it, struggling to decide what to do with it. Was it an apology? An attempt to get back together? Or, most likely, an attempt to feed him some more lies because she missed her favorite blood donor?

He burned it unread. There was literally nothing she had to say to him anymore. How dare she intrude upon his new life? Had she not done enough? It gave him a sort of grim pleasure to set fire to it, and watch it burn away to nothing. He wished he could do that to her, but he still did not know how to kill a vampire. She was lucky he had decided to cut her out of his life, or he would have been tempted to find out.

The days that followed were not good. The satisfaction he had felt watching the letter go up in flames had not lasted for very long. A small, loathsome part of him, like a leftover drop of her love poison, kept screaming at him for what he had done. Reminded him of the good times they had had together. Manipulative monster or not, it shouted, she made you happier than you have ever been before... or since.

With steely resolve, he banished that thought and went on with his new life. He had finally completed his notes on the novel and begun writing a little bit. It was a convoluted murder mystery set in the 17th century Vatican. Only it would turn out not to have been a murder at all halfway through the book. It was a true passion project of his, a way he could finally pour his research into something truly fun to read.

Exercise, too, was a great way of putting that letter out of his mind. Every evening he fell into bed exhausted with tired muscles was an evening he fell asleep without his poisoned mind playing a highlights reel of his relationship with the bloodsucker, as if trying to convince him he had made a mistake. No, damn it. He had not made a mistake. How could leaving a conniving fiend be a mistake? He wondered if it would ever stop.

Eventually, he gave up. He was broken. He could no longer use the venom as an excuse. He had to face the fact that this was a part of him, not of her. A part of her had, while his mind had been deadened by that poison, quietly begun to love her. Genuinely love her. And it was crying, begging for him not to burn her next letter. If there ever would be one. After all, it would be very possible that she had given up on him.

 

[PennySaver]

It had been hard for Claudia to write that first letter, knowing that there would be a good chance that it would only hurt Michael, bringing up bad memories. She didn't want that for him; she would live the remainder of her very long and very sad life alone in the squats of Boston before she would hurt him again like she had in the Azores.

First letter … only letter.

She did, in fact, write a second one. But just as Michael had burned the first, Claudia had dropped the second one over the side of the boat taking her to Lisbon. As she looked out upon the waters of the Atlantic from the railing of the cargo freighter on which she'd gotten a passenger berth, Claudia told herself that if Michael had read the first letter and wanted to see her, he would be at their café on Thursday.

She expected to be left sitting there alone while her coffee went cold...

#####################​

Irony's a bitch!

Just as had happened when she'd come to America that first time almost 200 years ago, the vessel upon which she was traveling was diverted around a storm. Her slim chance of seeing Michael again was dashed as the Thursday about which she informed him -- the Thursday of which he had no knowledge -- came and went.

Saturday midday, the boat pulled into Boston. Claudia simply stood next to the railing with her bag at her feet, staring out upon the city. One of the crew -- a young man named Jaime -- offered to carry Claudia's bag ashore and, if she was interested, find a room together. He was taking away with him the memory of having made sweet love to Claudia the night before last, the night she learned they weren't making Boston in time. Like Michael's first time with Claudia, though, Jaime had only spurted his jizm upon his own self while the vampire fed minimally from his neck, just enough to make her strong for her first days back in America.

She ventured out into the city alone, though -- as a just in case -- she got Jaime's email address just in case she needed to feed again and wanted to avoid another back alley incident like the one in Ponta Delgada. Claudia found a cheap motel room which -- entirely coincidentally -- was only a few blocks from the university and on the path that Michael had often been taking from his house to work and back as part of his fitness regime.

Claudia went to their café again -- three mornings in a row -- but Michael made no appearances. Why would he? she wondered with glazes over eyes. In the afternoons, she wandered the University campus, looking about herself but not actually looking for Michael; she knew that ambushing him would not sit well with him. But simply being here close to where he worked helped Claudia. It made her feel as though she was still a part of his life.

She sent Jaime an email, making plans to meet the night before he returned to the ship and, subsequently, to Lisbon. She thought getting what she needed from him before she headed west away from Boston might help sustain her until she settled down again in some new large metropolis. There are squats in every big city, Claudia thought to herself, bristling at the memory of the life she'd had upon meeting Michael.

She and Jaime spent a couple of afternoon hours together, this time actually engaging in very energetic, very euphoric sex before Claudia sunk her fangs into his neck and drained him of a full pint of his life force. She left him there to sleep for the next 14 hours; she'd set his burner phone's alarm to ensure he didn't miss his ship's departure, then left, knowing they'd never see one another again.

Claudia took one more shot on their café, her small bag sitting on the brickwork at her feet. With her senses heightened and the last vestiges of hope dashed -- she'd been drinking coffee for three hours -- Claudia dropped the last of her money on the table and stood to leave. She had a train ticket that would get her as far as Kansas City, and Boston was done for her.

Or … was it?

Her path to the train station began here at their café, took her past the cheap hotel near the campus, and within two blocks of where a woman named Florence lived. If ever she was going to happen up Michael or Michael was going to happen upon her … this was that last chance.

But … even if they did cross paths … even if Michael did lay eyes upon Claudia … would he acknowledge her? Would he call out? Would he simply walk up to her, to face her, to say hi, or to ask Why?

Claudia couldn't know, and she wouldn't be looking for him anyway. That part of her life was over; she'd killed it.

 

[Knightmare27]

For the next few days, he thought he had managed to make his past go up in flames together with that letter. There was work to be done, Florence was as funny and engaging as ever, and he still kept up his strict exercise regimen. He would stay strong. He had had very good reasons to dump her, and it was on herself. She would deal with it. She had dealt with so many things before that this barely even registered. Probably.

The work on his novel progressed rapidly. He was drafting the middle of the book now, the all-important turning point where it turned out that the murder was no murder at all, but a suicide staged to look like a murder by a scholar driven to insanity by the machinations of an evil bishop. An attempt to make it look like he had been murdered by the church and inspire martyrs who would take revenge in his name.

It felt good to immerse himself so deeply in his writing. The main character, a curmudgeonly officer of the Swiss Guard, was based on someone he had known in school. Over time, though, strange things happened to him. A beautiful but treacherous love interest kept demanding to be added to the plot before he gave in, slightly annoyed by this obvious attempt by his subconscious to express itself through his writing.

Then, the surprising kernel of true love he had found grew and grew, as if it had been robbed of sunlight by the fake love induced by her venom. Damn it. He missed her. Missed her manipulative, fake ass. Even missed being brutalized by her cute little mouth.

He began seeing her out of the corner of his eyes as he walked near his house. Again, he felt like he was going insane. He tried to ignore her at first, but, when it happened for the fifth time, he turned his head. She was not there anymore. Had never been there. Ridiculous. He might miss her, but that was no reason to hallucinate. And yet, it seemed that scolding himself did very little to stop these visions.

Then it happened. This was not the corner of her eye. It was evening, the sun was just setting, and there she was, walking across the street in front of him in a very bad attempt to make it look random. Either he had gone fully mad or she...she had found him. She had to know he was there, yet she did not turn her head, as if determined to have him notice her first. Well, if that was what she wanted...he inhaled deeply.

Obviously, she wanted him to notice her first, but two could play at that game. Instead of running to greet her, he shadowed her without even a hint of subtlety until he knew exactly where she was staying. It was not far away. Of course. She had gone all the way to see him. He was not quite ready to forgive her yet, but he would not let her leave in despair without even giving her a chance to talk things through.

He made a mental note of her address, absolutely sure that she knew she was being followed. He would visit her the next day, and they would talk. Just talk. Nothing had to come of it. He wondered if the true love that was blossoming in him would ever be as strong as the poison she had given him. He was ready to give it a try and attempt to fall in love with her the hard way. Without any trickery this time.

He did not expect a calm night after this encounter, and he was not disappointed. His mind seemed to take special pleasure in making him relive his time with Claudia, but adding little twists to it. He would see her (with the face of a cartoon witch, for some reason) forcing a love potion down his throat, then dream he was so nauseated he nearly vomited all over his pillow. Then he had a dream where Florence suddenly sprouted fangs...

For the first time in many days, he only did the minimum work at university before going home, impatient to carry out his plans. What would happen? A rekindled love, a fruitless talk before they went their separate ways? An argument, even? What counted was that he could not let her leave like that. The poor vampire girl had come all the way here. The least he could do was to give her a chance. Or even two.

He stood in front of her door and knocked. A seedy place,probably the only place she could afford. He steeled his resolve to leave her there, not to take her back at any cost. Even if it meant abandoning her here. She had survived hundreds of years like that. She would survive hundreds of years more. He, however, had only one life to live. They would see where this second attempt would lead them. Maybe it would even be the same path.

 

[PennySaver]

Claudia was halfway through the crosswalk when she sensed Michael ... smelled Michael; the wondrous scent of him filled her nostrils and struck her like no other person's ever had. She slowed her walk and was about to searched the crowd about her but didn't; she couldn't know whether or not Michael had seen her, but if he had, Claudia didn't want him knowing she was aware of him.

She suddenly realized that she was trembling, deep to her core, as she wondered, Will he come to me with love in his heart … hatred? Will he come to me at all? She reminded herself again that he likely hadn't even seen her. Continuing across the road, Claudia set her gaze to the windows of the store front before her, looking for his reflection; nothing.

She'd altered her planned path, the one that would take her to the train station; her new direction would put more reflective window fronts before her. And she found him. Despite the window being 90 feet from her, and despite Michael being 130 feet from that window, Claudia was seeing his face as clearly as if he was standing directly before her. She'd hated herself for fucking Jaime, but having fed upon him was now providing those beyond human senses that were what had kept her and the rest of the vampire race alive over the centuries.

Michael was looking directly at her; there was no doubt. Claudia waited for the crosswalk sign to change … then only stood there for a long moment. What was she supposed to do now that she'd found Michael … or … Michael had found her? She'd been hoping to happen upon him for days, and now that she had, Claudia didn't know what to do.

Unconsciously, she had registered the smell of a pretzel stand half a block up her original path. Trying to act casual, she went to it, only to realize she only had $1.30 left in her pocket. The vendor felt for her and gave her one of his treats that had broken in half, for free. Claudia thanked him, turned, and looked into the window across the street again. In between cars, trucks, and buses, she caught sight of Michael again.

Why doesn't he come to me? her heart and brain cried to one another in unison. She turned back, knowing that her reversed direction would take her within 30 feet of him, giving him the opportunity to call out.

He didn't.

Claudia continued onward, often finding Michael in the reflections. She was trying to act casual, as if out for just a walk. But she was dressed for travel, not a stroll, and she was carrying her cloth bag with all her things in it, like a college girl catching the bus home to visit the family for a weekend.

She did the only thing that made sense: she returned to the cheap roach hotel, flirted with the desk manager and promised him payment tonight if he gave her room back for the night, and went upstairs. Rushing to her window, she peeked down through the closed drapes, adjusting her eye sight to penetrate the semi-sheer fabric. He was there still, standing across the street, studying the place. And then, he was gone.

What was Michael going to do? What was she going to do? What was right, for either of them? Claudia paced the floor, from window to door, almost continuously for the next four hours; each time at the window, she looked down to the street, hoping Michael had returned and was about to visit her; and each time at the door, Claudia reached out for the handle, determined to turn it, open the door, and hurry to Michael's.

It was 9 o'clock when she couldn't take this uncertainty anymore. She threw on a hoody she'd snatched from an inattentive patron at a sidewalk café and headed for Michaels at a quick jog. She arrived at the park opposite his home 32 minutes later, slowing to a stop; not a single bead of sweat was visible despite the better-than-marathon performance. Her heart was beating barely faster than normal...

…but it sped quickly and immediately at the sight of a woman stepping up close to Michael on his doorstep … reaching her hands up to cup his face, very much as Claudia had done on what they'd come to call Elba night … then pulling his face down to her to press a soft but passionate kiss upon his lips.

"I'm sorry I have to go so early, Mike," Claudia heard the woman say softly from her hiding place in the dark nearly a full block away. "I'll be in Seattle for two days … L.A. the two after that … then back here."

She kissed him again, this time arching her center mass forward to contact her bosom and belly to Michael's body. She told him before getting into an Uber, "I'll be ready then … if you are."

Claudia didn't need the woman to spell out that she meant she'd be ready to fuck Michael upon her return; the woman's scent -- along with Michael's -- was being carried directly Claudia's direction on a fair breeze, and the air was filled with the scent of animal lust … from both of them.

She backed away, turned, and ran … before hearing Michael's response to the woman who was unknown to Claudia but obviously not to her former love. She returned to the hotel to find the Desk Manager impatiently waiting in the lobby for her return and -- he hoped -- for his night of sexual delight. Without hesitating, an angry and hurt Claudia punched him in the face so hard that she knocked him unconscious. She caught his body before it fell, set it in a chair along the lobby wall, retrieved his hat and coat, and covered him to convey the impression that he'd fallen asleep there.

Claudia returned to her room … and sobbed herself to sleep. Around 4am, she awoke, slipped downstairs past the day Desk Manager who was having a fight with the night Desk Manager about how the office had been robbed while he was sleeping, and ventured out into city. She hung out on a corner until some creep tried to force himself on her, the excuse she needed to knock him out, too, then feed on and rob him.

She returned to the hotel just before the night Deck Manager went off shift and paid for the previous and upcoming nights, to get the other clerk off her radar. Then once more upstairs, Claudia slept off the morning and early afternoon before waking, showering, and packing once again for the early evening train.

And then … she sensed him again: Michael. It couldn't be! But she sniffed the air and smelled him, and after cocking her head this way and that, she heard his very familiar gait as he made his way up one set of stairs, down the landing, then up the next … to her door. Ironically, despite knowing he was right there, the knock made Claudia flinch so sharply that she had to suppress a nervous giggle. She drew several deep breaths, then opened the door.

All Claudia could manage as her heart pounded with excitement was, "Hi, Michael."

 

[Knightmare27]

In the days before, Florence and Michael had finally decided to get "serious" about their relationship. Do all the things that made them feel like young, silly students again. Kissing, holding hands. Sex, of course. For both of them, it brought back memories and they had great fun pretending to be a young couple in love. Well, they were, except for one little detail. And, over time, their game could very well become something more.

This had not made the decision to go and see Claudia any easier. He felt love for two women for the first time in his life. He knew he would do wrong by one of them, and he knew how unjust it was to go and cheat on a woman who genuinely loved him with a monster who had seen him as nothing but a walking blood bank. Yet here he was, knocking on the monster's door while not even feeling the requisite guilt.

"Hello", he said, his voice betraying nothing of his feelings. "I think we need to talk." Of course they did, but what else could he say at this moment? He had no plan beyond this point, really. Seeing Claudia at a loss for words like this made him think she was genuine, but could he trust that? It was not like she did not have centuries of experience deceiving people.

"I burned your letter. I wanted you out of my life. Yet you followed me here. Why? Are there not enough men elsewhere? Am I supposed to believe you really miss me that much? I don't know what to believe about you anymore. I thought we were lovers, but then it turned out you gave me something far worse than a date rape drug. At least that stuff does not make me believe that I love you! You took away my free will!"

He was surprised how calm his voice sounded. His anger at her had burned out long ago. He did not want to set fire to her anymore (not that that would likely harm her in any way). Not that he did not still resent what she had done. Much more than revenge, he wanted explanations. He wanted to ask her if she could even truly love someone, but he knew she would never answer that question truthfully.

He was now quite sure he loved her - but he did not trust her. Not yet. She had used him as nothing but a blood bag, and injected him with a mind-control poison for nothing but her own convenience. How could he ever trust her again? He wanted to, but he had no idea how she could do, or say, anything that would make him. Even letting her drink from him would be impossible now, since she could always drug him again.

"How am I going to believe you really love me? You can say it, yes, but why should I trust you? I believed you once, and look where it got me!"

He sounded more desperate than angry. He wanted her to prove her love in some way he had not thought of. A way he could believe, but he could not think of one. She had drugged him once before, so he could trust no one. Not her, not his feelings. Just seeing her had made him want to get back together - but how could he?

 

[PennySaver]

"I burned your letter."

Claudia was crushed by Michael's admission. It wouldn't have done him any good to know which day she'd been arriving, of course, since the ship had docked three days late. But to learn that he'd simply hadn't cared to even read the not was hard to accept.

"How am I going to believe you really love me?" he asked. "You can say it, yes, but why should I trust you? I believed you once, and look where it got me!"

Claudia stepped closer and grasped Michael's hand; he attempted to pull back, but she held the limb tightly. He twitched suddenly as she connected their brains in a way to how she'd let him watch Napoleon and his second wife make passionate love. She didn't show him anything this time; she only let him read her heart, mind, and soul. It was just a momentary connection, less than a second, but when she released her hold on him, he knew -- without any fear that it had been some sort of love potion or vampire voodoo -- that she loved him more intently and more honestly than she'd ever loved anyone in her life. It was just an in

She could have read into Michael's heart, mind, and soul as well … but she didn't. Not without his permission; that was the way she would deal with him from now on, assuming he let her deal with him at all.

"I don't expect you to love me or trust me, Michael," Claudia said softly. "I only wanted you to see the truth."

After he'd stepped into the room, Claudia had closed the door behind him and leaned back against it. Now, though, she opened it again, stepped aside, and sad with a tone of reluctance, "If you feel you need to go … I will understand. And … I promise … you will never see me again. I'll be leaving Boston forever."

 

[Knightmare27]

As she touched him, he knew she loved him. He did not notice she did. He knew. As if he had always known. Was this more trickery? Yet it felt so real. Could he trust it? He had trusted his love for her, and that had turned out to be poison. But there was no use fighting it. He knew it to be true, without a doubt. But why?

His last line of defense. "I have met another woman. She loves me, and I love her. And she did not have to give me anything to make me do that. I just do."

He had not intended to sound that bitter, but it turned out he still was. He still hated the fact that she had drugged him.

Her offer stung his heart. He knew he would forget her soon, that he would be very happy with Florence. And that Claudia would find another man to love, eventually. He now knew that, with her powers, her love would never be unrequited. What a lucky monster she was.

"Yes, please leave", he said, each word dropping heavily.

 

[PennySaver]

"I have met another woman," Michael informed Claudia. "She loves me, and I love her. And she did not have to give me anything to make me do that. I just do."

His words were not a surprise, of course, but they did hurt. Claudia had hurt him in such a horrible way: lies and deceits. She'd expected bitterness, even hatred. Yet, she hadn't expected him to so quickly fall in love with someone else.

Claudia's mind was so firmly on the new woman and on how she, too, had seemed to obviously in love with Michael and ready to give herself to him physically, romantically, sexually, that she didn't immediately understand Michael's message when he told her, "Yes, please leave."

"I will," she said. She hesitated a moment before telling him, "I want you to know … to truly believe, Michael … that I never meant to hurt you."

Claudia turned to him again, the gap being small already, and reached up to take his face in her hands. She said softly, "Remember that time when I told you to remember … and I showed you Elba … and my life there with the Emperor...?"

She stood on her toes and pressed her mouth to Michael's … and in an instant, two very significant things happened to him. The first was that he relived all the good times he had had with Claudia, from their first meeting when she was stealing food off abandoned plates in the café and he was ogling her curves, even if he still denied he'd done it … to the last time they'd made love on the cruise ship, with the pair of them cumming together in an orgasm so intense and lasting that they'd fallen asleep in one another arms and remained there under just the one fine sheet for more than eight hours.

The second thing that happened to Michael … was that he instantly forgot it all. Every bit of it. From that first croissant in downtown Boston to that last one in Ponta Delgada … every memory of Claudia … gone, in an instant. Oh, he would remember the joy of all that time … the pleasure … the happiness. But he wouldn't remember her … not her name, her face, her body.

Claudia erased herself from Michael's memory and instead implanted a general but hazy memory of a woman with whom he would remember having a wonderful relationship that ended on a good note. Michael's subconscious would fabricate a story should he ever look back on and contemplate the past few months. Ironically, that fabrication would wane, fading like a mist under the rising sun, and return him to his daily activities once more … without a care in the world that the woman who had played such a part in his life over the past few months just didn't seem to be there anymore.

It wouldn't be a deep, dark hole in Michael's life; it would be a beautiful, smooth pond upon which he would occasionally toss a stone and experience ripples of memories … only to again forget them when the surface was once again smooth as glass...

When Michael's consciousness returned to him, he would find himself standing in an otherwise empty hotel room, likely wondering why he was there...

 

[Knightmare27]

Michael was standing in an empty motel room. It smelled of its many, many previous occupants and of the many cleanings it had not received. What was he doing here? He shook his head, stepped outside and found his way home. What had happened? Why was he feeling a vague sense of regret? Had he been with someone? Had he been drugged? So many confusing questions, but he would discover an answer in time.

His relationship with Florence went serious for a few months, then they went back to being very good friends. He had a good life, filled with work and modest fame when his self-published novel became sort of an underground hit in history geek circles. He had nothing to complain about. He had not demanded much from life, and gotten it. The quiet, unassuming life of a history professor suited him and he was happy, in his simple way.

In the coming years, he would sometimes have strange dreams. Vampires. Angels. A woman he was sure he knew but was sure he did not, in that dream-like way. Nothing out of the usual for dreams. If there was not this sense that there was something more to them. They felt more like memories than dreams. Of course, they could not be. Vampires did not exist. Vampires had never existed. And neither did angels.

THE END​