Physiology of a Vampire

I love Black Friday – not because of the great deals at the malls or because it’s the start of the holiday season. My joy is that Thanksgiving is past for another year, and I’m in the midst of a long weekend. Plus, it’s usually cold enough to wear my leather duster on a regular basis. Some years I stay hone and don’t even venture to the mailbox. Other years I contribute to the local economy by picking up stocking stuffers at the museum shops down on Main Street.

This year is far different. I spent the better part of Thanksgiving night working on a short story while imbibing Tanqueray and tonic – with a touch of lime. So, I slept until noon, drank a cup of microwave heated left over coffee before I jumped in the shower and headed to one of the local brew pubs for a very rare burger with bleu cheese, garlic fries, and some exquisite mead to wash it all down. The rest of the daylight hours were spent in the dark anonymity of a movie theatre and trying not to be completely antsy about what was to come. Had this meeting not been so spur of the moment, I may have gotten a tattoo before hand – always a relaxing way to spend the day.

I walked into the coffee shop just before seven, and found Alex was already waiting for me. “Bryan described your duster quite well, but he forgot to mention you’re a very attractive Bear,” he said in greeting.

“Sadly to be as old as he is, Bryan is far too heterosexual for his own good,” I responded.

“He said you had questions about vampire physiology.”

“I do. He said you’re the person to help me better understand.”

“He would. I am, or was, a physician by training. Just after the Second World War, I was turned. I gave up my practice on mortals, but I’ve continued by education and now work with vampires, werewolves, and, well, anyone who needs my particular skills.”

I thought it better not to press for more information. The vampires and Wolves were enough. “You’re still young then,” I asked.

“Comparatively, I am. But even at just over 2000, Bryan is young when compared to some of the others – including the Wolf who shares your bed.” He had me there. Seb was nearly four hundred when Bryan was born.

“I didn’t mean to offend,” I said wishing I could rewind.

“You didn’t. You need perspective that’s all. Mortals dwell on age and the history one has seen. Once you have a guarantee of living for ever, it matters less and monumentous events pass by unnoticed. I’m hardly there, but I do know a couple of vampire who remember less of the moon landing than you.”

“Sebastian is like that. He has no clue about the Black Death or the Crusades. He loved the French Revolution and Baroque Venice, but he’s likely to think we’re still British subjects.”

“And what is it you want to know that neither your Wolf nor your vampire friend can tell you?”

“How does the drinking work?”

“Of blood? Why and two bit vampire movie can show you that.”

“No, I mean coffee, wine…”

“It works by us not drinking it. But I see what you mean. We sit around places with some drink or other and nurse it all night. If need be, we’ll slip to the restroom, toss what we have, and order a fresh one. Blood though it different. Our systems change during the turning to absorb blood. We can also ingest semen and vaginal fluid – probably because are body fluids. For the record, our saliva is chemically different than that of mortals, so is wolf saliva by the way.”

“Technically though you’re dead…”

“Not exactly. The transformation requires a physical death from which we’re brought back through the transference of vampire blood. More than anything we become a different species, far harder to kill, unable to stand direct sunlight for long, and a host of other things. Just as you wouldn’t call someone revived on an operating table ‘undead’ we’re not.”

“So sex…”

“Is still very possible and pleasurable. Our hearts beat, blood runs through our veins, and the corpus cavernosum still function normally in males. Males no longer produce sperm, but there is seminal discharge.  Women become barren and stop menstruation, but otherwise function normally.”

“Somehow I’d thought it would be more…dramatic.”

“Unfortunately, no. I’m sure some avocational writer with a laptop and a blog will find a way to make it more salacious, but it’s pretty simple physiology.”

We talked until the coffee shop closed, then walked up to the cemetery and back. “It’s been a good evening Alex, and I’m glad to have met you. Maybe we can get together more often.”

“I’d like that and if you and Sebastian are ever in the mood for a third, feel free to call me.”

I gave him a wink and a raised eyebrow as I turned on my boot heel to head home. Now, how do I bring up a three way with a vamp to Seb? I’ll figure out a way.

Amor Sanguinis

Or, Jack gets his Fang on! Yep, he’s headed out into the night to a local play house that’s doing a little vampire show. It should be exciting. But will he run into a werewolf at U of L’s campus this year? He can only hope. : )=

It Begins

On a cold windy winter’s night I sat down to work on one of my tales. It began easily enough until one of the characters began arguing with me.

“If he writes ‘It was s a dark and stormy night’ I’m calling Bryan,” Chris said looking up at me.

“I might change and eat him,” Sebastian added sardonically.

“But guys, you can’t do anything unless I write you doing it,” I countered to them.

“Are you certain,” Chris quipped.

“Yes,” I answered. “I’m certain. Why your last sentence was change five times before I was happy.”

“I don’t quip,” Chris snarled. “I don’t snarl. You’ve confused me with Sebastian!”

“I only snarl when I’m in Wolf form.”

“But you’re such a pretty wolf,” I told him. “Now be good characters and let me write you properly, or I’ll call Bryan.”

“What are you calling me,” Bryan asked as he entered the room.

“I need to get the story started,” I told him. “It’s running around in my head – in my dreams even. I want to get it written, Sebastian and Chris aren’t behaving.”

“He wants to write ‘It was s a dark and stormy night.’ We can’t abide that.”

“Oh, let him write it to get started, he’ll edit it out.”

“I might not. I might just leave it for spite.”

“Then we won’t behave. We’ll go…don’t you dare write that!”

And so the story begins.

Loup, gardez-vous

The Wolf Moon is my favorite of the year. It’s tonight. With Her coming, I’ve been haunted by the beginnings of a story line for Chris and Sebastian. When I developed this Universe in the 1980s, Chris and Bryan were the original characters and introduced in “Satin Pillows.” I’m not sure where I got the inspiration to add a Wolf to the Universe — and make him Chris’ boyfriend, but it happened. For this story, the thoughts are  in a psychedelic mist that I hope will clear soon and let me in. For now, there are merely images — tweed slacks and black sweaters (perhaps from my own wardrobe), clear and crisp martinis (can’t figure where that one came from), and the fireplace in the library filled with hickory logs.

And Chris is older now than when I started. He’s gone from high school to University. He’s also gone from back ground character to a full character in his own right (yes, I can use the technical literary terms were I to so desire). Moreover, I see him joining the ranks of the Immortals. However, I’m not sure if he’ll be a Wolf, a Vampire, or some other class of being. It will come to me — perhaps when I least expect it. That’s how my Muse works, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Bryan the Vampire

The pale, blue satin pricked Bryan’s flesh as he slid into bed. He’d had a hard night, and now, as the Sun rose, he thanked the Gods for long summer days. He pulled the cover over himself and let the white-noise cradle song of the air-conditioning lull him to sleep.

Later, while Phaethon put his father’s horses to bed, Chris descended the stairs to enter the subterranean chamber. He set the lights on dim and studied the room. Filled with antique furniture and tapestries it rivaled the world’s most elite auction houses and museums. Small bits of Fabregé were scattered on Norman tables. Roman relics, from Bryan’s mortality, filled medieval trunks, and crown jewels from forgotten dynasties overran cabinets of forgotten origin. Bryan’s portrait, done in the early twentieth century by Caravaggio, hung over a writing desk once used by one of the Medici popes. Too carelessly tossed into one corner was one of the lost papal tiarras. “No wonder I loved to play down here as a child,” Chris commented.

Raising the coffin’s elaborately carved lid, Chris studied his guardian, employer, and friend in the dim light. Lying there in his green silk boxers with his long black hair rumpled, ears and nipples pierced he looked more like a rock star passed out from too much party than a two thousand year old vampire just waking up from his sleep. Chris resisted the urge to run upstairs and bring back his Stratocaster. While fiction writers are fond of giving vampires bond white skin, Bryan looked like he’d just come back from a vacation on Corsica. Placing his hand on Bryan’s arm, he called the vampire to life. “Bryan, the Sun has set.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes, Bryan. Should I have let you sleep longer?”

“No, I needed to get up. I don’t like to sleep after Sunset. It’s not natural.”

“There’s a bath waiting for you upstairs, and Hunter will be here in an hour.”

“Young One, you anticipate my every need.”

“And I’m going out tonight with Sebastian.”

“You know how I feel about that,” Bryan said narrowing his brow.

“So, he’s a little mad, bad, and dangerous to know.”

“And he’s a wolf – literally sometimes.”

“And you’re a vampire.”

“It’s not the same, Christopher.”

“Oh that’s right. His summum bonum is different than yours?”

“For you, I’ll give him a chance. Just don’t come crying to me if he goes hydrophobic on you.” Chris responded with a glare. “Sorry young one. It was a long night. I like Sebastian fine. Wolves and Vampires just don’t typically get along. As long as he treats you well I’ll be oaky.”

ii

 

Pausing momentarily to kick the boxers from his frame, Bryan entered the bedroom. The heavy, wooden shutters were open to the night, and he walked over to look at view. A gentle rain was falling. He said a prayer of thanksgiving and left the bucolic scene to soak his sore muscles. The bedroom rivaled his stateroom in opulence. The thick velvet bed curtains ensured that any light that might get past the oak shutters didn’t reach the occupant who lay under the silk sheets. Even in mid July the fireplace stood ready with hickory wood. Clothes enough to run for vice-president filled the closets, museum quality art work adorned the walls, and another king’s ransom in jewelry were all part and parcel of his bedroom. He turned out the light and turned on the Blues as his left the thick pile for cool marble. Steam rose from the tub, and Bryan slipped gingerly into it letting it cover him to his chest. He lay back and relaxed. He turned his attention to the skylight, and watched the lights of a plane (or maybe a UFO) move across the black gauche of sky.

His eyes closed and suddenly he was no longer in a tub of water in 20^th century Kentucky. He was in his childhood in the late Roman Republic. His family lived in the Jewish Quarter of Alexandria, practiced an assimilated form of Judaism, and called him Amicus. They saw no real distinction between Adoni and Iupiter. His family and their neighbors saw the various deities of their world as cases of the same noun. They kept the Sabbath, holy days, and dietary laws. However, they lit their lamps as they pleased and saw circumcision as barbaric. They refused to kneel, but held their religious services in the Koine. Their sons even attended the gymnasium with the polytheist boys. At fifteen Amicus joined the Roman Army and then the Cult of Mithras. Three days after his eighteenth birthday, the Cult transformed Amicus into a vampire. The magick created one who works for the Highest Good by consuming the blood of its enemies. Throughout the centuries, Amicus changed names, residences, and gained enormous wealth all while maintaining his alliance with the summum bonum.

Hunter quietly entered the bathroom. Barefoot (he’d abandoned his leather flip flops in the entry way) and wearing a pair of black cargo shorts and a faded blue t-shirt he looked like anything but the thirty year old sheriff. “Bryan, Chris was on his way out and said for me to come up. Is this a bad time,” he asked.

“No, Hunter. Let me get out and get dried. Wait for me in the bedroom.” Five minutes later Bryan emerged wearing a blue silk robe. Hunter had tossed his shirt on a chair and sat on the bed. They didn’t speak. Hunter lay back his blond hair contrasting against the black pillow and Bryan leaned over. His fangs extended, and he but into the flesh. The blood flowed. The Healing began. His muscles knitted new fibers. For him blood was the universal panacea. While Bryan healed, Hunter found pleasure untold even in the most extensive red light districts. Compared to the Donation, sex was a sophomoric study in ineffectiveness.

After taking a fifth of blood, Bryan pulled his fangs from Hunter’s chest. He pricked his finger and put a drop of his blood on each of the holes. They healed instantly. Hunter lay quietly on the bed fighting back tears of dejection. It was foolish, he knew. It had to stop or he’d die, but the bond was always difficult to break. He stirred when he realized Bryan sat down on the bed. The vampire bore a tray filled with Hunter’s favorite foods. The sheriff ate ravenously. “Get a shower, my friend, and sleep here tonight.” Hunter obeyed immediately. Without Bryan’s consent – much less his request – he was Bryan’s most willing and eager slave.

As Hunter lay down to visions from the Gates of Ivory, Bryan put his car in gear and started down the drive. His phone vibrated. “My son is dating a Wolf. One of my donor’s is in love with me, and I really need some company.” Her laughter on across the miles told him he’d be welcomed tonight, and so he drove on against the current born into the ceaselessness of his future.

Jack Has New Ink!

Usually when I say that it means I have a new tattoo. Tonight though it means that I just purchased the new Jourdan Lane novel Soul Mates: Secrets from Torque Books. Yes, I’m excited! I love these novels. So what’s it about?

 “Peter’s life gets more complicated with every passing day. His relationship with his vampire lover Lucien is on the rocks, he can’t seem to get enough of his friend and confidant, Nicholas, and events going on inside the coven are making him wonder when everything is going to blow up in his face. Through murder investigations and negotiations with angels, Peter doesn’t know who to trust, as old friendships and loyalties begin to shift and change.

“Jealousy, intrigue and deception abound, and all Peter wants is for his life to get back to normal, if his life can ever be normal again. His love life is incredibly complicated, the Council wants him to get to work for them, and there’s someone out there committing crimes who looks an awful lot like him. Can Peter find a way to mend his broken friendships, fix what’s wrong between him and Lucien, and keep the coven together when everything seems to be against them?

“Soul Mates: Secrets continues Jourdan Lane’s popular Soul Mates series, which features the novels Bound by Blood, Deceptions, and Sacrifice. The print version of Secrets also contains A Coven Christmas, a Soul Mates holiday story never before published in paperback!”

Yes, I’m a fan. Keep writing Jourdan. I’ll keep reading.