Blood Ex Libris Page 5

  I had to laugh, which hurt in places which I didn’t know laughing could affect. The pain was not a problem, though. It seemed far away, and happiness more than just near, it was all-encompassing.

  “I think possibly we have become intimates.” I interrupted myself to laugh again. “We know each other biblically now, and if that doesn’t get me to the nickname stage, Sandu, I don’t know what does!” I was still laughing at the ridiculousness of being naked in Dracula’s arms in his vampirish lair after having had the best sex of my life and being used as a drinking vessel, albeit a happy one.

  “Noosh, micuţo, you are perhaps in shock. I would rectify this. Will you drink?”

  It was wonderfully polite of him to ask, I thought. Why not? Whee! Tonight, anything was possible. “Yes, yes, O Prince of Darkness! Pour your hot, hot immortal blood through my weak mortal lips!”

  He scowled at me, which only made me laugh more. The sight of him biting his wrist open, however, abruptly stopped my laughter. Subsequently, as I’d laughingly requested, his hot, hot blood was indeed gushing into my mouth.

  A whole new intensity was upon me. Having your mouth fill with blood is an experience like none other. It was thick, and the salt-copper taste got too intense very fast. I grabbed his arm to pull it away, but he would not allow that. I wouldn’t be able to move it until he wanted me to, so I swallowed the viscous mouthful just to get it out of my mouth.

  Once I’d swallowed the first mouthful, however, it became a great deal easier. I started trying to be less panicky, and more sensual. Or at least less awkward. He was moaning like I was sucking another part of his anatomy and started writhing against me. His erection had somehow returned with a vengeance. Oh, boy, was I in trouble!

  He finally moved his wrist away. The wound was much smaller already. I grabbed his arm and watched for the few moments it took to close. “Oh. My. God. It’s like the movies. I can’t believe you heal so fast!” I refrained from asking him to chew himself open again just so I could watch him heal.

  I’d been fucking a vampire for less than a full evening, and already I wanted to see flesh ripped open. Not a good sign.

  While I had been distracted by his super-self-healing wounds, Sandu had not lost the thread. He slid on top of me and started slowly kissing my neck and shoulders and clavicle and breasts.

  When I started to writhe in pleasure myself, I realized all my muscle aches were gone. My emotional well-being was now amplified by astounding physical well-being.

  I also felt quite stoned. If I had been drunk before, now I felt all languid and opium-dreamy. Sandu’s naked body moving on top of mine was delicious, and the sensations he drew from my breasts made me wonder if I was hallucinating—or if not yet hallucinating, if I shortly would be.

  I also discovered I was impatiently ready for him to be back inside me. I wriggled around underneath him, and before long he got the hint, moving himself into a right position. He arched his back as he looked down into my face, and deliberately held himself just at the entrance. “Oh, yessss, now, now! Hard!” I commanded him, and he took me at my word.

  He pounded himself into me, as desperately as if he and I had not just had astoundingly satisfying sex earlier, as if he’d been denied for years, for decades. This time, to be honest, I just held on for the ride. And screamed a lot. These orgasms were sharp, intense. I felt I was drowning in pleasure and coming back up for air and submerging yet again.

  When he joined me in Orgasmville, his seemed not dissimilar to mine: he screamed and froze, every muscle straining, the veins showing under his skin. His gold-and-green eyes looked off into an unfathomable distance.

  I passed out or fell asleep or something for a while. I don’t remember anything until I felt him playing with my hair an unknown amount of time later. I opened my eyes sleepily, and he, propped on his elbow alongside me, smiled down at me. “My Noosh. It has been a long, lovely evening, more wonderful than I could ever have imagined. You must wake up now in time for sleep. It is almost daybreak. I prefer to rest now, and you need repose as well.”

  “I don’t know that I do, Sandu. I feel...splendiferous! I’ve never felt so well. I want to go sort out your entire library right now!” I felt perfect. I didn’t know how I could fall asleep since I was full of vim and vigor, a bit like I’d just drunk two double-caf mochas in a row. “Give me the tools of my trade, and I will organize the world!”

  He did his low-chuckle thing, which didn’t seem to have lost any of its effectiveness. “You just think you are wakeful, like a child who doesn’t wish to go to bed. If you rest, I promise you will sleep deeply and feel even more wonderfully well when you wake. Trust me.”

  I didn’t like the analogy but I realized I was pouting, so perhaps “Don’t treat me like a child!” was not an optimal response.

  I could follow it up with a foot-stomp, and wouldn’t that be effective?

  I clung to him. “Don’t go just yet, please, Sandu. You’ve called me ‘draga mea,’ for all this time, and, um micu-something. What do they mean?”

  He leaned down and lightly kissed my forehead. Then kissed it again, just the barest pressure of lips, and again. In between feather-light kisses, he replied, “‘Draga mea’ means something like, ‘my darling,’ ‘my sweetheart.’ ‘Micuţo’ means ‘little one.’ It makes me happy to say these words from my native tongue to you. But now, you are indeed like a child who needs her sleep.

  “This is your first taste of vampire blood, and you lost a lot of your own blood before I replaced it as well. Trust me, you must needs rest now.”

  “But why me, Sandu? What do you see in me? Why did you trust me enough to tell me who you were? Why have you shared your blood with me?”

  “Is it not enough that I have fallen in love with you? Really, you have problems with your…your self-esteem. That is the phrase. I shall work on that with you, but not tonight. Now, we rest.” He got up, and my body immediately missed the feel of him against me. He went only so far as to get a red-and-gold plush coverlet and gently tucked it around me, then sat down beside me and went back to stroking my hair. He started to sing softly in Romanian, which sounded exotically like Italian said with a kinda-Russian accent.

  Vlad the Impaler is singing me a lullaby. I’ve just found out vampires exist, seen an “in my wildest dreams” collection of ancient texts, and not only that, fucked and shared blood with not just any vampire, but Dracula. Which also was The Best Sex Of My Life™. And now…now that same Dracula, whom I call by his intimate nickname, is singing me to sleep. It must be real because not even I and my more-than-well-honed imagination could dream this up.

  The unfamiliar words flowed over me. I almost felt I could understand them if I just listened hard enough, so I focused on them. He sang the song again, and again, and gradually everything went out of focus. It was warm and it was safe, and I slept.

  Chapter Seven

  When I awoke, I stretched like a self-satisfied cat. Come to it, I was self-satisfied. I felt gloriously relaxed in every muscle and generally felt far better than it was decent to feel after staying up ‘til dawn. Two bouts of The Best Sex Of My Life™ must be good for me.

  I reached out for the reading light, found it, and turned it on. The room-darkening curtains were, unsurprisingly, exceedingly efficient at keeping out the least bit of light. I did want to find out what time of day it was—indeed, what day it was—and, well, get my bearings. I was butt-naked and alone in a strange house, one that was not just unfamiliar but also bizarre and belonged to a man who could be described in the same terms. I was not even clear on its precise location.

  First thing was to find my glasses. That was much harder to do since I was not wearing them, one of those terrible daily ironies. I slid my feet along the floor, so as not to inadvertently step on them. They were surprisingly easy to find, resting on top of my shirt, which was puddled on the floor between the chair and the ottoman. To feel somewhat less naked, I put both on.

  Now that I could see, I went
back to the sofa and folded the lush velvet cover. As I was doing that, I first noticed the feeling between my legs…and shortly thereafter, the related stain on both leather and velvet. Gulp! It was blood—Gulp, gulp!—and not a few drips, but sufficient to be called a puddle. Now a dried puddle. What was going on?! I knew I wasn’t a virgin (not that losing my virginity had yielded even the slightest hint of blood, either) and I was quite sure it wasn’t time for my period. Yet between my legs, and on the sofa, dried blood flaked under my touch. This produced a new level of anxiety and humiliation in me. The stain! I supposed a vampire would probably know the best bloodstain remover, but what if I’d broken some obscure vampiric protocol or something?

  Looking around in my panic, I noticed a piece of paper that I was certain had not been there the night before. In a scrawl that looked like medieval handwriting it read, as best as I could make out:

  My Noosh,

  Please feel free to explore the house. There is food in the kitchen. Eat—you will have much appetite. Please take as much as your body craves. I will return at sunset. Until then, I shall hunger for you.

  Your Sandu.

  Thinking of sex reminded me of the blood situation, about which, sadly, he’d left no helpful information like, Please note that after sex with vampires, there will be puddles of blood, so I’d have to muddle through this on my own.

  I grabbed the rest of my clothes, which had ended up in truly impressive locations around the room, and set off to find the toilet, which, when I found it, was a pull-chain affair with a lovely handle instructing PULL in a Victorian script. The antiquarian in me appreciated the water closet, which had probably not been updated since it was put into the house. It had also, from the amount of dust, not been used in recent memory. I would have to ask Sandu if vampires peed.

  Note to self: do not make that the first question when you see Sandu tonight. Try for something slightly more mature, like maybe, “ARGH! Why was there all that blood?” Hmm, no, maybe save it for after a calm and collected, “Good evening, my dear vampire. How did you sleep? Like the dead?”

  Happily, there was a toilet roll. There was also a sink in the WC, so I was able to rinse my lady-bits and other vital wash-daily spots, so I felt I now was tolerably acceptable. If Sandu wanted a squeaky-clean lover, he ought to have put out soap and towels. The underpants were not wearable again until they’d had a wash, but the trousers, shirt, and bra were all fine, thankfully.

  Those key issues resolved, I wandered farther down the hall, finding the barren kitchen, which was also filled with Antiques Roadshow dream finds. The icebox—I kid you not—held a bottle of orange juice concentrate, a few frozen meals, and a carton of vanilla ice cream. Obviously, Sandu didn’t get much farther than the frozen foods aisle when shopping for guests. Looking around, I saw a small microwave, which was the only modern thing in the kitchen. Looking back down at the boxes, the Beef Stroganoff looked uninspiring, and the chicken and fish options were even less appealing. Stroganoff, it was. I found a flat of bottled water, which was far more satisfying than the gluey pseudo-food. I was thirsty!

  Heh. Gosh, I wonder why!

  It was upon entering the uncurtained kitchen that I finally got a sense of the time. It was afternoon, probably four-PM-ish. I hadn’t yet seen any clocks. I wondered if the myths had gotten it all wrong, and it wasn’t mirrors but clocks vampires couldn’t abide.

  I spent the next hour wandering the twisty halls and steep stairs and empty, dusty rooms of the house. Sandu seemed to have taken up residence in just the library and study. There were old chairs and bedframes covered in sheets in various rooms, and what promised to be—under an impressive amount of dust—a gorgeous dark-wood dining room table. And there was a large bathroom with an old clawfoot tub. The prospect of a bath was thrilling, but when I tested the tap, the only thing to come out was first a rather horrifying tortured-pipe noise, followed by a gentle shower of rust flakes. So much, I thought sadly, for a bath. I would have to make do with my earlier French bath until I could demand proper facilities from my host, including a toothbrush.

  I promptly forgot my complaints once I went back downstairs. I promised myself a good long time in the library, but first, I needed to do some research and could do it only on the internet. Back in Dracula’s den, which sounded much better than “Sandu’s live-work space,” I settled with my phone on the comfy chair. While the search results loaded, I idly flipped through some of the paperbacks on his desk. Dracula has low taste in modern reading, no matter how many manuscripts and first editions of classics he has lying around. It was mostly thrillers and, I noted with amusement, a few of the most recent novels from two currently popular vampire-based series. I wondered what he got from them: a good laugh? Righteous indignation? Ego inflation?

  I googled “Vlad Dracula” and followed various links, stuffing much information—of dubious veracity, to be sure, but better than nothing—into my brain. There was a lot of profoundly upsetting stuff in there that would require serious time to consider, along with all the other things to contemplate as soon as life slowed down a bit. In other words, when I got up the courage to think about what I had done the night before, and whatever it was I was going to do next.

  I pushed this daunting task aside and headed to the library, a place guaranteed to distract me entirely from thoughts that were too big and scary.

  First thing I did, however, was to grab one of the reading lights from the den and carry it into the library. No candles around these priceless documents on my watch! Having set it up on a desk, I looked around the room, which also had those extremely efficient light-blocking curtains. Apparently my supposition of last night had been correct and sunlight was not a problem. At least that was taken care of. I’d have to go buy a thermohygrometer and lots of archival boxes to get damage prevention started as expeditiously as possible. Maybe I should just order them online and coordinate with Sandu to be here during the day when they were delivered?

  One of the walls of curtains had a different drape from the rest of them, and I went over and cautiously peeked behind it. There was a huge home entertainment system hidden behind there. I pulled the curtains back to admire the largest flat-panel TV I’d ever seen. Shelves set in the wall underneath held DVDs. I saw the usual selection of blow-up action movies and period pieces—I assumed Sandu was particularly finicky about costume and set design, having lived through it all. There was also a comprehensive selection of vampire films: Nosferatu, the Hammer œuvre, every variation of Dracula movie through the years, and also shows like Dark Shadows and Buffy and True Blood. Obscure international B-grade horror films padded out the collection nicely.

  Wow. Possibly the ol’ Prince of Darkness is not the lady’s man I’d assumed.

  This was a collection worthy of serious geekhood, and if he’d watched all of these, he was spending his nights at home, not out seducing and imbibing. If this had been owned by a living person, I’d be worried about his emotional balance.

  But wait, were vampires actually dead? Were they still human?

  The amount of data I did not have in this situation was staggering. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure being a vampire was a good excuse for this film collection either. It pointed to deeper problems than a non-vampire would have.

  Ah, well, Sandu’s emotional balance was one of the least of the matters I needed to ponder right now, and since I didn’t want to ponder any of them, I got well stuck into the waiting piles of leather-bound tomes and delicate manuscripts.

  I have no idea how much later it was when I heard Sandu, abruptly right behind me, say, “Dragă Noosh, I came right to the library because I knew you would be here.”

  I yelped and almost dropped the 1370-1371 manuscript of the Decameron. “Sandu! Argh! Don’t do that! This is so precious that if I destroyed it, I would die!”

  He did his wicked-chuckle-thing. “You would not let it fall, I feel sure. And if you did, I would catch it. Do not fret, and give me a kiss if you would be so kind.”


  I was ready to fall into his arms when I remembered the unbrushed state of my teeth. “Oh, Sandu, I want to, but I have morning breath that’s gone through afternoon breath and become night-and-day breath. I can’t kiss you!”

  “My sincerest apologies, Noosh. I have been the worst of hosts; forgive me. It is all here. I simply forgot to put it in the note. Come.”

  I tried not to snigger at the accented and imperious, “Come,” which sounded just like all the cinematic vampires over on the other side of the room. I followed him down the hall. The candelabrum was lit again. Sigh. I was going to have to buy him some LED candles. We went past the kitchen to the back door. I’d glanced out to see an overgrown garden earlier in the day but had been far more interested in investigating the inside of the house. Now we stepped out into a yard thick with the exquisite scents of angel’s trumpet and vanilla-scented white heart-shape-petaled flowers.

  There were lots more flowers, but since I knew far more about books than botany, what really impressed me was that they were—of course—night-blooming flowers. Well, cheesy it might have been, it was practical for a vampiric gardener. Dracula was a gardener? Or did he pay landscapers to come in during the day? The heady perfume of the mingling scents was almost as intoxicating as blood.

  “Almost as intoxicating as blood.” OK, WTF, Noosh? Have you habituated after only one night of vampiric delights?

  Since it seemed another night of vampiric delights was on its way, the rational parts of my brain were ready to shut down again for as long as necessary. I’d never been like this before. What the hell is happening to me?

  Internal conflict abruptly ended when we rounded a well-vegetated and vigorously blooming corner to find a large Japanese bath. What? There was also an adorable outdoor shower and a changing cabana, the sort of wee house you’d likely find on a beach at the turn of the century. I was floored.