Velvet Hunger

Immortality gets old fast.

I used to imagine it would be glamorous, velvet capes, a castle with dramatic Gothic arches. Maybe a brood-worthy balcony overlooking a superstitious little village. I thought “immortal” came bundled with “wealthy” like a call and text phone plan.

Turns out? You don’t get a castle, or trust fund, or even a halfway-decent studio. You get forever, raw and unupholstered, and you have to figure out the rest for yourself. Alone.

Sure, there are covens. Huge ones, tucked away in rural corners, clusters of old-world vamps who’ve been undead since before indoor plumbing, tangled in overly complicated hierarchies and ancient grudges along with the occasional territorial pissing match with nearby werewolf packs. The old guards do love their stereotypes.

But us? The “new” vampires, meaning anyone changed post-American Revolution, we don’t have the patience for all that. We drift to the cities. New York. Chicago. San Francisco. LA. Places large enough to swallow you whole without ever noticing you were there. Places where anonymity is cheap, blood and jobs are plentiful, and no one questions why you only work night shifts.

If you’re lucky, you’ll stumble across one of the city’s genuine ancients, the vampires old enough to own property in prime locations because they bought the land back when it was just that, land and a handshake was a good enough contract. No lease, no paperwork. Just the occasional cup of joe, a conversation, a mutual acknowledgment that eternity is a long time to spend alone in exchange for a fully furnished basement unit.

….

I switch jobs every couple of years, to avoid suspicion, rotating between the boroughs to limit coworker overlap. Besides housing, the city ancients are also good for a job. They own a lot of shit.

Tonight, I was starting at one of the nicer dining establishments owned by my current landlord in Hell’s Kitchen. The Pearl

A speak easy that looked like something straight out of the 1920’s, with a bar downstairs and full restaurant upstairs. The bar was all roaring 20s, with deep red leather seats, low lighting, a small piano and retro microphone for when the house singer comes on in the evenings.

I joked with Oscar, the owner, that his hoarding finally paid off when he had changed the interior about three years ago. Man still has the uniform he wore in the revolutionary war for Christ’s sake. Oscar, ever the grump, was not amused. Still keeps me housed though.

I was supposed to be training, getting a feel for how things worked at The Pearl. It wasn’t necessary, I’d been slinging cocktails on the regular for about eight decades now, but Oscar had weird rules. Something about not bringing any unnecessary attention to oneself. I’ve learned that bar culture evolves the same way humans do, frantically pointlessly, and in circles. I just adjust my techniques every decade or so and go about my shifts.

When I got there an hour before opening, hoodie and large sunglasses on to avoid any sun to skin contact, I was greeted by the head bartender, Martha. She filled me in on what I needed to prep for the garnish station and how they operated within five minutes before leaving me to finish garnish prep. Muttering something about Daphne and damn ice.

Said Daphne comes out the kitchen door not a minute later, carrying a large clear bucket full of ice and dumping it into the cooler like she’d done this a thousand times before. Not one ice cube was lost.

Her scent hits me instantly. It’s divine. It curls around me like smoke, coaxing, tempting, ancient instincts shifting under my skin. It makes me stand inhumanely still, sharp eyes trailing her back as she shifts from her ice tossing position to standing and facing me. I’m caught staring, humans hate staring, but I don’t care. It’s been a long time since a human has pulled my undivided attention. Longer since I cared.

“You must be James,” she says to me, hand stuck out in greeting.

“And you’re Daphne,” I say back adding a teasing lilt to my voice, taking her hand in mine.

I give it a shake, noting the steady pulse against my skin before letting go. Humans don’t like prolonged hand holding from new coworkers either.

“I started last week,” she offers as she sorts the now empty ice bucket.

“How are Saturdays?”

“Hell,” she says without hesitation.

I chuckle a little and turn back to my fruit.

Daphne sits at the bar, her side work done for the night, and slides the book on the counter in front of it. It has those colorful plastic tabs the book people online use. Is she an internet book person? I’ll have to check.

Eternity is very long. One of the ways I fill the time is by being nosy. An easy thing to do when you can hear a conversation from a block away if you really focus your heightened vampire senses. Humans just put their entire life out there for anyone to see. All their interests, petty dislikes and grudges, opinions, food, and hobbies. It’s fascinating how important they think they are.

It’s instinctive almost, for vampires to stalk an interesting human. Just to see how they live, what they do. How they fill their short little lives.

I wonder what Daphne does in her spare time.

My musings are interrupted by Martha’s return. She informed Daphne she’s working the servers well this evening. And Daphne, yummy divine smelling Daphne, salutes her sarcastically and heads to the corner by the ticket machine to set up her station. She’s wearing black high-waisted slacks and a see through burgundy red lace tucked in top that leaves her black bra visible.

That first shift was hell. Glorious chaotic hell. I work down the bar taking orders, smiling, shaking cocktails dramatically for extra tips, and flirting with anyone who shows interest. At one point Daphne steals a perfectly crafted, fat-washed bourbon old fashioned and downs it like a champ while giving me a wink. And then a bachelor party comes in, loud and uncaring.

“Fuck,” Daphne swears before chugging the rest of her cocktail, making a face as the alcohol burn gets to her. “Gonna be brutal tonight.”

….

There are a lot of things I don’t get about humans. I don’t know if it’s because I was changed in the 40s and am now technically an old man. Or if it’s because I’m no longer human anymore.

Vampires are amoral creators and loners by nature. Sure, there are a few duos, mostly romantic in nature because eternity is too long to go without a good fuck. But those are the outliers. Our moral compasses don’t just break, they dissolve. Time erodes sentiment the way water erodes stone, with a deliberate drip…drip…drip.

Which is why I don’t really understand what exactly I’m feeling about Daphne. I’ve spent the night indulging on her scent, allowing it to caress my senses and lull me into a sense of subdued calm. Even as the world around me was a chaotic symphony of ice clinking in glasses, humans speaking about useless human things, and orders being shouted at me, her scent broke through the haze. It was grounding.

So, when the night is over, I follow her home. Then I follow her home after the next shift. And the next. Leaving as soon as I heard her lock her door from the street.

And then one night, I don’t leave. I camp out on the shady rooftop across from her building, I don’t sleep anyways might as well see what she does on a day off. I watch her get ready for bed and in the morning when I’m still there and she’s leaving her building, I follow her.

I’m just curious. Curiosity is a natural vampire trait. It’s so rare that a human piques an interest and I want to know what it is that I find so interesting. So I follow and watch from a distance.

Months go by like this. Me constantly watching an oblivious Daphne go to the store, work her other job at a used bookstore, go to university classes, go out with her friends. We form a bond at work, working nearly every shift together (thank you Oscar), bantering easily.

I stalk the internet for any information I can find on her and anything I can’t find I coax out of her during smoke breaks. She’s in grad school, English lit major, hence the plastic book tab things. Plans on teaching after she finishes university. And she’s observant.

Shortly after starting at The Pearl, Daphne abruptly asked me if I had an eating disorder.

“Do I look like I have an eating disorder,” I asked her, amused.

She frowns at my joke. Unimpressed.

“You never eat,” she reasons. “Ever.”

About a month into me following her home, I noticed her looking behind her shoulder. Like she was looking for something. I sensed nothing of significance around her, but Daphne began to pick up the pace and made it to her apartment building in record time.

It’s not until I hear her sprint up the stairs from the street that I realize she felt like she was being followed. Clever girl.

Usually, I’d be on the rooftop by now, watching Daphne go about her nightly routine of studying and watching trash reality tv. But my feet are moving me unconsciously to the door of her building. I could go up there right now. Open her door, knock. Or just enter.

Sharp fingernails dig into my palm as I stand in front of the building, contemplating. Then I’m on the roof watching again.

Eventually, Daphne lets me walk her home after our shifts.

There’s an early chill to the night air as we walk side by side to her now familiar brick building. Daphne is asking me a stream of questions. Where did I grow up? Brooklyn (not a lie). How long have I been a bartender? A long time (also technically not a lie). What music do I like? I name a popular band (lie) and that gets a nose wrinkle from her.

“Not a fan?” I guess.

“I like old shit,” she informs me. “Like Queen and The Smiths.”

That earns a genuine laugh from me which makes her laugh as well, a wonderful tinkling sound that enters my system like a gong strike. Reverberating in my head.

We make it to her building, and she seems reluctant to go up. She stares up at me, laughter still twinkling faintly in her eyes.

I don’t remember the last time I’ve laughed with someone.

One day I observed her going on a date. The man seems perfectly polite. He opens the door for her, walks so his body is facing the street, he even pulls out her chair for her. And the whole time I’m watching I want to sink my teeth into his neck and feel his hot warm blood coat my throat as I suck him dry.

I rarely drink enough from a human to end their life. But I want to drain him. I want to smell his terror and taste the adrenaline on his blood as my teeth sink into his neck.

After he drops Daphne off at home of course.

He tastes exactly like I imagine he would, sweet from fear. His body instinctively tries to fight against my hold as I pin him against an alley wall. But soon my teeth are in his neck, and he has no idea how to react to that, they never do. By the time he understands what’s happening to him, he’s lost too much blood to do anything but weakly groan. When he’s dry, I let go of his corpse and let it fall into a heap on the grimy concrete at my feet

“She’s mine,” I hiss at the lifeless body.

Mine.

….

The night everything ends isn’t special. It’s just an ordinary Tuesday.

There is no cosmic alignment or omens of doom. Just the city humming its never-ending hum. Just Daphne wiping down the bar while I polish the glasses. She’s wearing the lace shirt from our first shift together.

She smells just as intoxicating as ever-warm, human, familiar. Her scent still cuts through me months later. It’s an indulgence I’ve grown used to.

“How are you not cold in that?” she asks while pulling her puffy winter coat in close around herself as we exit the warm restaurant into the New York winter air.

The “that” she’s referring to is my usual outfit of jeans, Henley, and a leather jacket. I never feel the cold.

“Leather is very warm,” I tease.

It’s true. I remember how fucking cold I used to get as a teen, pre-vamp, before I stole a sheepskin leather jacket one winter without an ounce of regret.

Daphne rolls her eyes and shuffles down the street in the direction of her apartment. It’s a little past 1am and the temp is below freezing but the street is still crowded.

The city’s rot mixes with her scent, and I move in closer so I can let it surround me once again while she complains about the cold and I pretend to listen. Outside her building, she turns to me, pinked cheeked from the icy wind.

“I’m glad you came to work at The Pearl,” she tells me suddenly, nervousness tinging her voice.

“Oh?” I said surprised.

I didn’t even have to feign the surprised tone.

“It’s nice to work with someone competent. Someone steady.”

Steady.

The word hits me in the chest like a spike to the heart. I’m the furthest thing from steady.

She reaches out to squeeze my arm with her gloved hand. A friendly gesture. A human gesture.

My resolve snaps like a rotten string in my head at the contact and instinct takes over. One second, she’s calling me steady and touching me, the next she’s against a cold alley wall with my hand around her throat.

A small sound of confusion leaves Daphne’s parted lips as she stares at me with wide emerald eyes.

I tilt my hips against her waist, firmly holding her in place and lean forward to bury my nose in her inky locks. A deep inhale of her scent has a low growl leaving my lips involuntarily and I feel Daphne’s body against me tense.

Ah. Fear. I can feel it coming off her in thick suffocating waves, mingling with her scent to make something entirely new.

Delectable.

“James,” Daphne says, voice firm despite the fear. “Get the fuck off of me.”

The last dregs of restraint melt away at her mouth, and I laugh throatily before I sink my teeth into her neck. Moaning when her blood finally hits my tongue.

Heavenly.

She tastes heavenly. Her blood warms my throat in a terrible, irresistible way as I drink from her. Daphne’s body goes lax against me as I feed, the effect of my essence entering her circulatory systems. My inhuman biology overrides her human instincts.

I’m not sure why I stopped. Her blood is so very tempting, I knew from the first time I smelled her that when I bit her, I would probably drain her in less than a minute. But I find myself extracting my teeth and looking down at the subdued woman in my arms.

Her eyes are glazed over, as if drugged. She looks pale, fragile. Perfect.

If this was a regular feeding, I’d be licking the bite clean to heal it before taking off into the night. Leaving the human, dazed.

Not with Daphne though.

I bring my sharp teeth, still coated in her blood, down on my own wrist until a dark thick liquid beads out. My blood.

I coat the tip of my finger in the liquid and then rub it into the still open wound on Daphne’s slender neck. I lick the wound and watch as the skin knits itself back together, sealing my claim.

This will let everyone know, she’s mine. Mine to feed from. Mine to stalk. And maybe, one day, mine to change.

After a few seconds the glazed look falls off Daphne’s face with a blink and I’m walking her to her door again. She’s tired and looks at me wearily. Claiming always leaves humans foggy and drained. I kiss her cheek. A small peck and she looks confused by the gesture. Uncertain if she should allow it. So very clever, my Daphne I smile and tell her to head up to bed.

She obeys and I hear her light footsteps on the stairs, walking all the way up to the third floor. Instead of heading out into the night, I stay standing in front of her building, up at the window I know is hers.

The light in her apartment comes on, soft and golden. A comforting warmth against the cold dark. Her silhouette appears in the window, hand raised to open the lilac curtains. Fingers curling around the edge. Ready.

Then she stops. The curtain falls back into place. A heartbeat later, the golden light is gone.

I smile.

Eternity yawns open, and for the first time in a long, long while, I am not alone.