A Taste of Midnight
Sensual Vampire Stories
edited by Cecilia Tan
A Taste of Midnight
edited by Cecilia Tan
Published by Circlet Press, Inc.
Copyright © 2000 Circlet Press, Inc.
Published by
Circlet Press, Inc.
39 Hurlbut Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
www.circlet.com
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Contents
Descend by Pagan O’Leary
Goddess of the Wine by Kate Hill
Waiting for Sunset by Elizabeth Thorne
Pale Smoke by Raven Kaldera
Would You Live for Me? by Mary Anne Mohanraj
The Only by Steve Eller
Initiation Into Club Sanguis by Renée M. Charles
Desmodus by Bryn Haniver
Tripping by Margaret L. Carter
Dream-Eater by Gary Bowen
She Who Waits by Catherine Lundoff
Introduction
The vampire is a wily, secretive creature—we think we know them so well, and yet, is it not the unknown that attracts us, as well? The vampire is the perfect erotic conundrum; we want mortal danger and immortality, seduction and surrender, ecstasy and darkness, pleasure and pain.
We are attracted to what is enduring about the vampire myth, but at the same time, we want something new, something different, something that can still startle and surprise us. And herein lies the challenge for the intrepid vampire writer or anthologist—how to give you what you need to satisfy your hunger, and yet not tire you with the same old buffet of capes and fangs and bloodsucking.
So you won’t find anyone in a red satin lined cape nibbling the neck of any virgin in this book. What you will find are goddesses with secrets, the pleasure to be found at the edge of danger, and vampires with some needs of their own. In some of these tales, vampires are hunted and persecuted, some are mavens of ritual magic, others add new meaning to the word “night life.”
And there is more to come, as it would seem that the appeal of the erotic vampire is as eternal as the vampire itself is purported to be. This is the fourth volume in Circlet Press’s erotic vampire series, and we are already at work on a fifth (entitled Blood Surrender). We will be bringing Amarantha Knight’s erotic retellings of Dracula, Carmilla, and other horror classics back into print in coming seasons, as well. Because you, dear reader, have an appetite which is as insatiable as the vampire’s.
Drink deep, and enjoy.
Cecilia Tan
Cambridge, MA
Descend
“Ashes and blood here, pleasure and pain.” The hiss of the hawker stops you, louder than that pulse in your head. Dead eyes look out from the deep hood and a bony finger beckons. Shiver before the gatekeeper, look past. Skulls should not smile that way. But nearer, yes, move in so close you feel the chill seep into your bones. Nearer, nearer oh god to that door. Pay your obols to Charon and enter.
Heat and red lights. The silence laces numbing tendrils around your brain, sucking you into it. Descend. One step, slowly, and another. Descend. Long coat whisks around your ankles as you stalk this tainted realm.
Mistress Dani in too-shiny black vinyl. “On your knees and beg to serve me, lout.” Voice sharper than whipcracks, you like that, and her whip snaps the air, bites the rock below her feet. See the sparks and think of fire swirling, a lush golden gown of heat surging with a hundred red tongues to lick at her body. Clothe her in gold fire and whisper, “Dance for me, my beauty.”
Not here, not now. Shake your head and pass, let her wonder. Descend.
The green room, yes, sickly light and twisted forms writhing. The taste of anguish sweet on your lips. Such sounds to haunt the soul, cast your arms wide and let that music embrace you. Dark they move, masked demons applying their torments with icy precision. Your proxy. They delight you. But later—not yet.
Who set these stones along the walls? Black, sharp, razor edge upon your fingertips and you taste the blood with a graceful lash of your tongue. Soothing and warm copper wet flows to that pulse in your head. Thrumming. Driving. Descend.
A sibilant whisper calls you forward; you stumble and grasp the bars with clammy hands. Press your face to the cold iron, eyes closed, mold yourself to the cage. Wait. Don’t look. It will be too glorious, hold back from that moment, and yet you hear them sigh, they moan, they breathe. With fright, ah, then they’ve seen you, your silhouette looming. Rustles of movement, but no they can’t run. They wait, wait for you. Open... see them, shrinking within themselves, screaming eyes. And choose.
Now to your room and you pace it impatient. Let it begin. Let them bring her and chain her and leave her to your mercies. Fragile in her chains. Soft, warm skin. You touch it delicately but she cringes. Smile in triumph, for her fear permits you everything. Fear feeds the pounding, the pulse in your head, inflames the yearning to devour and consume. Slow. Throb. Closer, the stroking to waken her heat.
Ah, to feed now at this moment, to crush her beneath you and drown in the dark tide. If you dared. But she would slip from your grasp at that last glorious moment and slide out of reach, gone, free. You would never descend these stairs again. No, she must be ready.
Strum on that fear as you cherish her flesh and lure her past thought, past reason. It’s for this that she sells herself, this ride past the edge to her shadow place of floating, the place where she changes. Balance her there between wanting and dread, make her beg, make her kneel. Then she’s ready.
Oh the pulse rocks your body, grip the handle of the whip and growl to the shadows that you will feed, you will feast. Croon softly for that first strip of red, the thrill of it. “Sing for me,” a coaxing request, yes, you will conduct her cries with the swing of your arm. Lean into it, feel it, as her screaming flesh lures you closer. Become the pulse and throb into her head, her darkness, beating, falling, leaving. Make her scream, make her bleed, make her fly.
Beneath you she melts and is lost to the world. Capture the rhythm, ride it. It’s flowing, molten in her veins, changing her to a creature of impulse and urge and instinct who can feed you, sate you, and then feed you again.
She calls you with her voiceless writhing and you press against her, wet and burning, taste her and relish the sweet hints. She pulls you with her, deeper, darker. Heavy air holds you poised on the cliff edge of falling then she yields. Ravenous, brutal, swallowing you inside her until the scream, beyond the rest, and her head falls back in surrender.
The one timeless moment that brought you below. Tremble. Cherish it. And with grace you now feed.
Goddess of the Wine
“Goddess, forgive me.”
Beauty.
“I have sinned.”
Pure.
“Though they didn’t believe me.”
Red.
The beauty of the Goddess with her pure red lips.
He had been chosen, but already had failed.
She lived by the shadow, he by the light, yet once each year they would intertwine and glimpse their separate worlds. Through that intimate exchange she could face the light and he could envelop the darkness, but only if the ritual was performed, unchanged.
He should never have spoken of it aloud, even in private, but he had. His brothers had overheard him and laughed, not believing that he, the youngest and least handsome of them all, had been chosen by the Goddess.
He knelt by the altar, the sand hot upon his knees, even through the white ritual robe he wore. Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply of the incense mixed from the herbs and flowers he’d gathered, dried, and crushed, as the ritual ordered. Narcissus and orange blossom dominated his every breath when she’d appeared to him in the dreams.
Always cloaked in white, with delicate hands light as desert sand, she reached out to him, though they never touched. Still, the sound of her voice, the graceful movements of her fingers, left him breathless with anticipation of the coming ritual. He awoke swollen with longing only to force his rebellious body into submission.
Three days after their first communication, he had traveled into the desert until he’d reached the altar which had stood, carved into the shape of the Goddess, since the beginning.
Tonight at dusk she would meet him and consummate the ritual. At least he hoped so. Pride had coaxed him to speak aloud of the forbidden; now it was within her right to refuse him that which he most desired.
His blue eyes squinted against the sun. She’d told him how brilliant she’d heard it was. It would be her first time as well as his. She was the youngest of her kind, which was why she had chosen him. Though they had spoken only twice in dreams, she said she’d already felt bonded to him.
How would she feel when she realized what he’d done? Perhaps she knew and would deny him, not even meet him. What if he had truly sacrificed her convergence with the light, ruining his joining with the darkness. He’d listened to the ones who had already participated in the ritual, and had seen the result of the power they had felt, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to feel it. Would he?
“Goddess, forgive me,” he whispered as the sun set, cooling the desert heat.
Endless swells of sand tinted red by the setting sun surrounded him. He waited, motionless, until the incense burned out. Still he was alone.
She would not come.
Wind stirred his hair, caressed his cheek, but the wind should not speak—
“Will you join the darkness to guide me to the light?”
He turned, heartbeat quickening, and gazed upon her. The Goddess.
Tall and lithe she stood before him, wearing only a silver necklace fashioned into the shape of a snake about the delicate column of her throat, its eyes two rubies as large and dominant as the flushed peaks of her nipples which tipped her breasts, pale as the hovering moon. Dark hair hung straight and gleaming down her back, brushing her rounded buttocks. Her eyes were a mossy green in the dimness.
“I thought you wouldn’t come.” he whispered. “I spoke of our forbidden—”
“It took time, but I convinced the others to let me come to you. We are so much alike. I know that you are the only one who can truly please me, and I know that I can pleasure you as well. Tonight we will become each other then you will join your brothers in the sacrifice of blood. All we ask is one chalice filled with your sacred wine. Just one chalice each month on which we survive.”
“I will give you whatever you want.” He stepped forward, his hands clenched into fists to keep from touching her. How he wanted to devour her unearthly loveliness with so much more than his eyes.
“But first, I will give to you.”
She stepped up to him, her voluptuous mouth drawing on his while her cool hands slid the robe from his body, caressing the hard muscles of his youthful arms and chest. Her nails, long and painted burgundy, raked his abdomen until he flinched beneath the sensual tickling motion. He closed his eyes as her mouth moved from his to trail down his neck, pausing at the pounding pulse at the base of his throat before continuing downward.
Her hands came to rest on his side so that she could feel his heart beating against her palm. She could hear the rush of blood within his veins, could taste the saltiness of his skin beneath her tongue as she resumed her sensual journey down his body, licking his navel with slow, moist strokes.
The ritual had been born when the first vampire made love to a mortal without taking his life. It was learned that through a sharing of such benign passion, both could temporarily enjoy the benefits of their separate natures.
The bond forged between a vampire and a mortal who shared such an experience was unyielding. Since then, vampires and mortals lived apart, except for the ritual meetings. Mortals sacrificed a portion of their blood in exchange for the chance to bond with a vampire and create a union deeper than marriage, deeper than love.
“Touch me.” the Goddess spoke, awakening him from the sensual state, guiding his hands to the smoothness of her breasts.
He stared at his own hands, which held the ivory mounds soon to be flushed pink with his own passion and blood. His thumbs moved in a circular motion over the erect nipples, causing her to draw a sharp breath and arch her neck, her full lips falling open slightly, revealing the fine, gleaming points of her canines. Rather than being frightened, he found them to be particularly erotic, and wondered what he would feel when they broke his skin.
“Not yet.” she whispered. “You’re not ready for that.”
He looked surprised, and she explained that the mental link which had drawn them together still bound them, and that it would add to the fervor of their union.
“You’re so beautiful, I’m almost afraid to touch you,” he murmured against her lips, “You’re like no woman I’ve ever known.”
“Some pleasures we share with mortals.” She gasped as his fingers again found her nipples. Understanding swept over him with the first of her shudders. He pulled her into his arms and lay her on the altar, the vaguest hint of incense still in the air.
“Now you understand me,” she murmured in abandon as he caressed her with his hands, his lips drawing upon one hardened nipple until she cried out with pleasure. Her breathing quickened, as with a mortal woman, dragging his along with it. His mouth moved from her breast so that his tongue could leave a hot, wet trail down her belly. His hands kneaded her inner thighs, moving higher until his thumbs brushed the wetness between her legs, and stroked the patch of hair, glossy and black as upon her head.
His shaft was hard, erect, the velvet skin a throbbing veil of sensation which longed for the heated enclosure of her flesh.
He eased himself over her, their panting breaths mingling, limbs intertwined. Her nipples scraped his sleek, hairless chest. She caressed his nape, entangled her fingers in the thickness of his wheat-colored hair.
She closed her eyes, only wanting to hear and to feel. His heart beat an allegro rhythm; his entire body throbbed against hers, enveloping her in his mortal pleasure until she knew she must take from him or die of desire. She licked his throat, her tongue resting upon the protruding vein on the side of his neck. With her senses heightened, she felt as if his blood was ready to burst through the skin without aid from her needle-sharp fangs.
He was close to his moment of crisis. She had to time it perfectly, or else the ritual would fail.
He pumped steadily into her body, his back slick with sweat beneath her hands, his body trembling with a keener pleasure than he thought possible. In his passion, he momentarily forgot he was making love to the Goddess, but simply sought release from the sensual agony building within him. Then he felt the slightest twinge of pain as her teeth pierced his skin as deeply as he had pierced her body. He cried out at the sudden shock and flood of sexual stimulation so great that he whirled down into blackness as waves of orgasm flooded him, incredible for any mortal man.
At the first taste of his blood, the Goddess reached her own climax, her body shuddering as the sweet, red liquid melted into her, heating her, flushing pink her pale skin. She held his spent and trembling body close as she fed, feeling the harsh rasp of his breath against her, loving the heat of his perspiring skin and the hardness of his chest against her soft breasts and still-peaked nipples.
Too soon she forced herself to stop drinking, not wanting to kill him and destroy the beauty of what they had just shared. She licked the last drops of blood from his skin, then closed her eyes, still buried beneath him, until he stirred slightly. Before he fully awakened, she shifted her weight, and with one red-tipped finger, made an incision on top of her right breast. Warm blood beaded against her skin, and she guided his mouth to her breast so that he could drink of what he’d given her.
Slowly at first, he suckled on her, his tongue drawing the sweetness of her blood into him. Instantly he was aroused, in spite of the intensity of his last orgasm. He pierced her entrance, still flowing from their earlier joining, and challenged her with long, fast strokes. She encouraged him with hoarse cries of lust, her nails raking his biceps, her neck arched back, catching the moonlight. He tore his mouth from her breast only to shriek with uncontrollable pleasure as his climax drew him from reality into her world of immortal passion. He fell upon her, his bloody lips resting upon her throat, dampening the white skin. When he finally caught his breath, he spoke with reverence.
“That was—” he began, then paused as his eyes opened and he saw the night as he never imagined it could be.
He stood up, his naked body pale in the moonlight, and looked across the desert, seeing every night creature, every white grain of sand glistening like diamond dust in the brightness of the moon.
“This is what you see.” He turned to her, his eyes wide as they witnessed a night brighter and more beautiful than the day could ever be. “No wonder you can’t bear the sunlight.”
“But at dawn I will.” she smiled slightly, her lips stained as red as the snake’s ruby eyes. “Tomorrow I will know what you see by day, as you now know what I see by night. We are forever bonded.”
“Forever bonded.” he knelt by the altar, taking her hands in his. “Goddess, I love you.”
“And I love you.”
“Even though I spoke the forbidden and nearly destroyed the ritual?”
“Yes. I loved you since our first communication. I knew I had to have you, if only just once.”
His entire being rebelled against such a torturous restriction.
“Only once? But we will love each other again?”
“No.” Tears shone in her green eyes. “Not us. That is my punishment for meeting you, though you disturbed the ancient ritual. Never again will I see the sun, nor will you truly see the night.”
“There’s got to be a way....”
She shook her head, her dark hair concealing her anguished face, “Should we continue to meet yearly as other couples do, our mental bond will become so strong that you will know where I am and what I feel at all times. You will know where my kind rest. The others fear that you cannot be trusted and will divulge our whereabouts the same way you spoke aloud of our meeting. They worry that if you do, the few ignorant mortals who spurn our existence will use your knowledge to destroy us.”