The Hunger Within

(Content Warning: some mature content and graphic scenes)

I want to tell you a story. My name is Seraphine. I was born, what you humans call, a vampire, the curse of my mother and grandmothers woven into my genes. Only women can carry the gene, there are few of us who remain. I’ve met others, those of us who cheat mortality but are bound to blood for eternity.

What you see when you look at me is something of an illusion. Upon the twenty seventh anniversary of my birth, my body ceased aging. I have maintained my youthful appearance, as you see me, for two hundred and ten trips around the sun. I knew the day would come. The symptoms of my Gift, as my mother called it, did not present themselves until that day. As she had explained to me would happen time and again, at the exact hour of my birth, the hunger rose inside of me.

There was no preparing for what I experienced that first time. It was the most frightening and excruciating experience of my existence. It started in my limbs. Every fiber of muscle in my body began to burn and contract. This lasted for hours, my mother by my bedside, massaging my arms and legs, holding my contorted hands.

Next it felt as if someone or something was ripping my intestines out through my naval. I don’t mean it hurt as if. I am telling you the sensation that I felt was my insides being ripped out of my body! The muscles in my jaw and face contracted, prying my mouth open wide. In the mirror at the foot of my bed, I saw a monster, a mouth that was open almost a foot wide and then these teeth pushed out all of my existing teeth. I didn’t just receive new cuspids, I suddenly had a smile that wealthy people pay a lot of money for.

The fever lasted thirty-six hours. For a day and a half, I laid there boiling in my own skin, sweating puddles onto the floor of my bedroom. My mother never left my side, mopping up whatever was coming out of me, assuring me I was going to be alright.

What came next, she never warned me about, but she knew it was coming, and wow, was it coming. I began to vomit blood with a ferocity and force that I am sure no one has ever seen before. The seconds that it lasted, felt like hours. When it finally stopped, I must have passed out.

When I came to, my mother was there, a damp rag in her hand, wiping sweat from my brow and looking at me with those kind, motherly, eyes. “How do you feel?” she asked.

“Mom, I’m hungry.” I was hungry. Hungry like I’d never felt. The sensation I felt, though I recognized it as hunger, was something new altogether. My senses were so alive. I smelt everything. I heard everything. I could taste the air, which wasn’t a particularly good thing in a room that I’d spent a few days sweating and puking in.

“We must get you fed, my love,” she said as she held out her hand to help me from the bed.

I didn’t need help. I felt strong, stronger than I’d ever felt. Every part of my body felt was tuned and refined. I was on my feet immediately, gracefully. I felt better than I’d ever felt in my life. Looking over my body, everything looked new and perfect. Scars from my youth were now gone. There wasn’t a single imperfection on my skin.

“Come, my love, it’s time for your birthday feast. Tonight, we shall dine together for the first, and the last time.” My mother led me to the dining hall. She had prepared me for this meal my entire life. I was a child when I learned why my mother left the house late at night. She was selective. “Only take the bad ones,” she’d say. ‘What if there were no bad ones to take?’ the thoughts of a naive child.

Before she opened the tall double doors to the dining hall, I could taste what was beyond them. The smell was overpoweringly delicious. I was salivating uncontrollably. I could hear them! I suddenly found myself hyper focused, anxious to get through the door.

As she opened the doors wide, I saw them. A young couple, around my age, lying on our table end to end. They were lying on their backs, arms pulled straight out wide and tied at the wrists, ropes leading under the table. Their legs tied at the ankles with ropes leading from one ankle to one table leg. Both were gagged with large wooden dowels I’d seen in the kitchen drawer a hundred times, but never knew what they were for. Each had a rope ran from one end of the dowel, around the back of their head and tied to the other end. They were looking each other in the eye, unable to speak but communicating their fear to the other.

“Child stealers!” said Mother. “They stole a child, lured the little girl away from her mother while she was buying food at the market. Tonight, my love, they will be our feast. You think that you feel well now. Wait until you see what they give you. When we finish with them, you will know the true power of the gift you have been given.”

Some part of me resisted what I was feeling. I don’t even know that you could call them feelings. It was an instinct, some primal need, no, requirement. My body and mind drove me in unison to want what would come next. The resistance was pushed down deep until it barely existed.

“The choice is yours my love. He looks salty and tough. She looks soft and sweet.” She held out an ornate dagger. The silver handle crusted with jewels; a blade shaped like the crescent moon. Sharp as a razor.

I took the blade from my mother’s outstretched hands; I’d already made my choice. I wanted something sweet.

Mother removed her dress and climbed atop the enormous oak table and straddled the young man with my dagger’s twin. “Start small, love, make it last. Best to really enjoy this first meal.”

I climbed upon the table, straddling the girl as my mother had. Her pale skin almost flawless, beautiful. I’d never looked at a woman and appreciated her the way I found myself appreciating her. Naked, her trembling body was warm against my hips. Her small breasts rising and lowering quickly with every frightened breath. I wanted to climb inside of her and bathe in her flesh and blood.

I watched as my mother made a small slice on the cheek of her prey, she bent down, tasting his lifeblood with the tip of her tongue, then taking his flesh between her lips and sucking gently on the wound. He tried to scream but the wooden dowel only allowed a muted growl. She then moved to his neck, repeating the process. As she began to suck the vital fluid from the cut, she paused, looking at me with her lips on his neck. “Go on Seraphine, taste her. Make her blood your own my girl. You will see.”

I slid the blade gently across her plump lower lip, pink against her white skin. Red, a trickle at first, then a stream began to run towards her chin. I dipped my tongue into the divine liquid just under her jaw. Following the trail of blood back to the cut on her lip where I began to suck, just as my mother had. The taste, metallic at first was like nothing that had ever touched my tongue. The smell of her fear teased my nostrils. I knew it as if I’d known it my whole life. I wanted more.

After that first taste, I barely recall the rest of the banquet my mother had prepared for me. I only know that when it was over, I realized I had been reborn. The animal inside of me had been satisfied. A pain that had always existed was suddenly gone. I was the surest of myself I’d ever been, the most beautiful I’d ever been and all of my senses were suddenly in perfect harmony with one another. It was electric, sensual and exhilarating.

I walked out onto our balcony, the Mississippi River glittering below in the moonlight. Mother followed. “You must hunt, my love” she said, “or you will age, you will become weak and lose your immortality. As long as you hunt, and keep your secrets, you will live forever.”

It sounded like such a wonderful life, though a lonely one. For whatever reason, the other immortals we knew of, were not particularly social creatures. They had a tendency to be quite territorial as well, almost never settling near one another. Mother came over when America was nothing more than some Spanish colonists camping on a beach. She took to New Orleans when she realized most of the others didn’t particularly enjoy the weather here.

We met another vampire on a train to New York once, mother and I. We didn’t travel much together after, but when I told her where I was going, she wanted to see how much that part of the country had changed since her arrival. Adelaide was her name, she was only a century old when we met her. A charming lady and quite stylish. She had taken to traveling around working in brothels, giving her the opportunity to find all the sustenance she needed. I’ve always hoped to cross paths with her again one day.

For the most part I’ve accepted this life of solitude. Honestly, most of the time I’ve really enjoyed the freedom. It wasn’t until recently that I suddenly felt a new urge. Men were easy, I was blessed in that I could have all of them I wanted. Most of the time settling for a tumble with my prey before I feasted on them. It was usually a handy way to get them to let their guard down. Honestly, once they think that you want them, they don’t think about much else. Not always the most intelligent of creatures.

I guess I should get on with it. I know you have more questions. I’ve never told anyone this stuff!

When you have as much free time as I’ve had in my life, you find passions to pass the time, hobbies. As you know, I love to read. Ever since libraries became common and now book stores, I’ve spent a lot of time thumbing through books. I love the scent of all of the books, of all of the mortals who’ve handled them, left behind, tickling my nose. The romance books have always appealed to me. Love stories are my favorite. I never felt a need for a man in the way these women in these books do but I enjoyed reading about it. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed them sexually but most of the time, the men I’ve spent time with weren’t particularly good men. There was a reason I’d chosen them. Only take the bad ones.

Three months ago, in a book shop on Decatur, something happened. I was looking for something to read when my heart was harpooned by the most beautiful man I’d ever laid eyes on. He smelt different than most of the others. I detected no fear in him. His eyes gave away nothing. He was tall and strong with a sensitivity in his face I’d never seen before. He was tracing the spine of a book of poems with his finger, trying to decide whether to pull it from the shelf, Byron I think.

I watched him, not as a huntress watching her prey but I just couldn’t take my eyes off of him. He caught me looking and smiled, a sparkle in his deep blue eyes. For the first time in my life, I felt vulnerable. He turned and stepped directly towards me, never breaking eye contact. I almost turned and ran but I couldn’t, my feet were cement. I was paralyzed by his gaze.

He introduced himself and invited me to enjoy a cup of coffee with him. I couldn’t say no. We talked for hours, about books and New Orleans gossip and concerts and plays we’d seen. When we got up to leave, he didn’t invite me back to his place. He didn’t ask to go home with me. He took my hand and leaned in and placed the most delicate kiss on my cheek. Before he pulled back, he whispered “Thank you for having coffee with me.” His warm breath, the scent of him made hairs all over my body stand on end. “Can I see you again?” he asked.

Of course you can! I thought. “When?” Even I didn’t know if I was asking or demanding to know.

“As soon as possible, I hope.” He actually said that!

After that, if I wasn’t hunting, we were together. As little taste for the food of mortals as I have left, I ate every meal I could with him! Just being in the room with him made me feel more alive than I’d ever felt.

The nights we spent together were magic. Every time we made love it was a lightning storm of exhilaration and desire. He looked at me like he needed me just to breathe. I needed no protection but, in his arms I felt safer, safer than even when I was with my mother. When he kissed me, my insides turned to warm liquid and my legs quivered. It was love. I was totally in love and I knew it.

With love, something new arose. I found yet another feeling, I’d never felt before, a longing. After over two centuries of living what I thought was my best life, I suddenly found a need that I needed him to fulfill. It was the one thing I couldn’t do on my own. I realized for the first time in my life that I wanted to be a mother more than anything in the world. I wanted my own daughter just like my mother had made me, I wanted to make my own me. Do you understand? I wanted a baby.

This brings us to the question I am sure you’d ask if I took that piece of wood from between your beautiful white teeth, Elias. I’m talking about you! Ever since we made love for the first time, I’ve known. I want a child, not just A CHILD, but YOUR CHILD. Tonight, when you finished, and I held you tight with my legs wrapped around you, I felt it. You planted your seed inside me.

The problem is, in order for me, or any vampire, to reproduce, once you put your seed in me, I must devour your still-warm heart. This is the only way that I can have what I need. And I do NEED this, Elias. I love you. I know I do, otherwise you wouldn’t have woken up tied down like this. I don’t look at you as food. I’ve just told you my life story. You are the only mortal I’ve ever told my story to.

The thing is, I want to raise a child. I let you plant your seed in me but if a boy grows in my womb, he’ll suffer a violent death and I’ll become very ill, maybe even die. I’ve never seen it but my mother has told me stories. I’m not a monster. I must ingest your heart and only yours in order to make sure that I make a girl, we make a girl.

Oh, my darling, I hear your thoughts. Part of this gift of mine. I wish that were so but we can’t grow old together you will eventually grow old and die. I COULD stop hunting and grow old with you but I can’t. I can’t just let go of this life. I can’t just give up and die. It’s not in me and I want a daughter. I am my mother’s only daughter and I can’t just let our line die with me. We must live on.

Please stop trying to talk me out of what must be. I have no choice. I don’t want to hurt you or kill you but just know that you will always be a part of me. And our daughter, will live on, keeping part of you alive, forever.

Don’t you see? It’s beautiful really. You will live forever in our daughter.

You are making this so hard. Stop saying things you don’t mean. Just accept our fate. Be happy for me, for US. We are going to have a daughter.

Hold still my love, try to enjoy this, you’ll feel cold but there won’t be much pain. I knew you’d make a good father and a good father will do anything for his child.

Try to think of a beautiful name for our beautiful daughter. It’ll calm your nerves.

Oh darling, you taste divine. I always knew you would. I’ll never forget you.