Embracing a new life

Chapter 3: Have a drink

River swayed a glass of vodka coke – not the usual mixing ratio but half alcohol, half blackness – in his hand, staring into the flames. He wanted to forget, just this one night. Well, forget it forever sounded much better of course, but that was illusionary. A night would have to suffice. If only that damn alcohol would kick in! It was his second glass already, after all.

Suddenly, the glass was taken out of his hand. River looked up. Andreji. Of course. Who else!

“If you know what’s good for you, you run to the toilet, put a finger in your throat and empty your stomach to the last drop.” His hand took hold of River’s chin and pushed his face further towards the light. “And you should stay out of direct sunlight from now on as well. Your eyes are affected already.”

River slapped Andreji’s hand away and grasped for his drink.

Andreji easily evaded his half-hearted attack. “You wish.” The hardness in his voice made clear that River was close to overstepping a line. His master seized the two bottles that stood next to River’s armchair as well and went to the bathroom.

River heard how the fluids ran down the drain. He jumped up and hurried after Andreji. “What are you doing there?! That’s my stuff! You have no right to stride in here and dictate what I may drink and what not!” An infantile, stubborn rage took hold of him. This was so unjust!

Andreji hardly spared his fledgling a glance. “No right?” The question was thick with amusement, of Andreji’s typical, calculated kind. “I am a vampire. And you are my fledgling. I have the right to determine where you live, if you may sleep in a bed or on the cold floor, what clothes you wear – if any at all – if you may look at me and talk in my presence, and I most certainly have the right to decide whether you poison yourself or not.” Andreji put the empty bottles on the floor. “Either you go and empty your stomach yourself now or I will do it for you.”

River crossed his arms.

Andreji had one hand in his trouser pocket and leaned with the other leisurely against the wall. “And by ‘now’ I mean this instant.” His voice turned lower with every syllable.

“You won’t dare do that,” his fledgling replied confidently.

Andreji smirked. Then the mask of amusement fell from his features and cold determination replaced it. Before River had any chance to react, his arms were wrenched onto his back and firmly held in place by the long fingers of merely one of Andreji’s hand. With the other, the vampire opened the heavy wooden door that led out of his chambers. Without effort, he lifted his struggling fledgling up and carried him through the dark, empty, and cold corridors to the next toilet, over whose bowl he forced River’s face before he mercilessly stimulated the young man to throw up.

“Sadist,” River spat out, still gagging, when Andreji finally let go of him and used some toilet paper to get rid of what had landed on his hand.

“Were I what you accuse me of, I would have let you learn out of your mistakes all by yourself.” Andreji’s voice was still low, but warmer than before, more relaxed. “There are moments when I am almost tempted to regard you as an equal, River, and then there are those bouts of immaturity in you when you simply run head first against a wall of which you know that it is solid and would not give in even if you were a rhinoceros…”

River’s stomach slowly calmed down, and he sat up on the floor, wiping the corners of his mouth in disgust and looking up at his master.

“You know that you cannot digest those things,” Andreji motioned to the contents of the toilet bowl and offhandedly flushed it. “What do you think happens with them in a vampire body?”

River shrugged, indifferently, leaning against the wall and staring into empty space.

“It enters your veins almost unfiltered. Especially the alcohol. You may look forward to a stout little army of jackhammers in your head when you sober, now, but I doubt you would have been able to tell the tale had I let you go on drinking. I have not met a single person who has ever tried that. Probably because those who were mad enough to try, have remained that – mad.” Andreji paused to let that sink in.

River remained stubbornly silent.

“Pray tell me, what drove you to act like this?” Andreji finally requested.

River glared at him. He wanted to lash out at him, to throw the truth at his master, to see his shocked, disgusted face. But he could not. He could not speak it out. His own disgust was still too dominant.

The young man rose, holding his master’s gaze defiantly. In a desperate attempt to acquire some privacy, he pushed past the man and ran. Through the dark, anonymous tunnels back to their chambers and into his tiny bedroom to sag onto the floor in front of his bed. He had a strong desire to bolt his door, only that he was not even allowed that much privacy. Was a door too much to ask for?!?

In the far recesses of his mind, River knew he was not being fair. Andreji was a good master, leaving him much freedom and caring genuinely about his well-being. River was not especially fond of this housing because he associated it with the oppression, the uncertainty of his early days of being a fledgling before Andreji and he had established a positive relationship to each other, but he had also spent many good hours here. Hours in Andreji’s arms or simply moments of comfort when he had lain in his bed knowing that Andreji was sitting in front of the fire in the adjourning room and reading a book.

No, this was not about Andreji. He was not mad at his lover; he was mad at something he could not define. Rage, despair, that had no point to which it was directed often hit the first target available. Andreji really was the worst target available.

The outer door fell into its lock, and soft footsteps advanced. River did not look up as the curtain was lifted and Andreji entered the room. He felt the taller man sink onto the floor next to him.

“I’m sorry,” River murmured, fighting the anger that still smouldered in him. A strong arm settled around his shoulders and drew him against a warm chest. Reluctantly, he sank against it, his respiration calming. River closed his eyes, pulled his knees closer, and took hold of Andreji’s sweater.

Flashes of shame shot through his mind, through his body. He covered his mouth as if to make sure that no unwanted word could escape and turn what had happened to him that afternoon from his dirty little secret or perhaps only a chimera into shared knowledge, into reality. However, when Andreji asked again “What has happened?” so softly, River felt his resolve not to say a word melt away. He wanted to, needed to talk about this with Andreji.

“I…” River faltered. He closed his eyes and tried to hide in Andreji’s embrace. Hide from his conscience. “I heard Eriko’s heartbeat,” he managed to murmur eventually. “I feel so dirty, soiled…”

“For hearing something?” Andreji asked calmly with only the slightest trace of mockery in his question.

“She’s my cousin. Almost a sister. And she’s pregnant. I shouldn’t think of her that way. I shouldn’t think of anyone that way!” Despite the importance of his words, River whispered them.

“You said you heard her heartbeat. You did not say that you thought about ripping her throat apart to drink her lifeblood…”

River backed off and frowned at Andreji, shocked by his insinuation. A glance at the facial expression of his lover in the semi-darkness that surrounded them, however, showed him that the effect of Andreji’s words had been intended.

“Did you think about hurting her?” Andreji asked softly.

River shook his head meekly. “It was just the sound that… When I realised what was going on, I felt sick.”

Andreji rose from the cold floor, stretching, and sat down on the bed, crossing his legs and leaning back leisurely. “I doubt that has anything to do with ‘realisation’. It is plainly a natural reaction to a woman in her state.”

The young man on the floor looked at him questioningly.

Andreji smiled. “Looking at it from a biological point of view, vampires are moral predators. We are naturally prevented from killing children and pregnant women. Their scent drives any appetite that might befall us away. They stink. I already knew at her wedding that Eriko was carrying a child, although she was still in an early phase of her pregnancy then.”

River remained silent.

“Does that ease your conscience?” Andreji pressed for a reaction.

His fledgling nodded silently, more to satisfy the other man than because he felt truly relieved. River was empty, somehow, out of fuel. Running against solid walls took a lot of energy.

With a sigh, Andreji pulled him up onto the bed. “You are complicating things unnecessarily. You know that.” He covered the two of them with a blanket. “What is this about anyway? Are you earnestly appalled by drinking blood, or are you more afraid of the reaction you would receive if any of your friends or relatives ever found out about your new nature?”

River’s skin prickled uncomfortably. He crawled deeper under the cover and pondered about Andreji’s question. “The latter,” he admitted finally. It was almost a relief to realise that he was in fact not horror-stricken by the idea of doing the inevitable but ‘merely’ by the idea of anyone knowing about it and resenting him for it.

“Can we agree, then, that it is foolish to neglect your needs since that heightens the probability of acting strangely in the presence of others out of sheer hunger?”

River breathed deeply to gain control over his turmoil. He nodded.

His lover reached into his trouser pocket and retrieved his mobile. He slid it open, the display glowing blue in the darkness, and filed through the countless names its register held.

“No woman, please,” River whispered, embarrassment overwhelming him as soon as he voiced his indirect consent to what Andreji was clearly planning. There was a single tear running down his nose.

Andreji’s hand pressed his shoulder encouragingly. He dialled the number of ‘Thomas, Edinborough, 32’.

River closed his eyes and snuggled up to his master as if he wanted to melt with him.

Three hours later, at about midnight, they knocked on the door of a small house. River felt his hands shake slightly and a headache coming up. “Perhaps this is bad timing,” he said to Andreji. “I think the vodka is kicking in.”

“The blood will help you,” Andreji replied.

The door was opened. A man somewhere in his thirties, about River’s height with short brown hair and sideburns, clad in jeans and a worn out sweater, greeted them. “Hi Andreji. It’s been a while.” They shook hands.

Andreji introduced his fledgling, and they went into the house.

“Sorry for the chaos. My girlfriend’s away this semester, working in Aberdeen and comes by only every second weekend, so…” Their host shrugged and grinned.

There were piles of books and printouts filling every free space in the living room. Thomas lifted a few of them off the couch to make space. “So, shall we just get to the point?” he asked as he sank down into an armchair.

Andreji nodded and let two hundred pounds fall onto the top of a pile of books about democratisation. He took off his coat, throwing it over the backrest of the couch and took out the dressing material.

Eyeing his fledgling, who stood impassively near the door, he went over to him and helped him out of his coat as well. “He is a little anxious,” he confided to the donor. “Tonight will be his first time of drinking human blood.”

River felt strangely exposed. He wished Andreji had kept that information to himself, but he guessed that it was only fair to warn this Thomas in case River messed up. The possibility of that happening horrified him.

As if the guy had had the same thought, he enquired, “But he knows what he’s doing?”

Andreji smiled reassuringly. “Of course. He has drunken my blood already. In any case, I am there to supervise.”

Thomas nodded assuaged and rolled up one sleeve of his sweater. A quite muscular arm came to light.

Andreji pulled out the tiny dagger that he always used to cut his own veins. Now he held it out to River. The young man would have protested – fearing that he would make a mistake – had he not known that such behaviour would only unsettle his donor further. Therefore, he grudgingly accepted the weapon and sank down, feeling helpless, next to the exposed arm.

He eyed the veins that stood out, calling those moments to his mind when he had watched Andreji cut his arm for him. Not the big one; that one scared him. He chose the vein next to it, which was of moderate size. River steadied the arm with his left hand – although, frankly speaking, it felt more as if the arm steadied his hand since it was shaking – and collected all the courage he found in himself to raise the blade.

“Lick the place that you want to cut first,” Andreji advised him with a soothingly patient voice. “It will dampen the pain, remember?”

Right, right. Don’t panic, River. You’ll manage. River bent lower and spread his saliva over the somewhat salty skin. Licking a complete stranger, how bizarre was that? And how long did it take until the saliva showed effect? When Andreji licked him offhandedly, it took only a moment for a cool shudder to run down River’s back, so he supposed this effect came to pass just as quickly.

He lifted the dagger once more. Andreji did not hold him back. Somehow the short interruption had at least distracted him enough to stop his trembling. He cut neatly into the soft flesh, only violating a few millimetres of the skin. Immediately, the red fluid streamed out of the wound. River allowed himself only a second of hesitation before he pressed his lips to the cut and licked the blood away. It still was nothing he craved, but he did what was expected of him.

The young Japanese was surprised by the taste. Andreji’s blood naturally was special. It was his master’s blood, after all. It intoxicated him, made him want to be closer to the other man. Thomas’ blood had no such intense effect on him, yet it did not taste the way blood had always tasted to River either. It had not simply this metallic taste with which everyone who had ever sucked on a cut finger associated it. It was richer, fuller, spicier. Above all, it was warm. River only longed for it to be more. The cut was too small. He wanted the fluid to gush into his mouth, not to leak out in such small amounts that he had to lick it off the skin. Nevertheless, he could hardly widen the cut, now. That would look dilettante.

Time dropped by, blood dropped into his mouth, and eventually River decided to stop. He licked his lips and covered the wound with his hand. After a few moments, he noticed the alcohol sponge that Andreji held out to him. He took it and cleaned the wound before he bandaged the arm. At least that was something he was experienced at, having done it for Andreji plenty of times.

He rose and looked uncertainly at his master.

“Are you okay?” Andreji asked Thomas routinely.

The man checked the bandage and then rolled down his sleeve. “Yeah, fine.”

“Interested in regular business?”

Thomas lifted his brows. “Sure. I can always do with a bit of extra money.”

“Fine. Once a month, then.”

They took their leave.

“But once a month won’t suffice, will it?” River asked outside. Although he was loath to admit it, what he had drunk was hardly enough to sate him that very instant.

Andreji chuckled. “Of course not. You will need to drink at least every five days, if you feed solely on men – who can naturally give you more blood than women. I do not have enough donors for you here in town, you will have to roam the country, but I guess you are not ready yet to seek donors yourself, are you?”

River clang to his master suddenly, holding him tight. “I’d rather not.”