Roleplay City
Administration => Infusco Archives => Archives => Old Roleplays => Topic started by: Existentially Odd on February 16, 2009, 10:52:47 PM
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(Continued from \'Ragnarök (http://www.roleplaycity.com/forums/showthread.php?p=69284#post69284)\')
The vampire fed his newly-begotten on the way back to his home, coaxing out of her what she wanted to eat and obtaining copious amounts of it for her. It didn\'t bother him whether she ate it on the spot or volunteered to take it with her, he would watch her avidly either way, trying to pre-empt her needs without delving into her thoughts.
The house garnered little more than a superficial tour and he had cause to wonder (only then) if he might be putting himself in danger by bringing her to where he lived. He hoped not but either way, it was done now and he would supplicate himself to her whim automatically when the light claimed him.
At the first sign that she looked too tired to continue much longer, he began to discuss the bathroom. "Would you like to shower?" he asked her soothingly, finding her rather pretty (rather suddenly) and wanting to help her while she was vulnerable. "I can come in with you... or... stay out if you prefer," he added reluctantly, communicating that separation was the last thing he wanted and that shouldn\'t want it either.
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Most of Vivianne\'s energy went towards one simple, all-encompassing goal: the avoidance of singular attention. Nearly everything she did (when not in the company of friends, or, at the very least, those she was comfortable around) she did to this end.
But now she was in a situation that would not allow her to escape this person\'s notice; he simply would not let her fade away. He even watched her eat – in the silly little pizza place she\'d picked at random – with that adoring, almost proprietary gaze.
Needless to say, it freaked her right out.
The food had been good, though, and she felt slightly less drained; but they were back on the bike and away before she had too much time to think about anything much beyond that. She was grateful for the delay.
And she\'d barely stumbled out of her boots before they were off on a cursory tour of the Vampire\'s home – a small but tasteful place, whose rather beleaguered exterior belied it\'s comfortable interior. She made the appropriate noises in the appropriate places, and felt appropriately bad for dripping on his carpet, skirts heavy with water held bunched in one hand around her knees to avoid leaving an obvious skirt-shaped trail – until they stopped in front of a particular door, and he was asking her a question. A rather forward one, at that; but the kind that she\'d come to expect.
"Uh," she said, willing the gears in her brain to pick up the pace. When they did, a slight blush rose to her cheeks, "I think I would prefer that. The second one." She didn\'t want to offend him – since it had become clear that he had some problem being physically separated from her for any length of time – so she added a nervously sincere "Sorry," before she stepped through the door and – unless he had anything else to say – closed it behind her, and set about her task.
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He delayed her only long enough to open up his wardrobe and offer her a choice of clothing to put on after her shower - he even had a selection of women\'s underwear that he assured her had been laundered after they were left there - that included T-shirts and a pair of thick, fluffy towelling robes with \'Hilton\' and \'Rydges\' on their breast pockets, proclaiming where he\'d got them from.
Once she\'d made her choice, he gave her a thick bath sheet and allowed her to disappear into the bathroom, expecting she\'d be a while and inexplicably nervous now that she was away from him. He put his jacket away and got out of his own wet clothing, wearing only a pair of sapphire blue satin boxer shorts. Kicking his dirty clothes into a pile in the corner (for teh basket was in the bathroom), he turned the bed down and fussed with setting the pillows up against the headboard so they could be leaned against.
Finally, he dimmed the lights so that she\'d be able to see to get to the bed and turned on the television set into the wall at the foot of the bed. When she emerged, she would find him idly flicking channels, the remote in his right hand, resting on his outstretched right leg, left elbow proppe onto his raised left knee. Her appearance would bring a soft, appreciative smile and immediately draw his attention from whatever was on the screen (the music channel) at the time. "Feel better?"
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Almost immediately upon her grateful entrance the bathroom (and after turning on the water – full blast, as hot as it would go) Vivianne\'s phone rang; a grating pop song that heralded Chance\'s name. She spoke with him in a hushed tone for about two minutes as she disrobed, and the room filled with steam. If anybody had cared to listen, the conversation was limited mostly to \'I\'m fine\'s, \'I\'ll be fine\'s, \'I\'ll tell you tomorrow\'s, and one \'Yes, Chance, I have clean underwear\' (which she\'d obtained from the vampire\'s bewildering collection. There were a couple pairs in the mix that she couldn\'t even fathom the actual intent of; she\'d been tempted to ask Tom how they were supposed to go, but decided that might lead him to believe she wanted to wear them, and it was rude to lie to one\'s host like that.
She was at least relieved to find out that – judging solely by the underwear – she wasn\'t the type of girl he usually brought home, and selected something tasteful, but frilly. Conscious of the fact that he was still watching her, she blushed like a schoolgirl the whole time.)
The whole conversation barely made a dent in her long shower, though, so she doubted she\'d be missed by those two minutes, and considered the matter closed, on the band\'s side.
She got out of the shower only after she actually nodded off, leaning forward, hands braced against the wall as the water pounded against her spine.
Shaking her head, she straightened, shut off the water, dried off (as best she could – her hair was hopeless) and dressed in the oversized black T-shirt she\'d picked out – along with the tight leather capris she\'d worn under her skirt (she\'d learned early on that when road met silk skirt, road won 100% of the time – leather had a little bit more success). She folded her clothes and set them on the bathroom counter, next to er similarly folded towel, flung her wet skirts over the shower rail to dry, and stepped out of the bathroom.
She zeroed in on the empty spot in the bed; it called to her, it filled her mind – but she still had the presence of mind to glance upward from her goal to return his smile–
And stop midstride when she saw what he was wearing. Or not wearing. He\'d said snuggle. Had he meant...snuggle?
She\'d always assumed she\'d find naked men intimidating, and now she realized that she did. But he wasn\'t entirely naked, and this was his house and – he\'d asked her a question, "Huh?" she said, startled, "Yes, much," Thankful for the distraction, she relaxed from her awkward halt and smoothed her still damp hair, smiling hesitantly, "And, uh, thanks for the food and – and everything. I really appreciate it."
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"Not half as much as I appreciate you," he told her sincerely, and even managed to not make it sound sleazy. He looked her over in much the same way - curiously, rather than desirously - and patted the bed beside him as he sat up straighter against the back of the bed, crossing his muscular legs tailor fashion.
His body swivelled automatically to follow her progress (should she be appropriately prompted to continue moving towards him, with his enticing bed-patting manoeuvre) and his expression remained earnest. "I\'d give you anything, you know," he vowed. "I meant it when I said that; it wasn\'t just a line that you taste better than almost anyone I can name, it\'s true. You\'re... nectar." Since he could only name about three people that he knew - one his sire, one the possible love of his so-called life and one the replacement he might have had, if he\'d not walked away from him - this was no lie, but gave the impression of fidelity that wasn\'t accurate.
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Her feet moved almost of heir own accord, and her brain was too tired to stop them as they carried her inexorably toward that vacant spot in the bed. It wasn\'t like she\'d never seen shirtless men before (she worked at Risk, after all). It wasn\'t like she hadn\'t slept next to one, either (Chance seemed allergic to shirts, and Joe just plain didn\'t like \'em, come bedtime -- and she spent nearly every night next to Joe) but she still didn\'t know Tom.
But anything he wanted from her he could take just as easily from across the room as if he were laying next to her...but he didn\'t actually seem to want anything from her, aside from her presence.
And her blood, apparently -- but not even that, right at this moment. She wasn\'t sure how to respond to his comments (compliments? He said them like they were). So she shrugged as she clambered into the bed beside him (though she kept strictly to her side, sitting up and wrapping her arms around one leather-clad knee), "Thanks, I think?" She laughed nervously, "I\'m not really sure if that\'s something I can take credit for, though."
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"You\'re not twenty-three, are you?" he asked as she settled. He\'d come to this conclusion at least; he had a taste for youth and purity and they were mutually exclusive most of the time. She might have been twenty but he didn\'t think so. She\'d tasted young and his expression told her he thought so... he would have liked her to confirm it though, so he knew exactly what he was dealing with (not that it would change anything, but he was curious).
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Why would he think you\'re twenty-three? Her brows crinkled slightly, but were smoothed away by the slightly guilty look crept over her face as she remembered that it was because she\'d told him she was.
"No," she admitted, "I turned eighteen in September." Despite the guilty look, the admission itself carried only a slight overtone of shame. She laughed again, softly, this time – more genuine, and followed by a critical twist of the mouth as she asked earnestly, "Am I really that obvious?"
She saw no harm in answering him – after all, what was five years to a vampire? Especially one as old as he\'d implied he was
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"Only because I tasted you," he told her softly, his eyes glinting intimately at her through the muted light. "You don\'t necessarily look young, but you certainly taste it. And so pure, too," he told her wonderingly, resting his elbows on his knees (hands dangling in the gap between his crossed legs) as he leaned closer to her, gaze roving obsessively over her face.
"Do you... do anything in particular to taste so good? Exercise a lot? Eat something special?" he prompted, thinking of Reed despite not wanting to. It was difficult to ignore the connection, though; Reed had treated his body like a temple and been so fucking good to drink from that Tom had turned fag just to get near him. He assumed that Vivi had to be doing something special along those lines as well, to keep her blood so clean.
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Once again, she felt pinned by that gaze, unsure how to answer him, but unable to look away. Did he think she took Tasty Pills every morning? Gee, maybe today I\'ll net the vampire of my dreams! The thought was ludicrous. She hadn\'t wanted him to bite her -- that much had been quite apparent, despite the fact that she\'d ended up enjoying it.
That concept confused her, still. She let it slip through the cracks of her tired thoughts.
"I-I don\'t know," she said, uncomfortable, "I like to run. Sometimes. And I walk a lot, which is exercise. I don\'t eat meat?" she volunteered this last more hesitantly, "I mean, I don\'t drink or smoke or do drugs or kiss with tongues, either, if that has anything to do with it."
Alcohol polluted the blood, she knew, as did cigarette smoke, and most (if not all) illegal substances, but she mentioned them more in terms of what most people described as \'clean living\'. Vivianne\'s lifestyle didn\'t arise from a desire to keep her body clean, but rather her mind. The fact that she presented the absolute picture of physical health (aside from being much too thin, and a little pale from lack of sun) was just an added bonus.
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The vampire\'s eyebrows arched and he chuckled disbelievingly, instinctively looking at her mouth as he spoke. "You don\'t kiss with tongues? You\'re kidding, right?" he asked, bemusedly.
Apparently his question was rhetorical, however, for his left hand snuck out of his lap and covered her closest foot as charmingly as one could accomplish such a task. "But you\'ll try it with me," he grinned cockily. It wasn\'t a question, it was a statement of the facts as he saw them. She\'d come home with him, she was in his bed, he thought the chances were good that she was interested...
Funnily enough, however, he wasn\'t certain of her stance, despite his confident claims, and this prompt was his way of clarifying things. He\'d learned the hard way (with Reed) that mixing... well, pleasure with pleasure didn\'t work out in his favour all the time and, at this stage in his life, he valued someone to drink from that made his body zing with awareness rather than a good fuck that had him temporarily sighing with satisfaction.
His fingers caressed her warm, soft skin as he watched her appealingly, hoping she\'d be up for some mixing. She did feel as awesome as she tasted.
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"I don\'t," she confirmed anyway, suddenly as aware of her lips as he was, she drew her bottom lip into her mouth absentmindedly for a moment.
His touch drew her eyes downward, partially to avoid the look in his eye, and partially to see where that hand was going. Apparently nowhere. She pulled her foot gently out of his grasp – unless his grip tightened, which would cause a frown and an uncertain glance – and folded her legs daintily under her.
"No," she said, hoping to imbue her words with the same amount of confidence, and mostly succeding – for this was something she was fairly confident about – though there had been that moment, in the throes of – "I won\'t."
Joe was the only person in the world who knew that Vivianne was a lesbian. She had accepted it as fact, but – generally speaking – she would rather die than admit it out loud.
Instead, she lifted her head to look at him again, tilting her head to one side, "What kind of music do you like?" she asked, inspired (if anything played on MTV could be accurately labeled \'inspiring\') by a fleeting glance at the television, which had so far served as nothing more than background noise.
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The redhead frowned, meekly allowing the frail blonde to remove his hand from her person but not happy about it. She seemed adamant that she didn\'t want to get intimate with him - though she was obviously nervous about saying it out loud - and he couldn\'t figure out exactly why.
The most likely reason was innocence; if the girl didn\'t kiss with tongue, then she sure as Hell hadn\'t been punctured yet. He thought that the most feasible, or that he intimidated her too much for her to allow herself to indulge immediately. The notion that she might not be attracted to him was a distant but present option - he supposed - as was the barely-cresting-the-horizon idea that she really wasn\'t into guys. Or vampires. Or both.
Either way, it seemed he wasn\'t getting any action tonight and that made him pouty, even if he could understand and tell himself that she\'d given him plenty when he drank from her anyway. He shrugged when asked what sort of music he liked, not really having an answer because music really wasn\'t part of his world. "I dunno... loud?" he offered, not being familiar enough with it to segregate the noise into genres. "The only music I ever really listen to is adrenalin."
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Endlessly glad that he hadn\'t pushed the issue, Vivianne smiled at him. She was only halfway used to the idea that he might not turn on her at any moment, and the fact that he\'d so readily complied with her unspoken wishes was enough to make miss the sulkiness that followed, and to make the jump from halfway to mostly.
Adreneline rock? About as far past her own taste as one could get. He\'d said he liked them, though, so he couldn\'t be all that bad (or it could just be that The Hunt was just that loud). She chuckled softly, either way – "I can\'t say that I\'m surpr–" The rest was lost in the gaping yawn that took her by surprise, the words sucked back into her the pinkness of her mouth like debris into a black hole.
At the same time, she seemed to find the effort of sitting up to be too much, and she let her back slump against the propped-pillows that had taunted her so when she\'d first laid eyes on them. Lips parted in a grateful sigh, she closed her eyes for a moment. She wasn\'t as tired as she\'d been an hour ago, but damned if it didn\'t feel good to lean back and
Continue the conversation? She turned her head sideways to look at him, opened her eyes, and found that she had no idea what that conversation had been, or what she\'d been in the middle of saying. She remembered changing the subject, but the actual subject was lost to her.
"Um...what were we talking about? I\'m sorry." One hand buried itself in her hair, fingers pressed against her temple as if to pluck the memory out.
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He gave a dismissive snort and waved her question aside. "Doesn\'t matter," he told her despondently, having come to the conclusion that she was unable to continue even talking with him. She was interesting to look at while she slept but that minute of silence was not something he was all that keen to experience again.
"Go to sleep," he instructed, uncurling his legs and leaning down to grab the covers, anticipating that she would take care of arranging her pillows and sliding down into a horizontal position while he did that. "I\'ll drop you at your bike tomorrow night when I wake up. We can talk then." He still wanted to discuss arrangements for drinking from her again, even if they weren\'t fated to get intimate right away.
It wasn\'t close enough to dawn for him to be tired - especially with her blood in him - so he supposed he might as well... go out and watch a movie or play the X-Box or something. Once he had the covers up, he turned the television off, leaving only the golden glow of the dimmed overhead light. He would turn that out when he got up to leave the room. He slid away from her, depositing the remote on his bedside table as he got up to find something to do that wouldn\'t disturb her.
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"Oh, okay," She was a little hurt by the dismissal, but not enough to overcome the exhaustion she\'d been fighting, for the sake of politeness. It would seem that her second wind had come and gone with the intensity of the conversation (which had also only happened in the first place-- she noted with a vague, faraway sort of annoyance -- after she\'d refused his advances) and now the night had caught up to her, and took her down hard.
She did more or less as expected, pulling down pillows, and slipping under the covers to curl up on her side. Eyes closed, she sighed hapillyas he turnde the covers up -- and the sigh transitioned smoothly into the deep, even breath of sleep. The last thing she was aware of was his presence in the doorway, leaving -- to sleep on the couch, maybe?
Whatever the case, the thought was never completed.
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Upon waking, Vivianne momentarily enjoyed the refreshed, light feeling gained from a night of deep, heavy sleep, yawning and stretching muzzily, which disloded the muscular arm thrown negligently around her waist –
Arm? Whose arm? this thought was followed immediately by another, And why aren\'t they breathing? Her eyes flew open, to a darkness so complete that it barely mattered. She sat up quickly, jerked into full alertness by the sudden panic – which faded with the delayed recovery of her memory, as the last shreds of sleep faded.
So apparently the Vampire had not, in fact, taken the couch. She gingerly moved the arm, and scooted out of bed – moving as lightly as possible to avoid disturbing her undead host. She remembered the way to the bathroom, at least – a straight shot from her side of the bed (which didn\'t stop her from murdering an elbow on the bedside table, muffling her yelp of pain with her other hand.)
Finished there, she made her way out of the bedroom on tiptoe, following walls until she found the doorknob with her hip rather abruptly. In the hall, rubbing her new bruise with one hand, she checked the time on her phone. 4:45. So she had about an hour to kill until dusk, at which point she could only assume her host would awaken.
That hour was killed on the Playstation she discovered in the lounge, by a generic underground racing game whose single purpose seemed to be to give her all the points it had, with the pbnoxioulsy popular soundtrack turned down to a whisper. He would find her on the couch, wearing the tank top she\'d had on the day before, and the drier of her two skirts – this one a pale cerulean, made of some shimmery, thin fabric – with her eyes fixed on the T.V., hands busy with the controller.
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The vampire emerged still wearing his boxers, scratching negligently at his crotch with his left hand and his slightly ruffled red hair with his right. That he could walk and maintain a steady path while simultaneously performing these tasks was a credit to him and further evidence of the many years he\'d existed to perfect these skills.
"Hey," he greeted as he walked in and sat on the lounge to the right of Vivi, his voice slightly constricted by the sleep he\'d just come out of and a slight squint to his vision as he looked her over. "You sleep alright?"
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Unfortunately, the teen was too absorbed in her game to witness the vampire\'s spectacular display of dexterity, and she twitched in surprise as he sat down next to her – still mostly naked, she noted, as she hit the pause button and set the controller on the couch in her lap, and turned a hesitant smile toward her host.
"Like the d–just." She\'d meant to say \'dead\', but thought better of it and cut herself off before the word left her lips, "I got bored," she waved a delicate hand it he direction of the TV, where the dark blue Lamborghini she\'d been piloting was frozen mid-crash, in crystal clarity, "I hope you don\'t mind."
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"Nah, it\'s fine," he told her with a brief glance at the television. What he didn\'t say was that he was rather impressed that she hadn\'t got up early and just wandered off - even if he did live in a pretty dismal part of the city, she was no idiot and could have found her way home while he slumbered, if she\'d wanted to. He looked at her steadily, the sleep disappearing from his eyes and a thoughtful twinkle emerging instead in the mostly-blue irises.
"So... what\'d you think about me feeding from you last night? he prompted, wanting to direct her answers into specific places such as agreeing to meet with him regularly and telling him what she thought about him, but figuring he\'d start with a general invitation to talk. She wasn\'t much of a rambler unless you struck a topic she enjoyed, it seemed, and he didn\'t expect eloquence immediately, but he would work on it.
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Of all the subjects in the whole wide he could\'ve brought up, Tom chose the one at the very bottom of Vivianne\'s list. She didn\'t even want to think about it, but now he was making her talk about it? (Not that he was actually making her do anything, but it would be tricky to change the subject now that he\'d asked her a direct question). She pursed her lips, and her hands bunched in her skirt.
Her gaze drifted from his eyes to her lap, "I think you shouldn\'t have," she said quietly, "Because I said no." It wasn\'t what he was looking for, she knew, but it was true.
Well, the easy part of the truth.
The rest wasn\'t going to come easily.
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He shrugged equably. "Yeah, but I was gonna\' keel over on the spot if I didn\'t. Probably still would\'ve if it\'d been anyone with average blood. I just got lucky that yours was so potent," he complimented, flashing her a grin that faded quickly. She\'d evaded his question and they both knew it.
"Still, you enjoyed it, didn\'t you? Like I said you would?" he prodded, staring intently at her while he waited for the truth. It was a means to an end as far as he was concerned, so he couldn\'t see why answering this part might be such a monumental stumbling block.
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Vivianne hated the fact that he could do this to her just by asking the questions she didn\'t want to answer, she hated that she was letting him do this to her by answering. She hated that she\'d given in to the pleasure his bite had provoked.
And, more than anything, she hated that she wanted to feel that way again, and that it hadn\'t even occurred to her to leave when she\'d had the chance.
Knowing that he actually had needed her was a comfort, but the blonde\'s pale eyes crinkled at the corners as if she were in pain. She answered simply, "Yes," in a voice barely more than a whisper, though it felt like she was giving something away; like she was giving up.
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He was momentarily deterred from his \'end\' by her reluctance. She was acting as if he was currently sentencing her to life in prison or some shit, and he couldn\'t figure that out. His face crinkled up in a frown of consternation and he looked her over to see if he could get any more information from her body, but that bunching of skirts thing wasn\'t exactly a light in the dark.
"Why the fuck is it so bad for you to have enjoyed it? It\'s not against the law y\'know, but you\'re acting like admitting it was good is some sort of big crime! What\'s wrong with enjoying yourself?" he demanded, baffled and offended by the notion that even though what he\'d done to her was pleasurable, he still seemed to be the distasteful piece of shit sticking to her shoe that she couldn\'t wait to scrape off.
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She cringed away from his angry words, as if she expected him to hit her. She didn\'t understand why he was angry, all of a sudden. Nobody liked being proved wrong, did they? Especially not when it came to things like this. Her heartbeat picked up, and her breathing came uneven.
"N-nothing," she said, and went on quickly, "I\'m sorry. It\'s just – I feel like I should be mad at you, for...making me, but I can\'t, because you were right, and it was...good. I don\'t even want to be mad at you. I mean, that\'s...absurd, I don\'t even know you, but there\'s part of me doesn\'t even want to leave, because I\'ve never felt anything like that before, and I –" She stemmed the flood of words there, took a deep breath, and chanced a look at his face, "I\'m sorry. Please don\'t be mad." The panic had subsided as she spoke, and she straightened her back, forced her fisted hands to relax, "It\'s just...different. It\'s confusing, for me."
She wasn\'t even entirely sure what she felt, at this point. For some reason, though, she missed the way he\'d looked at her the night before. She missed the adoration in his eyes. She realized suddenly that she didn\'t want Tom to think ill of her, and not just because of the fact that he could kill her if he felt like it.
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"I\'m not mad," he assured her with a dismissive shake of his head, sliding a bit closer to her on the expansive couch, so he could touch her hand reassuringly. "I\'m just frustrated; it passed the second you told me the truth."
There was an unintentional, condescending authority to his words, like a pervert who manages to make his victim feel sympathy for him, simply because they didn\'t do what he expected, but he wasn\'t conscious of the way he\'d learned to play his games. It just came naturally.
"It makes sense you\'ve never felt that way before, because you\'re a virgin," he reasoned, not even bothering to ask because he knew it had to be true. "The bite\'s sexual for the mortal, a bit different on the other side of things," he told her consideringly, making a jump gesture with the hand on his lap, like a dog over a fence, as he talked about the two halves of this equation, "but not too different. Either way, there\'s satisfaction, if you just let it flow."
He looked at her steadily, knowing he was about to get to the bit where he didn\'t have the answers, so he let his direct stare demand them for him, even though his tone was still kind and reasonable. "You didn\'t want to let it flow last night, weren\'t ready to. That\'s cool," he emphasised, holding up both his hands in a surrender type gesture, like maybe she\'d started arguing and he needed to override her - again, a manipulation on his part, but a conscious one this time.
"I can get by if you\'re never ready to let it flow like that," he told her, in the manner of someone who could... but who would be very, very sad (the puppy dog eyes were a bit much, but automatic), "I just want to know that it\'s not gonna\' end here. I want to see you again. I want to drink from you again. I hope you do too." His gaze was blue and filled with silent appeal as he did his best to look like someone whose heart would be broken if she turned him down. Last night, he\'d been desperate and he wouldn\'t force her to submit to him again, under normal circumstances... he just really hoped she\'d do it willingly!
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Like a star pupil, Vivanne held onto his words, examining them, turning them over in her mind as she listened with a serious, intent expression. It comforted her to know that there wasn\'t something (else) wrong with her brain, that the bite affected all mortals (she assumed) the same way. She barely even registered that he was touching her, even now that that she didn\'t have the excuse of being tired and hungry and more or less out of her brain. She was awake, alert – and she didn\'t care.
In this situation, Vivianne was at a clear disadvantage. Her lack of communications skills meant that she heard the condescension, but couldn\'t identify it, and so dismissed it. She even tilted her head to the side when he made his \'surreneder\' gesture, wondering if perhaps she should be protesting, though she couldn\'t really figure out why.
"I, uh, wouldn\'t count on it," she said hesitantly, after she\'d had a bit of time to digest what he\'d said. She felt bad about letting him down (for she felt that she was – the puppy dog eyes worked like a charm), and looked it, "The ever part. I\'m–" not ready to talk about it? "Saving myself." For what? She hadn\'t gotten that far yet.
"How often do you have to...feed?" she asked, using the word she\'d heard tossed around at Risk with genuine interest. The fact that she used the language showed that she was getting used to the ideas behind it. THere was still hesitance there, of course, but it was fading.
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He shrugged, tilting his head from side to side in a considering sort of way as he thought about it. "Well, about every four or five days, unless I get myself hurt, but I wouldn\'t expect you to meet me that often!" he told her hastily, again holding up a single, \'Stop your thinking right there, missy!\' type hand. His other hand was busy toying with hers.
"Just... maybe every couple of weeks or so. Too often and you\'ll get weak and I don\'t want you to become sick," he told her, as if he was worried about her health, rather than the quality of \'his\' blood. "And not when you\'ve got your period, of course," he told her magnanimously, supposing that might be too much personal information too soon, but needing to be honest.
Of course, he could always suggest they do it during, for he, personally, had a hot and heavy thing for menstrual blood but in all his two hundred years he\'d found very few women that would accommodate his interest (and even fewer vampires that shared it). The amount wouldn\'t even raise all ten fingers should he decide to count them on his hands. With such statistics managing to have stuck themselves in his hyperactive brain, he knew Vivi wasn\'t the person to broach that subject with.
Besides, he quite liked the fact that she was too much of a lady to discuss such things with. It made him feel he was raising his own standards when he was associated with such quality.
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The blonde was surprised to hear that he didn\'t ned to feed every day day; like a snake, slowly digesting its food. She chided herself not to think of it like that, but the image took root quickly.
It was not, however, stronger than the popular teenage fiction version of the vampire she was trying to think of him as, however. It made thinking about the situation easier; more allowable and optimistic. She took his concern at face value, and was endeared by his false thoughtfulness.
She blushed appropriately at the mention of her period, and nodded quickly, understanding it and desiring very much not to speak of it further – exactly the lady he\'d labeled her.
"Can I have some time to, uh, think about it?" she asked, looking down at the hands resting on her folded knee. One his on top, one hers, below; passively receptive of his touch.
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His lips did a little screwy dance as he thought her offer over, gnawing on the inside of his lip to stop himself from impatiently telling her that she didn\'t need to think about it, he was being fucking generous!
"Yeah, sure," he eventually conceded, his unhappiness at the fact that she wasn\'t leaping at his offer like a contestant called up to play a game show clear in his voice. "I\'ll give you my mobile number and you can call when you\'ve made up your mind, yeah?"
-
The frown on her face matched the one in his voice. For someone who wanted this thing from her – specifically (or so he said) – he was being really impatient. He\'d been alive for hundreds of years, what difference would a few days make, either way? He was asking her – a person who had little experience with relationships of any kind –to enter into a completely unorthodox kind of relationship, with him – a near complete stranger. Why was he surprised that she wanted time to think about that?
Mobile? What the hell was a mobile?
Oh yeah. Foreign for Cell. "Oh, yeah." she shook her head, feeling stupid, "Uh, now? My phone is in the bathroom." She wasn\'t sure if he had anything else to say to her – it didn\'t seem that way, but it couldn\'t hurt to ask.
-
He shrugged, like she\'d asked him a really difficult question (beyond, "Now?") that he just didn\'t know the answer to, rather than making a statement meant to indicate she was uncertain about where she stood. Things were pretty clear as far he could tell; she needed space and time to think, he needed to give it to her.
"Well, you wanna\' go get your stuff while I get dressed, then I\'ll give you my number and take you back to your bike?" he offered, interested in keeping his word so that she\'d lean towards agreeing to give him what he wanted; he\'d done more for less in the past, this little bird he wanted to keep singing for him for a long, long time. He would allow her a lot of leeway.
-
"Sure, okay." She nodded, supposing there wasn\'t much more to be said here, but oddly reluctant to leave. Most of that reluctance was due to the fact that she didn\'t want to face her friends. She knew she would have to lie to them, and the thought killed her. And so it was with a heavy sigh that she lifted herself from the couch and walked back into the bedroom, and then the bathroom contained therein. She retrieved her phone and her jacket, swapped her skirt – once again – for her leggings, and stuffed both skirts into a tiny cloth backpack pulled from an inside pocket. Also pulled from the same pocket were a pair of yellow-tinted aviator goggles, which rested on her forehead, for the time being.
Once she was done changing, phone in hand, she knocked softly on the door, with a call of "Are we decent?"
-
"Rarely," the vampire snorted as he stepped over to the bathroom door and opened it for Vivi, understanding what she meant. He was wearing jeans, boots and his multi-coloured leather jacket (unzipped) over a green button-up shirt - it was a little dressy but he planned to do something with his evening once he freed Vivi, most likely going to Fantastika for a few thrill rides. Maybe even a pick-up.
"But we are dressed," he grinned, giving his houseguest a once-over as he slid past her. "Hang on a sec, I just have to do something with my hair," he murmured and proceeded to wet and twist the longer strands atop his head with some wax from an orange container that had been sitting atop the bench. His helmet would smoosh his hair twists all down of course, but if the product was in, he could quite easily remake his efforts once he got to where he was going.
Unless Vivi said anything during his grooming process, he would then turn, flash her a dimpled smile and say, "Let\'s go!" before heading them towards the garage.
-
It had always been a mystery to Vivianne how the most rugged-looking people could be so anal about their hair. She found it contradictory and rather hilarious, but she doubted Tom would appreciate her laughter, and so kept it to herself as he primped in front of the mirror. As he did, she futzed with her phone, reading the texts she\'d missed from the evening thus far.
She pocketed the device when her host spoke, however, and followed him placidly out to the garage. There, she re-donned her boots, and, hesitating before she got on the bike, she asked, "Is it alright if I ride behind you, this time?"
-
He chuckled good-naturedly and pulled his helmet on, swinging a long leg over the bike and settling himself towards the front of the seat. "Sure," he said as he slid the key into the ignition, turned it and then lifted the machine so that he could get rid of the kickstand and she could get on. His voice was somewhat muffled by the helmet over his face, but he\'d lifted the visor to aid audibility.
"You\'re not so shaky tonight, I\'m sure you\'ll be able to hold on. Plus, I\'ll be able to go a little faster... and you might get scared if you have to watch. Best you use this opportunity to wrap your arms tightly around my fabulous person so you can pretend it hasn\'t been what you\'ve wanted all along," he told her condescendingly, knowing she wasn\'t interested in getting close to his body at all - though, he couldn\'t figure out why, quite frankly - but that his words might fire her up a little. She was cute when she was feisty.
Even with a helmet covering most of his face, she should be able to tell he was grinning broadly from the crinkle and the twinkle to his rusty blue eyes.
-
It was more a matter of politeness (not to mention safety), as she was sure he wouldn\'t appreciate a visorful of hair as soon as they picked up any momentum, now that her long blonde locks weren\'t bound by the helmet he now sported.
Expecting nothing more than the simple confirmation, she nodded and moved to get on behind him, but checked at his tone. He was talking to her like she was twelve, and something of a whore, apparently – and accompanying it with a smile she couldn\'t quite interpret, obscured as it was. She frowned in response, "Am I supposed to find any part of that statement attractive?" she asked, halfway earnest, halfway bristling. She eyed the spot behind him dubiously as she waited for an answer, feeling oddly stubborn.
-
He twisted his ass to the side a little, so that he could look back at her. He made a point of hitting the starter button at that precise moment also, so that the throaty wheeze of his bike\'s purring engine filled the enclosed room, forcing him to speak with a bit more vigour as he continued to needle her.
"Nope!" he crowed joyfully. "But you are supposed to suck it up and get on the bike, otherwise I\'ll assume you don\'t actually want to go home, you want to stay with me and you\'re up for a little fun park play, rather than going and getting say, some more food!"
The glint in his eye seemed somehow magnified by the fact that they were framed by the visor section of his helmet... until he snapped it down to press home the point that he was certain what her decision about coming or staying would be - and time was wasting. In fact, he shifted so that he was sitting on the seat again and pressed the button in his pocket that started the garage\'s roller door going up.
-
Despite the manufactured shell that housed it, the roar of that engine melted the timid blonde\'s heart straight to the floor. The machine between the vampire\'s legs was a beautiful one, under the factory paint.
Home, he\'d said. Home was relative, but she understood the meaning behind it, and all the other words around it. Finding further speech redundant, she simply obeyed, wondering, as she climbed on behind him and wrapped her thin arms tightly about his waist, if he loved the bike.
-
The vampire won his maiden passenger onto his mighty steed and roared out of the garage in due grandeur - clicking the garage door buzzer over his shoulder as they sped off. He had no love for the machine itself, but for the feelings it evoked and the manoeuvrability it afforded him he had great passion.
Their journey back to Vivi\'s bike was not executed at breakneck or even illegal speeds, but the redhead made sure he took the corners lyrically - that is, with momentum and sway that saw the two of them leaning down quite low and following through like a penguin surfaces and lands on ice; smoothly, fluidly. She clutched at him and he thought of her blood. It made him smile and enjoy the ride even more.
It took him a lap of the park to locate her bike, simply because he went the wrong way (on purpose), but once he found it he parked beside it. He turned his bike off and removed his helmet while she disembarked. He cut a very suave figure leaning his elbows on the helmet on the fuel tank, wrists crossing and turning to squint at her over his shoulder, a knowledgeable smirk playing about his lips. "So you\'ll call me sometime, so we can play, yeah?" he murmured, making it sound as tawdry as possible.
-
When the ride was over, Vivi could\'t help but feel the tiniest bit disappointed. She\'d wanted to see (or, rather, remember) what his bike could do, but he\'d shown her the spped limit, which she hadn\'t seen in two years. She had enjoyed the curves, however – her own bike would never be able to take turns like that, she knew that much. If there was one thing to be said for Tom, it was that he knew how to handle his machine.
The sight of her own bike – a 1952 Vincent Black Lightning (painted black, of course) in frame, with a lighter single-cylinder engine and a distinct lack of any bells and whistles of any kind, but for the tiny, circular dentists\' mirror replacing the usual rearview and the delicate vining flowers etched into the tarnished chrome of the tailpipes – produced a sudden pang of guilt in the blonde\'s heart, of the same type a disloyal spouse might feel.
Once they came to a complete stop, Vivianne was disengaging her arms from around his waist, and dismounting with a speed that had less to do with wanting to be away than with having a lot of experience getting off motorcycles. "Play what?" she asked, the very picture of wide-eyed innocence as her feet hit asphalt. This time the innocence was an act, however; she knew exactly what he meant, but didn\'t rise to the bait.
Before he could make his no-doubt witty reply, however, she had her phone (one of those obnoxious slide out things with a full keyboard) in her hand, and was asking for his number in so many words.
-
He smirked at her act, rather liking this sassy side of her, and dutifully gave his number. When the exchange was finished he did an impulsive spin (leg over the bike) towards her so that both his legs were on one side of the bike and he could grab her by the hips and pull her in between them. She was distracted by her phone and he moves faster than anything human ever could, so the surprise would certainly be all hers.
"We\'ll play \'bite the tastiest kitty you\'ve ever met\'," he told her huskily, pressing his face close to her neck and nuzzling her clean warmth. "And maybe we\'ll even finish with a rousing game of \'mutual climax\' next time too, hmm?" he added, still of the belief that she was just timid and virginal but that he could eventually coax her out of that and into his bed properly. He jus had to keep hinting how good it would be; she\'d come around.
-
The fact the Tom wasn\'t Human had remained ever-present in Vivianne\'s mind, but that didn\'t stop her from being taken aback by the sudden display of power; a sound not unlike the yipping call of a prairie dog escaped her lips as she found herself pressed against the Vampire, his hands possessive at her hips, while her own were – while not exactly trapped, not easily maneuvered, still clutching her phone.
The initial stiffness melted away, however, as he brought his face close to her neck. Judging by the way she tilted her head accomidatingly to the side, and leaned nto him, sighing – she was ready to play that game right now–
Which turned into right then the very next moment. Congruous with the continuation of his statement the blonde tensed again, and made an effort to step backward, out of his hold. The Vampire, it seemed, had a problem with listening. Or he was simply cocky enough to believe that she would acquiesse to such a proposition, especially in light of her previous rejections.
"I wouldn\'t count on that." she responded – the severity of her tone was determined by whether or not he allowed her to step away; slightly apologetic (as ever) if he did, and as slightly chastising if he didn\'t.
-
He held his grip on her hips rebelliously and pouted prettily up at her. "Why not? You\'re not scared of me any more!" he justified, figuring that had been the main part of it. "And I\'ll be reallll nice and gentle with you," he vowed huskily, the left corner of his mouth lifting with the promise of what he could do for her.
-
Vivianne realized three things just then: first, she realized that sometime – entirely too soon, by the sound of it – she\'d have to tell him that she was not attracted to his gender.
Second, she relized that rejecting his advances gave her a kind of guilty pleasure; she had something he wanted, and being able to deny him felt sort of...empowering. She was getting an idea now of why Morgaine played the games she sometimes did.
Third, it occurred to her that both of these meant she was already planning on seeing him again, and really had been all along.
Still, she frowned down at him when he retained his hold on her. "I think it\'s time for me to go home, now," she told him, pointedly ignoring his question and his provocative expression as she slipped her phone back into her pocket. This time, the attempt she made at escape was more definitive. He was pushing his luck.
-
He frowned, the pout turning genuine as he was forced to let her go; sadly, the more she fought him, the more he wanted her. Something about feisty women really did it for him and the way she tilted her head eeeeever so slightly when he got close? Damn but he found that compliance sexy, too (he wasn\'t too phased by these contradictions - used, as he was, to embracing everything around him and simply going with the flow).
"You\'ll keep," he told her with a cocky sneer, pinching her bottom sharply as she moved away. Her reaction had him grinning quickly and he spun back astride his back with quite an amazing amount of swagger (for someone sitting down). "I\'m gonna\' go find me something a lot easier to ride at Fantastika!" he exclaimed, revving his bike as he prepared to reverse it out of the parking lot. "Call me!" he encouraged cheerfully, making a telephone talking sign near his face, with the thumb and pinky of his right hand.
If she said nothing more to him, he would would be gone in a heartbeat and roar of unbridled engine power.
-
That reaction was a high-pitched yelp of surprise, and a stricken, wide-eyed expression that could be described a nothing so accurately as \'completely scandalized\', and his crude words only made it worse – so much so that she was left standing there wearing it and trying to think of something to say until he roared past her out of the lot, his speed whipping her hair about her.
Finally, she mustered an exasperated sigh, and turned on a heel, marching toward her own bike, and exiting the lot in a similar manner, peeling off in the opposite direction – toward this year\'s home, and the people she loved.