My feet dragged me aimlessly through Liverpool as I contemplated exactly how dangerous I was to humans at this exact moment. A couple passed the alley, which I had wondered down, and I discovered that as long as I focused, they were safe. I sighed with relief, I hadn’t been around humans in a while, and I had thought it would take more effort for me to be able to control my unwilling desire for human blood. It was a release, and surprise, that I was able to have power over myself, and my stomache, even when I was quite literally starving.
I grimaced, because I couldn’t help but feel a little smug that I could handle such a resistance to my ‘natural food source’, and feel near enough no pull towards it as it passed me, literally no more than a few feet away. I decided that it was worth feeling happy about, and smiled, instead.
I decided, as it was dark, it was safe for me to step out of the shadows and not be seen. If I had been seen, it wouldn’t exactly have been great for me, because at the moment, my eyes were fully white, a sign of me not having ‘eaten’ in days, weeks nearly. I could see, even in the dark, as I walked past many windows that they glowed, and I kept my head pulled back into my hood. I was heading for a friends house, and they were expecting me, but I daren’t run, for fear that someone would see me, recognise me, no I didn’t dare.
I continued walking through the streets, noticing that at night, Liverpool looked blind. All of the curtains were drawn; no lights shone out of the small windows above the doors, that’s why my friends house was so noticeable, all of the lights were on.
The door was unlocked, as I had known it would be, if anyone tried to break in, there were enough vampires in the house for someone to hear it.
There were about a hundred, in the big house on Rose Avenue, but this was a very small gathering of Vampires.
Some one was playing the piano.
“Claudia!” I hear someone shout my name, and my ultra-sensitive ears know immediately who it is.
“Delia, sweetie!” I swung round and kissed my ‘cousin’ on the cheek.
“Oh my god, I haven’t seen you in almost a century, I’ve been getting worried!” She scolded, but she was laughing.

Me and Delia go way back, to just after I was turned, she found me, wondering around the countryside, whilst I was trying to get myself together, figure out what had happened to me.
She had taken me back to her house and given me a bed, for my last ever sleep, where the last stage of transformation had taken place.
When I had awoken, there was a delicious taste in the air, so strong, so sweet that the smell of it tasted amazing on my tongue. I had followed it through the grand old house, to the parlour, where there was a cup of steaming red liquid on the arm of the settee. I had lunged for it, and swallowed it in one.
“There, darling, now you feel better don’t you!” A beautiful woman, who I vaguely remembered from what seemed like a cloudy space in my head, was stood by the door. Her platinum blond hair was to her shoulders, her bright, blue eyes looked like they were shining, I learned later that that was a sign of having eaten recently.
“You do feel better?” Her sweet voice asked, this time I nodded. She smiled, brilliantly, and looked satisfied.
“Good, now, come, sit!” She ordered, gently, “Do you know what has happened to you?” She asked me, in a gently voice which my new and improved Vampire senses were trying to work out if there was any sign of defiance in any of the words, there was not.
“I have no idea!” I said, in a smooth, creamy voice, which had shocked me.
“Darling, you’re a vampire!” She had rejoiced, laughing and grinning at me. And a beautiful friendship, which was to last for centuries had been born. I had stayed with her for ninety years, moving from place to place together, randomly picking up new acquaintances, or meeting some of her old friends, but I got bored and eventually moved on.

“Yeah, I’ve been distracted!” I smiled, guiltily.
“Oh!” She whooped, silently, “Been doing a lot of physical work?” She joked, and I had to join in with her merry laughter.
“What’s all this about physical work?” I heard another very, wonderfully familiar voice and turned in the other direction.
“Nick Smith!” I smiled, and ran into my former lover, best friends arms.
“How is my best girl?” It still made my knees weak, when he called me that, it made me think of our time together, two decades.



“She is very good!” I grinned, showing him my teeth.
He smiled back, and I kissed him, lightly. He wouldn’t think anything of it, not after what we’d gotten up to in the past.
We drank each others venomous blood for Christ sake.
“Anyway,” Delia said, trying to make a sneaky exit, “I gotta go!” And of she was.
Ok, so maybe not that sneaky.
“Where have you been, Claudia?” He said, stern now, as we walked through the crowd of Vampires.

“Come on now, Nicky, don’t get all ‘big brotherly’ on me!”
“Oh, now you’re making me feel incestuous!” He said, biting my neck, tenderly, it made me giggle, as we stood by the big windows in the Conservatory, “No, really, where have you been?”.
“I’ve been...” I thought about what I’d tell him, I decided on the truth, “everywhere doing everything you can possibly think of, swimming, cycling, writing, and studying. Studying, music, art, drama, everything, I’ve been to Peru, Romania, Egypt...Thailand, even, trying to find out all I can about Vampire history, which is another subject I’ve studied!” I grinned at his stunned face, I hadn’t breathed all the way through that.
“So...a lot then!” He said, looking at me, and I nodded weakly, as his big brown eyes did their magic on me.
“How about you, how many women have you bedded in the last decade or six?” That was the last time I’d seen him, and I’d thought of him every day since.
“About...seventy two, if I’m honest!” I raised my eyebrows, and he smiled, sheepishly.
“Is that all?” I asked, “Honestly, I find it difficult to believe!”
“Yes, it’s the truth, because whenever I ‘bed a woman’ as you so crudely put it, your always the one I end up thinking about, but your never the one there, so there is absolutely no point really!” He smiled, sheepishly again, and my heart leapt.
“Yeah?” I asked, looking at him, and then glaring out of the window, my head rested on my arms, his arm around my waist.
Oh great! Now what was I supposed to do, I mean, he was in love with me, or at least that’s what he just said, maybe not in so many words, but he still said it, right? Yeah of course that’s what he meant, Nick of all people just doesn’t say things like that, he’s not the cheesy type, so he only says it when it needs saying. And if this is the first time I’d seen him inn sixty years, then whose to say when the next time I’d see him would be? I let the question lie in my mind for a few minutes before I gave up in desperation, it made my heart weep to think that I just didn’t have the answer.
The party was incredible, when you have a hundred or so Vampires in once place, things can get a little...loud. If you’ve ever been to a Playboy party, you get the gist. Alcohol-Spiked Blood in other words, Sex and vampires, what a party. Of course I stuck to the Alcohol, and talking, I spent most of the night with Nick, talking about old times talking about us, until I’d finally had enough alcohol that I found myself sat on his knee, my hands in his hair, kissing him so hard that his hand was almost breaking the table where he gripped it with one, his other hand was on my back, holding me to him.
I forgot where I was, forgot what I was doing..then I woke p, from the alcohol educed stupor anyway, and found myself in a bed....with Nick.
“Jesus, this brings back memories!” I said, peeking under the quilt and noticing that we were both naked, “Christ!” I said.
“I’m ashamed by your blasphemy!” He joked, playing with my pitch black hair, as I pushed it away from my face, irritably.
“I’m a Vampire, deal with it!”I smiled.
“Have fun last night?” He asked, almost laughing, as his hand flowed through my hair, it was comforting and I snuggled closer to him and closed my eyes.
“I’ll tell you when I remember it,” I heard him laugh, and smiled, weakly.
“Eugh!” I spat, “I hate spiked blood!” He was in stitches as I stuck my fingers n my mouth, trying to rub the taste of my tongue.
“That’s because you’re used to the pure stuff, even if it is only the animal stuff we drink!” He smiled.
“Do you love me?” I asked, the question was out of my mouth before I could stop it, and his expression did not change as he answered immediately.
“With all of my unbeating heart, it belonged to you along time ago, and I locked it up when I met you, only my body has been unfaithful, never my heart!”
These fresh words of devotion sent ripples through my dry veins and my mouth turned up slightly at the corners as his lips came down softly on my forehead.
“Marry me!” This left me speechless.
I tried to answer immediately, but my hesitation was enough for his hand to stop and his lips to freeze.
“Claudia?” He asked, his voice weak, suddenly.
“Oh, Nick!” I said, sitting up and pulling the quilt around my, leaving his perfect body completely uncovered, it left me speechless, it had been sixty years since I had seen it, and even last night was nothing but alcohol, it took all of my strength to concentrate on his perfect face as I continued.
“Nick, I do love you, with all of my heart, and I have loved you since the day I met you, you have to know that, but I don’t love you enough to marry you, you should have known that, I’m a free spirit, or whatever you want to call it, and we can hardly go to a church and get married can we!” Through all of my raving his was the first thing that had brought a smile to his perfect, white lips.
“I guess we can’t!” He said, his eyes boring into mine, as they pleaded silently with him, to forgive me.
“Claudia, I love you, don’t you understand that!” His hand was on my lips before I could protest, “I don’t care if you don’t want to marry me, I just thought I’d ask, being with you is enough, can I at least be with you, love you, treasure you, because I love you so much that it is almost painful for me to be away from you!” He pleaded, his eyes turned to flames, because he meant every word.
“Of course!” I said, and I immediately knew that I wanted nothing more.
He smiled at me and kissed me tenderly, as if it was a finalization, the handshake of a deal, the signature on a contract.
But that one kiss wasn’t enough for my lips, I pulled his face back towards me, hungrily, and kissed him with so much passion that our bodies responded in amazing ways, and pretty soon we were immersed in everything that had gone on last night, with one extra, this time I would remember it.
Vampire love is the most unholy thing on the planet, I thought, but it’s also the best!