Categories > Original > Fantasy > A Vampire's Life
Freedom can be lonely
0 reviewsDominic and Lestat move to America and Dominic soon strikes out on his own.
0Unrated
It wasn’t long before Lestat began to miss his dearest friend, Nicolas de Lefent. He wanted Nicolas to join us in our eternal life. I was skeptical, but who was I do deny my love anything? So he went to talk to Nicki one night and convinced him to become one of us. He returned with his friend who was overwhelmed with the beauty of the night, just as all fledglings are.
They worked at the theater for money, while I sat in the audience clapping with the mortals. I was thoroughly enjoying myself, but I was worried for Nicki recently. He’d been growing distant and rarely spoke. He even stopped enjoying his violin like he used to. Then one night Lestat received word that his mother’s time was very short and that he should hurry to her. He came back that night with her at his side, a newfound vampire. She cut her hair short, but the next night it was long again. She went into hysterics; I think she would have gone completely mad if Lestat hadn’t quieted her. Nicki’s depression seemed to lift slightly with her arrival into our little family. She and Nicki spent hours talking together and they hunted together too. Lestat and I got to have more time together, but he wasn’t happy, as he should be.
He was worried about Nicki too, and perhaps jealous that his mother and Nicki spent so much time together. But all of this you know from his book. Then you would also know that soon our happy life was interrupted by Armand and his little ghouls. So if you know all that I can just skip telling you how he met Armand and how he came to give the little theater to the coven. Gabrielle set out on her own and Nicolas stayed behind with the theater troop. Lestat and I moved to America, in New Orleans. We lived there for a while and Lestat sent money to his blind father back in Paris. But his old homestead was in financial trouble and he needed a place here for his father. It was then that a young plantation owner caught his eye. I believe it was because this young man resembled Nicki so much. I knew that in order to get the plantation from the man he would do anything, even turn him. I also knew that again I would fade into the background. So I decided to leave Lestat and to set out on my own.
Poor Lestat was heartbroken to hear that I would be leaving him and he begged me to stay.
“But Lestat,” I protested, “You will fall in love with this new conquest of yours and forget all about me. It is time I made my own way in this world.”
“Dominick, my love, my life, please stay with me.” He begged me. But I still left him; I knew he would love his new fledgling. And he did love Louis, that was the man’s name, I also learned that later he made a vampire child named Claudia. The girl looked exactly like Gabrielle. I suppose Lestat got his Nicki and his mother in some form anyway.
The year is 1761. One hundred years before the Civil War and forty-two years before Louisiana was purchased into America. I am now almost 70 years old, but I still look 18. I’d been alone now for quite some time. I have realized that being alone doesn’t suit me. I am in Georgia right now, “The Peach State.” as it’s called. I’ve been watching a plantation here in the bayou, or swamp if you prefer that term. An old man who has many slaves and three sons owns it. I have taken an interest in the middle one. His name is Eric and he is 20 years old. Just two years older than I was when I was living. He has shoulder length raven colored hair and the most beautiful blue eyes I have ever seen. He had an innocence about him that I found quite refreshing for a man of his age.
His older brother Aaron was preparing himself to take over the managing of the plantation and so he was always inside the house learning how to balance their money and deal with everything else. Eric’s younger brother, Michael, had no responsibilities so he was always outside playing with the young slave children or chasing squirrels in the nearby woods. Eric himself had few jobs to take care of, so he had a lot of free time on his hands. He would often spend this time with Michael or taking a leisurely walk in the woods down to the bayou.
One night I awoke to the news that one of the boys had nearly drowned in the swamp that day and had caught cold from his exposure to the freezing water. I raced to the plantation, hoping against hope that it was not Eric. But when I arrived outside his window on the balcony and looked into his window, I saw that it was him. The doctors were bleeding him to try and get the fever out of his system, the damned fools, they could kill him that way! After the doctors had left I opened the balcony doors and walked over to his bed. He was barely conscious, and I knew I had to act fast or he would die.
“Eric..” I said and when he saw me he looked amazed. I knew that he could tell what I was immediately. No mortal had ever seen me in this good kind of lighting before. “Eric, you are dying. I can help you, but you will become a creature of the night. Damned to drink blood for all eternity. Do you want to live?”
I leaned close to his face looking into his eyes with pure love and concern. All I could do was await his decision. Eric swallowed with difficulty and said faintly.
“Yes..” I could tell he was already slipping. I bit him and bought him to the edge, and then I bit into my own wrist and held it over his mouth.
“Drink, hurry now, for you are slipping fast.” Eric began to drink with some reluctance, and after he had drunk enough he passed out. I gathered him into my arms and carried him like a mother would a child out into the night. I made my way through the woods and to the abandoned home I had found deep within the heart of the forest. I took him upstairs and laid him in a bed. I stayed by his side, lovingly stroking his face, until he awoke again several hours later. Eric’s stomach was growling and he looked confused. I smiled to him as he looked at me.
“Are you hungry my love?” I asked him still stroking his face soothingly. Eric nodded slowly looking disoriented and like he had a headache. I brushed the hair from his face. “It is daylight right now so you will have to drink from me.” I helped him to sit up and placed his mouth near to my throat. “Just bite and drink, love. I will tell you when to stop.”
I could sense a bit of apprehension from Eric, but he bit into my neck and began to drink. I nearly moaned with the feeling of it. Soon he began to drink more quickly and clutched to me tightly. I started to feel slightly dizzy.
“Stop..That’s enough.” I said and pulled gently at him. He let go as I told him to and licked his lips, hunger still evident in his eyes. I kissed his forehead and laid him back on the bed, lying with him. “Sleep now, we will hunt tonight.” I then closed my eyes, I was suddenly very tired and I fell asleep. Eric stayed staring at me as I slept, questions racing through his mind. Concerns for his family and what he now was.
I awoke that night to his brilliant blue eyes staring intently at me. “Love? Didn’t you sleep?” I asked sitting up and stretching. I now felt much better, but I was starving. Eric shook his head nervously and seemed a bit afraid too.
“W..Why am I craving blood?..” he asked looking confused. I looked at him with understanding and sympathy.
“You are a vampire now, you must drink blood to live. I am sorry it had to be this way. But I couldn’t let you die. Just remember that you chose this.” I reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair from his face, letting my hand linger on his cheek. It seemed Eric couldn’t believe what he’d just heard and he asked the next and possibly most important question.
“What about my family?” he said with great concern in his voice. I smiled to him and let my hand fall away from his face. “You may visit them whenever you like. I will never stop you, but you can only visit at night because the sun will kill you.”
Eric leaned his head back against the headboard and sighed. He looked to be processing all that had just been told to him. While he thought, I realized I had never told him my name, and here I was calling the man Love!
“By the way, my name is Dominick. Come, the night is young and we are both starving. Afterwards I will take you to see your brothers and your father if you wish.” I got off the bed and offered my hand to him. Eric slowly takes my hand and I help him up.
“Is this all a dream?..” he whispers to himself. I feel sorry for him, for his lost life and this damned one. Perhaps I should have left well enough alone, but I could not just stand idly by and let such a beautiful man pass into death.
“I am sorry my love, but I am afraid that it is not a dream.” I answered his silent question as I led him down the stairs and out into the woods. I should start with animals for him. I think killing a human now would be too much for him to handle. So when a deer crosses our path, I catch it for him. I put the beast into a sort of trance. “Drink from it. It will feel no pain, but you must stop drinking before it’s heart stops.”
He moves to it with hesitation but is eager when he bites into it. I can tell when the swoon of the blood overtakes him. He makes small pleasured noises and sucks it’s neck harshly. I listen carefully to the deer’s heart and when it is dangerously slow I remind him to stop.
Eric pulls back with his eyes shaking. Just like I did on my first time, he’s realized what he’s done.
“My God…I..bit..” he stammers looking quite shaken. I kneel down next to him and hug him to me, rubbing his back soothingly.
“It is alright my love. It passed out of this world with no pain at all. I cried my first time too…But my first was a young boy.” I pulled back from him slightly wiping an escaped tear from his face. “My master should have thought more carefully before he chose my first. But for you I did consider..”
There was fear in his eyes, but it was not fear of me. It was fear of himself, of what he could not control. I decided I should just take him back into the house. And so we ended up back in that bedroom, I myself was still hungry, as I hadn’t fed. But I could wait, right now I wanted to stay with him and take care of him. When we entered the bedroom, he kneeled next to the bed and began to pray for the deer he’d just killed. I put a comforting hand on his shoulder and waited in respectful silence for him to finish.
When he had finished he sat on the bed and I sat next to him. He looked apprehensive as though he wanted to ask me something.
“Don’t be afraid of me. I will tell you anything you ask of me.” I reassured him and waited for his question.
“How old are you?”
“I was born in 1691 and I am now nearly 70 years old.” I answered threading my fingers together and crossing my legs awaiting his next question.
“How often do we have to…. feed?” he asked looking particularly wary of this answer. I sighed and looked down for a moment before meeting his gaze again.
“I learned the hard way that even if you never drink blood, you would never die. You will simply get weaker and frailer. And the blood hunger will get so strong that it controls you completely.” I said sadly thinking of Dante and how he had starved me.
“How long before it controls you?” Eric posed his next question.
“…Weeks…possibly months if you are strong..but you mustn’t starve yourself my love. I would not be able to bear seeing you suffer as I did. If you must pick out only the criminals to feed from.” I said now taking his hands in mine and looking into his eyes pleadingly.
His eyes watered slightly as he said he would not take a human life. “Then animals, but please don’t starve yourself my love.” I pleaded with him again rubbing my face against the palm of his hand for my own comfort. He was silent for a few moments and then he nodded. I became enthralled for a moment with the movement of his silken hair when he nodded. The way the light shined off it and how soft it looked. I kissed his hand and then reached up and tucked one side of his hair behind his ear.
“I just want what’s best for you, and I will never deny you the things you need.” I said more to assure myself that I wouldn’t act like Dante.
~~~~~~~~~~
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They worked at the theater for money, while I sat in the audience clapping with the mortals. I was thoroughly enjoying myself, but I was worried for Nicki recently. He’d been growing distant and rarely spoke. He even stopped enjoying his violin like he used to. Then one night Lestat received word that his mother’s time was very short and that he should hurry to her. He came back that night with her at his side, a newfound vampire. She cut her hair short, but the next night it was long again. She went into hysterics; I think she would have gone completely mad if Lestat hadn’t quieted her. Nicki’s depression seemed to lift slightly with her arrival into our little family. She and Nicki spent hours talking together and they hunted together too. Lestat and I got to have more time together, but he wasn’t happy, as he should be.
He was worried about Nicki too, and perhaps jealous that his mother and Nicki spent so much time together. But all of this you know from his book. Then you would also know that soon our happy life was interrupted by Armand and his little ghouls. So if you know all that I can just skip telling you how he met Armand and how he came to give the little theater to the coven. Gabrielle set out on her own and Nicolas stayed behind with the theater troop. Lestat and I moved to America, in New Orleans. We lived there for a while and Lestat sent money to his blind father back in Paris. But his old homestead was in financial trouble and he needed a place here for his father. It was then that a young plantation owner caught his eye. I believe it was because this young man resembled Nicki so much. I knew that in order to get the plantation from the man he would do anything, even turn him. I also knew that again I would fade into the background. So I decided to leave Lestat and to set out on my own.
Poor Lestat was heartbroken to hear that I would be leaving him and he begged me to stay.
“But Lestat,” I protested, “You will fall in love with this new conquest of yours and forget all about me. It is time I made my own way in this world.”
“Dominick, my love, my life, please stay with me.” He begged me. But I still left him; I knew he would love his new fledgling. And he did love Louis, that was the man’s name, I also learned that later he made a vampire child named Claudia. The girl looked exactly like Gabrielle. I suppose Lestat got his Nicki and his mother in some form anyway.
The year is 1761. One hundred years before the Civil War and forty-two years before Louisiana was purchased into America. I am now almost 70 years old, but I still look 18. I’d been alone now for quite some time. I have realized that being alone doesn’t suit me. I am in Georgia right now, “The Peach State.” as it’s called. I’ve been watching a plantation here in the bayou, or swamp if you prefer that term. An old man who has many slaves and three sons owns it. I have taken an interest in the middle one. His name is Eric and he is 20 years old. Just two years older than I was when I was living. He has shoulder length raven colored hair and the most beautiful blue eyes I have ever seen. He had an innocence about him that I found quite refreshing for a man of his age.
His older brother Aaron was preparing himself to take over the managing of the plantation and so he was always inside the house learning how to balance their money and deal with everything else. Eric’s younger brother, Michael, had no responsibilities so he was always outside playing with the young slave children or chasing squirrels in the nearby woods. Eric himself had few jobs to take care of, so he had a lot of free time on his hands. He would often spend this time with Michael or taking a leisurely walk in the woods down to the bayou.
One night I awoke to the news that one of the boys had nearly drowned in the swamp that day and had caught cold from his exposure to the freezing water. I raced to the plantation, hoping against hope that it was not Eric. But when I arrived outside his window on the balcony and looked into his window, I saw that it was him. The doctors were bleeding him to try and get the fever out of his system, the damned fools, they could kill him that way! After the doctors had left I opened the balcony doors and walked over to his bed. He was barely conscious, and I knew I had to act fast or he would die.
“Eric..” I said and when he saw me he looked amazed. I knew that he could tell what I was immediately. No mortal had ever seen me in this good kind of lighting before. “Eric, you are dying. I can help you, but you will become a creature of the night. Damned to drink blood for all eternity. Do you want to live?”
I leaned close to his face looking into his eyes with pure love and concern. All I could do was await his decision. Eric swallowed with difficulty and said faintly.
“Yes..” I could tell he was already slipping. I bit him and bought him to the edge, and then I bit into my own wrist and held it over his mouth.
“Drink, hurry now, for you are slipping fast.” Eric began to drink with some reluctance, and after he had drunk enough he passed out. I gathered him into my arms and carried him like a mother would a child out into the night. I made my way through the woods and to the abandoned home I had found deep within the heart of the forest. I took him upstairs and laid him in a bed. I stayed by his side, lovingly stroking his face, until he awoke again several hours later. Eric’s stomach was growling and he looked confused. I smiled to him as he looked at me.
“Are you hungry my love?” I asked him still stroking his face soothingly. Eric nodded slowly looking disoriented and like he had a headache. I brushed the hair from his face. “It is daylight right now so you will have to drink from me.” I helped him to sit up and placed his mouth near to my throat. “Just bite and drink, love. I will tell you when to stop.”
I could sense a bit of apprehension from Eric, but he bit into my neck and began to drink. I nearly moaned with the feeling of it. Soon he began to drink more quickly and clutched to me tightly. I started to feel slightly dizzy.
“Stop..That’s enough.” I said and pulled gently at him. He let go as I told him to and licked his lips, hunger still evident in his eyes. I kissed his forehead and laid him back on the bed, lying with him. “Sleep now, we will hunt tonight.” I then closed my eyes, I was suddenly very tired and I fell asleep. Eric stayed staring at me as I slept, questions racing through his mind. Concerns for his family and what he now was.
I awoke that night to his brilliant blue eyes staring intently at me. “Love? Didn’t you sleep?” I asked sitting up and stretching. I now felt much better, but I was starving. Eric shook his head nervously and seemed a bit afraid too.
“W..Why am I craving blood?..” he asked looking confused. I looked at him with understanding and sympathy.
“You are a vampire now, you must drink blood to live. I am sorry it had to be this way. But I couldn’t let you die. Just remember that you chose this.” I reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair from his face, letting my hand linger on his cheek. It seemed Eric couldn’t believe what he’d just heard and he asked the next and possibly most important question.
“What about my family?” he said with great concern in his voice. I smiled to him and let my hand fall away from his face. “You may visit them whenever you like. I will never stop you, but you can only visit at night because the sun will kill you.”
Eric leaned his head back against the headboard and sighed. He looked to be processing all that had just been told to him. While he thought, I realized I had never told him my name, and here I was calling the man Love!
“By the way, my name is Dominick. Come, the night is young and we are both starving. Afterwards I will take you to see your brothers and your father if you wish.” I got off the bed and offered my hand to him. Eric slowly takes my hand and I help him up.
“Is this all a dream?..” he whispers to himself. I feel sorry for him, for his lost life and this damned one. Perhaps I should have left well enough alone, but I could not just stand idly by and let such a beautiful man pass into death.
“I am sorry my love, but I am afraid that it is not a dream.” I answered his silent question as I led him down the stairs and out into the woods. I should start with animals for him. I think killing a human now would be too much for him to handle. So when a deer crosses our path, I catch it for him. I put the beast into a sort of trance. “Drink from it. It will feel no pain, but you must stop drinking before it’s heart stops.”
He moves to it with hesitation but is eager when he bites into it. I can tell when the swoon of the blood overtakes him. He makes small pleasured noises and sucks it’s neck harshly. I listen carefully to the deer’s heart and when it is dangerously slow I remind him to stop.
Eric pulls back with his eyes shaking. Just like I did on my first time, he’s realized what he’s done.
“My God…I..bit..” he stammers looking quite shaken. I kneel down next to him and hug him to me, rubbing his back soothingly.
“It is alright my love. It passed out of this world with no pain at all. I cried my first time too…But my first was a young boy.” I pulled back from him slightly wiping an escaped tear from his face. “My master should have thought more carefully before he chose my first. But for you I did consider..”
There was fear in his eyes, but it was not fear of me. It was fear of himself, of what he could not control. I decided I should just take him back into the house. And so we ended up back in that bedroom, I myself was still hungry, as I hadn’t fed. But I could wait, right now I wanted to stay with him and take care of him. When we entered the bedroom, he kneeled next to the bed and began to pray for the deer he’d just killed. I put a comforting hand on his shoulder and waited in respectful silence for him to finish.
When he had finished he sat on the bed and I sat next to him. He looked apprehensive as though he wanted to ask me something.
“Don’t be afraid of me. I will tell you anything you ask of me.” I reassured him and waited for his question.
“How old are you?”
“I was born in 1691 and I am now nearly 70 years old.” I answered threading my fingers together and crossing my legs awaiting his next question.
“How often do we have to…. feed?” he asked looking particularly wary of this answer. I sighed and looked down for a moment before meeting his gaze again.
“I learned the hard way that even if you never drink blood, you would never die. You will simply get weaker and frailer. And the blood hunger will get so strong that it controls you completely.” I said sadly thinking of Dante and how he had starved me.
“How long before it controls you?” Eric posed his next question.
“…Weeks…possibly months if you are strong..but you mustn’t starve yourself my love. I would not be able to bear seeing you suffer as I did. If you must pick out only the criminals to feed from.” I said now taking his hands in mine and looking into his eyes pleadingly.
His eyes watered slightly as he said he would not take a human life. “Then animals, but please don’t starve yourself my love.” I pleaded with him again rubbing my face against the palm of his hand for my own comfort. He was silent for a few moments and then he nodded. I became enthralled for a moment with the movement of his silken hair when he nodded. The way the light shined off it and how soft it looked. I kissed his hand and then reached up and tucked one side of his hair behind his ear.
“I just want what’s best for you, and I will never deny you the things you need.” I said more to assure myself that I wouldn’t act like Dante.
~~~~~~~~~~
reviews keep me writing!
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