Greek Cypriot Vampires - Maria is yet again set a challenge - to enter Cyprus, under cover, and stop Cypriot vampires carrying out illegal cross-border kidnappings.

Chapter One.

Maria in Athens,

Greece.

November 1983.

I WOKE INTO BACK-BRAIN CONFUSION. Maria Kinsman, no wait, shit, time shift, time bubble, Katarkis. Maria Katarkis, laying in bed with a hairy man’s leg, that shouldn’t have been there, wrapped around my recently shaved calf. It felt like a ship’s anchor rope over silk. The man shouted into the air, plus a shrill ringing sound arrived in my one ear, everything echoing as if I was in a box. My front-brain tried to take over from my back-brain and wobble its way out of the echo chamber. A feeling that I shouldn’t be where I was. Not Jeffrey’s voice, but male, so not Jenny. Someone else shouted at me.

“Shit, that phone’s loud. Don’t answer it yet. Where are we?” The man sounded as confused as I was, if not more so.

Sounds of cars outside, heard with no need for vamp-hearing through the ear not pressed into the pillow. I’m not with Jenny in her posh, quiet suburb, and I should be with her but my brains won’t work together. Not alcohol though, not a hangover. I woke from dreaming I was back with Jeffrey, still married and with his Kinsman name, but this is not him, luckily. Dream or nightmare?

I became calmed by the fact that the man’s panic was greater than mine, because it gave me a need to take control of the situation and calm things down. I stayed laying down, letting blood travel more easily to my head, watching a sitting Theo, my closed ear on his over-starched pillow, my calf still itching from where his leg had sandpapered over my smooth skin. Two blood holes on his upper back, deep, cut in a moment of ecstasy, brought my front brain back into the present.

Things were slowly becoming clearer. We’d both climaxed, both extended our canines, bitten and lapped ferociously from each other on endorphin rich, sweetened blood. After initial sex, we’d extended each other’s orgasms by biting, and it seemed we’d both woken into confusion, probably through lack of blood to the brain. His confusion, much worse than mine, made him sound panicky. Maybe, we’d gone too far. Maybe, we were lucky to be alive.

Theo rubbed his eyes but it only took me seconds to sense the claustrophobic atmosphere around me, and to establish it was a man-flat. “Yours.” I told him with authority. “You get the phone and I’ll make coffee.” My instruction to Theo was firm, to calm him, but I wasn’t for moving just yet. Men are for action, women are for directing that action with various amounts of subtlety, and for making decent coffee that isn’t too weak, like the piss-poor hot water he sometimes serves up. My head swam and blood needed to get there, from somewhere else, before I’d be able to move without feinting, without walking, barefoot, on his filthy floor.

I watched him lift the phone’s receiver and start talking, his hairy body facing away from me, black hair down his strong back in an upside-down triangle shape, pointing down to his bare bum. I noted that men’s bodies didn’t have that post-sex glow that vamp-women did, a glow of weak perspiration, a glow that now emanated from my dark skinned, hairless body. His body, and all male-vamp’s post-sex bodies, looked cold, over-used, no longer inviting, no longer needed, the blood congealed and lifeless. When I’d arrived, his inviting scent was masculine and reminded me of the smell on my hands, on removing leather gloves. Now though, his post-sex carcass stank of acidic sweat and the stale man-fluid that needed to be washed away from me.

I tried for a memory of when I’d arrived at his flat, failed, and decided to wait until later to work out an excuse for an overnight stay to give to Jenny. Blood would eventually flood my brain, and, more importantly, my back-brain. Any memory of just how inviting his body had seemed, before sex, had disappeared until the next time that I decided it could happen. We used each other for grounding purposes and were both aware of the fact that love had no place in our relationship.

His babbling on the phone and his scratching of the back of his neck both annoyed me, but I didn’t know why. Thankfully, my blood started to move upwards in my body, filling spaces around my brain such that I was able to shimmy up, slowly, in the bed. Being eventually sat up, pulling the pillow behind me, my naked, goose bumped, body glowed and felt very dominated, with my cut muscles tired out by another. Scents, vamp-scents were becoming stronger and moving further afield. The man-flat I was in, always smells of dirty washing and unwashed saucepans, the damp smell of sweaty, used bedsheets but, above all, after sex, the vicious and acrid aroma of man-sex. It was a smell only vamps could pick up, an intensely masculine smell that exuded dominance, capture and manipulation of a female body. My body, the one that had craved dominance and manipulation and needed those things, just to stay grounded, to stave off herding instinct and God syndrome.

When you arrive, something in your body tells your brain that only the man matters, you want him there and then, no matter what. Post sex, the man no longer figures and his surroundings come into focus and are inevitably a disappointment.

I looked around at the three-item room as I pulled on the soiled top-sheet to make myself feel respectable. The sheet’s dampness made it feel stiff as it slid over a flat stomach and up over taught, youthful boobs. For some reason I made a fold in the sheet across me, so that it covered me like a dress that I might be wearing home.

It was no time to feel smug, and I marvelled at how men could live so basically. From my position in the ancient, dark-wood bed I could see a modern, white, laminated wardrobe and an older pine-coloured chest of drawers with three missing wooden knobs. That was it. Three items, non-matching, functional, just, but from different eras and looking crap when placed together. Of course, for me, only the bed had any real significance, when I’d arrived. It was the only thing I’d seen as Theo had led me from his living room to his bedroom with my hands behind my back, locked together in his jailor’s grip. Memory returned and made me smile.

I haven’t been here all night. I came to him early this morning. He opened the door in his shorts, no words were spoken and he claimed my body as his to own. I remember complaining as he marched me to his bed, as if I’d come to him for a chat, or for breakfast, and sex was the last thing on my mind.

From my arrival at seven in the morning the warm bed, that Theo had been sleeping in all night, had been the provider of daytime sex, which is always more exciting than the evening variety, especially with Theo, the early-morning-lark who can wake the insides of my late-owl body whenever I choose to let him. I’d love to tell you he was ripped, handsome, chiseled features with deep, penetrating eyes that had captivated me when we first met, but Theo was ordinary looking, very ordinary, a regular looking guy like most of the blokes in Athens, a ripple of fat around his middle that shouldn’t be there. Obviously vamp though, and very obviously experienced with what to do with it, to be able to please a lady. For me, that was more important than whether he looked like a picture or not. It would also be nice to say that he took care of himself, clean trimmed nails, face shaved like a baby’s bottom, lovely but manly aftershave. Maybe the first month or so, when he tried to impress. I wouldn’t change anything about him, but maybe I’d ask him to shave more often.

Remembering what he’d done to me earlier woke even further my body and brain, and my legs slid out from under the sheet. My feet reached the bare floorboards and, as the sheet floated down my body, it allowed me to practice my silent arm-stretching to make me as long and thin as I could possibly get. There was no ripple of stomach fat on me. The ‘look at me’ stretch was a wasted effort because I was facing away from my secret lover and him away from me, but it pleased me anyway. I noticed streaked blood from my shoulder to my boob but didn’t remember him settling on my nipple after lapping at the deep incisor penetration on my shoulder, which stung on being stretched. The greedy swine had bitten my butt cheek as well, I couldn’t see it but could feel it under me, but had no memory of it happening. Perhaps he’d stayed awake longer than me, flipped me over and enjoyed himself for breakfast.

The blood on my chest had dried and could be washed off later. I really needed a blood replacement drink but a coffee before taking it would kick-start my body into life. My brain twitched, and the aroma of the coffee jar in the kitchen overpowered the blood smell almost next to my nose, letting me know that the jar wasn’t empty.

He spoke into the phone, giving mainly one-word answers, as if talking secretly to a girlfriend and he didn’t want me to understand the conversation. He held the receiver in one hand, constantly rubbing the back of his head with the other, nervously, while I stood unappreciated. I grabbed his shirt off the handle of the wardrobe door, claiming it. I didn’t want to make coffee while naked, but at the same time, breezing past him with the shirt flapping open, would make it so that he’d still want what he saw glimpses of, and prefer it to whoever he was talking to.

It may be that we have sex whenever I decide I want him, but a girl has to ensure that the man she wants stays interested. If I bought him a small rug to cover some of the bare boards in the middle of the room, would he appreciate it? No, he’s male, I’d be wasting my money. I don’t think he has a vacuum cleaner, the gaps between the boards are full of something that a brush can’t reach. A rug would, at least, hide some of that crud. Striped, I think, going the opposite way to the boards. I won’t make an effort, but if I happen to see one, I’ll get it. I’ve worn his shirts before and remember the buttoning. Forget the mat. He’d see it as a move towards me moving in. The reason I’ve never offered to clean the flat or wash clothes for him.

My movement alerted him before I’d shirted myself. We went into a mime show, him pointing at the phone in his hand and mouthing “Jenny” and me doing an impression of a woman who was stirring a spoon in a mug with one hand while holding a shirt in the other, covering her bits as if she was a young embarrassed girl.

Crazy really. The bits of me I’m hiding from him, he earlier bit, chewed, sucked, fingered, pumped into, made them his, took over all feeling in them from me, electrified my body, wasted every muscle in my inner and outer body – and now I claim my body back by covering it with a hanging shirt. His hanging shirt.

I need to get back to real life, to Jenny’s house, my lover’s house. I feel bad seeing Theo behind her back, and being bitten, as only Theo can do, and ‘Jenny Nonvamp’ can’t. I’d just get over-dominant and aggressive with her again, if Theo didn’t ground me occasionally. At least, that’s my excuse and has been for some years now. I think it’s still true but it would be too dangerous to stay ungrounded as an experiment, to find out my aggression levels. I tried being aggressive with Jenny once, sexually, and it didn’t go well. Why would my love ring my secret love on his day off?

I looked at the two doorways on the far wall, restricting even further the wall space of this tiny bedroom. The one door to the living room and eventual escape through the front door, the other doorway, to the kitchen, had its door missing and all that was left was a gap through a horrible orange, gloss painted door frame that stood out against the wallpaper that had been overpainted midnight-blue. It always felt as if Theo had moved in after students and hadn’t bothered changing anything.

It was around lunchtime, if the ancient kitchen clock, with its plastic face covered in grease, was anywhere near correct, but we’d both lapped our fill of protein, so coffee would be all that was needed to wake us back into the day. For some reason, I turned my back on him before doing a couple of buttons up, as if I still had a need to be modest, or maybe I was turning away from Jenny’s phone call, from the woman who was my partner-lover, who was unable to extend my orgasm as the practised Theo could.

Doing the buttons up on a man-shirt always feels sexy. The rough, male material is from where his laundry company have used starch. The bagginess of the garment, from the much wider shoulders of a vamp who can dominate you, makes a lady look smaller than she is, vulnerable and in need of domination. The smell of the man covering your body and the length of leg on show to excite him, excites me also. Men’s shirts were designed with a tail at the back to hide a woman’s bum while having slits up the sides to make her legs look longer. Dresses should be made like this. The style is wasted on a man who tucks the lady bits into his trousers.  I’ll roll the cuffs up to be able to make the coffee and to make it look a bit more feminine. It all produces a sexy smile, from me and from him if his eyes are anything to go by.

I moved around the tiny kitchen, having done up two buttons near the level of my belly button. The buttons did up on the opposite side to my blouses, which always felt awkward, especially with long nails, and I realised that I was going for a certain look. I wanted to go home because I had things to do and I didn’t particularly want any more physical sex, especially after Theo had been talking to my partner, who happened to be departmental boss to both of us. I went for that look anyway, needing attention, always craving attention, always needing him to carry on wanting me the next time. The shirt, I’m sure, looked casually thrown on but actually had a very calculated bra-less but firm-boob gap at the top and another gap to show thighs, and a bit of bald extra at the top of those thighs, if I needed to use it.

It was a look that attempted to show, I might be twenty-six, in human terms, but my boobs are still as firm as they were at nineteen when I was turned to vampirism and my body changed to this vamp-sexy one, that will stay with me forever, if, that is I’m careful with my diet. It was a look that said that a large portion of my sexy legs, with their longer than normal stride, can be seen with every step I take, making them look longer and showing an almost-glimpse of a prize at the very top, for Theo to think about until next time. The most important part of the shirt look was to emphasise in Theo’s brain, that he should prefer my body to that of my workday boss and lover, Jenny, who he was talking to on the phone. I made sure that he got accidental glimpses as he was talking to her.

We were, of course, still in competition with each other, Jenny and me, as far as body image was concerned. Every Wednesday night, for the last five years or so, Theo had watched our lesbian floor show, carried out on top of Jenny’s bed as he’d made himself squirt into one of his seemingly, never-ending supply of socks, while sitting in our girlie bedroom corner. That gave him his teeth. As Jenny and I climaxed together, he was allowed to bite my bum to extend my orgasm, as I extended Jenny’s by biting her.

It had been Jenny’s idea to bring Theo in, her insistence really, to get me grounded and non-aggressive towards her, to rid me of my God syndrome, the God syndrome that had seen me laugh as I’d killed Grant by loving and biting him to death. There was a stupid rivalry between us girls, because Jenny had no designs on Theo physically, or any other man come to that, but still wanted to appear to be the sexiest looking of the two of us, in Theo’s eyes. I don’t know if Jenny is jealous of me being bi or whether she sees it as a fault. A les-bi relationship can sometimes be confusing, but the three of us make it work for us. I think it was Jenny that coined the phrase tri-les-bi, but I never liked it, thinking it made me sound as ancient as a trilobite.

Jenny’s dual life surely is odd, whenever I think about it, knowing how much she relies on me to look after her life, domestically, and provide her extensions as a bonus. For me to then go into the office and watch her being my boss, putting on an act of a confident woman in charge of a department, is weird to say the least.

I knew where everything was in Theo’s kitchen. This wasn’t my first clandestine visit to my secret lover’s flat, nor would it be my last. For me a bum bite and one, single, secret finger on a Wednesday night were not enough. I had to have more, to keep me grounded, and today, I’d been well and truly grounded into a mattress, by a master, my master.

The contents of his kitchen cupboards were as basic as his bedroom furniture and he obviously ate-out a lot, but I didn’t visit him for food and found that it was me who occasionally topped up his coffee jar, and no, that wasn’t a private euphemism between us. He might have been talking to my lover on the phone, but if I stretched to reach the top shelf of a cupboard, or bent to look into his almost empty fridge, his attention was all on me. I could feel it, see it out of the corner of my eye that pretended not to be interested in his gaze, and it pleased me immensely to see him smiling in my direction. His thoughts, sexually, I read to be somewhere between Jenny and me but the swing was moving further towards me, in the Maria direction.

Walking back to his bed with two mugs of hot instant, black, because there was no milk, I made my steps alluring for his now sat-up naked body, the sheet being crumpled up on my side of his bed. The phone call having just ended, he was propped against his pillow with a grin that told me he’d imagined things while he’d watched me bend down into the fridge, looking for milk that I knew wouldn’t be there. I enjoyed my role as temptress, offeror of body glimpses, goddess of body parts that turned him on. His brain was fed with blood again and, unlike female vamps, you could tell on a male vamp from where the extra blood had been found to somehow get to his head. The bloodless item was nowhere near as domineering looking as it had looked earlier. A fat, wrinkled, maggot came to mind.

He couldn’t grab me while I held two hot mugs, but when I bent over, with straight legs, to put his mug on the floor next to him, there was no way he could resist rubbing his hand over my extremely firm bum cheek. We both knew my best assets, I worked them, he got blinded by my, seemingly accidental, powers.

That worked then, you’re back with me now, totally.

“Watch my coffee,” I warned him as I moved back to my side of the bed. “You don’t want me to spill this one in your lap accidentally. Wouldn’t be good for either of us.”

He laughed, followed by a lusty growl at the vision of my ass again when I put my coffee down on my side of his bed, and then, as I got back under the sheet and threw him half to cover his body, he grabbed me around the waist. I wanted him to want me, to ask me back yet again and wanted him to tell me how sexy I looked in his shirt. I hoped he’d rip the shirt off and mouth my nipples while the coffees went cold. But after that, I wanted him to let me go, for me to drive home, shower, change, shop, clean and cook, ready for when Jenny got home. Back to my married life, my everyday life. I liked to be in control of who does what, to whom and when. Maybe you noticed that.

If I could control him, maybe he’d love me gently without making love to me and I’d be stimulated enough to come back again and to think about him until next time. He’s a typical bloke though and any suggestion of touch, to them, makes them want to finish things by emptying themselves.

He stroked the back of his hand over the material covering one breast, stimulating nerves and waking them up, hardening the nipple that had softened through our morning sleep, making me smile gently. He stared at the breast he was stroking, as if he wanted to eat it, as he spoke.

“That was Jenny. She’s tired. Says she’s been up for hours. Weird phone call but I guess, from the time-lines she just gave me, that as soon as she left her house for the minister’s office, you couldn’t wait to dress, as sexily, as you did, and to get to me, and so you came straight over, because you can’t do without me.”

He looked up from my boob to my face, grinning, understanding my movements, knowing he was correct. He seemed pleased that he’d discovered a secret and I had a need for what was between his legs, as well as his dominating practices and voracious blood appetite.

Smug, but the boy has a right to be smug. I’ve lost dominance here because of my female partner’s words to him.

“Maybe,” I teased. Grabbing his limp member and shaking it to show him what I’d come for, realising it would stay limp, hopefully. I let go and picked up my coffee.

He talked about Jenny without removing his hand. He stroked me absent-mindedly, while thinking about her and the moment between me and Theo was gone.

I tried to ignore the fact that my lady lover had rung my man lover, so I sat up, my back to the propped pillow, his hand no longer able to reach where it had been stroking. My eyes stared out at the side wall with the horrible, old, brown wallpaper that had started to peel from the top, just above the wardrobe. It would take seconds to stick it back to the wall but that had no value to Theo. I think his hand had moved to my bare thigh but it had no effect on me and that showed in my face, hopefully informing him that I was not receptive.

Jenny is in work. Why would my lady lover ring my man lover on his day off? Surely, I couldn’t be jealous or suspicious of her while laying in another man’s bed. If only she knew her voice had just helped to stop me wanting Theo to love me all over, it would make her smile. After she’d killed me. At least this way I get to do my shopping and get that bathroom cleaned when I get home. The day not totally wasted.

The shower needs doing, with me in it probably. Wash off the soap from the walls where me and Jenny have squirmed together, while I wash Theo’s sex off me at the same time. No worries about Jenny smelling Theo on my clothes, she has no idea where the laundry basket is, how to fill it, or how her clothes magically get from their pile on the floor, back to her wardrobe and drawers. Theo shows no sign of creaming my bite marks to get rid of them and I’ll have to remember to do that myself before she comes home. He becomes a little uncaring after he’s emptied into me, but then, he is a man.

The words I chose for Theo, came calmly out of me as I held my mug in two hands and started sipping to signify the end of all pleasure. “What did our boss want then?”

Theo made no attempt to ravish me or to try and change my mind. He picked up his own mug and we were like an old married couple. We’d done it once, once was enough, now it was time for a nice chat and a hot drink before getting on with our different days. Not quite like when we’d first got together, in a time when he found it impossible to leave me alone for a second. He stared out into nowhere as he spoke, presumably working out how much he could tell me.

“She told me she’s been up since dawn, summoned to the minister’s office, where he kept her waiting, apparently for ages. Told her all about some spy info that’s come in overnight and the all-night meeting he’d been stuck in. Top-secret, but she wants me to be briefed on part of it later today. Must be important if she’s calling me in on my day off. I’m assuming it’s based on something happening on my home island of Cyprus because it’s only me she wants to see. There’s been a lot in the Greek papers about Cyprus lately.”

That was the first twenty seconds of your conversation. There’s a lot more that you’re not allowed to discuss. Even though it’s work, I hate it when you and Jenny have secrets from me. What could it be that’s so top secret he feels he can’t discuss it with me?

Theo put his coffee back on the floor and his arms were all over me as he looked into my eyes, waiting for a reaction, like a puppy begging for a treat. I managed to get my coffee mug back onto the floor as I allowed him to tickle me, a signal to him that he was allowed to kiss me goodbye, all over. He hadn’t finished his speech though and carried on holding me and talking about my lover at the same time, which really pissed me off.

“What if Jenny sends me on a mission to Cyprus with you as my working partner? I know so many little bays, away from tourists, where I could take you into the sea, remove your bikini and…”

He pulled his own shirt down over my body, revealing a breast prize for him and loosely pinning my arms to my side at the same time. I gave him a false, high pitched, girlie whimper of delight, a sort of “Oh, Sir Jasper, what could you possibly have in mind, not that I could stop you with my arms pinned like this,” sort of whimper, because I’d decided my man’s mind had been elsewhere and needed to come back to me, and concentrate entirely on me, now that in his head my bikini had been removed and I was floating, naked, in the sea, under a hot sun.

He climbed over me and spent the next minutes making gentle, passionate love to me. I didn’t object because it felt as if I was paying Jenny back for waking us after our sex and blood lapping session, but my mind was elsewhere. I absentmindedly kissed his hair and allowed him to go through the motions of building up to relieving himself in my still-wet body, but I didn’t really join in with any passion. The ceiling plaster was cracked and a spider web anchored itself on one of the cracks. There was no sign of a spider though, to catch any flies or mosquitos, the web was empty.

Theo was the politest of men, with a deep knowledge of the needs of a woman and how those needs could be fulfilled, but, as he pumped slowly into me, it felt as if it was not only the thoughts in my own head that were elsewhere. He wasn’t giving out sexual thoughts of another woman, at least none that I could read, with back-brain vamp reading. It was more as if he wanted to make love to a delicate woman without harming or hurting her in any way. I lay there completely passive, as if I was allowing a young teenager his first sexual encounter. We both seemed elsewhere, the sex felt meaningless, boring, one-sided.

He seemed to be crying at one point. “Don’t bite me, just love me,” he said. I sighed with relief because my climax was a mile away, my canines firmly stuck in my gums with no possible way to rocket out on receiving that missing climax. His climax was coming but it seemed he had to work hard to reach it and I’d have to help him.

‘Love me’ did he say. As a friend and sexual partner hopefully. Don’t go all weird on me Theo.

There were none of his usual tricks to get either of us to fever pitch. He just loved me, slowly at first but then manically to get it over with as he churned up the contents of my stomach that I tried to keep rigid. Making me feel as if I was in a car on a bumpy road, he came gently inside me and cried on my chest as I made the usual noises, the usual actions, all to make him feel better and more manly about himself. It didn’t seem to work and I think he knew that I’d faked it for him, because my blood didn’t shine to entice his teeth. His blood gained sugar, but no endorphins and I wasn’t hungry anyway, so easily ignored it. He wouldn’t have known though, that I’d been thinking of whether to buy cleaning materials on my trip home, which ones to buy, or whether to go home and change first, decisions to be made while he pumped away, jangling a body that wanted rest.

When his arms moved down to my waist, it freed my own arms from his shirtsleeves. His tears kept coming. I wanted to mother him. I wanted to take the breast that he was laying on, feed the nipple into his mouth and feed him like a baby to stop him crying.

This is not me. I have not the minutest bit of maternal instinct in my body. And yet I’m looking to feed this baby. It’s not the usual Theo either. I know every one of his moves and actions and none came out during that - what can I call it – I was going to say love making with no biting, but one-sided screwing would be a better description. He was inside me, full stop, his mind elsewhere but not on another woman. He is practiced though, at hiding fantasy thoughts. It was slow and gentle at first but the speed was all for him. It was boring for me but could it have appeared to be passionate to Theo? Was Theo crying through frustration of not being able to talk to me openly?  Is Theo falling in love with me? Is that why it was so gentle? Is he crying in frustration knowing I’m wedded, mentally and physically, to Jenny?

I kissed the top of his head. “What is it lover? Tell Maria your troubles.”

Please don’t. I have shopping to do and food to get into the oven before I start cleaning, plus I’m not really interested. Keep your head buried and you won’t find out my canines are still small after my exaggerated and pretend moaning. I must remember to cream my bites to give healing time before Jenny sees my butt. I’ll shower and clean the shower while I’m in there and wear decent clothing to shop, buy some flowers and maybe pay Mrs. Kouzakis a visit.

He didn’t lift his head from the breast that he was having a conversation with. A muffled voice followed.

“Nothing. I’ll be fine. I’ll see you next time. Drop you a note in the office.”

Yeah, like it’s your choice.

As I squeezed myself from under him, his head hit the pillow so that I couldn’t see the obvious tears. I gave him back his shirt by laying it on the bed, where I’d been, and noticed I’d left him two red dots on the shirt tail to remember me by. I took a female blood replacement drink from his top drawer, not wanting to have his baby. We had plenty of blood replacement drinks at Jenny’s house, for Jenny, but they were of the male variety, me not being able to get her pregnant. The female type, with anti-preg, I kept at Theo’s and immediately felt better for drinking the metallic syrup. It gave me the energy to proceed with my day.

I dressed in the items I’d worn for him, corset with suspenders, fishnets, the lot. It was a normal, if rushed dressing, no audience, his head was still in his pillow, there was nobody to impress, not even me, so the stockings were not rolled seductively up my legs and I didn’t even bother attaching the ornamental suspenders onto the hold-ups.

 I picked up my bag, told him I’d cream my own fang-bite marks later and that I’d see him in the office the following day and then I snuck out, to drive back to me and Jenny’s to shower and change. I hurried my exit in case he did something stupid, like propose marriage.

I come here to be well and truly grounded and to be bitten with a bit more depth than on a Wednesday. If things get serious, I may have to look elsewhere because I’m getting used to being grounded now, and I’m not going through phases of being horrible, demanding and sadistically evil towards Jenny, because of that lack of grounding. I wish I could wear a summer dress to throw on but he has his reasons for liking stockings, corset and the rest of it.

My drive home gave me time to worry about Theo wanting to get serious, about me having to go elsewhere and the knowledge that I had nowhere else to go. Housework would sort my head out and I looked forward to it.