I shake my head.
“I should have known better than to fall into bed with the two of you. None of this would…” I trail off and wave my hand around the room.
It’s kind of weird that the only reason I’m here is because my “mother” looked positively sinful with her tits spilling over her stays. Now I think of her as my mother and William as my father but, in reality, I guess we’re former lovers.
“The fashion of the time did do something special for Birdie’s assets.”
I worry my father is going to start reminiscing about my mother, and I don’t want to see where that leads, but I do find it adorable that he calls her Birdie. Her name is Elizabeth, like every woman’s name used to be, but he picked up Birdie about half a century ago as a nickname for her and she smiles so lovely when he calls her that.
I don’t get it, but it works for them.
My chest tightens and I rub at my sternum. There’s no heart there anymore. I mean, it’s there, but frozen. There’s no reason for me to long for it to beat again, but if you looked at William and Birdie Clarke, you’d think they were as alive as a pair of newborn babies.
They’re a perfect example of a happily mated couple. They’ve been together for centuries, but they still look at each other like they met yesterday. I have no doubt they have fond affection for each other, but they’ve always ventured where they pleased. Monogamy doesn’t suit most vampires. The whole eternity thing can be a little off-putting. They’ve been living together now for nearly as long as I’ve been around, but there’s been patches where they’ve spent time apart. It’s always my mother who leaves, but she also always comes back, and then life carries on. Or death, I suppose.
Sometimes I want that for myself—the companionship—but then I remember what I get stuck with if I ever do get it. It’s like a two-for-one deal I don’t want.
“You need to get out, Ezra. You’re never going to find your mate if you keep yourself locked away with your art and your books, and you can’t step up until you’ve mated.”
There’s a reason I keep myself busy with books and art, and he knows it.
I was a virgin when I met William and Elizabeth back in 1811. They lured me into bed, deflowered me and turned me, and I’ve not been intimate with anyone since then. It’s been a long two hundred and eight years.
I fought my nature for years before giving in, but just because I’ve resigned myself to this life doesn’t mean I’ll be a party to it. And don’t think I’ve spent all this time in cold and lonely beds, because I haven’t. I’ve abstained from penetration, which is where the magic mating shit is apparently most likely to happen.
The list of things Ihaven’tneglected to indulge myself in starts with aquaphilia and doesn’t even come close to ending with somnophilia. I’ve tried it all, and I’ve tried it more than once. Handies and blow jobs get boring after a few decades, but I’ve always drawn the line at penetrative sex.
I’ve learned, after many trials and errors, that I’m a sadist. I’m rough, and cruel, and I love making people bleed. It’s a lot like edging myself, because it’s sometimes impossibly hard to not sink my fangs into a partner’s neck and suck them dry, but I don’t. I’m thankful I can heal people and I’m thankful I can compel them. It’s easier to walk away if they don’t remember who I am. Diah tells me that’s nonconsensual, but I stopped caring about things like that sometime last century.
“Isn’t there a loophole?” I plead.
“You need to find a mate.”
“I don’t want to meet people,” I pout.
“I didn’t want to do this, Ezra, but you leave me no choice.” He stands up and walks out of the room. At first, I think he’s dismissing me, but he comes back, this time with my mother. She’s wearing a silk robe with cherry blossoms on it—it looks like kimono—and if Diah were here, he would give her a lecture about appropriating cultures of those we’ve turned, but he’s not.
I stand up, old habits of respect are hard to shake, and my mother smiles at me, then slips into my father’s seat with the silent grace of a natural ruler. I sit down, a little clumsier in my movement.
“Mom.”
“Ezra.” She reaches her hand for mine and I offer it up. She pats the top of my hand and gives me a sad little look. “A very long time ago, your father promised to take me to Hawaii.”
I laugh, “Are you being for real right now?”
“Yes.”
I give her an incredulous look and she gives me another pat, then folds her hands into her lap.
“There’s a solar eclipse coming next year.”
“Alright.”
“That’s a flash of seconds where I can bury my toes into the tropical sandnotunder the cloak of night, Ezra. And we cannot go unless there’s someone in charge here. That someone is you. It needs to be you. And I really don’t want to miss this opportunity. Besides, a mate would do you good.”
“I didn’t know you missed the sun,” I whisper, and I’m feeling a little bit selfish and also a little ashamed that I didn’t know she wants to do something like that. I bet Henry knows she wants to go to Hawaii.
Sometimes I wish they would have fucked him instead of me, but my father was considerably younger when he met Henry and he was selfish in his youth. He couldn’t wait, he used to tell me. Henry and my father still sleep together sometimes. I don’t know if my mom gets involved, and I don’t want to know. That’s their business.
