My people who know I am a vampire come from families who have served me for nearly four centuries each and who I moved to America with me when I emigrated from the UK following World War II. They are sworn to protect my secret. I, in turn, make sure their families lack for nothing by paying them well.
No, I never feed from them.
Only one member in each generation knows my secret, usually the eldest son, although my current valet’s mother was my previous valet. She was the only child her father—my valet before her—produced. I’m not being chauvinistic. I’m beingpractical. I would hate that a woman working for me might not be able to be home with her baby or toddler, and I definitely don’t want to put her more at risk while she’s pregnant.
I’m immortal, not evil.
I relegated Mark’s mother to staying close to home when she was pregnant with him, only assisting me when I was in residence at the hotel. I wouldn’t let her travel with me again until Mark started preschool. When he was a baby, after she returned from maternity leave, I let her bring him to work. I was “Uncle Dexter” to him and was careful to conceal my true nature from him until he was old enough to decide to work for me after he graduated from college. I would let him work part-time once he was a teenager, on weekends and during holidays, so he could earn his own spending money.
Since I avoid getting involved in anything illegal, which helps insulate me and my corporate interests, the other members of their families think that one of my forebears made a pact with one of their ancestors to work for me in exchange for lucrative pay and that I take those oaths seriously even to this day.
Yes, I guarantee each new generation’s loyalty with a few mental nudges early on, but I treat them well and never need to compel them to work for me. One time, the eldest son in a generation had no desire to work for me, thinking it was “beneath” him. He obviously didn’t know I was a vampire. So, the second oldest son gladly took the job and was thus initiated into the secret.
I don’t need to have my own security tonight. Lucius knows better than to let anything happen to me while I am in his territory, just like I would protect him with my life were he in mine on announced business. I’m on amicable terms with him, and it’s because I can afford to be. He might have the manpower, but I have the money and a corporate machine behind me, with plenty of safeguards in place that could ruin him—and many other vampires—should he ever try to fuck with me.
Which is another reason I’ve kept my distance from Lucius in recent years. Lately, he tends to attract the attention of law enforcement, due to some of his illegal enterprises, and I don’t wish to draw similar attention to me and my business interests. It’d prove an annoyance.
As it is, it’s difficult enough to ensure pictures of me aren’t taken. I have three body doubles I employ full-time to make public appearances for me, none of whom know I am a vampire. Video cameras are prohibited in the elevators I use and on the floor where my suite is located, and we instead use infrared and thermal imaging cameras for security. That way, the security team never sees that I don’t show up on regular cameras.
Yes, the personnel who monitor the feeds have also been given mental nudges to not think about why I don’t show up on video. It’s easier that way.
Except Lucius is the closest thing I have to family. I prefer the world with him in it, and thus we get along, even if we tend to have differences of opinion over certain topics, especially regarding humans. He tends to be overly lenient with his sired when they rebel and try to overthrow him.
Yet another reason I haven’t pursued turning more people. It’s difficult enough to maintain a normal life as it is. Bringing in someone who might want to overthrow me eventually?
No, thank you.
I, on the other hand, tend to view humans as commodities not for food, even though they are that, but for income opportunities. I have been virtually alone for so long that I don’t know how to live any other way, to be honest.
Lucius, I believe, desperately wants tonotbe alone. I understand that because itispainful to watch the world spin on, to see humans pass and have no one to share those weighty emotions with, and to know that many who are like you have taken a very lackadaisical approach regarding humans. I mean, you normally don’t mourn the passing of dairy cows, unless you have one particular pet cow you’re fond of. They tend to blur together with little to distinguish one from another.
I, on the other hand, intently have focused on amassing wealth. Lucius focused on amassing a found family, of sorts.
Dysfunctional and toothy, but who am I to judge?
I don’t know why I let Lucius talk me into going to his club tonight. The man really is a silver-tongued devil.
Oh, wait, Idoknow why.
It’s the same reason I’ve struggled to stay focused on work issues today—the mystery supplier of that most delicious ambrosia I’ve ever sipped.
Ihaveto meet whoever Lucius procures that blood from. If for no other reason than I want to sit down with them, talk to them, get to know them.
Get to know the person who awakened my senses like this. My cock stirs again as I think about it, and I resist the urge to stroke myself to completion like I did last night.
The first such reactions I’ve experienced in…too damned long. The closest analog I have is how I felt about Robert when I first met him and fed from him.
In fact, when I pour myself a large glass of purchased blood tonight from the supply Mark stocked for me in my suite, it tastes flat and bland. I find myself longing for what I had last night, which is even more reason I need to take my fillnow.
Just in case.
Imustremain in control.
I wait until a little before ten to leave for Club Toxic in the rented SUV. Yes, I’m driving myself tonight. I’m no stranger to blood clubs and have visited the best around the world. Never wanted to get involved with running one, though.
Attracts too many of the wrong kinds of people.
Human, and otherwise.
