Posted on October 3, 2009 - by Rasham

Innocence and Experience; A Vampire Affair

“In fairytales I have not only learned of the existence of vampires but of the possibility to transcend human-ness, of the potential to become something much more powerful…” Rasham Nassar

I was standing under the pale glow of the moon at an intersection of two barren streets wondering in which direction I should continue to walk. My red dress was all I had for defense against the slight chill of the night breeze, and without shoes upon my feet I felt vulnerable to the inevitable darkness that threatened my sense of security. I looked left, then right, forward and behind. I was waiting for some form of cosmic inspiration to motivate a decision, and just as I was about to forfeit this night’s mission to nowhere I saw a shadow move in the mist and saw from it the shape of a man emerge, walking with the breeze upon his shoulders.

What is he doing here? He’s walking towards me. I panicked, my pulse quickened as he crossed the space between us. I thought I should run but I didn’t want to initiate a chase, so I remained crippled by fear of the approaching stranger. I braced myself as he was now close enough for me to see his immense height, his flawless build and his piercing blue eyes embedded within the masculinity of his rugged face: there wasn’t any way I could, barefoot and in a dress, win the prize of my life at the mercy of this man.

‘Hi’, I said under my breath. I was shaking, nervous, a thousand thoughts raced through the space above me, and then he said

‘Have you ever danced in the arms of a stranger in the light of the moon on a summer’s night?’

‘I have to go…’

‘Don’t…its okay love. Come into my arms…’

‘Umm..really, I would like to go…thanks for the offer-’

I turned to walk away and I felt something cold upon the skin of my shoulder: it was his hand, gently keeping me from escaping this most strange of circumstances. I turned around to face him, and a single tear trickled down the blushed skin of my cheek: he wasn’t going to let me leave, and in this moment of realization I surrendered to him, for better or for worse I couldn’t resist his desire to have me.

He held me in both his arms now, and with the moon overhead and the wind tickling the fabric of my dress I felt as though the entire world was watching. We swayed in rhythm to the invisible patterns on the ground, he led and I followed. When he felt the moisture from my tears dampen the skin beneath the fabric of his shirt he lifted my chin so that his eyes penetrated my fit of despair and he said, ‘don’t cry, love’. Had he released me then I wouldn’t have gone far for the memory of my life past dissolved in his radiance.

He leaned in to kiss me, and I was pleasured by the sweet taste of his tongue, his vigorous way told me he was sexually ravenous. I could stay in this place forever, I wanted to, and he pulled away so that I could see his eyes which had fire in the pits of them, a single thread of scarlet swirls which I thought was the disfigured reflection of my dress, but I noticed red drops that painted the tips of my toes. Blood…from where? My hand found my face and then a source of warm syrup from the edge of my mouth: had he bit my lip? My eyebrows crossed and my arms tensed, and he must have sensed my sudden hesitation, because he smiled dangerously and held me firmer still as he bent down to greet the flesh of my neck with his mouth; I ignored every impulse I had to remove myself from his embrace. And then he bit me, and I was startled by the sudden pain but it seemed almost as insignificant a wound as a mosquito bite, as if he exchanged my blood for some ethereal fluid which injected me with supreme orgasmic energy. I didn’t want him to stop, and every time his teeth advanced to a deeper point within the layers of flesh on my neck I moaned with pleasure. I could hear him swallow and wished he would drink it all, drink me forever, though I was growing weak and my eyes were heavy. I looked to see if I was still standing but I couldn’t discern the clouds of fog from the patches of silver stones in the cement. Every tangible thing lost its definition and molded together so that a streetlamp looked like the tallest tree in a forest of parking meters and newspaper stands. I seemed to be waltzing with him while all the channels of life were visibly in motion, like two dancers in the center of an aggravated snow globe. Despite my deluded perception I felt the absence of his jaw and so I turned to faced him. I was curious as to why he had stopped and so I said,

‘What now?” I managed to force these words past my tired tongue.

“Love”, he said with exhaustion, as feral strands of burgundy slithered down his chin, “You will follow me still, I have come to guide you, to give you that which your subconscious has been dangerously deprived. You have been disappointed by many people before in the past. I will not disappoint you.” He held me and I wondered for how much longer I could feign composure: I wanted to fall into the abyss of this inspirational high. Because I was afraid of losing him I said what I thought he wanted to hear, and what I needed to affirm in order to retreat into sleep for the remainder of the evening; ‘I’m yours”, and with that my eyes were closed and I fell heavily into his arms. I placed one hand over the open wound on my neck for warmth until his teeth found the grooves and he began to drink from me once more.

I awoke eager to begin the journey home, and upon opening my eyes my mind opened plainly to the resolution of last night’s affair. I felt as though I were standing on a flattened image of the globe in an historic rail station; there was no longer any mystery involved in my account of all things rare and unknown. But there were no rail stations here, no pictures familiar and nothing with which to excite the shallowest of memories: I was alone, in a red dress without shoes, in a place that seemed as bleak as the day the earth was born. I had this uncanny urge to provoke the heights of my own awareness and I did this easily without the exploitation of my physical senses by concentrating my mind on the stillness.

Had I dreamed the man in the light of the moon? I felt my neck and felt reassured: indeed there had been a moment of surrender, though I didn’t feel any less whole. Where am I? I stepped into the light but I felt this knot grow inside of me: it burned as though it was too big to fit within my heart, and I feared it was either going to manifest into some form of viscous destruction or whither away like the whimpers of a scared puppy with his tail between his legs. I reclined into the shadows of my birthplace, the only attribute of this virgin immediacy that offered solace and shade. I knew only one thing as clear as the presence of bite marks on my body: I was cured of my ridiculous humanistic impulses; I could not feel them anymore. The want for life, for success, for love, for peace, for happiness; these obsessions were gone from me, and I had only curiosity and hunger in its place.

Just then I had a thought that flew erratically through my mind like the pattern of a crippled butterfly in flight, it was this: ‘when the student is ready, the teacher will always appear’. This thought caused me great delight; I had been chosen a student of the stranger in the night, to learn to be like him in ways of which I had yet to awaken, though I was already beginning to become something powerful.

I sat in a corner of this place until nightfall on the second day, waiting for him to come though not at all upset when he didn’t. I decided then, when the last rays of sun had been squandered by the victory of the moon that I would go for a walk.

Outside the air was scented with the stench of heavy machinery and the ground had heat in it still, and the sounds were baritone though rudely laudable as to thwart the steady rhythm of my stride.

I saw a man struggling at the reigns of a fleet of dogs, a woman alone and aloof trudging in high heels on her way home from work, a child sobbing for a dose of love at the hips of his indifferent mother. I saw the things man had made, the things they had broken, those things they had taken and the things they left behind. I saw them for what they were: a culture of creatively suppressed vessels passively executing a viral purpose; to feed, to multiply, to elaborate the illness and offer nothing in return.

I laughed in the absence of empathy; I could not feel sorry for them anymore, nor pity their pathetic ways. I only wanted to put them out of their misery; they would die eventually as victims of their own selfishness and greed, though I knew I had the power to spare an innocent few while the rest continued along, blind to the inevitable death of the world as it has been most popularly known.

As I walked I noticed how easy it was to refuse all manmade diversions; I was interested only in the human apart from his human things. I would do to a man what the stranger had done to me: remove all knowledge acquired by the consequence of a societal existence and replace it with a thirst for curiosity, fueled by the unconditional desire for purity and the unbiased appreciation of numerical origins.

A virtual display of truth unfolded before my mind’s eye and I began to understand my part as student; I was made to wander in the dark amongst an infinity of potentials, a place where light is unborn and where energies brew and systems work in accordance with numbers. I was elated to have discovered this fact of myself, and happy to have realized the greater mission represented that I decided I would share it with someone. And on my walk that was marked by the presence of rabid bats in the crowns of trees overhead, I found a man in a red shirt and slacks wearing holes in his shoes, looking as disenchanted and bored as ever a man was intended to seem. I walked up to him and his scent was a refreshing discord from the atmosphere around, and his eyes widened at the sight of me, and I said, ‘Have you ever danced in the arms of a stranger in the light of the moon on a summer’s night?’

‘I don’t have money, if that is what you’re after’.

‘Don’t…its okay love. Come into my arms…’

‘Umm..really, I should go…thanks for the offer-’

He made a move to flee the oddity of my approach and I found it funny that a man as spiritually penniless as he would fear the greatest offer of God from a girl in a red dress. With his back slightly turned I placed my hand upon his shoulder, gently keeping him from escaping this beautiful circumstance. He turned around to face me, and a single tear trickled down the blushed skin of his cheek: he knew I wasn’t going to let him leave, and in this moment of realization he surrendered to me, for better or for worse he couldn’t resist my desire to have him.

I held him in both arms now, and with the moon overhead and the wind tickling the fabric of my dress I knew all the world was watching. We swayed in rhythm to the invisible patterns on the ground, I led and he followed. I felt the moisture from his tears dampen the skin beneath the fabric of my dress and I lifted my chin so that my eyes penetrated his fit of uncertainty and I said, ‘don’t cry, love’. Had I released him then he wouldn’t have gone far for the memory of his life past was beginning to dissolve in this radiance.

I leaned in to kiss him, and I was pleasured by the sweet taste of his tongue: I became ravenous, and in the heat of the embrace I happened to draw blood from his lip, and I had to pull away because I felt it snake through me like a single thread of scarlet swirls in the pits of my eyes. His hand found his face and then a source of warm syrup from the edge of his mouth. His eyebrows crossed and his arms tensed, and in sensing his sudden hesitation I only smiled and held him firmer still. I bent down to greet the flesh of his neck with my mouth and I bit into him, extracting sweet drops of ethereal fluid, nursing him like one would the butt of a cigar. He was like a kitten in the grips of mother cat’s jaw, patient and willing, as though the incision from which I sipped was as insignificant a wound as a mosquito bite. I felt him quiver though not from fear, we were together exchanging supreme orgasmic energies, and he leaned into me as my teeth advanced to a deeper point within the layers of flesh on his neck all the while he spoke in the language of moans. I wanted to drink it all, drink him forever, though he was growing weak, and I was feeling bloated and lethargically craving a conclusion, and so I released his skin from my lips and gazed across the pavement when I noticed that I couldn’t discern the clouds of fog from the patches of stones in the cement. Every tangible thing lost its definition and molded together so that the protruding muffler of a steel framed station wagon looked like the striped tail of a rainforest predator. We were waltzing while all the channels of life were visibly in motion, like the fluid movements of a sorrowful conductor before the sympathetic members of his band. He must have felt the absence of my jaw because he turned to face me and said,

‘What now?”

“Love”, I said with exhaustion, as feral strands of burgundy slithered down my chin, “You will follow me still, I have given you that which your subconscious has been dangerously deprived. You have been disappointed by many people before in the past. I will not disappoint you.’ I held him and I wondered for how much longer I could feign composure: I wanted to float into the abyss of this inspirational high. ‘I’m yours ‘, he said, and his eyes closed and he fell heavily into my arms, and he placed one hand over the open wound on his neck for warmth until I laid him upon the striated particles of a park bench. I couldn’t resist the urge to violate the boundaries of his flesh, so I began to drink from him once more.

I left him only moments later, rising tall and waking the relics of midnight bound by the gravitational pull of the aqueous moon. My vision confused reality but I was seeing past the deliberate dilapidation of brick roads and chimney horns and instead was privileged to a private showing of the potentials of earth without the burden of raising mankind. My state of exhaustion was more a state of deep meditation as though I was riding alone on a crest of an ocean wave. I understood clearly how the world was mine, yet I had no desire for profit at the detriment of earth’s fine organics; I wanted only to experience its natural forces and stop those with a need to pollute the natural design.

And this was the prescription for the universe, I could only assume, that mankind would perish as the prophecies had foretold, though not in a fiery descent like in the tales of ancient kings, nor beneath a foamy lather of sea-green tides, nor in an epic battle of one man’s country before another man’s pride: no, mankind would perish as another breed of life slowly took its place. A breed of beings that were evolving, breathing the air and walking the ground as advocates for all things feared and misunderstood, leeching life from the leeches. I skipped along under the pale glow of the light of the moon, wondering in which direction I should continue to walk; I looked left, then right, forward and behind, and just when I was about to forfeit this night’s mission to nowhere I saw a shadow move in the mist and saw from it the shape of a man emerge, walking with the breeze upon his shoulders.

‘The world is ours’, he said. ‘It now belongs to all the night-time strangers thought once to exist only in the words of bedtime fairytales. I told you, love, that I would not disappoint you’. He came towards me and my mind filled with all the idealistic passions of a wild horse racing freely across the desert plains, and we stood together under the pale glow of the moon at an intersection of two barren streets.