[I've been thinking for some time of attempting a vampire story . . . but if you know me, if you've read any of my work, you'll know it couldn't be an *ordinary* vampire story. There's sex here, of course. And romance -- of a sort. . . .]
 
 

Hollywood, as usual, got it all wrong. Most so-called vampires look nothing like Bela Lugosi, George Hamilton, or even Gary Oldman. Nor does poor Vlad Dracul -- which only means "Dragon," after all -- deserve the rap he's taken all these years. Such preposterous errors do, however, provide cover for those of us in the, . . . er, . . . trade.

The other principal misapprehension is that vampires can function only at night. This is true only of a tiny and unfortunate minority among us, numbering never more than a few dozen at most. These heliophobes tend also to be under great mental strain and frequently become unbalanced (which is no wonder, given their enforced nocturnality), so they eventually reveal themselves for what they are and the public vents its fear and rage -- to their destruction.

A great scientist (I'll drop no names) suggested that our theatrical night-dwelling brethren actually serve as a survival mechanism for our species as a whole, which may well be true. Certainly, few vampires ever are fertile and our population therefore remains stable, but a handful of the recessives nevertheless are born each century, to replace those who destroy themselves.

The remainder of my kind revel in the daylight. We require exposure to the sun in regular doses, in fact, since we metabolize sunlight directly in a process not unlike photosynthesis (but without the green complexion). And that's the source of most of our advantages over the more numerous species that is pleased to call itself homo sapiens: hyperextended longevity, greatly superior strength (which we camouflage instinctively, except for a few individuals who choose to become athletic stars or professional wrestlers), and our peculiar ability to influence the minds and actions of men by what I think of as "assertive suggestion."

I prefer tropical climes, myself, with as many sunny days in the year as I can squeeze in, and I frequently see friends and relations in Cancun and the South Pacific for the same reason -- though nearly all vampires are related by blood after so many centuries of interbreeding. I also make an effort to stay in shape -- partly because a flabby, overweight vampire is inherently ludicrous, but mostly because some of the most beautiful women in the world frequent those same beaches and one would prefer to think one could acquire their companionship without resorting to assertive suggestion. Such women generally are clad in the briefest swimming attire possible, or in nothing at all, . . . and in dining, presentation is everything.
 

But to return to the subject, most vampires actually appear quite ordinary. The shoe clerk standing next to you on the bus may be surreptitiously admiring your throat. The neighbors who come to your backyard cookout will be happy to devour your porterhouse steaks but they might prefer your personal tenderloin, given a safe opportunity.

Because that's primarily what all of you represent to us. You're meat animals, a convenient source of the primate protein and hemoglobin we require. It's nothing personal. Some of my best friends are human. And as a farm boy may grow fond of the lambs and calves he raises, even though he knows their destiny, I am fond of the farm boy.

As long-lived as we are, it's not unusual to spend twenty or thirty years in an occupation or a learned profession and then to leave it for some endeavor completely unrelated, such as manual labor. For a number of years, I was an astronomer in Granada (and an astrologer as well, for the two professions overlapped greatly in those days). When Granada fell to Their Catholic Majesties, I decided to abandon the life of the mind for awhile and became a sailor in the Spanish fleet. My knowledge of astronomy, of course, aided greatly my rapid rise in rank and I became a highly prized quartermaster. Much later, I was a land developer of some note in New Amsterdam and that was followed by a restful career as a cabinetmaker and skilled woodcarver in the Caribbean.

Why do we bother to labor at all, you ask? Surely we could supply our every need and want literally for the asking. True, it's perfectly possible to become one of the idle rich and to remain in that state for a very long time, and some of my people have done just that. A little information-gathering here, a suggestion in the appropriate ear there, the inborn gift of patience -- it's really not difficult at all to amass large sums of money. Some of us have come to prefer casual mobility to acquisitiveness, becoming jongleurs or, more recently, hippies. Others -- many, in fact -- have wandered over the globe as hired lances and soldiers of fortune. What better place for anonymous nourishment than the battlefield, especially for one in little danger of serious injury, much less violent death? Sustenance is seldom difficult to find, one way or another.

The great enemy, though, is boredom. One may while away the hours, . . . but the centuries? No, most vampires are as much driven as their human cousins by the need to accomplish something lasting or noteworthy, or by a thirst to create, or by the innate curiosity common to all primates. And our branch of the evolutionary tree has the luxury of time in which to do all those things, many times over.
 

I've lived in America (most recently) for some ninety-odd years. Around the Roosevelt era (the first one), I became intrigued by the apparent course of development and growth that technology had been set upon in this country. So I involved myself in the fledgling radio industry, eventually publishing one of the first-ever radio-oriented periodicals (and, later, one of the most successful of the early magazines specializing in pulp fantastic fiction).

That interest led to television, which took me into the new field of solid state electronics. Fascinating work, but after so many changes within what would ordinarily would be a single lifetime, I felt the need for a break, a desire to go out and play for a decade or two. In preparation, I sold off the semiconductor companies I had founded and invested heavily (but anonymously) in a handful of relatively new ventures that seemed ready to burst forth. (I was an old hand at the stock market, having bought large amounts of AT&T the week following the sinking of the LUSITANIA.) Most of those small operations flourished and some became household names -- often with a bit of assistance in the background by my humble self. It wasn't long before I again had more income than I could ever hope to spend.

Having shopped around for a few years earlier in the century, I acquired several comfortable but unpretentious residences in such pleasant locales as La Jolla, Monaco, Papeete, the Maldives, and (of course) Bahia. Brazil does have the most astonishing beaches in the world. It's also a "food culture" and Bahia is far more typically Brazilian than Rio. I set about enjoying myself, though with no particular goal or plan of action. I merely cast myself adrift and relied on chance to carry me where it would.

An evening at the Monte Carlo casino in which I ended up a winner (I usually am) brought an invitation from a new acquaintance to join him and his other guests on a holiday by motor schooner to Lesbos. My companions were well educated, sophisticated, and uninhibited, and the sex was easy and satisfying if uninspired. I was able to nibble on several of the young ladies in the party as well as my host. Most of the company, in fact, had become somewhat listless and anemic when I took my leave for a visit to Istanbul, which I hadn't seen since my janissary days.

Later, while relaxing on one of the smaller coral islands of the Maldive group, I received a comsat call from an old friend now residing in Sri Lanka, only 400 miles away, inviting me for a visit. A human acquaintance, I might add, who had published stories in my magazine in the old days (though he was unaware of it) and who had once written an article describing the very sort of satellite communications system by which he had placed his call. I refrained from drawing too heavily on his hospitality during my stay, in deference to his advanced age, but he had a most agreeable housekeeper.

From there, I ventured to northern India and made a sort of pilgrimage up the Ganges, almost to the foothills south of the region from which it is believed my species emerged so long ago. I was distracted, though, by a friendly party of young Brahmins with whom I fell in. They had rediscovered the Kama Sutra, as every generation seems to, and had become fascinated with it. So I assisted several young women of high caste in their quest for sexual nirvana. The Hindu culture takes its sex very seriously indeed.
 

By the following January I'd moved into my penthouse in the upper city, from which I could watch the sun rise over Todos os Santos. Carnival wasn't until February and I intended to soak up as much tasty sunshine as I could in preparation for the long festive nights ahead.

So close to the equator, Bahia is always warm and usually sunny and the beaches begin to fill shortly after breakfast. It had become my habit to stroll along the beach near the waterline, stopping to chat with acquaintances or even with strangers and occasionally to snap off photos with the aging Leica that hung on a strap over my shoulder. I'm something of an amateur psychologist -- a useful skill for any predator -- and making educated guesses about circumstances and vocations from people's photos is one way of keeping the brain muscle in tone.

I had observed during an earlier period in Brazil that attractive young women on the beach there often greatly enjoy having their pictures taken. It can also be a convenient icebreaker. In recent years, thongs have become almost a uniform among females who know they look appetizing in them, and a thong seems also to encourage toplessness. It's not uncommon to pass dozens of bare-breasted young beauties during a hour of strolling. Being Brazilian, and therefore creole, they come in a variety of lovely shades of brown and most not only are willing to be photographed but will even strike an out-thrust pose and flash the lens a stunning smile.

I include in this pastime the pretty little adolescents who are so proud of their growing breasts. And they love to experiment with their newly found power of hypnotizing boys and young men by the sway and jiggle of their tightly muscled buttocks.

Such girls are fortunate and don't realize it. In an earlier time, a fifteen-year-old would be regarded as a grown woman and would have one or more small children clinging to her homespun skirt in the field -- a baby-making machine with never enough to eat and the expectation of an early death from any of a variety of common ailments.
 

By the end of my third week in Bahia, I'd struck up an odd sort of friendship with a particularly lovely young girl in her early teens, without either of us saying a word. I thought perhaps she assumed that, being obviously not Brazilian, I didn't speak Portuguese (in which she would have been wrong, for languages come very easily to me). Or perhaps she was simply too shy to speak at the beginning and it became a habit. She wasn't shy about her body, though. When I first came upon her, she was playing dodge-the-wavelets at the water's edge. Waiting tensely until the oncoming sheet of foam was nearly to her slender toes, then dancing back out of reach. Laughing and splashing when the surf was too quick for her, skipping and dancing to leave quickly-filled impressions in the damp sand.

She kept her arms above her head for balance and her gaze fixed on the encroaching ocean before her. Her complexion was an uninterrupted cafe au lait, smooth and gleaming in appearance, her hair a glossy, satiny black, tied back in a long, thick mass that danced like a Carnival headdress.

She wore an electric turquoise bathing suit that consisted of a small triangular patch in front and a slender north-south strip in back -- the latter seldom visible as it disappeared between her flexing buttocks. The top of the suit was simply two more tiny triangles held more or less in place by strings the diameter of shoelaces. She was so near to naked as not to matter, and might as well have been for all the difference it seemed to make to her.

On the first occasion, I stopped ten feet away and slightly behind her field of vision and exposed a couple of frames of film. I thought she was unaware of my presence but then she turned toward me with her hands on her hips, cocked her head, and dazzled me with her small, very white teeth. I shot two more pictures in rapid succession before she could move, then lowered the camera and smiled my thanks. She grinned, which made her seem much younger for a moment, and returned to her game.

Two days later, I went back to the same stretch of beach, frankly hoping to find my young model again. I'd already developed the earlier roll and an enlargement of one of her unselfconscious poses stood propped above the stereo in my penthouse where I could admire it (and her) at my ease.

I spotted her up ahead, wearing the same turquoise suit. This time she was sitting crosslegged in the sand, brushing out her long hair. When she noticed my approach she pretended she hadn't and casually dropped the brush in the bright canvas tote beside her. Then she reached behind her neck with one hand and behind her back with the other and just as casually dropped her top. She rose in a single, fluid movement and strode into the water, small breasts pointing straight ahead and jiggling not at all. When she was knee-deep, she stopped, looked around, and seemed to notice me for the first time.

She raised one hand, gave me a languid wave, then returned her attention to the watery horizon. But she kept her shoulders back, her posture upright, obviously hoping I was aware of the delightful conical profile she presented. Perhaps her nipples always were so engorged but I doubted it. If I ignored the slender blue line over her hip, I could believe she really was completely naked. From attractive innocence, she had passed to Lolita-like desirability.

Some of my thoughts must have leaked out, as they sometimes do, because the girl turned and fixed me with an open-mouthed stare that gradually went out of focus. Her hand drifted uncertainly to the joining of her legs. I walked closer, stopping at the margin of the surf and consciously, carefully disentangled her from my unintended mental web.

She had been leaning slightly toward me on the balls of her small feet but now she settled back on her heels and blinked. I smiled and circled around to get the sun behind me, and her warming gaze followed me like a lighthouse beacon. I knew I could have her with a gesture but I wasn't going to do it that way. Consummated sex by one of us with one so young and emotionally unformed usually results in a kind of psychological near-enslavement: Something in our seed, I'm told. I preferred to seduce her with mystery by appealing to the romance I was sure was part of her nature.

So I raised the camera and pondered her through the viewfinder. The girl was either a natural or was learning her wiles early, for she lowered her head slightly, watching me through her long lashes. Her thick, raven hair fluttered in the late morning breeze. And her nipples visibly hardened and swelled even more.

A couple of shots and I lowered the camera and gave my attention openly to her young breasts. She arched her back and pulled in her stomach and looked pleased. The beach wasn't yet crowded near us so I quietly beckoned her closer and she came out of the water gracefully and without hesitation. I gave her my most winning, worldly smile and reached out slowly and carefully to stroke my index finger across the tip of one dark brown nipple. Her eyelids drooped as she inhaled deeply and responded with a delicate shudder. And still not a syllable spoken between us.

I stepped back and calmly closed the leather case over my camera but I also watched the girl from the corner of one eye. She was unsure what to do -- step closer to me, wait for me to move close to her again? -- she didn't know what was expected of her. She rubbed the nipple I'd touched between her fingers a few times before she realized she was doing it and dropped her hand.

Should I take her back to my residence? Certainly she must have a home and family nearby. She would be missed, but she wouldn't care about that if I took her. And such things happen occasionally in Bahia. But that would be cruel, I thought, however much I might desire her. So I nodded to her, gave a little wave, and moved on down the beach. Glancing back a few yards on, I saw her abandoned expression and knew that I would return in another day or two and that she would be awaiting me anxiously.

But that was when Fate took a hand -- the chance I had entrusted myself to. I met Maya and things changed.
 

I chanced upon Maya in the afternoon of that same day, on a completely different beach. She was motionless, stretched out on her back on a large towel, well up from the water's age. She looked about twenty-five and wore dark shades and a sexy but not unusually provocative bikini. Thick, dark red hair that glinted in the sun and smooth, perfect skin that was almost unnaturally pale and yet seemed to ignore the ultraviolet assault it came under.

More important, she was one of my own kind -- I knew that much instantly, of course -- but I had no idea who she was. I walked up to her from the surf, drawn by a genetic magnetism, and stood a dozen feet away, wondering if she was asleep behind her sunglasses and searching my memory for her likeness and a name to go with it. It bothered me that I didn't recognize her; I'd thought I knew everyone who came to the Brazilian beaches.

Then only her lips moved as she said softly in accented English, "Are you going to just stand there? I know who you are -- what you are, I mean. Pull up a piece of towel and sit, why don't you?" And she smiled, amused in the knowledge that she had me at a disadvantage and that I wasn't used to it.

So I sat crosslegged on the foot-end of her towel, setting my camera beside me. "My name, at the moment, is Graeme Buchanan," I offered and her smile broadened. I look about as Scottish as the king of Persia.

"I'm Maya," she replied. No surname. Well, I've often gotten by with only one name myself, though that's become much more difficult in this century, when everything is recorded by the authorities.

"I haven't seen you around. May I ask where you're from, . . . lately?"

Her lips twitched again. "Would you believe me if I said I've been in total seclusion for a number of years? I've been living as a Cistercian nun, actually. Very cloistered. I went through a . . . traumatic patch and when it was over I found I simply had to withdraw from the world for awhile -- allow myself a quiet period in which to heal my mind. I finally discarded my habit less than a year ago and I'm still readjusting to this strange but interesting new world."

A vampire nun! How delightful, I thought. Whatever would the Pope say? Still, she had chosen an ingenious hideout from her former life, whatever it might have been. Then Maya took a deep preparatory breath, let it out slowly, and sat up. She removed the dark glasses and leaned back on her outstretched arms so she could study me. I returned her forthright gaze, mentally cataloging her features and beginning to appreciate how lovely she actually was. Her arching eyebrows matched her hair in color and her eyes were the iridescent green one finds only in the purest emeralds. She watched me watching her and her full lips pursed slightly -- a dramatic and very erotic gesture.

"Graeme, do you know you're the first . . . colleague . . . who has actually taken the initiative to talk to me? I've seen a few others, but they steered clear of me."

"With your looks, I find that difficult to believe," I replied with a gallant smile. "Seriously, if the others haven't recognized you either, they simply may not wish to involve themselves with you until they discover who you are and where you've sprung from. I, on the other hand, am a famous busybody." She laughed again and I was drawn to the dancing sparkle in her eyes.

"I guess I'd forgotten how paranoid our kind can be," she said. "In a convent, you learn to take the sisters on trust. It's the only way the cloistered community can function. But paranoia has its place, I suppose, when you're a-- when you're one of us." She glanced around to see if anyone had overheard her near-slip, then saw my gently mocking grin and blushed.

I leaned closer and said in a stage-whisper, "Wouldn't be a touch of that paranoia, would it?" She grinned back -- those lovely eyes again! -- and relaxed. I felt suddenly as if I'd known her for a very long time.

We chatted awhile and it developed that Maya had raised only enough cash after departing the convent to get her to the Southern Hemisphere. She had found a small, inexpensive flat in a less fashionable part of town and had no plans except soaking up a lot more sun. She hadn't even acquired a car, so I drove her home. Then I waited politely in her front room while she changed out of her bathing suit in the bedroom.

I was surprised to see a row of three faded but neatly framed daguerreotypes arranged on a window ledge. We're not much given to family photos and mementos, except as props. Maya hadn't even assumed a new public persona yet.

Examining the photos more closely, I decided the adult male wearing the cheap suit with the over-the-shoulder tricolor sash must be some sort of local official, presumably in France. The woman wearing the highnecked dress with the bustle in the second picture must be his wife. The couple appeared together in the third photo, looking much more relaxed, wearing the preposterous outfits the Victorians called "bathing costumes." They were accompanied by a little girl, perhaps ten years old, who had turned her head while the shutter was open, blurring her face beyond recognition. Who were these people?

Maya returned, humming and brushing out her shoulder-length auburn hair. She wore a simple sheath that stopped at mid-thigh -- the sort of comfortable, inexpensive, low-maintenance dress worn by half the women in Brazil on any given day. She sounded cheerful, almost exuberant, until she saw what I was studying so carefully. Then she stopped all movement and took on a wary expression. That increased the mystery. I indicated the photos and raised an eyebrow.

She took one of those deep breaths again, let it out, and looked me straight in the eye. "My parents," she said softly. "And me."

I didn't understand for a moment. How could the little girl with the blurred face be Maya? Or did she only mean she told outsiders that? No -- that couldn't be right, either: Anyone could see the pictures were more than a century old. She continued to stare at me solemnly and I finally realized what she was saying.

I'm not often speechless but it just didn't make sense and I couldn't think of an appropriate response. Finally: "May I ask how old you are, my dear?"

"I was born the year his Imperial Highness, Prince Napoleon, became President of the Republic -- 1848. I entered the convent in 1870, shortly after we -- the French army, that is -- were defeated at Sedan, and the Emperor was deposed." One corner of her mouth quirked. "I guess that makes me a child, doesn't it? Compared to you?"

I was thoroughly floored. This "young" woman seemed so normal -- normal for us -- and she was claiming to be less than a hundred-and-fifty? I was more than twenty times her age. In all those centuries, the only "new-borns" I'd ever heard of were the night-dwellers, but I'd met Maya under the thundering sun.

"Where are your parents, then? Why don't I know them? Are they in seclusion, too?"

"No, they're dead. My father died in the war against Prussia. I received word of my mother's death when I'd been in the convent about twenty-five years; she'd died of old age."

I sat rather heavily on the rattan settee beside the window. "You're saying your parents . . . they weren't. . . ?" Maya slowly shook her head. "But-- Homo sapiens can't produce-- I mean, they *must* have been--" I stammered to a halt as the auburn waves continued their negative motion.

"No, they were just ordinary people. Happy in their ordinary lives." She glanced at the group photo. "I was still ordinary myself when that was taken near La Rochelle. I entered puberty at thirteen and I . . . changed. I changed quite a lot. There were new hungers, new needs. I first had sex at fourteen with a farm boy of twenty. I used him up, in all senses. It was a mystery death that aroused the neighborhood to a frightening degree. My father was the local notaire, so he organized the search for the 'savage killer' . . . and he never knew what was living under his roof."

It was obvious Maya had never unburdened herself like this to anyone. I could understand why. A young girl, suddenly discovering what to her would be horrible, unnatural desires, giving in to what could not be repressed or denied. And no one to tutor her in her role in the world. Without conscious thought, I reached out and took her hand. The look of gratitude she returned was nearly unbearable. When it became obvious she wasn't going to say anything more for the moment, I stood and drew her up with me.

"Maya, . . . my dear, . . . you've been alone for so long. A sort of loneliness I can't begin to imagine." Her features, held carefully in control, finally crumpled and she buried her face against my chest, clutching the lapels of my seersucker jacket as she sobbed out a century of unhappiness.

"I don't want to impose myself on you in any way, . . . but I would like to suggest that you come and live with me, at least for awhile. We can talk and I can . . . tell you things perhaps, things you need to know. You'd have your own room, of course," I added quickly. "I'm not asking you to, uh. . . ."

She gulped as she got herself under control and tried to laugh. "I understand what you're saying, Graeme. You're a gentleman and I think I have nothing to fear from you." She raised her head and tried to smooth out the wrinkles she'd squeezed into my shirtfront. There were a few more ragged breaths as she composed herself.

"I'd be pleased to accept your very kind invitation, monsieur. I find I do need someone to confide in, someone I can ask questions of. I've been in hiding for far too long. That's why I emerged from that starched linen shell, isn't it? I must discover what I am, out here in the world." Her warm smile was breathtaking. "And I can certainly use a gentle guide."
 
 

Copyright 1994 by Michael K. Smith. Copies may be made and posted elsewhere for personal enjoyment, but all commercial rights are reserved.