Over the next month or so, we settled into a comfortable and familial routine. A casual inquiry about Anna's progress in school at the time she'd left home
brought a polite but absolute refusal to consider re-enrollment. Instead, she began to work her way omnivorously through my extensive library (a feature of living I regard as a necessity in every residence I've ever owned).

I still walked the beaches around Bahia, but no longer alone. Sometimes Maya would accompany me while Anna pursued her self-guided studies or went off into the city on her own unknown errands. She had a key to the penthouse now, and I declined to ask what she did when she disappeared for an entire morning. Or, Maya would be involved in something of her own and Anna would come along for a stroll. And whether she wore shorts on the beach or that devastating thong, she often held my hand. It was a peaceful and fulfilling time in my life.

Anna had discovered the enlarged photo of herself, of course, and at times she could hardly keep her eyes off it. Finally, she asked shyly if I would take more pictures of her. I'd been sure she would ask eventually, and I had already thought about poses and props.

So, while Maya roamed behind me, studying avidly everything I did, I spread my young model across an antique red velvet sofa in a rumpled white silk shirt that was far too large for her; just the shirt and nothing else. Her long, brown legs contrasted beautifully with the red and the white and her thick, dark hair, spread across her face and draped along her arm, made her seem mysterious. Anna herself decided to remove the shirt and lean over the arm of the sofa, hair curtaining her face, her small breast forming a perfect, shallow curve. Another pose which was especially successful featured her naked, lithe body in the open doorway to a westward-facing balcony, silhouetted against a rich brick-red sunset.

I developed all my work myself, of course, not allowing either of the women to see the results until they were dry and simply matted. When I unveiled the oversized prints, Maya hugged me appreciatively. Anna simply stared at the serene images of herself with her mouth open. When she turned to me with an expression of disbelieving wonder, I considered myself fully paid for my time and effort. But it was easy, I knew, to make such a beautiful young woman appear magical to the camera.

Maya and I continued our sexual explorations, of course, and made no attempt to conceal them from our young guest. Once, after a mid-afternoon romp in the sheets, we emerged to find a grinning adolescent complaining that she couldn't read with all the noise in the apartment. That encounter degenerated into a tickling match in which I was the general loser, being badly outnumbered. In fact, I ended on my back with Anna sitting astride my waist and the tickling evolved into warm, loving caresses and hugs. While Maya was looking the other way, Anna reached back and tapped my cock lightly through my trousers, as if to remind me she was more than the innocent young girl she often appeared to be. As if I'd ever forgotten it.

A few nights after that, I heard a whimpering sound from down the hall and went to check. The poor girl had had intermittent bad dreams ever since moving in, but they had become much less frequent. I touched her shoulder and whispered, "Wake up, my dear," and she sat straight up, eyes wide and breathing labored. I put my arms around her and she hung onto my neck as she got herself back under control. But unlike earlier occasions when I'd offered her comfort, this time she murmured in my ear, "May I come and sleep with you and Maya?"

A worse than usual dream, I thought, so I scooped her up and carried her back to our room. She slept in a tee-shirt and panties and I was very aware, as before, of the warmth of her ripening young body. I laid her on the bed and she scooted sleepily over to the middle to give me room. Maya awoke just enough to stroke her head a few times and I fell asleep again with Anna's angular body snuggled up against mine, her head resting lightly on my shoulder.

Early the next morning, I struggled to wakefulness aware that I'd had some very sensual dreams . . . and then I discovered the reason for them. Anna's nose was nuzzling my neck, she had flung one bare leg across me, and her long, slender fingers were slowly stroking and petting my semi-erect penis. I turned my head to try to focus on her face and she whispered, "I love you, Graeme. You've been so wonderful to me and I want to do something for you in return."

I tried to protest but she put a finger to my lips. "I know I don't have to. That's why I want to." Her hand continued to work its magic, stroking and squeezing until my cock was rigid and quivering. Her little kitten tongue emerged and licked the underside of my chin, giving me hot chills. She breathed into my ear: "Touch me, Graeme. Touch me everywhere. . . ." She wasn't in a position to see my face so she was unaware of my drinking teeth sliding in and out of their sheaths.

I clamped down hard on my undesired visceral reaction, not wanting to frighten her. Instead, I accepted her explicit invitation and gave my desires free rein -- and I began by hauling her tee-shirt off over her head. She giggled at the hurry I was suddenly in and followed up by stripping off her panties and then pushing my shorts down below my knees so I could rid myself of them. I turned on my side and Anna molded herself to me, front-to-front and lips-to-knees. She pushed her hot little tongue into my mouth with an urgency that raised my body temperature another ten degrees. My cock was twitching against her upper thigh and she recaptured it with one hand and began rubbing the head against the moistness of her pussy. Her other hand clutched the back of my neck possessively.

Meanwhile, I was running my fingers over as much of her smooth, highly-charged body as I could reach . . . exploring her jutting shoulderblades and the long, curving indentation of her spine, measuring the girth of her small waist, cupping her muscular little ass in my trembling hand. It was enough to cause sensory overload in a mere mortal. Her hair draped itself over my ear and her eyelashes tickled my cheek each time she blinked.

Glancing over her brown shoulder, I saw that our activity had awakened Maya, who was quickly figuring out what was going on. My sweet companion moved closer and kissed the back of Anna's neck and the girl jumped and looked back. Maya smiled sleepily and said, "Good morning, pretty one."

I felt Anna hesitate in confusion for a moment, but then Maya spread her hands across both globes of that exciting little bottom and the girl squirmed and moaned softly, accepting the attention as it was meant.

I needed both hands free for this work, so I wrapped my arms around her strong, young body and rolled onto my back with Anna stretched out on top of me. Maya immediately moved closer and began scattering additional kisses across the backs of her thighs and behind her knees. I hooked my hands under her arms and easily drew her upward above me so I could get my mouth on her delectable breasts. As I sucked on a rigidifying nipple, Anna wound her restless fingers in my hair and moaned again; it required considerable mental discipline not to sink my teeth into that dark, turgid bud.

Anna reached back between her legs, fumbling for my cock and mumbling in a low voice thick with arousal, "Put it in, please put it in." I moved her back within range and Maya unexpectedly assisted us by guiding my cock into Anna's youthful cunt. The girl sat back on my organ, eyes shut tight and knees outspread, trying to cram as much of me as possible into herself.

Though she was hardly a virgin, her passage nevertheless was snug and narrow. The head of my cock pushed against her cervix and she shuddered delicately and began moving herself slowly up and down. Maya had been attracted to my testicles since our first night in bed together; now she reached below Anna's thrusting ass and squeezed my balls. At the same time, her other hand was busily rubbing and manipulating her own clit.

The nerve-endings in my cock were sending joyous signals back to my groin and throughout my body and I couldn't suppress a gasp of undiluted pleasure. The dark pupils of my young lover's eyes expanded until she resembled a bird of prey crouched over me. I got a grip on her hips and picked up the pace, lifting her almost completely free of me and slamming her back down -- but I was careful to keep my strength under control, even while jarring the breath from her.

Maya crept up beside me and began softly chewing my earlobe. "Want some breakfast?" she asked throatily. And without waiting for a reply to her excessively rhetorical question, she quickly rose onto her knees and settled herself astride my face. I changed my grip from Anna's hips to Maya's and drew her aromatic cunt down within reach of my tongue. She squirmed and quivered even more than Anna had as I sucked at her juicy labia and stirred my tongue around in her depths. And she jerked and squeaked when I nipped at her erect clit with my incisors.

Within a few moments, I was sucking and slurping with abandon, Anna was crashing down on my cock like a pile-driver, and I became aware that the women's hands were busily fondling each other's breasts. Perhaps because she was the least experienced, Anna was the first to reach climax. I could almost visualize the psychic tidal wave rising in her mind and I tapped its thundering energy to propel myself into an explosive orgasm, filling her cunt so full of semen that it began to leak out past that tight grip and ooze down my crotch. Maya must have been tuned in to the same wavelength because her knees clamped against my ears and a rush of moist warmth flowed down from between her legs.

I finally urged Maya off me before I either drowned or suffocated and she toppled gracefully onto the bed, climbed immediately back to her knees, and held out her arms to the girl. Anna stayed where she was, skewered like a hare, while the two of them embraced and kissed passionately.

A little while later, Maya and I lay stretched out on top of the covers while Anna was in the bathroom. "She's quite marvelous," Maya commented thoughtfully. "I think I'm finally beginning to understand what love is. . . ."

I nodded silently; I'd been having similar thoughts about both women. Maya was of my own kind and Anna was not. Could my growing feelings for the two of them really be the same?

But Maya's train of thought seemed to be paralleling mine. "There's going to be a problem, you know, Graeme: How long will she stay?"

"As long as she cares to; you heard me say that and I meant it."

"Yes, of course -- but how long will that be, do you think?"

I considered. "Perhaps a year. Maybe two, but I doubt it. As soon as she feels secure again on her own, she'll be gone. And I shall miss her."

Maya stroked my arm. "I think you're wrong, Graeme. Even though neither of us has tampered with her mind or her will, I believe she will decide to stay with us indefinitely. Or she may not make a conscious decision at all . . . but that will be the outcome."

This conversation puzzled me. "You may be right, my dear; your experience with adolescent female psychology is more recent than my own. But wouldn't it please you if she did choose to stay? Think of the traveling we--"

She shook my arm impatiently. "Think about it, Graeme! In fifteen years, assuming she didn't marry and move on in the meantime, that girl will be nearly thirty years old -- and I will appear to be no older than she is! People will mistake us for sisters! And then what will she think?"

Damn. The blindness of old habits. How could that not have occurred to me? "Well, . . . we'll just have to tell her what we are, then. Slowly and carefully, of course, to allow her to get used to the idea."

"From what I've discovered of Brazil in the past few months -- from what you've taught me, Graeme -- her mental furniture is most likely a mix of Catholic dogma and black and Indian superstition. Do you really think she could deal with such a revelation? For that matter, you told me yourself that you had *never* revealed your true nature to any of the short-lived. You said it was a cautionary instinct among our people. Well, . . . *your* ancestors, anyway, since we don't know yet how I came about. . . ."

I chewed on that for several minutes. Everything Maya said was more or less true. I tried to picture myself sitting down with Anna and explaining calmly that the two adults to whom she was closest were vampires. Either she would believe me or she wouldn't, and neither possibility was very palatable. Moreover, even if she accepted us for what we were, she could never join us. Bela Lugosi notwithstanding, an ordinary human could not be converted into one of our kind.

I could easily plant an assertive suggestion in her mind, urging her to leave her newfound home after, say, four or five years -- but to do so would not only break the promise I'd made to myself not to tamper with this girl psychically, it would also leave her highly vulnerable to further suggestions from any of my relations she might run into. And I could think of no other options; the result of too many centuries of being who I was. I sighed in frustration. "All right, my dear. You seem to have given this matter some thought. Do you have a suggestion?"

"I think I do -- but you're not going to like it. Graeme, . . . consider what Anna is." She hesitated. "I don't say this lightly -- didn't I just say I'm already in love with her? -- but *I* haven't forgotten that she's *not* one of us. Have you?"

"No, of course not."

"Then why should we regard that sweet child as being essentially different from any other human? They're 'cattle', aren't they? Your words, Graeme. I think our only possible course is obvious."

I turned my head sharply and stared at her, unable to believe for a moment what she was saying. "You think we should *feed* on the poor girl, Maya?! On someone who--"

"Why 'poor girl'?" she interrupted. "You've felt passion and affection before for human women who have been your companions for a time, haven't you?"

"Well, yes, of course, but--"

"And you've fed on human children, too."

"Yes, . . . occasionally. When it was necessary. But Anna--"

"Anna's no different from all the others -- not really. Graeme: You and I will still be here in two hundred years. Perhaps together, perhaps not, but we'll be walking around and breathing. Where will Anna be?"

Anna would be thin dust in some forgotten grave in two centuries and I was foolish to forget that. And, in that light, would it be fair to Anna -- or us -- to allow her to stay indefinitely? Maya and I were essentially unchangeable in appearance and personality. Anna was not. And that was that.

"Your point is taken, Maya." I sighed heavily and squeezed her shoulder in reassurance. "I'm not sure just yet what we should do now, but I promise you I'll think about it." And I climbed out of bed, feeling every one of my many years.
 

Our comfortable existence continued as it had, . . . with the exception of much additional physical contact among the three of us. Anna enjoyed having her own bed in her own room and she seldom went to sleep with us, but Maya and I -- who never slept apart, now -- often awoke to find her snuggled between us. She also occasionally joined me in the shower, or Maya in the bath.

Even when I desired her, though, I never initiated sex with Anna, not wanting her to feel she was under pressure to please her benefactor. But she seemed to have a sixth sense about that. When I daydreamed about her, I would find her climbing into my lap or draping her arms around my neck from behind. She had a way of regarding me coyly through half-lowered lashes, the measuring look of a woman ten years older, that could (literally) get a rise out of me almost anytime.

Maya was not so reluctant. When the girl's languid form was arranged bonelessly across the couch, Maya would sit beside her and casually begin stroking and petting her, and within minutes they would embrace and kiss and Anna would ardently return her caresses. I simply could not unbend that far, not even in my own penthouse, and I wasn't sure why. Just another difference between "young" Maya and I.
 

I was relaxing in the study late one evening, reading Goethe, with my feet stretched out on an ottoman, when Anna wandered in. She glanced around and came over to lean her arms on the back of my easy chair. I was aware of her peering closely over my shoulder, but the book was in German and she sighed and began teasing the short hairs on the back of my neck.

So much for Goethe. I turned the book over on my lap, leaned back, and closed my eyes. The girl's fingers shifted to the top of my head and then to my temples, slowly and sensually mussing up my hair. I felt her fingertips moving lightly over my lips and I kissed them, and she stroked my cheek affectionately.

Then there was a pause during which her hands disappeared and there was the soft rustle of clothing; I kept my eyes closed and let my muscles relax. Then the chair arm shifted as little Anna, naked and silent, lifted herself over it and slid slowly into my lap, knocking Goethe unceremoniously to the floor. Her soft, warm hand touched my lips again and her breath warmed the base of my throat. I laid my cheek against the part in her hair and hugged her close to me. She drew up her knees in order to snuggle better.

I opened my eyes to find her examining my face with a soft smile. "You're both so good to me, so sweet, you and Maya," she said softly. "I want to stay with you forever. Can you go to a judge and make it so I can be *your* daughter? I don't think it would take very much money to get a judge to do that, would it? Then I could really belong here."

She looked so earnest. So hopeful. I thought again about what Maya had said and wondered that she could have predicted this child's thoughts so accurately. And I hugged her tighter.

I let my hand wander up the outside of her brown thigh and over the point of her hip. She sighed and spread her legs, taking my hand in hers and urging it into her crotch. I moved my palm across her pubic arch, dipping my thumb into the increasing moisture of her cunt as it slid past, ending with the first joint of my middle finger encircled by the pulsing, muscular rim of her rectum and my thumb buried deep within her. She caught her breath jerkily and clutched my shirtfront in her small fist. And she kept staring deep into my eyes as her pupils expanded.

Before I could see her, I became aware that lovely Maya had slipped into the study as well and was standing to one side, observing. Then she slowly slipped out of her own clothing and glided around in front of me, kneeling beside the ottoman. She cupped both hands around Anna's waist and the girl jumped a little in startlement. Then Maya began leaving a trail of wet kisses across her slender neck; Anna hunched her shoulders with pleasure and let her own eyelids droop, though she continued to twitch each time I moved my buried fingers.

I was looking down at the child's profile from above, wondering how anyone's eyelashes could be so long and thick, . . . so I never saw it coming.

When Anna stiffened in my arms, I thought she was reacting again to my hand-play. Then I felt the numbness spreading through her mind. I refocused abruptly and saw Maya's open mouth spread wide across the base of Anna's throat, where the big artery throbbed.

"Maya! No . . .," I moaned, even as I realized the futility of it.

Maya raised her eyes and gave me a very steady and unblinking stare as her drinking-teeth worked in deeper. The woman's mind already had overpowered that of the girl. Anna's eyes remained half-closed. The only movement she made was involuntary: The lengthening and hardening of her small, dark nipples.

I'm not an unfeeling man, and perhaps that was the problem. Maya had taken the action I couldn't bring myself to perform. But I was also a practical man. One must be practical to survive comfortably for so long. And as I watched regretfully as Maya pumped the lifegiving blood from Anna to herself, my own second incisors slid out from their hidden sheaths.
 

My redhaired lady was compassionate; it was quite easy to maintain a host for months, if necessary, by feeding only a little at a time and leaving the corpus unconscious and immobilized, but alive, between visits. But Maya was pumping blood from the girl rapidly, consuming far more than she actually could metabolize quickly, so that Anna would not suffer a lengthy quasi-existence before expiring.

I glanced to one side and raised my head. Maya got the message and quietly backed off to allow me to rise with Anna in my arms. I carried her down the hall to her own bed and laid her out on it. Then I stripped off my slacks and shirt and discarded my slippers while Maya waited patiently. I bent over the insensate child, spreading her thighs and bending her knees out of the way, and then lowering my mouth to her engorged pussy. My needlelike teeth slid into the delicate flesh and I began to suck the transported blood from her small body.

Maya resumed her feeding then, still silent in deference to the homage I was paying our little lover. We both took our fill and more, until a pallor was visible even under that lovely, sandalwood skin. Her body was small and it didn't take long.

Afterward, the two of us retired to our own bed, where I lay, satiated, while Maya sobbed quietly on my chest. She made no apologies, nor were they necessary. I stroked her and comforted her in our loss, but I knew what she had initiated was unavoidable -- as she had told me it would be. In the early hours of the morning, we both rose and dressed, and went back to the bedroom that had been Maya's, and then Anna's, and now was untenanted again. The girl seemed asleep, except for the stillness of her lungs. I thought I could make out a slight smile on her lips, but it may only have been her natural expression in repose.

Maya had brought a blanket from the storage closet and now we spread it on the bed and rolled Anna onto it. Maya looked to me and raised her eyebrows; I looked away, giving her permission to continue with what was necessary. She crouched over the small body, her second incisors re-entering the same punctures. I imagined the reverse flow as the decomposition-aiding enzyme flowed into the girl's vascular system.

After a few minutes, Maya straightened again and carefully, gently, the blanket over the body. Then she came into my arms and I held her closely as we waited. Finally, we gathered up the now-smaller bundle and left the apartment. I didn't often drive in the city, preferring cabs and pedestrianism, but I kept a car in the building's locked garage, and we went downstairs to it now and left.

It wasn't far to the beach where I'd first met Anna, the beach from which we had rescued her that night. As I parked off the road, I projected a signal of raw, blinding terror toward the beach and for several hundred yards in both directions through the bordering trees and undergrowth. As we got out of the car, I dimly heard a few bodies crashing desperately away. There was very little traffic and the two figures who sprinted out onto the dark surface nearby were in no real danger as they fled across the parkway and blundered into some shrubbery.

Then I picked up the blanket and Maya and I walked down to the surf. She was sensitive to my sadness -- I'm certain she shared it -- and she stopped well back from the water's edge. I stepped out of my sandals and waded out into the foamy, receding tide. When I was thigh-deep, I flipped the blanket open and let it settle on the dark water's surface. A few remaining scraps of flesh and bone floated away on the next outsurge and the blanket itself settled gradually until the lower current pulled it away from where I stood.

This was where little Anna had been happiest before she met me, dancing lightly in the waves, and this was where I had to return her few remains, allowing the waves to win the game at last.

I watched for some minutes longer, even after there was nothing more to see. Then I turned and strode back to where Maya waited. I stood looking down at her, unwilling to have to think, and she somberly reached up and touched the corners of my eyes. They might have been tears, . . . but I doubt it.

I took a deep breath and slipped my arm around Maya's shoulders as we began the trek back to the car. "My dear, what would you think of returning to France in a few days?" She smiled warmly up at me. "I have quite a lovely, though small, villa in Monte Carlo. . . ."
 
 

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