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OOPS, I DID IT AGAIN

EDDIE

Chinese fairytales as old as 300 BC tell stories of young women who fell in love with blood-drinking demons and gained immortal beauty as long as they remained their mistresses. Similar stories appear in Hindu mythology, Central European folklore, and even Maori traditions.

The legends about immortality and humans changing into vampires are often interconnected. During times when human life was more fragile than today, vampire longevity and slower aging, immunity to human diseases, and the capacity to heal superficial wounds were deemed supernatural. While mankind was decimated by plagues and wars, the vampires survived, appearing nearly immortal. Understandably, if it were possible to turn into a vampire, some people would willingly do so.

Another possible source of the immortality and transformation myths is the long-term effect of the venom. While there is still little research in that area, high and repeated exposure to vampire venom over a prolonged period of time might have positive effects on human health, such as lowering blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and even decreased risk of some cancers. However, these benefits are also, without exaggeration, attributed to frequent and satisfying sexual intercourse. Whether the venom can slow down some symptoms of aging is disputable.

Psychoanalysts in the early twentieth century famously recommended vampire bite as a cure for hysteria and a variety of other neurotic symptoms in women. It went unsaid that the bite was accompanied by masturbation or, more often, intercourse with a vampire. Medical circles were in agreement that a human woman couldn’t be impregnated by a vampire and that vampires didn’t carry sexually transmitted diseases. Together with meager knowledge about female pleasure—some physicians and sexologists of the era even denied the existence of female orgasm—these facts led to the rise of one of the most fascinating moral paradoxes in human history. If a married lady visited a vampire establishment, it was not considered adultery as long as it was for therapeutic purposes.

In the twenties, some dinner clubs began promoting themselves as spas, and the human guests would pay a significant fee to become dinner. The vampires who worked in these clubs were considered healers, received a hefty salary on top of the supply of willing prey, and some even gained notoriety for their perceived quality of venom and healing skills, in other words, their sexual prowess. The myth about the rejuvenating effect of vampire venom was once again in circulation, much to the benefit of the vampiric community.

Rising religious conservatism during the Great Depression slowly pushed vampire clubs into illegality until the sexual revolution of the sixties.

* * *

Helen and Pierce were apparently determined to become my most difficult clients ever. They were invariably good to me, but when they revealed the name of the baby’s father, I wished I could have turned back time and studied to become a vet.

Charles Carlsson Jr. rose to fame playing hothead action heroes, and word had it that his real-life personality wasn’t far away from the characters he portrayed. He must have been a funny antidote to Pierce’s dark pragmatism. As soon as his promo tour ended, he would land in our lap, and we would have to explain to him that punching a paparazzo was not good PR. He needed media training, even though trying to teach him the strategy would be like teaching a cat to fetch.

“I owe you an apology,” Pierce told me.

We were in the same suite at the hotel where we’d first met the clients, but we’d spread out a workstation in the living room this time. The sofas were more comfortable. Helen sat by Pierce’s left, her hand casually resting on his thigh. Russel took a seat by my side, just close enough not to appear inappropriate but still make me hyper-aware of him.

Surprised, I blinked at Pierce. “I’m not aware of anything that would require an apology.”

“Charlie will live with us,” Helen said. “As soon as his promotional tour is over, he’s moving in. Had we decided to lie about the nature of our relationship and my pregnancy, that wouldn’t have been possible.”

“I was rude to you and underestimated you,” Pierce insisted.

“You were just protecting your family.”

Pierce Black was walking, talking charisma. All that intensity aimed at me made me fidget like a schoolboy in the principal’s office, no matter if he praised or criticized me. I moved a prepared folder toward the couple, almost toppling Pierce’s water glass in the process. He steadied it, offering me a rather wolfish grin.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I stammered out. “We have the social media posts announcing the pregnancy ready for you to review. Feel free to comment or ask questions. Take the folder with you and look at it in peace. We still have ten days, so no need to stress about it. It’s most important that you’re comfortable with the content.”

“We’ll need your help to navigate the press after Charlie joins us.” Helen looked a little sheepish.

“He’s already let it slip in an interview that he has had sexual experiences with both women and men,” Russel said. “Did he tell you beforehand he was planning to come out?”

Pierce heaved a mighty sigh, but he was smiling fondly. “He did not.”

“I think he was trying to help,” Helen said.

Russel smiled back. “I hope he’s willing to do the media training with us.”

“If he caught you suggesting what he said was stupid, he’d storm out of here like this.” Pierce snapped his fingers to drive his point home.

“We’ll leave it up to you how you want to bring it up with him,” I said. “Once the public makes the connection between Charles Carlsson staying at your house, admitting his bisexuality, and Helen’s pregnancy, he’ll face much higher pressure.”

“I think he can be persuaded to listen,” Helen said.

“We won’t force him to behave in a way that would contradict his character and values. But we can help him recognize warning signals when facing the media and prepare safe reactions beforehand.” Or at least I hoped we could.

Russel then continued to close the meeting, reminding the couple about the content they needed to review and confirming a date for our next consultation when Charles Carlsson would be present.

We shook hands at the door under the stern scrutiny of their security detail.

“It’s been a pleasure working with you, Eddie,” Pierce said as he squeezed my hand, and I swallowed against a sudden dryness in my throat. Did I imagine the glint in his eyes? Helen smiled knowingly.

Was Pierce Black attracted to me? They were in a committed threesome now, so it was a moot point anyway. But wow! I was allowed to be flattered, right?

“Thank you. I’m looking forward to our continued cooperation,” I stammered out, which made Pierce grin. Then he winked.

The door closed, and I stared at it for a second longer before I shook myself and turned to my boss.

Russel squinted at me, his mouth pinched. Why did he look mad?

“I think we’re done, right? I’ll review Charles’s public appearances over the past few months and draft a basic approach, but I guess we have a little more time now. They’re nice, aren’t they? It’s great that they want to keep us on.” I was babbling.

Glowering at nothing in particular, Russel closed his laptop and shoved it into his bag. “They’re eating out of your hand.” The resentment in his voice was thinly veiled. He was pissed, and my body reacted immediately. Cold sweat covered my neck, and my stomach tightened.

“Is there something more you think we should talk about?” I asked, sounding weak. I hated how his sudden foul mood affected me.

“Nope. You handled everything great. A-plus. As usual.” I’d never seen him so angry. His face was a mask of barely contained rage. He briskly zipped up his bag and moved toward the door.

“Is something wrong?” I knew I didn’t deserve his anger. Whatever had crept up his butt wasn’t my fault. Why was I panicking?

Russel paused with his back to me and hung his head. “Nothing’s wrong, Eddie. Go home and relax.”

And now he was patronizing me. That wouldn’t do. “Why are you angry?”

He spun around and spread his arms, his laptop bag dangling from his hand. “I’m being an asshole because Pierce was flirting with you, okay? It’s unprofessional and unfair of me, and I apologize.”

His nostrils flared, and his jaw tightened.

He was jealous.

Another vampire looked at me funny once, and Russel was jealous.

His eyes were getting pale again. I’d done my research; copper to reddish hues in irises meant the vampire had recently fed. Pale gold suggested it had been a while.

If the last time he fed was with me, it would soon be two weeks. And because he’d turned me into a fool led by my dick, my first urge was to offer myself to him. I had no interest in Pierce or anybody else. I’d been fantasizing only about Russel since the evening I met him.

I realized my hand went to my throat on autopilot. I rubbed the spot where he’d bitten me at the club. Russel’s golden eyes zeroed in on my hand, and his mouth parted.

My heart beating double time, I slowly dropped my hand, exposing my throat. Russel took a step, then paused.

The universe must have shifted around us because suddenly, the gravitational forces pulled my whole being toward him. I should be mad at him for acting possessive of me when he had no right. Instead, his jealousy brought me a rush of exhilaration and arousal.

I am certifiable.

He stared at me with fury and want, and my cock was getting hard.

As if hypnotized, I lifted my chin a fraction and popped open the top button of my shirt. He licked his lips. Another button.

Russel carelessly dropped the laptop bag onto the sofa, and in three strides, he was in my space.

He wrapped one arm around my lower back and dove into my hair with his other hand. He tilted my head back and to the side.

“Say it,” he rasped, his lips hovering over the fragile skin on my throat.

“Bite me.”

He let out a short laugh at my double meaning and tightened his hold on me. “Cheeky thing.”

The first touch was a kiss. An open-mouthed, slow kiss to my throat, a soft lick over the vein. He made a deep, purring sound, and my eyes fell shut. How easily I forgot about the rules and consequences…

He moved forward, guiding me until my ass hit a desk. I clung to his shoulders as he kissed up and down the vein. God, I couldn’t wait. Now that I knew what was coming, the yearning stole my breath. I arched toward Russel, every cell in my body begging him.

Then came the sting. Finally.

Fire and ice spread from the spot. I couldn’t tell when the venom hit me because the anticipation alone made me painfully aroused. He shoved a knee between my thighs and unzipped my pants. Then his warm hand wrapped around my cock.

My desperate moan resounded in the empty suite like an explosion. Russel hummed into my flesh. He stroked me firmly but slowly, and he sucked .

Heat spread through my bloodstream, and my every nerve ending came alive. My cum bubbled over his fingers, but the orgasm didn’t stop. Tingling pleasure kept coming in waves, and I moaned louder and louder.

He licked over the wound and let go of my cock. Was it over already? No!

But Russel was undoing his pants while he kept my head bent back with a firm grip on the hair on my nape.

Then his erection touched mine, and I cried out.

He took us both in his fist.

I lost myself when he bit me the second time, maybe an inch below the first bite. I could hear myself gasping, “Yes!”

His cock moved against mine, hard like a rock and warm, and the wound on my throat hurt in the most decadent way. Helpless, pinned down by his fangs in my throat, I flew on the inside.

Suddenly, I couldn’t feel his lips anymore. Was I still bleeding?

“Open your eyes, Eddie.”

I obeyed.

His face was inches away from mine, and he was staring at me. His eyes were on fire, like hot coals in his irises, and his lips were stained with deep red.

My blood.

His tongue flicked against his needle-sharp fangs.

He’s been drinking my blood. The warm hardness against my aching erection… that’s his cock.

His hand stroked up and down, and I whimpered.

Oh God. So close.

“Your pupils are blown. I love it when you look at me like this.”

He brushed his bloodstained lips against mine, then moved lower along my jaw and throat until he closed his mouth over the wound. He began drinking again, and his hand tightened around us.

A few strokes, and I was falling again.

My head was spinning, my vision went black, and I bucked into his grip. The second orgasm was longer than the first. All of me was throbbing and shaking, and then I felt his cock jerk against mine. He smeared my erection with his cum. He rubbed it all over my oversensitive cockhead as he licked the bite on my throat.

One day, I wanted to see the open wound. I wanted to watch myself bleed before he’d lick it off.

Fuck . I was already counting on doing this again.

When he straightened before me, his fangs were gone, and there were no traces of blood anywhere near his mouth. His eyes were the color of sunset.

He loosened his grip on my hair and massaged my scalp. I could smell a faint salty tang when he exhaled. He let go of my flagging cock and lifted his hand to his lips. With his gaze on me, he licked the cum drops from his index finger.

I opened my mouth like a baby bird.

Russel dragged his cum-stained fingers over my parted lips, and my tongue darted out. I caught the taste of the two of us, so different from how I’d tasted to myself the couple of times I’d tried.

He held his hand for me, and I licked around his fingers like a cat.

“Eddie…”

His voice sounded pained.

The next second, he pressed his lips against mine. Sharing the taste of our release, we kissed. He caught my upper lip between his, then licked into my mouth, and our tongues tangled together. He tilted his head to the side, and the kiss got deeper and dirtier.

I slid my hands up his arms and closed them around his neck. Our bare, sticky groins pressed together. With a firm hand on the back of my head, he held me to him and devoured me.

I’d come twice. I should be done. I should be thinking again, regretting, berating myself; any moment now, the spell would be broken…

But we just kept kissing.

He kissed me until the venom must have been long gone from my system, and the cum on my skin began to dry.

He brushed his parted lips over mine with tenderness, then dove into my mouth, only to soften the kiss again. He pressed butterfly kisses to the corners of my mouth and the center of my top lip, traced it with the tip of his tongue, nuzzled my cheek, and sucked on my tongue anew.

We could have been kissing for half an hour.

“Eddie, baby, I can’t stop.” One more kiss followed by one more. A flick of his tongue. “You need to tell me this isn’t over.”

As if I could tell him no. “It’s not over.”

He groaned and buried his face at the base of my throat.

“We’ll set up rules,” he murmured. “Limits. I won’t hurt your career, I swear, but you must let me…”

Another groan.

“Fuck, I sound like a bastard.”

I couldn’t help it; I laughed. “I have to let you feed from me?”

He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed. “Please, Eddie. Having you in front of my nose every day and not knowing if I’d ever be allowed to taste you again has been torture.”

I could start repeating all the perfectly legitimate reasons why this was a spectacularly dumb idea. But my body and soul were chanting yes. Nothing could ever compare to the feeling of his hands and lips on me, his fangs piercing my skin, and his venom coursing through my blood. It was the most thrilling sensation, the pinnacle of joy, and I was already addicted.

How would it even work? Would I stay after hours every Friday to be his dinner? Would we do it during lunch breaks in his executive bathroom? Would he ever invite me to his home?

I wanted him to fuck me. I wanted to know how a bite would feel with his dick in me.

He said he wanted to feed from me. Just that? All those kisses… Was that my payment?

But I couldn’t ask more questions and negotiate the arrangement now because I would agree to everything he wanted.

“Okay,” I murmured weakly. “We should probably clean up now.”

He sighed into my skin and pressed a firm kiss to the vein he’d pierced earlier. “Thank you, Eddie.”

Did I just promise to become my boss’s vending machine?