Page 7 of Just for a Taste

D espite the rough start, the next several days of my stay were an utter fantasy. The morning progressed like clockwork, where I played the role of a gentlewoman: I was woken up and brought down to a gourmet breakfast, then a bath was drawn for me. After being dressed by Lucia, Signora Carbone would provide a light afternoon snack, paired with some sort of local drink.

After that, Lucia would bring me down for afternoon tea with Doctor Ntumba, and the two of us would chat briefly. I would listen as she explained Sicilian culture, the latest advancements in medicine, and her surprising interest in anthropology. Now and then, I’d get a peek into her personal life: the antics of her two college-aged sons, the crafts she’d liked to do with her late husband, and her young life as a Christian in Egypt. She stated to me often that she had an unusual and even controversial specialty in medicine, but did not go in any further depth. She served as a grounding point, someone whose pragmatic presence would remind me the rapping outside my window at night, or the scratching in my walls, were likely twigs and small animals, respectively—not specters I had conjured up.

While I enjoyed these conversations, I was always more eager for what came after: the rest of the day in the library. At this point, I wasn’t brave enough to venture into the Medici family documents themselves, but I was content enough with a seemingly unlimited supply of novels from the past five centuries on all four walls around me. I had a good idea of where to start and felt confident that my eventual search would be fruitful. There were ample CDs and records, along with the books, and in the corner was enough art supplies to last me a few years. I had dabbled in painting during my undergraduate years and was pleasantly surprised to find I had a bit of technique in me still.

Despite being surrounded by the richest architectural beauties I could ever imagine, I found myself sketching the elusive Duca de’ Medici time and time again. I would set out to paint the interior of a lovely greenhouse, but by the end of the painting, he would be a statue standing in the middle, ivy twisting around his legs. I would try to paint a sunset on the beach, and his intense eyes would find their way to swirl into the crimsons in the sky. Soon enough, the vampire turned into a fictional character in my mind, along with Beowulf and Heathcliff and Tristan.

Occasionally, I saw flashes of him. He would sometimes pass me in the hall, his chin raised high, not giving me a single glance. There were a few instances where I walked in on him stretched out like a cat in front of the fireplace with a book in hand, and he tossed me an annoyed glance for the intrusion and angled the cover away from me. More often, I heard music coming from his room and saw trays of chocolates and tea placed at the foot of his door.

By the time I was brought down one day into a unexpectantly modern exam room within the abbey, I had almost forgotten my purpose.

“I’m just going to run a standard CBC and CMP on you,” Doctor Ntumba informed me. “Assuming your labs are good, I will be drawing a liter of blood from you tomorrow to transfuse to Zeno.”

Transfuse? I had never heard of a beniamina donating blood via any route other than direct drinking. It would be a lie to say I wasn’t a little relieved at the prospect of this untraditional donation, but I also felt strangely wounded. I couldn’t help but wonder if some part of me wasn’t good enough, or if Duca de’ Medici found me repulsive in any way.

Doctor Ntumba attempted to walk me through the process, but I was too distracted by the elephant in the room. When she finished tying the tourniquet, I couldn’t bear it any longer. “Is it normal for vampires to get blood like this? I’ve never read of beniamini donating blood so—” I paused, looking for the word. “—clinically.”

“You’re correct. This is inefficient,” Doctor Ntumba replied as she scrubbed my inner elbow with an alcohol wipe. “Transference can damage platelets, for instance, and it’s easy for fluid overload to occur.”

“Then why are we doing it like this?”

She chuckled more warmly than I had ever heard. “Because Zeno is foolish and shy.”

“Him? Shy? ” I exclaimed without thinking.

“That and terrified of intimacy. Drinking someone’s blood is very . . . familiar.”

Portraits of the process with romantic or even erotic undertones filled my mind. I had written an entire paper on the artistic significance of ritus sanguinous , the first public drinking, simple and sweet, marking the bond between a vampire and their beniamini , which could be a massive occasion spanning multiple days.

As she capped a vial I hadn’t realized I had been filling, she looked up at me. “But you knew that already, and you will do your duty soon.”

I flinched. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

“Nothing unusual. Zeno wants to drink from you, and he wishes for you to offer him company.”

My entire body grew hot. Company? Did she mean in a romantic or intimate sense? I was neither my mother’s child, nor my father’s, when it came to emotional or physical openness. From a young age, I’d admired from afar—in the same impossible-to-replicate way as I would a circus performer—the way the two had gushed over one another like newlyweds. And while I had never experienced such a relationship, I felt I was doomed to repeat its end—not the literal death that had ended their love, but the death of intimacy. Emily and I hadn’t slept together for months before we broke up, and it had been years since I’d been with a man. God knew I hadn’t even considered the possibility of sharing a bed with Duca de’ Medici. With the face of an angel but the temperament of the devil, was I even attracted to him like that?

“I thought I was a beniamina in name alone. I thought you said Zeno may not even interact with me. When you say ‘company,’ do you mean . . .?”

After swiftly removing the needle and instructing me to hold a cotton ball to where it had been, she replied, “He just wishes to talk with you, Cora. Zeno has been getting to know you, albeit from a distance.”

I only felt relief for an instant before I considered the implications of the latter sentence. Had he seen what I was up to? Did he know he was in all of my paintings?

Doctor Ntumba keyed in on my panicked expression and was quick to elaborate. “I’ve seen him looking at the library’s logbook. Anything you’ve listened to here, so has he, often while reading what you’ve read. Truthfully, he’s so busy studying your tastes that he barely speaks to me at all anymore.”

“That’s . . .” I wasn’t sure what the end of my sentence would be. Invasive? Weird? Flattering? “. . . unexpected. Why didn’t you tell me this sooner? How long have you known?”

A twinge of guilt flickered onto her face briefly, but her expression quickly returned to its usual stoniness. “It wasn’t my business. You’re going to have tea in the main library this evening with him before dinner. I have other matters to attend to.”

I felt lightheaded. “I thought he hated me.”

“Far from it,” she replied with a chuckle.

“I mean, he always glares at me, or outright ignores me, and—”

“Keep pressure on that cotton ball,” Doctor Ntumba cut in with an uncharacteristically stern tone. I pushed down the cotton as she explicitly ordered and followed the implicit one to shut up.

I watched in silence as Doctor Ntumba carefully stowed away the blood bags and retrieved a set of fresh supplies. Once she laid everything out, she turned back to me with folded arms. “How do you feel?”

“Okay?” My answer sounded like just as much of a question as hers.

“Well enough to walk?”

“I guess.”

“Good.” She pulled a string on the wall I hadn’t realized was there. Another bell.

From across the hall, I could hear two sets of footsteps nearing. Shit. I was only half of the transfusion. Duca de’ Medici was coming to the exam room, presumably, and the two of us would have to cross paths. Per my racing heart, this was neither the time nor the setting for small talk.

I closed my eyes and charted an escape route. If I left the room right away, I could make it out the side door. Then I could cut through the garden and hopefully make it into my suite entirely unseen.

I leaped off the exam table. “Thanks! I’ll let you know if I have any issues.”

I snatched the bandage from the doctor’s hand. To my relief, she didn’t stop me as I raced out the door.

Once I made it to the courtyard, I looked at my watch. I had two hours before tea. Two hours to figure out how the hell to talk with my strange host.