Sips of Blood Part 2

"No it ain't. He's a pest. Wants to check up on how I'm doing."

"That is considerate."

"Wants to put me in some old-age home and sell the land."

"He said that?"

"I've known him all his twenty-seven years. I can read his mind."

"Your wife?"

"Dead. Died giving birth to the s.h.i.t."

"I'm certainly glad you dropped by to tell me the latest news. If there's anything I can do--"

"There is."

Marie's gut knotted.

"See, he thinks I have friends."

"And you and I..."

He nodded.

"I'd be delighted to be your friend. However, since we are such old buddies, I must insist you come in for some hot chocolate, dear."

She saw Keith wince. I dare you to correct me. He didn't. She threw open the antique oak door and invited him in with a crook of her finger.

"If the eclairs are too rich for you, I have some angel food cake."

"Nothing wrong with my stomach."

"Good."

Chapter 5.

Louis had stopped at a pet shop, where he had selected a beautiful white rabbit. The animal was plump and healthy.

"I'll take it," he had said.

"I have to warn you, sir, he has a nasty temper and has nipped several people."

No problem, Louis thought, Liliana can be far nastier when hungry.

His niece, Liliana, had sworn off human blood ever since she had fallen for the British espece de cretin Stuart. Melodramatic, he thought. He couldn't understand her constant whining about lost youth, when forever she would look seventeen. And she would never have babies. She never would have brats that would keep her locked away in an insane asylum, as he had had.

Suddenly the Jaguar was filled with an offensive odor.

"Alors! You were too well-fed. You'll have to sit in it until we get home, Monsieur Lapin de Garenne."

In answer there was a steady beating against the walls of the animal carrier.

"Ah, Liliana, obviously I would do anything to see you happy again. However, mortality cannot be my gift to you. Instead I gave you eternal life and received tears from you in return.

"Lapin, is that fair? If I were to give you eternal life..."

A loud fart came from the carrier.

"Jamais! Never! If Liliana does not suck you dry, I shall make a stew of you."

The cup slipped from her fingers and crashed into pieces against the porcelain of the sink. Liliana's hands shook. She needed fresh blood. The blood extracted from cadavers kept her going only for a short while.

Three years before, she had gotten a job near the city at an embalming company that serviced several funeral homes. She would position a dead body on the embalming table so that the blood would flow into the gutters that ringed the table. From there the blood would drip into pails. Most times she worked alone, but when another worker was present she would have to take great care to save the blood before someone could dispose of it. The blood was not rich in the nutrients she needed but did afford some a.s.sistance in staving off starvation.

Slowly she picked up the jagged pieces of china. Lennox. Relatively new and simple. Too simple for her Uncle Donatien, who preferred the ornate and antique.

She dropped the pieces of china into the garbage.

"Ma pet.i.te!"

"In the kitchen, Uncle Donatien!"

"My precious pet," said Louis as he entered the room with arms outstretched.

Liliana tolerated the hug and the un-uncle-like kiss Louis persisted in giving.

He sniffed the air.

"Blood. Sour, bitter blood. Have you been drinking that horrid filth again?"

"I brought home some blood from work and just had a cup of it."

"Yech! Did you store that garbage in our cooler?"

"Yes, I put the left-overs in the refrigerator. I don't want to argue over it, Uncle."

"Dead blood in our home, among our vittles."

"Uncle, we're dead."

"Mais non. Dead is when you putrefy and disappear into dust. We, child, thrive in the arms of immortality."

"We can be destroyed."

"Ah, a sin."

"A reality check, Uncle."

"And here I have brought home a gift for you. Something at least better than that awful stuff you steal from work. Work!"

"I work to feed myself. I can't manage to get enough animal blood to satisfy my appet.i.te."

"Of course not, animal blood is thin. It lacks the richness of warm fresh human blood."

"No, Uncle, I'm not returning to feed on others like ourselves."

"You compare us to these mortal wimps that cross our paths?"

Liliana started for the doorway.

"Wait! I've brought you something alive."

"And probably small and cuddly."

"You get pleasure drinking from those horrid rats?"

Liliana shrugged and faced her uncle. "What did you bring home?"

"It needs to be cleaned up a bit. I was going to bathe him before delivering him to you."

"You caught something in the wild?"

"No, it has the... la chia.s.se."

"Dysentery! It must be ill. Where is it?"

"Not malade, more like ill-tempered. He's in the animal carrier in my car."

Liliana hurried out to retrieve the animal and was delighted and left breathless when she opened the carrier.

While being washed in the bathtub, the rabbit managed to take more than a nibble from one of Liliana's fingers. Her cry brought the sound of her uncle's French curses to her ears. Eventually the rabbit was cleaned and bundled in a natural Egyptian cotton towel and taken to be reacquainted with Louis.

"He is adorable. There's no way I can take his life."

"If you don't, I'll throw him live into a stew pot."

"You wouldn't dare!"

Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade rose n.o.bly from the feather cushion of the couch and walked over to where his niece stood.

"Please, child, you refuse the charming men I have brought home for you. At least accept this small token of my love.

"Your skin was once so soft. Now it is papery thin, and blotched from the many years of famine." He touched her cheek and slid the back of his fingers across her lips. "My favorite little girl."

During these awkward moments Liliana was glad that she looked wasted to her uncle. She believed it was the only thing that saved her from his incestuous desire.

"Did you see Grandmother today?"

Her uncle shook is head and stepped closer. She was sure he would have taken her in his arms, except that the rabbit let out a loud and smelly fart.

"Mais non!" Louis quickly backed away. "I have not seen her in a couple of days, but she is fine. She always gets her way, why shouldn't she be fine?"

"Grandmother deals in a very dangerous business."

"Dangerous only for her customers. She is Maitresse la Presidente. The finest dominatrix on the East Coast of the United States. Now on the West Coast--"

"Please, I worry about her. After all, she is my grandmother and your mother-in-law. What if someone realizes what she is? Don't you feel any responsibility? You're the one who made her a vampire."

"She demanded to be made what she is. As for me, I had no choice. If I had refused, she would have left me in the Bastille for the rabble to tear apart.

"Ah, but you, my child, I made out of love."

l.u.s.t, Liliana silently corrected.

"I'm putting Francois in the hutch in the backyard with some food, and then I'm going to rest for a while."

"But it is night."

"I didn't have a chance to rest during the day. There was a lot of work to do. I had several autopsied bodies to work on and had to use the six-point injection. It's always more time- consuming for me when I have to drain the blood into the body cavity and then use a trocar to drain the chest of blood, making sure I don't lose any for my personal use."

"If you were not speaking of cadavers, you would be making me hungry."

"No kind of sensation is keener and more active than that of pain; its impressions are unmistakable."

The 120 Days of Sodom.

by the Marquis de Sade.

Chapter 6.