It started with a Book

... well, as we say: There are more things between heaven and earth ...

 

They call him monster, undead, ghoul, vampire. Not because they know WHO he is; but because the know WHAT he is. Well, not that they actually DO know ... But if they did, that´s what they WOULD call him. Oh, dear! I´m not explaining this very well ... I better start properly, from the beginning. The beginning as I remember it ...

I met him in a book shop near Covent Garden, one of my favourites, a tiny little rabbit hole, dark and musky, where an equally tiny old man, ageless almost as his books, always greeted you - well, greeted me - with a warm, paternal smile, followed by the question, "And what literary treasures are we looking for today, young lady?"

I had been a regular visitor and later customer in said little shop around the the corner of the flower market since I was a child, first with my father - may he rest in peace -, later with the never-ending spring of nursery maids and nannies and now, mercifully enough, all by myself. To me it had always been like a candy shop or, more to the point, like Aladdin's cave, where you simply picked up a battered old book, opened its slightly mouldy, well-fingered pages and all sorts of magic could happen. I should have been accompanied by a chaperon, of course, even now; but unlike years ago on such occasions, my domineering grandmother, the formidable and unopposable Dowager Duchess of Warwick, had given up any hopes of marrying me off to a husband - suitable or otherwise - and resigned to the truth that, now beyond 30, I would remain very much an unsold book on the bookshelf of life ...

Truth be told, this was rather liberating. In earlier years I had been burdened and glummified by the expected sense of failure and rejection. The word SPINSTER dangled menacingly over my head like the proverbial sword of Damocles ... But then I realised that I didn´t really miss being married, didn´t really want a husband. I know that sounds a bit like sour grapes; and I didn´t mean it like that at all. But you see, while I had dreamt the dream of husband, family and children like any other woman, truth be told there had never been a man I had found even remotely interesting enough, likable enough to want to spend the rest of my life with him.

See, in my days, the days of late Queen Victoria, women were not at all expected to have any interests beyond fripperies and fashion (at least not the women in my social class!) and truth be told, men were not different. Measured by the annual income to their name, they would be thrown into the sharks´ waters of the marriage market, hooked by some scheming mother for her pudgy, but well-bred daughter, plant their seed into the mother-of-heirs-to-be and otherwise strutt of to clubs and pubs, cockfights and horse races.

But I was lucky; I had a father who was the younger son of a Duke, but who was an exotic eccentric. One of the first infected by pharao-fever, as they called it at the time. And, which is more, he also infected my mother (whom I don´t remember all that well) and later on, stood to reason, me. We spent my childhood at some dusty, may-be prince´s grave site or another. My first toys were ancient scarabs and ushebtis (little servant figurines you found in royal Egyptian tombs) and I could swear in Arabic long before I could be polite in English!

But when I was nine, my mother fell so ill with malaria that we had to return to England, where she died a year later. My father was devastated, but soon returned to the desert. Leaving me behind in another sort of desert, in the emotional desert of a cold castle and equally cold, if not colder, fashionable, distinguished town houses, looked after by afore mentioned formidable grandmother, the dowager duchess. Who promptly started her relentless campaign in trying to turn me into a proper English lady.

Turned out, in my own sweet way I was as formidable as she; because she only succeeded superficially. She never managed to turn me away from my interests in totally unsuitable books of poetry, science of history - often enough in such UNsuitable languages as Arabic or Farsi - and she never managed to get me married. When my father died the way he would have wanted to, keeling over in a royal tomb in the desert, he settled a reasonable allowance on me to grant me independence, and now, aged 33, I had set up my own modest household, defying the Dowager, and lived as I pleased, sans restrictions and san pressures. Recently, I have heard people describe me as "eccentric" and I thought to myself, "Dad, your little girl has arrived!"

But back to the day I was telling you about! Old Mr. Barton greeted me as ever, like his long-lost daughter and, after the usual prelude of "how are yous" and some such small talk, he enquired what "literary treasures" I might be looking for this time. Recently I had rediscovered my love for oriental poetry and I told him I was looking for some Arabic or Farsi volumes of Omar Khayyam, Hafiz or Rumi. Little Mr. Barton never flinched. Nor did I expect him to; I knew his musky little shop tended to reveal the most amazing treasures in languages I hadn´t even heard of. This time, too, he simply dived with an "Ah, yes ..." into the dark recesses of his coven, while I was left browsing whatever was on display in the shelves or stacked in shaky towers on desk and floor.

"Hafiz is a bit too lofty and remote for me", a voice came from behind me. "But the Tentmaker and Rumi I have always loved, too. Omar especially always had such a wicked sense of humour!"

I turned towards the voice and looked up, very much UP, to what could only be described as an eccentric, albeit elegant enough gentleman. Tall top hat, simple, well-cut dark suit, knee-long jacket, almost like a coat, silver-embossed walking stick tucked under his arm and, most eccentric of all, round, almost black shades (spectacles with dark glass) riding low on his nose - no use at all that way; but maybe he simply didn´t want to take them off and they were too dark to be used in the dim light of the shop

Was it a handsome face? I suppose I judged it so. Lean with prominent cheekbones, but difficult to place. He might have been a Spaniard or a Slav, an Italian or a Turk. He MIGHT have even been an Englishman, though I doubted it. A slim moustache sat above his lips and a neatly-trimmed goatee on his chin, very much cavalier-style. His dark hair fell in light waves on his shoulders. There was but the hint of an accent, but I could not place that either.

He smiled at me, somewhat bemused, and I felt the unwelcome heat of a blush; I must have been staring at him for rather a long time. "I´m sorry, I´m not usually so ill-mannered", I assured him, trying to regain my cool "eccentric-old-spinster" composure. "You were saying?"

"I´d go for the Omar Khayyam or the Rumi", he repeated, smile still in place. "I know old Bart has a decent copy of each." And before I could ask, how he would possibly know that, he added, smiling still, "And I think you should let me take you to that little tavern around the corner for a coffee or, better still, a glass of wine."

I must have been staring again, because he promptly added, eyebrow quizzically raised, "Or a cup of tea, if you must. But I have to confess, I personally don´t like tea."

At that moment I was rescued from further embarrassment by dear Mr. Barton, who promptly emerged from his vaults with a copy of Rumi and Omar Khayyam each, beaming like the cat who had swallowed the canary. "Here we are, Mylady! I knew I had them somewhere!"

"We take them both", the man behind me pronounced. "Put them both on my account. And throw in that illustrated copy of the Book of the Dead you´ve been keeping forever, will you?"

"Certainly, you Highness!" Mr. Barton concurred with a merry little bow and did as he had been ordered.

I no more than opened my mouth to voice my protest, when the stranger pleaded, "Permit me, Lady Ellenore! It is nothing!" And, smiling still, he lowered his head slightly towards me, pushing those shades further down his nose so we could see eye-to-eye, "And then, over a glass or two of something you can tell me all about how a nice English lady like you might be interested in Omar or Rumi." Then he pushed those shades back up, took the neatly tied bundle of books a still beaming Mr. Barton handed him and offered me his arm, as if we were nothing but old friends, out for a stroll in the park. Honestly, I was too baffled to refuse and simply hooked my arm into his and with a absent-minded "See you soon, Mr. Barton!" walked off, on the arm of a total stranger.

A little later, we did sit in the tavern he had mentioned, sipping coffee, then sipping wine .... talking, talking. Here, too, people seemed to know him. Here, too, he would be called Highness or My Prince or something similar (or so I thought) in a language I didn´t know. He told me his name, but it is not important, so I shan´t mention it here. We talked about his travels in the orient - no a place where he had NOT been, it seemed -; we talked about poetry and history and society and ... everything, it seems. I practically told him the whole story of my life. We laughed a lot. And when he delivered me to the front door of my little house in Mayfair, I thought that I had never been more alive!

I never thought I would see him again, but obviously he had other ideas. First, our meetings were casual (well...) - some day in the park, some day at Barton´s book shop, another at Covent Garden, where I picked my flowers for the house (another eccentricity of mine). But after a few such `casual´ encounters, He announced with his familiar bemused smile, "From tomorrow, I shall pick you up at home." I never protested; it seemed the most natural thing in the world.

From then on, we met almost every day. We always laughed a lot, smiled a lot, talked a lot. He took me to place a LADY should never go - oh, what fun! He taught me how to smoke a cigar, how to play the violin, how to ride astride ... He never said, "Oh, no, that isn´t on!" and he always had time to answer my questions, no matter how silly or trivial they might be. Sometimes, his mood was dark and glum; then we would walk silently, side by side ... and I didn´t mind. I either shared his silence or talked him through them, until, invariably, he cheered up again.

A few months had passed in such a fashion, when, one evening, sitting out in a café in the park, he said without preamble, "My dear, it is time I told you who I am, what I am. You see, I´m not like other men." I practically grinned my smug, "I know." And he grinned back, folding his hand over mine across the table. "Ah, Sweet Distress (he had started calling me such names in the way of oriental poets, as a lark), that´s not what I mean! You see, I am not like other men, because I am a Vampire", he declared perfectly straight-faced. I must have stared at him, perplexed, and I was certainly a little speechless, because his lips curled in an almost rueful smile. "I am a Vampire, and it is time you learnt what that means, because I want nothing more than make you mine. Which means, you shall be one as well."

"A Vampire, eh?" I couldn´t help but grin. "Sure, my Prince! If you say so."

He sighed, smiling. "You don´t believe me?"

"I believe anything you say, for certes! ... So you drink blood. What, pray, does it taste like?"

"Good", he grinned now, too. "Well, not all of it, of course. But the right one, I assure you, tastes delicious. Like a rare wine. No, more like olympian nectar. I expect no less from yours, when I´ll get drunk on you." I still did not believe a word he said, but instinctively my hand flew to the side of my neck; he noticed it and laughed. "Oh, we shall have such fun together!"

"Shall we?"

"My dear, I have lived now for 2,156 years", he announced, as if it was nothing. "I can tell you about Omar Khayyam, because I was there when he wrote his poetry. I can tell you about the great library of Alexandria, because I wept when I saw it go up in flames ... the great gothic cathedrals I saw being built. Gutenberg, when he made his first printing press, Leonardo da Vinci, Isaak Newton ... Shall I go on?"

"You live forever?" I asked, suddenly not so sure in my belief to NOT believe.

"No, not forever, some for centuries, some for millenia, some for what seems forever", he said. "We live, we die, we hurt, we grieve ... we love." He let the last words hang in the air, as if expecting me to say something. "I have waited a long time for you."

"Oh, yes?" Even to me, my voice sounded cold and sarcastic.

"Yes", he said firmly. "When you staggered around the dig in the valley of the kings, always clutching that battered figure of Anubis. Later when you wept about the loss of your mother, about being stuck here in England with that cold witch of a grandmother ..." He caught my look of astonishment and gave me a reassuring nod, "Yes, I was there. But always I thought: Not yet. She is still too young."

"You might have rescued me and my self-esteem after those three summarily unsuccessful husband-seeking seasons", I sniffed, not at all lady-like. I more felt than saw his smile on me. "Ah, yes", he conceded. "I was tempted. But I thought you were not ready."

"And now you think I am?"

"Now I think that you are", he confirmed.

"Why?"

"Because if you come to me now, you come because you want to, not because you want me to rescue you", he explained. "Now you are an independent, self-asserted woman. You have found your place in life. You don´t need me or anybody to rescue you any longer."

I didn´t quite know what to say. There seemed a candid truth in his assessment. In the end I only asked, not quite daring to look at him, "And why ME?"

He laughed his familiar hearty laugh, "Why, silly, do I really have to tell you? Because I love you, of course, because I want nothing more than spend the next hundred or thousand or 10,000 - I don´t care - man-years with you rather than alone ... We loved once before, so many human lives ago that even I cannot quite remember. A human love, a mortal love. Only that I didn´t die. My love didn´t die. But until now, I never seemed to find you ..."

And then I looked at him, and suddenly I knew every word he had said was true.

What can I tell you? Of course, I became his wife, his mate, his friend, his confidante and sole companion. Did I become a Vampire? Why, yes, of course. Oh, it didn´t happen at once. Not like you see in those laughable, often ghastly and bizarre movies ... when sinister-looking caped Carpathian counts descend upon innocent maidens, ravish them and drink their blood. No, not like that ... The first time he `bit´ me, it was gentle, like a soft and tender kiss. The next time, more hungry, more greedy. But never did it hurt. It was - intoxicating, mesmerising - like the making love that followed.

And with each time, each union, I moved a little further to HIS side. First, folk around me just remarked on my never-ceasing look of youth (well, near enough youth of 30 something) and my good health. Later, when it became too obvious, when we might have aroused too much gossip and suspicion, we simply moved abroad. And we have moved from one place to another since. But never once have I regretted the day I told him "Yes, I do, I will, for now, forever!" ...We HAVE had so much fun together - and are having it still. Life is a lot easier in this modern age, of course, but it takes rather longer to find peace and beauty. Too many machines for this old-fashioned biddy to clutter up the world!

HE is, as ever, like the Prince that I first met in old Barton´s little book shop. He is a man of so much humour and gentleness and full of fun and laughter. And I have met others like him, like me, other Vampires since ... They are - like all you mortals - some good, some bad, some fun, some not. But a real monster among them I have yet to find ... I fear, the world of mortals has so many monsters of its own that it keeps looking for them where they are not.

So, if a smiling, friendly, gentlemen (do you still have GENTLEmen in this modern age?) declares his true love for you and then tells you he is a Vampire - laugh at him, if you must, but think twice before you flat-out reject him!

Author's Note

It´s a another repost from the pre-crash days ...

Reviews

[Jester]

I love the way that you seem to leave out some of the details, like the prince's name, and even the exact year they were in. This story is slightly simple, but I think that the way it flows works better with this simplicity than with long drawn out descriptions. Wonderful, keep writing!

[writerchic25]

that is really good!
you are a very talented writer!