Chapter 6 February

8:34 AM

Our lives changed. We spent time online far more often than we did conversing in our asylum’s living room, listening to the sounds of the piano, admiring the same paintings and playing fancy-dress parties according to the epoch we picked in the bowl of years. We didn’t dwell on the past so much. We tried to embrace the now. In the small space of our apartment, we noticed how easily irritated we became in our company, maybe we had spent too many years together and now was the time to move on? We just passed each other in the kitchen and hid in separate rooms to live our own lives and have our own secrets.

The first person to move out was Phillip. He announced that he could afford to rent a separate flat and we didn’t really need his company. He kept the offer of picking us to work in his car, but he visibly wanted to separate from the group. We didn’t force him to stay. He wanted to maintain his years of solitude and with our company, it was getting difficult. He promised to visit and he kept his promise as if the bond of our blood was stronger than any signed documents and orders that would force him to stay.

Around that time, I heard a doorbell and saw a girl waiting at the entrance of the flat. She had short hair, wore peculiar clothes (Mathew told me that she most definitely belonged to some youth subculture), and had her eyebrows pierced.

‘I came for Elle’

‘Elle?’

‘Elizabeth. We’re leaving.’

It struck me that I never personally knew any of the girls that visited Elizabeth in her asylum’s room. They disappeared after some time. They couldn’t stand the pressure of her disease, her vampirism, possibly even the fact that she had many virgins on her conscience and I don’t mean a simple seduction of those questioning their sexuality.

‘Leaving where?’

‘On a trip. We’re going to Paris.’

I was surprised. Elizabeth was never willing to travel. She usually divided her time between work and home. She rarely even hunted as she had blood in abundance in her place of work.

‘In her condition, you know she needs medications. I’m not sure if she should...’

‘I know that she is schizophrenic, I read about it. I know about her hallucinations.’

‘And you don’t care?’

‘I have epilepsy. This scares the hell out of people. I can have an attack if I see the sequence of bright colors. I don’t know anyone who is perfectly healthy. Everybody has something wrong with them or they will. This is life.’

I was surprised how normally she treated her condition.

‘I have depression,’, I announced all of a sudden, feeling some sort of a relief when I mentioned it.

‘I know. You are pretty special,’ she lowered her voice ‘With this blood consumption as well.’

I smiled. I sensed that Elizabeth deserved to be accepted and loved for who she was.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Mary’

‘Nice to meet you, Mary. I hope that you will have a nice time in Paris.’

I was surprised to find out that there’s more to life than hiding, hunting, and trying to survive. I was surprised by its pleasures which reached beyond simple birth and death. Elizabeth thanks to Mary caught the bug of traveling. She disappeared for the weekend, spent all her earnings on budget plane tickets and brought us fridge magnets and little souvenirs from their escapades. I noticed early on how girls were looking at each other and I sensed that this change was caused by something Elizabeth hadn’t experienced before. She was in love. She blushed when Mary was around. She made sure the flat was clean when she was supposed to be visited and for the first time in her life, she wasn’t afraid of talking about her disease. Mary was the first girl in two hundred years time that stayed with us to watch TV and even helped with some flat chores or when we had problems with flat administration. I sensed that Elizabeth was lost like I was lost for my husbands. For the first time, she understood me and I started to understand her as I saw the desire in her eyes. The laughter they shared together signified this intimate laughter they shared alone when they only had each other, at night, in bed.

One day, girls decided to pack all Elizabeth’s things and move into the same flat, leaving me, Mathew, Nick, and Amelie alone.

Love made us grow apart. It was stronger than blood, it made us make decisions based on our egoistic desires and leave the sense of belonging we had been cultivating among us for years. I realized back then that all of us had the right to it, whether cherishing it in our memories, holding onto the new hopes or mourning those far from the reach of our possibilities. Even Nick for the very first time in his life had straight A’s on his school note, which had never happened before.

‘Why?’ I asked looking at this little hooligan, who set teachers on fire, was expelled for the worst crimes in the history of some prestigious schools and treated women like pieces of used chair.

‘She asked me to be a good boy.’

I loved this woman who could make miracles. She didn’t realize that she was looking at a child who had seen more evil than the generations of villains, who got used to gruesome crimes and low morale of humans, who would have grown up to be a rotten drunkard, but instead, remained a forever spoilt child. She made him fall in love with her and forced him to be better. He was better. He was better to the extent that he ironed his shirt every morning just to look representative during her classes.

I also fell vulnerable under the spell of love. I waited for Mathew to change. I gave him time to grow and mature. I made sure that he went to school and achieved everything at the top of his abilities. I didn’t make the first move. I waited until he kissed me, I didn’t force anything on him, but let his hands search my body in his own pace. He gained confidence and allowed himself for more.

I noticed how sex changed. How women started freely talking about their needs, how open they were about their fantasies, desires, and hopes. How easy it was to buy sex toys and how effortless was access to porn. I remembered the first tapes Nick brought with his school boys and copied them for hours on our old TV and video recorder. I remember him waiting way past midnight to find something on the cable TV to enjoy. Now it was enough to go to any pornographic website to see all positions, mixes of races, sexes, ages, and body types. Something even those shy avoiding brothels could experience for the first time as it was within the reach of literally everybody.

Together with Mathew, we were purchasing dildos resembling Avengers, Supermen and Light Swords from Star Wars, fake penises with skin so similar to the real ones I couldn’t tell the difference. Handcuffs, masturbation balls, massage oils were coming in discreet packages to our flat, not arousing anyone’s attention. I was stimulated as I had never been in my life, I experienced orgasms which shook my body as never before and there was no guilt, just pure fun. After centuries something changed. People accepted that women also liked sex and had their needs. Mathew was born into accepting it. I just benefited from the selfish embracing of the epoch. I experienced freedom for which I never fought. I had my own money, own place and very few to confess about my actions. But one thing didn’t change. I wanted and needed to be loved. And I was loved. I was given little gifts of budding feelings, surprising cute presents of attachment, I was sent links to love songs when I was at work and welcomed with romantic dinners when I returned after a tiring hunt after another suicidal man. I felt a different kind of love. Mathew didn’t blame me for my disease, didn’t have problems with my vampire nature and accepted me as a whole, something which I couldn’t expect from my previous husbands. I didn’t have to hide anything from him, I didn’t need to have secrets.

You could blame me for seducing a boy so young but you didn’t know what I knew. It was true love. We were meant to be together and our time was supposed to be prolonged by the fact that I met him when he was only fifteen. You will know, though, you will experience it at some point in your long and finite lives, how it feels to witness your loved one age, change, and die. You will have the pleasure of experiencing that with them, mutually looking at each others’ changing appearance and passing time. I will have the pain of watching my love perish away like a dying tree, while I will remain the same. I was simply blessed by a young body to love and a young soul to grow with my old soul and look forward to better days. I was simply given more time.