Red Horizon—Sailing the seas, a modern day vampirate is seduced by her human captain

I remember reading this story, thinking how different it was and what an adventure! A yacht filled with vampire pirates, all female? A human at the helm? The idea of it had me reading past the first page. The sensuality completely blew me away. ~DD

Here, Captain Jayne’s gotten herself into a spot of trouble…

Climbing through a gap in the wire fence, she slid inside the theater, and mounting the high stone steps found a row she liked. Laying down on a wide stone bench, she lay with her hands under her head, staring at the stars that guided her as she sailed all over the deep blue sea. She again let her thoughts drift to Eleni, and what her hands would feel like as they reached her most sacred places.

She sat up with a start, looking for the source of the footsteps she was sure she heard. No one was there, and suddenly she realized how foolish it was to be alone in a place without lights, especially since she knew the kind of ghoulies that prowled the night.

“Well, hello,” said the woman at the bottom of the stairs, her long blonde hair floating in wind-swept strands around her face, even though there was no breeze. “Why is a lovely creature like you here all alone?”

“Hi. I’m not. Alone, I mean. My friend…”

“Just left. And in rather a hurry, it seems. Sadly, I don’t believe she’ll be reaching her destination, since my friends decided she would be delightful company this evening.”

Jayne winced, thinking of the somewhat sexy butch as some vampire’s snack. “Oh, I didn’t mean her. I meant my other friend…”

“Your vampire friend, you mean? No, she left as well. And rather angry, I think, as she didn’t even bother to notice me as she left you and your paramour to enjoy one another. No, amor, you are alone. And you are going to be fine company for me tonight.”

With a flourish, and barely a movement, the woman was suddenly beside her, bending over her, the low-cut dress showing ample cleavage. “I know you need me. You need release, don’t you, bonita? You need someone to make you feel special? You are broadcasting your desire and hunger so that anyone can hear it. I can take care of your need, and so much more. Make this easy, sweet girl, and I promise to send you back to your vampire in the morning.”

Her hand was like soft marble as it caressed Jayne’s cheek and slid over her neck, the blood red nails lightly grazing a trail over her collar bone. Her eyes glowed an unearthly green, the pupils a strange maroon color.

Jayne whimpered quietly, knowing from her time among them that fighting would only lead to a miserable death, while playing nice might let her keep her life, if not her sanity.

Eleni, she screamed in her head as the woman’s mouth came down on her own, crushing her lips as the woman’s tongue slid into her mouth and a rough hand clasped her breast, fingers pinching her nipple into a hard bud. Her t-shirt ripped down the front as the woman slowly tore it away.

“If you were my human, I would have marked you. You’re simply divine. Such beautiful breasts,” she said, cupping a breast in each hand and squeezing Jayne’s nipples before lowering her mouth to take one between sharp teeth. “And such perfect white skin. I can hear your heart pounding for me. I can smell your desire.”

She whispered the words almost reverently, and Jayne wanted her to keep going, to put out the heat between her legs, to suck her nipples and make her cry out. Deep within, she knew these thoughts weren’t her own, but it didn’t matter. She needed.

She nearly screamed when the woman vanished from above her, and could only curl into a fetal position as the intense desire, the unquenchable need to be deeply fucked rocked her to her soul. Managing to raise her head from the stone bench, she saw Eleni facing the woman, both in a predatory stance, the blonde hissing as Eleni crouched in front of Jayne protectively.

“It’s rude to mess with someone else’s human,” Eleni said quietly, her Greek accent thicker in the midst of danger.

“You haven’t marked her. She was alone. She’s mine for the night.”

“You could smell me on her. There’s no way you can deny that.”

“You? I can smell at least seven others on her as well. That suggests to me that she’s open game, and tonight, she’s my game. Move.”

Jayne whimpered again as the flood of desire swept through her in wave after wave, crushing her beneath its heat. She didn’t care that they were arguing over her as if she were a coveted toy, just so long as someone fucked her senseless. Soon.

Victoria Oldham lives in England with her partner of more than seven years. She has published erotica in various anthologies, and is currently an editor for Bold Strokes Books, as well as a freelance writer with more than sixty published articles.

It’s funny how a taxi ride can shift your perceptions.

I used to love vampires. Years ago when I was younger, I watched the TV show Dark Shadows (US version with Ben Cross GUH!). It wasn’t the first time I associated sex with vampires, but it was certainly the first time I “got it”. It was the danger that attracted me as a viewer and kept me turning in. However, the show got cancelled, and vamps changed in the media.

Over the years, they’d lost their appeal to me.

Flash-forward a few years and I’m standing at the Cleveland airport waiting for a taxi to take me to a convention. I end up sharing a ride with Delilah, who I hadn’t seen for a while. She begins to tell me about this amazing anthology she’s pulling together—lesbian vampires.

Interesting.

I should submit something.

But…I don’t write vampires.

Delilah smiled and we continued on with our conversation. Of course it was too late for me at that point. Ideas started bubbling to the surface. I thought back to the days of Dark Shadows and the elements that I loved about that show. The power struggle in the relationship, the need to control the darkness that lurks below the vampire’s surface. These were things that I wanted to explore.

The result was Bound Lust.

What would happen if a vampire was a submissive? What kind of human would it take to keep a hold on a creature that fought daily with her inner demons? The result comes in the forms of Maili and Lana. Apparently I do write vampires.

Bound Lust

© Christine d’Abo 2011

Lana’s snort accompanied her relaxed grip on Maili’s wrist. “You’re a vampire. What were you scared of?”

Hurting you. “Losing control.”

“You know better. When you’re with me you don’t have to worry about that. I take care of you.”

“But I—”

“No more. No talking.”

Maili snapped her mouth shut. Her lips couldn’t contain her vampire overbite and her teeth cut into the sensitive flesh of her lips.

“Don’t you dare move.” Lana shifted her foot to the floor, but kept Maili’s arms high. “This is the worst place for a scene, but you haven’t left me any other choice. I’m going to have to improvise.”

The metal of the handcuffs was surprisingly warm when Lana snapped the rings around her wrists. They must have been in a pocket, up against Lana’s body. Maili fought the urge to squirm as her pussy grew damp from the unexpected arousal. Even if the bloodlust hadn’t been upon her, just being this close to her domme was enough to make Maili’s body sing. It had been a long time since Lana had let her come, even longer ago than the last time Maili had fed. She would need both tonight if she was going to keep from turning into the very thing she’d feared becoming for over a century.

Maili didn’t fight her mistress as her hands were secured and her boots were pulled from her feet. Lana was an expert at controlling Maili’s needs, almost psychic. She didn’t stop Lana when she rolled her onto her side, giving her access to the fly of her jeans.

Visit Christine at her website www.christinedabo.com , on her blog www.christinedabo.com/blog or on Twitter .  You can order Girls Who Bite from Amazon.

An ancient crystalline cavern becomes the setting for a most unusual birthday party…

An original steamy short. Available now in the GIRLS WHO BITE lesbian vampire erotica anthology from Cleis Press. Edited by Delilah Devlin.

©Adele Dubois 2011

Excerpt:

“Only your cousin would celebrate her birthday in a creepy place like this cave.” Rosa scrunched up her nose.

Morgan tried not to smile, since Rosa was being serious. If she only knew how cute she looked when she made that face, she might never do it again.

Rosa hated the dark and anything remotely otherworldly. She refused to watch fantasy or horror movies and detested Halloween. Rosa liked musicals, TV cooking shows, and Christmas. She’d come to Angela’s birthday party strictly under protest. Morgan had mollified her with a picnic she had prepared. Rosa worked as the chef at the restaurant Morgan managed and rarely got a break from food preparation.

It seemed the novelty had worn off.

“The caves are historic.” Morgan tried reasoning. “Natural wonders. People travel from all over the world to visit and they’re right in our backyard. We’ll see formations like calcite crystal walls, flowstones, and dripstones millennia old.”

Rosa stopped folding the blanket and set her mouth in a grim line. Her nostrils flared. “I’d rather wait in the car. You go. She’s your cousin. And a freak, if you ask me.”

Morgan couldn’t argue there. Her cousin Angela had turned a whole new kind of weird since her trip to Europe. She’d left eastern Pennsylvania a skinny geek in glasses that nobody wanted to hang with. She’d returned a curvy Goth with facial piercings, night vision, and an entourage of beautiful women who’d moved into the Lancaster home she shared with her father. 

Angela had explained that laser eye surgery in Eastern Europe was light years ahead of procedures in the United States. Her new look was the work of some chick she’d met on the road named Lillith. The transformation, she claimed, had made her popular. Angela seemed perfectly happy.

Which was more than Morgan could say at the moment.

“I know she’s odd, but she’s family and it’s her birthday. What else could I do?” Morgan took the blanket from Rosa’s hands and laid it on the grass beneath the cover of an old weeping willow. Rosa followed inside the natural umbrella of leaves and slender branches.

“Let’s not argue, okay?” Morgan pleaded. “We have at least an hour before the others arrive. We haven’t been alone all day.” She hoped her voice sounded husky and sexy and not as desperate as she felt. 

Secretly, she worried they were headed for bed death. Rosa had become more distant and less interested in sex than she had during their first six months together. Morgan had plenty of platonic friendships and the last thing she wanted was for Rosa to drift into that category. She loved her and wanted her as much now as she had in the beginning.

Morgan lay down on her back and reached up from the blanket for Rosa. “Come here.”

Visit Adele Dubois and read more about her erotic romance novels at www.adeledubois.com/

To order GIRLS WHO BITE on Amazon, visit this link:

http://www.amazon.com/Girls-Who-Bite-Lesbian-Vampire/dp/1573447153/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1297992341&sr=1-3

Until I wrote “La Caída” for Girls Who Bite, it never occurred to me that there had been vampires in the shadows of the stories I heard growing up. They may have been more violent than charming, and they may have gone by a different name, but they had always been there, the fodder not for fantasies, but for nightmares.

In some stories, the nagual is only out for blood. In others, she changes herself into a wolf or a dog or a bird at night. In others still, she slaughters and eats the inhabitants of any house where she is invited in. As unlikely of a starting place as she is for an erotic story, she’s pure desire and drive. Though her lust is for blood and not for sex, in the world of vampires, as the tradition shows, the two are close.

Every culture has their fairy stories, their vampires, their winged creatures, their stories of princes or princesses who fall in love with a common woman or man. Some see a man in the moon; others see a rabbit. In some traditions, the mermaid is a guardian figure, tragic and selfless; in others, she is vindictive.

The beautiful thing about literature is the chance to pass stories from culture to culture, family to family. The wonderful thing about erotica is that it centers on the universal language of desire and touch, so that even if a story shows us things we’ve never seen, that language gives us access; that desire is our key to a world we don’t yet know.

Anna
—-

Excerpt from “La Caída”

I pulled the quilt from la caída’s shoulders, freezing when I saw the scrape on her shoulder, the one that had been against the ground. It glistened like liquid garnet, warm and alive, the blood of a living woman, not a dead man.

I caught myself biting my lip.

Even in the dim room, I saw the flicker of understanding in la caída’s face. “You’re a salt girl,” she said.

“What?”

“We call you salt girls, because you want the salt in the blood.”

I swallowed to keep from crying. I wanted her warmth, and to run my tongue over that slick of blood so badly it was driving me to sobs. “I don’t know why. We’ve been this way for a hundred years. Maybe more.”

“Even we’re not told why things are the way they are.” She lowered her gaze, like shame was weighting it down. “Why we want what we want.”

I pulled a strip of cloth over her wound, both to help it heal and so I wouldn’t see it. I wanted to dampen the smell of iron, sweet as rain-made rust. “Why did you fall?” I asked.

A wry laugh stuck in the back of her throat. “Why do you think?”

“You wanted something.”

“Yes.”

“What?”

Two shallow breaths wavered in the back of her throat, one, then the other, before she grabbed me and kissed me, her desert-warm mouth searing my lips.

“Soft.” She buried her nose in my hair and dug the heels of her hands into my back. “You’re so soft.” Then she dropped her hands and pulled away. “I’m sorry.”

I stopped myself from grabbing her back. “I don’t understand.” I straightened my posture. “You fell because you wanted someone?”

“No.” She dropped her head, letting her hair shadow her face. “That’s the worst part. There was no one. I didn’t fall in love. I just wanted.”

I crawled on top of her, slowly pinning her down, and kissed her. She startled, but then gave her mouth to mine. I let my mouth wander down her neck toward her breasts, but it strayed, and her blood stained my lower lip. She arched her back to press her body into mine, but her blood heated my mouth, like hot sugar on its way to caramel, and I scrambled off her so quickly I fell from the bed. She grabbed my waist and pulled me back.

I licked my lip, blushing and guilty.

One of the most unusual stories in the collection comes from Regina Jamison. I read it twice the moment I opened the file. The first time, I wasn’t sure what I read, but enjoyed the language. The second, I paid attention to the story. Both times, I was blown away. ~DD

Impundulu

by Regina Jamison

It was summer. I remember because I’d had the top down on the car. It was night and very dark in the woods. I wasn’t driving. I’d sat in the car with the stars laid out above me. The vastness of the dark sky along with the twinkling abundance soothed me. I’d felt connected, somehow, to that deep void filled with gaseous matter that encircled planets creating fictitious halos and black holes that captured and sucked in one’s soul. I felt as if my soul were an asteroid; floating, drifting in the darkness, searching for some force to bring it into the light. I wanted a celestial hand to caress me while spreading moon dust like salve upon my heart.

These were my thoughts when a bolt of lightning blazed in the field to the right of me. There was no sound, only a light so bright the air continued to glow after it had dissipated. I’d left my car and walked toward it. Before me there was what appeared to be millions of fireflies swarming a wide swatch of land. Or maybe it was pieces of burnt paper that resembled butterflies fluttering about on the wind. One half blackened and cold like a dead star, the other half a bright, warm, beautiful ember. I stood there watching and grew warmer. Sweat bubbled up on my brow. The tips of my hair glowed and rushed about my face. So much movement and heat. The fireflies swirled and swirled then settled, forming a shape like a flame above a wick; oval.

The egg-like shape sparkled and popped with anger. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I glanced at the space around me and when I looked back the egg was still there. I walked its circumference wanting to touch it. I’d felt as if something were calling me, wanting me to burn in its iridescence. But I shoved my hands into my pants pockets and stepped back, then back again. I’d found the safety of darkness. My knees trembled. My legs shook as the ground gave way around me. I’d bent over slightly for balance but my legs collapsed pitching me forward into the high grass. The rumbling continued as the ground shook and buckled around me.

With dirt on my chin I stood. I looked up, whipped around, and looked behind me. Nothing! No light. No fireflies. No glowing egg. I walked to where the egg had been and found a great hole. A path of crumbled dirt, like something had burrowed underground, stretched out from it and made its way toward the lake. I could have followed, but I ran back to my car, turned the key, and jettisoned into that black hole called night.

Regina Jamison enjoys writing fiction, erotica, and poetry. Her poetry has appeared in Clamour and more recently in Off the Rocks – a lgbt anthology. Her erotica can be found in Zane’s, Purple Panties. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at City College in New York.

[Psst! The first review for GWB arrived yesterday!
"...The all new stories in this anthology will surprise you with their cleverness and their erotica. But they are more than erotic—they are sensitive and emotional and to me, at least, they fall into the category that I call literary erotica..." Read more]

Part of the fun for me with Girls Who Bite is “meeting” new authors throughout this whole process of selection, editing and then enjoying the fruits of our labors. Meet A.E. Grace… ~DD

I first met Madeline when I was twelve years old. It was at a charity book fair my mother had organised in the summer of 2003, a particularly humid year to be stumbling about a church hall with crates of second hand paperbacks, in what was a particularly overcrowded village.

Breezing by with an armful of hardback Stephen King’s, my mother had craned her neck and called, “Find Stella and see if she needs a hand or something, will you? You’re hanging about like an infant, Lil.’”

Lil’ was, as you might’ve guessed, short for Lilly; I’d never liked that name. A Lilly is a beautiful flower, and, like the frocks my mother had dressed me in as a pre-teen, the name never seemed to suit me.

The shortened version, Lil’, allowed me to assume a kind of non-gender specific status amongst my peers, and I liked the feel of it very much. It was something that would later aid me in ‘finding myself’, as people and teachers liked to call it, and made kissing Madeline as a teenager seem like less of an alien thing, despite what the other girls thought of it.

Fanning myself with one of the Kidson notebooks my mother liked so much, I waded through the wandering elderly church people, and found my mother’s friend Stella peeling cling-film off of various goodies she’d made for the occasion, the light pouring in from the bay window to form a halo-effect around her puff of auburn hair.
Crouched beneath the table, sucking on the oval-shaped remnants of a lollipop, was Madeline. My heart had given its first surge in the presence of a female, as I looked in awe at her long legs and tumbling red hair, approaching her with a slowing pace to allow myself more viewing time. Of course, subsequent to this, I had to think of something to say to her too; a nerve-racking task in itself.

Stella exhaled a gruff breath of air, and smoothed down the front of her blouse. Seeing me, she grinned and ushered me over with a flap of her delicate, manicured hands. “Lilly!” she beamed, pacing round to my side of the stall, blissfully unaware of the potentially fatal mistake she’d made addressing me by my full name.

“Been helping mum, have we?” Before I’d parted my lips to respond, she turned and called to Madeline, who unfolded her spider-like limbs and glided dutifully to stand by her mother. “This is my daughter, Maddy; you won’t have met her before. She’s back from boarding school,” Stella breathed, with an air of pride about her raspy, whispering voice.

Nodding to Madeline, I felt myself reddening from the neck up. She acknowledged me with her cat-like eyes, greeny-yellow in the haze of the spore filled hall. My own eyes were so fixed upon her face that I could count each freckle dotted about her nose.

She stood a good foot taller than I, and I remember the distancing remaining that way until we parted at seventeen years old, after what I now refer to as our “accident”.

Folding her thin arms, she said, “Fancy a walk? It’s bloody boring in here, ain’t it?” And, giddy at the knees and feeling as though my thundering heart would create an echo against the stony walls, I followed her into the glorious sunshine outside.

As I paced the concrete outside a greasy café, a full twenty years since we last spoke, my heart thundered once again in the fashion that Madeline had first laid claim to. The night was chilled and still, ominously lacking any police sirens or screams from streets further away. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out a glistening Hip flask and took a glug. The blood, more popularly referred to as The Red Stuff on TV commercials, had remained salty and warm in the snug of my trouser leg.

I replayed the scene of our first meeting bitterly in my mind, aching not for the sight of Madeline, but for the golden sunlight that I was now deprived of, and the church of a town, our home town, that we had fled from after our accident occurred. I often wondered about our mothers, picturing them fretting in one another’s living rooms, calling the police stations, the hospitals; crying: Where have our daughters gone?

Mid-pace, I sensed a change in the atmosphere, a shift, and I knew Madeline had arrived. Moistening my lips with my thin, pointed tongue, I tasted her in every pore. Without having any mentor throughout my adjustment period for my condition, I’d come to recognise certain changes, and connections that occurred as a result of becoming – and I hated the word – a vampire.

Once you’ve mated with a fellow vampire, it seemed, the pair created a bond that allowed them to sense one another’s taste, or sent; I felt Madeline’s presence as if she were nestled in my mouth.

“Lil’?” She whispered. Her voice enveloped me like a velvet curtain, and I shuddered.

Biting my lip, I turned to face her, and ran an anxious hand through my crop of short, mousy brown hair. The sight of her, stood like a delicate porcelain doll, caused my breath to catch in my throat.

“I thought you weren’t coming,” I croaked eventually, clearing my throat. I pocketed my hands and scuffed my boot on the pavement, suddenly searching for something to look at; anything but her.

Even still, a glance was enough; she wore a silk bell-sleeved dress, the colour of coal, which stopped just short of her milky knees. A delicate line of cleavage peeked between the sweetheart-shaped cloth, appearing like the entwined necks of two swans. On her feet, she wore a pair of suede Mary-Jane’s in deep red.

“I was worried about the same thing,” she replied, smiling meekly. Her almond shaped eyes glistened in the darkness like shards of reflective glass. “I’m sorry I left it so late.”

I nodded, nervously tapping my foot. “Not to worry. Shall we go in?” I gestured to the door of the café, a curl of my hair falling irritably onto my forehead.

“Of course,” she said, stepping aside and allowing me to open the door for her, then striding in. I took the brief moment it took me to pull the door closed behind me, the little bell ringing, to calm my nerves. I breathed deeply and, wiping my clammy hands on my thighs, joined her at a nearby table.

The place was dead, barring a bearded man in a camouflage jacket, who sat in the far corner by the window nursing a steaming mug of tea. The hanging lights cast deep shadows over Madeline’s face, hardening her soft features.

The sound of a waitress clattering about in the kitchen was suffocated by the hiss of the coffee machine. I looked again at Madeline’s dress, and suddenly became overly aware of the dirty tiles, and torn linoleum floor.

“I’m sorry about the location,” I gushed, nervously scratching my head. “I just saw the 24hr sign and didn’t give it enough thought. We can find somewhere else, if you like?”

She shook her head of curls. “No, no, this is fine. Really.” she added, seeing my unconvinced face.

“Sorry,” I said. “I know it’s been a pretty long time, but I should’ve remembered you liked to dress up.”

Twenty years, it turned out, wasn’t all that much where a vampire was concerned. Sure, I’d done a lot in that time; met a few girls, travelled. But it wasn’t much, not really. Not when you consider the fact that you’ve got the whole of eternity to look forward to.

“Please, Lil’, I said its okay.”

A short blonde girl in a polka dot apron approached us then, clutching a little jotter pad – and abruptly pocketed it when she saw us for what we were. Our creamy white skin had an unmistakable glow, and, on seeing her bare, youthful neck, our fangs had extended of their own accord.

“You guys want red?” she asked, her voice cracking slightly.

“Yes, thanks,” I said, steering my eyes away from her collar, which seemed to quiver against the pulse of her neck. I glanced at Madeline, who was also gazing fixedly on the girl, unable to draw her eyes away. I reached for her hand and squeezed it.

“Any particular type?” asked the girl, whose badge revealed her name was Wendy.

I shook my head, not taking my eyes off Madeline for a moment, in case she lost control completely. I didn’t like to patronise her, but I’d no idea of her temperament – she had been a fierce human, and I dreaded to think how she could be now as a predator.

“Anything you have is fine,” I uttered quickly, and she disappeared into the kitchen.

Madeline giggled. “It never gets easier to resist, does it?”

A.E.Grace is a writer of horror and non-fiction, currently studying for a degree in Creative And Media Writing at Middlesex University, England. In her spare time she is a DVD and book reviewer, and enjoys reading both mainstream and genre fiction.

We’ve established that vampires are sexy, and if you find lesbians sexy too, then lesbian vampires are even sexier. Girls Who Bite is a collection of erotic tales, and sexy is what it’s all about.

However, an anthology of vampire stories that feature solely female vampires and victims is something that’s very necessary in the vampire world, if you ask me. Most vampire stories involve some play with heterosexual sexuality, and the role of the male in particular. Though intrinsically queer, and sometimes—as with Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles—explicitly so, a vampire story usually has a male reference point.

The cliché of the powerful, ancient, male vampire and the innocent female “victim” (willing or otherwise) is alive and well. The Twilight series has strengthened it further. When we think of a vampire, more often than not, we think of a male figure. Though there have been many female vampires in literature—going back at least to Geraldine in Coleridge’s Christabel—and several lesbian vampires too—Carmilla giving us the supreme example—they have usually been “made” by male vampires in the story, beginning as victims themselves, or they are in the story to represent the dangerous threat of unfettered female sexuality to the heterosexist status quo. Stoker’s Dracula gives us Lucy Westenra, for example—victim then vampire—beautiful and desired by more than one of the male characters, penetrated first by the Count’s fangs, then her fiance’s stake through the heart. It is possible and enjoyable to read Carmilla as a sexy lesbian tale, but really it’s about female sexuality—represented by the “lesbian” vampire herself who visits her virginal victim alone in her room at night—being a threat to innocence and the established order of things.

Of course, recent books, TV, and movies have given us stronger female vampires who we are encouraged to sympathise with rather than fear and who are more than simply sexual beings with a bloodlust: Selena in the Underworld movies, Twilight’s Alice Cullen and more than one TV character. But the shadow of the powerful male vampire is ever present. Selena battles against male patriarchs, and Alice lives in a “family” with a male head and exists in a story in which it is her “brother” who has the most interesting role. The pattern repeats time and again. Not that there’s anything wrong with heterosexual vampire stories, or male vampires in general. I enjoy them. But it would be nice to have a change.

A lesbian anthology excludes men by its very nature. The victims are women, but so are their powerful, supernatural, mythical lovers. This posed an interesting question for me, as I sat down to write ‘She Knows I am Watching’. Do I create a female vampire who embodies the old-fashioned male-defined alluring femininity and risk furthering the cliché? Do I create a vampire who is a very recognisable character, essentially “masculine” but just happens to be a woman? And what of the typically swooning, submissive victim? Should I reinforce the usual gender play-off of vampire tales since time began?

It is hard to create a vampire who is not a cliché.

Eventually, my story took shape. A tale which takes place in my vampire’s mind, more than the real world, where appearances are less important and power is a game of give and take. My female vampire is defined only by herself, and not at all in relation to male characters or heterosexual norms. And she knows she is a fantasy too. My story is all about fantasy: women’s fantasy. Not a man’s idea of what women fantasise about, or a man’s fantasy of what lesbian vampires might get up to. Nor is it a fantasy for a male vampire transcribed onto a female character. I focused on the emotional, maybe even psychic, connection between the women and made it an entirely lesbian fantasy.

That’s what Girls Who Bite is all about. Fantasy, of the lesbian variety. It’s about girls in their own fantasy space. It adds something new and different to the vampire genre. And that’s why I’m so excited to be part of it!

Excerpt from ‘She Knows I Am Watching’:

She knows I am watching. I am her comfort and what makes her thrill with fear. I know she thinks of me when she is alone in her little college room in the lingering dark hours of the night. She believes I am a figment, a dream or a shade, an idea given life by her imagination alone, a result of too much reading, too much solitary longing. She does not realize she knows my appearance because she has seen me, a glimpse in the periphery of her vision, every day for six months.

She’s a clever woman, the one I watch, with her stacks of books and hours spent clicking away on her computer. Clever, but with a soul aching for release from the lure of printed words and the struggle to achieve, from success measured in numbers and percentages. Her intelligence is something beyond these limited assessments. She craves her freedom. I give her that release even now, a fantasy promise of what I could grant, if I chose it.

This city is inhabited by many souls like hers, the life being drawn from all of them. Oxford is a vampire city. The ancient honey-gold college buildings, the Gothic arches and gargoyles, the flagstones and sun-drenched quadrangles, the old brick and the worn statues, all of it is steeped in the souls and the stories of those who were here before. The very masonry draws on the life force of those who pass through this place, drinking in a little of their glory, taking a taste of their intellect, nourished by their inspiration. The city is beautiful and celebrated only because of them; a dream of a city, fed by hopes and aspirations, more insidiously glorious than any place on earth. A vampire greater than any who ever lived. And I have known many in my time.

 

Is it any wonder I was drawn here? A traveler from the New World, where to be what I am is suddenly to be noticed, to be desired and copied. I exist in shadows and dreams. To be exposed is a trauma I feel in every cell. The movies, the books, the fashions, they have all come just a little too close. I fled to a place where the shadows of history are long, and the minds are far too busy to pay me any real heed….

All of it made sense to me when I found her. I had to come here because she is here. All the currents and tides of time, and history, and fate brought me to her, to watch her like a guardian angel and breathe vitality into her fantasies. I am not a death-bringer as the movies would have you believe. I am a life-giver. I do not look like an angel or a demon. When you see me in the edge of your vision I am merely a woman, my pale skin only remarkable if you were to run your fingers over it. I am not cold like death, but I do not feel human to the touch. You would feel it as a tingling in your fingertips, as you made contact with something only half of your world. The human body has merely five limited senses. You would need far more to understand me.

I saw her first when the sky was blue but the leaves brown, the days rapidly sliding into winter. In a steady shadow close to the library I lurked, watching all of the world pass me by. And then all else lost its color and life and there was only her, a slender woman descending the library steps, clutching two heavy books. Casual jeans and a gray blazer, the blue college scarf, could not hide a Pre-Raphaelite beauty manifested in fiery hair with languorous natural curls, skin almost as pale as my own. Anastasia. Stacie to her friends, the few she has. I know all of her friends. I always watch.

My thirst is under control. I have lived too many years to be prey to irresistible urges. But I cannot deny the longing I feel to taste her. I anticipate the flavors of her essence, of her lifeblood, every time I am with her. I catch her scent in the air and my tongue throbs with want for her. Not merely the physical sensation, the nourishing goodness of the liquid in her veins, but the taste of every part of her, of her knowledge and her emotions, of her experiences and her desires. I would taste all of it.

Today she was reading Shakespeare, the sonnets. They make her heart ache at the same time as they expand her mind, her wisdom. Her blood would be sweet today, a long draught of mellow and overripe summer fruits, a hint of honeysuckle and rose. She will taste of old England and of love. Last week she was reading stale academic texts, the analysis of the already overanalyzed. Her blood was bitter like coffee then, pulsing with frustration and want, sharp and intense. I love her most at night when her taste is as ancient and sweet as the honey of mead, and yet spicy and hot like cinnamon and ginger: the taste of desire unfulfilled.

I know already, you see, how she will taste, though I have never approached her. I only watch and nourish her. The world would call me vampire and yet, for now, it is she who draws on me. I see the changes; I smell them when she is very close. Her skin is pinker, her body somehow more voluptuous, though she remains as slender as when I first laid eyes on her. Her eyes glisten with a secret she wants only for herself. She is cold no longer. I have made her warm…

Comment on this blog for a chance to win a signed copy of my novel Ghosts of Winter!!

Because everyone deserves a little romance… Not the most exciting tag line but one I really believe in. My stories are about gay, straight and bisexual characters. I write romance because I want everyone to have a happy ending, even if it’s just for now. Why should gender matter when a person fills the gaps in your soul?

Most of my stories are about guys who love guys. I’d only dabbled with a little girl on girl until Delilah Devlin’s call for Girls Who Bite.

I’ve known Delilah for a whole lotta years. More than we care to air in public. She’s been both cheerleader and harshest critic. The chance to be part of her first anthology was just too good to pass up. I was thrilled my story was chosen. I’m honored to be in such fabulous company with so many amazing stories!

The call for submissions suggested writers explore vampire myths from around the world. Toss in a trip to an exhibit on ancient Egypt at a local museum and a vague memory of Egyptian mythology, a grain of an idea started twisting through my brain. A little research and the story developed quicker than I expected.

The legend of Sekhmet, a drinker of blood, and her alter-ego, Hathor, turned into Beloved.

Excerpt:

Hathor

Sekhmet

World of the Pharaohs Exhibit

The warrior goddess Sekhmet was known as the Eye of Ra, reigning death and destructionon Ra’s enemies. Sekhmet is often depicted with the head of a lioness, the fiercest of desert creatures.

However, Sekhmet’s blood lust was so great, it didn’t dissipate after the battle was won. With mankind in danger of extinction, Ra tricked Sekhmet by turning the Nile red. Except the liquid was not water but beer colored with pomegranate juice. Sekhmet slacked her thirst with the potent liquid. When she aroused from her stupor, she was the gentle goddess Hathor.

Hathor personified love, motherhood and joy and was usually depicted with the horns of a cow framing a sun disk. Some legends show the two as a single goddess or aspects of the same one; others have them as separate entities. However, all indicate their destinies were intertwined.

Sekhmet laughed aloud at the plaque explaining the relationship between her and the stupid cow. Irritation at the legends only added to her increasingly foul mood. She whirled around then stalked away.

The thirst grew ever sharper with each step, adding to her aggravation. Parched like the deserts of her youth, her throat ached with need for the soothing caress of rich, warm liquid.

The air was thick with delectable scents. Choices, choices… She could almost taste the sweet copper-tinged blood. And the fear that accompanied it. But something… A hint of something familiar lingered in the air. A scent, a feeling. Too vague for clear thoughts or words.

Sekhmet paused and let her eyelids droop almost closed. She gave in to the ancient call and raised her head to sniff the air like the predator she once was. The short series of snuffles shook the thick bush of braids on her head, rustling with the memory of a lion’s mane.

Something gold shimmered in the strategic lighting of the exhibit, reminding her of her nemesis’ skin. So far, she thought she’d escaped the bitch’s notice.

She hoped the cow wouldn’t find her in a backwater state like Arkansas, even if the capital city were hosting an Egyptian exhibit. The irony of stalking prey among the ruins of antiquity wasn’t an accident. Sekhmet rarely did anything by accident.

The familiar hint of myrrh and cinnamon wafted toward her sensitive nose. A flash of skin appeared in the corner of her eye. The teasing trill of a familiar laugh caught her hearing.

“How in the name of Ra…” Sekhmet twisted toward the vision but it was gone. She was gone. “Or maybe I’m finally losing my mind.”

Others had. Lost their minds…their will to live. Most of the old gods were gone. Wisps in the wind, ending like a sandstorm in the deep desert. No witnesses, no one believing enough to mourn. Not even the Pharaohs survived in spite of her role of protector.

For more about Shayla and her books, visit www.shaylakersten.com.

**UPDATE: The winner of the secret prize is…Friz! Friz, congrats!
Be sure to send an email to girls…@gmail.com to arrange delivery of your prize!**

Contest: Leave a comment below and you’ll be entered
for a chance to win a special vampire-inspired prize!

I recently visited a tiny town on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. In the shadow of the Olympic Mountains, on the edge of the Hoh rainforest, and only a few miles from the rugged Pacific coast beaches, Forks has always been as rich in natural beauty as it has been poor in industries and tourist attractions. In recent years, however, out-of-state license plates and foreign accents have become as common as bald eagles and elk. What phenomenon has transformed this sleepy old logging town into a mecca for thousands of vampire-loving visitors? Twilight has come to Forks, and its citizens have whole-heartedly embraced the dark side.

Local retailers take advantage of every opportunity to cater to visitors, regardless of whether they identify as Team Edward or Team Jacob. Aside from the expected T-shirts and coffee mugs, fans can buy Twilight-inspired thongs or boxers, candy bars or lattes, even “Twilight firewood” from a roadside stand.

They can eat Bellasagne and Ed Bread, leave angst-filled letters in a special mailbox in front of the Swan house, and pose next to a replica of Bella’s truck.

They can take photos of a sign warning vampires off Quileute tribal land, or stand in the parking spot reserved for Dr. Cullen at the local hospital. No part of the area around Forks is untouched by vampire-fever.

Over the past couple of weeks, the blogs on this site have been exploring the attraction of vampire stories. Why are we drawn to these myths and legends? Why do we continue to reinvent them, transform them? Why do people travel to an isolated small town in order to immerse themselves in a place where fictional vampires lived? The stories in Girls Who Bite give the vampire myths a fascinating and sexy twist by focusing on the blood-bond dynamic in a lesbian context. This anthology examines a dark, visceral connection between two women that sinks deeper than flesh and travels beyond the boundaries of socially acceptable passion and into the world of control and submission. Predator and prey. Perhaps we’re drawn by the desire to be subdued, to nourish our lovers’ souls, to embrace the pain of love without cringing. Or maybe we secretly wish to subdue, to take without remorse, to feel the power that comes when we give our lover pleasure beyond her wildest dreams. Either way, in these stories we are given space to confront and embrace the dark desires lurking inside us.

In my story “Dark Guard,” Rica the vampire is a Marginal, living on the edge of society without the same rights and freedoms as human citizens. Lisa is a hybrid, living among humans with all of their privileges. The two join forces to catch a serial killer, but Lisa’s true journey takes place inside her heart. She has to learn to embrace her Marginal half, the darkness lying deep inside her, the part of her that responds to Rica’s call.

But she won’t accept it without a fight…

Excerpt from “Dark Guard,” by Karis Walsh:

Lisa kicked off her covers as she slept fitfully the next day. The city radiated heat on the late summer afternoon, and the sheets tangled around her sweaty legs as she struggled in her sleep to break free. The vampire stalked her dreams, running a hand that was so soothingly cool down Lisa’s bare back. The hand was replaced by lips and a tongue that trailed an icy path down her spine and calmed her restless movements. She arched her back, the uncomfortable heat forgotten as that tongue moved across her hips. As if her movement was an invitation, a hand slipped under her, cupping her, teasing closer to the wetness that suddenly rushed from deep within.

“Just don’t pack a lunch,” Lisa said, pulling the sheet up to cover her bare breasts. “I don’t want to drive some poor girl around until you get hungry.”

Find Karis Walsh at www.kariswalsh.com, on Facebook, and on Twitter (@kariswalsh).

My usual sort of thing...

Howdy y’all! I’m thrilled to be in such great company here at Girls Who Bite, but I have a confession to make: I really don’t write paranormal. Or f/f. Or straight-up erotica. Writing-wise, I’m normally all about the male-Dom, kinky, spanky, romantic contemporaries with occasional detours into steampunk. And always a happy ending.

So…why the change? I wrote Al Dente in just a few days when I heard about this call for submissions, just to see if I could actually do it. The spirit of adventure! Lesbian vampire erotica? Well…I’m bi. I’ve read Dracula. I’ve never been to Rome, but this is fiction, after all, and there’s always Google Earth. NO PROBLEM. I was thrilled with the result, of course. But what pleased me most was the knowledge that I’d made a conscious effort to stretch outside my comfort zone and write something very different from my usual. That might almost be a theme for a lot of the stories in this collection, actually: going outside comfort zones to do something unusual.

NOW.

Doing this sort of thing from time to time (writing outside your comfort zone, not about lesbian vampires per se) reminds me how far I’ve come as a writer since I started several years ago. Back then, the big hurdle wasn’t getting published, or braving the submissions process, or even finishing a book; it was starting that book in the first place.

I know several people who would probably be amazing writers except for one thing: they just can’t get started. They might write little things “just for them” or the odd short story, perhaps even a fan fiction here or there…but a whole book is just too daunting, and so they don’t begin at all. Writing something out of the ordinary (for me) is like a reminder that the important part is just to do it. Give it a whirl. Even if it’s a crappy first draft or a cheesy fan fiction or an idea that fizzles out after the first chapter…eventually it’ll be something like a fine story featuring two immortal ladies un-living it up and eating pretty boys in Rome, and that’ll get published! Amazing!

Rome. It's where all the cool vampires are going these days.

The worst thing that can happen is that it doesn’t get published, but that’s just part of the writing experience too. Sometimes you get the pretty Roman boy, sometimes you get the wino bum who tastes like a sack of stale blood…but you’ll have to read the story to learn more about that.

For now, though, leave a comment about how you go outside your comfort zones (or just to say howdy), for a chance at winning an ebook copy of my M/f/f bdsm novella, “Roses and Chains“! It’s a heartwarming tale of kink, polyamory and geekdom. And check back on future posts for other prizes as we celebrate the release of Girls Who Bite!