The following short story is based on a scene in my novel, 'Vampire Red.' An extended version of this story will appear in
'Bloody Love : Vampire Erotica - A Vampire Red Story Collection, featuring characters you will meet in the novel,
'Vampire Red.'

drain the blood . . . 
A 'Vampire Red' short story by Alex Severin.

She felt tainted, poisonous and poisoned. He insides seemed rancid to her, toxic.

The guilt and the fear and the finger-pointing were taking their toll on Lily. She needed a release from the stress and the anguish and the guilt that was weighing her down, eating her up. She needed to be cleansed, be rid of the spilled blood she felt now flowed through her own veins.

Lily sat on the cold white-tiled floor in the bathroom and rummaged in her vanity case. She found a disposable razor and a nail file to pry open the plastic casing and liberate the instrument of her redemption.

She gazed at the razor blade, looked at it as if it were something mystical, something mysterious, something that held answers to unanswerable questions, and all she needed to do was feed it to gain that knowledge.

She drew the blade slowly across the pad on her index finger and closed her eyes, savouring the pain and the release it gave her. She smiled as her blood welled up like a glistening wet garnet. She watched, entranced, as the blood began to trickle down the length of her finger and into the palm of her hand. She sat there, eyes closed again, bloodied palm outstretched, her face beaming like an ecstatic stigmatic.

Lily raised her hand to her mouth and slowly licked at the red stream. The flavor of piquant metal on her tongue sedated her, began to thaw out the chill in her bones and made her feel a few moments of calm and peace.

But she needed more. Wanted more. A trickle was not enough when what she wanted was a scarlet gush to flush out the dirt. She had to cut deeper, harder. She needed to drain the blood.

She didn't want to die. She didn't want to not exist. She just wanted to bleed.

Lily drew the blade down the length of her forearm, deep enough for the wound to piss blood, but not deep enough to bleed her dry.

She felt the pristine chemical rush of endorphins and adrenaline kick in as the blood dripped on to the clinical white tiles and the pain made her shut her eyes tight and take in her breath sharply.

She looked at the pool of her own blood, warm, wet and fluid, in stark contrast to the cold, hard ceramic. She dipped her fingers in the crimson pool and began to write on the floor.

She wrote, in bold letters.

Vampire Red.

A colour.

Make the streets run vampire red, the Ministry of Lily had told their cult members via their website.

"Vampire red," she said. Her words echoed off the cold, hard walls and came back to her like the whisper of a ghost.

Lily cleaned the bathroom until no trace of blood was visible. She was sure that if it were to be sprayed with Luminol, it would look like an abattoir, but to the naked eye it was once again hospital white.

"Vampire Red," she whispered again a she closed the door behind her.

© Alex Severin 2004