Naomi

For the last few days, I’d had trouble getting really good sleep.

I thought maybe it was because I was sleeping alone for the first time in weeks. Then again, I was sleeping alone by choice. I could have had Hannah or any of my other thralls sleep with me whenever I wanted, or even Valerie. But Valerie was home now, and I wanted to let her settle back in with Lauren. She had been looking forward to that for a long time. And getting some peace, quiet, and tranquility all to myself was much needed.

But I suppose I simply couldn’t stop worrying about her, so I kept tossing and turning, no matter how dark and safe my bedroom was. And when I did eventually fall asleep, late into the day, I slept like the dead, more so than usual, late into the night.

I was curled nice and tight into bed like that, dreaming of my thralls’ blood, when the phone on the nightstand rang.

I pulled myself up into a sitting position to answer it. At what Lilith-forsaken time of day, I wondered? But I looked at the clock radio next to the phone, and it was already 9:30 PM. I felt almost as though I hadn’t gotten any rest at all… and I wondered about what was so critical that needed my attention. I hoped that Valerie hadn’t hurt my Laurie… I would be very displeased.

“Urgh… good evening, Gail. What is it that you need?” I asked, rubbing my eyes. I was pretty sure it was her who would be working tonight.

“Good evening, Mistress. I’m very sorry for waking You,” Gail said in her pleasant, practiced tone. “Mx. Celia Amethyst Moon is here to see You. Should I tell them to return another night?”

Ah… I had almost forgotten them, almost… they had become something I was putting off. My birthday was only three nights away now, the drawing held off since Celia wasn’t mine yet. Of course, that was just another thing that had been keeping me up during the day, but that almost made it harder to reach out to them somehow…

Gah. I was supposed to be better than psychological problems such as this. I still couldn’t get over what Valerie had done to Lauren, three nights later. I wanted them to be happy, and they were both so satisfied with it in the end. And my fledgling acted like this was revealing something to me. It made me want to assert my authority over her, for… some reason! I couldn’t piece any of it together but the whole thing made me so frustrated and angry and I just couldn’t let myself be happy for the two of them, no matter how much I claimed to care for them.

But all I could think now was that I could take Celia for myself tonight, and things wouldn’t be so difficult any more. It was the distant tunnel of darkness at the end of this long, bright trail.

“…Mistress? Are You alright?” Gail asked. I must have been lost in thought for longer than I realized.

“Yes, dear, I’m fine. Have Celia meet me in Hannah’s suite in fifteen minutes. I will get myself dressed in the meantime.”

“Yes, Mistress,” she said. “I love You!”

“I love you too, my darling.” I put down the phone.

I set to work getting myself dressed, wanting to look extra pretty for Celia. I picked out this belted brown dress with orange and gold flowery patterns on it, one I saved for special occasions. And not wanting to risk making a mess of my face even by a single eyelash, I called over Hannah, who would be needed shortly anyway. She helped me style my long red hair and apply foundation, eyeliner, and eyeshadow, something that wasn’t so easy without the use of a mirror.

“I hope this goes well, Mistress. Cece’s been really anxious about it,” she said as she finished the eyeliner on my right eye. I had taught her how to apply eyeliner for her own purposes, and in turn, she applied it to me.

“It will,” I assured her. “Especially thanks to your help. They’ll be too stunned by my beautiful looks and my soft voice to want to leave without becoming mine.”

“I’m excited for it, Mistress,” Hannah said, fixing a small bit on my upper eyelid. “I could never figure out how anyone could resist You to begin with. Every time I see You… You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

“But, Mistress,” she continued, giving me a worried look as she pulled the pen away, “You’ll only take them if they want to be taken, won’t You?”

“Of course! I’ll make quite sure that they want to be taken, dear,” I said. “Now let’s get back to your suite. I think it would be comforting to do this in a place familiar to them, don’t you?”

When Celia knocked on my door, I couldn’t sit still. Though Hannah stood to get the door on my behalf, I rushed ahead of her, the smell of her girlfriend’s blood clear and familiar to me even through the door.

I swung it open. Celia was wearing quite a casual outfit in comparison to me, one of their black band t-shirts with a pair of black shorts and tights. Their wavy, purple-dyed hair was let down in a way I hadn’t seen before, which looked pretty, and they were wearing the same silver necklace that they had been wearing at the steakhouse.

And when they saw me, they backed away, gripping their bag tight with a fearful expression on their face.

“Hi, Naomi,” they said. “Can we, uh, not do this here? Hannah’s room?”

“Er, I suppose,” I said. “I’m just not sure where else we would do this.” I stepped out into the hallway, Hannah behind me, but it just caused Celia to back away even further. That was alright. I would make sure that they wouldn’t stay scared.

“Um… I was more thinking someplace on more, like, neutral ground,” they said, looking in the direction of the elevator down the hall. I hoped we didn’t stay here too long… the lights in the hallway were rather bright, and it wasn’t private or intimate at all.

“Hi, Cece,” Hannah said, giving her girlfriend a bit of a nervous wave. Celia waved back to her, seeming all too eager to distract themself from my lovely appearance tonight. But distracting oneself from someone such as me was not so easy…

“Well, mm, perhaps you’d be willing to invite me into your home, dear?” I asked. “I wouldn’t mind driving out there, or if you would like to go someplace else together? A park in town, perhaps?” I offered Celia a friendly smile, showing my fangs.

They looked down, though, clutching their bag. “I was imagining more, like, the hotel lobby or something. I’m not going to invite you in just like that.”

I sighed, leaning against the door frame. That was a bit of a letdown.

“It’s too early for that,” I said, shaking my head. “Not even ten o’clock. There will be too many prying eyes. I’m sure you would’ve seen one or two people while you were down there, wouldn’t you have? It’s already warm enough for there to be beachgoers. Not quite as secure here as it is in the colder months.”

“Then… should we wait?” they asked. “I could come back in a couple of hours…”

“Please, don’t trouble yourself, Celia,” I replied. “I see no reason to delay further. You’re too delicious to wait any longer for.”

“I wasn’t exactly trying—” Celia cut themself off and groaned. “God. So you wanted to do this here in Hannah’s room, right?” They peeked back toward Hannah and the living room of her suite behind her, only dimly lit by a single table lamp.

I nodded. “I thought that it would be lovely to drink from you in the comfort of your partner’s home.”
“H-how about we do it in your room, instead?” Celia asked. I was surprised to hear them saying it, and wondered if they were doing it to make themself more comfortable, or to try and take control of the situation or something like that. But that was a silly endeavor. I was always in control of any situation I found myself in, and this wouldn’t hamper me even a little bit.

So I just smiled and said, “That sounds excellent, dear. Just down the hall there. Come along, Hannah.”

Hannah ran off to grab her suite key before joining me, not wanting to lock herself out. She was wearing only her pastel blue and pink pajamas, but that would be no problem for an occasion such as this. I would probably want a taste of her blood to go along with Celia’s, anyway… neither of them would stay clothed for all too long, and we could all sleep in my bed together. Perfect.

I took Hannah by the hand and Celia followed, albeit slowly and reluctantly. I took my own room key and unlocked the door to my suite at the end of the hall, stepping inside and opening the door wide to facilitate their entry.

“Jesus, it’s cold in here,” Celia said, holding themself tight as they stepped inside. “I guess you like it like this, huh, Naomi? I don’t know how you handle that, Hannah.”

“I get curled up in Her sheets ASAP, usually!” Hannah said. “Or under a blanket on Her couch.”

“It’s much more pleasant for me this way,” I said. “My, er, internal thermometer runs quite a bit colder than a human’s.”

“Right…” Celia said, squinting their eyes to have a look around in the darkness, my living room only lit by the moonlight outside. “That’s fair, I guess. You have a lot of paintings, huh? They’re pretty.”

“Well, thank you, dear,” I said. “Most of them are my own. Not all.” I stared up at a painting, one I had done of an old pine tree in a neighborhood in western Massachusetts that I had lived in during the 1940s, a tree that was, at least according to local lore, centuries older than myself. I didn’t know for certain if that tree was still standing, but it would be preserved here, at least.

“Oh, yeah, Hannah, you said something about Naomi painting Valerie, didn’t you? You’re getting back into art or something, Naomi?” Celia asked, not taking their eyes off of me for a moment. I didn’t mind that at all.

“Oh yes, I’ve painted for a long time. I actually brought that particular portrait over to Valerie’s just last night. It was a gift to her so that she could see herself.”

“God, I guess that would be something you’d have to deal with,” Celia said, looking around the room some more. “I guess that’s why you have a painting of yourself hanging up there?” They pointed at Mona’s painting of me next to the entryway, one of the most realist I had ever received, quite similar to my own style.

I simply nodded.

“At first I just thought you had paintings of yourself because you’re totally self-absorbed. Like Squidsy from Spongeboy,” the delicious-smelling girl continued, stifling laughter.

Hannah held back a giggle, and said, “C’mon, Cece, She’s not like Squidsy!” I wasn’t following at all, myself.

“Well, yeah,” Celia said. “Squidsy like, hates fun or whatever. You’re like, completely hedonistic, right, Naomi? It sort of seems like your whole thing. Heh, sorry, I had to, Hannah—”

“I think I’m being mocked here,” I said. “Why don’t we all take a seat before this continues?” I rolled my eyes, taking the big armchair in the living room while my thrall and her soon-to-be-enthralled girlfriend took their seats on the couch, Celia following reluctantly behind.

“She’s not like Squidsy,” Hannah whispered, patting Celia’s thigh in what looked like a held-back desperation. I really didn’t want to come between these two.

“OK, look, I can explain the deepest annals of the Spongeboy lore to you later, maybe, but I think I should address the elephant in the room here, Naomi,” Celia said. “I’m not gonna deny that I’m completely helpless against you here. You got me in your room. You successfully manipulated me into coming all the way back around to here, didn’t you? I’m sure you’re proud of yourself or whatever.”

I hadn’t quite expected the sudden hostility. Celia had been so sweet back at the steakhouse, if resistant… I was going to have to take steps to turn their demeanor back around once they were mine.

I cleared my throat. “Darling, I would be very proud to take you as my own—”

“Just—just slow down, alright?” Celia groaned, raising their hands in front of their face. “Hannah… sweetheart, I need you to understand how serious this is to me.” They lowered their right hand onto Hannah’s left, gripping it tightly for a moment. “Jade thinks I’d be better off breaking up with you. And I’ve been considering the same thing myself! But the truth is…” They sighed, bending over with their face in their lap, almost, seeming totally exhausted.

“Celia… I… what can I do?” Hannah asked, totally distraught, playing with her long brown hair as she tended to do when she was stressed out. But I myself could only think to say one thing.

“For what purpose would you break up with her?” I asked. “So that you would become more distant from me, is that what you think would happen? I’ve already gotten a whiff of your delicious B negative blood, dear. And you know of me. I’d want you for myself all the same. Hurting my Hannah just to deny yourself the pleasure of being my thrall is really one of the more self-destructive paths you could follow…”

Celia looked up from their lap, gritting their teeth at me, full of spite. “And see, that is the reason we’re still together, Hannah. Not because I feel forced, honey, but because I care about you… And I know that even if I went for raw self-preservation, moved to the other side of the country, or to Australia or something with Jade, that you, Naomi would still find some way to catch up to me, and both of us would be looking over our shoulders every night for the rest of our lives. I get it! You always get what you want because you’re relentless and you can brainwash people into loving you. I get it! You win, Naomi! You get all the blood you want forever and nobody can do a damn thing about it. So I’m put in a position where the only thing I can hope to do is talk you out of it.

“After all,” they continued, giving their girlfriend a kiss on the cheek, “I care about you, Hannah. I don’t want to just throw you to the wolves. Or the, uh, bats. I… uh, can you turn into a bat, Naomi?”

They were moving at a million miles an hour, but I could answer that, at least.

“Well, Lilith is generally believed to have been from eastern Europe or western Asia, whereas vampire bats are actually a New World animal, unrelated to my kind—” I started.

“Look, never mind that,” Celia continued, waving their hand. “The point is, I care about you, Hannah… it’s the reason I’ve stuck by you no matter how dire it’s seemed. Or unsafe for my other girlfriend. But we’d be no safer if I fucked off. You sure as shit wouldn’t be. And I’ve been doing some reading online, you know… I’ve thought about it a lot. I’ve talked with Jade. Guys on Readit universally say, ‘you can’t save a thrall. You’ll just get enthralled yourself.’ And maybe they’re fucking right? But what other choice do I have?”

They looked back at me, averting their eyes from mine still. “You’re gonna use my own partner to manipulate me, just because she’s ‘yours’.

“And Hannah, I believe you that you wanted this for yourself, but…” They sighed. “It doesn’t feel great being in a position where I know you’ll always side with her over me in the end. It’s scary.”

Celia slumped down onto Hannah’s lap, looking up at her longingly. Hannah was frowning, the energy drained from her body almost like I had just drunk from her, even though I hadn’t had a taste of her in a whole week. I didn’t want this to continue… I couldn’t simply have Celia take Hannah’s happiness from her. It was just one more reason to make them mine.

“I, uh…” Hannah sighed. “Shit. I didn’t realize how big a thing this was for you, I guess. I really do want you to be happy, you know? I swear I do. It’s just, She’s my Mistress. I do have to put Her first. It’s just how things work.”

After all Celia said, I could only bring myself to giggle, thinking it over. Unenthralled humans always had such trouble understanding the benefits…

“You and Jade have been, mm, talking this over, then?” I asked, suppressing full-throated laughter. “Strategizing? I fail to understand humans sometimes. You get each other worked up so easily over nothing. You could’ve brought her with you, you know, and made this whole process quite a lot simpler. No need for this to be such a slow, systematic ordeal, moving from girl to girl. You could present yourselves to me together.”

“Fuck that!” Celia shouted. “You’re not getting Jade.”

“My darling, I will have whatever I desire,” I said, giving the purple-haired girl a cold smile.

“You’re not getting her,” they repeated through clenched teeth. “I made sure of that. Jade and I were planning this for days. Right now, she’s hiding out somewhere I wouldn’t think to look. We agreed on that, both of us. And she’s not gonna listen to a damn word I say if I try to convince her to come out of hiding suspiciously, or if I tell her being enthralled is actually good, or if I have a bite mark on my body, or what the fuck ever. We’re prepared. You’re not getting any further into my polycule than Hannah and I.”

I let out a long sigh. “We’ll see about that, dear. Once you’re mine, we’ll do a great deal of brainstorming together. I’m a resourceful girl, you know. Adept at tracking scents too. Perhaps we can rule out family members or close friends. But she won’t stay hidden for long. And you’ll be all too eager to assist me…”

Celia shuddered and looked away from me, at Hannah’s thigh and then at a painting on the wall beyond her. “I guess I would be,” they admitted. “My mind would be twisted into doing whatever bullshit you demanded. The demands of some lady who keeps paintings of naked lesbians on her walls…”

“That’s Natasha in the front and Jing in the back,” I recalled. “They were mine in the 60s. They fell in love because I brought them together as my thralls… I found that so adorable. I spent days on that piece.” They were partially-covered by sheets in the painting — tastefully depicted, I thought, Natasha’s nipples and the edge of her pussy just barely depicted as Jing held her in her arms, both of them lying on my old bed back in Providence.

“I think it’s a beautiful painting, Mistress,” Hannah said. “I know I’ve said so before. They must’ve really loved you and each other. It shows in their expressions and the way you painted them… I love that little detail of Jing’s finger on the edge of Natasha’s nipple there. It makes me want to do that with You or Cece.”

“Urgh…” Celia held their head as though pained. “It’s a bit of a ‘bitch eating crackers’, sure. It’s hard for everything not to be if I want to stay sane. You have a nice apartment, Naomi! I won’t deny that. And your art is good, too. I can see you’ve spent a lot of time practicing. I don’t need to be a thrall to appreciate aspects of your personality. You’re a whole-ass person. Never tried to pretend otherwise.

“And Hannah, it’s sweet…” they continued, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “I’d like it if you cuddled me that way. On my terms, though, not Naomi’s.”

“You don’t think it’d feel good if I embraced you that way myself, Celia?” I asked. “I may be strong, but I’m also sweet and sensual…”

“I… heh, can we not make this about that?” Celia said, their expression softening for a fleeting moment. “I just happened to see the painting, is all. And what you said before about Jade, Naomi? That’s why I’m not gonna give into this. You’re right! You’d make me betray her. I know you can do that. So, congratulations. You’ve gotten me into a spot where I’m even less likely to give myself up willingly.”

“And yet here you are, sweetie,” I said. “You’re practically offering yourself up already, even if you’re not on your knees.”

They sighed. “Because you were gonna make Hannah do it. I… cared more about not putting her through that than I did about my own safety, I guess.” They hugged my loyal thrall tight as though she were a life raft. “And maybe even more importantly? I thought that if I came here on your terms, I could maybe talk you out of going after Jade. After all, you clearly want to talk about something. Otherwise, you’d already have your fangs in me, wouldn’t you? Not like there’s a hell of a lot stopping you.” They looked around the room almost rhetorically, Hannah clutching their arm as they did.

I crossed my legs and gave Celia a fanged smile. “That’s true, dear, I could… and perhaps I’d be wise to. Even after all these decades, a couple of centuries, even, I cannot say I always behave in the optimal manner. Sometimes, I suppose, I want something different…”

“You want to talk to someone who’s not your thrall, right?” they guessed. “Someone who could disagree with you. Just like Hannah said at the steakhouse.”

“It can be interesting, from a purely intellectual perspective,” I said. “It gives me more time to learn all the weaknesses in that silly little head of yours, so I can turn them against you later… make you more mine.”

“Rationalize it however you like,” Celia groaned. “Somehow, I suspect you wouldn’t have any more trouble manipulating me if you enthralled me. I mean…” They closed their eyes and clutched their girlfriend’s thigh. “Hannah, Naomi understands you pretty well, doesn’t she?”

“Of course Mistress understands me!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands together adorably. “I think She does better than almost anyone… I mean, you’re coming to be a close second too, Cece, but I’ve just been together with Mistress for longer. And She’s, uh… wonderful at manipulating me. You make me feel so powerless, Mistress. I l-love it a lot.”

“Good girl,” I said. “What exactly is your point, Celia?”

They rolled their eyes. “Oh my god. What I’m getting at is that you clearly want something from me that you won’t be able to get later, and being able to manipulate me isn’t it.

“So hear me out. I was thinking about this the other day, actually, thinking it over, dreading what was going to happen to me, Jade, everyone. But then my dread just kind of turned into bewilderment. Because there’s something I don’t think you’ve considered, Naomi.”

I leaned forward with a big smile on my face, and asked, “What might that be?”

“The scale of this thing.”

“What, of taking a human’s free will away?” I laughed. “It’s not all too difficult for me, sweetie. I could demonstrate if you’d look me in the eyes.”

“A-actually, it’s not that difficult for me to understand that you can hypnotize someone by looking them in the eyes,” they said, looking away awkwardly, a wavering frown on their face. “I’ve experienced that myself, I’m sure you remember.”

“You were adorable that way,” I said. “But what are you speaking of, then?”

“It’s the scale of the polycule, Naomi,” they said. “You talk like if you went after Jade, that would be the end of it, right? But Jade’s dating three other people besides me. One of them’s in France, one in British Columbia, and the other one lives in Connecticut. But that’s still a pretty decent distance away! They’d notice that Jade was acting weird once she was your thrall, surely! They all know her as well as I do. And right now, she’s agreeing to keep your secrets… if I got enthralled, do you think that’d still be the case?

“And that’s not all. Do you think the polycule ends there, Naomi? The girl in B.C. is dating two other people that I know of, the person in Connecticut is dating three, and I don’t know the guy in France well enough to know how many people he’s dating. And do you know how many people branch off of those people? Because I couldn’t begin to account for that! It’s all interwoven… Jade keeps a chart of this stuff, actually, which you’re on now, by the way. But even that isn’t completely exhaustive! She has to keep it to six degrees of separation, and I think there are probably a lot more than that if you take it to its logical conclusion.

“Let me put it this way, Naomi. Are you gonna go all the way to France to hypnotize a man into forgetting about you? And are you gonna dig further in that chart and find, no doubt, several more men scattered across the globe? Are you prepared to deal with all that? It might take years! And if you think I’m stressing you out, all on my own, here, helpless on your couch, what will all of those people do to you?”

They had raised their voice quite substantially, but began to calm down finally, panting, their fists clenched, their eyes wide as they looked down at the shag carpet on my floors.

It was a bit disconcerting, but what they had said was even more disconcerting. I intended for this to be the end of the line for the turbulence that had begun with Nicole and Caroline, or perhaps even earlier, when Valerie had come after me. I liked to live my undeath in peace, without looking over my shoulder every night… I supposed I felt similarly to Celia and Jade in that way, even if their fear of me was unfounded. But it did cause me to think a little bit… would I really be chasing down these two women’s lovers and those lovers’ lovers for years? Decades? How far would information about myself travel? If they wanted to hurt me, expose me, I’d be looking at something far worse than even local vampire hunters knowing my name…

And, being so unsure how to process all of that, I must’ve become quite still, staring off into the middle distance… I saw the moon shining as a waning crescent outside the window between Celia and Hannah’s heads.

“M-Mistress? Are you OK?” Hannah asked, shaking me from my stupor. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been thinking.

And I still didn’t know what to say, how to respond… how out of hand could this get? Would the consequences of going after one girl really be so dire? And all because… all because…!

I leaped out of my chair and onto Celia, pinning them down against the couch with all of my strength, hissing as I did. No… not all of my strength. Even agitated like this, I knew how to hold back… I was angry, yes, but I had no intention of breaking them. But it was more than enough to make Hannah shriek, leap out of the way onto the ground. Even as my thrall, she could still be frightened of me in the right — or wrong — circumstances.

“You will not threaten me in this way,” I commanded in the most seductive voice I could manage. “You are the end of the line, dear, not the beginning of it. Making you mine is how I make things right. With you, Valerie, Emily, Caroline… everyone.”

I clenched their arms tighter, nearing a breaking point, while Celia moaned and cried. I wasn’t in the mood for sympathy — I only growled, instead.

“I… I'm not trying to threaten you, I swear!” they squeaked. “I’m not going to do anything! Unlike you… unlike you, I don’t have complete control of my girlfriend’s actions! And… it’s not even her, like I said! This is way beyond anyone’s control if you go after the polycule! Doesn’t matter what I do, what I want, what you make me want, Naomi, please! Please! It’s just cause and effect!”

I leaned in closer, Celia’s breaths warm on my face, and gritted my fangs.

“So just by knowing you,” I said, clenching the non-binary girl’s arms, “you’re saying I guarantee exposure? Tell me then why I shouldn’t simply end your life right here? Jade too, before word gets out? I could cut this off right here. Maintain my privacy at all costs.”

Their eyes went wide, terrified. I hated seeing it, truly, this wasn’t what I wanted… but did I have any choice?

“W-what?” they said. “Are you serious? Oh my fucking god… I thought you didn’t like hurting people! I—”

“I don’t,” I said truthfully. “But it won’t be the first time. You have created dire circumstances, Celia, even if it was unintentional. I dread to think of what would happen if I allow things to continue…”

Celia began to shout out for help, but I covered their mouth with my left hand, silencing their screams. This wasn’t going to be difficult, but it also wouldn’t be easy for me…

“Mistress!” Hannah cried, grabbing at my leg. “Please… please don’t hurt them! I love them, Mistress! I… I’d be miserable if I ever lost them!”

I looked at her in shock, and back at Celia, who was struggling with all their pathetic human might to no avail. What was this insubordination? From Hannah of all people, one of my most loyal thralls, the only one who had ever come completely of her own will? I could show her, crush the life out of Celia’s throat right here and survive for another night… sometimes I had to do things I’d otherwise regret if I wanted my undeath to go on.

But I tried to see reason, understand why Hannah would beg for such a thing. I thought of myself in her shoes, collapsed on the ground of my begetter’s mansion in Boston. It had been much easier to maintain an illusion of humanity in those times, and he liked to maintain the image of a wealthy and eccentric southern European fur trader. He enjoyed that image of nobility, and I played the role of his manservant. I shuddered to think of being cast in that role.

I had been out that night seeking blood, and when I returned, I found him pinning my sister against the wall. She had laid eyes on one of his thralls one too many times, a lovely blonde girl with green eyes and wide hips named Lisette. I didn’t know if she had truly desired Lisette’s blood. My sister had always preyed primarily on men, as that’s what he encouraged. I often wondered what desires truly laid in her unbeating heart if not for his influence.

But Naomi had displeased him — my sister, not myself. I hadn’t chosen that name yet; I was still known by the name my parents had given me, one tainted by my begetter’s insistence upon its use if not by its masculinity. This was the final straw, he said. He could not have his own fledgling threatening the rigid hierarchy he enjoyed enacting. I was overcome with fear. I begged for him to show forgiveness in a way I thought I had been broken out of ever thinking to do. He shoved me away, and I hit the far wall, then the marble tile of the floor with an awful thud. Such a mundane injury meant nothing to me, but I couldn’t bring myself to move. That was where he wanted me, his will suddenly made clear. He had intervened.

And so, as Alexander removed his prized dueling sword from its nearby wall mount, received from a man in southern Spain in the 14th century whom he liked to claim was the finest smith in the history of the civilized world, I could only watch. I could only cry silently, an involuntary reaction, as Naomi’s undeath was put to a final end. I could only smile as Alexander pulled me from the floor and told me I had always been his favorite of us siblings.

And it was not long after that that I began plotting his own end.

On Hannah’s face was the same expression I must have had then, a combination of loyalty and fear, the fear of what her Mistress, the center of gravity for all the love and trust she was capable of, might do to the other girl she loved. The fear of what she would have to think if I did go through with it, the way she’d twist herself into a knot to justify it. The way she might decide, in the darkest corners of her mind that even I could not govern, that submitting herself to me was a mistake, and that she’d do anything to escape me, even actions that were unthinkable in every sense of the word.

By hurting Celia, I would be hurting Hannah. It was my first and foremost policy as Mistress to my thralls that none of them come to harm.

I relaxed my grip, giving Celia’s cheek a comforting and loving touch. Regardless of anything else, weren’t they too pretty to harm? I’d be giving up so much delicious B negative blood, right there in front of me…

But that wouldn’t be a satisfactory solution either, would it? And so I found myself right back where I had started, no options to choose from.

Celia was grabbing at their throat, regaining their breath — though I hadn’t actually choked them, they had been panicking enough to inhibit their own breathing. And Hannah was looking up at them from the carpet by my feet with a great deal of concern.

“Mistress,” my thrall said, giving my arm a tender touch. “You’re really going through it, huh? Y-You’re not going to hurt them? Please, Mistress…”

I clenched my fist and looked away from both women. “No, I’m not,” I said. “You’ve done nothing to incur my anger, Celia, not really. Not anything that countless other women haven’t done. Being afraid of me…”

“You’re… you’re scary,” Celia panted, struggling to slide away from me on the couch. “You were talking about me threatening you? Do you see what you were just doing? And you really would’ve gone through with it too, wouldn’t you have? How do I explain something like this to Jade? I… god… how do I trust it won’t happen again…” They began to weep, tears streaming down their face as they reached for Hannah. She joined them on the couch, hugging them tightly as I fell fully to the floor, between their legs, the couch, and the coffee table.

Now I was just feeling rather guilty, and I couldn’t stop myself from growling.

“Dear, I… I should not have done that. I’m sorry,” I muttered. “My kind is possessed of certain instincts. Something I’m usually adept at controlling. Almost always. But for the last several months, I’ve been on the verge of losing… everything. I don’t want to be on the run, you’ll understand. I like living in this place. It’s my home. And you’re telling me that even if I take both you and your partner, I might be left in a situation where I must leave everything behind. Even after the grace I’ve shown Valerie, the restraint I’ve achieved. But… mine have been the actions of a fledgling, yes. I ought to think first. I am capable of such a thing.”

“I, um… I guess it’d be hard to be scared and angry if you had the strength to bend steel with your bare hands, heh,” Celia said, letting out a single nervous laugh. I was hardly putting effort into it at the moment, but my charms still did wonders at times like these. Hard for them to feel like escalating matters when we were this close, their skin brushing against mine, their eyes on my curves, listening to my beautiful voice…

I nodded. “It took decades to master the light touch I possess today. When I was a fledgling, I often gripped my thralls’ hands too tight… it led to broken bones on more than one occasion. I’ll be looking after Valerie on that subject for a long while.”

“That’s… kind of sweet,” Celia said. “You, um, didn’t hurt me at least. Ultimately.”

“Mistress, I know You’ve been going through a lot,” Hannah said, taking my hand and squeezing it with her meager strength. “I’ve seen it all firsthand. Most of it, anyway. Whatever happens, it’s gonna be OK, OK? We’re all here for You. Eager to serve and please You.”

“Thank you, sweetie…” I started, but thinking over my thrall’s words only made panic flash through my psyche again. I had stopped myself from hurting Celia, and rightfully so, but the question remained…

“Before we lose the topic,” I said, pulling myself back up onto the armchair, “I am still unsure what to do with you, Celia. I don’t wish to harm you… I couldn’t bring myself to. It would be a horrid application of the strength I wield, not one I wish to replicate. But… what am I to do? If I take only you, you say that Jade won’t trust you again. She’s likely to spread word, yes? And if I take both of you, Jade’s other partners will find out. What option am I left with? What is it that you propose, dear? Something that will satisfy not only yourself, but me as well?”

Celia looked away toward Hannah, voice very small as they said, “You could just… not take either of us. And you could leave Jade alone. You could choose to not even get her wrapped up into this.”

I shook my head. “That’s not how this works, darling. You got her involved. Don’t forget that. I can’t just have people going around knowing these details about my nature, my name, my home, without taking measures to ensure my safety. You understand that, don’t you?”

“She’s… she’s not gonna tell anyone,” Celia said. “Like I said. She’s got no reason to.”

“How can I trust that?” I hissed, digging my fingernails into a throw pillow.

Celia sighed, looking down at their lap. “Because we’re trans girls like you, Naomi. I under— at least, I think I understand why you’re so scared. But you don’t need to be. I mean, you’ve trusted people before, haven’t you? You mentioned those two other women, and Hannah’s elaborated… Emily and Caroline, right? You managed to let them go, and I’m pretty sure they’re off living their best lives. Why can’t Jade and I just be a couple more to add to that list?”

I closed my eyes and chuckled, feeling exhausted by repetition. “Celia, dear, we’ve been over this. You’re, er, considerably closer to me… and Caroline I would’ve taken if I’d had the chance, mind you! There were simply more important things. Emily has been my only true special case, as I think of it. And she… she has her ways. Ways of getting under my skin that I’ve never seen before or since.

“Ah, and I should say, they are not living their best lives. I may be giving them a wide berth, but they would both be happier as my thralls. As would any woman. I saw Emily just a few nights ago, in fact, in the midst of resolving a different conflict. You could not convince me that she is in the best position she could be in, terrified out of her mind of my kind. I wish I could bring myself to help her resolve that. It’s a personal failing of mine, really.”

I thought of the forlorn look she had given Valerie as we departed from her apartment building. She had seemed more put together than the last time I had seen her, but surely that had only been due to becoming accustomed to the mundanity of free will.

“Th-the conflict,” Celia said, becoming nearly as still as I might. “That was between Valerie and Lauren, right? You mentioned that to me, Hannah. She—Lauren—she’s her thrall now? I forgot to follow up. It was kind of stressing me out to think about the other night. Kept me up.”

“Oh, they’re so happy together, Cece!” Hannah said, hugging Celia tight, which only seemed to make them more uncomfortable. “Aren’t they, Mistress? I mean, it’s a little more complicated than what you might be thinking, honey…”

I growled, thinking of what had transpired between them. But no, no—it was my fledgling’s choice, one I had laid out for her, even if her solution was unorthodox. She would need my implicit and explicit support.

“Valerie negotiated a part-time arrangement with Lauren. They’ll be, er, switching it on and off every other night,” I explained. It’s a futile exercise and one I don’t expect to last more than a few weeks, I wanted to add. But I thought it right to keep that to myself.

Celia giggled nervously again. “Right. Like a thrall half the time? That’s, uh, better, I think. Compared to all the time…”

“It’ll eventually transition to a full-time arrangement, I believe,” I said. “Only a matter of time. My Valerie is just a fledgling. I let her make this choice, but only in the interest of her eventually figuring things out…”

Something felt wrong about that as I was saying it, though. It almost made my skin crawl.

“I… I don’t really know Valerie at all,” Celia said. “No idea whether you’re right. But something tells me you ought not write that off so easily…”

I growled. “You would say that, wouldn’t you? And you have the gall to accuse me of being manipulative—”

“You are freaking manipulative!” the yummy-smelling girl shouted. “You are incredibly manipulative! Supernaturally manipulative! Every second I spend listening to you, looking at you, I can feel myself being worn down… when I was on my way driving here, I wanted to be a little scared, but I was mostly just horny. I’m still horny, and it’s hot, it is hot, OK, to imagine being enthralled! To imagine letting you drink my blood. Even when you were threatening to kill me, my girlcock was really, really hard. Does that make you happy? I’ll admit it, it’s hot! It’s all fucking hot. That has never not been on my mind. I didn’t think it would even need to be acknowledged. Jade and I have been fucking over it, for Christ’s sake.” They panted, seeming a mix of terrified and relieved, their eyes wide. I did enjoy manipulating the silly little minds of humans, it was true, but I found it a bit of a hypocritical accusation still.

Hannah grabbed her girlfriend’s arm lovingly, showing them a big smile. “You know you don’t need to suppress those feelings around Mistress, honey. She likes it when girls express their sexuality around Her.”

Celia grabbed Hannah’s shoulders, madness in their eyes. “I know that, Hannah! I know Naomi likes it! But I… I can feel her making me like it!”

“That just makes it more hot to me,” Hannah giggled. “I’ve always loved that feeling. I longed for it for years before I met Mistress.”

“It makes it more hot to me, too! But I… I can’t just give in to that! It’s not…” They snuck a peek back at me. “It’s just not a good idea. For my own safety and how it’d put Jade at risk of the same. And yeah, that’s hot too, OK? But that is fucked up! Naomi doesn’t even know her!”

“I didn’t know Mistress either before I came here,” my thrall said. “But I shouldn’t speak for Her.”

Celia held Hannah’s shoulder with a sense of desperation. “Yeah, and in my opinion, you’re lucky to be alive—”

“Celia, dear, why are we even bothering with this?” I asked, standing and moving toward the couch, startling the purple-haired girl. “You say you won’t give in to it, sure, but look at yourself… you can’t deny how much I turn you on. How much the idea of being a thrall like Hannah turns you on. You want me to drink your blood very badly, don’t you? Sink my long, sharp fangs into your warm, soft skin? It’s alright to give into that, darling. All you need to do is ask. I’d be very glad to oblige.”

“Would you now?” Celia groaned through gritted teeth, their whole body visibly shaking as they leaned away from my sudden presence. “Look… look, you can say shit like this, and it’s working on me! I won’t pretend! I… I… I just… nothing’s changed, Naomi. You enthrall me, you lose Jade’s trust. So back off if you don’t want to go on a globe-trotting adventure to hypnotize a hundred men into forgetting you’re a vampire.”

I growled, unable to form an appropriate response in my mind.

“Hunters will be breathing down your neck for a decade, at least,” Celia said, glaring just below my eye level. “This suite of yours is really nice. You don’t want to lose it, do you? See, I can ask a bunch of leading questions like this too… even… even, hehehe, even if I’m doomed to eventually give in, god you’re pretty it’s so unfair!”

I began to smile, enthused that they were finally succumbing to my charms in full. But they were also right — they might have framed it as an ominous threat, the kind that had provoked me into attacking them before, but it seemed to truly be a fact regardless of their intention that Jade’s positionality would cause this conflict to balloon out of control. I regretted not taking Celia at the steakhouse then, and even more so, I lamented that I could not have taken Celia to the steakhouse without them knowing about my true nature in the first place. By now, they already knew me, they had been thinking about me… that opened them up to my charms in some ways, but it also put them on guard, and it had given them days to strategize with Jade.

Now, Celia’s submission was almost hollow. Even as they began to fawn over me, it was an immense risk to drink from them. Jade would notice that bite mark, and I would, indeed, be forced to track down hundreds of people, some of whom would be men. Given that Celia didn’t know the exact measures that Jade had taken, it could even be, I realized, that she had set up a dead woman’s switch, a message to automatically be sent to her partners if she didn’t go out of her way to disable it. Though Jade would cooperate once she was mine, it might be too late at that point… that was giving me a headache.

Whatever I’d do here, it would have to be carefully orchestrated. Simply staring Celia in the eyes and sinking my fangs into their neck wasn’t enough — I’d need to do it in a way that wouldn’t provoke Jade’s suspicion, something she’d accept.

And the first solution I thought of made me want to throw myself into sunlight. It simply wasn’t how I conducted myself, nor was it my place in the world. And yet it struck me as a potentially effective strategy.

“Well, er, answer this question,” I said, placing my right hand on Celia’s leg, realizing I was out of my mind for even considering this. “That thing that happened between Valerie and Lauren… the, er, part-time enthrallment thing… how do you think that Jade would feel about that?”

“I… I think if you go anywhere near Jade, Naomi, if you try to get her involved with this… I think your name is gonna be on every vampire hunter’s hit list,” Celia said, pressing their back against the couch cushion as I scratched their leg. “Ugh, Naomi is such a pretty name. It really fits you.”

They leaned back more, saying nothing and just enjoying my affection, then, “…God. I’m soooooo fucked, aren’t I?” 

“It’s good, right?” Hannah said. “You can give into it! It’s OK! I’m sure Mistress will figure something out for you and Jade both.”

“Yes, I think I have,” I said reluctantly, pulling back into a sort of defensive position. “When I spoke of a part-time Mistress-thrall relationship, I didn’t mean Jade. I meant you, Celia. Would Jade accept it if you were my thrall just some of the time?”

I nearly wanted to retch, a long-forgotten sensation. But I steadied myself with the thought that just as it wouldn’t be for my fledgling and my thrall, this arrangement would not be everlasting. It was merely something to do now, something to, indeed, manipulate this girl’s silly little head with. Just one step toward making them and their girlfriend mine. I’d simply need to retract it later, stop using the trigger I’d given them and take back the control that would be best for both of us. And if it was best for both of us, then it was certainly best for me.

“I… I, uh… maybe? I think… I think she could maybe be convinced,” Celia said, slouched over onto Hannah a bit, looking over my upper body with amazement, focused on my tits in particular. I did think they were quite lovely. “Ohh, god, I’m helping you now, aren’t I? Hehe, this feels so fucking wrong and it just makes me want to do it more. Shhhhiiiit…” They looked around the room, their eyes more adjusted to the darkness now, in search of something that would let them escape the present arrangement. But they only had Hannah and I to fall back on, other than a hotel full of my thralls.

Though it felt wrong, I realized then the brilliance of Valerie’s scheme, what she had been trying to teach me. She had spoken of the capabilities of our kind, of teaching me something new about myself. I supposed I couldn’t object to having another tool in my toolkit if it meant more pretty girls to drink from without fear of consequence. And given that the arrangement would be temporary, for no more than a few weeks at most, weeks during which I’d build trust and plan with both them and Jade to ensure the completeness of their submission to me, I had no reason to fear that this would threaten the way I liked to carry out my undeath, the habits that made me me.

“Hm-hm,” I giggled, taking Celia’s shoulders and laying them gently on my lap, much as they had laid at the steakhouse, working my hands carefully around their silver necklace, my legs protected by the skirt of my dress. “It won’t feel wrong if you give into it, sweetie. I know you want it. You wanted it even before you came here, didn’t you? Last time I did something like this was with Lauren… she brandished silver against me. You didn’t even bring anything to defend yourself from me. Those are hardly the actions of a girl who didn’t want to feel my fangs inside their neck.”

Celia gave me a little half-grimace, their resistance quickly fading. “I… hehehe… I came to negotiate with you. I’m… not… a killer. Can’t find it in myself to hurt you… maybe, with Jade’s free will on the line, that’s a weakness… but… I’m wearing my necklace at least. It’s… silver, isn’t it? Hehehehe… there’s no way you can bite me like this.” They smiled widely, their eyes closed as they snuggled further into my lap. Thankfully, the lining of my dress was sufficient to prevent the necklace from touching my skin.

“I suppose it could pose a problem, in theory,” I said, patting them on the cheek. “Hannah, take their necklace off, won’t you?”

“Yes, Mistress!” my thrall said, quite enthusiastically. I could tell she was excited to worship me alongside her girlfriend.

“Oh-ho wow, so we’re really doing this now, huh?” Celia asked, offering no resistance as Hannah reached around the back of their neck to unclasp the necklace. “You… you found your loophole, Naomi. I’m fucked, aren’t I? I thought… I thought back at the steakhouse, that you might have been having serious second thoughts, but you just… can’t keep yourself away from my blood, can you? God… I bet I smell good if that’s the case. That’s a nice thought.”

“I’ll make sure you’re fucked quite regularly,” I said with a little smile, trying to stop myself from thinking about the betrayal I was committing against my own ideals. Celia had no idea how much I was compromising just to appease them and Jade. “But it will be a part-time affair. I’m serious about that, you know.”

“Y-yeah. Serious,” Celia shuddered. “I’m… I’m sure you are. It’s probably another fuckin’ psyop but… here we are, right? I mean, I guess I’ll see you on the other side? Hehe… given how fast I’m falling. Fuuuck, it feels nice. Like I can… just let all my worries go. Even all of my worries about Jade’s safety. I…

“I have to hold onto that! N-Naomi, please…” They grabbed at the low neckline of my dress, staring up at me with a pained expression. “Please trust me, trust her! I… I… I need that! I… Hannah, I love you, please, please make her understand… Y-you don’t have to be so scared, Naomi! Girls like us have to stand up for each other! I won’t let you down that way, no matter how much you want my blood!”

“I love you too, Celia,” Hannah said, holding their hand. But I barely paid mind to her words. I was still stuck on Celia’s…

Girls like us have to stand up for each other… In their final moments before I drank from them, humans usually liked to beg pathetically for their free will or their lives, threaten my undeath fruitlessly, curse me as an agent of evil, if I even gave them the chance. Even my fledgling had meant to stab me moments before she fell into my gaze. But now, even as Celia remained reluctant, they were showing me solidarity? What did it mean to be the same sort of girl as them? I wasn’t sure that I’d had anyone like that since Olivia, but maybe I was just blind to how much I had in common with the girls I surrounded myself with.

I was suddenly flooded with a sense of unease, though not altogether an unpleasant unease. It was the same feeling, I quickly realized, that I felt when Valerie asserted dominance over me. In some ways, it was what I had been feeling all night, the nagging feeling that, just maybe, I could give up a small amount of the control I so greatly enjoyed to instead give this girl — a girl who, in some ways, was quite a lot like me — the trust that they desired. I had a reliable way of guaranteeing trust, of course, and yet I was still choosing to employ the method Valerie had created, one I had helped her develop, even, one that would require me to put a little more trust in them, at least for a time.

It was just a trick, just a way to ensure their permanent submission to me, I reminded myself. They were too delicious to let go, weren’t they? I wanted them waiting on me, serving me as my thrall. It was a way of convincing them to come to me willingly, and it was working! But… but I wouldn’t make it a habit. I couldn’t. How could I trust an unenthralled human, even if they were a girl like me?

A… a girl like me. They had their reasons not to out me. They didn’t truly need to be compelled. Maybe that would change… the ways of my kind were always offensive to human society, of course. I would always be seen as an evil creature by the masses. My thralls understood me, at least. We had more than a few things in common. That was part of what made them so delectable…

I hadn’t realized that I had begun to tear up until I began speaking to Celia once again.

“I’ll trust you, Celia,” I said, wanting ever so badly to mean it. “I’ll trust Jade too.

“Now be a good girl and look me in the eyes.”