Valerie

Mistress had made Her will clear to me: enthralling the woman from the hallway was my choice to make. But that didn’t mean that making the choice itself was any easier for me.

It had been what felt like a long time since I had had to make any really important decisions. Sure, I chose what clothes to put on every day (although I preferred ones that Mistress found pretty if I was seeing Her that day), and when I had been human, Lauren and I would choose what to eat for dinner each night (although I preferred food that Mistress said made my blood taste better), but in terms of really important decisions, life decisions, I had left those up to Mistress ever since I had been enthralled, over half a year ago now. I wasn’t sure if I was capable of making important decisions any more.

And this was a matter of right and wrong… I had once had my own ideas about that, but Mistress was my moral center since She had taken me. She always liked to emphasize that She didn’t abide by the human concepts of good and evil, ideals that, in Her opinion, drove humans toward ignorance and hatred of Her kind: women, queers, and vampires. Despite that, She had a very well-developed moral philosophy of Her own, one based on Her desire to protect Her thralls, show them love, and follow in Lilith’s footsteps.

I tried to think of what Mistress would do in a situation like this. More likely than not, She would fuck the hallway lady and then send her off with clouded memories of the incident, or maybe enthrall her if She happened to feel really attached. Mistress did that sort of thing all the time, and I guessed I could do the same, but it didn’t come so naturally to me as it seemed to for Her. Certainly I wanted the woman’s blood, very badly actually, but was it really my place to act like Mistress? I didn’t feel so sure.

In the end, I decided that I needed a second opinion. So after a long day of tossing and turning in bed with Mistress, coming down from our kinky escapades yesterday and worrying about what would happen with the hallway lady tomorrow, I got myself up in the morning and decided to ask Emily Fogel, the person I’d known who had some of the most polarized opinions about the undead.

I had been needing to talk to her, anyway. Last we had spoken, I was basically interrogating her about the whereabouts of my kidnapped Mistress, and she had assumed that She would be dead. I had held onto the hope that I’d be able to save Her, and save Her I did at the cost of my own life, more or less. Emily deserved to know how both Mistress and I were doing now.

Mistress left early in the evening to go visit Lauren to drink from her and watch a few episodes of her favorite animated TV series, Stephen Galaxy, with her. I was very envious of that, but Mistress still didn’t think I was ready to see Lauren yet. On the other hand, She thought it was safe to leave me here on my own now after our role reversal yesterday, She said, which did fill me with a lot of confidence in the coming conversation, as well as whatever was coming with the woman from the hallway, if I chose to go through with it. She had offered Her help, and I felt that I wouldn’t need it.

Of course, none of this dispelled the dread that came with talking to Emily after all that had happened. But I needed to power through that for now and get on with it already.

And… Goddess, I really needed to get around to having my phone’s backlight removed. Even if I was suppressing the urge to go feral over the smell of nearby blood pretty well at this point, experience didn’t make looking at light this bright much easier.

<Valerie Hawthorne> Hi, Emily.

How are you doing?

I wanted to check in and

I had some stuff I wanted to ask you about.

She responded in the matter of just a few minutes while I sat on the bed nervously, completely still. I guessed she really hadn’t been kidding the last time I saw her when she said she’d be available to offer me support at any time. Had she assumed that Mistress was dead? I didn’t want to think about that, but I would probably know soon.

<Emily Fogel> Valerie…

I’m glad you reached out

What ended up happening?

I’ve been avoiding thinking about this in too much detail since you came to my place but you’ve been on my mind regularly

<Valerie Hawthorne> Oh wow that’s a big question to answer.

What ended up happening is that

I guess

I saved my Mistress.

I was right.

She survived.

<Emily Fogel> Oh… I see :/

<Valerie Hawthorne> Well, don’t get too excited. 😰

<Emily Fogel> Sorry, not gonna stop worrying about you

Did you

Hurt anyone

<Valerie Hawthorne> No, not me.

hunter_419 was a vampire.

But still committed to vampire hunting.

She wanted me to watch my Mistress die so I’d know She was dead.

<Emily Fogel> Jesus!!

<Valerie Hawthorne> There was a certain twisted logic to it, I guess.

It’s basically what happened to you, when I killed Kathy. Just intentionally. And she was trying to hurt my Mistress. She HAD hurt my Mistress. I couldn’t accept that.

<Emily Fogel> Look, Valerie

I told you I’d support you and I mean it

But what did you need help with? Do you just need to vent?

<Valerie Hawthorne> No I

It’s just a little complicated.

I was just flailing at hunter_419 trying to stop her, trying anything I could against her superhuman strength.

Eventually she got mad enough to drink my blood and enthrall me.

But she took way too much and I was left on the floor going into shock.

I passed out and when I woke up, Caroline had killed her own mentor, Mistress had brought me back to Plum Island, and She had turned me into a vampire.

I’m a vampire now.

<Emily Fogel> Oh

Oh god DO NOT come here OK?

I’m begging you

I won’t invite you inside no matter what you say Valerie

I understood why she was saying that, I thought, but I couldn’t help but be sad at the prospect. Helping Emily recover and feel safe in her own home again had brought me a lot of pride and comfort back when I had been a hunter. I wanted to help carry out restorative justice for her. All that was gone now. I wouldn’t see her home again, because of what I was now.

<Valerie Hawthorne> Yeah I won’t.

I’m taking things slowly with Mistress’ help. She doesn’t want me to hurt anyone.

But that leads into what I wanted to ask you about…

<Emily Fogel> OK I’m listening

As long as you don’t come anywhere near here

<Valerie Hawthorne> I won’t!

It’s just

There’s this lady.

I was walking in the hallway of the Seagate Hotel with Mistress and she recognized us as vampires.

<Emily Fogel> Uhhhh

What did you do

<Valerie Hawthorne> What Mistress told me to do.

I hypnotized the woman to forget what she saw.

But I did more than that too.

This happened last night, and I told her to wait in her room tonight so that I could fuck her. And drink her blood in a private place.

Do you think that’s OK?

<Emily Fogel> Valerie!

No!

Please don’t let yourself become like this

Not every vampire has to I think

You can struggle against this

Naomi did when she let me go

I’ve trusted you Valerie, even after you were enthralled. Please don’t make me regret that

<Valerie Hawthorne> Wait hold on

There’s more to the story

She came to stay here after a bad breakup. To give herself a nice weekend at the beach.

I feel like I could improve it if I drink from her right? It feels really good.

I’ll be helping her recover.

<Emily Fogel> Is that what violating every boundary she probably has is to you? Recovery?

<Valerie Hawthorne> Mistress helped me recover.

I would’ve been dead in the next few years if not for Her.

She helped Hannah recover. She’d still be miserable at her parents’ without Her.

We’re loved and cared for.

I can do the same for that woman.

<Emily Fogel> You know what I think about that, Valerie

That love and care that Naomi gives you is hollow

You say you’d be dead without Naomi but look at you now

You are dead, sort of

Because you tried to save her

<Valerie Hawthorne> I LOVE Her!

I had to save Her!

Wouldn’t you give up your life for someone you loved?

Reading that was making me tear up. It was what Mistress had been afraid of, wasn’t it? It was why She felt so guilty about everything, for the exact reason Emily was describing. For me to actually die saving Her, no matter how much conviction I had, would never be a happy or satisfying outcome. But I knew all too well that I’d do it all again for Her if it came down to it.

<Emily Fogel> I

I almost did, Valerie

Kathy was killing me because I let her

And you saved me

But that’s not what you asked me

What you asked me was

“Do you think enthralling that woman would be OK?”

My answer is no

That’s what I think

<Valerie Hawthorne> Thanks, Emily.

That leaves me with a lot to think about.

I put down my phone, a headache developing from the intersection of the stress I was feeling and the strain of looking at that screen, way too bright for my darkness-adapted vision.

That, uh, yeah. She said I shouldn’t do it, unambiguously. I had to accept that. I had to. I had to! It wasn’t my right to fuck with this woman’s free will, no matter how much it would help her—no, I had to stop thinking about it that way too. It wasn’t reasonable. It was just a self-serving worldview that devalued the perspective and independence of a woman I knew barely anything about. I had to give this up!

I spent the next fifteen minutes trying to get the whole thing off of my mind. It was getting close to 9:30 PM, just half an hour before the hallway lady would be waiting for me, and… oh Goddess, she had smelled so amazing…

Maybe I needed to hear a second opinion.

I dialed up Lauren’s phone number. I’d be affecting her, it was true, but stress-testing that was probably a good idea. Besides, I was in a predatory mood and I wanted to talk sweetly to someone—Goddess, that sounded creepy, but it was true, just like it was for Mistress. And if things got out of hand, Mistress was there with her. She’d be able to get me off of the phone if I started to get out of control. There was still a long distance between us.

She took a long time to answer, long enough that I wondered if she didn’t have access to her phone at the moment, but she did pick up eventually, seconds before it would have gone to message.

“...Valerie?” Lauren said. Oh wow, it was so wonderful to hear my girlfriend’s voice again that I had moved on from tearing up to ugly-crying. I hadn’t seen her or heard her voice since I had left our apartment to go save Mistress, and I think both of us had known that I was putting myself at risk by doing that. Even though we had already texted and I knew she was probably having a great time showing one of her favorite works of fiction to our Mistress, talking to her brought a huge sense of relief.

“Laurie!” I exclaimed, trying my best to hold back the full power of my voice, though I doubted that I was doing it very well. The tangibility of her voice was making me so hungry and wet… Mistress was right, as always. If I didn’t actively moderate myself, I was going to do something unwise, even while we were still 50 miles apart.

“Let Me speak to her as well,” I heard Mistress say faintly in the background.

“OK, Mistress and I are both here, honey,” Lauren said. “Oh Goddess, your voice is so pretty, Val!”

“She’s leaning her head down toward the phone so she can hear you better, darling,” Mistress said. “It’s very adorable.”

“Y-you think it’s pretty?” I said, grabbing my own phone and holding myself back from smashing its screen in between my fingertips. Fucking hell, I wasn’t going to be any good at speaking to her without being incredibly seductive. It still felt like a valuable learning experience to try anyway.

“Urrghhh, yesss, Valerie,” she said, as though struggling to think. That was really adorable and it was getting me worked up, but I reminded myself that I ought to focus on the task at hand.

“Well, I’m getting ahold of myself, hon,” I said, trying to straighten myself out. “I don’t know if Mistress told you, but there’s this girl who we ran into in the hotel hallway…”

“Mistress told me all about that,” my human girlfriend said. “Everything you two did last night. Sounds like it all went really well. I would’ve loved to have seen you two together, Mistress kneeling for you and letting you bite Her on the neck? I’m envious of that… I mean, if we can find a way to make it work between us.”

“Well, that’s not—” Mistress said indignantly before cutting Herself off. “Mm. Valerie, dear, please, if you had something you wanted to say.” I could tell that She was still flustered about what we had done last night, but only in a way that was comforting to Her. It made me so happy that I could provide that release to Her.

“I love You, Mistress,” I said warmly. “And Laurie, I’d love to taste your blood so badly, you have no idea. But what I’m, urgh, trying to focus on right now is that lady from the hallway. Mistress wants to leave it up to me, but I need your opinion. You had takes about your own hypothetical enthrallment to me when I texted you the other night. This lady’s gonna be waiting for me in her room with the door unlocked, kneeling on the floor in a trance in less than 30 minutes. Should I… should I take that to its logical conclusion?”

“Huh, I dunno…” Lauren said. “I figure it’s not something I can speak on that well, you know? I mean, I was terrified of being enthralled, you remember, but we both know it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m worried about what it’d mean for our relationship, but I mean, I never knew Mistress before She was my Mistress. I think that girl is basically in a similar spot to me? So maybe it’d be fine? But I think people like Hannah, who just want to be enthralled so badly from the get-go are pretty rare, and I wouldn’t assume that this lady is one…”

She sounded so confused. I needed solid moral guidance so badly! Emily had given it to me, I guessed, but like Lauren said, she didn’t understand. I mean, she sort of did, having been enthralled and all, but her Goddess had clearly been a bad example. If this lady was gonna be my thrall, I’d obviously be more like Mistress than the vampire who had taken Emily. I’d treat her right, and make sure she didn’t come away from the relationship feeling hurt or wronged, if she ever came away from it at all.

Yeah, yeah, Emily didn’t get it! I really did need a second opinion…

“So you think it’d be OK for me to take her?” I said with hope lingering in my words.

“Well, I’m not sure I’d go as far as to say that definitively…” Lauren said.

“N-no?” I whimpered. I felt like I was going to start banging on walls, probably damaging the drywall, if I didn’t get what I wanted here, to drink the hallway lady’s blood, and own her completely. I… I…

Well, that really wasn’t a healthy thought. I wasn’t Mistress! I didn’t know for certain if I was cut out for this, if I really would be able to take care of a whole-ass person. Often, I wanted nothing more than for Lauren or Mistress to care for me themselves, at least in part, to show me love and give me a place in the world.

But, ughhh, the hunger was unbearable, and I just groaned.

“Val… I wish I could ask you to turn your camera on right now, but I’d just be looking at an empty room, wouldn’t I?” Lauren said. It was true, and it made me feel more distant from her, inhuman. “Look, honey, ultimately… ultimately, what if you just asked her if she wants to be your thrall?”

“So go and meet her at 10… and ask her?” I asked. Goddess, it could work. We could just talk. And in the back of my mind, I knew she’d eventually fall for my beautiful voice if we were to… She had already been so terrifyingly easy to hypnotize.

“You could, right?” Lauren said hopefully. “I mean, you could try talking less seductively, maybe. It could be good practice?” 

I wanted to believe I could, but even as I was currently trying my best, I could hear Lauren’s voice falter as she listened to me. Of course, she was already a thrall and already in love with me separately, so that was easy for her…

“It’s not typically My style, but if you’re struggling with this decision still, I would think speaking with the woman an effective course of action, dear,” Mistress said. Well, knowing that She approved of it sealed the deal. That was the closest to a really solid answer I had gotten about this from Her.

“Thank You, Mistress. Thanks, Laurie,” I said. “I’ll give it a shot then, as unseductively as I can manage. And I’ll give that woman everything she deserves.”

“I believe you will,” Mistress said. “And remember to be gentle with her. It can be easy to forget how fragile humans are in both body and mind. Show her lots of care, and don’t take much more blood than you need.”

I knew that I could do it. Mistress had confidence in me being able to. It was a risk She was taking, She said, but She trusted me after I had held myself back with Gail last night. It felt like I was only capable of that because I was caught up in the moment, ordering Mistress around, but I was holding out hope that I could translate it into working with this girl too. Mistress had promised that I’d be able to call Her at any time tonight if I was having difficulties, and as I was seeing now, She was attentive as ever.

“I will, Mistress,” I said.

“Then allow Me to bid you good night, and good luck, My fledgling,” Mistress said. “Laurie and I ought to finish the episode we were watching… then I’d like to have a drink from her Myself.”

I was so, so jealous in that moment, not territorially but just envious of being prepared to approach Lauren without draining her dry before I could stop myself. And Lauren was moaning, too… I wanted to make her moan like that more than anything else I could think of.

“I love you, Val! It’s so good to hear from you again!” Lauren said. “Good luck with everything.”

“Good night, my loves,” I said, and I hung up the phone.

I realized that I ought to be getting myself ready. 10 PM was approaching faster than I wanted to admit.

I got myself dressed in a black dress shirt and jeans and even did a little bit of makeup—rare for me—before heading over to room 501. It wasn’t easy, though. Every time I wanted to look at myself in the mirror to see if I had buttoned up my shirt right or gotten my hair into the scrunchie in the way I wanted, I saw an empty room, just like Lauren had said, and I couldn’t be quite as sure as I wanted to be. It was still a little frightening, and just plain annoying on top of that.

Uncomfortable in skin that didn’t feel like my own, I marched on down the hall, propelled by the sense memory of the woman’s blood. The smell was stronger as I approached the door, enticingly tangy… she was going to be there. My prey… at least if it was what she desired, as Lauren had suggested. But could I really see someone like this in a vulnerable position and not pounce on her immediately? I didn’t feel so sure.

Still, my instructions had been pretty clear. She was going to be kneeling on the floor in a trance, in no state to answer the door. The door would be unlocked, so there was really no point in standing here… I couldn’t let my nervousness get in the way of a good meal. Or in the way of communicating with her, which probably should’ve felt more important than it did.

I pushed the door open a crack, feeling no need to think twice. Mistress had been right. This was no home, and I could enter as I pleased even without the invitation I had been given. I had an instinctive sense of that now… this was just any room, I guessed, even if that woman was staying here tonight.

Ugh, it was bright, too bright in there. No brighter than the hallway, really, but I had imagined the lights being off when I had looked forward to this moment. I should have ordered that from her if I wanted it, of course. As things were, the woman was just obeying her programming, not even aware of the fact that she was doing all of this to prepare herself for having her blood drunk by a vampire — if that’s what I was going to end up doing, in any case.

I hadn’t actually been into many of the smaller rooms in this hotel. This wasn’t a suite like Mistress’ and Hannah’s, just a small hotel room with a single queen-sized bed, a TV across from it, a table and armchair behind it near the back window, and a bathroom to the right of the entrance in a small hallway. Everything was painted in simple browns and whites, pleasant enough but unremarkable. From the entrance, I couldn’t see my prey, but I couldn’t see around the corner between the bed and bathroom either, so I inched forward, guided by the delicious smell suffusing the whole room, concentrated right where I expected.

Ahh, there she was. Illuminated by a lamp on the night table behind her, the woman I had seen in the hallway was kneeling on the reddish-brown carpeted floor beneath her, completely naked, showing off the curves of her chubby body. Her straight black hair was draped all over her face and shoulders. Her face wore a blank expression, her eyes showing that she was barely cognizant of my approach, if at all. Not a single thought must have been running through her pretty little head.

I thought for a moment what would happen if I didn’t wake her. I had commanded her to wait here for her Goddess, relaxed and safe in a trance. If I never arrived, when would she wake up? Would she wake up? Goddess, I wielded a lot of power here that I didn’t fully understand the bounds of. It really was intimidating, even to myself.

“Hey there. Wake up,” I said, squatting down to her rough eye level. I didn’t want to paralyze myself with those thoughts any longer. For everyone’s sake, I needed to get this show on the road.

My prey came back to awareness over the course of a few moments, looking over me with her beautiful green eyes. She was still on the edge of trance, clearly, in a way that would make her so easily manipulable, and that made her smell all the more overwhelming… I wanted to just push her down right there and have my way with her, but Lauren would probably disapprove, and Emily would too, and Mistress approved of speaking with this woman too, so I basically had to do it. And I thought that I should probably at least learn her name before stripping her blood and her free will away from her…

“You’re that vampire… from last night…” she said, full of awe. “I was kneeling, kneeling for You, Goddess. I didn’t know, but I was doing it for You.” She bowed her head in supplication, probably considering herself unworthy of looking at me head on. I knew how that felt.

I wanted to throw her down onto the floor and grab at her tits and sink my fangs into this woman’s neck, but, but it was a bad idea. It was important to keep my promises, I reminded myself, gritting my fangs. I needed to talk to her normally. Woman to woman.

“Y-yeah,” I said, putting strain on my voice trying to control it. I wasn’t so sure it was working. “I’m that vampire. I, uh, hey, look, you don’t have to call me ‘Goddess’, OK?” Speaking casually here was probably good, right? Like we were both normal people, even though I was clearly anything but, and it was so hot to act like I was something greater than her.

“Uh… right, OK,” the woman said, still extremely disoriented. “I guess I’m not still in a trance, am I? It feels hard to tell the difference, like I could fall back asleep at any moment… into your arms.”

Ughhhh, why did she have to say extremely hot stuff like that? I needed to find reasons here to not violate her boundaries, and stuff like this didn’t help! Cradling her in my arms and commanding her last night had felt so wonderful and comforting, and she was egging me on now…

“Uh… yeah, you’re not in trance right now. You shouldn’t be,” I clarified.

“OK,” she said, shaking her head a bit. “But your voice is so lovely… so… like a song…”

“Thank you,” I said. “That’s a sweet compliment. But, like, stand up for me, OK? And sit on the bed.” Fucking hell, I shouldn’t have framed it as “for me”. I was still wrapped up in the highs I felt from drinking from Gail and domming Mistress. I wanted this woman to do all this for her own sake, ideally.

“OK,” she said with half-lidded eyes, standing to her feet, arms hanging by her side. Her movements still seemed to lack intent, automatic in nature… she was just doing what she was told.

“Sit on the bed, alright? You don’t need to be afraid of me,” I said. I didn’t know if that was really true, though. There were pretty good reasons for humans to be afraid of vampires, at least some of us. I did wonder if I would have been better off with Mistress here by my side, given that She was a vampire that no human needed to fear, one who could easily put me in my place if I let my instincts get out of control.

She sat down, letting out a long breath combined with a sigh, bordering on the dreamy kind that hypnotized girls tended to make.

“Everything in the last few days has felt so unreal,” she said in a flat tone of voice that might have come equally from exhaustion and entrancement. “The relationship I was in for the last two years fell apart… I checked into a beach hotel with a price tag that I’ll regret later… and I got hypnotized by a vampire, I guess. You’re going to drink my blood, right? Or have you already?”

“I’d like to,” I said. I sat down on the bed to her left, feeling like I should avoid putting myself above her level, metaphorically or otherwise, and made sure to keep my hands off of her.

“I haven’t yet, though,” I continued. “Look… I’ll be honest with you. I only became a vampire a couple of days ago. If I drink from you, you’d be my second thrall. The first who doesn’t already belong to my Mistress—that is, my begetter, the vampire who turned me. The tall redheaded woman who was with me yesterday. But I told both my Mistress and my other girlfriend that I wouldn’t drink from you without asking how you feel about it first.”

“You want to know what I think…” the woman murmured, not quite looking at me. She needed a boost, I realized, something to help her think more clearly. I just hoped I wouldn’t get carried away with this.

I grabbed her left arm and pulled to turn her head toward me. She looked barely conscious as it was, merely operating on obedience and instincts.

“Alright, sweetie. Look me in the eyes,” I said. Compared to last night, there was no resistance from her, and she was caught staring.

“That’s it. Drop nice and deep for me. So easy for you on a second try, isn’t it? So peaceful and relaxed, you know I’m not gonna hurt you.” Goddess, I hoped I could keep that promise.

“Yes, Goddess,” she said, just as I had programmed her to do. Hearing that, I couldn’t help myself, and I pushed her back down onto the bed and kissed her long and deep, sticking my tongue down her throat and doing my best to keep my fangs from getting involved too.

“Oh, sweetie, you’re so cute, oh…” Fuck. I still didn’t know her name! I couldn’t go ahead and enthrall a girl who I didn’t even know the name of, could I? Honestly, there would be something in that that was terribly hot to me. If I wanted, I could strip her identity away and mold her into a blank slate, existing purely for my pleasure. But, like, would that actually be good? It sounded like the kind of thing that would get old really fast and end up with me crying in Mistress’ or Lauren’s arms, not even knowing what to do to fix it. No, no, I had to keep my eyes on the prize here, which would be this lady’s blood if I did the thing that I had hypnotized her to let me do in the first place, and probably asked her name immediately afterward.

“OK, honey,” I said, pulling away fully to sit back up next to her. She was still lying at the bed, staring at the ceiling blank-eyed. “So deeply entranced for me, completely receptive to my commands. I’d like you to store a special phrase in the back of your mind, something to draw your attention to, something very particular. When I and only I, or someone else you trust completely with control of your mind, say ‘awake and alert’, I want you to immediately find yourself coming back to wakeful attention, shedding any semblance of trance so you can focus on my words as you hear them and the world around you as you see it. Do you understand?”

Mistress had this trigger implanted into all of Her thralls, probably including me, though it wasn’t possible for me to be completely sure. When She invoked my triggers, I didn’t hear them as they were per se, they just activated an impulse buried deep within me and I responded appropriately. I only knew how Mistress did this from watching Her work with Her other thralls. I hoped that I could make it work the same way.

“Yes, Goddess,” the woman said.

“Good girl,” I said. “Then I want you to prepare to come back to consciousness, keeping the phrase ‘awake and alert’ buried in the back of your mind. You’ll remember none of this until the trigger is activated, but it’ll remain safely stored away.”

“Yes, Goddess.”

“Then wake up.”

She blinked a few times, looking slightly more focused than before, but I had just the tool to get her attention now.

“Awake and alert, sweetie,” I said gently.

The woman took a big breath, wide eyed, and shot up into a sitting position.

Oh Goddess, I had done it! My first hypnotic trigger! The thought of doing that had been eating me up for the last few days. I had wanted to give a girl one so badly, but Mistress had already given Gail most of the good ones. I hadn’t known if I’d do it well, either, but copying Mistress’ style worked well as always, and some of it came instinctively, I thought. I was sure there was still room for improvement with some of my delivery, but it worked, and that was what mattered at the moment.

“Hey,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

The woman looked at me, and seemed to recoil in shock.

“Uh! Better, I think. I feel so, uh, put together now,” she said. “More than I have with you previously. What are you doing to me? Who even are you?”

I started playing with my bangs, feeling anxious as all hell.

“I’m Valerie. I’m a vampire, obviously,” I said slowly, not wanting to scare her any more if I could manage it. “Turned just a couple of days ago, or nights I guess, like I said before. Before I get into anything else, could I ask your name? I think it was kinda shitty of me to not ask up to this point.”

“Oh. My name’s Cassie,” she said.

“Hey, Cassie,” I said, picking up her left hand off of the bed and holding it lightly. Cassie let out the smallest of moans and started looking down at my hand, putting her other hand on top of it and rubbing it lightly. Shit, was this an overstep? It very well might have been. Either way, I suppose, she was naked because of me and I was still fully clothed, so I guessed the line had already been crossed. There was such a sweetness to the way she was holding my hand, it was almost like…

Shit! My supernatural allure really worked on all five senses, didn’t it? This wasn’t the direction this was supposed to be going in. I pulled my hand away, spooked of this becoming as one-sided as it had been a couple of minutes ago.

“Sorry!” I said, straining my voice to speak as plainly as I could manage. “Look, you should be aware, as a vampire I have this sort of… I guess ‘aura’ would be an OK way to describe it? Like, well, you really shouldn’t think about it too hard, probably, but it’s this thing where if you look at me or listen to my voice or whatever, then you’ll kinda fall under my spell gradually. I’m trying to hold it back so it doesn’t affect you too too much, but I’m not really experienced with that yet… And holding your hand that way definitely wasn’t helping.”

“Uh, right, OK…” Cassie said, a little dazed. Fucking hell, how did Mistress manage to talk to anyone without completely overwhelming them? The answer was that She usually did overwhelm people, but She also knew how not to when it was necessary. I wanted to be as skilled and experienced as Her someday.

“Yeah, sorry, I know it’s hard…” I said. “Oh, and you probably already know this one, but you also shouldn’t look into my eyes. That’ll get you into a trance pretty much immediately.” I made sure my head was facing forward toward the wall and not toward her, so that she wasn’t too tempted to look.

“Alright, I won’t,” she said, seeming to follow, though she was still clearly being affected.

“Uh, anyway, a couple of minutes ago, I put you under hypnosis and gave you a trigger that I can activate to make you feel more present in the situation. So it’s a little harder for my allure to drag you down afterward. Do you want me to say that again?” I asked.

Clearly it wasn’t necessary, because Cassie seemed to snap back all the way to reality on her own and slid away from me on the bed, then stood to her feet, looking fearful and even more than that, pissed off.

“You… you just put commands into my head? Like a ‘snap your fingers and I’ll cluck like a chicken’ sort of thing? No, no, this is all a lot, and that’s a bridge too far!” she shouted.

I didn’t want to make any threatening motions, so I stayed seated, even as I was worried she’d try to escape. I reassured myself with the thought that she was completely naked, meaning she probably wouldn’t just run out into the hallway with reckless abandon. That was my fault, wasn’t it? It was working like a form of insurance, though, and that scared me. I was going to turn Cassie’s life upside-down if I wasn’t careful.

“Sort of like that chicken thing, yeah,” I said, unable to help myself from laughing a little at the thought that an alluring vampire like Mistress or I would ever give someone a stupid trigger like that. “It was, it was genuinely to make it less likely I’d end up hypnotizing you by accident. So that you can have more agency in this conversation.”

And Cassie was reaching for her clothes on the floor now, a burgundy T-shirt with the logo of Massachusetts Polytechnic University and a pair of black shorts. Being dressed would make it easier for her to escape, but if she tried, I could easily catch her with my speed, couldn’t I? Just like I had the previous night. It would be kind of messed up to, but it was good to keep in mind just in case of emergency, I told myself.

“I’m gonna get dressed, because being naked is something you did to me too,” she said warily. “I don’t like being naked in front of strangers, especially if I’m like, mind-controlled into it. If you really care about my agency at all, let me have that. Please.”

“Yeah! Yeah,” I said, putting my hands up in the air in defense. “Go for it. The reason I hypnotized you last night was to stop you from going and telling anyone that my Mistress and I are vampires. But I let myself get carried away, because your blood smells extremely tasty to me. I probably shouldn’t have done that. You’re obviously not taking it well.”

“Yeah, I’m not, and you shouldn’t have,” Cassie said, pulling her shirt over her head before brushing her hair out of her face. “Why do you keep calling that other vampire your ‘mistress’? Are you cheating on someone with her or something? You stripped me naked, too. Do you want me to be your second mistress?”

I couldn’t stop myself from laughing out loud.

“No, no! I call Her my Mistress because I’m her eternally devoted fledgling! A vampire who She turned,” I explained. “And before I was turned, She was still my Mistress, because I was Her thrall for like six months beforehand.”

“Oh, right… so it’s a weird sex thing or something?” she asked. Oh Goddess, this woman didn’t even know about normal kinky shit, let alone the way that vampires tended to treat their prey. This was going to be difficult to explain.

“Well, sort of. Do you at least understand what a thrall is?” I said, just as Cassie finished zipping up her shorts.

“It’s like, someone who likes getting bitten by vampires, right?” she said. “I’ll be honest, I’ve been terrified of this stuff all my life. It freaks me out and I try not to think about it. Not sure if I should get involved. It’s supposed to be dangerous, isn’t it?”

“Well, you’re not altogether wrong, but it’s a lot more than that. When a vampire bites you, you fall in love with Her… them, and you realize that you exist for them,” I said. “To serve them, to provide them with blood, to protect them from harm. It’s pretty all-encompassing. And, uh, significantly sexual, I should say.” I looked away from her. I felt like I was really putting my foot in my mouth with this lady.

“Yeah, I mean, vampires always get sexualized… I didn’t really know if the vampires themselves felt that way too. I’ve tried not to think about it,” Cassie said. “By the way, you know that your shirt is buttoned wrong, right? I keep noticing it but I didn’t want to say anything.”

“...Shit,” I mouthed, looking down at myself. She was right, and I hadn’t even noticed all this time… I stepped toward a mirror on the wall next to the TV instinctively, but it was of course no use.

“But yeah, it’s sexual alright. Drinking someone’s blood is the most intimate thing I’ve ever felt, having been on both sides of it,” I continued. “But uh, here I go showing my ass as a fledgling vampire. I can’t see myself in the mirror and I’m really not used to that at all. No wonder I fucked up my outfit…” I looked down at my shirt and began unbuttoning it starting at the bottom, eager to fix my mistake.

“That’s a real thing?” Cassie asked, astonished. “I’ve heard this and that about vampires, but I always assumed the reflection thing was just an old wives’ tale or at least an optical illusion or something.”

“I mean, maybe it is some kind of optical illusion, but you can take a look yourself if you want,” I said, pointing at the mirror in front of me as I got the top of my shirt unbuttoned, exposing my bra and stomach. “It’s really fucking jarring. You have no idea how badly I took this after I was turned.”

Cassie stepped behind me, seeing only herself in the mirror just as I was.

“What the hell! That’s so weird!” she said. “How can something like that even happen? I mean, I can’t even see your clothes. Shouldn’t they be floating in midair or something?”

“I don’t know, man,” I said. “It’s just part of what it means to be a vampire. There’s not a lot of good research on us.” I thought back to when I first started hunting vampires. In an effort to avoid the mistaken assumptions that a lot of other local hunters seemed to have, I had done a deep dive on wikis and independent websites to try and understand as much as possible about the undead. So many sources disagreed with each other, and even fewer seemed like they had done any practical research at all. It was hard to find a vampire who would agree to that, it seemed. There weren’t that many of them—us—and we valued our privacy too much and didn’t want to give ammo to prospective hunters, after all. Wondering why mirrors couldn’t reflect vampires was relegated to being just another one of undeath’s mysteries.

“Wow, that’s so wild to see…” Cassie murmured. “You know I’m actually a graduate physics researcher at Massachusetts Tech? I can’t imagine how this would even work, optically speaking.”

“I’d love to hear more about that sometime, Cassie,” I said, looking down at myself. “But I’ve gotta say, I’m wondering why the hell I’m getting myself dressed again.”

I turned back around toward her, my dress shirt still unbuttoned. “As long as we’re both here, would you be up to give me a quick drink of your blood?”

Cassie cringed and looked away from me, but I could see her sneaking a peek at my soft tummy.

“W-why would I agree to that?” she asked fearfully, taking a step away.

“Because it feels incredibly good,” I said, actually literally licking my lips. I must’ve looked such such a fucking gooner for that.

“Sexually, right?” Cassie asked. “Well, I’ve never been with a girl before… and I’m not sure this should be my first foray in that direction. I think you’d basically be a rebound partner at best. My last boyfriend left me so recently…”

Oh Goddess, that made her one of Mistress’ favorite kinds of girl. She loved being someone’s sapphic awakening, for girls who she kept as thralls as well as those She let go afterwards. Gail considered herself a straight girl too before Mistress got Her fangs in her. And with Cassie having just come out of a failed straight relationship? That would make Mistress even more excited if She was in my position. I had the chance to make things right for this girl, as much more than just a rebound, and my mouth was watering thinking about it.

I reached my hand out toward her gently. “Please. You have such a delicious tangy, salty scent. I… I need to taste your blood. I’ve been craving it every second since I smelled you back out in the hallway.”

She reached her hand out in return, but stopped short of taking mine. “Didn’t you say that holding your hand was a bad idea because I’d get seduced by your aura or whatever? Besides, I don’t even know you. You’re only even in this room because you mind-controlled me into unlocking my door, I’m pretty sure.”

I pulled my hand back reluctantly and took a deep breath, grounding myself in the way that Mistress did and doing my best to shake off the intense hunger I was experiencing.

“You’re right. I shouldn’t be touching you unless you want to be touched,” I said. “But, eh… there’s something you should probably understand about what’s happening here tonight.”

“What’s that?” Cassie said, crossing her arms in a defensive posture. Goddess, this was gonna be unpleasant to explain. But it had to be done for Mistress’ safety as well as my own.

“Well, it’s just that the thing is, my Mistress cares a lot about Her privacy here in this hotel, and I probably ought to be worrying about mine as well,” I said. “So as long as we’re talking, I guess you have two options here: you can agree to become my thrall and let me drink your blood, or I can erase your memory of any of this having ever happened and you can go home, without remembering a lick of this.”

I sighed, looking away at the floor. I really didn’t want it to be this way. But it was going to have to be.

“I, uh…” Cassie seemed out of breath and lost for words. “I don’t know if I want either of those.”

I frowned. “I don’t have another option for you. But the choice is up to you.”

Cassie began pacing around, grabbing at her head, so much more agitated than I had hoped for. Goddess, this would’ve been easier if I had done it the way Mistress did things from the start. Hers was such a good lead to follow. Even though the thought of taking Cassie did scare me, I wondered if that was just another sign of my fledgling immaturity, just like messing up my clothes. Lauren worried about violating this woman’s autonomy, but Mistress violating Lauren’s autonomy had gone over great in the end, same as my own. Maybe there was nothing to worry about?

Still, I felt I should at least hear Cassie out first. She was in a really bad mood, and I wanted to cheer her up and calm her down one way or another. And now she was walking over to the phone on the night table, looking over the buttons. I watched her closely to make sure she wasn’t doing anything rash.

“What if I called the front desk unless you let me go?” she asked, a finger on the speed dial button for the front desk. “You couldn’t close that can of worms, I bet.”

She paused for a moment, looking up at me with a terrified expression. I just had my arms crossed and probably looked more smug than I had any real right to.

“Why aren’t you doing anything to stop me?” she said.

“Every single person working at this hotel is a thrall to my Mistress,” I said. “None of them are going to help expose Her or me.”

Cassie fell to her knees, not out of deference but something like despair. I really didn’t want her to feel that way…

“Thralls…” she muttered, dragging her hand away from the phone looking down at the carpet. “You said that anyone who gets bitten by a vampire becomes a thrall, right? So wouldn’t that happen to me if you bit me?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It would.”

She looked pretty upset. “So what that means is… I’d fall in love with you, right? And I’d think I existed to serve you or something? That just sounds like the same kind of shit you did to get yourself in here in the first place, only on a larger scale.”

I squatted down to Cassie’s level. “It would feel good, believe me. Have you ever felt aimless in life?” I figured she must’ve, having just been through such a major breakup. “Being a thrall will give you purpose. You won’t have to feel aimless any more… you’ll always have me to lean on.”

“But I’ve never even been with a girl before!” she insisted. “I guess I’m not fundamentally opposed to trying that part, but it’s a lot to ask. I mean, I’d fall in love with you, barely even knowing you? And I’d become… I mean, let’s face it, you’re basically talking about becoming your sex slave, right? I really have to agree to that just so that you wouldn’t erase my memories of all this?”

This was probably the part where, if Mistress was doing something like this to begin with, She would turn her allure up way higher than usual if She wasn’t already and break down all of Cassie’s resistance until she agreed to become Hers. But it wasn’t in the spirit of what I told Lauren I’d do, and Emily was even more against it… what the hell could I do here that would be satisfying to anyone? I didn’t want to have to erase her memories of this, especially if I didn’t even get a taste of her blood!

“I’ll be gentle with you, I promise,” I said, recalling Mistress’ words to me on the day we met. “Don’t think of it as being a sex slave. You’d be like an extra-special girlfriend who would be taken care of in whatever way you needed, in exchange for nothing more than a little bit of blood and obedience.” It was making my pussy wet to imagine having Cassie all to myself. I’d make sure to pamper her and give her a better life than her old boyfriend could’ve ever dreamt of.

She giggled a little… oh yeah, I was definitely slacking on tuning down the charisma at this point. My intense desire for her was showing.

But then Cassie’s face turned serious and she scrunched her eyes closed, apparently making an active effort to block that all out. I had told her what she’d need to do, after all.

“No,” she said, climbing to her feet. “Erase my memory if you have to, but I can’t be a thrall. Not now.”

I felt so let down. What had this all been for? I pretty much wished I had never seen her in the hallway to begin with…

“That’s your final ans—”

“That’s my final answer,” she replied, nodding quickly.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath myself, then opened them back up and looked at her.

“Alright, that’s fine,” I said, letting go of any remaining semblance of holding my voice back. The goal was to bring her back to trance now, after all. “Look at me, then. Look into my eyes. I’ll remove your memories of tonight, and you can go about your life.” I tried to reassure myself that that’s all that I would do while I had her completely under my spell, her mind open to me for any purpose I could dream of…

Goddess, I was drooling again. But it didn’t matter much because I had already caught Cassie’s gaze, and she was staring raptly, her mind empty, murmuring, “Fine, I’ll… look… into… your… eyes…”.

I flipped the light switch on the lamp, finally plunging the room into a soothing darkness, then stepped toward her and cupped her cheek, gently pushing her toward the bed and lowering her down onto it with my arm wrapped around her back. I wanted her to be comfortable for this.

“There you go…” I said, leaning down close and whispering into Cassie’s ear. “Drop nice and deep for me. Remember that I’m your Goddess, and it’s so, so easy for you to fall into mindless servitude for me.”

“Yes, Goddess,” she said, obeying the programming I had given her last night. She let out a little moan, and I looked over her. She was so peaceful, so much more content than before I had put her back in trance. And I was so, so hungry…

I thought for a moment, or maybe it would be better to say that I didn’t think, certainly not straight, and realized that even though Cassie had refused to become my thrall, I was going to erase her memory. If I drank her blood now, I could erase her memory afterward and there would barely be any difference between that and me not drinking from her, from her perspective.

Mistress did this all the time! She’d see or smell a pretty girl staying in Her hotel, and She’d have a one-night stand with them before erasing their memories of it, making them ignore the bite mark She had given them or treat it as a hickey from the “normal” one night stand they believed they had had with Her. What was stopping me from doing the same thing? I wouldn’t be enthralling her. I’d just get a single little drink and send her on her way. What was the worst thing that could happen?

“You smell sooooo good, sweetie,” I whispered. “You won’t mind me having a small little drink, will you? Just one for the road.”

“I wouldn’t mind, Goddess,” Cassie said completely blissfully. Of course. In the trance I had put this girl into, she was so suggestible that she’d agree to practically anything I told her. I could have my way with her and she’d agree to it. The bridge had already been crossed! I might as well take what was mine!

Before I could stop myself, I was lunging down toward her neck and sinking my fangs into it… shit, I hadn’t even taken her shirt off but I didn’t fucking care. She was so tangy and salty with just the tiniest hint of sweetness in the aftertaste… I needed more of it, more more more! She was so yummy and I loved being inside her and I loved her moans and screams and she would be mine forever! Yes, forever, she tasted so wonderful and I never wanted to let her go and I had promised her I would erase her memory and let her go on her way but now that my fangs were in her I knew all of that was a lie I had told her and myself so that she could be mine mine mine! She must have only refused because she was confused after the end of such a long relationship! She was hurting and I’d fix her and she’d be mine to drink from, mine to control, my prey, mine!

I took more than I ought to have, but I finally licked the wound clean and pulled myself away from her… blood was stained all over the bedsheets and dripping from my lips… it was a good thing her T-shirt was a shade of red… it made the bloodstain a little less visible, or at least mistakable for water. The edge of the bed was drenched too, not in blood but in the juices that had leaked from both of our pussies like crazy while I had drunk from her. It was the most wonderful, most intimate thing in the world that I could do to her.

I listened for her heartbeat, worried I had taken way too much… but no, it was still beating steadily, not any faster or slower than when I had started drinking aside from what could be attributed to sexual tension. I touched her face and she moaned, her eyes unfocused and staring into the middle distance, her mouth curled into a small dreamy smile, hanging open… almost unresponsive, but that was normal for someone after their first bite.

OK… so was I really going to follow through with all that stuff I was thinking a moment ago, or was I just being subsumed in my own bloodlust? I realized that I wasn’t really going to be able to erase her memories until she became coherent again, at which point she would already be my thrall. Ironically, she wasn’t even lucid enough to hypnotize. Mistress was used to dealing with that, because of Her amazing self-control and the fact that She had so many thralls to fall back on. But, uh… this wasn’t gonna be so easy for me to handle, and besides, I didn’t have thralls to fall back on, people who I could reliably drink from when I was hungry each night. I’d need to have some eventually… why couldn’t Cassie here be the first?

Uh oh. I was feeling ashamed of myself but the fact that I knew it was at least morally questionable was making me pretty horny. I had changed so much since I met Mistress. Like I had told Her when I was dominating Her last night, She had uprooted my life and sense of self. For an end that was nothing but a positive for both Lauren and I, of course, but there was nothing grounding my sense of morality but Her. How could I make decisions? Goddess… what should I do?

There was no way around it. I had to call Her before I sent myself into a full-on panic.

I was jittery, pacing around as the phone rang. Mistress picked up after several rings, and I felt so relieved to hear Her voice, the voice that carried Her divine will, capable of doing no wrong.

“Good evening, Valerie,” She said in that incredibly confident, slightly seductive tone of Hers. “Laurie and I just finished season one of Stephen Galaxy.”

I perked up, excited that for just a moment, there was something that might distract me from the extremely stressful situation I was dealing with in the real world.

“Yeah? How’d you like it?” I asked, tinged with anxiety.

“Quite a lot, I think,” Mistress said. “I wish that anything like this had existed when I was a child. It might have changed a lot for Me.”

It was always surreal to learn how much Mistress and I frequently had in common, even with an age gap of more than two centuries between us. Undeath had allowed Her to remain youthful in both body and mind… I guessed it would for me too.

“I’m really glad You liked it, Mistress. Laurie showed me the whole thing when we were in college,” I said.

“She’s informed Me,” She said slyly. “Actually, she fell asleep on My thigh shortly after it concluded, otherwise I’d have her speaking with you. She looks rather content and I’d rather not wake her unless it’s very urgent.”

“That’s fine, Mistress. Send her my love when she gets to bed.”

“I will be sure to, My fledgling,” Mistress said, loving as always. “Was there anything you needed, sweetie?”

I looked behind myself at Cassie lying on the bloodstained bed, occasionally squirming as her body and mind slowly adjusted themselves to enthrallment. I didn’t really want to face this, but it was the entire reason I was calling… I wished I could just cuddle with Mistress and Lauren and feast on Lauren’s blood instead.

“I drank from the hallway lady,” I said. “Her name’s Cassie. She’s catatonic now after I bit her… I don’t think I took too much, though. But I have no idea whether I should keep her and even after talking to Emily and Lauren and You, Mistress, I don’t know what to do…”

“Hmm… does she live nearby?” Mistress asked.

“I think so. She works at Massachusetts Tech.”

“Then, if there are no other major obstacles, in your position, I believe I wou—”

She cleared Her throat, sounding almost dissatisfied with Herself.

“I told you I would let you make this decision, Valerie,” She insisted. “I should not give you anything that could be taken as a command.”

“Yes, Mistress,” I said, pretty disappointed. No, I needed this! But if She said it was my decision to make, it would have to be. Her word was law.

“If this is still a significant struggle to you, perhaps you could speak to Gail, darling? With the shifts she takes, she’s a bit of a night owl, even when she’s not working that night,” Mistress said.

Oh! Gail! How could I have neglected her? She was my thrall too, and would always support me, always obey me… she had a shoulder that I could always expect to lean on. Perfect for this occasion. And though she wasn’t working at the hotel tonight, she lived right here in Newburyport and could easily get over here in less than half an hour.

“Oh yes, thank You, Mistress! That’s a great idea!” I said, feeling reenergized.

“Always happy to help, My fledgling,” She said with warmth that eclipsed the coldness of Her body. “I find My thralls to be an excellent resource in times of crisis and indecision. I’m sure that Gail will serve you well in this task.”

“I’m gonna get on that, then. Good night, Mistress.”

“Good night, Valerie.”

There was no reason to delay. I wanted Gail here before Cassie woke up, if possible, so I dialed the number.

Gail explained that she was spending her Saturday night working on knitting a quilt for a friend’s upcoming birthday, but she dropped everything to come and help me. She was such an incredibly loyal good girl and every moment I was reminded of that made me wonder why I didn’t have her by my side at all times, at least when Mistress didn’t need her.

She arrived in room 501 wearing a green tank top, a flowy brown skirt, green tights, and high-top sneakers, way different from the skirt suit she wore for her job at the hotel. I barely ever saw her outside of that context, and it was sweet and made me want to see her more and more.

Cassie still hadn’t become coherent again, but she was stirring a little more and it seemed like she was getting close. I wanted to get this talk with Gail out of the way quickly, ideally before Cassie did wake up and saw yet another unfamiliar woman in her hotel room. The two of us sat down on the carpet with our backs to the wall next to the room’s dresser and got to talking.

“She’s the girl You drank from, Goddess? Wow, she’s cute,” Gail said, eyeing Cassie all over. Mistress really had been a huge sapphic awakening for Gail, and she had discovered a huge amount of sexual and romantic appreciation for other women, especially Mistress’ other thralls, in herself since then. Some of Mistress’s thralls really were avowed straight girls who only crossed that boundary for Mistress Herself, but Gail hadn’t turned out to be like that. She had just needed that final push from our Mistress to understand herself better, she had explained to me months ago.

“She really is. She tasted so yummy… Goddess, she was as good as you are, honey, but with such a different flavor that it can’t be compared,” I said.

“I’m honey?” Gail asked, blushing in her adorable way. She was so easily flustered and I loved it.

“Oh wow, I barely even registered that I said that,” I said. I would’ve been blushing myself too, if not for what I was now. “But yeah. I think you can be honey. My honey. You’re as sweet as it, anyway.” I took her hand tight in my own (not too tight, I reminded myself) and nuzzled my face against hers. Gail was my thrall now — my girlfriend. I couldn’t go on pretending I only had two partners any more. That wasn’t responsible.

“Thank You, Goddess,” she squeaked, kissing my cheek.

“Anyway, yeah, that’s her,” I said, recentering myself. I did want to get this over with quickly, after all. “It’s just… I explained some of this to you on the phone, but I want to keep her so badly, even though I promised her I wouldn’t. It feels wrong, maybe. But I can’t shake that desire.”

“Goddess, have I ever told You about how Mistress took me?” Gail asked.

I shook my head. I had some idea of how this went, but had never heard of the specifics. Everyone at the hotel had their own meeting Mistress story to tell. But I definitely needed to learn this one.

“I applied to work here as a side job in the second year of my master’s. I just needed some extra money, You know?” she said. “I hadn’t quite worked a service job before, but I was a fast food cashier when I was in high school. But the interview went really well, even though it was scheduled weirdly late at night, and when it seemed like they were about to hire me, they brought me into that one break area, the one at the end of the left-side hallway on the ground floor that has a bed in it. I was pretty confused about that bed.

“Rachel, who had interviewed me, blocked the door behind me, and the lights were off in there, and Mistress was waiting for me in the shadows, giving me a fanged grin. I wanted to scream for help, but She rushed up to me, covered my mouth, told me everything was going to be OK. She said I seemed like a great hire because I was just Her type. She laid me on the bed, stripped me, felt me up and down… it was the most amazing thing I’d ever felt. I was scared out of my mind but I felt so loved and appreciated. She’s so sensual and caring and I could tell that She wanted me to feel good. I mean, it’s incredibly difficult to find a guy who won’t be weird about me being trans, and going from that to this was just unreal. I told Her I’d let Her do anything to me and She told me She knew. She grabbed me by the chin and made me gaze into Her eyes and the next thing I felt was Her fangs in my neck, and from then on I knew I was Hers… and on top of that, I knew I could love a woman as much as I could ever love anyone.”

She was tearing up telling me that… I knew the feeling. I had been in tears telling Mistress’ other thralls about my own experience with being taken by Her. It was such an intense and terrifying experience that had been so incredibly worth it in the end. I think I got the direction she was going in.

“Hey, honey, it’s gonna be OK,” I said, cradling Gail in my lap. Maybe soon, I’d be doing the same thing with Cassie when she was having a bad day.

“Yeah. It’s always OK with You and Mistress around, Goddess,” Gail said. She put her hand on my chest gently and I practically jumped five feet off of the ground. How had I never seen Mistress complain about this? It was a vulnerable area, not one I liked being touched in! Even though I was supposed to be immortal, I felt like my life and brief undeath were flashing before my eyes, even though it was just the light touch of my thrall’s hand. Maybe the nearby vulnerability of Her heart was part of why Mistress liked having Her tits touched and sucked on so much, beyond their own sensitivity. It was like a game of chicken.

“Oh, sorry, did I do something wrong?” she said.

“A-ah, it’s just the middle of my chest there, above my heart… when you touch it, I feel like I’m gonna be stabbed,” I said. “Maybe something to get used to.”

“I’ll be more careful in the future, Goddess,” she said, reaching her hand lower around my stomach and wrapping me in the tightest hug she could manage.

“So you think I’d be able to give Cassie here the same kind of happiness if I keep her for myself? Am I understanding that correctly?” I asked.

Gail smiled widely, looking up at me from the comfort of my lap.

“Of course! She might have been afraid, but enthrallment is a gift. Which one of us wasn’t terrified when Mistress took us? Maybe Hannah, I guess.” Gail giggled. “It’s all worth it afterwards, and You can give this girl the same gift. It’ll be a life-changing experience, and she’ll be so, so, so much better off thanks to it.”

I smiled widely too. Finally, things felt like they made sense to me. Mistress had been right once again — thralls were great to talk to at times like these. Having another one alongside Gail would only make things better for everyone involved.

Cassie began to stir again, and woke up in her bed only to see Gail on my lap. This time, though, I felt no need for hesitation or apologies, because I’d found a way to center myself again. This woman was looking to me as her Goddess, and I knew just what I’d do.