It was the inevitability of her, I guess, that became most tormenting. There was an austerity to her allure that transcended my ability to choose, it was not a matter of free will as she left me no soul with which to make the distinction, love was she demanded but it was wasted on her, it passed through her like water, and she was always thirsty. Of course, she was beautiful beyond responsibility, it was a fierce, violent beauty that jarred your senses and dominated your attention, no matter how sincerely you may have wished to look away. She could afford to be both demanding and wasteful as her beauty insured that she would have no shortage of possibilities. The moment I laid eyes on her I knew that she was more than I could ever be, that she promised only wasted sorrow, that it would be a mistake to pursue her, but as I said, her beauty defied reason, I had no choice.

It was raining that night I first met her, all bad stories seem to begin that way. I was hailing a cab, more to get out of the rain than an actual need to go anywhere. She appeared unexpectedly beside me off a deserted street, just as anxious to get out of the rain. I probably suggested we share a ride, but the truth is, I scarcely recall the moment, it was difficult to think with any clarity at all. I was rather startled more than anything, by her sudden appearance and her staggering seductive charm, I would’ve said yes to anything. She pulled the door closed and it resounded with an empty and terminal thud. She slid in beside me and everything else ceased to exist. The rain washed across the windows like a veil, the driver faded away into oblivion and darkness fell on all my senses. My last tenuous shred of reason told me to flee that tomb, but a thousand other more impulsive instincts were raging blindly in the darkness and I was desperate to stay. That duality of emotion twisted me in painful and contrary directions, every feeling she aroused in me seemed misguided or inappropriate, but if I changed my mind, I discovered that I was wrong again.
She sat close beside me, closer than a stranger should, not saying a word, just staring at me from behind that thick black smoke that billowed from within her dark eyes. Looking back at it now, it seems strange that I can’t remember her ever speaking, but those eyes always had a way of talking to me, telling me what she wanted, what was to become of me. My fate always seemed sealed in the darkness of those pupils, there was no recourse, no light to lead the way out. She took my hand in hers and pressed it to her cheek, it was cold but not unpleasantly so, like a cool mist falling on fevered flesh. She kissed the palm of my hand and her lips were colder still, with winter breath that made every nerve in my body sizzle. My fingertips traced the arc of her lips and slipped into the corner of her mouth, against the hard edge of her teeth. I hated her at that moment with such exquisite passion, she was base and depraved in a way that offended the person I imagined myself to be, and yet I wanted her beyond any pride or discretion. And wanting her as I did, I felt as wanton as I imagined her to be, I wanted to consume her, or to be consumed, to enter her in some tangible way that would make me a part of her forever. The lovemaking that she had initiated in the cab subsided only long enough for us to climb the stairs to my apartment. It was always that way with her, there was never any question of intentions, it always ended the same. We both knew what we wanted and we both wanted that single thing so much that it precluded all else, and as tawdry and shallow as that sometimes made me feel, when it was happening, at that moment of perfect passion, that narrowness of purpose was everything and nothing could make it more complete.

She left that night before the dawn, as was her custom, while I lay struggling through troubled dreams, half conscious in a slumber that only made me tired. I awoke chilled by my own sweat, and she was instantly in my thoughts, searing my brain like fever and wringing my guts with hunger. I knew I had enjoyed her, but I wasn’t sure why. I wasn’t awake long before I noticed the blood, stains unfurled near my head like red ribbons, random splatters of rich bold colour against the white purity of my sheets. It was beautiful and horrifying.
I got up and fed myself, and warmed myself in the sun, filling me with that hope that comes with a new day. The taste of her remained on my lips like sour milk and even though I remained slightly groggy through the afternoon, I at least assured myself that it was all behind me now. But as the sun dropped, throwing longer shadows, I began to lose my resolve, just a little at first, she would come to mind periodically but was easily dismissed with common sense, however, the thought of her persisted and I began to dwell on her vulgar charms. Soon I could think of nothing else, as though I were parched and trying to convince myself that I wasn’t thirsty. As the darkness thickened I found myself patrolling the streets, scouring the alleys and avenues in search of her, somehow, I knew she was out there. Usually I found her, but she proved to be an indifferent mistress, if it wasn’t me, it was someone else and many nights it was long hours before I located and obtained her.

In the beginning she was a pleasure more profound than any experience I have ever know, of course, I was stronger then, but in the beginning, when I laid naked in her arms, I felt alive beyond mere existence, the whole of Nature throbbed within me, as though I were stretched out under a desert sun or was being pelted by a driving rain, the stuff of life was unleashed upon me and I could absorb it all. But she was like a lizard laying against me, the beautiful serpent who still knew the way to a mythical paradise, her cold reptilian skin was pungent and smooth like leather and as she pressed closer it sucked the warmth from me. A pleasing sensation of numbness enveloped me as she warmed her cold skin against mine, like a Novocain massage that deadened the flesh and made my thoughts grow sluggish. Soon all I could feel was the blood coursing through my veins and her blue lips all over my body searing me with frozen kisses. Everything I thought, felt or knew was reduced to the liquid of life within an otherwise empty container. Her mouth was irresistible and omnipotent, the great black hole that consumed all and from which everything issued, all that mattered was passing through that portal. As her lips drew close to my throat my entire being seemed to pulse through my jugular vein, throbbing with a ripeness that was both painful and ecstatic. Her mouth would continue to nibble at my throat, until my blood boiled with adrenalin excitement, then she would release me with the kindness of her razor kiss. It was such a finite instant, that moment between anticipation and exhaustion, but it was enough and it became the culmination of all my aspirations and endeavors. Nothing was better than bleeding.

Blood was the medium through which we coupled, its deep rich hue was the colour of our passion and as it washed through my heart it carried the residue of my soul. Feelings of existential loneliness and spiritual silence escaped when her fangs were in me and her throat was choked with blood, if I talked to her for a thousand days she couldn’t have known me more intimately, I flowed into her as though I belonged there and there could never any other home for me. It was the most intimate of communions, often I couldn’t tell where her mouth ended or my throat began, we were of one ecstasy. It was the culmination of all delights and although she was quite literally sucking the life out of me, I never felt more alive.

At first there was no limit to my vigour, blood flowed from my neck with mechanical precision and I felt as though I would never be drained. And as much as I liked to bleed, she all too greedily drank what I offered, she reveled in it, it stained her lips and dripped sloppily from her chin leaving her painted with the evidence of her appetite. There was perfection in her insatiable thirst, her decadence only made her mouth more beautiful, she transcended shame, as she was always true to her nature and she delivered only what she promised. She was always hungry, but her kiss was so irresistible that there would always be a throat to sustain her. I used to imagine that she needed me, but she was complete and endless.
Unfortunately, I proved to be less eternal. As time wore on my vigour faded. Despite these increasingly debilitating consequences I still craved her kiss, that consummation of my relentless longing kept drawing me back, that instant gratification was all that mattered, but eventually that moment of appeasement came to be followed by long hours of nauseous penance. I was tortured by all manner of illness, violent fevers that burned me dry or stabbed me with cold chills, my brain felt raw and swollen, pressing painfully against my skull, even as my scalp seemed to constrict and push back the other way. I drew breaths like careful labours as my lungs felt bruised and tender and bile brewed in my gut like simmering acid. My energy faded over the threshold of her lips, my muscles grew weak and irresponsive, my joints seized with arthritic rust and I would lay like dead flesh until dawn.
These symptoms were subtle at first but grew more pronounced in the same way that one watches children grow, relentlessly but imperceptibly when measured on a moment to moment basis. At first it was just a little stiffness, a few clouds in my head, then it became nausea and fever, but still it was well worth the bleeding, I just couldn’t live without her kiss. He discomfort of longing for her was worse than the injuries having her inflicted upon me. One pain led into the other, I was either craving her or recovering from her, punctuated by brief moments of blissful relief which somehow made this wretched cycle of sickness that my life had become worth enduring. I loved her and hated her and eventually I couldn’t remember my life being any other way.

I don’t remember how long it went on that way or exactly when it changed, but I finally realized that she was killing me. Actually I didn’t realize it so much as admit it. I always knew she was corrupting me, but I knew it in the same way one knows they will grow wrinkled and gray, good health allows one to laugh in the face of such propositions. Finally there came a day when I had been sucked one too many times and I longed for a resolution to my suffering, any sort of conclusion would do. The nausea became more severe and lasted all through the day, I had become thin and pale, the sunlight no longer lasted long enough to restore my energy. In the dimming light my thoughts would turn to her, as they always did at night, but it was no longer with the same breathless anticipation, it had become dutiful habit, but if she was no longer the arrival of joy, she was at least a brief cessation to my chronic misery. I felt bad because of her, but when I was with her, it was a relief of sorts. For the longest time I resolved to accept this suicide, to let her kill me by measures. There seemed to be no recourse, I could no longer remember happiness without her, along with my blood, she had drained the pleasure out of everything that was not her, indeed I couldn’t even imagine vague contentment in her absence. After her there was so little left, so little that I no longer pursued anything that wasn’t her. As I said, I had accepted this fate and surrendered myself to the cancer of her kisses, waiting for the plague of her affections to finally finish me, but she sucked me so slowly, each day I grew weaker, yet somehow my capacity for frailty seemed superhuman. There was constantly some new complaint to diagnose which piled upon the old ones in a forever evolving mosaic of misery. Often they were just minor discomforts, my teeth might be tender one day, or there might be a burning in my sinuses, perhaps a kinked neck, maybe numbness in my fingertips, but they compounded the pain that was always crushing my skull and the nausea that had raked my intestines into permanent hamburger, but still the massive coronary I longed for never came. Each day I invented new ways to be ill, yet none of it was fatal. I slept sporadically and ate little, the basic functions of life had become hard to detect, I breathed only enough to suffer.

More annoying than my inability to die, was the fact that she continued to thrive. She remained beautiful, as darkly radiant as the first night I had tried her. I had become cadaverous, an emaciated and anemic version of myself, weak in both flesh and spirit, yet time left no trace on her. She was as perfect and timeless as a shark, she was forever ravenous and no amount of debauchery could jade her, like Dorian Gray, I became the ghastly reflection of her appetites. Even that didn’t bother me so much, I would’ve happily perished for her, if only she would’ve realized how much I had bled for her, how much she meant to me. She never did though, even as I faded before her eyes she was somehow oblivious to my devotion. In the beginning, in those virgin days of our passion, when my veins were raging red rivers flowing on to paradise, I thought that feeling would resound between us for all time, true love forever. As the feedings became more routine and disease set in, I still believed that she at least needed me, maybe not like I needed her, but in some small way. However, as she continued to probe through my scabs and scar tissue, thirsting for tender flesh that had not yet been violated, I was finally forced to confront the horrible truth, it was only blood, she didn’t really love me.

Once I was able to admit that to myself, it made my suffering suddenly futile, a waste of relevant pain. If she would not put an end to me, then I had to put an end to her. It wasn’t an easy decision, there was no guarantee that her demise would be my redemption, and further, there was still a part of me that would mourn her passing, whatever mutilations she had inflicted upon my physical being, the memory of her charms would forever diminish the quality of whatever life was left to me. Heaven would be lost to me forever, but at the same time, neither would there be Hell. Caught between those extremes it seemed as though nothingness was all that was left to me, but after everything I had been through, nothing was enough. For all the thinking I had done agonizing over the decision, the last day arrived abruptly. I was sitting in my kitchen, waiting for twilight, and suddenly the thinking stopped, I grabbed the broom in the corner impulsively and snapped the wooden handle over my knee. It splintered in a cruel and final way. I hid the shattered shaft under the mattress and went out to find her.