text: "Can you hold your neck out a little more, please?" The excitement of changing, the rush of adrenaline and fear coursing through my veins; everything that has been built up to this point immediately stops, like an orgasm being pulled away. I open my eyes and look at him. His pale face nearly glowing under the moonlight, his silver hair shimmering, his wide, red eyes gleaming. "I'm sorry, what?" I ask. He points at me, then returns his hand back under his cloak. "Can you put your neck out more?" I shake my head. "What do you mean? Why can't you just do it like I am?" He smiles, revealing sharp canines, and giggles. He runs his hand over his forehead, then his hair. "Well, uhm... Can you just do put it out more for me, please?" When I turn to him my auburn hair falls back over my neck, covering the spot I so desperately want two marks in. "Why can't you take me as I am? I've read your kind love to do that. The touching, the closeness, the intimacy." He giggles again, looks away into the woods surrounding the park. "Well, you see, miss, I am-- I am not one for intimacy of that sort." I blurt out a laugh. "Holy-- a vampire afraid of flesh." His brow furrows, and he glares at me. "I'm not afraid of it, just... Just not fond of it." "Jesus Christ," I say, slapping my hand on my forehead. "How do you even live, if you have to ask people to do this? I can't believe they're willing to give up the pleasurable part of it all." "I'll have you know that I live just fine," he says, turning his nose up, "and there's been plenty of people willing to accommodate my... My affliction." "Your affliction?" I say, laughing. "Give me a break. You're just afraid of a little skin touching, afraid that those cold dead hands may touch something warm and alive. You're like a child who wants to play tag but never wants to be it. You can't have one without the other." "I'm not a child," he says, staring at me, his red eyes beginning to glow. He grits his teeth. "I haven't been a child for eons." "Sure looks like you're one now," I say, turning away from him. "Like a child who can't handle what its meant to do, meant to be. Doesn't matter now anyway." I wave my hand carelessly in the air. "I'll find a real vampire to turn me, not some trembling ghoul who pisses himself when presented with a little skin." What feels like a cab runs over me. Decrypted breath fills my nose and I can taste churned soil and rotting corpses. Two hot-brands pierce the flesh on my neck as clawing hands tear at my gown, dig into my skin, probe at my now burning bones and boiling marrow. I moan and shutter and my insides swell and burst and oh God does it feel good. "I'm no child, wench," I hear him growl as he swallows out the old, spitting in the new. "Never speak it again, or the next time we meet, I will drain you dry." If you enjoyed the story and want to read more of my work, visit my and consider subscribing.