The Interview.
I was bored last night,so I re-wrote/amalgamated the three-ish chapters of The Interview that I've written and put them into one chapter.
Here it is:
The Interview
Chapter One - The Change
‘I'm not evil you know’ He leaned forward slightly, placing an elbow precariously on his knee. ‘To have this detachment that I am afflicted with, it goes beyond evil’
‘Really?’ She paused to scribble his words onto the notebook she clutched in her other hand, before looking at his face again ‘I guess I always assumed that your kind was, well, inherently evil.’
‘That was something I struggled with when I was’ He paused, and gave a Gallic shrug ‘How is the best way to put it, changed?’ He nodded to himself ‘For awhile I despised myself, but I loved myself at the same time’ Turning his head slightly, he stared out of the window, stared into the streetlight that cast its soft glow onto the darkened street. ‘Do you understand?’ He didn't wait for an answer. ‘I'll try to explain. My life is full of eras, when one finishes, another begins and I am forced to submit, to change, or face estrangement from reality. These eras, they make me what I am, but the way I think changes when one begins and one ends.’ Casting his glance to the floor, he toyed with a button ‘But the fundamental thing, the defining thing, is that these eras begin and end at the whim of my thinking. They are only eras because of the method of my thoughts.’ He cast a questioning glance in her direction ‘Is it clearer now?’
She shook her head, not looking up at him as she bent over her notebook.
‘When I was. Changed. I hated myself. I saw myself as evil. I wanted to die, but was unsure about whether I could die. I hid. I fed off of rats and small animals, perhaps cows, if I felt forced to do so. It was the arrival of a man - perhaps calling him a man is somewhat inaccurate. He was a werewolf, but gentle, and felt determined to steer me away from self- destruction. We sat for hours and talked, not in the hasty way of mortals these days, but in the steady pace of two people who have eternity, and thus can throw away the compulsions that so often ruin dialogue.’ He paused to cough slightly, then continued ‘During these long conversation, I realised that what my life - perhaps even unlife - meant, was not evil, that I was not cursed, but that a measure of love could enter my life. Was there something you wished to ask me?’
‘No. No.’ She whispered, hanging on his every word.
‘I could see it in your eyes. Ask your question’
She acquiesced ‘you speak of love. Did you love this werewolf?’
‘Ah, such a heady question!’ He looked at her face for a moment, before continuing ‘The understanding of love that I hold close in my mind is quite different to that which you, and mortals like you, quest for. Mortals, in my experience, are quick to confuse love with lust, the organic attraction between two people is often what you would label love. For me, love became something intangible, yet I could now easily reach out and grasp it’ He clenched one hand into a fist for emphasis ‘In words that you can understand, I loved him as a brother, yet it was much more. It's beyond your comprehension, so I will let that explanation suffice.’
She nodded, attempted to give the impression that she understood.
‘The time he was with me, that was a time of love. When he left me, I realised that all love I had for life disappeared.’ He stopped again ‘You have another question.’
This time, she didn't try to hide it. ‘Yes. You lost all love for life?’
He nodded, a quick jabbing motion downward, then up again ‘Through our conversations, I learned to love life again, it was almost like being mortal again. Any affection I had for my surroundings faded when he left me.’ He turned his gaze on her
Looking away, she asked simply ‘Why?’
‘He opened my eyes. Can you imagine being blind, and suddenly being able to see again?’ Seeing her understanding, he continued ‘And when he left. It was like being plunged into darkness. In reality, I did plunge into darkness. I started to kill.
The savageness with which he had uttered that last word forced the girl back into her chair. ‘K-kill?’ She whispered.
‘Yes kill. I killed with abandon, letting all semblance of mortal self control fall behind me.’ He looked once more out of the window. ‘For those like me, the kill is indescribable, it embodies a bliss so complete; to feel your heart beat in time with theirs, to feel your flesh heat, for life to return for one fragile moment. For you to understand, I would put it beyond sex.’
He was about to say more, but she interrupted ‘But you said you didn't kill’
He looked at her, mocking. ‘I lied’ moving faster than she could see; he had her neck, and lifted her clear of the seat she sweated in. Twisting her from left to right, he examined her neck as she kicked at him, one hand grabbing at her hands, and the other struggling with something in her pocket. ‘What a prize this is! A vampire witch! We will do great things, my dear,’ She was gasping against his fingers, vainly attempting to breathe. ‘Don't try and use your wand on me, I am more powerful than you can imagine, let alone deal with.’ He leaned forward, and slowly sunk his teeth into her neck. Feeling the bliss of that moment, he drank just enough to bring her to the point of death, and then scratched a line along his wrist, bringing it to her lips.
‘Drink’ He commanded, and she did. ‘You will live. I'm right you know’ He spoke now, more to himself than her ‘We will do great things together, Hermione.
* * *
‘Can you smell that?’ he asked her, as he tightened the bonds holding their prey to the chair.
The prey-she would not describe him as mortal; she would not do it, she couldn’t. She would do it no more than she would bite her own arms off. The prey struggled weakly against the leather straps that held him. When she looked into his eyes she could see his fear framed there, as sweat dripped from his forehead. Were she mortal, she would have placed the label of Muggle upon him, but deadened with this dark apathy as she was, she saw no purpose in doing so, he was only the prey to her
‘Yes,’ she answered. Of course she could smell it-it hung on the air, filling the atmosphere with its sticky presence; it made her muscles tense, made her throat move compulsively. It was blood.
‘It is better to build the hunger inside you, increase the temptation, the anticipation.’ His voice filled the heavy silence in the dark room. ‘How do you feel? Does it hurt yet?’
‘I’m hungry. The wait is painful. Let us do it now,’ she answered, never taking her eyes off of the young man tied to the chair in front of her.
‘Contemplate, for a moment, on the pain inside of you. It is important, at this early stage, to know your limits.’ He looked out of the window, gauging with senses no mortal possessed the time left to them before the sun rose.
She whipped her head around, locking her eyes upon him for the first time since entering the room ‘Limits? Explain,’ she bit out.
‘Ah, my dear Hermione, it is simply this: you must know how long you can wait to drink before your strength fades, before you succumb to the forces that will and have battled against you since your body died. On the other hand, the blood tastes so much better if you wait,’ he looked out the window again, and nodded to her. Waving his hand in a theatrical movement, he motioned her forward to drink.
Gliding forward across the cold stone floor, she sat on her prey’s lap in a purely sexual motion that made her prey’s eyes widen in surprise, and then fall back into his head. Stroking a hand along the profile of his chin, she took a minute to examine his neck, leaning back from him, with her arms laced around the back of his neck. She opened her mouth enough to reveal the sharp incisors that were the hallmark of her race, and then with a sharp juddering motion, she fell forward against him and sunk those deadly teeth into his neck. His eyes flew open as she collapsed further against him in a swoon. For her, it was a sensation beyond anything she could describe, anything she had ever experienced before. Her heart fluttered faster, beating now in time with his as he struggled to live. She exulted as his heart beat faster and faster, bestowing upon her more of this ecstasy that made her limbs jerk, that made her body flush with heat, made her feel mortal.
With a mental wail, she realised that it was coming to an end. His heart was slowing, his body cooling. She felt a hand grip her shoulder, and a voice warn her that if she did not draw herself back, she would be pulled into death along with the prey that hung limply in the chair beneath her.
She came back to herself, feeling weak, but also infinitely stronger than she had been before the feeding. ‘More,’ she whispered, before sliding backwards onto the floor.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘You took a full measure from our dead friend there, and if you drink any more, you will become sick.’ He squatted down, and stroked her cheek. ‘Rest assured, my sweet, there will be other feasts.’
***
‘Do you know what a Vampire is?’ He asked, his soft voice reverberating through the still air.
She shook her head in response, as she hugged her arms about herself as she looked off into the middle distance.
‘It is simply, like this,’ He paused, and gathered his thoughts,’ ‘He is a limb torn off from society. In possession of eternal youth and beauty, he can feel no love; surrounded, tantalised, and tormented by riches, he can do no good. The faces of Men pass before him as in speculum, but no common ties of sympathy or suffering attach him to them. He is thrown back into himself and his own thoughts. He lives in the solitude of his own breast, - without wife or child or friend or enemy in the whole world … He is himself alone. His existence is purely intellectual, and is therefore intolerable to one who felt the rapture of affection, or the anguish of woe’
She did not react for a moment, and then moved from her position just inside the hotel room to stand next to him on the balcony. ‘I understand now,’ She whispered to him ‘I did not before, but your words order my thoughts. I was confused, lost slightly, but now I am ordered.’
‘Hermione’ He laughed, ‘you appear to have developed a penchant for the dramatic. It is merely a hypothesis, albeit an accurate one, but hypothesis nonetheless. Something you should realise, my dear, that everything I tell you I tell you for a reason. Think of that as a hypothesis, or as an artefact of thought, but it helped you order your thoughts into something like what is appropriate for our kind.’ He turned to face her ‘You are no longer human, that part of you life ended when your body died. To tie yourself to the paltry emotions you held dear while human would be a pointless act, and result in you living off rats. You are a vampire! You drink blood, and if it suits you to take the blood from the evil, then I will not stand in your way, but do not debase yourself with rodents, you will merely survive, not flourish.’
She did not move, just stayed still, and he watched her back. After a time, he got up, and beckoned her to follow. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘I have something I want to show you. Perhaps it will help to explain what I mean.’ He left the room, and walked out onto the balcony, glorying in the touch of moonlight on his skin. Some moments later, he sensed Hermione walk onto the balcony behind him.’ He turned his face upwards, and seeing the direction of his gaze, Hermione turned her head to watch with him. ‘Look up there, my dear, and tell me what you see.’
‘Stars,’ she said, at once, ‘but-’
He interrupted her with a curt gesture, ‘Quiet. Listen to my questions and simply answer them. ‘You look up, and you see the stars. We are like the stars, for when we look down upon the mortal world as they do, we are apart. You must understand, my dear, that your human life is over with. We may, at some point in the future, re-enter that world from which you were so gracefully pulled, and move through it, but the days in which you could stay there and feel peace - those days are gone.’ He looked at her, as if seeking some sign of acquiescence, and when she nodded, continued in his speech. ‘Things are new for you, I can see that. It has been scant three nights since you were changed and you have had no chance to come to terms with what you now are. Heavens, it took me 60 years of companionship with a self-loathing lycanthrope to be what I am now, so I only hope that this change will come quickly for you.’ He paused, contemplating her. ‘Perhaps it is time for you to meet someone. Would you like that?’
She nodded. ‘I suppose.’
‘Now, Hermione! None of this petulance,’ he laughed, ‘come now, it is almost sunrise. You can sleep with me in my coffin until we purchase one for yourself.
END OF CHAPTER ONE.
Who are Hermione and our patriarchal vampire friend going to see? Isn’t Hermione a bit of a slut for sleeping with a Vampire she’s only just met? Find out next chapter!
Here it is:
The Interview
Chapter One - The Change
‘I'm not evil you know’ He leaned forward slightly, placing an elbow precariously on his knee. ‘To have this detachment that I am afflicted with, it goes beyond evil’
‘Really?’ She paused to scribble his words onto the notebook she clutched in her other hand, before looking at his face again ‘I guess I always assumed that your kind was, well, inherently evil.’
‘That was something I struggled with when I was’ He paused, and gave a Gallic shrug ‘How is the best way to put it, changed?’ He nodded to himself ‘For awhile I despised myself, but I loved myself at the same time’ Turning his head slightly, he stared out of the window, stared into the streetlight that cast its soft glow onto the darkened street. ‘Do you understand?’ He didn't wait for an answer. ‘I'll try to explain. My life is full of eras, when one finishes, another begins and I am forced to submit, to change, or face estrangement from reality. These eras, they make me what I am, but the way I think changes when one begins and one ends.’ Casting his glance to the floor, he toyed with a button ‘But the fundamental thing, the defining thing, is that these eras begin and end at the whim of my thinking. They are only eras because of the method of my thoughts.’ He cast a questioning glance in her direction ‘Is it clearer now?’
She shook her head, not looking up at him as she bent over her notebook.
‘When I was. Changed. I hated myself. I saw myself as evil. I wanted to die, but was unsure about whether I could die. I hid. I fed off of rats and small animals, perhaps cows, if I felt forced to do so. It was the arrival of a man - perhaps calling him a man is somewhat inaccurate. He was a werewolf, but gentle, and felt determined to steer me away from self- destruction. We sat for hours and talked, not in the hasty way of mortals these days, but in the steady pace of two people who have eternity, and thus can throw away the compulsions that so often ruin dialogue.’ He paused to cough slightly, then continued ‘During these long conversation, I realised that what my life - perhaps even unlife - meant, was not evil, that I was not cursed, but that a measure of love could enter my life. Was there something you wished to ask me?’
‘No. No.’ She whispered, hanging on his every word.
‘I could see it in your eyes. Ask your question’
She acquiesced ‘you speak of love. Did you love this werewolf?’
‘Ah, such a heady question!’ He looked at her face for a moment, before continuing ‘The understanding of love that I hold close in my mind is quite different to that which you, and mortals like you, quest for. Mortals, in my experience, are quick to confuse love with lust, the organic attraction between two people is often what you would label love. For me, love became something intangible, yet I could now easily reach out and grasp it’ He clenched one hand into a fist for emphasis ‘In words that you can understand, I loved him as a brother, yet it was much more. It's beyond your comprehension, so I will let that explanation suffice.’
She nodded, attempted to give the impression that she understood.
‘The time he was with me, that was a time of love. When he left me, I realised that all love I had for life disappeared.’ He stopped again ‘You have another question.’
This time, she didn't try to hide it. ‘Yes. You lost all love for life?’
He nodded, a quick jabbing motion downward, then up again ‘Through our conversations, I learned to love life again, it was almost like being mortal again. Any affection I had for my surroundings faded when he left me.’ He turned his gaze on her
Looking away, she asked simply ‘Why?’
‘He opened my eyes. Can you imagine being blind, and suddenly being able to see again?’ Seeing her understanding, he continued ‘And when he left. It was like being plunged into darkness. In reality, I did plunge into darkness. I started to kill.
The savageness with which he had uttered that last word forced the girl back into her chair. ‘K-kill?’ She whispered.
‘Yes kill. I killed with abandon, letting all semblance of mortal self control fall behind me.’ He looked once more out of the window. ‘For those like me, the kill is indescribable, it embodies a bliss so complete; to feel your heart beat in time with theirs, to feel your flesh heat, for life to return for one fragile moment. For you to understand, I would put it beyond sex.’
He was about to say more, but she interrupted ‘But you said you didn't kill’
He looked at her, mocking. ‘I lied’ moving faster than she could see; he had her neck, and lifted her clear of the seat she sweated in. Twisting her from left to right, he examined her neck as she kicked at him, one hand grabbing at her hands, and the other struggling with something in her pocket. ‘What a prize this is! A vampire witch! We will do great things, my dear,’ She was gasping against his fingers, vainly attempting to breathe. ‘Don't try and use your wand on me, I am more powerful than you can imagine, let alone deal with.’ He leaned forward, and slowly sunk his teeth into her neck. Feeling the bliss of that moment, he drank just enough to bring her to the point of death, and then scratched a line along his wrist, bringing it to her lips.
‘Drink’ He commanded, and she did. ‘You will live. I'm right you know’ He spoke now, more to himself than her ‘We will do great things together, Hermione.
* * *
‘Can you smell that?’ he asked her, as he tightened the bonds holding their prey to the chair.
The prey-she would not describe him as mortal; she would not do it, she couldn’t. She would do it no more than she would bite her own arms off. The prey struggled weakly against the leather straps that held him. When she looked into his eyes she could see his fear framed there, as sweat dripped from his forehead. Were she mortal, she would have placed the label of Muggle upon him, but deadened with this dark apathy as she was, she saw no purpose in doing so, he was only the prey to her
‘Yes,’ she answered. Of course she could smell it-it hung on the air, filling the atmosphere with its sticky presence; it made her muscles tense, made her throat move compulsively. It was blood.
‘It is better to build the hunger inside you, increase the temptation, the anticipation.’ His voice filled the heavy silence in the dark room. ‘How do you feel? Does it hurt yet?’
‘I’m hungry. The wait is painful. Let us do it now,’ she answered, never taking her eyes off of the young man tied to the chair in front of her.
‘Contemplate, for a moment, on the pain inside of you. It is important, at this early stage, to know your limits.’ He looked out of the window, gauging with senses no mortal possessed the time left to them before the sun rose.
She whipped her head around, locking her eyes upon him for the first time since entering the room ‘Limits? Explain,’ she bit out.
‘Ah, my dear Hermione, it is simply this: you must know how long you can wait to drink before your strength fades, before you succumb to the forces that will and have battled against you since your body died. On the other hand, the blood tastes so much better if you wait,’ he looked out the window again, and nodded to her. Waving his hand in a theatrical movement, he motioned her forward to drink.
Gliding forward across the cold stone floor, she sat on her prey’s lap in a purely sexual motion that made her prey’s eyes widen in surprise, and then fall back into his head. Stroking a hand along the profile of his chin, she took a minute to examine his neck, leaning back from him, with her arms laced around the back of his neck. She opened her mouth enough to reveal the sharp incisors that were the hallmark of her race, and then with a sharp juddering motion, she fell forward against him and sunk those deadly teeth into his neck. His eyes flew open as she collapsed further against him in a swoon. For her, it was a sensation beyond anything she could describe, anything she had ever experienced before. Her heart fluttered faster, beating now in time with his as he struggled to live. She exulted as his heart beat faster and faster, bestowing upon her more of this ecstasy that made her limbs jerk, that made her body flush with heat, made her feel mortal.
With a mental wail, she realised that it was coming to an end. His heart was slowing, his body cooling. She felt a hand grip her shoulder, and a voice warn her that if she did not draw herself back, she would be pulled into death along with the prey that hung limply in the chair beneath her.
She came back to herself, feeling weak, but also infinitely stronger than she had been before the feeding. ‘More,’ she whispered, before sliding backwards onto the floor.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘You took a full measure from our dead friend there, and if you drink any more, you will become sick.’ He squatted down, and stroked her cheek. ‘Rest assured, my sweet, there will be other feasts.’
***
‘Do you know what a Vampire is?’ He asked, his soft voice reverberating through the still air.
She shook her head in response, as she hugged her arms about herself as she looked off into the middle distance.
‘It is simply, like this,’ He paused, and gathered his thoughts,’ ‘He is a limb torn off from society. In possession of eternal youth and beauty, he can feel no love; surrounded, tantalised, and tormented by riches, he can do no good. The faces of Men pass before him as in speculum, but no common ties of sympathy or suffering attach him to them. He is thrown back into himself and his own thoughts. He lives in the solitude of his own breast, - without wife or child or friend or enemy in the whole world … He is himself alone. His existence is purely intellectual, and is therefore intolerable to one who felt the rapture of affection, or the anguish of woe’
She did not react for a moment, and then moved from her position just inside the hotel room to stand next to him on the balcony. ‘I understand now,’ She whispered to him ‘I did not before, but your words order my thoughts. I was confused, lost slightly, but now I am ordered.’
‘Hermione’ He laughed, ‘you appear to have developed a penchant for the dramatic. It is merely a hypothesis, albeit an accurate one, but hypothesis nonetheless. Something you should realise, my dear, that everything I tell you I tell you for a reason. Think of that as a hypothesis, or as an artefact of thought, but it helped you order your thoughts into something like what is appropriate for our kind.’ He turned to face her ‘You are no longer human, that part of you life ended when your body died. To tie yourself to the paltry emotions you held dear while human would be a pointless act, and result in you living off rats. You are a vampire! You drink blood, and if it suits you to take the blood from the evil, then I will not stand in your way, but do not debase yourself with rodents, you will merely survive, not flourish.’
She did not move, just stayed still, and he watched her back. After a time, he got up, and beckoned her to follow. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘I have something I want to show you. Perhaps it will help to explain what I mean.’ He left the room, and walked out onto the balcony, glorying in the touch of moonlight on his skin. Some moments later, he sensed Hermione walk onto the balcony behind him.’ He turned his face upwards, and seeing the direction of his gaze, Hermione turned her head to watch with him. ‘Look up there, my dear, and tell me what you see.’
‘Stars,’ she said, at once, ‘but-’
He interrupted her with a curt gesture, ‘Quiet. Listen to my questions and simply answer them. ‘You look up, and you see the stars. We are like the stars, for when we look down upon the mortal world as they do, we are apart. You must understand, my dear, that your human life is over with. We may, at some point in the future, re-enter that world from which you were so gracefully pulled, and move through it, but the days in which you could stay there and feel peace - those days are gone.’ He looked at her, as if seeking some sign of acquiescence, and when she nodded, continued in his speech. ‘Things are new for you, I can see that. It has been scant three nights since you were changed and you have had no chance to come to terms with what you now are. Heavens, it took me 60 years of companionship with a self-loathing lycanthrope to be what I am now, so I only hope that this change will come quickly for you.’ He paused, contemplating her. ‘Perhaps it is time for you to meet someone. Would you like that?’
She nodded. ‘I suppose.’
‘Now, Hermione! None of this petulance,’ he laughed, ‘come now, it is almost sunrise. You can sleep with me in my coffin until we purchase one for yourself.
END OF CHAPTER ONE.
Who are Hermione and our patriarchal vampire friend going to see? Isn’t Hermione a bit of a slut for sleeping with a Vampire she’s only just met? Find out next chapter!