Nothing mattered.

Looking into each other’s eyes, the crowd between us soon disappeared. I touched her waist in an unspoken question and she answered by holding my waist, swaying with me, slowly coming closer.

There was no surprise she was here, no embarrassment because I’d thought she was straight, no hesitation to give in to the yearning. Little by little, I asked for more, and she gave it, took it, her hand in my hair, on my butt, fingers sliding inside my skirt, desperate to touch my skin.

I burned, burned where she touched me, burned where I wanted, needed, her to touch me. And I wanted to burn her too, leaving kisses on her arms, lightly pinching her waist, running my fingers across the pretty choker on her neck.

So close, our legs entwined, grinding, the only problem that I couldn’t kiss her, too tall. I pulled back, the question, the desire, in my eyes, and she answered by taking my hand, leading me through the crowd.

We ended up in a bathroom, a stall all the privacy we needed. She leant down and I looped my arms around her shoulders, not letting her escape my kisses, while she had one hand on the wall behind me, the other lifting my chin so I couldn’t escape her.

The rumble of bass mingled with our sloppy kisses and moans, pulse pounding in my ears, heart racing, soaring. Lost in the kiss, found in-between her lips a tongue. Intimate and passionate, full of raw emotion, I ached for more.

Daring to let go of her, I moved her hand down from my chin, and she let me slide it into my skirt and grind against her. The friction felt so good, especially rubbing against my thong. But knowing it was her hand, that we were doing this in a nightclub bathroom, pushed it over the edge, loving how dirty I felt.

Like she knew how hot I was getting, she broke our kiss, moving her mouth to my neck. I bared it for her, desperate for her touch. Her tongue sent shivers through me as she licked from the base of my neck all the way to my ear, even gave my earlobe a nibble.

All the while, her hand kept working me—and she was working me, her mouth’s ministrations making me stay still. She rubbed me in small circles, getting the rhythm just right, the pressure, like she was learning from my moans just how I liked it.

“I’m… close,” I murmured between moans.

And she bit me, the spike of pain cutting through the haze, but it got mixed up in the pleasure and sent me over. She kept going and I rode through my orgasm, wave after wave of pleasure breaking me down into a puddle. After a final shudder, she drew back and kissed me, and I kissed her back like a puppy, eager and happy, all over her face.

Some presence of mind coming back to me, I paused to say, “Can I get you off?”

“We shall have to find out, won’t we?” she whispered—her tone and words sending a shiver through me again.

Before I lost myself, I touched my neck, both surprised and turned on to feel a little blood there. “You really bit me,” I said lightly.

That apparently wasn’t the right thing to say. She stilled, pulled back a little, and looked me in the eye. “You know this is a vampire nightclub?” she asked, her tone this time weaker.

“Yeah?” I said, confused, then I realised. “Oh, are you…? I mean, if you drink a little blood, I don’t mind, but you didn’t turn me or anything, right?”

She took another step back, rattling the stall door. “Shit,” she whispered, staring at the floor, then looked up at me. “You… don’t know about vampires?”

The mood fading, I wasn’t sure what the issue was, asked, “You don’t drink blood?”

Rubbing her face, she let out a long sigh. “Aph will murder me,” she mumbled, then shook her head. “I think… we should discuss this elsewhere.”

“Can I clean up a bit first?”

It took her a second, but she nodded and stepped out of the stall. I did the best I could with toilet paper, wishing I’d brought spare underwear, then forced out a quick pee. Never a good time for a bladder infection.

“I’m ready.”

She led me out out of the bathroom and Liza saw, catching up to us on the way out. “Sorry, Lydia, I promised Aph. You can take her home next time.”

Lydia stopped to turn and say, “Charlie doesn’t know about vampires.”

Liza froze for a second, mumbled, “Aph is going to kill me,” then smiled and waved as she slipped back into the crowd.

I tried not to laugh, Lydia currently very stressed about something.

The walk back to Paphos passed in silence. Though locked, Aph was in the back and came through quickly at Lydia’s knocking. Only when I watched her warm expression melt into concern did I realise that, maybe, I was supposed to be worried too.

“I am so sorry, Aph. I stopped as soon as I realised and brought her back to explain,” Lydia said, the cool, calm, collected queen I knew replaced with a naughty child talking to her mother.

Well, she had told me that she’d stayed with Aph before, so maybe that wasn’t entirely wrong.

Aph certainly looked the part of disappointed mother. Eventually, she nodded, asked me to lock up once I was done, and bid us both a good night.

Once the stairs stopped creaking, I turned to Lydia with an awkward smile. “Could you maybe give me a minute to change?”

She let out a breathless laugh, nodding. “Take as long you need.”

I rushed upstairs and, well, a bath would have been nice, but I didn’t want to keep her waiting. So I changed my underwear and rushed back down.

“Okay, I’m ready.”

She softly cleared her throat. “This is, well, complicated. To start with, I do not drink blood. Rather, I need to taste blood to… look like this.”

“Like what?” I asked.

She gave me a thin smile. “A woman.” At my confused look, she chuckled. “I suppose you should know that vampirism is a medical condition. If I do not taste from women, I end up looking… androgynous. Then there’s rumours and myths.”

I waited, but she seemed stuck there. “Are any of them true?”

“Maybe, maybe not. Well, there is one that… fits. Long ago, there was a powerful witch who wanted to take a woman as her wife. However, as scared of her as everyone was, the head priest dared not go against the Old Church’s teachings. So she cursed his line such that his children would… end up resembling their spouse’s sex.”

“Honestly, that’s a pretty cool curse.”

She probably didn’t expect me to say something like that because a giggle burst out before she caught herself. “Now that you mention it, I suppose it is. After all, if she had been less kind, my life could be much worse.”

I winced, realising now my comment may have been a little insensitive. “Um, I mean, normally curses are like… you’ll die unless a prince kisses you.” I did not have a good knowledge of witch curses.

At least she gave me a polite chuckle, apparently not annoyed. “Other rumours include what you thought—that we drink blood, or that we can turn ordinary people into vampires. Both are false. But it is true that, if we taste the same person, it can lead to something we call ‘tasting sickness’. That is why we only taste from those willing.”

Catching on, I said, “And people who go to Her know?”

She nodded. “I take it Liza asked you and you told her you knew?”

I nodded.

After a moment, she let out a long breath and deflated, slumping onto the counter. “You should be fine, but I am so sorry for tasting you without your informed consent.”

As much as I wanted to tell her not to worry, it was obviously something she cared about, so I tried to put it another way. “Well, thanks for telling me now. And now I know, I want you to know that I am definitely willing for you to taste me again, um, when it’s next safe?” I had to lean over to see, but she was smiling. Mission successful.

“Once per period,” she said, then added, “though twice is fine for some people.”

“Really?” I asked, getting more intrigued.

“Some people… find relief from being tasted. It is unclear why, but they can be tasted twice and still not become sick,” she said.

Getting an idea of it, I asked, “Are you, like, drinking hormones?”

“Excuse me, ‘whore moans’?” she said—her tone very much telling me she didn’t understand.

Back-pedalling fast, I said, “That’s, um, slang from where I’m from. Horm-ones, not hor-mones.”

“Oh. What does it mean to be… drinking horm-ones?”

I didn’t think this through. “It’s like… we believe that, if you drink milk, your boo—breasts get bigger. And that’s because milk has… the essence of cows in it, and cows have big udders. So when you taste women, maybe you’re drinking their… female essence?”

After a short hum, she said, “Much like the myth of the witch, that does fit. A common symptom of tasting sickness is losing the will for sex. They also often mention sore breasts, perhaps because they are shrinking. And it would make sense that, to become feminine, I have to take some of their feminine essence.”

I went to speak, but a yawn slipped out instead. It wasn’t even that late. Well, the lighting was low, a lot had happened, and I probably tired myself out with how excited I was all afternoon.

“Thank you for listening and understanding,” she said softly. “I should leave you to sleep.”

Definitely because I was tired and not because I was a slut, I said, “I don’t think you should.”

Chuckling, she sat up and then pushed herself to her feet. “Goodnight.”

Something about her tone made me reach out and grab her hand, not letting go until she turned to look at me. “That’s ‘goodnight’, not ‘goodbye’—right? Because if you don’t come back tomorrow, I’m going to find you.”

Maybe a trick of the light, it looked like she shivered, but there was no way this tall, sexy, cool woman who, half an hour ago, was getting me off in a nightclub bathroom… would be a bit subby—right?

“I’ll return,” she whispered.

With that, she left, the bell ringing on her way out. I stared after her for a while, then locked up and headed to bed.

Unlike me, sleep did not come easily that night.