Victorian America - chapter 12

I wake up to the smell of hot coffee and grilled toasts. For a moment I keep my eyes closed enjoying the normality of the situation.

"Good morning."

I don't know that voice. I open the eyes. No one, I stand on my elbows. Wow the room is huge. Oh there's an athletic brunette with big bushy eyebrows. I smile

"Good morning, my name is Erin, could you hand me a cup that coffee and tell me where the hell I am."

"My pleasure, you are now in the guest room of the Colorado Springs Castle. My name is Megan; I think we already met last night."

I stare at the girl, well at the weregirl, no, I mean at the werewolf girl, anyway I stare at her.

First thing that pops to my mind is a geometry problem: How did so much "huge" wolf get concentrated into so "tiny" her, she's taller than me but the beast last night was at least three times bigger than the pretty much normal girl that is serving me a cup of coffee. So the question is where did she put all the rest of the werewolf?

The second thing that comes to my mind is the image of a gigantic tongue and my genitals.

"Aaaargh! This is so awkward and confusing. I'm sorry! Just a week ago, vampires and werewolves were fucking myths and now..."

Megan looks at me, smiling with compassion.

"Wait a second; did you just say you thought we had met? So you mean you don't actually remember what happened last night?"

"Well not clearly, no, in the first hours it's usually extremely blurry, sometimes after a while I remember a few things."

She hands me the cup of coffee. I keep staring at her.

"So you don't remember anything?"

"Not really, I do remember feelings, tastes, smells..."

Suddenly she stares blankly at the wall behind me; her nostrils widen and she starts blushing dramatically.

"Holy mother of God... I didn't, did I?"

"Well, actually, yes you did."

"I'm so terribly sorry. I wish I could... Oh fuck, God damn it I hate being a God damn werewolf. I'm so sorry. Really, I don't know what to say. Fuck... I didn't hurt you at least?"

"No actually, I must confess that it was quite pleasant."

She looks at me for a second.

"Would you mind filling in the blanks?"

So, I do fill in the blanks. Step by step, starting with the two vampires bugging me the first night, me and my fantasies, me and my silly ideas, the two vampires coming back, her appearance and the disappearance of the two vampires, her daring rescue of poor little me, the tongue incident, Lady Vanessa's dinner and finally us coming home to the castle...

After I finish telling her the story we look at each other for a long time.

"Oh, fuck it!" I finally say, "I enjoyed it, you seemed to be enjoying it too so let's call it even. If it's a question of who should be the most ashamed I'm the one who should, after all I did voluntarily invite those two vampires into my room for the most unsafe sex I can think of."

"Okay, next time I find you on your back, I'll ask your permission before licking you," she says laughing.

"So what's next?"

"I don't know. You'll meet with the Countess tonight. I don't know much about it but apparently she knows something about what happened to you. In the meantime, well I'm supposed to keep you company"

We spend the rest of the morning chatting. She tells me of her werewolf condition, I tell her of my life. Around noon she takes me to meet Igor's wife so we can have lunch. I also meet Igor, who looks awfully like an Igor.

In the afternoon Megan shows me the park and the castle. By the way of Castle it only has the name, vampire tradition I guess. In reality it's just a very large, very luxurious property with a very little amount of large windows. No moat, no drawbridge, no dungeon, no towers, just a very modern building inhabited by a terrible vampire lord terrorizing the people of the surrounding towns. Terrorizing, well apparently not even, vampire population is kept low, there are a few rogues like the ones I met the night before but they usually stick to the cities, besides that and the curfew, most of the humans live a long and prosperous life without ever crossing the path of a vampire.

She tells me about the family. The Count, him I won't meet, he's been travelling the south of the commonwealth for a while. Long marriages are already complicated for humans so imagine when you get to your two hundredth anniversary... So the Count I won't meet and according to Megan it's actually much better this way.

Then the Countess. The Countess is complicated, she a very old vampire, some say she is older than the Queen herself so she has those ways of another age. But the Countess is also a scientist; she has this huge laboratory below the castle. Just last year she tried to reproduce the Frankenstein incident but failed, she was mad for month after that.

"Frankenstein Incident?" I ask.

"Oh yeah sorry I keep forgetting that you're not from around here. The Frankenstein incident is one of the bases of modern medicine but to the date it has been reproduced only three times..."

And finally there's Lady Vanessa, the only daughter of the couple that actually decided to stay at home with her parents. According to Megan, she did because she's actually too lazy to actually survive out there. While the other children are out in the world either having fun or representing the interests of the family somewhere, she stays here to serve as her mother's personal assistant, pathetic.

"When you say children... do you mean..."

I make a circle with my index and my thumb and pass the other index through it.

"... Or do you mean..."

I tap two fingers against the base of my neck.

Megan laughs and taps two fingers against her neck.

"Could you imagine the nightmare if they were fertile? They usually fuck at least three or four times a night, they don't die, they don't grow old, they would only multiply. The world would very soon be a bit too crowded. And this way Nobility has a way of rewarding their best subjects..."

Finally the sun starts falling behind the mountain and Megan offers me to go back to my chambers so that I can change into something a bit more proper before meeting the Countess and Lady Vanessa.

I'm drying my hair wrapped into a large towel when I hear a noise behind me. I clear the steam from the mirror. It's Megan.

"Erin?"

"Yes?"

"I'm not sure how to tell you that but... it's been a really nice afternoon and ... I've grown quite found of you... I just wanted you to know that I will be here for you no matter what."

"Megan... I don't know what to say, I've also enjoyed myself a lot..."

"I understand," she says going back to the room.

I look at my reflection in the mirror. Damn I feel bad. Megan is the first nice person I meet in this new world ... Wait, no she's not she's actually the fourth, first there was the ranger, than Susan, than Claudius, maybe even the fifth if you count the old lady that drove me to the motel... Anyway, it's not important; I'm in a total digression here... What I mean is that Megan is more important to me than those other people... Of course she is... She's a friend... Is she just a friend?

Oh fuck it; I'll make sense of my feelings later.

"Megan?" I say following her.

"Yes," she answers turning around.

I grab her by the waist; our faces get closer together; I close my eyes; she closes hers; our lips touch; she tastes like grape. She pushes me away. I look at her, she looks back at me. We smile. Maybe I could find a reason to stay here after all. I **** her back into a kiss. Strong as she is, I feel that she could just push me away, but she accepts me. She accepts my lips, my fingers, she accepts my... love.