[kiasusam]

He shook his head and laughed. Looking back down to his magazine, he pointed at himself. “Nearly all human remember…that isn’t as much of a temptation as you seem to think.”

I exhaled loudly and slumped back into my chair. “Fine, be all modest on me. I would have shown you mine,” I muttered.

He exhaled loudly and looked at the ceiling for a moment. “God…” He made a fake growling noise, like a five year old would, and looked over at me with his hands raised in the air like claws. He extended his fangs. “I want to suck your blood,” he said in a horrid Dracula impersonation and then immediately retracted his teeth and went back to his magazine. “Satisfied?”

Laughing at his display, I walked over and sat in his lap. He looked up at me with a semi-amused smile. “Yes…that was priceless. Thank you.”

He shook his head. “However I can entertain the human.”

I laughed again and kissed him softly. I was a little surprised at how well I was taking things. I never realized I was so…progressive. Well, good men are hard to come by, and I’d had more than my fair share of duds. If his only…drawback…was a pair of sharp teeth and a penchant for hemoglobin, well, I’d take it.

We decided to spend our Sunday afternoon doing the most vampire-like thing we could – we took his collie, Spike (as in stake - har har), to Golden Gate Park. Teren and I lived in beautiful, sunny San Francisco, which one would think would make it a natural deterrent for vamps, but Teren seemed perfectly happy, and un-crispy, walking hand in hand with me as Spike ran ahead of us for a few feet, before coming back and then running forward again. We walked through the green grass and under a few large trees and I watched the sunlight filter through the leaves to speckle my honey in shadow and light, a fitting metaphor if I’d ever seen one.

When Spike got too far in front of us, Teren put a couple fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly. Spike immediately turned to us, his shaggy, multi-coloured coat bristling in the breeze, and loped back to us with his tongue expanding and retracting as he panted merrily. Teren reached down and ruffled his fur, earning him a lick on the cheek. He laughed and kissed his head.

“So, you don’t chow on dogs?” I asked with a small smile on my lips.

He looked up at me and grimaced. “No…do you?” I laughed and shook my head. He smiled and stood, coming to my side and pulling me close to him. “Good, I don’t think I could keep seeing you if you ate dog. That’s just gross.”

I smacked his shoulder while he laughed and Spike ran around our feet. He brought me in for a tender kiss as Spike’s attention was diverted by a squirrel running up a nearby tree trunk. I relaxed into the comfort of his kiss - a wonderful mix of soft lips and scratchy stubble. Abruptly he pulled back from me and I frowned as my comfort was ripped away.

“Come to my parents’ place with me.”

I blinked at him, startled. “I’m sorry…what?”

He half-grinned at my stupefied face. “Now that you know everything…and seem to be perfectly fine with it, you should meet my parents.”

“Today?” My voice came out a little strained and I tried to relax my throat.

“No, I wasn’t serious about that. I do need to go up there soon though. Maybe in a couple of weekends we could go?” His pale eyes sparkled in the sunlight, and I had the odd thought that they were charging in the sun for another glow session this evening. I shook my head to shake away the errant thought.

“Um…I guess that could be fun. Where do they live?” Please don’t say a castle…

He nodded vaguely to the right of us. “They manage a ranch about 60 miles from here, near Mount Diablo.”

I nodded as I absorbed that. “Wait…your family are ranchers?”

He smiled, like he didn’t see anything odd about that. “Yeah.”

I pulled away from him to look at him better. “Your…vampire family…are ranchers?”

He laughed at the look on my face. “Yeah, it kind of makes sense for us, if you think about it.”

I blinked. “What do you mean?”

He took my hand and we started walking through the grass, catching up to his hyper collie that was chasing his tail, ten feet up the lawn. “Well, to the outside world, my family comes from a long line of successful ranchers, but to us…,” he looked over at me walking beside him and grinned devilishly (I kind of wish he’d fanged for me, that would have completed the look), “…to us, it’s more of an open-air pantry.”

I paled a bit as that thought sunk into the ridges of my brain. I envisioned the teeth that he had dragged along my neck, plunging deep into some poor Holstein. “Oh…I’m never going to be able to look at a cow the same way again.”

He laughed and squeezed my hand. We watched Spike roll on his back and frolic in the sun, and I thought about meeting his family…his vampire family. Dealing with his weirdness was one thing - I mean, for the most part, he acted completely human. But he was only slightly vampire. The rest of his family would be even more foreign…and his great-grandmother was a full-fledged mistress of the night. I had to admit that it intimidated me a little bit. Although, it was nice to hear that they snacked on livestock.

“We’ve only been dating a few weeks…isn’t it a little early to bring me home?”

He smiled down on me as Spike ran up to him and licked his jeans. “You got so irritated by the abstaining you thought we were doing, I don’t want to mess up again by making you wait.”

I smacked his shoulder and he pulled me tight. “I really do need to go up there…it’s been too long. And I’d love for you to join me. I’d love for you to meet them, and for them to meet you.” He looked down as we walked, seeming almost shy. “You’re kind of important to me.”

“Oh,” I said quietly.

Before I could respond further, he added, “It’s not every girl who would stick around after hearing what I really am.” He nudged my shoulder playfully. “And you’re really pretty.”

I smiled as he bent down and clipped Spike’s leash back on his collar. We made our way back to his Toyota Prius (yes, my vampire drove a hybrid), and went over to a breezy outdoor diner for a late lunch. At the end of our day and a half date, he drove me home, walked me to my door, and kissed me goodbye like a perfect gentleman.

In the safety and solitude of my cute, Victorian townhouse, I analyzed how much things had changed in my life in the past twenty four hours. Vampires were real. I was dating one. I’d slept with one - twice. He wanted to take me home to his…nest. He thought I was really pretty.

I had a dream that night, once I finally fell asleep, of being surrounded by beautiful, black-haired women with sharp fangs and glowing eyes, and a deep voice rumbled in my head, “Don’t worry…they won’t eat my girlfriend.”

To Be Continued in Next Chapter......