Author's note: This story has been trying to force its way out of my head since early December, but I just didn't have time to sit down and take notes. It was inspired by the "Red and Green" Champagne Challenge, #153. Thanks so much to Lilly for reading it, and offering (as usual) excellent advice.
Red
I always liked the color, especially on women. A pretty girl in a figure-hugging red dress could always catch my eye. But after I was turned? Red took on a whole new meaning. It was life—death—seduction—betrayal— the worst kind of pain and the most intense pleasure. I can’t explain it exactly. But believe me, if you’re alive, you really don’t wanna know. And if you’re like me, well, you’ve got it as bad as I do.
Let’s just say that for a vampire, red glows with power and vitality. It’s the brightest crayon in the box, the most vivid hue in the palette. It jumps out at us. We can’t help but notice and be attracted to it. I figure it’s a survival thing. When blood is food and sex rolled into one irresistible package, you’d better be equipped to find it. And just as our noses can detect the slightest hint of it in the vicinity, our eyes are drawn to it like a moth is drawn to a flame. Trouble is, there are a lot of red things in the world that have nothing to do with food, and they shine just as bright. It tends to make some of us a little obsessive about the color. Some of us drive red Ferraris. Some dress in red as much as possible. Me? Well, put it this way. The most dangerous thing in the world to a vampire is fire…and my fireplace is red.
The night I met Coraline, she was shimmering from shoulder to calf in just the kind of dress I liked best. Fitted to every gorgeous curve, deep red silk with little beads and sequins sewn all over it. And matching shoes. She was carrying a sparkler when she sashayed past me, but she was hotter. That was the old me, but like I said—I always liked women in red.
The morning I woke up a vampire, my most vivid memory is of her beautiful white wedding dress stained with splashes and spatters of the most intense, burning red. That color, and the smell of my own blood, filled my whole mind. All my senses were in overdrive, but the blood was a thousand times brighter than the sun that burned me.
And from that moment on, red became the color of everything important, good and bad. I craved it. Enough that I was willing to kill for it. And not just for blood. We were at Ciro’s one night, sipping martinis and star-watching, and she pointed out a woman wearing a ruby necklace. It was all I could do to stop myself from tearing it off her neck right there on the dance floor, but Coraline turned it into a lesson in delayed gratification. When the woman and her date left, I followed them to a quiet area and murdered them both, just to get that necklace for Coraline. That was what she wanted from me, what I spent years trying to be. My whole relationship with her was stained red. She liked to bring out my vicious side. And to tell the truth, it wasn’t that hard, especially at first. The rage was always there, and it made quite a cocktail mixed with anger at the mess my life had turned out to be, and the insane level of lust I had for her. I was constantly on the edge, fangs aching in my jaw. I wanted to bite and tear and gulp down every drop of humanity I saw. And I wanted to bite and tear and punish her, too. You wouldn’t believe the things we did together, the wounds we inflicted on each other, or the pleasure, either. And she loved me for it. She reveled in it.
But not me. It wasn’t long before I got disgusted with myself and with her. And I started trying to get away. I went back too many times to count, but I always wanted to escape. And when I finally broke away for good, the first thing I did was to eliminate that color from my life as much as I could. I bought a dark green car, stuck to neutral colors in my wardrobe, and for a long time I didn’t allow a touch of red into my personal space.
But… let’s face it, there’s no getting away from red. Over the years, I’ve allowed it to creep back into my life. I even own one very comfortable item of red clothing. And I can’t escape the reddest thing there is. Even dead blood in plastic bags is beautiful, shining like nothing else. Try as I might, I can never really get away from that color. And since I had that flirtation with humanity a few weeks ago, I’ve acquired a new appreciation for it. When I saw Beth in that skin-tight satin dress at Josef’s party the other night, it was almost like old times. For a second, I was just a guy looking at a pretty girl in a slinky red dress. Of course, Beth’s not just a pretty girl. She’s the girl who showed me the way back.
) that his obsessive lust for her coincided with his being a newborn vampire. Yes, he was attracted to her before, but the uncontrollable desire came later. This thought always lurked in the back of my mind, but your story really brought it to the forefront. He was just a guy who was in love with a girl, had great chemistry with her. Then she took away his humanity and he spiraled. The insane lust and craziness came after.
This story was inspired by the Challenge, but it stems back from something that fascinated me when the show first aired--the way the show depicted how vampires see blood, especially in Dr. Feelgood. When a human was looking at it, it was regular old dark-red blood. When a vampire was looking at it, it popped out of the picture.
