Olivia is now exploring your inner thighs. Her kisses sometimes depress your pillowy skin, sometimes trace the curves where the suspender straps compress that skin into smooth valleys. There is one valley she discovers all of a sudden. Her pursed lips place a soft, melting kiss on your own. Without parting, her lips massage circles into you, trail kisses up and down your blossoming labia. You let out a sigh and Amelie leans down to kiss your mouth, deeply.

You’ve learned a thing or two. The brothers you lured were firmly tied using fabric you shredded from hotel bedsheets, one kept restrained and mute under the increasing heft of your midsection while you tied the other. You felt him try to push you off like a desperate massage and the stomach grumbles that he must have heard up close and personal set him kicking for his life. No avail, though.

Like a wrestler you throw Gemma onto the bed and keep her down with your weight as you spin above her. Your thighs push her head into the duvet, drowning any scream, and your hands isolate her knees and calves, pointing her toes in one convenient, helpless direction. Feet are a necessary evil. You get around them by deepthroating her calves all in one. The resulting kicking and thrashing underneath your belly excites you, makes you keener to put it inside your belly where it belongs.

The vampire is a romantic figure: creature of the night, denizen of that space between life and death, untethered from natural law yet tied to it through the lives she takes. But when you go on holiday you have to check in to a hotel, same as everyone else. Doesn’t seem fair. Maybe you should get an Igor to handle the mundanities. It does, however, afford other opportunities enjoyed by mortal men and women.

The sun slows things down on San Antonio beach. The moon and the stars bring them back to life. You’re staring at them now, stretched out on a sunlounger. It’s a good thing it’s wooden: the white plastic ones wouldn’t cope well with the weight of two people. The clubs were in full swing when you finally went out. Some drama with the friends you traveled with delayed everything until you were itching to see some action.

You wake at 4am with heartburn and realise fuck, you frenzied again. You breathe through the discomfort, allowing it to dissipate as you struggle to remember the faces and, more importantly, the bodies of the last three days. The fat woman you met while clubbing started it. Jayda? She had pretty eyes and immaculate nails that utterly failed to protect her against her swift consumption when you isolated her in a bathroom.

I come to the door when you knock. Will I ever not smile when I first see you? I offer to take your coat, and when you point out you’re not wearing one, I offer to take your pants instead. You bap me on the shoulder and I place a kiss on your cheek. Music is coming from inside, and the scent of incense. An unfamiliar voice is singing to Billie Eilish, quite well.

After last time I’ve been more careful. At least, you haven’t had to come rescue me from any dreamworld creatures or demons. But you know I’ve been working. The first time you told me about astral feeding I almost exploded, veering erratically between cosmic horror, profound excitement, lust, and a kind of stillness that looked like an actual trauma response. Honestly, at the time you didn’t know what to make of it.

It’s three in the morning when I shake you gently awake. You look up, shaking off vague dreams of building a house with tall walls, and it takes a little while to orient yourself. “Bluh? What’s the matter?” I’m doing that thing where I’m looking at you like I’m the luckiest man in the world again. At least you think I am. Your eyes are not quite focusing despite your excellent night vision, and you can feel that your hair is sticking at right angles where you slept on it.

After you came to visit me, whatever devil had been driving me seemed to dissipate. We spent the next day together, it being one of those long lazy mornings that turns into evenings, with you appreciating not being required to move your newly acquired bulk too much. Talking, playing games, watching things on your phone—these all were interspersed with long, luxurious tummy rubs, helping ease the growing digestive discomfort as your body worked on the previous day’s meal.

I am a fool. I am so lucky. I watch as your eyes close again, the better to savour what you take from my wrist. Watching your eyelids feels like watching the guillotine fall. I can’t pull away. When I try, your arms feel like iron, and you rock only the tiniest bit. Blood loss fuzzes my motor control, making me feel hot, weak and shaky. Watching the rhythmic pulsing of your throat isn’t helping matters.

Feels amazing, huh? So if you won’t let yourself indulge in that way, maybe you need someone to make it happen. Someone desperate, who has to make a few people disappear. Picture it: Night out, friend of a friend introduces you to this guy. Charming, bit jumpy. Workman’s hands, nice glasses, fits his T-shirt well. Later, when everyone’s more drunk than you are, they go trawling for a late-night shame feast.