{I wrote this story from a song written and sung by Don
Henley. It conjured up a story in my head of a love gone wrong between a long
lived vampire couple named Guilianna and Maxwell. In a fit of rage he killed
his lover and partner when she refused to let him leave her. He tossed her into
a fire and she perished. He spent his time on earth from that moment on mourning
her death and regretting his decision to end her life. Max was truly a tortured
soul. Guilianna took his mortality from him over a century ago to keep him with
her for eternity. The resentment and guilt he felt caused him to revisit her
ghost once again.}
It was a cool October morning, just before dawn when Max
stumbled through the front door of his stylish loft. He looked at his
surroundings through one bloodshot eye. His flat was a very comfortable, tastefully
decorated with a defining masculine décor. Filled with antiques, priceless art
and things he had collected through the years. Centuries afforded him the
ability to live a very good life in a posh high-rise loft in the heart of the
city. He felt safe and isolated, the kind of life he had become accustomed to.
A vampire’s life can be very comfortable if he stays under
the radar, invests his money wisely and waits for the economy to upswing. He
was wise with his money and it had paid off handsomely.
That is the upside of living forever. The downside is,
living forever.
Max had changed residences and identities many times in the
last one hundred and forty years. The fortune he had acquired allowed him to
travel at a moment’s notice if necessary. He had untraceable bank accounts stashed
all over the world.
An immortal man could live in comfort for eternity as long
as he didn’t live too extravagantly. Max had nice things, classy but never
flashy. Flashy brought attention. That was never a good thing if
you’re a vampire trying to live undetected in a mortal world.
The one thing he held onto no matter what, was his name. Maxwell
Albert Chatsworth had to change many things in his life but he treasured the
name he was born with in London so many decades before. It gave him roots. His history was in his name.
He staggered over to the antique mirror that hung in the
foyer and peered at his own image. All the nonsense written about vampire lore
was rubbish. Of course he could be seen in a mirror. Cameras could capture his
image too but he avoided them as much as possible. Bram Stoker had done all
vampires a favor by putting out those false claims. It gave mortals comfort to
think they could separate themselves from the undead. It gave them hope that
they could identify and destroy vampires at will before those monsters tore into
their throats and drained the life from their mortal bodies. It had to be unnerving
to imagine the immortal undead walking freely among the vulnerable living. The
hunters roaming freely among their food.
Vampires don’t require food but they can get drunk and high
too, just like Max was at this very moment. They had the added advantage of becoming
intoxicated by an imbibed mortal’s blood. They absorbed everything. Emotions,
stimulants, depressants, you name it. Whatever a human can take or feel, a
vampire can experience it. Tonight it was a bit of all those things. He’d spent
the entire evening feeding off Timur’s ladies. A bevy of beauties with daddy
issues who sold their bodies as well as their blood to vampires for a lot of
money.
There are many romantic myths about vampires, some of it was
the truth and some of it pure hogwash. Vampires do fall in love. God knows Max
did, hard. It could be with another vampire or the living mortal. Either way it
can be dangerous, usually for the humans whom are often turned or die in
the process. Vampires always want to win when they battle for dominance. It’s
their feral nature. Power and domination are generally determined by age not
gender.
Vampire love can be brutal. In Max’s case it was fatal for
the woman who turned him. His beautiful immortal bride, in a fit of rage, he hurled
her to her fiery demise. He didn’t want to but she forced his hand. He often
wondered if she let him win on purpose. She was nearly two hundred years older
than he and more powerful. Guilianna was also miserable at living forever, even
more so than Max. She was possessive, suspicious and angry about everything,
especially when it came to Max. Her love for him was more of an obsession. It
was deadly and destructive. She had always been overly dramatic, bordering on
demonic, as long as Max had known her. He was attracted to her from the instant
he looked into her dark eyes.
Max looked closely at his image. His face had not aged a single
day in one hundred and forty-one years. He was still that handsome, charming Englishman
from Victorian times. Still a healthy, thriving thirty-five year old ladies’ man
in the mirror. Inside his heart, he was older than time.
He met his fate of immortality at the hands of the most
beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on shortly after his thirty-fifth
birthday. She was bewitching, bewildering and more addictive than anything he’d
ever encountered in his short mortal life. Had he known his fate, he probably
still would have allowed her to take it away from him. He would have given her everything,
anything her cold dead heart wanted. All it took was one soul crushing encounter.
All these years and all the women he had known since, not
one could ever compare to the breathtaking Guilianna DiGrazzi. She was the
daughter of an Italian Count. The sultry seductress had captured his soul with
one glance of those wickedly beautiful brown eyes. He surrendered to her and she
took his life. She sunk her fangs into his throat one fateful night and he gave
up his mortality while he whispered her name.
A gripping sadness overcame him as he turned his face away
from the mirror. When he looked at his image, he saw her. He always saw her. The
woman he loved more than anything was dead at his own hands. She drove him to
madness.
He’d always assumed it would be she that would end his undead
reign. He often hoped she would, but she refused to let go. Guilianna denied
him his freedom, so he took hers. At the time it seemed to be the only way to
bring some peace to both of their tortured souls.
Max looked toward the copper tiled ceiling as the ghosts began
to do their haunted dance around his head. They always seemed to show up
whenever he thought about his Guilianna.
Max tried to rub the swirling banshees from his eyes. Why did
Timur allow his lovely whores to continually stay hopped up on cocaine and Qualudes.
He could hear Timur’s thick Russian accent in his head. “It’s the eighties Max! All the beautiful people are doing it.” Timur
was his oldest friend, and by oldest he meant both figuratively and literally. The
mad Russian, Timur Bogrov, was nearly a thousand years old. He was a mere boy
when he was turned many centuries ago at the age of twenty-six. He looked and
talked like a twenty something surfer dude and even more so, he acted like one.
Timur was perpetual punk who preferred to be called “Tim”. “Ah dude! The ‘ludes
make you feel laid back and the coke keeps you awake to enjoy the high.”
All Max knew was, the Quaaludes made him do stupid things
and the cocaine made him aware that he was doing them. It didn’t matter anymore.
He couldn’t and wouldn’t stay away from them; any will power he ever possessed was
gone.
Cocaine made him horny as hell. He could fuck all night long
on an eight-ball of coke and never get off. Yes, vampires can fuck, very well
and very often if they want to. It was agony going around with a stiff cock and
no way to relieve it. The solution required more coke so he take more and try
to remedy the problem. He could go through a stable of hookers and they were
willing to endure his high, his hard-on and his stamina as long as he continued
to throw buckets of money at them.
Timur had plenty of girls willing to do the deed. Max always
got the prettiest ones with the tastiest blood. He indulged them with plenty of
drugs and alcohol. It was a convenient way for Max to get high. He simply
injected his fangs into their veins and drank their drug and alcohol riddled
blood. He liked it that way. He liked it very much. It was always agony when the
time came for him to go home.
Going home meant being alone - with his ghosts, his dark
thoughts and his self loathing. He hated what he had allowed himself to become.
He always blamed Guilianna for turning him into a vampire but when he was alone,
he knew the painful truth. It was Max himself, who brought the demons to life.
It had been his choice to take the dark path and drag the
monster out from under the bed. He couldn’t bear to walk near the light. Not
because he was repelled by it but because it was too painful to face what a
train wreck he had made of his miserable existence. His life today was laid out
before him like a carefully selected set of funeral clothes.
“Max, do you like your
hell? It’s mighty lonely down here isn’t it?” His head snapped, searching
frantically for the distant voice speaking directly to him.
“Oh fuck, the voices!”
He clutched his temples and whispered under his breath. This was why he stayed
out all night and stumbled in towards dawn every single day. It was the only
way to cope with these wretched demons before he lapsed into a dead sleep
inside his coffin. He couldn’t take the voices anymore. They taunted him and reminded
him of what a fucking mess he’d made of his life.
The voices were killing him. His lifestyle was killing him. His
overriding guilt was killing him… but he couldn’t die. Not unless he cut off his
own head or threw himself into a fire. He didn’t have the nerve to do that. So
he worked on slowly killing his memories, hoping eventually there would be nothing
left to kill.
People might say - if there were such a thing as vampires,
they don’t have souls - but they would be wrong. Another myth for the
storybooks. Max had a soul and it was eating him alive. His soul was the only
thing left of him that was human. He’d tried to drink and drug it away for many,
many years with no luck. It wouldn’t leave his body.
The pain it caused hurt worse with every passing decade. Immortality
was supposed to be easier to deal with as time went by but not for Max. It
seemed worse. Memories of his mortal life haunted him. The people he loved and
lost. The complications with being immortal took stamina and skill. The jobs
and homes he left behind to protect his identity couldn't compare to the pain in his undead heart.
He squeezed his head hard between his hands, trying to still
the voices. It only proved to make them louder. The constant chatter of ghosts he
could never completely leave behind. Suddenly a voice he hadn’t heard in a very
long time. She called out to him. He remained perfectly still, listening, yearning
for the sound. Soft moans of a woman, perhaps in the midst of making love or possibly
pleasuring herself?
Max knew those moans. He used to live to hear those moans!
He rushed to the bottom of the staircase and looked to the top of the steps. A golden
sliver of light shined from under his bedroom door. It couldn’t be possible but
it he heard the distinctly feminine moans clear as a bell. They became louder
and grew with intensity. She was almost there, to that point. He could taste
her sweet nectar on his tongue. She was beginning to cum and he wanted to be
there to hold her, to be with her when she reached her climax.
Max cried out. “Wait for me Guilianna! Don’t go there
without me!” He took the stairs three at a time until he was standing next to door.
He rushed through the portal in desperation. There she lay in all her dark splendor,
his beloved Guilianna.
She was stretched across his bed, dressed in a red satin
gown. Her raven hair cascaded across the white pillowcase in all its blue-black
glory. Slender pale arms draped gracefully above her head. She smiled at him, her
dark eyes sparkling. The familiar sound, lilting and sweet. “Hello, Max. I’ve
been waiting for you all night. What took you so long? I thought you were never
coming home.”
Max stumbled to the bed and fell next to the mattress at her
feet. “I didn’t think you’d be here Guilianna! I would’ve been home sooner if
I’d only known but… I didn’t know. I couldn’t know.” His voice was trembling,
almost to point of blubbering. “My love, my darling wife, I can’t believe you
came back.”
Guilianna smiled sweetly, her dark red lips parting wide to
flash perfect white teeth. Her voice, smooth and honeyed. “Oh darling, you know
I’d never leave you behind. I will always come back when you need me the most.
After all these years you should know that. We will always be together, even though
we’re apart.”
She stretched her long lean frame and pointed her red
painted toenails downward as she spread her palms out like fans. She ran her supple
fingers slowly up the length of her body, slightly pulling on the red satin
gown to show more of her long shapely legs.
Max was dumbstruck by the absolute beauty of this woman.
Years upon years and she still took his breath away. He gazed at her exactly
like he did the first time saw her in that Paris ballroom in 1873. It was one
of worship and wonderment. He lay at her feet this night, looking at her the
very same way he did back then.
“I could hear you darling. The sweet sounds you made when I
was making love to you.” His fingertips moved slowly down the side of her
smooth calf. His blue eyes fixed on her brown velvet ones.
Guilianna’s laugh was wicked. Her laugh had always been devilishly
wicked. “Oh my dear sweet tortured love, you’re hearing things again aren’t
you?” She stroked the side of his handsome face. It’s happening more often
isn’t it?” She shook her head sadly. “No darling, I’ve been quietly waiting up
here for you to return safely home to me. My moans are for your delight only.
You know that… don’t you, my love?”
“I’ve been hearing the voices again but this time it was
different. I could hear you, all the way from the foyer but I wasn’t sure it
was real. None of the others seem to be, are they?” He reached for her
fingertips with the tips of his but she slipped them away from his grasp.
“Oh Max, you can be so amusing when you’re intoxicated.” She
turned on her side, resting her head on the crook of her arm. She looked down
on him and sighed. “You have such a sad distant look in your eyes when you
drink.” She narrowed her eyes and peered deeper into his. “I can see inside of
your tortured soul Maxwell. The soft center of you is showing and it makes you
very vulnerable to the outside world, my love.” She leaned closer, whispering.
“You really have to stop punishing yourself Max. You know, the only one you
hurt in the end is yourself, don’t you?”
Max's eyes filled with tears. “How do I stop doing that? I
can’t seem to forgive myself for all I’ve done wrong. I could say it was your
fault but we both know that I blame you for all of my weaknesses. It’s easier
to do that.” He pleaded to her through misty tired eyes. “Can you forgive me for
being so childish? I’m always so unwilling to take responsibility for my own mistakes.”
She swept her hand across the top of his head and lightly toyed with
the tousled locks of hair that fell softly on his forehead. “I don’t need to
forgive you Maxwell. I’ve never needed to forgive you. You need to forgive
yourself.”
Max rose to his feet and walked to the window. He leaned on
the sill and peered out into the darkness of this haunted night. The rain poured
down as lightening flashed violently, temporarily lighting up the sky in the
dreary darkness. Droplets of rain trickled down the windowpane in sad jagged
lines as the tears traced down Max’s cheeks. He wiped them away with his sleeve
and turned back to look at his dead wife.
She silently watched Max collect himself. He dropped onto
his knees in the center of the floor. “Why didn’t you ask me Guilianna? Why did you take it for granted
that I would want this curse? I loved you so much! I would have crossed an ocean to be
near you but you didn’t give me the chance to make the decision on my own. You robbed
me of being able to choose my fate!”
She didn’t respond but kept studying his face intently. An eerie
glow illuminated around her as lightening flashed and thunder rumbled and
crashed through the quiet room.
Guilianna’s eyes appeared to tear up but Max was sure he must
be imagining it. Lately he seemed to have trouble deciphering real life
from fantasy. In all their years together, he could never remember seeing her
cry. She would wail when she didn’t get her way but he couldn’t recall one
instance where she actually shed real tears.
Max crawled across the floor to be near her once more. He
sat on the bed and stroked her face. His thoughts wandered to the life she had experienced
when she was first turned many years before he met her. It helped to him
understand her better, perhaps to be more sympathetic of her wicked ways. She could
be so hard, so cruel and distant. He felt strangely closer to her when he could
feel her emotional pain. As a young woman, she had been kidnapped by French pirates,
passed around, used and abused before she was turned.
He understood her past was the reason she was who she was
but it didn’t make it easier for him to accept her selfish, demanding ways when
it came to him. He never mistreated her. He worshipped her. He pampered and
spoiled her. There was no other love like the love he felt for her, but it was
never enough. She was never satisfied.
She turned him one night while he slept beside her. She
never regarded what he may have wanted. She never discussed it with him, just
drained him in his sleep and turned him into a monster he was today.
Guilianna always got what she wanted and nothing ever
stopped her. He often doubted that she was even capable of love. Perhaps the
damage was too severe for her to harbor strong emotion for anyone or anything,
even him. Indifference was indeed the saddest emotion of all.
Guilianna looked into her intoxicated husband’s eyes. “Max,
I was wrong. It was a regretful decision for me to make. I admit to it. In my
defense, I was so afraid of losing you. I took it upon myself to give you an
eternity with me. I couldn’t take the chance that you might leave me or worse
stay only to die as an old man in my arms. I did the only thing I could think
to do. I was desperate to keep you with me.” Her brow creased. “You may think
my motives were selfish but they really weren’t. Careless, impudent perhaps…
but not selfish.”
She leaned closer. Her raven hair tumbled over her pale
shoulders. She sighed deeply. “My deepest regret was that I never could
convince you of how much I loved you. My only motive was love.” Her voice
softened as she lightly caressed his arm. “I have always loved you Max, always
have… and I always will.”
“Oh Guilianna!” Max pulled her close and buried his face in
her silky dark hair. “I didn’t want to do it! I begged you to back away. I
begged you to let me go on my own. I tried to warn you so many times! Why
didn’t you listen? Things could have been so different if you’d only listened
to me! I probably would have returned to you.” He choked back his pathetic
sobs. “I wouldn’t have done what I did. The belittling remarks were the last
straw. If it weren’t for you mocking me, pushing me to the edge, it would all be
different now.”
Guilianna pulled away from Max and peered deeply into his very
soul. Her dark stare was soft, almost doe like as she spoke in a hushed tone. “Max,
you did what you had to do and I did what I had to do. No regrets. You simply
won the battle." She smiled softly. "It wasn’t for lack of trying on
my part. I know I could be difficult at times, most times.” She smiled. “It was
bound to happen… to one of us. Your will was simply stronger than mine.” She
paused for a moment and looked down. “If it were meant to be, I would have had
my way and we would be together right now. I knew what I was up against and
maybe I wanted to see if you could overpower me. You did, my love.” There was a
smugness in her tone. “I sired my vampire well, didn’t I? The master was
mastered. You were my finest achievement Max.”
Max could feel himself turning as the scotch and the drugs
began to lose their hold on him. He smelled that familiar feral scent he got
before they had sex but something was wrong. He closed his eyes as he sniffed at
her flawless alabaster skin. He couldn’t determine what was different.
Max nipped her lightly with his newly sprouted fangs. His
groin tightened with arousal. His desire was still as strong as ever for his
raven haired beauty, even after so many years.
Guilianna rolled her head back to allow him access to her
long slender throat. A moan of pleasure escaped from her dark red lips and her
long eyelashes fluttered lightly over ebony eyes. His fangs nipped at her flesh
harder as droplets of blood trickled softly down her neck. He eagerly licked
them and nipped for more.
Whispering her name over and over, he pressed closer to her supple
body. His fangs sank deeply into her firm flesh. He drank the sanguine nectar
and allowed its essence to flow over his tongue. His erection twitched to be
inside of her once more. Her beauty was intoxicating, her blood even more so.
He stopped to savor the taste. Guilianna you taste mortal! You smell mortal! How
can that be?
There was a melodic tone in her voice. “Wishful thinking on
your part my darling, always your wishful thinking.”
He gently laid Guilianna back and lifted the red satin dress
over her head until she was naked for him. Max exhaled slowly as he caressed
her lovely form. His index finger circled around the brown nipples until they stood
high on top her perfect round breasts. Her pale skin felt like cool satin as
the lightening illuminated every angle and curve.
“Do you want me Max?” She seemed to glow in the shadows of
the night. He didn’t speak but his eyes said everything he was unable to say.
He hurriedly removed his clothes and moved closer to hold her one more time. He
kissed her hard, his tongue dancing inside her luscious mouth. She tasted like
fine wine.
He felt himself being drawn into her like a vortex. The kind
of trap that only the beguiling Guilianna could pull him into. He couldn’t stop
now, even if he wanted to. She held him captive once again. He needed her, he
wanted her, she was as vital to him as the human blood he craved to exist.
He hadn’t taken her life after all! Finally, he could rid
himself of this terrible self loathing guilt. He was going to fuck her hard,
show her how much he loved her. No arguments, no resentment, just absolute
love, adoration and raw animalistic fucking was all he wanted. She watched him
silently with a distant, cool stare.
As he thrust his cock inside her, Guilianna’s once vibrant eyes
looked sad and tired. The fiery glow surrounding her seemed to dim. Her voice
sounded faint. “Do you love me Max?” Her form seemed to be fading away. He desperately
grasped at her to keep her there with him. Guilianna seemed to slip further
away with every attempt he made to hold onto her.
“Guilianna!” His voice echoed as he called out to her. He
tried to cling to her. “I can’t reach you! I can’t feel you! Why can’t I touch
you?”
Guilianna’s voice sounded a thousand miles away. “Maxwell,
I’ll never let you slip away.” He watched in horror as she disappeared into the
wrinkled folds of white cotton sheets. A trace of red satin from her gown was
left behind. Max could feel the dampness from his tears on the pillow. Faded
drops of blood were left behind instead of red satin. Max’s was covered with
blood from his fangs being plunged into his own arm.
He sat up as the sun peeked through the curtains. Max hugged
the pillow tighter and screamed into it. Last night’s excesses seemed to catch
up with him once again as he buried his face deeper into the pillow. He curled
up in a fetal position and wept silently. Vampires do feel pain. The ghosts
disappeared with the light of day but Max knew they would return again.
He wiped his eyes on the pillowcase and crawled out of the
blood stained bed to make his way to his coffin.
Another night, another painful visit from Miss Ghost.
The End
Miss Ghost
Written by Don Henley, Stan Lynch, Jai Winding
On a misbegotten, moonless night
I stumbled in my door
Disgusted with my circumstance
Soaked to every pore
When floating from my bedroom
Came a moaning and a sigh
oh, I’ve had one too many
It’s just the wind, says I
I lit up a cigarette
And I poured a good, stiff drink
You see, I needed to compose myself
I needed time to think
No sooner had I settled down
The moaning came again
Drifting through the silence
Like some otherworldly violin
I bounded up the staircase
I went slippin and slidin down the hall
You know, I’ve been around the whole, wide world
But I was not prepared at all
Uninvited visitor, unsuspecting host
well, I see you’ve made yourself at home.
Good evening, miss ghost.
You’re more beautiful than ever
I feel just like a kid
And I commence to trembling
When I think of all the things we did
Skin as pale as marble; lips as red as blood
Imagine my surprise, my dear
I thought that you were gone for good
You look so lovely lying there
All stretched out on your back
But I’m the one who’s strung up here
On old temptations rusty rack
And in the wee small hours
Is when I miss you the most
And I confess it, I have missed you
Miss ghost
I threw open the window
And I howled at the rain
And I cursed the weakness of the flesh
This breath and bone and this brute, reptilian brain
What dirty tricks the mind can play
In the lonely dead of night
When you bump into the shadow
Of a faded love that wasn’t right
Way down beneath the surface
Far beyond the light of day
So many things lie buried deep
And baby, they should stay that way
Oh, my wicked, little habit
We’ve really made a mess
Everything’s been trivialized
In our vain pursuit of happiness
And even though you’ve come for me
I won’t go back with you
To some temporary heaven
Down some empty, dead-end avenue
But it’s been so good to have you here
And I propose a toast
here’s to seeing through you
Miss ghost.
