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Chapter 2

I shall continue this journal, because I realize that I may not live through one of our sessions, and I do not want to die without any record of what happened to me. I don’t wish to implicate Aloysius. I just want to leave some sort of legacy. I want him to read it when he comes back to himself and see that I loved him despite, or perhaps partly because of, what he is. To see that I did not blame him for anything, and that I was not unhappy with him, for any reason. To know that I would not have given up the ecstasy of his intense, sometimes bloody passion for all the flowery words and gentle caresses any woman ever received. He often speaks in sweet whispers, and his hands and lips are always loving and gentle, except when he changes. I love the pain and the romance equally. I love the man more than life. I need him more than breath.

Darling, if you find this journal, it will mean that I am gone, and I want you to know these things.

***


Tonight I was standing on the back deck, looking out over the water, when I felt his arms encircle me from behind. I did not know he had come home, and I might have been frightened, but there was no mistaking the feel of his arms and hands...the muscles hard as marble, the caress soft as silk. He pressed against me, and I expected him to become suddenly rough, as sometimes happens when a sudden surge of need surprises him. But he only held me, whispering in my ear, “You know the time is nearing again.”

“Yes,” I answered, leaning back against him, covering his hands with mine. The breeze off the water was very cool, but I was very warm where his body touched mine. His metabolism speeds up as the change approaches, and his body temperature escalates. Out over the water, a falcon swooped and soared on stationary wings, buoyed only by the wind.

He was silent for a while, as though considering what to say, or whether anything more needed to be said, or perhaps whether he could say it. Then, “You could go away for a while. You know I will not feed on anyone else.”

“I know.” I turned in his arms and met his eyes. “But I am your wife. I want to give you what you need.”

He studied me. “You have no such duty.”

“No.” I kissed him lightly. “It is not my duty. It is my pleasure.”

He inhaled deeply, pulling me closer. “I fear that someday I will lose control completely. That I will...go too far.”

“Then I shall die as I have lived...in your arms, in love, and in ecstasy.”

“I love you.” He gave me his eyes, the emotion in them so raw that it was easy to understand why he usually kept himself under such tight rein. “I love you so.”

“And I love you.” His words and his eyes had left me a little breathless. “Please...take me to bed now.”

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