One of the things I like about San Francisco is its compactness. It�s only seven miles square, so you can walk across it, from the Bay on the east to the Pacific on the west, in just a couple of hours without hurrying. And that�s how I prefer to spend my Saturdays in good weather, hiking around the city — lounging in Golden Gate Park, strolling among the sidewalk-craftsmen�s blankets near Fisherman�s Wharf, riding the cable cars with the tourists, indulging in a sweet snack at the Chocolate Factory, . . . whatever takes my fancy. I especially do this when it�s sunny, which can be an uncommon condition in certain seasons. Common myth notwithstanding, my kind requires regular doses of sunlight.

I had visited the city on business a few times in recent years, but I hadn�t actually lived in San Francisco since shortly before the 1906 earthquake. I was enjoying becoming reacquainted with the place, having given up for awhile on Brazil, where I had resided for the previous dozen years — four of them with Maya, whom I had met there.

She was a relatively newborn vampire, the child of ordinary mortals (for a wonder), and she had been hiding out as a cloistered nun for more than a century. I had enjoyed instructing her in her new life, but my people really are not terribly sociable, not at close quarters, and not for extended periods of time. As much as we felt for each other — we never could decide whether it was love, as such emotions have a decidedly different meaning to the effectively immortal — a certain amount of strain eventually began to appear in our relationship and we finally dealt with the problem in a practical and realistic manner: I headed northwest to California and she headed much farther west, to Singapore and Hong Kong. We parted with careful amicability and promised to get back together "soon" — which for our kind could easily mean "in a few decades."

So now I was comfortably solitary again. I had taken advantage of one of my variety of talents and was teaching two classes in photography at the University of San Francisco. I hadn�t been in a classroom for many years, and I certainly didn�t need the money, but I was enjoying the experience and the contact with the younger generation. (They had no idea, of course, how much younger than me they were.)

On this particular Saturday morning in April, I had put on my most comfortable walking shoes, locked up my loft, and strolled down to the little grocery across the street on the corner. I picked up bread and milk there occasionally, simply for the convenience, but what had drawn me to it in the first place, and what led me to become a devoted customer, was the small lunch counter at the back of the store.

The proprietor was an older Japanese lady, Mrs. Sakura — well, Japanese-American, since she had been born in the U.S. — and she was a fantastic cook, not only of tempura and such but also lasagna, and pulled pork, and Southern fried chicken, and whatever else she decided to turn her hand to. She was simply a natural. If it was edible, Mrs. Sakura could produce a superior version of it. And whatever my other abilities, I am not, unfortunately, much of a cook; I can broil a steak, I can make an omelet, and I can do a decent Spaghetti Bolognese, but that�s about it. So at least once a week, I stopped in on my way home from class and took pot luck of whatever was on the Sakura menu that day. I had never been disappointed in the nearly five years I had been a patron. She always greeted me with "Hello, professor," even though I had explained several times that I was only a part-time adjunct instructor.

I have to say I was also intrigued from my first visit by the row of beautiful photos, neatly matted and framed, that stretched along the wall above the sinks and the meat slicer. They were all cityscapes, all in severe black-and-white, in what I am tempted to call the neo-Japanese school. Occasionally one would be replaced by a new one, always in the same austerely stunning style. I wondered where in Chinatown Mrs. Sakura had found them, but for whatever reason I had never asked.

In any case, for the past couple of years, as Mrs. Sakura grew older, she had turned over the early-day shift to her daughter, Susan, who was now twenty. I had watched Susan grow up, evolving from a bright adolescent in a school uniform to a gorgeous, sometimes rebellious young woman. She stood about four inches shorter than me and she had the classic Japanese beauty . . . although these days, she was a sort of Goth/punk mix, with heavy mascara and softly spiky bright red hair, and a single small gold ring in the left side of her lower lip. She was a sweet kid, though, however much of an outlaw she liked to think herself, and she was always polite to me.

I had discovered early on that it was just Susan and her mother taking care of each other. Mr. Sakura had been the victim of an armed robber with a handgun a few years before I arrived, but his widow had managed to keep the store open.

In repose, Susan�s face usually carried a somewhat sulky expression — she seemed to make a point of it lately — but when she saw me she smiled broadly, as always.

"Hi, Mr. Bell!" She stepped away from the register to pull a large bakery box out from under the counter. "Just got some pastries in from Anthony�s Bakery — I haven�t even put �em out yet and they�re still warm. You want one?"

"Good thing I like to walk," I said, "or you and mama-san would be a disaster for my waistline." It had become an old joke but she always laughed. I pulled my own coffee and stirred in the creamer while she bagged a Danish for me, the big, flat, gooey kind known locally as an "elephant ear." I�d stop and eat it with my coffee on the solitary bench in the little pocket-park a couple blocks up the street.

In the event, I ended up at the zoo, wandering around and staring at all the other animals. It�s almost as much fun as observing the zoo-goers. I was back on my block a little after four o�clock, convincing myself to pick up something for supper from the Sakura grocery.

Mrs. Sakura raised one eyebrow as I entered. "You like shrimp wrapped in bacon?" I felt a Pavlovian drool reflex gathering itself. "Pork fried rice, too," she added.

"Yes, please. A nice big helping of both." This was going to require a six-pack of Asahi and I grabbed one from the chiller while she put my order together. I glanced up as a figure came around the end of the row, halted abruptly, and backed out of sight.

Since I was such a regular, the Sakura grocery allowed me the convenience of running a tab, for which I wrote a check once a month, so I was out the door a moment later. As the door closed behind me, I peripherally noticed that same shadowy figure stepping up to my place at the register. And I knew immediately that something wasn�t right. I paused after a few yards and put out a feeler. Immediately, I picked up a surge of fear from Mrs. Sakura, and then a shocking blast of pain.

Setting the bags of food and beer on the sidewalk against the wall of the building, I turned and was back inside in half an instant. My people can move remarkably fast when we choose to. A figure in a hooded sweatshirt leaned over the counter beside the register. As it raised an arm, I saw a metal pipe, preparing to descend for a second blow.

"Gimme the money, old woman," the assailant growled. I reached up from behind, grabbed his wrist, and yanked him over backward. He yelped, startled at my unexpected reappearance, and tried to scramble away. His eyes narrowed as he looked at me, an apparently middle-aged man in a windbreaker.

"Get outta here and you won�t get hurt, motherfucker. This got nothing to do with you!" He raised the pipe again. Some people just don�t pay attention.

I calmly reached out and wrapped my hand around his fist, and squeezed. I could hear his joints popping and his fingers shattering into small fragments, and so could he. His scream was choked off when I thrust three outstretched fingers into his windpipe with carefully restrained force.

He wasn�t going anywhere for a minute, so I dropped him and went behind the counter to check on Mrs. Sakura. There was a large bloody patch on the left side of her head but she was conscious, just barely. I sent a feeler into her mind: Pain, confusion, anger, everything you would expect. Definitely alive, though, and her pulse was strong. I suspected she would have a serious concussion, maybe a fractured skull. But she was luckier than her husband had been. I sent a calming thought into her mind.

At that point, Susan burst through the door at the back of the kitchen area that led to their apartment upstairs. She must have heard the scream.

"Mom!" She hurried to kneel beside her mother, trying to see if she was okay. She looked up at me wildly. "What happened?!"

She hadn�t seen the bad guy writhing on the tile in front of the counter. "An attempted robbery," I explained. "I came back inside unexpectedly and he panicked and ran out." I took her hand, which was trembling. "I don�t think your mother is too badly hurt, really," I said, "but you need to call nine-one-one for an ambulance and the police." I handed her the cordless phone off the counter. "I�m going to step outside and see if I can spot the guy."

While the girl punched the buttons furiously, I got up, went back around to the front of the counter, and found the perpetrator still alive, more or less, but purple in the face. He was opening and closing his mouth without a sound and waving his undamaged hand rather vaguely. I grabbed his collar and began dragging him out the front door, at the same time sending a subliminal instruction to Susan to concentrate on her phone call and to ignore me.

It�s a quiet neighborhood and there was no one about just then. I yanked my burden a few yards to the alley and pitched him in. There was an industrial-sized dumpster at the far end, set into a shallow recess in the brick wall behind it. The local kids sometimes snuck back into the shadows it cast to smoke pot, but the cubbyhole was unoccupied at the moment. I dragged the guy into the dark corner on the back side of the dumpster where we wouldn�t be seen. He was wheezing and his color had improved a little. He tried with an apprehensive expression to push himself away from me with his remaining good hand but I took a firm grip on the drawstring at the front of his sweatshirt.

"You�re a right son of a bitch," I informed him, "attacking elderly women. Ought to be ashamed, you should." I was doing my Michael Caine impression, just for fun. "I don�t think I�m going to tell the police about you, though." I smiled down at him. He didn�t much like that.

I�m not really the melodramatic type; usually, a meal is just a meal. But this time I let the stereotype run free. Opening my mouth wide, I let my second canines slide down into view. My victim�s eyes grew round and he began frantically beating at my hands, trying to get himself loose. I took my time bending his head sideways and biting into his neck as he gasped and moaned.

Then I straightened up, reversed the flow in my drinking teeth, and spat a stream of bright arterial blood onto the floor of the alley. The bastard tasted of cocaine. No way was I going to give myself indigestion with his polluted blood.

The guy wasn�t really injured, not yet, but his eyes were rolling back in shock. I slapped him — not too hard or I might have decapitated him. "What am I going to do with you?" I asked as he refocused and blinked at me in terror, his whole body trembling.

"Am — am I a vampire now?" he muttered hoarsely.

"You mean, are you one of the �undead�?" I smiled. "No, that�s not actually how it works. You have to be born a vampire, you see. Nothing I might do can turn you into one." I narrowed my eyes and shifted my grip to his bruised throat. "Not that we would want scum like you."

I could easily have choked the life out of him with one hand, but there�s no call for cruelty even in putting down a vicious dog. Instead, I shot a bolt of malice and pure loathing into his mind, the effect of which is not unlike ramming a psychic knitting needle in one ear and out the other. He jerked once and lay still. I got to my feet, picked up the body, and tossed it overhand over the lip of the dumpster three feet above my head. With any luck, he�d be in the landfill before anyone thought to climb up there and look.

Back at the store — I had only been gone three or four minutes — the ambulance, siren winding down, was pulling up to the curb. I directed the paramedics inside, held the door for them, and followed them in. I gathered up Susan, who was sobbing and had blood all over her tee-shirt. As she buried her face against my chest, I sent out another gentle feeler and found Mrs. Sakura not much changed. One of the paramedics was efficiently checking her vitals while the other went back for a gurney.

"She�s going to be okay," one of them said to Susan. "Looks like it was a glancing blow. I know there�s a lot of blood, but the damage actually seems pretty light." On the count, the two of them lifted the injured woman onto the gurney and then extended its legs and began moving her toward the ambulance, just as the police arrived.

I put Susan in the ambulance with her mother and assured her I�d take care of the cops for now. I�d join her at the hospital as soon as I could. With a little helpful mental direction, the officers took my statement and collected the weapon from the floor of the grocery. I told them I knew of no other relatives but that I was well acquainted with the proprietor, and that I would take responsibility for locking up, which they readily agreed to. What I think of as "assertive suggestion" often smoothes the way in situations like this.

I also told them the culprit had fled, and that I hadn�t gotten a good look at him. Only that he was young and was wearing a dark hoodie, which described three-quarters of the armed robbers in town. I didn�t imagine the police were going to search too hard for him, not unless Mrs. Sakura died, which I didn�t expect to happen.

Then I fetched the ring of keys I had often seen one of them drop in the odds-and-ends drawer next to the register, took a quick look around, checking for anything that might be out of order, switched off the coffeemaker and the deep-fryer and the lights, pulled down the shade on the glass door, and locked up. I even pulled down the rolling gate out front and locked that, too. Another neighbor came up as I was so engaged, and asked what was going on, so I passed along the news and asked her if she could write up a brief information notice and attach it to the gate, for all the Sakuras� other customers. After that, I took my abandoned supper up to my loft and stuck it in the fridge; even warmed over, those bacon shrimp were going to be delicious. But they would have to wait. I called a cab, and headed for the hospital.

It was a long night for poor Susan. Her mother�s injury had been a bit more severe than I had thought. The doctors had her mother in the O.R. for more than an hour, relieving the pressure on her brain, cleaning out skull fragments, and stabilizing the old lady�s condition generally. I sat beside her, just trying to provide a comforting presence, and injecting a soothing thought or two. Nevertheless, the girl was shaky, upset, worried, and feeling generally helpless. She blamed herself, naturally and unnecessarily. Finally, exhaustion got the better of her and she allowed herself to lean against my shoulder and doze off. The red spikes tickled my nose as I stroked the back of her slender hand.

Around two in the morning, a surgeon came out to let Susan know her mother was recovering in the ICU and resting comfortably, though still unconscious. There had been no complications, but they would keep her for observation for a couple of days, if only because of her age. I stayed put while Susan went in to see her for a moment. No one knew about my part in all of this, including mama-san, and I intended to keep it that way. My people have always preferred a low profile, and I�ve never been comfortable in the role of public benefactor.

It�s not that I dislike "normal" people, or even that I don�t have a regard for them. It�s just a matter of the differences between my people — my species — and homo sapiens. I mean, when I was a boy, the notion of a single king over both Upper and Lower Egypt was still a political novelty. Bronze was high-tech. And vampires are no more intelligent, really, than anyone else on this planet. Just much more experienced. For centuries, I was as convinced of the flatness of the earth as anyone else. And for centuries, I regarded those other humans as primarily a food source, to be cultivated and generally treated well for entirely selfish reasons. Vampires reproduce at a very, very low rate and they can�t be regarded as having much natural talent as parents. My mother never knew quite what to do with me and more or less abandoned me with some relief to fend for myself when I reached puberty, which is when our distinctly different nature really begins to show itself. I saw my father only once or twice as I was growing up. I don�t believe I have run into either of them again since the beginning of the Industrial Age.

But, like all my fellows, I fended rather well, living quietly and feeding circumspectly. As I matured, I learned about the world and how to live in it to best advantage. My apparent age leveled off at about thirty-five years, which is right in the middle of the usual spread for us regarding appearances, so gradually accumulated knowledge combined with physical presence (with occasional help from the ability to impose assertive suggestions on those around me) made it possible for me to get along just fine. I like to think that, after some seventy centuries, I have also accrued some wisdom (which they say is the product of intelligence times experience), including the realization that "different" doesn�t mean "morally superior." I fully expected to live indefinitely, and I was considerably stronger than any ordinary human twice my size. I was essentially proof against all human diseases and ailments and I could even regenerate a lost hand or leg, given a few months of quiet privacy — but I wasn�t "better" than them.

On the other hand, I never hesitated to tap the herd for the hemoglobin my kind requires at intervals. The need to feed came, usually, every week or two — more frequently if I had been seriously exerting myself. We also possess a certain degree of photosynthetic ability, so being out in the sun as much as possible also helps — Bram Stoker and Hollywood notwithstanding. That was part of the reason why I had been spending time in Brazil. In San Francisco, I went for nighttime strolls a bit more frequently than in Bahia, watching for those whom society wouldn�t miss, or (in my unappealable judgment) could well do without. Most often, I could remove a few pints from someone and leave them not too much the worse for wear (except for a particular tiredness), and with no memory of the experience. If my so-called victim was one of the Bad Guys, as in the previous evening�s encounter, I often just drained them, or took what I needed and killed them (humanely) afterward. As I say, it�s simply culling the herd.

Sometimes, I seem to feel the need to convince myself that those I take for my own use are never among the blameless, but when I�m being rational, I know that�s a pointless concern. Does the cattleman worry about whether the steer he sells to the slaughterhouse was a bully, or was victimized by the other cattle? Still, I dislike feeding on the helpless, especially children — though I�ve done that, too, in my long life, when it couldn�t be helped. I�m not evil. Just, as I keep saying, different.

And now, here I was, with a very attractive young woman�s head resting trustingly on the shoulder of my windbreaker. She had been out of high school for more than a year; I wondered why she hadn�t enrolled in college? She was certainly smart enough and I knew she had gotten good grades to date, because her mother often bragged on her. Probably it was because of the grocery store and the amount of time she had to spend helping out her mother. Hmmmmm.

A nurse came out from the ICU around daybreak to tell Susan her mother was awake and that she could come in for one more very short visit. I went around the corner to the nurse�s station, quietly persuaded an aide to bring me a cup of black coffee from the staff lounge (I loathe vending-machine coffee), and strolled around the halls for a few minutes to get the kinks out.

When I got back to the waiting room a few minutes later, Susan had just returned. She looked greatly relieved and actually smiled at me for the first time since the previous morning.

"Mr. Bell! She�s going to be okay! She has a terrific headache, and they had to cut all the hair off one side of her head, but she�s awake and not in too much pain." She took a deep, deliberate breath. "I was afraid, you know, that . . ." She swallowed. "I was just afraid. I didn�t know if she was going to make it or not." Her smile crumpled and she leaned against me, snuffling hard and trying not to bawl in public. I wrapped my arms around her and rubbed her back and stroked her shoulder, waiting silently while she collected herself. I couldn�t deny that she was a very pleasant armful, too, and under other circumstances that might have led my thoughts in other directions, . . . but not here and not now.

After a minute or two, she stepped back a pace and quickly wiped her eyes. The smile came back, mostly, and she took another deep breath.

"I need to go back and get the store ready to open, I guess." She half-laughed. "Mom insisted."

"Okay," I said, taking her elbow. "Let�s go get a cab. And I�ll bring you back this evening for visiting hours, all right?"

"Oh, I can catch the bus, Mr. Bell. You don�t---"

I gave the elbow a small squeeze. "No arguments, young lady. My treat, I insist." She gave in gracefully, with a look that said she really didn�t want to be alone right now anyway.

So we caught a cab back to our block and I handed her the keys to the store that had been in my pocket since the night before.. I went up to my own place, had a shower, and thought about something easy for breakfast — but I really didn�t want to wait on the coffeemaker, so I took my bagel and cream cheese back down the street, intending to hang around for awhile, just in case I was needed. Susan made coffee in short order and handed me the first cup, refusing to take payment for it. I didn�t push it, but I set up the second pot myself while she was busy with customers.

There were quite a few of them, too, the word having gotten around about Mrs. Sakura. Everyone was sympathetic, everyone was curious, and everyone had their own horror stories. Susan handled it all quite well; she was a tough cookie when she had to be.

I went back to my place around lunch time, partly so Susan wouldn�t think I was only there to keep an eye on her, and partly to take care of some business paperwork. And at four o�clock, I returned to the store yet again to pick her up for the journey back to the hospital.

Mrs. Sakura was feeling much better, I was pleased to see — I was allowed in for a minute to say hello and to assure her that Susan was coping all right — and then I got out so her daughter could be alone with her. This time I had brought along a book, so Susan wouldn�t feel guilty about my waiting for her.

When visiting hours ended and she came out to join me, she appeared much relieved about her mother�s condition. But as we were waiting for a cab home, she sighed deeply.

"Mom says she�s had it. She�s going to sell the place. The whole building." I replied that I hadn�t realized they even owned the whole building.

"Oh, yeah. Dad bought it years and years ago. We�ve had several good offers because of the location." Yes, I thought, a good location for condos, as in my own building — which I also owned, of course.

"She figures she�ll invest what she gets for the building. The income would cover the monthly charge at this Nisei elder-care community down in Monterey where some of her friends have been retiring to. It�s a good idea, I guess." She sighed again. "She made sure to tell me that I�d inherit the principal when she�s gone — like I care!"

"Well, she�s certainly entitled to a comfortable retirement, Susan."

"Oh, I know! I agree completely. I just don�t know what I�m going to do without the store. Really, I have no idea what I want to do. I�m going to have to find a place to live, too. And a paying job."

I thought about that as the cab arrived and we climbed in. "Well, I have to say, I�m going to miss your mother�s cooking. That shrimp and bacon last night, that was terrific." As I had expected, even reheated after my return from the hospital, it was still delicious.

Susan ducked her head and I saw the hint of an embarrassed smile. "Well," she said, tapping her lip ring with a long, bright blue fingernail, "actually, . . . I made the shrimp. And the pork fried rice."

I turned on the seat in surprise. "You did?"

She nodded. "Mom�s arthritis has been getting worse and I�ve been doing most of the work back in the kitchen for nearly a year now."

"She must have taught you well. Looking back, I can�t tell where she stopped cooking and you started."

"Yeah, Mom has always been a good cook. And I�ve been helping her since I was old enough to hold a cleaver. I used to stand on a chair to chop the onions. I could break eggs one-handed when I was six. For my tenth birthday, she let me make the day�s supply of spring rolls all by myself. I enjoy cooking, always have."

"Then that may be the answer to your question. Have you thought about cooking as a career? Becoming a chef?"

She looked up at me and cocked her head. "There�s no way I could afford cooking school, Mr. Bell. Why do you think I�m not in college? We made enough with the grocery to pay the bills and everything, but we�ve never been able to save much, not really. Not since Dad died. And taxes and insurance and health care just keep going up." She shrugged. "Anyway, cooking is a heck of a lot of work, especially for a sous chef working under a head chef. And I�ve met a couple of successful chefs. Assholes, every one of them."

Hmmm. I thought that perhaps I had an answer to my young friend�s problem, but I was going to have to think carefully about how to present it.

When I walked into the grocery earlier than usual the next morning, Susan gave me a bright smile but didn�t question my presence. She seemed to have accepted my self-appointed role as her protector. She was in the middle of making up the day�s supply of chicken and tuna salad and when Jim Ashkenazi followed me in for his daily bagel, I waved at her to continue what she was doing and stepped behind the counter myself.

Jim was a retired math teacher and we had become casual friends a couple years before when he found out I was going to be teaching myself. When I tonged one onion-and-sesame and one blueberry out of the case and dropped them in the white paper bag with a mini-tub of cream cheese and a plastic knife, he hoisted one eyebrow and grinned.

"Finally found honest work, have you?"

I took his fiver and then had to stand there a moment and work out the sales tax. The grocery�s cash register was pretty old. "Yes, I�ve decided to embark on a new career as an assistant grocer. And next week I begin taking Japanese lessons." I heard Susan smother a snort.

I took care of the next couple of customers while Susan put the completed lunch stuff in the icebox under the counter and washed her hands.

"You know, you really don�t have to do all this, Mr. Bell — but I really appreciate the help anyway." She sighed. "I usually do the morning prep while Mom�s covering the counter for the breakfast and commuting crowd. One person can�t very easily handle both." She looked a little forlorn. "I know this is just a little corner grocery that no one more than three blocks away has ever heard of, but I�m sure going to miss it."

I squeezed her shoulder gently. "Into every life changes come, Susan. Sometimes you can plan for them and sometimes you just have to deal with them as they happen." I steered her to the high metal stool behind the counter that Mrs. Sakura often retreated to as the day wore on and her joints began to ache. Seated there, Susan and I were at eye-level. "And sometimes," I added, "new possibilities turn up."

I leaned back against the counter and folded my arms. "Your mother is planning to sell this building." Susan nodded and waited. "But she hasn�t made any commitments, I assume."

"No, she said last night she was just waiting until the time was right. But she has a little stack of business cards from people who are interested." She shrugged. "I guess she�ll start calling them when she comes home."

"Well, what would you think if I were to buy it? And then turn around and lease it to you on a long-term basis at a fair but moderate rate? Your mother could retire and you could keep the grocery. Though I suppose you would have to hire a helper or two."

Susan sat and stared at me. Then she licked her lips and glanced around. "Mr. Bell, . . . I know it doesn�t look like very much, but this building is actually worth quite a bit of money. Like I said, the people who are interested in it want to develop---"

"I know almost to the penny how much your mother could expect to get for it right now this moment. I did a little research last night and made a few calls," I confessed. "And, yes, it�s a very substantial amount — fortunately for you and your mother. But that�s not a problem." I raised a hand to fend off the protest I knew my young friend was about to make. And I paused a moment to send out a discouraging thought to the two customers I perceived walking up the block. I didn�t want my presentation interrupted.

"Susan, you don�t really know much about me. And one of the things you would have no way of knowing is that I am — not to put too fine a point on it — filthy rich. Obscenely wealthy. To be frank, if I wanted to collect buildings and, you know, start my own city, I could buy up probably twenty or thirty percent of San Francisco." I spread my arms and shrugged. "But where would I put it?" I smiled at her bewilderment. "So it�s not like I would have to assume a mortgage to purchase the Sakura Building."

"But if you�re--- But you live---" She motioned vaguely across the street. "Why don�t you have a big house, with servants and everything?"

"Because I wasn�t raised that way. I�m generally happy making do for myself, Susan. My needs, as they say, are simple. I don�t have that many friends, I don�t often entertain, and I simply don�t want to have to manage a crew of employees." Not to mention the difficulty of keeping secrets from them. "I travel where and when I like, I buy books and art objects I take a liking to, and I manage my business affairs with a light hand. I have more money than I could ever conceivably need. I teach because I enjoy it, you know, not because I need the paycheck. I could lose money in every venture I undertake for the rest of my life and never make more than the smallest dent in my net worth."

I put my hands in my pockets. "So: What do you think about my plan? Does it work for you?"

But her expression told me I might have misjudged the situation.

"Mr. Bell, . . ." She actually began wringing her hands. "I don�t know what to say. This is all, . . . it�s a shock. I had no idea you. . . ." She took a deep breath. "It�s the most generous thing I ever heard of and you don�t know how incredibly grateful I am to you that you would even think of something like this."

I smiled encouragingly. "But?"

She studied her hands, still twisting in her lap. "But I spent all night thinking about what I was going to do, and eventually I came to the conclusion that it�s finally time for me to leave the nest. When my Mom comes back from the hospital, I�ll help her sell the place — to whomever," she added, with a glance up at me, "and get her moved down to Monterey, and then I�ll go out on my own." She paused and looked around the store again.

"It�s a little scary, I admit. I�ve always lived here and I�ve always worked in the grocery. It�s what I know. But that doesn�t mean I can�t do anything else." It was clear she wanted me to understand. And I did.

"Susan, I have no doubt that you could do anything you set your mind to. If nuclear physics was your goal, I�m confident you would become a nuclear physicist. And if you ended up being a washer-woman, I�m certain you would be the best washer-woman in the Bay Area. The question, however, is this: What do you actually want to do? All things being equal, what would be your career of choice? Because," and I held up a finger, "there�s always a Plan B."

"Well, you hit the gopher on the head the other day. I�d like to cook. I�d like to be a chef, maybe have my own restaurant. A Japanese-Chinese-American fusion kind of place. Maybe with Italian on the side. I don�t know, exactly, but something creative. Good cooking is Art, Mr. Bell, as much as oil painting or writing a symphony. It just doesn�t last as long." Her enthusiasm was clear. The word "meal" meant something different to her than to me, though I imagined I appreciated good food as much as anyone.

"And if becoming a chef didn�t work out, cooking could always be my backup skill. And I�m not bad with a computer and all that. But the other thing I�ve always wanted to do, is that." She glanced over her shoulder and pointed in the direction of the work area along the back wall.

"Um. You want to slice meat?"

She laughed, a delightful sound. "No, that!" She hopped down from the stool, took a couple of steps toward the back, and pointed up at the row of framed photos. "If I could do anything at all with my life, I�d be a full-time cook and a part-time photographer. Or maybe vice versa."

I�m not often taken aback but this was such an occasion. "Susan — you took those? Really? I�ve admired those particular images since the aroma of tempura first led me in here. But I suppose I assumed--- I mean, you never said---"

Susan was shaking her head. "I know, I never told you I had taken them. You�re a professional, Mr. Bell, you even teach that stuff. I wasn�t sure they were good enough and I . . . well, I guess I just didn�t want to embarrass myself. And I didn�t want you to compliment me on them simply because you were a customer and a gentleman." She was obviously a little embarrassed now, though.

"First, my dear, I am not a �professional�. Just an amateur of long experience." I decided not to mention swapping recipes for developing solutions with Matthew Brady. "And, second, I assure you they are indeed good enough. In fact, I believe, based on that long experience I just alluded to, that they are very good indeed." For that I received the gift of a very warm and somewhat relieved smile as she climbed back up on her stool.

"So," I said, tapping a fingertip thoughtfully on my chin, "you think you have the talent and the energy to become, by preference, a proper chef?" She raised her eyebrows and nodded her head with a serious air.

"In that case," I said, "I have an announcement to make. It has just been revealed to me that the recipient of this year�s Bell Scholarship in the Culinary Arts is — drum roll, please — Susan Sakura!" I took her hand and twirled her off the stool again. "Take a bow for the people, Miss Sakura! They�re all rooting for you!"

She gave me a look of utter disbelief as she rotated, hand over her head, and then collapsed against my chest, half-laughing, half-crying. "Mr. Bell, why are you doing this?" She sniffled and peered up at me.

I gave her a hug and stroked her back. "Because I can, Susan. Because you�re my friend and you�re in need of a small amount of help at this juncture between your past life and your future one." She lifted her head and I stroked her cheek. "And I want to make this very clear: This is not pity or charity or anything like that. It�s an investment. People are one of the very best things you can invest in." Well, that was true — given the right people. "No nonsense about a loan that you swear you�ll pay back, either. We�ve already established that the money itself is immaterial, yes? I could spend the same amount on a private jet — a rather small one — but I�d rather put it to good use. Getting you the formal training you need to get your career under way is certainly a good use."

"Well," she gulped and took a deep, shuddery breath, "since you put it that way — I accept. I�ve already checked into CIP�s requirements and, assuming I can get in---" ("Assuming you can get in," I agreed) "---I promise I�ll do my very best to make you proud of me." The previous evening�s online research had told me that CIP was the Culinary Institute of the Pacific, one of the two or three best cooking schools in the country. Expensive, too, and very, very selective. Their auditions were rumored to be brutal. My young friend was aiming high. But a diploma from CIP apparently guaranteed you at least a running start on a career as a chef almost anywhere.

"I�m still going to need a place to live, though," she said almost to herself. "The Institute doesn�t have dorms or anything. So I�ll probably have to work part-time somewhere to---"

"Oh, didn�t I mention? The scholarship includes room and board. The residence facility is nearby, too." I surprised myself by pointing a thumb across the street in the direction my loft. Where had that decision come from? Susan looked a little confused again.

"Did you think I was living in a basement efficiency, my dear?" The grocery didn�t do deliveries and she had never seen my place. "No, no. Since I own the building — well, the block, actually — I reserved the entire top floor to myself, with my own elevator. An enormous loft on the open plan. There�s plenty of space for six or eight people, let alone two." I visualized the layout. "Yes, a couple of partitions and you can have your own private suite — plus, of course, full use of the kitchen and library and common living area and so on. No swimming pool, I�m afraid. Would that do?"

I considered for a moment psychically influencing her decision but then was ashamed of myself — which also surprised me a little. Even when I actually liked people, I seldom — never, in fact — reacted to them this way. Susan of the bright red hair was having a very unexpected effect on me. Too bad she was only human.

In any case, she seemed at a loss for words. She simply grinned through a new set of tears and threw her arms around my neck. As noted, she made a very nice armful. I liked the press of her young breasts against my chest and the warmth of her breath on my cheek.

Considering that she was about to undertake a major change in her life and that it would not include operating the grocery, Susan could easily have closed the place up again and simply accompanied me back to my loft. That wasn�t how her mind worked, however. While her mother was in the hospital, she was in charge of the place and she would give it her full attention for the whole of the working day, as long as it took until the old lady could come home again.

As a result, I spent the rest of the morning tidying my place up, though it didn�t really need it. There was a cleaning lady who came in thrice a week, but I�ve spent most of my long life looking after myself, so making sure I wouldn�t be embarrassed by dust bunnies rolling across visitors� feet wasn�t a big deal.

I had asked Susan to give me a call from the lobby when she was ready to come up for a visit, and my handset buzzed about 5:30 that afternoon. I went downstairs to meet her, since there was no way she could come up unescorted. When I opened the door of my elevator and hit the "Park" button, she was chatting with Jesse, the building�s security man. He�s a harmless-looking older gent who possesses skills and abilities that would startle the building�s other tenants, if they only knew just how well protected they really are.

Susan turned with a smile and held up a couple of aromatic sacks which I assumed were going to supply our dinner. Before we reentered the car, I explained my security system to her, pointing out the sensor plate set into the wall beside the elevator door and the speaker next to it. There was no call button and my palm on that plate and my voice in the speaker was the only way of summoning the car. We would have to add Susan�s scanned handprint to the system, of course, so she could come and go as she liked. She looked at me a bit strangely, like this elaborate and obviously expensive technology was the first real evidence that I hadn�t just been having a little joke with her earlier. I decided to reserve a discussion of the other, not so visible, layers of security technology for later.

Upstairs, the elevator opened on a very simple foyer with a coat closet and Victorian hat rack at hand and a small Picasso crayon on the wall facing the door. It�s a favorite piece and I like that it�s the first thing I see when I come home. Susan wasn�t especially knowledgeable about art, but from the way she paused to study it, she knew that little drawing was special.

When she emerged from the foyer, still carrying the two sacks of food, and entered the loft proper, she stopped dead and her jaw dropped. That word "loft" probably had led her to expect a large empty space of the sort favored by artists, with unfinished brick walls and exposed heating ducts and water pipes. That�s not what it means to me, though. I had paneled the whole place in warm wood, with sections of rich wallpaper in Renaissance patterns for variety. There was a drop ceiling twenty feet above our heads that concealed the ductwork, and which included several multi-branched lighting fixtures I had had specially designed. The floors also were wood, with half a dozen large carpets from southwest Asia scattered about. There were a few separate, special-function rooms (or "rooms," since none of them, technically, was permanent) that had been created with partitions and non-load-bearing walls, but most of my home comprised a single space of some six thousand square feet, much of it lit by high windows that ran most of the length of the eastern and western walls. All the windows were polarized, for privacy and climate control, and were managed from a central panel near the door and from several small handheld units I leave scattered about for convenience.

I won�t pretend to unbecoming modesty about my loft. I love the place. It�s the most perfect home I�ve had in centuries. Of course, I own flats and penthouses and brownstones and such in a dozen cities around the world, as well as a couple of lodges and chalets in rural areas, and even two bona fide country estates, plus a chateau in France. Some of them have been in my possession, one way or another, since before San Francisco existed, but for the last couple of generations this is the place I most often think of as "home." And here I was, very much to my surprise, bringing another person into it. And a human person, at that.

I took Susan by the hand and led her to the kitchen area. The center of attention there was a large, oak farmhouse table maybe 150 years old. I generally ate at only one end of it, nearest the windows, and allowed the rest of its surface to accumulate books and notes and maps regarding whatever projects I was working on at the moment. When I tidied up earlier, I hadn�t disturbed any of that stuff. This was the way I lived — clean but not terribly neat — and I wanted her to know that and to feel comfortable with it.

Susan, however, paused only to set the supper bags on the table and then made a beeline for the range — a big gas-fueled Wolf that I didn�t use as often as I might have. She danced her fingertips along its surface the way a guy her age might stroke the flank of a new Corvette. The Wolf and the double sink sat side-by-side in front of the western windows, with a granite work counter between them. I liked being able to look out over the city while I prepared a meal. A matching refrigerator and upright freezer stood on the other side of a dishwasher, at an angle to the windows, and with a partition behind them to hide the works. A long granite-topped island with a number of small appliances scattered across it defined the other boundary of the kitchen.

Susan cast me an appraising glance. "Can I ask — how much do you actually cook, Mr. Bell?"

I parked myself on the corner of the table. "More than you might expect for an older single guy with a lot of money, actually." I smiled at her slightly doubtful expression. "See, I wasn�t born wealthy. My family wasn�t impoverished---" (my people never are) "---but I had to do for myself from a rather early age. And I like good food — not necessarily fancy dishes, you understand, but good meals, properly prepared. And one can�t eat out all the time, at least I can�t, so I learned at least the fundamentals of cooking purely in self-defense. But I suspect a considerable amount of the return on my new investment is going to turn out to be a continuing education for my palate." I rubbed my hands together. "Tonight, however" — I snuffled dramatically — "I believe I perceive the aroma of spring rolls, and beef with onions and peppers, and what I hope is a large amount of garlic." (A little private vampire humor there. . . .)

I went to the big, old kitchen dresser on the other side of the table and took down a couple of plates, dug some utensils out of a drawer, and gestured toward the microwave on the far counter and the stack of serving bowls and dishes under it. Susan immediately began scooping out containers and doing a quick reheat on the meal she had brought with her.

"Do you drink beer, Susan?"

"Sometimes," she replied over her shoulder. "I�ve never really gotten into hard liquor, though."

"Well, beer is classified as a food, you know. And I just happen to have most of a six-pack of Tsingtao in the cooler, plus a couple of Asahi from the other night, both of which, naturally, were designed to go with Asian food."

"Okay, I�ll try one." She set a steaming bowl of hot & spicy beef on the table that made my mouth water, and then a similar bowl of veggie fried rice. As I opened the beer, she set a hot spring roll on each of our plates. Everything else went in the warming drawer below the stove, which she had already cranked up to high. Then, rather than move some of the books and papers off the table to another surface and sitting across from me, she pulled a chair around to sit close beside me.

It was the first time in several years that I had partaken of a meal in private with only one other person — since Brazil, in fact. It was quite a nice feeling, in addition to a good meal. As I�ve said, my people have a much greater innate need for solitude and privacy than the humans with whom we share this planet. I had occasionally eaten out with Jim Askenazi and a very few other non-intrusive friends, but loneliness simply wasn�t a problem for me.

Susan was different. I didn�t know what it was, exactly, but I had a distinct feeling that she was one of those extremely rare persons, non-vampire and all, whose continued presence I was not going to tire of after a few days. Not even a few months. I can�t stress enough how unusual such a relationship is for one of us.

In the early 16th century, when I spent a generation as a landed gentleman in northern Italy, I once engaged a valet — more of a personal assistant, actually, what the British later called a "gentleman�s gentleman." I was making a round of visits over a period of months to other titled landowners (my title was fake, naturally) and a man of my assumed station simply couldn�t travel alone. A personal servant was expected, and was also protective coloration. But Hieronimo turned out to be as much a friend and companion as a servitor. He had led a varied life within his obviously limited span and he was a talented conversationalist and a loyal confident, as well as a very good valet. He was illiterate, not surprisingly, but he had an amazing memory. We became something close to older and younger brothers. I never tired of his company. He stayed with me for nearly twenty years, until he was carried off by yellow fever. He never knew my true nature, though. I gave him a good headstone and a firm place in my memory. And Hieronimo had been the last one with whom I had been so intellectually intimate.

Until, perhaps, Susan Sakura.

The next few days were busy ones. My loft included two extra bedroom areas, what I thought of as guest rooms, though it had been a long time since anyone had stayed overnight. Only the very infrequent visiting vampire, actually. Now, Susan picked one of them for herself and I told her she could do anything she liked with it, whatever would make it comfortable for her. Later that day, I accompanied her up to the apartment she shared with her mother over the grocery to help her collect some personal belongings. It was evident that she was, apparently by nature, a very neat person. Being personally tidy myself (my working papers were a different matter), I was pleased to think that habit probably would carry over to her new quarters.

I also went down and had a talk with Jesse in the lobby. We went into his small office, which was filled with monitoring equipment of one kind and another, and I explained that Miss Sakura was going to be my guest upstairs for an indefinite period of time and that he should regard her safety as having equal importance to my own. He gave me a somewhat bemused look.

"Well, Mr. Bell, I know who she is, of course. And I heard about her mother being robbed and attacked and all, and that she�s planning to retire and sell the place. But, well, . . . ." He combed his fingers back through his hair. "Okay, it�s none of my business, I know that, and you pay me very well, and I like working for you. But, you know, . . . she�s very young, Mr. Bell." He gave me a somewhat pleading look.

I admired his sense of propriety, but still. "Jesse, I assure you that neither she nor you have anything to worry about. Susan is going to be living with me, but in separate quarters, so she can go to school. It�s just a housing arrangement, and she�s in need of it, and I can certainly afford it. Think of me as her sponsor. Her guardian angel, if you like." And I carefully inserted a suggestion into his mind to that effect.

"Absolutely." He nodded in complete acceptance. "She seems like a very nice girl and I�m sure she�ll be very comfortable up there. I expect she�ll do well in school, too."

Mrs. Sakura came home from the hospital at the end of the week and while she opened up the grocery at the usual time the next morning — wearing a babushka to conceal the dressings and the missing hair — she also began calling the numbers on her collection of business cards.

I went over to visit after the lunch crowd had gone and she came out from behind the counter and took my hand and thanked me profusely for helping her following the attack and for looking after her daughter. Susan had told her about my invitation and her acceptance of it, and I again placed a small suggestion in her mind that precluded her from worrying about any of that.

Then we sat down in her little office in the back of the store and discussed the price of her building over a pot of green tea. I had done some additional research and told her what I would be willing to offer her for the property, contingent on positive reports from the inspectors. It was a fair price, plus an extra couple of percentage points just because I liked her. And I told her that she might well receive a higher offer, but that mine would be cash on the barrel, not paid out over time, and that I would see to it that any subsequent redevelopment would be carried out in a responsible manner. It was easy to see that Mrs. Sakura had emotional ties to the building, deeper than she probably realized, and that knowing her upstairs tenants would be properly handled would relieve her of any uneasiness or guilt.

In the event, I did acquire the Sakura Building — I made that name official in her honor — and arranged things so that more than two-thirds of the longer-term tenants were able to buy their apartments at very friendly terms, even after I had put a reasonable amount into environmental upgrades and equipment replacement. Like I said, I don�t need the money, and why not just make a community of people happy if you can?

Meanwhile, Susan and I had our own little sit-down to sort out the details of her immediate future. I had gotten her palm print and voice entered into the security system, and I had warned her that there were various other unobtrusive systems in place, so she shouldn�t let the occasional electronic chirp or muted beep alarm her.

There was a relatively small closet attached to her chosen bedroom but I had had a crew come in on a rush basis to triple the size of it, as well as installing some bookshelves and a row of storage bins. I had my own master bath but there was a smaller en suite bath attached to her quarters, so she had all the privacy she might need. And the first time she protested, hesitantly, at the expense, I touched my finger to her lips and smiled as I forbade her ever to raise that subject again.

Susan had gone down to the Institute and returned with a stack of catalogs and brochures and forms. They didn�t enroll very many students at a time (hence the high fees) and a new class cycle began every three months. The course of study varied, including professional-level specialty courses and brush-up classes that required only a few weeks. A full course with an accredited certificate and an almost certain state license at the end of it was one to two years. And CPI was financially successful on its own terms, which meant that if they didn�t think you had what it took, they simply wouldn�t accept you. Their selectivity had a lot to do with their gold-plated reputation.

In any case, Susan and I sat in a pair of comfortable chairs her first evening of full-time residence and I explained how I conceived my part in this adventure. She would concentrate on, first, her culinary audition (I had no doubt she would pass it), and then on her studies and cooking projects. I would pay the bills. In fact, I would arrange that they be sent directly to my accountancy firm; I wanted such concerns to be entirely out of her mind. She would be completely free to come and go as she liked. I wasn�t setting myself up in loco parentis, much less as her keeper. And I would see that a certain sum, generous but not unlimited, was automatically placed in a personal account for her to draw against for whatever day-to-day expenses she might have, and without having to account to me for it. I was sure the bank would supply her with a credit card tied to the account, too, as a matter of convenience.

By the end of our discussion, my young friend was on the edge of tears again. I wasn�t entirely sure how to deal with a situation like this, having no experience with it, but I gave it a try.

"Susan," I began with some hesitation, "I understand that all this is a little overwhelming for you. It�s like you�ve won the lottery, right? At least a small one. You don�t feel you�re really entitled to it. And I understand that you�re grateful to me. And I hereby graciously accept your thanks. But, my dear, gratitude can be corrosive if it�s over-extended. It can lead to resentment. We certainly don�t want that. So please — just accept that I�m doing all this because I choose to. Like that old TV show, �The Millionaire.� Maybe it�s just ego on my part, okay? However you care to rationalize it, just accept it. Please."

I must have looked worried because Susan got control of herself with only a few sniffles as we got up and strolled over to the kitchen island.

"I understand what you�re saying, Mr. Bell. I promise, I won�t be concerned about the money while I�m your guest. Actually, it makes it easier that you�re as rich as you seem to be; I don�t have to worry about all this putting you under a financial strain or anything. Anyway," she added with a slightly self-conscious laugh, "I don�t hanker after a sports car and I don�t have expensive tastes in clothes."

"Oh, I imagine your tastes in gourmet foods will more than compensate. And one more thing: As of today, you are officially a non-guest here. This is your home, Susan, as long as you need it, as long as you want it." And sometime in the near future, when she had settled into a routine, I would attempt to wean her away from calling me "Mr. Bell."

She looked at me for a long, quiet moment. Her gaze was so deep, I had the momentary feeling she was one of my people in disguise. Then she stepped closer, reached up, slipped her arms around my neck, and hugged me. We stood like that for maybe a minute. I could feel her eyelashes fluttering against my neck and I was very aware, again, of the warmth of her young body pressed against mine. I really did feel that I was setting off on an adventure into the unknown, a journey quite unlike any I had ever undertaken before in my long life. And it was a very strange feeling indeed.

CIP�s next round of auditions was a week and a half away. Susan had gotten all her application forms completed and submitted, and I had made sure the audition fee (nonrefundable, of course) was taken care of. So now we settled down to wait. Or we did for about two days. Then Susan�s nervous restlessness got the better of her. I suggested a tour of the city, following her admission that she�d never really had enough free time to see everything that even the locals took for granted.

It was an enjoyable experience, escorting a bright young lady around a city as beautiful and as interesting as San Francisco. We walked all over the place. And then I went and got my Porsche 928 out of the garage (where I paid an eyebrow-raising premium to keep it happy and well looked after) and we extended our tour to Marin and Berkeley and the wine country. We had lunch at a winery in Napa, and a picnic overlooking the ocean at Goat Rock, and sausage and kraut from a wagon-vendor outside Sather Gate, and a very good supper one night at Tadich�s. (I�ve been enjoying their cioppino and petrale sole for 150 years.)

And we talked about everything under the sun, with the exception of my own nature. As a result of all the anecdotal history I related about the Bay Area, Susan became convinced I was a well-educated amateur historian, as well as a photographer. I wished I could tell her how much of that I had witnessed personally.

The day before her audition, my companion went out and bought a twenty-pound bag of yellow onions. And while I sat on a stool and looked on in some fascination, she turned up her sleeves and proceeded to reduce half the bag to paper-thin slices and the other half to millimeter-sized cubes in an astonishingly short amount of time. The blade moved so fast, I was sure she was going to leave a pinky on the cutting board, but she looked pleased at the result. Honing her knife skills, she said, but I knew much of that exhibition had been working off nerves.

On the big day, I rode to the Institute with her in a cab because I didn�t want her to take any chances on accidental tardiness, but Susan insisted she would make her own way home when the ordeal was over. I knew she would want to be alone, just in case she thought she had failed to make the cut, though she wouldn�t be informed of the results for several days.

It was a long morning. I worried, which is something I almost never do. When one has been through a dozen major wars, witnessed a score of decimating plagues, experienced volcanic eruptions and earthquakes and floods and hurricanes almost without number, one finds worrying about anything to be profitless. I tried to put it all out of my mind by checking on some of my current investments, moving a few million here, transferring a few million there, but I kept coming back to young Susan�s hopeful face as she gave me a quick peck on the cheek and climbed out of the cab.

About three o�clock, the front door opened, though I had already heard the hum of the elevator rising. I met her at the kitchen table with a glass of good-quality Mondavi and waited patiently for her news.

She took a grateful sip, followed by a deep breath, and said, "I think I nailed it, Mr. Bell. I�m pretty sure. I didn�t make any big mistakes, I didn�t drop anything or cut myself, none of that. I didn�t even get rattled at the questions they asked, which was a surprise. There were things I didn�t know, but I�m pretty sure some of those were things they wouldn�t actually expect a new student to know." She smiled. "From the way they sometimes glanced at each other, I could tell some of the questions were, like, ringers. Like, trying to catch you off guard, you know?" She took another sip. "But seriously, I feel pretty good about my chances, I really do."

Actually, I had slipped a small suggestion into her mind during our cab ride that morning that she would be calm and collected throughout the audition. So I let her see how pleased I was but I didn�t make a big deal of her presumed success. That could wait until it was official. I made supper that night for both of us, on the grounds that she had done more than her share of cooking for one day. And a couple of New York steaks with baked potatoes and a big green salad isn�t that hard. Oh, and of course, a pot of onion soup to open the meal. I mean, we had all those sliced onions. . . .

The audition had been on a Monday. I caught up on work the rest of that week while Susan alternated between reading, browsing cooking sites online, and re-evaluating her wardrobe. Her clothes were perfectly adequate but tended to the Goth-y and that wasn�t the image she wanted to project at school. Even though the Institute mandated a white-jacket uniform with its logo on the pocket, Susan was concerned about what she was going to wear under it. I suggested she go shopping but she said the school had told her they would call, in addition to sending an official notification by mail. She wanted to be there when the phone rang. (It didn�t occur to me until several days later to wonder why she hadn�t given them her own cell number instead of the landline in the loft.)

And ring it did, just before Noon on Friday. She froze when it went off, staring at the extension on the work table in the kitchen. I had been pouring some orange juice and I stepped over and picked it up. When the woman�s voice identified herself as the Institute�s admissions officer and asked for Miss Sakura, I smiled at Susan and held out the phone. She stood, took a deep breath, and took it. Then she strolled off into the living area while I tactfully stayed put.

I could easily have eavesdropped but I turned my attention to the juice and to thinking about lunch. Then I heard Susan�s voice as she came back toward the kitchen: "Yes. Yes, I will. And thank you so much for calling!" She clicked off the phone and attempted to look composed but then gave it up and let out a whoop.

"I�m in! I�m in!" She put her head back and whirled in a giddy circle. "I�m gonna be a chef! I made it, Mr. Bell!" Then she threw herself on me, arms wrapped around my neck and hugging me for all she was worth. Infected by her joy, I picked her up around the waist and swept her around again.

And when I set her back on her feet, she did something I hadn�t expected. She loosened her grip on my neck only enough to move around face to face. And then, apparently unplanned, she kissed me, hard.

I was startled. What could I do? I kissed her back, carefully. It only lasted a few seconds, and then Susan got a startled look herself and turned loose of me.

"Oh! Oh, Mr. Bell, I�m so sorry, I shouldn�t have--- Oh, God!" It was difficult to tell with her skin tone but I was pretty sure she was blushing brilliantly. She was so shocked at herself, she was twisting her hands together.

I took both her hands in mine. "Susan, there�s absolutely nothing to be sorry for. It was just a kiss. You�re happy and I�m happy for you. That�s all. There�s nothing to worry about, nothing to upset yourself about. Okay?" And this time, I did inject a bit of suggestion into her mind to reinforce what I had said. I would be lying if I claimed I hadn�t enjoyed kissing young Susan, but I didn�t want it to linger in her mind as a big deal, either. I wouldn�t soon forget the feel of those soft lips, though.

"Anyway," I went on, artfully changing the subject, "we have a dinner date for this evening at Perbacco." They provided arguably the best Italian cuisine in a city known for its Italian food. After four years, I was still working my way through their menu.

Her eyes widened. "How did you know I would hear the results today? How did you get a reservation?"

"I didn�t know. And I don�t have a reservation — yet." I grinned. "Never underestimate the lubricative power of money, my dear."

And so Susan embarked on her professional training. After the first couple of five-day weeks, during which Susan returned home each day tired but increasingly enthusiastic, her course of study shifted into what she explained would be its standard pattern: Four days of classes at the Institute, with Fridays spent working at an actual restaurant somewhere in the city. The dozen students in her group would all be assigned to different commercial kitchens and would each shift to a new location every month or so. CIP had arrangements with a large number of places — not only restaurants but also the cafeteria at the University Hospital, a couple of catering outfits, and various other food-preparation-related businesses. The idea, of course, was to provide each student with a variety of experience, starting as the lowliest of line-cooks and gradually progressing up the professional ladder to specialty or sous chef by the time they graduated. There was a long history of new graduates immediately being offered employment at one or more of the places where they had done their practicum, too.

My diet took some odd turns as a result of what my young friend was learning. Susan had taken to explaining to me the theory and context behind much of what she had done each day. Telling me all about it seemed to fix it in her own mind, and I was perfectly prepared to listen. It was interesting stuff, too. I like good food but I had never been privy to the ideas behind its preparation or the practical considerations involved. However, this also meant I was likely to enjoy an evening meal consisting of shrimp curry, sweet potato fries, and bread pudding with rum sauce. Fortunately, vampires don�t appear to be susceptible to indigestion from such strange combinations.

I was also a bit surprised to discover that a chef�s training also involved considerable book-reading and more than a little academic homework, much of it having to do with food chemistry and nutrition. Susan was as busy as any freshman at a traditional college.

After the first week or so, when I could see plainly that she had hit the ground running, I went back to my own business affairs and assorted research projects, just as I had done before this new phase in my life. Susan and I were both early risers, so we generally had a light breakfast together and then (at her own insistence) she caught the bus to the Institute. She ate lunch there with the new friends she was making, sometimes taking a moment to send me a text not to make supper because she had something already in mind. She would return to the loft some time after four and unwind with a glass of wine or a beer while she related some of her experiences that day. Even her occasional failures were dissected with a professional attitude rather than being fretted over.

She seemed never to have assignments to do over the weekends, though, other than a little catch-up reading. One of those two days she generally spent on laundry, reading mystery novels, and sleeping in an extra hour or two. And once a month, she made the run down the coast to visit her mother at the retirement community. At first, she was adamant about depending on Greyhound but I finally convinced her it was a more efficient use of her time to simply take my Porsche out for a day�s spin. The poor beast was pining for exercise, I said.

The other free day, however, whether it was a Saturday or a Sunday during any given week, had become the day when I took Susan in hand in my program of introducing her to the wider world. One Friday morning, about a month into her course of study, she was drinking a cup of coffee and idly commenting on the difference between it, the coffee you could get in the lunch room at CIP, and what she had been making for the customers for years at the Sakura Grocery. She wasn�t especially pleased with any of them and wished she knew how to brew a really, really good cup. I was perfectly happy with my coffee but I knew she was just exploring new opinions and tastes, as well as showing off a little. Anyway, as she gathered up her stuff and got ready to head to the small caf� where she was learning how different short-order work was from expensive French restaurants, I smiled and said I would take her wishes under advisement.

That evening, I suggested she retire early, since I had early plans for us for Saturday. And the next morning, I recommended she dress up just a bit. Susan enjoyed surprises, at least from me, and she trusted my judgment, so she was humming as she conducted a rapid reconnoiter of her recently expanded clothes closet.

We headed down the elevator about 7:30 and Susan�s eyebrows went up when she discovered the hire-car waiting for us at the curb. As we made our way through the morning commuter traffic, she kept glancing at me for clues but she wasn�t about to break down and ask where we were going. The fact that I had restricted us to a very light breakfast probably had her thinking "fancy brunch" — but she was only partly right. And she began looking genuinely puzzled as we headed down the peninsula and finally took the airport exit.

"We�re going to fly somewhere?" she asked, her eyebrows all the way up. "I didn�t pack. . . ," she began.

I held up a hand. "I did, if you�ll forgive the liberty. There�s a light bag in the trunk with a change of clothes and shoes for you and a few toiletries — but this won�t be a long trip." I smiled at her confusion. "Less than two hours, actually," I added as the car circled wide around the main terminal complex, zeroing in on the private and corporate jets.

I had joked with Susan about the ease with which I could afford to buy a private jet, but I had never actually done that. I don�t travel long distances that frequently, and when I do, I�m usually not in that much of a hurry. (My last few crossings of the Atlantic had been by luxury liner, not air.) But sometimes I find it convenient to hire a plane all to myself for a day or two, the way I would call for a taxi. In this case, our goal for the morning being Seattle, I had opted for a nice, quiet little Cessna CJ from a charter company with whom I had a standing arrangement, and which therefore required only a few hours� notice. With enough money, you can buy a lot of convenience.

Susan�s eyes were wide as we stepped from the car onto the tarmac and walked the few yards to the steps of the plane, where the pilot and a single attendant were waiting for us. The plane would carry half a dozen passengers comfortably, but it was just us this time. The pilot was new to me but Miss Christine Everman had served me on several flights before.

"Welcome back, Mr. Bell," she said, with a big smile. It never hurts to be generous with tips. I made the introductions as the pilot took our two small bags from the driver and tucked them away on board. Then we were settled in the forward-most pair of seats and strapped in for take-off. And five minutes later, we were in the air.

"This is great!" Susan was leaning sideways to peer out the window. "No security pat-downs, no waiting for delayed flights, no crying babies, no arguing over who gets which overhead bin." She shook her head slowly. "Wow." She turned and looked at me soberly. "You know, . . . I know what you�ve told me and all, . . . but I don�t think I really, truly, realized until just now: You really are very rich, aren�t you, Mr. Bell?"

I laughed at her expression. "Yes, my dear. Very, very, very. So rich, in fact, that I don�t even think about it. And neither should you." I reached over and squeezed her hand. "It�s something you should just accept, like air." I paused while Chris brought each of us a tall, cold glass of fresh orange juice.

"But do you think you could do me a small favor, Susan?" She nodded unhesitatingly. "Could we possibly retire the �Mr. Bell�? It shows good upbringing on your mother�s part, but our relationship has shifted beyond what it was at the grocery, don�t you think?"

She blinked and blushed a bit. "Well, sure. Okay. It�s just that you�re so much---" She stopped abruptly.

"So much older," I finished for her. "I understand." (You have no idea, I thought.) "Nevertheless, I do have a first name."

She nodded. "I remember, from the checks you wrote us every month. Alex, right?"

"Correct." Actually, the name on all my legal documents — at the moment — was "Alexander G. Bell." I had paid well for that name. And I had been using "Graeme" in Bahia, but Susan didn�t know that. Okay, my sense of humor is a little sideways sometimes. "Do you think you could bring yourself to call me that, our age difference notwithstanding?"

"I�ll try, Mr.---" She laughed at herself. "I�ll try, Alex." She shifted position and glanced out the window again as she sipped her juice. This being the Northwest, there was really nothing to see but the top of the cloud deck. "Now you have to tell me. Where exactly are we going?!"

"You remember your comments yesterday about good coffee? Where does the really good coffee come from?"

"Um. Colombia?"

"Well, yes. And the Caribbean, and Africa, and so on. But I was thinking about the beverage in its prepared state. And rather closer to home." I couldn�t remember the last time I had played little flirting games like this with an attractive and personable young woman, and I was enjoying it to a surprising degree.

"Well, Seattle is famous for--- Wait, we�re flying all the way to Seattle? Just for coffee? Really?" She covered her giggle with tapering fingers.

I shrugged. "A whim. And I know a sort of private dining room there, kind of a club, that serves not only the best coffee in Seattle but the best west of the Mississippi. They�re expecting us for a full, proper breakfast. Then I thought we�d take a look around the city. I haven�t visited Seattle in a few years. And we can return late this afternoon. How�s that?"

The look she favored me with would have melted a block of ice. "I think that�s wonderful, . . . Alex." She shook her head slowly. "I know the money has nothing to do with it, really. You don�t seem to think in terms of money. But you�re so . . . so kind to me. I keep wondering why. But then I think that�s just the sort of person you are. A very nice person."

I�m not often at a loss for words — I�ve had many centuries of practice in knowing what to say in almost any situation — but this was not the sort of thing a vampire often hears. Of course, knowing what vampires are actually about, I�ve never had reason to think of myself as "evil" or any similar clich� — but I�ve never regarded myself as especially "nice," either. I�m just me, surviving down the centuries and trying to enjoy my extended existence as far as I can manage to do so. But Susan�s regard touched me. It also bothered me that she was judging me from a position of essential ignorance. I would have to think about that. How much could I ever tell her? How much could she handle?

So we landed without incident and the prearranged hire-car conveyed us to a not especially noteworthy older building two blocks from Pioneer Square. It contained several luxurious apartments, some lawyers� offices, and the premises of a couple of other enterprises whose continued success depended on their maintaining a low profile, . . . and which were, in fact, owned very anonymously by myself and several others of my people.

Most of the second floor of the building was occupied by Ambergris, a members-only club so private they weren�t listed in the phone book, had no website, and declined even to put a nameplate on their door, which was plain oak and was kept locked. I walked Susan down the short hall with her arm through mine, and stopped before the entrance.

I didn�t bother to knock but simply looked up at the inconspicuous camera eye above the door and raised one hand in greeting. Susan�s eyes were wide. A moment later, there was a muted click and the door opened. We entered and the young man in the good suit who was holding the door bowed slightly.

"Welcome back, Mr. Bell," he said with a glance at the girl.

"This is my guest, Miss Susan Sakura."

He bowed again, this time to her, with a rather reserved smile. "Miss Sakura. Ambergris welcomes you. I hope you will enjoy your meal." He turned back to me. "Your table is ready, sir." Of course it was. And he led us into one of the club�s dining rooms, the one furnished in Federalist style, which was my personal favorite.

Susan made no pretense at sophistication but looked all around with delight. It was indeed a beautiful room, with four four-person tables, two larger ones, and a few more intimate places in front of the windows, each of which had a box of flowers outside. About half the tables were occupied, and not all by vampires. A few of the other diners glanced our way, then went back to their meals and their quiet conversations.

Had I been alone, words of greeting would probably have been exchanged, since private facilities like this are where my people most often get together when a personal meeting is necessary. Neutral ground, so to speak. But they could see that Susan wasn�t one of us, and so they ignored us.

Ambergris seems like it ought to be unique, but it isn�t, quite. It�s one of a dozen such places scattered around the world, each independent of the others, but all of them known to all of the Long-Lived. There were small, very private meeting rooms elsewhere on this floor, but we were here only for breakfast and I wanted Susan to experience the place.

Susan was obviously on her best behavior, making an effort to fit into the surroundings and succeeding very well. A waiter in almost 19th-century garb rolled a small cart up to the table and she watch closely as he manipulated the aeropress and poured our cups full of dark, richly aromatic brew. He stood by a moment while my companion took a sip. Her eyebrows climbed slowly and she took another.

She looked first at me, then at the waiter. "This is absolutely amazing," she said slowly. The waiter and I exchanged a knowing smile and he left. "Alex, if this is what coffee is really supposed to taste like. . . ."

I grinned at her awestruck expression. "Well, they have the advantage of access to very, very special beans, which are never sold on the open market — and never will be. In fact, the beans are flown in specially from a very private plantation every couple of days. Even I can�t get coffee like this without a journey to Seattle." I noted the waiter returning. "But the coffee, excellent though it is, is only the beginning. Now, they don�t have menus here," I went on. "Whatever you would like, just tell our friend here, and they�ll prepare it." The waiter folded his hands in front of him and waited patiently.

Susan looked uncertain. "Anything?"

"Well, very nearly. If you wanted an elk steak, I�m reasonably certain they have one on hand. Zebra might require a day�s notice, though."

She smiled. "I�m going to be a coward and ask you to order first, okay?"

"Fair enough." I looked up at our waiter. "Half a grapefruit to start. A two-egg omelet, Spanish-style — they know my preferred filling — and mole on the side. Then a medium-sized seven-grain Belgian waffle, Bailey�s in the whipped cream. Kiwis rather than strawberries, I think. And definitely more coffee." He nodded, being far too experienced to have to write any of that down.

I looked over at Susan, whose eyebrows had climbed again. "Wow. You weren�t kidding. Anything, huh?"

"Absolutely. And don�t think the kitchen will be insulted if your order isn�t exotic. I know a gentleman who comes here regularly for a bowl of plain Scottish porridge. It�s not the rarity of the ingredients, really, it�s their freshness and the care taken in their preparation."

She nodded and cleared her throat and looked up at our waiter again. "All right, then. While Mr. Bell is having his grapefruit, I would like yoghurt, with caramel mixed in. Then Eggs Benedict, classic style, but with smoked ham instead of Canadian bacon, three slices, and cut it very thin, please. And then French toast, with cinnamon in the sugar, and real French or Italian-style bread. And lots more of that wonderful coffee, too, please," she added with a grin. The waiter smiled back and gave her an approving nod. If he had expected her to ask for Captain Crunch and a Coke based on her youth, he knew better now.

Ordering in courses meant the first round arrived at the table in only a few minutes. The grapefruit, naturally, was perfect, and I watched as Susan took a spoonful of creamy yoghurt. She closed her eyes and licked her lips.

"I�ll never be able to go back to Dannon."

The rest of the meal was equally stellar and we took our time with it, savoring each bite. In theory, I could come here for a meal every week, but in practice I prefer to deny myself the pleasures of culinary perfection and only make the journey three or four times a year. It gives me something to look forward to.

My companion hadn�t been oblivious to our surroundings, either. "Alex," she whispered without looking up, "I keep seeing people looking at us and pretending they�re not. Are they thinking we�re . . . that you�re my. . . ."

"Because of the age difference? No, I doubt they�re making untoward assumptions. They all know me, you see, but they�ve never seen you before. And we�re obviously not father and daughter." She grinned. "They�re just curious. But no one�s going to ask. It isn�t done."

"Then, . . . I guess that means, um, that there�s a lot of money having breakfast here today, right?"

"Oh, yes. These people are my, well, call them my peers, at least in a financial sense." Not to mention a deeply biological sense, most of them. I could see Susan filing that tidbit away to think about later. She was a very smart and very perceptive young woman, and sooner or later, she was going to start putting things together. She might not arrive at the actual truth, even given her Gothy tendencies, but she would eventually work out that I wasn�t quite what I appeared to be.

My hand was forced, in a gentle sort of way, a couple weeks after our breakfast adventure. Susan had finished her first midterms (for want of a better word) and had sworn to imitate a vegetable for the ensuing forty-eight hours. She was browsing my bookshelves and turning slowly through one volume and another in pursuit of escapism while I sat with my feet up and my laptop open, wandering around the Internet. After a few minutes, I became aware of a meaningful silence from the library corner of the loft and looked up to find Susan regarding me with a puzzled expression. I raised my eyebrows in her direction and after a moment�s hesitation, she came over with one book in her hand and another tucked under her arm.

"Alex, . . . I guess it shouldn�t surprise me that you own signed first editions of Hemingway and even Dickens, but. . . ." She trailed off and licked her lips. "This Oliver Twist has an inscription to �My Good Friend, Septimus Gordon�. It was published in 1838. And The Old Man and the Sea here is inscribed to �Sep G., comrade in arms� in 1952." She cleared her throat. "Those dates are more than a hundred years apart, Mr. Bell. And anyway, 1952 was more than sixty years ago. This �Septimus Gordon�, . . . this can�t be you. Can it?" She actually looked a little worried.

I took a deep breath and heard myself sigh. Here we go, I thought, ready or not. "Well, Ernie gave me that when I paid him a visit in the Bahamas the year after it was published. I had met him in France in 1918 and we renewed our acquaintance after the liberation of Paris in 1944." I sent her a light calming instruction, just in case. Of course, I could have ordered her to forget the whole thing but for once in my life, that wasn�t the way I wanted to play it.

"Charlie Dickens I knew somewhat better than Hemingway. He was working mostly as a journalist then, and so was I. We often had steak and kidney pie together at a certain chop house in the East End of London and sat up talking most of the night. And yes: I was �Septimus Gordon� then." I had let my usual periodic change of name go for longer than usual and now I was paying for that lapse.

I sat and watched Susan�s face silently for a few moments as she tried to digest this information. Finally, she shrugged and looked bewildered. "I�m sorry. I don�t understand." Fair enough, I thought. Let�s take this in stages. I closed my computer and gestured for her to take the twin to my chair which stood at an angle to it.

"Susan, you�re thinking to yourself that I couldn�t possibly be as old as those two books would seem to indicate. Actually, I�m far, far older than that." I folded my hands and gave her a steady look. "I watched them lay the first blocks for the Great Pyramid, my dear. And I was already a couple of centuries old, even then."

She stared back at me and blinked. I could practically see the connections being made in her mind. I finally send her a further very gentle instruction, to not reject my claim out of hand. That was as far as I was willing to go behind the scenes — and I wasn�t quite sure why it mattered with this girl when it never had before.

After a few moments, she cleared her throat. "You�re saying you�re . . . like a mutant or something?"

I smiled. "Not me personally, no. I�m exactly like my parents, and their parents. There was almost certainly a mutation of some kind, somewhere in central Asia, probably twenty thousand years or more before I was born. Now we are a separate species from you. Closely related but no longer the same." I watched her eyebrows bounce when I said "we."

"You�re not the only one? There�s a whole. . . ?"

"A whole population, yes. An entire culture. Our numbers have never been great, though. We reproduce seldom."

"But how come I�ve never--- Oh." She blinked and touched her finger to her chin. "You have to stay secret, don�t you? Because most people would hate the idea of there being other people who don�t die. They�d be jealous." She was no dummy, but I already knew that.

"What you say is true, but there�s rather more to it than that." Now came the hard part. "Before I continue, Susan, let me ask you something important: Do you trust me?" She gave me a long, considering look. That was good. I didn�t want a quick, unthinking answer.

After a minute, she lifted her chin. "Alex, I trust you more than anyone I�ve ever known, except for my parents."

"Then I ask you to take it on trust when I say that I never have and never would mean you any sort of harm, that I hope for only good things for you. More than that, I would go to the utmost lengths — which in my case are considerable — to prevent anyone else from causing you harm." I let that hang there between us for a moment, carefully refraining from enforcing it with assertive suggestion. When she had processed that, she lowered hr eyes in uncommon shyness.

"Thank you, Alex," she whispered.

"In fact," I went on, "there have always been a few people — homo sapiens people, that is — who have known of the existence of my kind, and others have suspected. As careful and as secretive as we are, our peculiar physical requirements for survival have occasionally been noticed. The fact is, you see, we require a certain quantity of human blood on a regular basis. We�re what fearful people call vampires."

Susan stared at me unblinkingly for what seemed a long time, her hand unconsciously at her throat. She didn�t scream, or flee the room, which was a relief. And I was even more relieved when she finally cleared her throat and said, "I have a feeling this isn�t like in the movies, is it? You�re not going to turn into a bat and fly away, right? I�ll bet you don�t even own an opera cape."

I let myself grin. "I�m not a big fan of fancy dress, no."

"But you, um, bite people?" She seemed to be peering at my teeth. But she seemed to have decided not to be afraid of me. Not so far.

"Yes, I do, actually — but very selectively." I opened my mouth and pointed toward my palate. "We come equipped for it."

"You said your parents were, um, vampires, too, right? So, . . . what happens to the people you bite? Do they turn into. . . ?"

"No. They don�t become vampires. Not ever. It�s a matter of DNA, my dear, not magic. There�s a lot of myth about vampires and ninety-nine percent of it is nonsense. Like the bat thing, and bursting into flame in the sun. Well, you know that last one isn�t true." She smiled and nodded. Then she sobered again.

"You said you bite people, though." She thought for a moment. "Can you, like, subscribe to a vampire blood bank or something?"

I had to laugh at the image that created in my mind. "It would simplify my life considerably if that were possible! But, unfortunately, no: The withdrawal, so to speak, has to take place from the . . . donee directly to me. My system mixes in certain enzymes in the process. It doesn�t work if there�s even an instant�s delay, or if the blood is exposed to air." I could see in her eyes the question she hesitated to ask.

"Most of the time, Susan, I will take a little blood from some innocent citizen and he will never know it�s happened. He will feel no pain, either. It seems there�s an enzyme for every purpose. I confess, it�s usually a much more civilized process for most of us these days than it was five or six centuries ago." No, I didn�t miss the Olde Days at all.

"I don�t require gallons of the stuff, either. Only half a pint or so, and only every four or five or six days, depending on my degree of physical exertion in the interim. Otherwise, I digest ordinary food the same way you do. The blood is in the nature of a mandatory supplement."

"But. . . ?" Yes, she was smart enough to expect there to be a "but."

"But. I do sometimes remove individuals from society and from the world. Those I believe we�re better off without. The man who attacked your mother? I terminated him, as I would have put down a mad dog."

"Oh." She looked at me a moment, then nodded. "Good." Then she seemed to make up her mind about something. "Alex, . . . you said it doesn�t hurt. And I really do trust you. You could--- I mean, if you wanted to, you know, to help keep it secret and everything--- you could take a little of my blood sometimes. I have plenty."

That was something I simply had not expected. Susan was the first short-lived person I had told my secret to in more than a thousand years, and I still wasn�t quite sure why I had done it. And now, knowing what she did, she was offering me this gift. I am very rarely at a loss for words, but this time I couldn�t think what to say.

Again, like all my kind, I�m good at concealing my feelings. It�s a survival trait when you�re effectively immortal. But Susan an was uncommonly perceptive example of her species. She apparently saw in my face how truly moved I was by her offer and gave me a shy smile.

"Alex, you�ve been so good to me and to my mother. You didn�t have to tell me any of this about yourself, either, but you did. And I meant it when I said I trust you completely. If I can do something to help you, I will."

"I promise you, I will keep it in mind, should it ever become necessary. But that would be very unlikely. I�ve had a great deal of practice at feeding myself, you know."

She cocked her head, looking much more interested in my lifestyle, now, and much less apprehensive. I was frankly amazed at how quickly she had assimilated the truth. "I�m trying to imagine when you do, um, feed. Do you go out and, like, cruise the streets, or what? I don�t think I�ve ever heard you leaving in the middle of the night, or anything."

Okay, that led straight into the other confession I had to make to my young friend. "Actually, I�ve been slipping out after dark once or twice a week since you took up residence with me. But you were never aware of it because I instructed you not to be." She looked alarmed, trust or no trust. "Yes, my people have the power to cloud the minds, let us say, of non-vampires. But I swear to you, Susan, I have done that in your case only to protect my secret. And now that you know, I will no longer do it." And then I had to suppress the impulse to imprint that promise. Habits die hard.

She was ahead of me, though. "I guess I wouldn�t know one way or the other, would I? So it comes down to trusting you again." She gave me a broad smile. "This whole thing could keep circling back on itself, couldn�t it? Round and round and round. You know what? I�m just not going to worry about it. If something happens where you decide you have to control my mind----" (she made an abracadabra gesture) "---to protect me, or whatever, I�m going to assume it was necessary. Okay?"

I sat and looked at her for a minute or more. I finally found myself shaking my head slowly. "Susan Sakura, you are the most amazing young woman — no, the most amazing person — whom I have met in a very, very long time. I�ve been wondering why I felt this urge to divulge my deepest mysteries to you. It almost never happens, among any of my kind. There are hundreds of excellent reasons why we don�t do that. But you seem to be the exception to all the habits of a long lifetime."

Then she asked me about all the centuries of history I had witnessed — had taken part in, actually — and I regaled her with a few memories. We sat up much later than usual and it was a good thing she had the next day off. When we finally went off to our beds at opposite ends of the loft, I settled in with an uncommon feeling of satisfaction. I can�t read other people�s thoughts as such but I can scan their emotional states, and Susan seemed unafraid. She was excited, not surprisingly, but not fearful or worried or anxious. Good enough. I found myself smiling as I drifted off to sleep.

A couple hours later, though, I awoke rather abruptly. Susan was up moving around. She was taking pains to be quiet, but that doesn�t really count with vampires. I had long since taught myself — my natural alert system — to ignore her when she sometimes got up to use the bathroom in the night, or when she simply couldn�t sleep and went to read for awhile with a cup of tea. But this time there was a strange vibe coming from her direction. And she was moving somewhat hesitantly in my direction. I tucked one hand behind my head and waited to see what was happening.

Susan stopped behind the large mahogany panel that afforded me privacy and I had the sense she was gathering her nerve. I thought she might simply change her mind and return to bed, so I remained silent. But after a moment, she took a deep breath and stepped around the corner.

I raised up on my elbow to let her know I was awake and said "Is something the matter?"

She stopped a few feet away, feet neatly together and hands clasped nervously under her chin. She shook her head. "No — but I couldn�t stop thinking about everything you told me tonight." I couldn�t help looking her up and down. She was wearing a tee-shirt advertising some rock group I�d never heard of, which barely covered her crotch. I presumed she was also wearing panties, but that was it. Her long legs and feet were bare. From occasional early morning glimpses, I knew this was her usual sleeping attire.

I sat up cross-legged in bed, tucking the covers around myself, and motioned for her to come and sit beside me. I caught a flash of white cotton as she tucked one leg under herself. "I know it�s a lot to assimilate all at once."

"Yeah, it is." She shrugged and looked down shyly. "It�s not really that, though." She swallowed and gave me a pleading look. "Alex, I can�t stop thinking about you biting people and drinking their blood," she said in a rush. "I . . . I want to know what it�s like. You said there�s no pain, so . . . I want to know what it feels like." I raised both eyebrows. "Please don�t be mad," she added. I was picking up a sort of heated yearning from Susan.

Well. I supposed I should have expected this reaction. There�s a Romantic tradition about the erotic nature of being the victim of a vampire. Bela Lugosi has a lot to answer for.

Actually, I think it sort of depends on the individual. Some people, especially some women, undoubtedly do get off on the idea of fangs in their throat, just as some are excited by S&M, at being bound and helpless. God knows, there�s a whole long pathology involving mentally unstable people who imagine themselves vampires. And Susan, though she was perfectly sane, and as smart and self-reliant as she otherwise was, did seem to have a certain Gothy flavor to her.

I thought about it as she sat there, fingers twined in her lap, watching me hopefully. It certainly wouldn�t damage her, not physically, if I acceded to her request. I�d told her the truth about that. And I could take my own steps to make sure the experience didn�t damage her psychologically. Well, I finally concluded, why not? Maybe I was being hypocritical, but I was beginning to wonder myself what the experience might be like with . . . well, be honest about it. Willing prey.

"Susan, are you sure about this?"

She nodded. "I�m absolutely sure," she said firmly. "Even if you don�t wear a cape."

I beckoned her closer with one curled finger. "Then come to me, my dear." I lowered the pitch of my voice and she laughed at the Transylvanian accent I attempted to add. I took her hand and arranged her across my lap, injecting a calming thought into her mind as I did. As she lay in my arms, I gently turned her face toward me and opened my mouth wide. Her eyes went wide, too, at the sight of my drinking teeth sliding down into sight from behind my incisors. If she still had any doubts about my true nature, they vanished at that instant.

Though she tensed a little, she didn�t panic or struggle. And when I tilted her head away and sank my fangs into the side of her throat, directly into the carotid artery, she sighed and shivered a little.

I could have taken a pint or more and the effect on Susan would have been no different than if she had made a donation at St. Francis�s blood bank, but I restrained myself and took only about half that much. There�s really no discernible difference in the taste of blood between two healthy, non-addicted individuals, but I imagined there was an uncommon sweetness to my young friend�s gift.

It occurred to me at that point that I could give her back a little something in exchange. Something dramatic that the erotic myths might lead her to expect. Besides, I was feeling mischievous. As I slowly sucked her blood into my system, taking my time, I inserted into Susan�s mind a current of sexual excitement, of unfocused arousal. She moaned under her breath. And as I finished and withdrew, and the enzymes I had injected there at the end caused the puncture to completely heal and disappear almost instantly, I raised the pitch of her arousal. Susan jerked a little and her breath puffed rapidly a few times.

Then she opened her eyes and stared up at me, lips parted. There was no mistaking the flush moving across her face and throat this time. "Mr. Bell, I, . . . did I . . . come?"

"I believe you did, yes." I smiled at her. "And how do you feel now?"

Her self-conscious confusion was adorable. "I feel . . . wonderful. God, I can�t believe I had an orgasm!"

"It happens," I said. Did it? I had no idea. I had never been in this situation before in my entire life. I started to lift her back to a sitting position but she clung to my arm and stayed where she was, snuggling against my chest.

"Alex, you can drink my blood anytime you want." She gave me a sheepish smile, then closed her eyes again. I was content to simply sit there for awhile and hold her in my arms. My life seemed to be heading off in entirely new directions. It was going to be interesting to see where it took me.

Copyright 2015 by Michael K. Smith. Copies may be made and posted elsewhere for personal enjoyment, but all commercial rights are reserved.