As I stood at the bar to pay our bill, the cashier gave me a more than neutral smile whilst he debited my account – as if he knew exactly what was happening, which if true meant it was a fairly common occurrence. “You’re privileged.”

“What do you mean?” Expecting a different remark, the complimentary statement puzzled me.

“Not many people get to see inside. It’s run by some kind of private health group.”

“Oh, yes.” There was little else I could say, given I didn’t know what he was talking about.

We left the inn and headed towards a glossy black Saab Duette convertible whose windows seemed far darker than usual, though it had full upgrades which gave it an edge over the standard conversions, but her choice was an ironic one considering it was at its greatest efficiency during the day when its driver was supposedly at their most vulnerable, and any final pretence was destroyed by the fact the roof was down.

Eva slid an electrikey into place, and once she had docked the communicator used her thumbprint to switch on the car’s systems, ignoring the displays which showed the latest traffic and weather reports for the region, and turning briefly to look over her shoulder as she reversed us out of the parking space. A light scattering of gravel marked our departure from the car-park, then it was lost to view as we passed from its driveway onto the country road along which I had driven earlier, narrow with undergrowth on both sides and overhung by the barely discernible outlines of trees.

The only sound was of the wheels on old tarmac and a slight whistling around the edges of the windscreen, and it wasn’t until we had been driving for a couple of minutes that I realised the headlights hadn’t been switched on, though she drove as effectively if they were.

“Do you live very far?” I didn’t feel particularly uncomfortable with the silence, but wanted to know more of her intentions.

“A few dozen kilometres – just outside Westhaven.”

“I don’t know this part of the country at all.” Should I have admitted that? “But the magazine knew where I was going when I booked the hotel.”

She didn’t react in any way to my news, which was simply the truth. “Even after all these years it’s still a pleasant part of the coast – convenient for travelling to nearby towns or up to the cities, and the Continent. There’s no need for you to be anxious.” Eva’s attempt at reassurance wasn’t entirely unexpected, though no less genuine because of it.

A slowly growing part of me was looking forward to the promise of more blood-letting – memories of the previous times I had done so came into sharper focus and I almost shivered as I recalled the recent touch of her firm fingers on my skin – but I was still unsure about the seduction aspect as I had never had any desire for another woman, but perhaps she wouldn’t go all the way. Yet, I couldn’t imagine her toying with me, for she had never once seemed manipulative, but neither was she giving any indication of what precisely was to happen. Perhaps that was the idea – to keep me in suspense. “I’m just a bit nervous, that’s all.”

“You’re perfectly safe – I promise I’ll not hurt you, or do anything you don’t want me to. Rest, if you want to, otherwise enjoy the night as best you can.”

I didn’t feel in the mood for any casual conversation, never mind I had no idea what we really had in common beyond our mutual interest – which had in any case been experienced in vastly different ways – that could act as a topic for discussion, so I laid my head back and watched our journey.

We left the narrow road and entered a fairly well-lit street lined by pairs of semi-detached brick houses with garages and small front lawns, which could have been almost anywhere in suburbia. The street merged into others indistinguishable from it, then branched to meet a motorway that appeared from behind, rising and curving to our left in an band of orange lights as it arced around a town twinkling in the near darkness. Perhaps twenty minutes later we turned off beside a glittering industrial plant of low cylindrical tanks surrounded by an intricate lattice-work of gantries, then our journey seemed to be played in reverse as the streets along which we travelled became narrower and lit by ever more infrequent and paler lights, until we might just as well have been returning to the inn.

She drove into a side-road and continued for a few minutes, passing small houses and sheds huddled together at the ends of short lanes, illuminated briefly by lamp-posts that looked so old they could easily have been lit by gas. Five kilometres or so beyond the final one, we arched over a small bridge beneath which a stream gurgled noisily, and turned towards a wide and long, low house of only two storeys.

A faded sign mounted on a partially subsided A-post with its own dim lamp informed me we were entering the grounds of a

– which explained the cashier’s approving remark – and though I’d expected security floods to activate in response to our approach, none came on and I had to make use of the small amount of available light to see the wide windows set within walls whose widely-rounded corners made me think of the bridge of an oil-tanker. A flat overhanging roof acted as protection for deep voids in the night that indicated the presence of recessed balconies at either end and in the middle of the first floor, as well as providing a firm base for what was probably a large solar array set between a few domestic wind-turbines, given most country buildings had theirs retro-fitted years ago.

Eva parked her car in an enclosed garage adjoining the house – though still in the same style it was clearly built later – and after she had switched off the engine and undocked her communicator she looked into my eyes and smiled again in a manner that told me I was soon to be bled again, and she would make sure I enjoyed it.

I followed her through a side-door once it had opened to her palm-print and a series of code-words in a guttural language I didn’t recognise, into a wide archway of pale cream walls, polished floorboards, and dim uplighters. From there we went directly to an unbelievably vast room which ran the entire length and width of the house, rising to the ceiling of the first floor for most of the area – it must have been at least sixty metres by thirty, and about eight metres high. There were four stairways, with two at each end of the house going up to a balcony running around three-quarters of the walls, and leading to a smaller area in the middle of one long wall supported by a couple of wide pillars. My reaction was utterly predictable but I had no choice, for the room’s size was as nothing compared to its contents – antiques and furniture and sculptures and other works of art that must have been worth tens of millions.

Eva shrugged off her jacket and dropped it with her keys and communicator onto a chair, then did her best to avoid making me feel embarrassed by not watching me as I surveyed the room, the lighter parts of which had blurred reflections in the long opaque windows.

I could only take in so much of what was spread before me on the ground floor alone, and there was even more above, accessible from the interior balcony. Photographs of high fashion that bordered on the erotic overlooked a grand piano and an inlaid harpsichord – somehow without the styles clashing – whilst a long leather sofa and matching chairs formed an island around a low table of thick glass and polished steel. Small filtered lights shone down onto pictures – some were centuries old – of landscapes, portraits, impressionists, surrealists, abstracts, hand-coloured photo-montages, and the latest digital prints by CG-artists, all interspersed with pottery and glassware covering the past three millennia, with relatively recent Art Nouveau and Art Deco sculptures and figurines. In one alcove was the largest telemedia centre and collection of disks I’d ever seen, with another having at least a couple of thousand books – even scrolls! – of every age and size. It was so overwhelming I almost felt like giggling, but that was more likely due to stress.

“I don’t know what to say – it’s just incredible. I’m sorry, I’m just a bit nervous – would you mind if I had a small drink?” I knew it was rude of me as I should have waited for her to offer, but my lack of experience was betraying me and I needed something to help calm myself.

“No, no more alcohol – I want you to fully appreciate the experience, not deaden yourself to it. Besides, too much spoils the taste.” Even now she remained in character, but in many ways it better fitted our circumstances.

“How are you going to—? I’ve never done this before.” My admission sounded quite pathetic as I sat on an arm of the nearest sofa.

“I know.” Her reassuring voice continued to soothe me. “I told you there would be no pain – did you feel any before? – and there will be none now, so you should be anticipating a new experience rather than fearing it. Come upstairs.” Eva held out her arm in a beckoning motion that even at any other time would still have been an invitation for a night of pleasure, and I was beyond surprise as I placed my hand in hers and was led up the broad curving steps to the part of her museum supported by pillars, which was isolated from the main interior balcony on either side.

There was little up here except the main bedroom with built-in wardrobes and spacious en-suite facilities, but in stark contrast to the rest of the house there were no windows, and as with the ground floor it was predominantly cream and white, though the highly-polished floorboards were here covered by various pale rugs. Her bed was two metres square and quite low, with pillows and cushions and all the covers various shades of white – embroidered with subtle patterns of circles and spirals – and the near side of the room had more railings where it looked down over the abundance of riches, whilst overlooking the bed itself was a stylised mural of Harlequin and Columbine, of the kind so often copied that it had long ago passed beyond a cliché, but this was an original and seemed as new.

I couldn’t believe we were going to do anything beyond sleeping here, for the slightest drop of blood would stain the fabrics, but Eva sat on a stool in front of a short dressing-table and bent languidly to take off her boots. “Do you need to freshen up?”

Was that a request for herself, or simply asked out of concern for me? She was going to bleed me and make love to me – probably at the same time – and despite my reservations no small part of me was almost excited at the possibility, whilst the rest of me was petrified. One of us was slightly insane, and I was beginning to think it wasn’t her, for though I could have refused her invitations I simply didn’t want to, and here I was in her museum – was she some kind of live-in curator?

“Are you long- or short-sighted?” Her query regarding my contact lenses startled me, if only because I wondered what its relevance was, but that she had noticed them at all now came as no surprise.

“Oh, a little short, but they’re mainly for astigmatism.”

“There are some dishes you can use for your things – I assume you have them with you?” She inclined her head to indicate the nearest of two slim arches.

I took off my shoes and entered the bathroom which was far larger than my own bedroom at home and in the same pale style as everywhere else, then leaned over the wash-basin to splash cold water onto my face. Looking at my reflection, I wondered if I really had the strength to accept what was being offered to me – was I being pleasantly adventurous or dangerously reckless? – but I also knew I would forever wonder what I’d missed if I made hasty apologies and just left.

One lens almost fell from my slightly trembling finger before it was safely in its nightly solution with the other, and my mundane actions seemed so formal, as if I was an actor in a highly-structured play where everything had been choreographed so the audience knew exactly what would happen even as they anticipated watching how the performers would try to appear spontaneous, but I was now utterly lost and could only respond to what I thought she wanted from me – which was probably also what I wanted if I had the courage to admit it.

“Are you all right?” Eva stood in the archway as if she was leaning on an invisible support. She had removed all her jewellery and changed her outdoor clothes for a silvery-white pyjama-suit that was strangely asexual – it revealed even less of her body than I had already seen at the inn – and given the luxurious state of her bed I doubted she used them for sleeping, so I assumed she was wearing them for my benefit. She had also changed the colour of her eyes – no longer the palest of blues, they were brilliant amber with specks of topaz rather than the unoriginal glossy black or scarlet overlays I’d seen before.

“I’m fine, really.” I managed to smile, and hastily swallowed a multi-blocker.

As she had done before so disarmingly, Eva held out her hand for me to take, and she led me back into the bedroom to sit beside me at the end of the bed, then she removed the plaster from my arm and momentarily left to drop it into a small mesh bin under the dressing table. She returned, and watching her calm face as it bowed to meet my wrist I realised I hadn’t seen any instruments, not even a small knife to complement the one on her key-chain, but as with her feeding at the inn all her actions were so far in advance of the others I’d been involved with who often made a mess of their drinking – more of a dribbling slurp, really – that it was even more apparent she was highly skilled, which further reassured me.

The sensation of her gorging herself was so seductive as she probed the cut with her tongue and even seemed to enlarge it as if my skin were nothing more than fine paper – I felt as if I was aware of every millilitre of blood that passed from me – and the touch of her mouth against my flesh so smooth, that not until I felt something at my back did I realise she had been slowly bending me over so I lay on the bed, with her next to and partly over me.

Eva raised her head from her feasting and looked down at me with a smile that was so enticing I felt like drowning in it, and the lenses she wore made her eyes sparkle. “Do you trust me?”

I nodded mutely, expecting – no, I realised to my surprise, actually wanting – her to kiss me again, and properly, but she only passed her lips briefly over mine on her way to my neck and shoulders, where her bites were initially so fleeting they felt little different from normal kisses, then she increased the pressure and intensity until she drew blood to the surface. I had seen earlier that her teeth were quite normal in appearance, so she had obviously fitted the extensions again, and despite the potential for amusement they seemed to do a good job and she was certainly very accomplished in their use, for despite their sharpness I felt little discomfort as they occasionally pricked my skin.

One of her legs fell between mine and parted them slightly, but she didn’t follow it through, rather she kissed me on the mouth in a way she had not done at the inn – openly and passionately – and to my surprise I returned her kiss with an fervour that quickly equalled her own, our tongues playing with one another like lovers in their own right before she continued working on my body and I surrendered myself completely.

I knew it was me rather than Eva who managed to unbutton my trousers and push down the zip to free my legs, then she kissed me on the insides of my calves and thighs, leaving a trail of small bite-marks as she alternated between my legs and moved up to my knickers, and though she passed over them to continue working on my tummy I was so turned on I felt obscenely swollen.

The last things I remember clearly were a series of mingling thoughts and realisations, but underpinning them all was the fact my body was experiencing so much pleasure – and a staccato stimulation almost bordering on pain that was transformed by a unique lust into enjoyment – that I was far too delirious to really know which was what. A minuscule part of me thought she was taking me too far too quickly even as her latest bite punctured the skin above my breasts and went far deeper than the others, leaving her lips smeared with my blood, but I was growing more disorientated with the sheer intensity of our love-making – yet we hadn’t even begun to have sex in the conventional sense – and I wondered how much further I could go before my body hit some kind of sensory overload.

I had never felt anything remotely like this before – whether during normal sex or any of the games I’d incorporated – or even dreamed it was possible. Had she somehow drugged me? Incapable of rational thought, I just let her do what she wanted – what I wanted.

How could Eva manage to ingest such a quantity of blood without feeling nauseous? – was it just years of acclimatising herself? – and what about the dozens of carmine specks on the rumpled expanse of white whose contrast alone provided further aesthetic stimulation and an undeniable visual reminder of what we were doing?

I had no idea how much she took from me as she bit straight into my other wrist without me feeling any pain at all and continued drinking, or how much blood she gave back to my now-eager mouth that sought any contact with her, her lips pressing against mine and smothering my moans as if she were swallowing those as well, and her fingers which now moved between my legs worked so deeply inside me it seemed as if I had taken her entire hand. I felt literally consumed, but as the blossoming heat of a second orgasm soon swept through me and rebounded from the extremities of my limbs – the first time I’d ever had two in the same day – I knew that I didn’t care what happened if this was how it made me feel.

She was draining me, and I was powerless to stop her because I’d given myself willingly.

Did I also drink from her, or was that only reflected desire?

Stop. Please don’t—

There’s no safety. Why don’t I care?

—stop.

If this is dying, why does it feel so good?

Don’t—

The first thing I felt when I awoke and stared up at the pale ceiling was almost a wonder that I was still alive and able to be conscious at all. Then I felt a profound sense of change as I recognised and admitted to myself the passionately severe intimacy of what we had shared throughout the night, for I had hazy recollections of further sessions between short bouts of sleep. The third was a simple and total fatigue that left me barely able to stand and coordinate my limbs, so I lay for a couple of minutes and gradually forced myself to get up.

Eva lay deeply asleep beside me, and the pristine covers were as I had first seen them, as if my blood had never been spilled. She was naked and so vulnerable I might have done anything to her if I had the energy or inclination, but I had neither and could never think of hurting her, for she had kept her promise, and having given her my permission she hadn’t betrayed that trust. The only indication of last night’s events apart from my weariness were the fresh bandages on my wrists – she had no mark anywhere on her immaculate skin – as all other evidence seemed to have disappeared, so she must have cleared up whilst I was asleep.

In the bathroom I found even more surprises, for as I looked at my reflection and carefully studied my body I saw there were hardly any signs of puncture wounds – just a few small dimples in my skin – though my thighs and shoulders and chest were still bruised, and there was a sore area beneath each bandage where she had gone to the deeper artery, but they would all change colour and then fade in a few days or so, a week at most. I didn’t know how long we had slept, for as I turned and looked back into the bedroom I realised there were no clocks anywhere, and apart from the diffuse illumination from various domed lamps on the walls and ceiling there was virtually no light coming from outside as the dark glass held everything at bay, like a barrier of solidified mist. Neither were there any fires or radiators, yet the house was pleasantly warm, and there was subtle evidence of a complex security system, part of which I’d seen when we arrived last night.

I had a quick shower and wrapped a fluffy towelling-robe loosely around me, changed the solution for my lenses and returned to see Eva was still fast asleep, so decided to have a proper look around. Leaving the bedroom and walking down the steps, I paused slightly as another realisation tugged at my mind, for the only doors I’d seen were those in the external walls – to the garage, the balconies, and the front door.

Apart from the bedroom, everything else was a single expanse, but what else was there and would Eva object to me wandering around? I’d already caught more than a glimpse of the museum’s contents when I arrived last night, and a slower examination of the room only reinforced my initial appraisal, but after a while the sheer quality of the items became overwhelming and I had to limit my attention to specific items.

One wide case held Art Deco table-lamps arranged in order of height, and touching the front I felt the slightest of vibrations against the cool glass, which was when I realised most of the displays were hermetically sealed. Another cabinet had row upon row of the most expensive – and seemingly the most complicated rather than the gaudiest – mechanical watches, which made the Jaeger-LeCoultre I’d seen earlier seem almost like a toy, and I couldn’t help but almost drool with envy at the sight of so many names which would forever be so outside my income I might just as well have thought of buying a gold-plated Rolls Royce.

Almost hidden behind the piano and harpsichord – both of which were spotlessly clean and in tune, as I discovered when I gently touched a few of the keys – a slight change in the inner curve of the main wall gave way to an arch that was not a door, and as I approached it my suspicions were confirmed as a stairway lead to the basement, but as with everything else it was not what I expected.

The first room was a small kitchen with work-surfaces that were so smooth they seemed never to have been used, and neither were there any signs of pots or pans. I was aware of a slight aroma which I took a few seconds to identify as coffee rather than anything decayed or related to drugs, for the scent seemed to have permeated the wood. Then, nosy and guilty at the same time, I opened a cupboard to see nearly bare shelves – the only occupants were small bags of coffee beans imported at great expense from various small farms in South America – whilst the refrigerator was almost empty apart from some butter, fruit-juice, and dozens of bars of the darkest, strongest chocolate I’d ever seen – also imported – though thankfully there weren’t any cartons of tomato juice to simulate blood, which I’d seen in other places. Didn’t she ever eat at home? or did she just live elsewhere and only come here when she wanted to impress her conquests? If so, she had certainly succeeded.

Next door to this – more accurately through the next arch – was a waste-disposal unit, incinerator, separate bins for recyclables, and behind a thick mesh screen an old generator with drums of fuel locked safely away. Beyond that, another room ran directly beneath the lounge, and it was everything the most exclusive health centre should be, with a fully equipped gymnasium, a unusual climbing-frame that also went across the ceiling, and a narrow yet long swimming-pool, but behind a padded partition and sharing the same length was a highly illegal shooting range whose walls were adorned with countless types of weapons from swords to hand-guns, knives to throwing-stars, and dozens of other things I partially recognised from action films but couldn’t name.

Who was Eva, and what had I stumbled into? Though it may not have been her actual home it was certainly real, for the artefacts were genuine rather than the result of personal riches spent on the realisation of a personal fantasy – or a delusion – and the surroundings only helped reinforce her imagination.

I already knew her story contained many holes and inconsistencies, as was to be expected with someone fabricating such an extended life, and the museum was merely another part of her existence, but what about the weapons? They were metal – deadly sharp – and though such things had long been banned over here in a failed attempt at making people feel safe they could easily be purchased from various suppliers abroad so normal people had at least some chance of defending themselves from the equally parasitical criminals and police, but were they only for display as well?

Returning to the ground floor, I peered through one of the long windows to vaguely see the beginnings of a small garden, but everything beyond that was indistinct though it was apparently beginning to get light, so I went up to the bedroom to retrieve my bag and take out my camera, for much as I wanted to catalogue at least some of Eva’s extraordinary museum it was far too much of an intrusion, and I would have to satisfy myself with some exteriors and perhaps a few individual figurines or close-ups.

With the camera’s display glowed back at me, for a few moments I didn’t understand what I was seeing, then I realised Eva must have looked at my images – when? – and accidentally gone into the set-up screens, for the date was now showing the 15’th although I had met her on the evening of the 11’th. I turned the knob on my watch to show the digital display, and felt suddenly cold as I saw the later date, then double-checked by looking at my communicator, only to see the same, with almost twenty messages awaiting my attention, mostly regarding work.

Four days! How could—? It was impossible.

“Eva!” She was completely unresponsive to my vigorous shaking.

I sat on the bed to read the first few emails and even some of the automated returns, then managed to piece together a scenario that made perfect sense, yet none at all.

Eva had settled my hotel bill – that was one receipt – and called work to say she was looking after me for a few days as I had been taken ill with what looked like the latest ‘flu bug, which explained most of the later messages of wishes for a speedy recovery. She had created an entire fiction about what we had done, yet at the same time told people who knew me that I was with her and all right, which was not a lie – at least then – but four days! How? Eva couldn’t have kept me under for that length of time unless she had sedated me whilst I was sleeping, but everything else pointed to her caring about my welfare and she had not misled my colleagues about my location – simply the reason for my being with her – which most of them already knew and some might even guess the truth of what had happened, as my predilections were hardly a secret.

I phoned Stuart but the call went straight to his answering service, so I left a quick message to the effect I was feeling better and would return tomorrow. Another call to Mary rang for what seemed like ages, then before I realised I should have chosen someone a bit more reliable she picked up and spoke drowsily. “Huh – hello?”

I was so relieved I didn’t say anything for a few moments. “It’s Susanna.”

“Oh, hi. How are you feeling?”

“Better, thanks, I think, but listen – I need to talk to you about something. I know this will sound weird but—”

“Um, can it wait? Do you know what time it is?”

“No.” I hadn’t really taken that in until now even though I was looking at dates, and saw it was 06:19. “I didn’t know.”

“Okay Suzy, I’ll catch you later.” Mary disconnected, but at least I had spoken to someone who could pass on the information, and my message to Stuart confirmed I was all right.

Except I wasn’t – far from it. Rage and puzzlement vied with one another as the dominant emotion, but I was still weak and could do little except either call for a taxi and leave immediately with the intention of returning to the inn for my car – without any answers or explanations – or wait for Eva to awaken of her own accord.

She had brought me here, we’d made love to one another – I knew I hadn’t remained passive for very long but eagerly reciprocated – and she had bled me. Now it was four days later and I had no recollection of eating or drinking – my own blood and possibly hers notwithstanding – talking, or even leaving the bedroom at all. In my past I had taken more than my share of drugs, including some powerful hallucinogens, but none of them had made me lose so much time so completely. In fact, the opposite had usually occurred and I thought I’d been away for hours because of the tremendously detailed images and emotions when in fact only a few minutes had passed. At least I was alive, and well, but was I actually safe? Had I ever been?

I tried to retrace what had happened and played my recorder – standard practice for any interviews, though I had told her beforehand it would be done, and in some cases the rituals I’d been invited to had been videod – there were sounds of my entering the inn, then Eva’s arrival, and everything was as I remembered as I skipped forward a few minutes at a time until our departure, then the memory filled up some time during the evening of that day. Nothing made any sense.

Eva still did not awaken as I shook her body far more roughly than before – was she also drugged? – so I went downstairs and tried to open the front door, but as expected it was locked, as were the two doors leading out to the garden. My only other options were the balconies, and once I’d gone up to the first floor by one of the other stairways I opened a door there easily enough, but as I stepped through to the exterior balcony a warning message from the security system alerted me. “Sunrise will be in eleven minutes.”

I wondered why that should be relevant, and then despite my anger and anxiety almost laughed as I realised it was just another part of Eva’s elaborate imagination – she had set alarms to inform her when she would be ‘vulnerable’.

Once outside, I realised how thick were the walls – almost a metre, with the door thickly rebated – and the sky was so much brighter than I’d thought because of the windows blocking almost everything, whilst I could smell a slight tang of salt, so we must have been fairly near the coast.

I tried to calm myself by previewing the images in my camera, deleting a couple of sunsets from last week that were too similar to others I already had and wondering what this morning would bring, as I could see that the rear of the house looked out onto a large field, in the far corner of which was a dilapidated barn next to what might at one time have been small stables. There were fields on either side as well, a series of lamp-posts marking a road, and a double line of trees curving away – perhaps bordering the stream we had crossed on our way here – and in the far distance a low and pale whitish haze which might have been the horizon at sea.

“Sunrise will be in five minutes.” There was something so relaxing about this time of day – perhaps because I had always enjoyed watching and photographing the sky in all its variety – that I found myself falling easily into the old ways of thinking and looking at the screen, ready to change the aspect ratio of the next image to whatever best suited the view, though with only a few wispy clouds high overhead there was little of real interest.

“Sunrise will be in two minutes.” Hopefully Eva would wake up soon – why hadn’t she reacted to all my shaking? – and she could tell me what she had done, and why.

“Sunrise will be in one minute.” The house reminded me of the time yet again, and for a moment I thought there might have been a high-pitched wailing just beyond the limits of my hearing, but I didn’t really care why I was being told something so obvious and when the first rays of dawn flickered through the trees on my left, I felt my face and hands tingle as the light shone on my body, though because of my weakness stimulate my skin as if it was the height of summer and the sunlight was almost a physical force pressing against me.

“Susanna!” The intensity of Eva’s cry startled me and I turned to see her on the other side of the house, standing in the bedroom and staring across at me as she clutched the railings. She wore a tight-fitting vest and shorts of pale grey – as if she were on her way down to the gym, but they were slightly lop-sided, put on in a hurry – and she looked across at me with such a look of horror on her face that for a moment I completely forgot my own antagonism. “Come inside, I beg you. Let the door close.” I watched as she squinted against the light streaming in around me and bouncing from the far wall, and she moved carefully, as if at any moment she would be incinerated by a glancing reflection.

“What have you done? I trusted you – you had no right!” My voice was far louder than I’d intended, but there was no reason to apologise.

She seemed genuinely unable to look straight at me, and as with nearly everything else her explanation made no sense. “I have blood-rights, and I’ve only ever done what you wanted.”

“It’s been four days! What did you do to me?”

“I gave you what you asked – I turned you.”

Faced with an answer that was both simple – spoken in a completely innocent way – and completely ridiculous, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Vampires don’t really exist, you know that – somewhere deep inside, you must do.” I realised it was the first time since our meeting that either of us had actually used the ‘v’ word, and it sounded bizarre in such rich surroundings.

Eva shielded her eyes with the palm of one hand, and though she had only just got up, she was already in character for she had put in her coloured amber lenses. “I know what I am – so do you.”

I was now seriously worried about her precarious state of mind, and beginning to be concerned for my own safety. Did she really believe everything she said? “Stop it, Eva – please don’t spoil everything.”

“I know you don’t remember – it doesn’t work like that – but you soon will.” In a series of movements that were too quick for my eyes to track properly and which should have been impossible anyway, she vaulted over the bedroom railings and landed on the ground floor – her legs bent into a squat as they absorbed the impact but otherwise she showed no signs of any stress at the drop – then she ran across the room until she was almost beneath me and dived onto her hands, flipped over, and sprang forward onto her feet to gain momentum, as if by magic landing on the interior balcony in front of me. She’d jumped well over four metres by passing straight over the railings, and done so completely upright rather than arcing her back over a horizontal bar. “If I showed you even more than before, would you be as convinced now as you were then?” Eva stood just behind the shimmering border between shadow and light, trembling slightly, but I didn’t think it was from the sudden exertion, for her eyes looked past me with an unmistakeable fear, and they were already watering as if affected by the light, even though it wasn’t that strong.

I was absolutely stunned by what she had just done, and though it was true I’d had difficulty following her movements it wasn’t because of her speed per se as I could easily have watched a car or bike coming towards me, but rather the unaccustomed combination of such speed applied to someone’s personal motion. Right now, though, there were far more important things to consider as I had no idea what to do to bring her back to some semblance of normality – was that even possible, or desirable? – and I almost shuddered at the prospect of having spent so much time in the company of someone who was truly unbalanced. “But it isn’t real!”

“Now and forever, this is my reality, as it will soon be yours.” Her breathing was unusually fast and shallow – not from her extraordinary jump which she didn’t even remark upon, as if it were nothing to her – she was now more terrified than I had ever seen anyone, and locking her gaze with mine she forced herself to stretch out her right arm so the end of it passed across the hazy boundary.

Nothing happened, of course – though such vulnerabilities were a recent invention, did she expect to just burst into flames? – and despite the risk of a violent response as I shattered her illusions I reached out to pull her completely into the light and prove it was harmless, but just before I would have touched her the skin on the tops of her fingers began to split like old parchment being slowly torn apart, then impossibly narrow fissures flared in little bursts of orange like the touch-paper on an old firework as something erupted inside her.

Even before I’d taken in what was happening, her skin and even some of her flesh started to smoulder in flaking shreds of translucence that disintegrated to ash before they’d fallen a handful of centimetres, whilst what could only be the underlying blood dripped and flared like sparklers that might at any moment turn her entire body into a dazzling conflagration, and it was not until I dropped my camera – I was dimly aware of it crashing to the balcony floor as plastics shattered against the smooth concrete – and instinctively reached out to push her back that I realised the screaming I heard was coming as much from me as from her. I knew what I saw, but couldn’t believe it, then I looked down and thought I was going to be sick as I stepped in and away from the door, which automatically closed and locked behind me with a series of metallic clunks that were solid and suddenly very reassuring.

Eva sank to her knees and gave up any pretence at noble strength, clutching the ruins of her hand which was now little more than a claw-shaped mass of bubbling raw flesh as her entire body was wracked by unimaginable pain and tears streamed uncontrollably down her cheeks.

“I didn’t know. I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.” There was nothing else I could say in response to such overwhelming evidence that she suffered from something the likes of which I had never seen or even read of before, and now I was suddenly on the defensive. I pulled her up and we reached the corner of the inside balcony, half-fell down those steps and stumbled across the ground floor, then half-tripped up the other steps as we went up to the bedroom and through to the bathroom. I searched frantically for something with which to treat her burns, but found only the normal ointments and bandages of the kind I had at home. “Which group are you with?”

“What?” Her voice was little more than a hoarse whisper as she bent over the wash-basin.

“There’s nothing here I can use to help you, I’m going to have to call an ambulance.”

“I’m not registered.” Despite all the pain, Eva’s voice was tinged with something I could only think of as contempt – not for me as a person, but rather my line of reasoning, my sudden and now desperate ignorance.

How could she not have any medical insurance, or was her self-deception so deep that she actually thought she would never need treatment? “I’ll register you on mine, then.”

“No, you can’t.”

“I don’t care about the money!” I interrupted her with no small amount of rising panic. “You need emergency care otherwise you’ll lose your hand!”

“They’ll not be able to help, and only enjoy dissecting me. I have paramorphine and other things for the pain.” Eva opened one of the larger cabinets and pulled down a white box whose contents scattered into the basin as she fumbled for one of the hypo-sprays amongst dozens of phials and syringes containing drugs that were all as illegal as her shooting gallery, then she used her teeth to pull off its safety cap before pressing it against the flesh above her wrist and thumbing the release valve straight to full.

I couldn’t understand how even in the middle of this horrendous crisis she was still in role, despite the fact she obviously had legitimate reasons to believe. I had met people with conditions like Grave’s disease who wanted to relate to other groups, a handful who suffered from Renfield’s syndrome, some with genuine anaemia who drank blood in the erroneous belief that it helped their condition, and haematophiliacs who were entirely open about their arousal, so they had at least some excuse to consider themselves a kind of vampire, and though they could never fully agree on what the strengths and weaknesses of a vampire actually were – beyond the obvious desire and its supposed effects – I’d never encountered anything remotely like this before. Had she begun the blood-sports to somehow try and explain why she suffered from such a vastly accelerated and devastating reaction? – and what on earth was it? – to create for herself a world in which she felt she could belong, and gravitated towards the museum to give herself physical surroundings that reinforced her vision of an extended life? “Eva, please! This isn’t a game any more. Whatever it is, it can be treated, but we need to—”

“No.” She straightened up and forced her breathing to be calmer, used the back of her good hand to wipe away her tears, and managed a weak yet determined smile. “Now you know what happens when you break the first rule of survival, unless of course you actually want to die like that – I know of many far kinder ways.”

“I didn’t know you would – I’m so sorry.” My repeated apologies sounded lame, and though I didn’t speak with any of the strength I would have used only a couple of minutes ago, still I wanted to know. “Why didn’t you wake up before?”

“You already know we sleep far deeper than Humans – even normally – and I was tired from looking after you. I wasn’t sure if you were going to survive or not – you almost died twice – I didn’t know what was wrong. I only woke up because of the alarm – it’s shrill enough to wake the dead, but then it’s meant to be.” Eva smiled wanly at the bleak humour, then blinked slowly and sighed as the paramorphine kicked in.

Had she not been suffering so much I would have tried to literally shake some sense into her, but I was still in shock. “I know you have something I don’t understand, but if we get you to a hospital—”

She interrupted again. “If this isn’t sufficient proof, then what? Should I knock twenty-five per-cent off the world speed-record for running a kilometre and then pick you up and hurl you across the room without any effort? or take you out at night and describe things no Human eye can possibly see without electronic aids?”

I had no idea what to do now or how to help her, and could only shake my head as I realised I was on the verge of crying.

“You’ll be all right soon.” Eva’s almost unbelievable attempt to reassure me could not possibly have succeeded, but what she said next only made me want to hold her like a frightened child who was lost in a world it had not been prepared for and could never understand. “People go to sleep every night with the assumption they will awaken the following morning, and it’s only that assurance which separates sleep from death, for that is an unending lack of consciousness rather than one lasting a few hours. No one plans to die, they all think they’re going to live forever whilst deep down know they cannot – even martyrs delude themselves into believing there is another life after they renounce this one – but now you’ll not have that realisation tearing you apart. Only if you do not change – if you can’t learn and progress – is immortality the endless tragedy Humans portray it so as to give their deaths some meaning, but then stagnation is a waste of life regardless of how long you live, whether your four decades or my four centuries, or the four millennia of some I’ve known.”

I still tried desperately to bring her back to reality as I unrolled bandages and smeared ointment on them without even knowing if they would actually do any good or only make matters worse. “You said you looked after me – you told my colleagues at work I was with you, so I have to admit you didn’t want to hurt me – but how much blood did you take?”

Eva held out her arm, and I began to cover the appalling damage whilst controlling my own urge to retch. “Initially? About half a litre.”

“But you said I almost died – twice?”

“After you had drunk from me.”

“I didn’t do that.” Even I knew that my denial was too quick, for in the heat of our passion anything might have happened, and there were more-than-vague impressions that refused to go away.

“Yes, you did – you wanted it.”

“I don’t remember most of what we did after we came up here.” I had to be honest about that, and considering all the weapons I’d seen in the basement it would be pointless asking why she also had such powerful drugs at home, as it was clear she lived by her own rules and only ventured into the world outside her door when she had to, so this strange and beautiful museum truly was her home, and she was as wealthy as she was insane.

“You will, soon, I promise, and then I’ll teach you the remainder of what you need to know. You’re not a prisoner – you came here of your own choice and can leave now if you wish – but you’ll have questions and only I can provide you with the answers. Or you can listen to what I told you at the inn, for I’ve never deceived you even when you saw everything as just another story to be documented.”

She was giving me no alternative but to continue playing along with her charade. “And then what happens?”

“To begin with, your skin becomes more susceptible to damage by the sun – it manifests as heightened sensitivity which you should be feeling already, then your blood becomes unstable as you’ve just seen – and your senses grow far more acute, with extended ranges for your vision and hearing. As your bones and tendons get stronger your muscles will become denser, which will initially exhaust you, but I’ll take good care of you. When you’ve turned fully, I’ll train you in how to use all your new skills, and needless to say you will develop sudden cravings, which need to be satisfied. Then, as the transformation reaches its final stage, your jaw will change to accommodate the fangs, and a couple of new glands will form to flood your body with the cells that allow any part to fully heal itself.”

I almost laughed, but had to stop as I fastened the bandages as best I could, bearing in mind what lay beneath them.

“Will you believe me now as you did before you asked me to turn you?” Eva opened her mouth to show me her clean and perfectly normal teeth, with canines that were slightly more pointed than usual without having been obviously reshaped, but as I watched they began to slide from her gums until they were over twice as long as they should have been, and for a brief moment the image of a sabre-toothed tiger’s skull passed through my mind.

There were no extensions added in a passing yawn to mask a sleight-of-hand, no crude plastic fangs pushed on by her tongue having been kept in her cheek, and with no possibility I had been tricked there was only one simple but unbearable conclusion that I couldn’t accept without destroying my entire world-view. “What are you?”

Her reply was blunt but not rude, and in any other circumstances hardly unexpected, except this was supposed to be real life, not a silly novel that demanded to be taken seriously in an over-saturated genre. “A vampire, of course – a creature which can’t possibly exist, yet here I am. We don’t know why we are or how we came to be, and can hardly announce ourselves to Human anthropologists, but we have our own myths in which we were the original hunters, killing for the tribe before it was even fully Human and taking the blood which others didn’t want, but then you shunned us because we gave death but did not die, and thrived in the night of which you were so afraid because you knew only of its dangers whilst being blind to its wonders and extensive benefits. Both sexes are sterile now, but at one time we interbred with Humans and there are still those born today who carry the long-dormant genes, so it’s easy enough for us to recognise them. Like finds like – blood finds blood – to such an extent that for many it is like having a conversation with yourself, though we also convert normal Humans so our population increases slowly over the centuries, keeping pace with theirs, but as I mentioned earlier many can’t be turned for various reasons.”

“You did that – to me.”

“Yes.”

“And I actually wanted you to?”

“You did.”

“I don’t remember.” My repetition began to sound more like a excuse even to my own ears.

“The first infusion almost killed you – I honestly don’t know why, you didn’t have any of the normal symptoms of rejection, which are in any case always fatal – and I nursed you through that, then you nearly died again in your first deep sleep – after you had fed again – but I was watching over you all the while and recognised the signs easily enough, as you seemed to have stabilised.”

“What if I don’t do as you say?”

“You saw what happened to me, and I wouldn’t want that for you so early in your new life. I’m more than used to moving around safely during the day – have done it all my life in one way or another – but to deliberately inflict extreme pain on yourself is still an instinct that takes strength to overcome – or desperation, for survival. Besides, you wouldn’t heal properly until you were fully turned, and any serious damage wouldn’t be repaired – if you were badly scarred before your conversion was complete – so any major injuries you have now can’t be restored, but you have none to worry about and hold you back.”

“And you really think your hand is going to heal?”

“I know it, as I know you still don’t – cannot – believe me. Come downstairs and I’ll show you what you need to know.”

Unlike her previous invitations, from the inn to her home, and then to her bed, I had no difficulty in refusing that one and shook my head. “No – I don’t know what to believe any more. I don’t know whether to be so angry with you that I never want to think of you again, or sorry for you and look after you like an abused child, or – I just don’t know. You can’t be a vampire – a real one, I mean, not just someone who thinks they are – they just don’t exist.”

“Yes, I do – we do.” Eva bared her teeth again to show they were now completely normal. “Would you see and hear yourself, or think that is also a deception?”

“What do you mean?”

“My house has a sophisticated surveillance system – it monitors the surroundings and is fully aware of daylight times, as you know – but it works inside as well.”

I felt almost dirty at the thought of having been recorded. “You mean you taped us in bed together?”

“Not intentionally – I like doing, not watching – but the system responds to all movement and sound, and a few things of which even I’m unaware when deeply asleep. After I bled you and we’d made love for the first time, you slept as Humans usually do and awoke to continue as before, then we rested and spoke of various things.”

“So you could show me what happened during that time?”

“If you wish.”

All I knew by now was that I was so tired from so many conflicting emotions that I didn’t really know what I felt. Certainly, there was anger at and frustration with Eva, concern for her mental health and physical well-being, and puzzlement over her entire way of life, yet at the bottom of all that was the beginning of a horrible doubt she was actually telling me the truth as she always maintained, and that therefore every single thing I had ever learned and thought about vampires was completely wrong, but that was impossible. How could an entirely separate species of Human-like animal have existed for so long without being discovered? or were they truly the sources of their own legends as she maintained? “Yes, I do.”

She led me from the bathroom and downstairs to the telemedia centre, switched on the main screen that was almost two metres wide, and after she had verbally unlocked the console began dictating commands, indicating I should sit in one of the chairs.

The screen showed views from nearly a score of cameras with overlapping coverage, then one enlarged and I watched us in the bedroom, with myself asleep and Eva lying naked beside me, for she had worn pyjamas only during the beginning of that first evening so as not to further unsettle me with her blatant sexuality – the date was the 14’th, only last night. The picture began to jump backwards in intervals of about ten minutes, but even during those brief frozen slices of time it was plain she had been awake all the while and that I had mostly slept, awakening only briefly during the 13’th to drink without any hesitation from Eva’s wrist, so by her account that would have been the second time, yet her arm now showed no signs of injury.

“Here.” Eva stopped the reverse preview and began on the morning of the 12’th, then sat in another chair and told the volume to increase.

I watched, and learned, and though initially I saw my previous self as if she were someone else, saying and doing things I had no recollection of and to which I couldn’t entirely relate – especially considering what had just occurred on the balcony – as the images and words were played for me I felt my fragmented memories begin to return to my conscious awareness, bringing with them associated feelings and emotions, needs and desires.

“You didn’t believe me then, of course.” Eva played fast forward, skipping our next session of love-making – though still embarrassed at watching myself, I was surprised at how active I became and what I allowed her to do to me, whilst that session included only a small amount of blood-letting on my part – then stopped during the afternoon of the same day.

My memories were now complete, and I knew with a certainty which cut through me like a laser that I’d made a decision based not on blind lust or raging delirium or even as the subject of a cruel deception, but on a desire to experience all that Eva did, and in the same way. She had literally shown me a new world in which I wanted to join her, and I drank eagerly from her wrist as she opened it for me, then our arms lay together with our fingers intertwined as the blood of her body passed into mine and began to infect me.

I couldn’t argue I was under any pressure, or deluded by my own unwillingness to believe, for Eva had never once spoken falsely to me and a part of me recognised that fact even as it fought against a lifetime of ingrained preconception and no small amount of fear of the unknown, despite all she’d told me. She had killed people and probably still did when necessity dictated, but that didn’t make her a killer – or was that mere semantic pedantry? – and despite everything I found that I trusted her and it somehow didn’t matter, as I also knew I needn’t follow that dark path because of the alternatives she had mentioned. Yet, never having been in any situation where I’d had to ask myself the question, could I really take another person’s life even in self-defence, and would I ever have to? Whatever the answer, I would soon have all the advantages on my side simply by being what I was, and flight rather than fight was always the first option.

That I had almost died was also true, for though Eva knew my body was a suitable recipient she couldn’t have known of my years at university when I experimented with blends of designer drugs that had left my natural defences far weaker than they otherwise would have been, and though I had been in hospital a couple of times with various adverse reactions I was at least a lucky survivor, unlike some of my friends who lay in comas for weeks before wasting away.

I slumped in the chair, my body wracked by sobs – not for myself, for I was never someone claiming victimhood by denying responsibility for what they had done, rather a willing and enthusiastic participant – but for all the pain I had made her endure as she demonstrated her vulnerability to me rather than more of her formidable strengths, because I could not remember and so didn’t believe what was happening, or rather what had already happened.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that.” Eva’s words – which should have been mine – startled me as she cleared the screen and placed the remote on a table.

I left the chair and sat on the floor by her legs, rested my head on her legs and vented my tears, but even as my cheek touched the firm flesh of her thigh a strange tingling sensation coursed through my body and for a moment I could have imagined I heard her pulse – and somehow sensed the flow of her blood? – in a way I had never thought of as possible, and I didn’t yet possess the vocabulary to fully describe what I felt. I wiped my tears with the heels of my hands and looked up at her, and as if for the first time noticed her eyes were exactly as they had always been since we arrived here, for I could see her pupils dilating in a way that would have been impossible had she been wearing any form of overlay, as she had done when greeting me at the inn, where her eyes had seemed the palest of blues.

Eva moved her undamaged hand from my hair and, watching me watching her, awkwardly bit into the flesh above her undamaged wrist so that blood oozed from the punctures – I now knew they’d be healed in less than an hour, as the previous cut had – in a formal invitation to drink. “You’ll be fine now, and I have plenty of supplies downstairs.”

The desire was more emotional than anything else and completely smothered any mental doubts I may have had, but I suddenly had none, and in response my need became overpowering even before I clasped my mouth to her fine skin – a combination of sight and scent and taste and an undefined feeling that might have been my heart beating in resonance with something that was so alive – and as I eagerly swallowed her blood I knew beyond any doubt and without any sense of dread what I was becoming, and I wanted it.