He walked up to my desk, watched me, looking for some hint of my reaction. I kept typing, ignoring him for about thirty seconds. Enrique had the patience of a two hundred-year old man. He waited silently until I couldn’t hold back my enthusiasm any longer. I honestly can’t recall a time I’ve ever been happier.

My vision had blurred from the tears in my eyes. Tears of joy. When I looked up at his smiling face I lost it. I leaped into his arms in delight, kissing him all over with a shower of, “thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“It pleases me to see you happy.”

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

I couldn’t restrain myself and didn’t even try. He kissed me back. His hands slipped inside my silk robe to find me without underwear. He played with me, working his fingers in and out, driving me crazy with anticipation. He had me grinding in time with his hand, worked to a frenzy. I tore through his belt and zipper, trying to get into his pants as fast as humanly possible. By the time I took his cock in hand I’d already come all over his fingers inside me.

I was so high on life, on Enrique, I pushed him down into my office chair and went deep throat. I sucked and stroked him at the same time. He liked it as I cupped his balls nibbling on the very tip and then plunged down to swallow all of him. Every time I came up for air I followed with my hand pumping up and down. I rubbed the soft underside of his head with my thumb. He squirmed, his intense eyes staring at me when he came.

Then I did something I’ve never done for any man, ever. I clamped down on his cock, and sucked as hard as I could. I swallowed every last drop I could milk from him. That’s how happy he made me, how strongly I felt for him. I doubt he understood the significance of the moment, but to me it represented a pledge of devotion. That’s when the truth hit me dead on. Not only had I done something I never do, but I opened my mouth and said the words I have never uttered to any man, “I love you.”

God I was stupid. A young stupid girl who’d fallen in love. And do you think for one minute he’d return the sentiment? No.

He held me in his arms. “That was wonderful.”

Then he proceeded to bend me over the desk for round two. It was just a little too much, all that length and size, but I could take it. He pounded me silly till I came again and again as he bit me on the back of the shoulder and then released again, all the way up inside me.

I’d long since become used to him coming inside me, unprotected sex. Vampires are sterile and they cannot get or carry STDs. Enrique could screw me till sunrise, make cream pies all night long, and never get me pregnant. He was the epitome of safe sex, a sterile, squeaky clean lover.

I knew he didn’t love me, but he cared, and he’s considerate. I’m stuck with him either way. I guess it didn’t matter because I was happier than I ever thought I could be.

So it worked out after all. This whole bloodslave thing wasn’t so bad. I had a man who cared for me, treated me with respect. I had a real career, an office, and a business wardrobe. I started taking online classes – intercultural etiquette. I began attending meetings regularly with Enrique. Sometimes I played the eye candy role in a low cut revealing evening dress, hanging on his arm at a high-class lounge or restaurant. At other times I would dress in Armani charcoal gray suits to sit in on office meetings with a notepad and simply observe everything and everyone.

For the most part things seemed routine, uneventful. There were no new Rahim’s or Emilio’s to unmask. These were average business people doing everyday business. Some of them had unspoken thoughts, but they were fairly unremarkable. One lady wanted a higher commission on the sale of a piece of real estate. One guy was hoping for a lower price on the shipping contract with Reguera Internacional S.A.. An attorney was disgruntled with the amount of work Enrique required on a contract negotiation. The guy charged five hundred an hour, lazy bastard.

I noticed this was fairly common among attorneys. Most were very intelligent, thought they were smarter that everyone else. But they were the laziest assholes I’d ever met. Attorneys get paid whether business is good or bad, come rain or shine. They make way too much money for doing very little. I didn’t have much good to say about attorneys. None of it surprised Enrique. He’d been dealing with them for a very long time. He repeatedly told me, “They are a necessary evil.”

He congratulated me for giving him that extra edge, the advantage of knowing a little more at those crucial moments. Knowing what an attorney really thought instead of being led down a dead-end road of litigation. Enrique decided not to pursue a lawsuit on a hundred thousand dollar unpaid debt because in the attorney’s mind, the guy was a turnip. Even if we won the lawsuit, how would we collect? This didn’t stop the attorney from pushing to sue. The asshole tried to collect a retainer of fifteen thousand to start a pointless lawsuit.

This inside track shared between Enrique and I and no other made for an especially intimate connection. I felt like I alone knew the innermost workings and decisions he made on a nightly basis. He consulted me after each meeting. He always considered my input prior to his decision. At some point I’d begun to think of everything as ‘we’. No more I or him. We were a team, and no one else entered our little circle of trust. Us against the world.

Our little circle of trust seemed inviolable and private, right up to the moment Lia came back from Spain.

I had just read a notice Enrique drafted to Emilio stating his company no longer required Emilio’s services as a broker. The consulting agreement between them was canceled. It sounded harsh, impersonal, but necessary under the circumstances. This reminded me of Rahim.

“What have you decided to do about Rahim?”

“I’m not sure there’s much I can do about him. He’s very well connected with the FBI.”

“So that’s it? He’s allowed to go on scamming people, ruining their lives without consequence?”

“What would you have me do? I can send Lia after him, I’m sure she’d be happy to take care of him for us.”

I’d been living in a complacent state of denial, Lia completely forgotten about. I liked it that way. I was taken aback Enrique would suggest such a horrid thing.

“Are you serious?”

“I don’t see what else can be done at the moment. If you truly feel strongly about putting a stop to them, I’ll send Lia. I guarantee he’ll be no further threat to anyone.”

“No! There must be another way. I wouldn’t wish her on my worst enemy.”

At that precise moment Lia Nguyen walked into Enrique’s office and smiled at me. “Are you sure you don’t want me to handle it? It would be so much fun. I was really looking forward to a good hunt.” She flexed her painted red claws to punctuate her words. Her mind filled with bloodbath imagery of carnage, showers of arterial flow. The girl was just straight up sick.

And Enrique must have been aware she returned from Spain. Their minds were connected always. He knew where she was at any moment he chose to check on her. I wished he warned me in advance that our pleasant private life together was officially over.

I don’t know what I’d been thinking. I knew she’d return someday, but I really enjoyed her absence and had put her out of my mind completely.

Enrique dealt with her sadistic desires casually. “Sorry to disappoint, no murder and mayhem tonight.”

She was disappointed. She’d been hoping I would give Enrique the go ahead. She enjoyed hunting people like a redneck with a deer tag, itching to escape the nine-to-five day job to go out and kill something, anything that moves. It was a rare exception she had permission to kill. It had been a very long time since she bathed in the blood of a man.

I hadn’t missed her one bit. I wished she’d turn around and go right back to Spain. Leave me be in my happy little bubble of rough sex and love. I expected to catch the usual hate-filled thoughts she broadcast every moment in my presence. She looked to me with a slight hint of condescension. Had she actually accepted me in her life with some measure of tolerance? Could it be? Will miracles never cease?

I spent the next few hours in the office typing up my reports, half my mind focused on Lia as she came and went past my desk into Enrique’s office. I never registered anything more than a mild annoyance from her, and that only occasionally. Surprisingly, I did catch something positive – sexual attraction. She stared at my legs. She wanted to reach up my skirt and play with me. That’s quite an improvement over fantasizing about my death. Sex I can deal with.

I glanced up and caught her staring at me with a hungry look as she imagined doing a hot lesbian number right there at my desk. I wasn’t sure how to react to her now. It seemed we were turning over a new leaf, awkward. I’m usually at home with my sexuality. It’s my currency in this world. But I’m not an escort anymore. I have a career. I don’t need to seduce anyone but Enrique, especially not someone who admittedly wants to kill me and wallow in my entrails while she’s at it.

I smiled at her. When all else fails I smile. It doesn’t mean I like you or want anything to do with you, it’s just a smile. Lia smiled back as she imagined fingering me and biting my breasts– the good kind of bite – not the tear you to pieces kind. This was so weird. She finally walked off after staring me down for a moment.

I didn’t know what to think of this new Lia. Seemed like a change for the better, she no longer wanted to kill me, for the moment. I should’ve taken it as a sign of things to come, but I didn’t. I spent the night finishing up my work and buzzed Enrique on the intercom to see what time he’d be visiting me in bed for our nightly session of sex and further biting. Four a.m. and he hadn’t bitten me since midnight, I needed him.

“Be ready in twenty minutes.”

I hurriedly stripped and bathed, rubbing floral-scented oil on my skin for the best effect. I know he doesn’t love me, but if I try to please him every way I can, maybe that will change eventually. I awaited him dressed in my blood-red silk bathrobe – Enrique preferred me in red. He showed up right on time, smiling brightly as he entered my room. He hugged me close, sniffing the scent on my oiled neck. Lia walked in the door behind him dressed in nothing but a burgundy red silk bathrobe. I thought I looked better in mine than she did hers, my golden tanned skin and more feminine curves.