Blood Vivicanti (9780989878579) Read Online Free PDF Page B

haven’t read
it.
    But it is more popular
than The Joy of Sex and the Harry Potter series.
     
     
     
     
    Booksellers put it in the
fiction section.
    That disappointed Wyn. He
always considered his book to be “the greatest work next to
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra .”
    The publisher titled
it Life’s Okay! They put on the jacket cover the image of a boy and a girl
walking hand-in-hand through a field of summertime
violets.
    Wyn had based the book on
my own personal experiences. He had titled it very
differently:
     
    The Platypus
Theory
     
     
     
     
    Wyn was also very sad when
my Blood Memories faded from him. He had truly enjoyed having a
photographic memory for a week. He can still remember reading books
on poetry, on cooking, on fitness, on science and psychology and
astrophysics. But he can’t remember anything about them. Not even
the titles.
    Sometimes I catch him
looking at me, not leering, just gazing nostalgically. The way a
father might gaze at his daughter on her wedding day. Indeed, Wyn’s
been a gentleman. He’s never asked me again to drink my blood. He’s
never again expressed the hope of eating my Blood
Memories.
    I would let him. He need
only ask. Gifts are meant to be shared.
     
     
     
     
    Once the week passed, it
was time for us three Blood Vivicanti to feed again.
    “ One person, one pint,” Wyn
told Theo and me before he left.
    Wyn would hunt
alone.
    Theo offered to show me the
ropes. He planned to drink the blood of a good cook. He’d always
wanted to be skilled at cooking. The chef’s Blood Memories would
give him the skill to whip-up savory meals for the next four or
five days.
    Who was I going to drink
from?
    No clue.
    It was the first time I
had to feed off a person – I had to hunt – I had to pierce
someone’s neck with my tongue – I had to drink blood – and I had to
eat memories.
    It felt a little too
intimate for an introvert. I wondered if I could stay home that
week.
    Theo laughed at me, though
not unkindly.
     
     
     
     
    I hemmed and hawed all
day.
    Theo was patient, but
finally he took me by the hand.
    “ It’s getting late,” he
said. “We must go now.”
    He guided me from the
mansion. I liked being guided.
     
     
     
     
    Theo took me to the center
of Idyllville.
    Village stores encircled
the square. Most shops sold kitschy items like coonskin caps or
sparkly stones or a miniature model of Idyllville in a snow globe.
Cool Beans Coffee House was there. A restaurant called The Gnome’s
Gastro was there. Tourists were everywhere.
    Theo and I moved fast. We
leaped up on the roof of a shop. We perched like hungry hawks. No
one saw us.
    Many tourists had gathered
in the village square. It was evening. The stores would close soon.
The square would empty soon after that.
    Theo pointed to a teenage
girl. She was walking alone. She was carrying a violin case. She
was from the Academy. She was my china doll.
    “ My Madeleine,” I said
softly as I exhaled.
     
     
     
     
    Theo wanted me to pierce
my china doll’s neck with my tongue, he wanted me to drink her
blood, he wanted me to eat her memories. And that’s not a problem
these days. But he wanted Madeleine to be my first piercing. And my
first piercing was very difficult. The first always is. I was
utterly terrified of the great thunderclap of deeper
intimacy.
     
     
     
     
    I didn’t think I could
pierce my china doll. I wasn’t sure if I wanted her memories in
me.
    Sticking out my tongue, I
could barely see the tip. I tapped it, but couldn’t feel my
stinger.
    Theo put his hand on my
back. The touch felt good. “The Probiscus will come out when you’re
ready,” he said. “It just happens. You can’t control
it.”
    He was drawn to the
gravity of my china doll, just like everyone else. But he also
thought she was as beautiful as a broken teacup. My china doll’s
brokenness wasn’t beautiful. The potential to be repaired, that was
gorgeous to him.
    He thought that my china
doll would be perfect for