Manuela Cardiga's Blog, page 13

Chronicles of A Middle-Aged Vampire PART 4

The man was worried I'd make a mistake? I'd already murdered my husband, how much more of a "mistake" could I make?

I sat up slowly, expecting my head to explode in pain and felt nothing. No twinge from the stitches, no throbbing from the bruised bone of my skull. I felt great.

I squinted my eyes to get a better look at my earstwise "attacker". "What do you want?" I asked, "Haven't you done enough?"

He stepped forward and into the dim blueish glow of the presence light over my bed. "I'm sorry, I must apologise again, but we need to talk. There is much I have to explain to you..."

"You certainly do! Like what you were doing in my bed, and what you did to me. I killed my husband, do you realise that? Tore his neck out and drank up his blood."

The man nodded and started wringing his hands again. I had a feeling it was a habitual gesture and very annoying. "I'm sorry..."

"Stop saying that!" I snapped, "And lets get to what matters: What did you do to me?"

He hummed a bit and shuffled from foot to foot. " I...That is...I turned you. Into a Vampire."

"Right!" I snapped, " So where is the glowing skin and the instant face lift? Where are the fangs?"

"Oh!" He said, " The fangs take time, and I'm afraid the other stuff is only propaganda..."

"Propaganda?"

"Well, it seems that a couple of hundred years ago the Council did a recruitment drive. They sort of promised eternal beauty along with eternal life.."

"And it's all crock, of course?"

"Not the extended lifespan. That is quite true. But the rest? How you are is how you stay. For as long as you live."

"What? Warts and all?"

"Yes, exactly!"

"And saggy tits?"

"I'm afraid so...Hence my myopia."

"I see."

"Which is why Sheila was such a wonderful candidate! She's so beautiful, so perfect!"

"Yes...Isn't she?" I am ashamed to say that there was a trace of acid to my tone, " Thank God for plastic surgery!"

"Erh.... I'm sorry to tell you..."

"You spend a lot of time being sorry, have you noticed?"

He blushed blue. believe it or not and stammered: "Ye-ye-yes...Bu-but I really am! You see, the body allows no changes. What ever you get done it will revert to the original state at turning in 24 hours."

BUMMER!

Chronicles Of A Middle-Aged Vampire - PART 3

No blood. A dead body and no blood. How should I explain this? And then the answer came to me.

I shouldn't. I was a victim. I knew nothing. It would be as much a mystery to me as to the Police.

I should not manufacture clues or proof to deceive forensics. I was in my own home, in my own room. My fingerprints, my DNA, even Frank's blood on me were to be expected. I had been packing to go to my mother's, to get away from a house that had become a scene of trauma when someone had struck me. I had come to to find my husband dead.

That was all. The whole story. Let the Police look for murder weapons, leads and suspects. All I needed to do was to wash my face and give myself was some kind of head-trauma. A nice photogenic bruise or an impressive scalp wound.

I got myself up, washed my face and gargled with mouthwash, spewing the residue into the toilet so I could flush away any traces of Frank's blood mingled with my saliva. Then I walked back into the bedroom. Now, where would I knock my head? Ah! THERE! I walked over to the cupboard with its full length mirror and reached in to grasp a hanger, then swung my head sideways sharply into the glass.

The impact darkened my sight, dulled my hearing. I felt myself staggering and let myself fall. Hot blood was pouring down the side of my face, pooling on the hardwood floor in a very satisfactory way. I pushed myself up, grasped the side of the door and got to my feet.

There was Frank, dead as a door-nail a few feet away. I stumbled over and knelt beside him, placed my hands on his chest, then pressed my bloody cheek to his silent heart. There!

I reached for my phone on the bed-side and pushed the emergency number with blood-stained fingers. When the operator answered I screamed: "He came back, he came back! Please help me, I think my husband's dead!"

I crawled back on my hands and knees and pulled Frank's oily head onto my lap. A very touching scene and guaranteed to confuse traces of any unlikely behaviour or blood trails. I also ended up soiling my beloved Aubusson, but hey! It's a small price to pay for getting away with murder, even if the rug was over 200 years old.

I settled down to wait and I am sure I presented a touching if gory tableau for the responding officers. The bedroom with the open suitcase, the scattered clothes, my dead husband and me touchingly cradling him in my grieving arms, tears mingling with the blood clotting the side of my swelling face. Very nice indeed!

It was very gratifying. The Police arrived, and I was sped away in an ambulance back to hospital, with a compress on the side of my face to staunch the bleeding. Once admitted they administered a sedative and that was that for me.

I came to much later in a quiet and dim room with my daughter sitting next to me holding on to my hand and weeping. "Sheila?"

"Mom!" My brash and bouncy daughter was swollen-eyed and hoarse with grief, "Oh Mom, I don't know what I would do if I lost you too."

"Frank?" I mumbled, "Frank? Is he..." I gasped and let tears of relief trickle out.

"Oh Mom, he's gone..."

"It's my fault!" I cried truthfully, "I killed him!"

"No Mom! The Police said your attacker came back... Dad walked in on him... You're lucky you survived."

"It was my fault..." I let myself fall back weakly on my pillow. In truth, I felt as strong as a horse.

A nurse came in and check my pulse, looked surprised but gratified and told Sheila she had to leave. I had had a great shock, lost a great deal of blood and needed my rest.

Lovely. I closed my eyes as my daughter tenderly kissed me goodbye and fell instantly asleep

When I woke it was dark and silent, and there at the foot of my bed was the tall and gangly silhouette of my attacker.

"Mrs Valginsky?" He whispered, "Are you awake? We need to talk before you make a mistake..."


MC

Chronicles Of A Middle-Aged Vampire - PART 2

I started to cry. I have never been a weepy sort of woman, but this had been a very stressful evening for me. My husband of more than thirty years was leaving me, I was going to lose my home, what I had taken for a delightful erotic dream had been abuse - a man "seducing" me by mistake - and that weirdo was siting on my bed crying in regret.

"Please!" he cried, "You must believe me! I had no desire to..."
I started giggling through my snotty tears. The story of my mediocre life seemed to have reached a climax, and it was a pathetic farce, to say the least. I was 55 and a man was sitting on my bed confessing that he had "no desire" for me. His eager erection had been a case of mistaken identity...

I finally grasped the phone and punched in that magic code of salvation "112". The man gasped- "Wait! I must explain!"
A voice answered and I screamed "RAPE! Help me! Hep!"
Surprisingly, the man made no move to rip the phone away, to strike me or to stop me. He got up and backed out of the room wringing those pale hands. "Please, stay home today, I will be back to explain the changes. Stay home. Please! You will be a great danger..."

A howl of sirens and a screech of tires announced the miraculously speedy arrival of the coppers and he ran to the landing and vanished from my sight.

An hour later I was sitting on a hospital bed in a paper gown having been submitted to a humiliating examination by a scrawny kid-doctor who reeked of Clearasil. The policewoman who sat with me kept patting my hand and saying "There now, there now..."

I couldn't wait for this to be over, so I could go home, take a shower and wash away that awful yesterday - every last second and hour.

It was ten by the time they dropped me off. It had taken four hellish hours to process my complaint, and that misty dawn had birthed a miserable muggy day. One good thing, there had been no actual penetration, so that particular violation I had been spared - but I told the Police about his veiled threat that "I would be in great danger" so they sent me home in a unit with a policeman to search my house, and see if it was safe.

I was so tired. I could not remember feeling this tired before.Ever. I watched impatiently as the officer walked through the house, stumbling upstairs in his wake.

"All clear, Ma'm. I'll close the door on my way out. You call us at any sign of trouble, OK?"

I nodded dumbly and listen for the click of the latch. From long habit I walked into my conjugal bedroom and fell onto the bed. In seconds I was fast asleep.

I slept like the dead, and woke to chaos. Frank was opening and shutting drawers, flinging clothes into a gaping suitcase in the middle of the floor. My drawers, my clothes.

"What...what are you doing?"

"Get up you lazy bitch!" he snarled.

"Frank?"

"I want you out! Take your shit: go to your mother, or your brother, but get out."

I started to feel peeved. "You can't do that. It's my house too."

Frank grinned. I had discovered over the years that his grin was as ugly as his smile was charming. "Stay if you like. But I am bringing my fiancé to live with me. Tonight."

My slow anger stirred. "You can't do that!"

"Yes I can." That ugly grin again, like a snarl. "I can and I am."
He opened the closet and started pulling out my dresses. "Don't you want to know who you will be sharing your home with?"

A stirring of foreboding: "No!"

"No? We've been having it on for fifteen years, Greta. We don't even hide it much anymore. I'm sure you must know. How dumb can you be?"

"Please Frank, don't say something you will regret."

He started to laugh. Frank's laugh was as ugly as his grin. "ReGreta! That's what we call you: my big fat saggy-tit ReGreta!"

A wave of rage blasted through my stomach and up into my brain. "Stop! STOP!" He didn't, which is why the blame for his untimely demise can be laid firmly at his door.

"Me and Rosa. Your baby-sis, Rosa." His face twisted again, "And as soon as I'm shot of you, I'm marrying her."

"Rosa and I," I corrected him automatically, and then that flower of rage exploded into a vision of Rosa. Vapid, porcelain-pretty Rosa who had so despised my "low-class" husband and his crude ways, derided my hunger for a small and peaceful life. I saw Rosa with her pink mouth opening into a delighted "oh" under Frank's thrusts, her manicured nails clawing at his hairy back, winding her thin cellulite-free thighs around his heavy hips. Rosa.

The agony of trust betrayed, love soured, belief soiled, ripped through the anger. I knew, I suddenly knew that half their pleasure had derived from imagining my pain. "Why?" I screamed, "WHY?"
Then scarlet blinded me, deafened me, took me down into darkness.

I came back to myself and utter silence. I was standing in the middle of my bedroom, and at my feet sprawled Frank. He was on his back with his mouth wide open and a thin silver string of saliva hanging down his chin. His eyes were wide and surprised, his neck ripped. It looked like a scene from those CSI shows I liked to watch when I thought he was in the pub every night drinking with the boys.

It was exactly like one of the shows, except that it smelled and there was no blood. Frank had pissed his pants. There was a dark stain on the front of his trousers and by the sickly smell, he'd defecated too. His deep wound showed raw red flesh and whitish strands twisting though what I supposed was the yellowy fat of his jowls, but no blood spattered the floor, pooled on the carpet.

There was a strange and unfamiliar tang on my tongue - coppery, thick and rich. Like undercooked blood pudding. It tasted rather good.

It suddenly occurred to me that this detachment signalled madness. My husband was dead and here I was standing, coldly analysing the vivid sensations washing over me.

I stepped over him and walked into the bathroom. I stood in front of the mirror and saw that there was a wide stain around my mouth, like I'd been making out in blood-red lipstick. There was blood on my teeth too. I must have killed Frank in my blind rage, tore into his neck like a rabid dog. My knees failed me and I sat down heavily on the toilet. I cradled my head in my hands, and felt a sloshing heaviness in my belly.

I had killed Frank. I had become a murderess. The words of my attacker sounded clear as a bell: "You will BE a great danger..."

THAT is what he had said. Not "You will be IN great danger..." I was a danger, I myself. He was right and the proof of it lay in the bedroom, on my grandmother's pink and pearl Aubusson rug.

The absent disjointed though flitted through my head, that thankfully Frank hadn't ruined my priceless heirloom with his blood.

MC

The Chronicles Of A Middle-Aged Vampire.PART 1

PART 1

It was Frank's fault, all of it. The misery that was my life from age 17 to 55, and why I became a vampire.

You might suppose I am going to tell you a sob-story about a teen pregnancy and a man with heavy fists, but that is not how it played out. I am resolved to be honest here, so don't expect to hear pretty excuses for my bad calls. My life was a chain of lousy choices, until that last fatal night when I had no choice at all.

My name is Greta Schultz. I was born in London to a pair of reasonably well-off  Austrians  who'd escaped from the war as child immigrants. They met, married and proceeded to reproduce in time-honoured tradition. I have three brothers, one sister. I was raised to be clean, disciplined and well-behaved; went to a good school, had high marks and a regrettable taste for low company.

That was my "fatal flaw". I liked the cant of the dialect in my Cockney class-mates voices, I envied their short flouncy uniform skirts and slutty heels when I was forced into knee-length pleated respectability and patent buckle-shoes over white frilly socks, even at sixteen. I wanted to chew gum, and drink beer and lose my virginity at the back of the bus. I wanted to be bad, and so when Frank Valginsky sauntered into my life I was more than ready to be charmed, seduced, and deceived. In fact, you could say I did it all myself.

Frank was twenty-three and he was "rough-trade". It was there in his square blue-shadowed jaw, his thick lips that pouted in brutal lust, the tight leather pants over his broad thighs. He was "rough-trade" and I wanted him at first sight.

I made the first move. He had come to pick up his sister May in his souped-up old bike, and I was waiting by the steps for my mother to arrive. I saw him. I just saw him and I wanted him. That was it. No smarmy excuses. I walked down those steps like I was walking on air, stopped in front of him and stared into his eyes.

He stared back, and then he smiled. He had a charming smile, did Frank. Wide and sweet, and he had these dimples you'd want to poke with your finger to see if they were really that deep... He smiled and said: "Hey there...Want to go for a ride?" So I did. We ended up in the back room of his auto-shop, having sex on a narrow cot with a poster of a blond woman with gigantic breasts hanging up over it.

To this day I still remember, gripping Frank's shoulders and grimacing in pain, meeting the busty blond's eyes as she smiled vapidly, pretending her fat nipples weren't poking out between her primly posed fingers.

I remember the poster and the smell of burn engine oil, and the scent of Frank's salty skin. I remember thinking that I was now a woman, and about to start a free and exciting life with a strong, passionate man by my side.

What an idiot! Frank was indeed passionate, and single-minded in his pursuit of me. He wanted to marry me and I was dizzy with desire to do exactly that. My parents disagreed, so we eloped.

I married Frank and we moved into a tiny box of a flat with an oven, an old rusty fridge and a big double bed. That was it. A week later I got a job working as a typist in a solicitor's office and started putting every penny I earned into making that box a home a man would be proud of - while Frank started his life-long investment in a beer-gut.

A few years later I thought that if we had a baby, Frank would be more likely to spend his time at home rather than at the pub swilling beer and playing darts.

It worked. More or less. Frank would be home right up to Sheila's bed-time. Sheila would fall asleep and Frank would walk out. I should have know then what that meant - but I have to confess that I was astounded when he called me into the kitchen two weeks ago and asked me to sit down.

He was leaving me, he said. Sheila had finally moved out ("about bloody time she's 27!") and so he, Frank, was "finally free".

"Free?" I asked, "Free of what?"

"Free of you. I want a divorce, Greta."

"A divorce?" I couldn't believe it. It wasn't the happiest of marriages, but there was no violence, no hate - only a low grade sadness, loneliness - the sour tang of disappointment I had never thought he felt.

"There is someone else. Has been for years."

"Years?" I repeated stupidly.

"You knew! You had to know! Not even YOU could be that dumb!"

"No, I didn't...I didn't."

"Well Sheila's gone, and there is no need to keep this up, so I want to sell the house."

"My house? Where will I go? What will I do?"

He looked at me, really looked for the first time in more than twenty years. I could see him taking in my saggy tits, my scruffy baggy-kneed leggings.

"Get a fucking life." He turned and left, just like that. Closed the door behind him and left me behind as he had for a life-time of nights.

I went into "our" bedroom and got my flannel nighty, my pillow, my cell-phone and my alarm clock. I took "my life" to the room next door, Sheila's empty room. I lay on that bed, surrounded by her perfume - the scent of a vibrant girl with everything to play for and no regrets - and I fell asleep.

I dreamed a man was kissing me, loving me. Not Frank. Frank's touch was rough, and what had once excited had long since lost it's charm. This man touched me as if I was precious, desirable, fragile. I heard myself moan and his answering sigh.

"Oh my love, my love...I have waited eons for you, I will love you for eternity..." And then I felt a thin exquisite sting as he nipped my neck. I cried out at the pain, shuddered at the pleasure, and fell into a strange daze.

I woke from that strange erotic dream in the half light of pre-dawn to find a thin young man sitting on the edge of the bed wringing his hands and sobbing.

"I'm so sorry, so very sorry! It was all a terrible mistake. I can't tell you how I regret..."

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" The memory of the dream had me pull the comforter up over my breasts. "Oh my God! It wasn't a dream! You raped me!"

"No, no...You must understand..."

I screamed and the man lifted up his very long thin spidery hands in a frantic gesture of regret. "I had no intention...It was a mistake! Please, you must believe me! I thought you were Sheila!"

"Sheila? You were planning to rape my daughter?" I screamed, "My daughter?"

"No, no! I was supposed to be turning her, not you!"

"Turning her?"I was feeling for my cell-phone on the bed-side table, I was going to call 112, keep him talking until the Police got here.

"Well, into a Vampire, of course - like me. I love her so much, but I'm afraid I made a mistake...I'm short sighted, I thought it was Sheila's room, It smelled like Sheila, I thought it was you. I turned you. You are now Immortal. I am so very sorry. I can't apologise enough..."

A nut-case rapist who'd watched too many movies, no less. A wild giggle escaped my lips. What I had taken for an erotic dream had been some kind of weird assault. I had been attacked by mistake.


Manuela Cardiga

Chronicles Of A Middle-Aged Vampire.

PART 1

It was Frank's fault, all of it. The misery that was my life from age 17 to 55, and why I became a vampire.

You might suppose I am going to tell you a sob-story about a teen pregnancy and a man with heavy fists, but that is not how it played out. I am resolved to be honest here, so don't expect to hear pretty excuses for my bad calls. My life was a chain of lousy choices, until that last fatal night when I had no choice at all.

My name is Greta Schultz. I was born in London to a pair of reasonably well-off  Austrians  who'd escaped from the war as child immigrants. They met, married and proceeded to reproduce in time-honoured tradition. I have three brothers, one sister. I was raised to be clean, disciplined and well-behaved; went to a good school, had high marks and a regrettable taste for low company.

That was my "fatal flaw". I liked the cant of the dialect in my Cockney class-mates voices, I envied their short flouncy uniform skirts and slutty heels when I was forced into knee-length pleated respectability and patent buckle-shoes over white frilly socks, even at sixteen. I wanted to chew gum, and drink beer and lose my virginity at the back of the bus. I wanted to be bad, and so when Frank Valginsky sauntered into my life I was more than ready to be charmed, seduced, and deceived. In fact, you could say I did it all myself.

Frank was twenty-three and he was "rough-trade". It was there in his square blue-shadowed jaw, his thick lips that pouted in brutal lust, the tight leather pants over his broad thighs. He was "rough-trade" and I wanted him at first sight.

I made the first move. He had come to pick up his sister May in his souped-up old bike, and I was waiting by the steps for my mother to arrive. I saw him. I just saw him and I wanted him. That was it. No smarmy excuses. I walked down those steps like I was walking on air, stopped in front of him and stared into his eyes.

He stared back, and then he smiled. He had a charming smile, did Frank. Wide and sweet, and he had these dimples you'd want to poke with your finger to see if they were really that deep... He smiled and said: "Hey there...Want to go for a ride?" So I did. We ended up in the back room of his auto-shop, having sex on a narrow cot with a poster of a blond woman with gigantic breasts hanging up over it.

To this day I still remember, gripping Frank's shoulders and grimacing in pain, meeting the busty blond's eyes as she smiled vapidly, pretending her fat nipples weren't poking out between her primly posed fingers.

I remember the poster and the smell of burn engine oil, and the scent of Frank's salty skin. I remember thinking that I was now a woman, and about to start a free and exciting life with a strong, passionate man by my side.

What an idiot! Frank was indeed passionate, and single-minded in his pursuit of me. He wanted to marry me and I was dizzy with desire to do exactly that. My parents disagreed, so we eloped.

I married Frank and we moved into a tiny box of a flat with an oven, an old rusty fridge and a big double bed. That was it. A week later I got a job working as a typist in a solicitor's office and started putting every penny I earned into making that box a home a man would be proud of - while Frank started his life-long investment in a beer-gut.

A few years later I thought that if we had a baby, Frank would be more likely to spend his time at home rather than at the pub swilling beer and playing darts.

It worked. More or less. Frank would be home right up to Sheila's bed-time. Sheila would fall asleep and Frank would walk out. I should have know then what that meant - but I have to confess that I was astounded when he called me into the kitchen two weeks ago and asked me to sit down.

He was leaving me, he said. Sheila had finally moved out ("about bloody time she's 27!") and so he, Frank, was "finally free".

"Free?" I asked, "Free of what?"

"Free of you. I want a divorce, Greta."

"A divorce?" I couldn't believe it. It wasn't the happiest of marriages, but there was no violence, no hate - only a low grade sadness, loneliness - the sour tang of disappointment I had never thought he felt.

"There is someone else. Has been for years."

"Years?" I repeated stupidly.

"You knew! You had to know! Not even YOU could be that dumb!"

"No, I didn't...I didn't."

"Well Sheila's gone, and there is no need to keep this up, so I want to sell the house."

"My house? Where will I go? What will I do?"

He looked at me, really looked for the first time in more than twenty years. I could see him taking in my saggy tits, my scruffy baggy-kneed leggings.

"Get a fucking life." He turned and left, just like that. Closed the door behind him and left me behind as he had for a life-time of nights.

I went into "our" bedroom and got my flannel nighty, my pillow, my cell-phone and my alarm clock. I took "my life" to the room next door, Sheila's empty room. I lay on that bed, surrounded by her perfume - the scent of a vibrant girl with everything to play for and no regrets - and I fell asleep.

I dreamed a man was kissing me, loving me. Not Frank. Frank's touch was rough, and what had once excited had long since lost it's charm. This man touched me as if I was precious, desirable, fragile. I heard myself moan and his answering sigh.

"Oh my love, my love...I have waited eons for you, I will love you for eternity..." And then I felt a thin exquisite sting as he nipped my neck. I cried out at the pain, shuddered at the pleasure, and fell into a strange daze.

I woke from that strange erotic dream in the half light of pre-dawn to find a thin young man sitting on the edge of the bed wringing his hands and sobbing.

"I'm so sorry, so very sorry! It was all a terrible mistake. I can't tell you how I regret..."

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" The memory of the dream had me pull the comforter up over my breasts. "Oh my God! It wasn't a dream! You raped me!"

"No, no...You must understand..."

I screamed and the man lifted up his very long thin spidery hands in a frantic gesture of regret. "I had no intention...It was a mistake! Please, you must believe me! I thought you were Sheila!"

"Sheila? You were planning to rape my daughter?" I screamed, "My daughter?"

"No, no! I was supposed to be turning her, not you!"

"Turning her?"I was feeling for my cell-phone on the bed-side table, I was going to call 112, keep him talking until the Police got here.

"Well, into a Vampire, of course - like me. I love her so much, but I'm afraid I made a mistake...I'm short sighted, I thought it was Sheila's room, It smelled like Sheila, I thought it was you. I turned you. You are now Immortal. I am so very sorry. I can't apologise enough..."

A nut-case rapist who'd watched too many movies, no less. A wild giggle escaped my lips. What I had taken for an erotic dream had been some kind of weird assault. I had been attacked by mistake.


Manuela Cardiga

A FRIEND'S SMILEHeart's easeAnd sweetest blessing;The kin...

A FRIEND'S SMILE

Heart's ease
And sweetest blessing;
The kindness is the balm,
The love the soul's
Richest alm.

MC

THE THINGS SHE WON'T FORGETStrange how the traveling mind...

THE THINGS SHE WON'T FORGET

Strange how the traveling mind
Torments the squirming soul.
Even now that she has grown
Old, and the feverish anger cold.

Even now as she sits where she wills
Drinks wine, snarls or spits;
Even now that freedom should be
Second nature:

Something in her squints
Cringes and flinches,
At the casual danger in a voice,
A face, even if a stranger.

Even now as she sits in the warmth
And the winter sun unfolds
The pain from knees twisted
By age into fancyful shapes.

Even now she recalls
The slap of his flesh
And the burning sour-sticky
Rain of his sweat.

Manuela Cardiga

I think we are watching the fall of the American Republic...

I think we are watching the fall of the American Republic.

America is on the verge of the Second American Civil War - the very same situation that saw the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Caesars.

In 8 years time, Robert Kennedy Jr could easily take the throne by popular acclaim, institute the Pax Americana. The blood of martyrs makes the deepest purple.

From "Conversations with Ivan Shapiro"

It has always been easier to foment fear in a population ...

It has always been easier to foment fear in a population than to inspire confidence and security.

From "Conversations with Ivan Shapiro"

YOU AND IWe will not be lovers,Nor smile that secret,Nor ...

YOU AND I

We will not be lovers,
Nor smile that secret,
Nor mingle scent
And kisses.

We will not be lovers
I have seen you lie.

MC