Trials
by Dan Bonser

	Her finger tips glided across my cheek.  I leaned against them, like a cat longing to be stroked.  Her voice resonated in the small room, filling my life with purity, “So, Ian, do you enjoy what you’ve become?”
	Such a simple question....  Thoughts of countless dead humans laying behind me as I walk haunt my every waking minute.  How much beauty have I wiped from the face of this planet?  When I rest, in the darkness, hiding from the sun’s light, dreams of women begging for their lives haunt me.  A mental torment, I should have known was coming, but was too ignorant to realize.  The nauseating undulation of time floats past me, ever so slowly, yet so quickly I can actually watch grass grow....
	Yet underneath it all, part of me feels truly alive.  One could sit and watch the stars fly through the night’s sky for eternity, if it weren’t for the accursed star that creates the day.  All my senses are heightened, the sheer amount I missed in the use of smell is by far the most astounding.  Like....the way She smells.  The dry pureness of Her skin, the sweet odor of the perfume She enjoys, the smell of the clothes that cling to Her beautiful form.  The smell of power, drifts from Her, and timelessness.  A beauty that has lasted far beyond anything mortal, far beyond anything imaginable.
	I open my eyes, to see Her smile, as it closes in to kiss me.  The sweet taste of Her mouth, partially tastes of the blood of the man named Jonathon.  His body gone, turned to the dust that the human husk turns after one of our kind is finished with it.  Such a strong, powerful man will surely be missed by...someone.
	“I enjoy what you’ve become, Love,” She whispers after the kiss.
	Her hands beckon me to follow Her, and I do, for I know I always shall.  The small storehouse She acquired for us is sufficient, enough to keep away the sun.  I still don’t like this place, too spacious, yet cramped.  So much dust, like time had forgotten this small store room.  I shiver, even though cold does not affect me, if I were still human, I’d say it was a shiver that would accompany a bad feeling, but I left those superstitions in the sun....
	She lays me down gently on the bed, whispering softly, “You did well this night, my Love.  Are you still having problems thinking about what you did?”
	I’m trying to avoid the thought in my head, the memory of what I just did.  I reply, “I always shall,” to Her, and it such the truth.
	Her smirk is prevalent in her voice as She whispers, “I told you to worry not, you aren’t one of them any more, its not wrong to do what you did with a member of the sex you used to be.”
	A tear forms in my left eye, “It felt wrong.”  That was the best way to put it.  As wrong as it was, it was still right....  The touching, the fondling, the kissing, the caressing...the penetration.  The tear escapes from my eye.
	A finger traces over my chest, Her voice sympathetic above me, “It will.  For a long time it will, but it is mandatory that you get past this taboo.  Humans are our food, and you are what you eat.  If you eat fat sloths you will become fat and slothful.  There are less extremely strong women, then there are men.  The beautiful women are normally fit, yet not powerful.  To maintain strength, you must consume the strong.”
	Almost verbatim of her speech to talk me into this endeavor.  Tears flow freely, as I pull her lips down to mine, as my back hits the soft down of the bed below me, a thundering crash rings throughout the small room.  The most powerful creature I have ever known, is yanked off of me and thrown across the room like a doll.  And suddenly I found myself being thrown across the room after her.
	Powerful arms catch me out of the air, disorientation makes me reel as I’m carried like a sack of grain.  My eyes dart about, yet I find it hard make sense of anything that I see.  My arms and legs flail against my capture, I might as well shake my fist at the sky.  I can’t find it in me to yell out, as fear rises up to greet me.  A single thought echoes through my mind, “I punched a hole through steel...what is this?”
	I realize that I am outside, so close to dawn, when the sound of  the idling engine of a truck breaks through my fear.  I look to where I think I am being taken, and can make out a...box of some sort.  Even though it is...above me, orientation wise, I can see all the dimensions.  I’m not sure how, but suddenly I get the impression that it is transparent.
	Then I watch as She is dumped into it, a lifeless doll, I feel myself attempt to scream her name, but bite it back, remembering my promise.  I then start kicking and punching again, my mind screams, “She needs me....” as I realize that She cannot die, and must be unconscious....
	A female voice says, “One can always tell a New Blood.”
	A male voice answers, I can feel his chest resonate, as he holds me, “Aye, that one can.  You think someday, one would fathom what was happening.”
	The female voice laughs, “If a New Blood ever did realize what was going on, the would fight harder....”
	The male chuckles as he steps up to the platform the box is sitting on, that’s when I realize that it is in the back of some kind of enclosed truck.
	My eyes frantically search into the box, ignoring the dark figures that enter the truck behind the male.  She lays there, wide eyed, staring at me...not unconscious....  Her eyes full of...sadness, and helplessness.  My shock at the vision of Her resigned to her fate, makes my mind body completely numb, long enough to be unceremoniously dumped face first on top of her.
	As soon as my skin touches her’s the, shock fades, and I panic.  I push off of her in time to feel the lid to the box slam down on my back.  I feel her breasts flattened against my chest as I use all my strength to push against the lid.  With me pushing up and off of her, maybe two inches of air lie between us.  Her hand meekly brushes my cheek, her eyes full of sadness, her voice about to crack, “Calm, my Love.”
	Her voice calms me, slightly.  I slowly start regaining my faculties and say, “Where are we?”
	A smirk breaks the despair of her face, “Captured.”
	The word resonates through my head, like a gong.  “Captured?  How can we be captured?”
	I hear laughter outside the box, I had not realized that I had said that out loud.  I look to my left, only to see my reflection...then to my right, to see the same....  “A...mirror?”  Then my face pales.  “One way mirror?”
	A tear caused by sheer humiliation runs down my cheek and lands on Her’s.  Her smirk breaks into a smile, as she puts a finger to my lips and says, “No matter what may come, I am glad I gave you this existence, I am glad I had the chance love you.”
	My eyes meet Her’s, the finality of what she said sinks into my bones.  A chill that rushes through my body, and settles into my soul.  Suddenly, the image of Her and I pressed together, in a transparent box, naked and prostrate, fades out of my mind, and I kiss her, out lips seeking each other out, like it is going to be the last time.  And as I make love to Her, the thought of the beings watching us fade from my mind, and afterwards, I fall into a sleep, a sleep that comes over me in a torrent, with Her whispering voice in my ear, “I shall wake you before we arrive, my beautiful love.”
	Dreams flood over me, I haven’t dreamed since...since the last time I slept.  Dreams of faces of victims slain by my hand....  And blood....  So much blood.  Screams of pain, and ecstacy, and one word above all....
	“NO!”
	My head bounces off the lid to the compact, see through box.  I look down into Her eyes, and she smiles.  “Sorry about that, it made for a faster trip....”
	“What happened?”
	I hear laughter resonate outside the box as She says, “Just something I learned once....”
	I sigh as I lay down against her soft body.  “How much longer?”
	“Less than an hour....”
	“How long was I under?”
	“Not sure, days, I think maybe a week....”
	“How...how did...?”
	A female voice answers from outside the box, “We fed thy thirst, New Blood.  Can’t have one as young as thyself needing before the Elders.”
	I look down at my Love, and She answers the questions in my eyes, “This is going to be one of the hardest things you will ever do, above all else, remember, you are an immortal being, act like one.”
	I sigh as I lay back down on Her....  I feel Her entire body pressed under mine, all Her muscles, Her hardness, Her softness.  I smell her hair, and hold the scent of Her skin in my nose.  Then I feel the motion of the truck stop, finally.  I close my eyes and remember, remember standing on top of a cathedral, looking down on the masses, knowing how much more I had become, feeling the pride, in knowledge, that I was above all petty mortal cares.
	I feel the hands close on my arms, and pull me from the box.  The darkness of night surrounds me as I am led from the truck, and into a huge stone structure.  I don’t have enough time to make it out, but the sand beneath my feet and the old smell, makes me think of something....Egyptian.
	Inside the entrance, I hold my head high, as beings older than any ancestor of mine that I could name, point, hiss, or openly laugh.  Part of me wants to cry for being naked in front of them, as I am hoisted high above them, and put on a cart that hangs on some kind of track along the ceiling.
	I look down upon all the faces below me, and realize some are humans.  They are easy to make out with the marks on their necks, being led by a vampire master, like dogs.  Some are locked in cages along the walls, most are terrified.  As well they should be.  I then focus on the faces of the vampires themselves.  And see the ages in their eyes, centuries of living in the darkness.  And in all of their eyes, I see they all despise me.
	The cart lurches and we start moving above the throngs, I don’t look at the others on the cart, not even a glance.  I simply assume that She is here with my captures and I.  Then suddenly I feel a foot in my back, and strength beyond anything I ever imagined pulling my hair, arms and legs backwards.
	I open my mouth to cry out in pain, but bite it back.  Images of my old human bones snapping and breaking race through my mind as I feel shackles clamp across my wrists and ankles.  I hear the Vampires below me laughing.  Whether or not its at me in pain, or me getting pulled in such a way my genitals are forced, obscenely, to just out from my body, as my body is bent in ways it was never designed.
	I try to tug my head back up, and realize that my hair is intertwined with the shackles somehow, and then an odd noise drifts up from the shackles themselves.  And then I feel what feels like a nob in my back, pushing it forward, away from my hands and feet, replacing the foot that had been at my back pushing my spine forward.
	I bite my teeth together, and hear myself growl, instead of grunt.  I feel my canines extend, and my clenched teeth become a snarl.  Then I hear Her grunt in pain.  And I remember.  As the laughter floats up, and words, some of which are in English, “Look at the New Blood become an animal before us!”  “This is why no more of us should be made!  The human takes longer to get out of them than it did with us!”  “A sign of the times!  Look upon what the new human culture will do to our throngs!”
	I then clench my eyes shut, and concentrate.  I feel my teeth retract, and my snarl become a grimace.  She was right.  This is the hardest thing I have ever done.  Controlling the most animal part, while being embarrassed beyond reason, taunted, and feeling such excruciating pain.
	Before I realize it, the cart stops moving.  That realization settles in as I realize the voices that had been heckling before, had grown silent.  I can’t even hear a murmur from below the cart.  I start wondering how long they had been silent, and because of this thought process, I am shocked when I’m grabbed and thrown to the ground.
	I have no idea how far I fall through the air, but I land hard, and skid through the sand on the floor quite a ways.  The pain is excruciating, being in such a prostrate position because of the bondage, I do not land well.  I curse myself for not having learned to manipulate gravity or body weight yet as a powerful, dry, boney hand grabs my shoulder and lifts me to my knees.  I open my eyes and see a vampire straight out of a film, with tight, dry skin, white with purple veins showing through like someone had taken a magic marker to traditional white paper.
	His smile actually calms my nerves, I have no idea I am looking into the eyes of something more evil than even the darkness in my soul could never imagine.  He leaves my field of vision, and that’s when it starts....
	A voice booms and echoes and reverberates, yet remains clear in my ears, “Darinacal, what is the meaning of this...abomination?”
	I blink slightly at the sexless voice, and wonder who Darinacal is, until I hear Her voice reply defiantly, “I felt it was time....”
	“Time for what, Darinacal?  Time for you to throw all our law in our face?  Or were you going to piss them all to the human’s Hell?”
	I am surprised She does not answer.  Silence echoes through what has to be a grand room, that I cannot see the roof of.  Then another voice speaks up, definitely a male voice, and close by, “Three New Bloods in 500 years....”
	Another voice rings out, this time a female voice, from in front of me, “Yes, three!  The last New Blood that was allowed to live, laid waste to an entire civilization....”
	I blink in wonderment.  Part of me wants to be angry, being judged for crimes of those who came before me, but I harness my anger, and wait, listening....
	Something tickles in the back of my mind when I see the male vampire’s face in my vision.  And I see his lips move and from them come the sexless voice, “And what, thinks ye, will this New Blood bring down upon us?”
	My mind screams in response, “Who cares, thy ancient fool?”  I blink in astonishment, and try to open my mouth to inquire about where the thought came from.  The male vampire looks deep into my eyes and grabs my chin, “It tries to speak!” he proclaims, but then jams my mouth closed, “These humans grow bolder by the century, more proof that they can not populate our ranks!”
	Suddenly an old, wise, female voice booms out, “Silence, Jonathon, you have ranted long enough.”
	I almost smile that the prosecutor at this trial has the same name of the human male I killed.  The male vampire turns from my slight smirk towards where I am forced to face and bows slightly and slinks back a few steps.  In my mind I feel a full fledged smirk and a voice saying, “‘tis good thou dost know thine place, cur.”  I look around wildly to try to find the source of the voice and form a clear thought in my head of a query.
	The female voice rings out again, “Our numbers dwindle Jonathon.”
	As I try to listen to the female’s voice, the voice in my head replies to my query, “What?”  I try to grasp what is going on and concentrate on a reply, “What do you mean what?”
	Jonathon exclaims back, “But madam!  Our Law....”
	“What art thou doing in mine head?”
	The madam replies, “Our Law was made long ago!”
	“I have the same question for you.....”
	Jonathon retorts, “Yes, because of the Prophesy!”
	“In all mine years I hath never experienced telepathy, who art thou?  Where art thou in amongst the crowd?”
	The madam slams her fist down, “I refuse to live in fear of the babblings of one of the most senile beings that has ever lived!”
	“Crowd?  All I see is darkness....”
	Jonathon makes a step forward, “Nothing that being ever said has proven false!”
	“Yes, a crowd, where art thou to not be able to see everyone?”
	The madam stands up from her seat, “I care not!  Our numbers dwindle!  We are on the verge of extinction!  I hate to say it, but that damned human female author got one thing right....  The older we get the more out of touch we become with the era.  Many things have changed in the past 600 years.  None of us would even be able to even slightly blend into common society, as we once used to.  If we do not at least try this experiment, the we are as doomed as if a single vampire fulfilled the prophecy and slaughtered us all, for the humans we devour!”
	“I’m in the dirt, bound....  I can barely even see the man standing beside me, in fact, he seems to be changing....”
	Jonathon snarls, his voice become more husky, as his body seems to shift and skin begins to darken.  “You will doom us all for this!  I will not be destroyed because you feel out of touch!”
	“Thou art the beautiful new one?  Down there?”
	The madam suddenly seems to loom above everyone and everything, become the largest, most imposing and frightning thing that ever existed.  “You dare defy my word?”
	“Yes, I’m the new one,” I whisper in fear.
	Jonathon’s front hands hit the ground, as they become paws.  His form now resembles a huge black wolf, with fangs four to five inches long.  His voice now a deep rumbling thing, “I defy my own death!”  He then draws his paw back, in my head I hear the warning, but this is nothing I can do as I am take the back of his paw on my chin.  I hear a loud crunch and I realize that everything below my sternum goes complete numb.  Several people gasp aloud, even the voice in my head.  I then feel furry fingers grasp my chin as I hear a raspy, haggard, demonic voice say, “What say you, Bringer of Doom?”
	The voice rings out in my head, “Say nothing,” but I smirk at the beast and say, “I have not the arrogance, nor the boldness to speak with an inkling of the wisdom that has come with the age of the creatures that occupy this room.”
	With that Jonathon uses his claws against my limp body, the swipe tosses me length of the arena.  The flight of about 70 yards seems to last an eternity, the spray of blood seems to shoot into eternity, and the sliding in the dirt landing seems to last forever.  But the wall I slide into definitely only lasts a split second, a split second that ends in, what I can only describe as, death.
	A single woman screams out loud in the crowd, and mass hysteria breaks out.  Jonathon’s grim wolf face grins with satisfaction, just before he is pinned to the ground by thick wooden steaks propelled from archers.  He doesn’t even howl in pain as the wood sinks into his shoulders.  The smirk on his wolfish face fades into a human one, his face transfixed on the Elder woman who had been talking to him.
	She only holds his gaze for a few seconds, then looks around her, at the first signs of chaos, composes herself, and starts issuing orders.  “Everyone, calm down.  Jahirian, remove Jonathon to the upper rooms, restrain him properly.  Kira, check on the new blood, and take him and free Darinacal.  Darinacal, take your creation, if he still lives, to the lower level, and heal him.
	A man walks up to the Elder woman, with his arms behind his back, looking unconcerned and says, “A woman in the back rows actually fainted.”
	“Is that the only ‘casualty’?”
	“Yes.”
	The woman sighs deeply, and whispers, “What is becoming of us?  How many millennia have most of us lived, and yet we still are so easily startled...like the cattle we feast upon.”
	As Kira frees Darinacal, Darinacal says, “And not unlike the many different kinds of cattle that they themselves feast upon.”
	“Tend to your youngling, and do not test me.  You are the third oldest living, you should know better!”
	“Know better than what, Elder?  We might be the top of the food chain, but the humans have something we lack.  Our society is eating itself a part, while we cringe in fear of words written by a member of our race that you and I have both outlived.”
	“Silence, Darinacal, I will meditate on all of this.”  The Elder looks around the audience chamber, full of immortal beings all looking caught in the headlights, the headlights of a future none can fathom.  “I believe we all should.”

***

	Darkness.  I had known from the before the first day of this existence I would forever wake into darkness.  Yet this darkness is far too disorientating.  Even with my enhanced vision, I can see absolutely nothing.
	I try to swivel my head to look around, and I feel my hair move as it rubs against the ceiling.  My mind suddenly races, trying to comprehend the situation....my hair is standing upwards, straight up, resting on the ceiling above me....
	No...I am upside down, which would explain the sensation of metal cuffs cutting into ankles.  My arms are bound behind my back, with that feels like chains.  I try to remember how I got in this situation, then the memories hit me.
	My body jerks violently as I remember the giant wolf lunging at me.  My breathing gets deep, and I struggle to control it, completely forgetting that I no longer have to breath.  The light comes into my world, a tall shaft, with a silhouette standing on the ceiling.  No, the floor, I’m upside down.
	That oh so seductive voice I’ve grown to depend on echoes out through the room, “Even so spent, you are a hellaciously beautiful creature.”
	I smirk back at Her and say, “You’re just saying that because you’ve wanted to tie me down and have your way.”
	She crosses the distance from the door to me while I speak, and stands close to my body, my face between her knees, the scent of her vagina strong in my nostrils, she takes my cock in her hand as it hardens, and laughingly says, “That’s only fun when they resist, you, on the other hand, want me to this to you.”
	Another female voice echoes from the doorway, sounding a little older, “You two don’t have much time, I’d suggest waiting for sexual gratification when everything is done with.”
	My mind clicks suddenly, “I’m going to live?”
	The voice from the doorway laughs wholeheartedly, “If you wanna call this existence living....”
	My bonds fall from my arms, and I put my hands above my head, to brace for my fall back up the floor.  I find that as my feet are freed, I am still ignorant of how lite I have become.  I easily flip onto my feet, feeling like a cat, graceful and fluidic.
	I then follow Her into the hallway, and realize that She is nude also.  My glance down her body is enough for her to pick up on.  She take my hand in hers and says, “We are not wanted here, outsiders do not get the comfort of modesty.”
	I nod, hoping to pull off the arrogance of intelligence, and walk with Her, behind a middle-aged woman in a flowing dress, who moves beneath it with a grace that is far beyond etherial.  Her powerful features shatter the appearance, but a certain sexuality still clings to her.
	As we walk down the empty hallway, I take peeks inside rooms that are sparcely scattered all throughout with ancient decoration in the wooden hallway.  Some full of congregations.  Some actually seemingly worshiping.  One has an effegey of Jesus on the Cross, with a priest walking through a mass.  Others are empty with wooden tables, or have books lining the walls, like libraries.  A complete contrast to the stone arena I was taken to before.  I finally make up my mind to ask where we are, when I stop dead in my tracks when I see something odd in one of the rooms.
	An anatomical chart, but everything is wrong on it.  I feel Her hands touch me sympathetically on my back and arm.  Her voice fills with pain as she says, “The anatomy of a vampire.”
	I take a step into the room, neither woman makes a move to stop me.  She stands beside me the whole time, glaring at the chart with poison, our guide finally speaks, “This is his first time to get a glimpse?”
	The one who made me nods, her hair rubbing my arm, as she is that close to me.  I still remember how a human anatomy works, but everything on the chart is wrong, the heart chamber is larger, no liver, intestines, or stomach, and the lungs appear to take almost all of the chest and abdomen.  There are several smaller organs, yet I can’t even begin to guess at their point.  Even the muscles are connected differently, but the difference there is only slight.
	Our guide points to what I think is lungs and says, “These here are where blood is stored when you drain it from a human.”  She then points to some tissues in another diagram that shows and organ between the heart and lungs, “This is what we believe happens to the liver, all the blood you drain gets filtered through this tissue before it passes to the heart.”  She then points back to the original diagram, to some of the tissue at the bottom of the abdomen, “This is apparantly what is left of the colon, it absorbs the things that are left after your body has completely used up all it can from the blood cells you have taken into your body, these organs transport all that extra material out of your body.”
	I nod saying, “Which is why I still have to use the bathroom, more or less....  Why are the bones so...different?”  I point to the illustrations of the skeleton, the bones are so thin, some are even porous.
	The creature hanging off my arm responds this time, “Your bones are gone, they were replaced by the marrow, more or less, which actually is extremely spongy the way it is now in your body.  All your...hardness is from your muscles, which changed to a denser material.”
	The guide then says, “All this process, when you’ve drained half a human, makes you about half the weight you once were.  And since you are so much stronger, it feels as if you only weight a pound or two.”
	I shake my head, then a through hits me.  “How...how did you get this diagram, I mean....  She taught me that when one of us dies, the body disappears, becomes dust.  There would be no way to perform an autopsy.”
	The guide turns to walk out of the room, as I follow she responds, “We did not perform an ‘autopsy,’ we cut open live subjects.”
	I feel Her fingers dig into me, as pain spreads across her face, then it dons on me what was just said, and I sudden feel my skin go pale.  Cut open, gutted, while alive, probed...  I almost feel sick....
	The guide abruptly stops at a room, and beckons us to enter.  We step into the room, a room full of tapestries.  Tapestries from all corners of the world, every civilization, every color, some musty with age, some smelling brand new.  In the middle of the motley menagerie sits an elderly woman.
	As my eyes falls upon her she smiles at me, a wicked smile, full of wantonness.  “A lovely one this time, Princess.”
	The one who made me lets go of my arm and says, “If I’m going to break the rules this harshly, you don’t think I’d break them for just anyone, do you?”
	The old woman puts on tremendously lecherous smile and says, “True, yet still....  Truely amazing....”
	I control myself not to blush at getting sized up like a horse.  The young woman at my side says, “He heals well two, only took him three days....”
	Three days!?  I was hanging upside down for three days?  My mind reals from that one as they continue their conversation.
	“True, he did heal quick, now just as long as he does not develop the temper of your First....”
	“That lycanthropic fool will be the end of our race.”
	“That he may....  But supposedly your newest creation will....”
	The woman at my side sighs, “Prophecy is such a cumbersome thing....  Anyone can interpret anything anyway they want.”
	The old woman nods, “Very much so, but at least we both agree....”
	The beautiful creature that turned me into what I am walks to stand beside the old woman, where they both look me up and down, study every inch of my naked body, then She says, “He may be the One who brings us out of the shadows, destroys the hierarchy, and liberates our souls from the damnation of despair....  Or brings shadow to the entire world, bring us into complete chaos, and liberates our souls from our bodies.”
	The old woman smiles, “True, its up to you, I suppose, to steer him towards the goal we think is best.”
	I blink at what was just said, then come to a realization....  I’m a tool.  “Is that the reason you made me?”
	I don’t know if it was the heat in my voice, or the heat in my stare.  My glare boring into Her eyes, burning Her soul, but whichever, it hit Her where it counted.  She gasped, and almost shed a tear as she stumbled over Her words, “No...no....  Never think that.  I saw you in that club the weekend before I approached you.  Your eyes were so, beautiful, so sad.  I’ve never fallen for a human the way I did that night.  When you went home...alone, I stood by your bed as you slept.  I kissed your lips that night when I left, which had tears on them.  I swore I’d make your beauty eternal, and attempt to give you happiness in a new existence.”
	“A new existence of damnation and darkness, where I would complete your goals?”
	The old woman stands, so quickly I don’t even realize she moved, her voice commands my attention, “Our goals?  We are not here to bring about a prophecy that every one of our kind fears, we are here to make sure it doesn’t destroy us.”
	I look from the old woman back to Her, “You said we didn’t have much time, I am not going to be a pawn, lets go.”
	The old woman shakes her head and says, “I’m sorry, I did not mean to offend you.  I was...was only admiring, with a twinge of hope.”
	I turn my back, as She joins me again at my side, and the guide starts leading again.  My maker then whispers, “I’m sorry that you think I had an alterior motive, but I did not.  And that whole thing about telling you about the prophecy should show that her and I trust you, because even talk of the prophecy is outlawed....”
	We walk in silence the rest of the way out of whatever building we are in.  A silence of my thoughts racing.
	By the time we exit onto the streets, I’ve found that I have pondered enough.  A city, with the smell of dust with a source of water not too far off.  I glance around, not recognizing anything.  Then I see a huge silhoet of a triangle against the darkness of the night sky.  Then I see another, then another.  “Egypt?”
	The door closes behind us, a large mansion by the looks of it, probably not far from the Nile, with the Pyramids of Giza on the other side.  “Yes, my love, Egypt.  I’ve always thought they choice to base themselves in this country because of the mystery and ancientness.”
	I nod in the darkness, and pull Her nude form into my arms, in a loving embrace.  She snuggles against my chest.  After a few minutes She says, “You’re leaving me.”
	“Yes and no.  Only for a little while.  Just allow me to walk on my own for a time.”
	I feel Her lips curl into a smile on my chest.  “I understand, I’m sorry I angered you.”
	“Its not that, my love.  I’ve been wanting to walk alone for a week or two.  Not because I want away from you, but because I need to experience things that I can’t with you.  You can follow if you wish.  You’ve taught me where all of your safe houses are.”
	“And I check e-mail twice a week, to keep up with some of the others I know.  I’ll keep checking it, with hopes you will send me a message to meet up again.”
	“I will, soon, my love, I will.  Probably just a month or two.  But we shall see.”
	I feel Her body sigh, breath moves across my chest from her mouth.  “Dawn is near....”
	“Let us get inside from the sun.  And spend one more day in each other’s arms.”
	“Until we meet again.  My love.  Your soul is the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced.  I only wish I could express how much of a hold you have over me.”
	My smirk isn’t lost in the darkness on Her, “And here I thought you had the hold over me, considering I love you, and you gave me this existence....  An eternity to share with you....”
	The kiss we share, standing, nude, in the streets of one of the major cities of the world, brings tears to both our eyes.  The tears fall to the ground as our bodies slowly dissipate, and change into a misty fog.  Our forms are lost in the gas, and become a single cloud, which makes its way against the wind, seeking safety from the light of day.