Clay Gods

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In a world judged by strength and self-reliance, it is moments of vulnerability that we most long for.

I was half mad with pleasure that night. The people of the Church of Ill-Repute didn’t need to be charmed to give out their carnal blessings, but a dog must hunt and a cat must play with its quarry. I spent sunset to midnight talking of art and poetry, garnering a most substantial audience, all eager to laugh at my jokes and cry at my stories, all true tales of my thousand-year life.

Spend so long with humans and you learn that there are fewer of them than you think. Many thousands or millions, yes, but they divide themselves into only so many varieties. Over time, you learn to identify each at a glance, and then comes the formula of what they want to hear and what they want to see before they will bare their vulnerable necks to a stranger with a smile. I change myself as needed to get what I want, for what else in life is there to do?

Those who know me only by name or by background think I am a monster, a blood-drinking devil whose hungers are satisfied by tooth and claw, but those weapons are for fledglings. My weapon is my tongue, and it delivers me my fill from prey that begs to be taken. A life is an art to be realised, opposed by fleeting time and filtered through the illusory canvas of experience. Understand the brushstrokes, and you can make the final piece whatever you want it to be.

I filtered my crowd down to just two chosen women, both desperate for the thrill of vampire blood, and I made them wait while their already small inhibitions disappeared as steam. They had once been members of other churches with lofty ambitions of arbitrary wealth and spiritual fulfilment, to be a part of something that would mould a god. The Church of Ill-Repute had tempted them into its doors, where their prayers were only primal satisfaction. Life, refined down to one of the purest simplicities, free of responsibility and the difficult quandaries of human existence.

I remember all of my prey, like they’re a private collection in an eternal, sealed vault. A pristine gallery that would soon die with me. There had been countless other vampires older and more powerful than myself, but I knew none would have had such success as I had. Sometimes an arrogance was simply a truth that offended those that couldn’t live up to it, and envy was one of the few sins I could never attribute to myself.

The first of my two chosen women wore her hair long and had dyed it an enticing crimson using some concoction of fruits and juices. She wanted it to garner attention, and it did; it made my stomach long for her. Her eyes were the most memorable to me; however, they had seen death and loss, and she knew by looking when someone could provide her with much-needed stability. She knew how to pry that stability from them as well, I could tell from the vague disingenuousness of her presentation, like an actor’s performance. The subtle manipulation of that acting had been the only reliable tool in her troubled life.

The other woman was dark of feature and almost unremarkable, save for her more than generous behind that could only serve as evidence of a benevolent creator. She had lived an unremarkable life, no more loss or danger than any other, given away by skin without scars and a naivete to her expression. She had longed for more and that had given rise to an unquenchable lust. She would give pleasure freely but only because of the tingle of excitement it made her feel. She had a blankness of expression and a flatness of speech that showed me that lust was the only thing she was capable of feeling aside from boredom. If it wasn’t for the Ill-Repute, she would have likely turned to killing in order to feel.

Shut away in a red-curtained room, decorated with suggestive paintings and drapery, I regaled them with my life’s past and future. I told them of my victories and of my plans to die in one month’s time. They expressed their sadness, false of course. I was merely something they wanted. I couldn’t begrudge them that, however, because I was just as self-centred as they were. By the time I felt my heart strike midnight, they could barely control themselves, lounging their bodies across me and laying discreet touches over their most sensitive places and my own. Surely no other visitor to the Ill-Repute had left them wanting so long.

They began disrobing before I had even finished my request. I ran my fingers through that bloody hair, while the other woman showed me what she knew I wanted to see. The red-haired one enticed me with lurid displays. She massaged her breasts and rode her hips along the length of her fingers, sharing soft promises of what she could make me feel. We teased and touched, always holding something back until my heart struck the witching hour. That was when I allowed them to make a cut on my neck.

At just a drop of my blood, the red-haired woman’s eyes rolled to the back of her head. I assured her that the best time to drink was later, and she followed my lead. The two of them smiled at me, perched naked on either side. The dark-haired woman turned away from me. I felt the size and the softness of her rear in my hands and then allowed her to mount me. She slipped over me and welcomed me into a place that felt shaped especially to be my perfect match. She let out a small, experienced moan, and I guided her movements with one hand. I took the red-haired one by the neck and kissed her. She was surprised by the sudden use of force but quickly melted into my embrace, flailing her fingers in desperate search of her most pleasurable place.

It didn’t take long for the dark-haired woman to ride her hips into quivering completion. Her movements grew slow and out of rhythm and so I took hold and used her for myself. By the time I was done, she was gasping for air and half limp. I rolled her aside and climbed atop the other woman, knowing exactly what she wanted. I took her half by the hair and half by the throat and positioned myself between her legs. Her hips buckled and writhed, so eager to receive me and already flexing wide. I pressed myself forward and entered her with the slick ease of desperation. The more violently I gripped her neck and pulled at her hair, the more intensely she cried and surrendered. We were one for long enough for the dark-haired woman to return to her senses. She tickled my nerves with soft hands down my back and leaned forward, taking the other woman’s pointed peaks into her mouth. I loosened my grip enough that she could move her head, and the two women locked lips as if this were their last day to live.

I was lost so deeply by the end, one woman dancing her tongue between my legs and the other hungry to lick the blood from my neck. I leaned forward, bared my fangs and drained the one bent over across my chest, just enough to fog her mind, opening it up to reckless sensitivity. She drank from me, the surge of vampire blood shaking her into a twitching flurry of sensations. Her weight dropped against me and she began to drool, her wicked smile drooping into uncontrollable satisfaction. I took her behind in one hand and her breast in the other and lost myself deep into the first woman’s vigorous mouth. My muscles relaxed beyond their norm and I watched her gulp down all that remained of my enjoyment. Seconds of total contentment. I could have died then, happy. I had quite literally been to heaven before, and I preferred the dirt and the wet of the real world.

I left the woman between my legs as sated as the other and took my leave, for their own sakes. I may have been an arrogant blooddrinker, but I protected good people, and these listless hedonists were exactly that. They had nothing to hide, and they served one simple master. Many other members of the church tried to stop me on my way out, seeking what I could offer, and while my body longed for them, just a little less intensely, I had a life to extinguish. My own.

***

What a beautiful woman she was. Not in shape or form or adornment, but in soul. She was the sun among stars, the companion in loneliness. She was determined and powerful, what all poets wrote about and what all good folk aspired to be. Someone whose very existence brought colour and music to a world too frightening to live in. She made every moment of suffering worthwhile, for every second of pain was a second of being in the same world as her, of sharing in her bright life. It all made being in her presence so very happy and essential, and yet, so very painful. A woman like that needs to be protected, but a woman like that refuses to be protected, for she lives in an imperfect world, free and with an open heart, vulnerable. To cage that creature is to hurt her, and I’d sooner have died than seen her upset. I didn’t deserve to suffer so much as I did when I thought of her.

A weak young man with nothing to offer but an embrace and a life. All that I had was so very little. I was born and raised in a godless valley of black-hearted men; what more could I have become? A poisoned field produces poisoned crops, and evil spread through my home valley as easily as the wind. That evil found its soil in regulation and authority, where it bloomed into a most vile harvest.

You see, the process for moulding a clay god is simple: gather enough people to believe in the same thing. The problem is that human beings have a crucible-like nature to disagree, a devious device in their minds to ensure that thoughts and opinions become tried and tested. The problem; those with the big ideas don’t want to be tested and so, in my home valley, he united the people in their deepest and most base desire. Hatred.

Hatred is a funny thing. It cannot exist in a void; it needs something to rise against, something to focus on, like a fire needs fuel. Often, hatred is channelled toward the self, but that is not powerful enough; it doesn’t create a way to control people en masse so reliably. The key is to hate something outside yourself, something eternal that may never truly be defeated. You may kill your neighbour, wipe another nation from existence, but then, where does the hate go? I can promise you it does not go away. That is why the controlling man tells you not to hate a person but an idea, not a race but their values. That hatred will never die, never run out of fuel to burn. Once your enemies lay exsanguinated, you may turn that hate on your friends and those that question you. Controlling men create martyrs for a cause eternal.

I remember watching her, as if it were still happening before my very eyes. I suppose in my psyche it still is. Bound and naked, her perfect blonde hair cut just past her ears and marked with blood. Hunger tightened her skin to her muscles, and red and brown scars covered her from head to toe. The Father, the Bishop, the man who had sworn to usher in a new age with a new god of clay, wielded hate as a sword that he placed in the bloody hands of others. All I could do was watch it unfold.

Gagged so she could not tempt another with evil thoughts, collared so she could not run from justice, and stripped so she could hide no secrets. That man. The Father, he and his fellows paraded her around every town that bent to his new ideals. She received a lash from every man, woman and child in each. They were unified in it all, righteously immersed in clay promises that were shaped with every crack of the whip. A thousand hands shaped the god they wished to manifest. I had promised that when he passed me the whip, I would spit in his face and turn the whip against him. I was weak. What was I to do? Die so that my love could suffer one less time from thousands? Yes, I should have.

The Clay God wakes. An idol to take away our responsibility.

***

In the aftermath, I was hardly a man. A wretch, lower and more debased than even the maddest and most twisted husk that a man might be. I tried to bleed the life from my body as a final act of virtue, but I was too weak even for that. I skulked the streets, hoping to rot away to starvation, but I just kept living. Then, I saw myself reflected in the river. It would have been so very easy to go in for a swim. I didn’t need to cut myself apart or suffer a long demise; it could be over decisively. I couldn’t stand it any longer; my distorted face in the moonlit water was an affront to all that was good. Eyes closed, I slowly allowed myself to fall forward.

The water did not come. I hung suspended at an odd angle. A force pulled me backward into the shadows of the alleyway. The hungry eyes of immortality met me there. A sanguine stalker had taken an interest in me, the only human being in town that felt something of their own free will. Perhaps she too was a collector of unconventional arts and saw something in immortalising my suffering. In that moment, I was afraid. I thought that if she killed me, she would rob me of my one opportunity to do a good deed.

She took me into her pale bosom and drank away my suffering. When the only thing I had left was a blurred, dizzy dreg of life, she sliced herself and fed me until I felt something again. The exchange of blood is a rapturous act like no other, and I once again felt a figment of her. I grew strong so quickly. I was left with something inside me, something to live for. An animal instinct when the ritual was complete.

I wanted to bury myself in her, to thrive on this new life. She pushed me away and stared past me. One of the townsfolk had seen us, knew what we were. I killed him with tooth and claw in a catharsis like no other. By the time I was done, he was little more than a scattering, like gunpowder had set off in his heart. I forgot my new benefactor in that instant.

I scoured the town, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, seeking The Father, but it had been days. He was gone, and so was she. I turned my attention to the townsfolk; I would tear at them all until I learned where he had gone. As I made my descent on another home, my heart thronged and the rising sun burned away the flesh on my back. I fell down, back into the alleyways whence I came, and there was that vampire. The woman who had given me power. I forgot the pain.

She pulled open her bodice and showed me the world I would inhabit for a thousand years to come.