By Suzanne Carré
In this segment of the series, I want to talk about the blood—the blood—oh yeah, the blood! In previous parts of The Bite series, I discussed the shape of the fangs, the preparation to bite, and the sexual pleasure derived by a pair of fangs, but now you need to know what vampires get out of a bite (other than having a fantastic time).
Due to the erotic nature of the bite, and the sensations derived by using the fangs to bite, the partaking of blood incites the vampire to seek sexual contact, at the very least with the partner on whom they feed, to direct and enhance their sensations. This is all good and well if the donor is another vampire but the game changes if the one receiving the bite is human. It’s more than the concept of pain mingled indistinguishably with sensual bliss, having a pair of very sharp canines plunging deep into your vein while the vampire engages sexually with you, but the quality of the blood because the source is not vampire. Human blood is very different. It has a unique flavor identified by vampires as hot.
Hot or Cold
Human blood is warm (depending on your thermometer, 37C or 98.6F) but vampires don’t care about the physical temperature. What interests vampires is the effect drinking your blood has on them. Hot blood describes the level of hormones surging through your system. Depending on the time of the month (and boys you’re included in this in case you didn’t know) or on the state of your mind, the emotional balance is a function of brain chemistry. The way your brain changes the blood with chemical messages determines just how tasty you are to a vampire. Blood rich in the chemicals controlling your mood, virility, and temperance makes for hot blood and heats up the interest a vampire might hold in you.
And if you’re hot—you’re hot (or so the saying goes). Only if you’re too hot, it’s like too much of a good thing when the very fragrance of your hot blood drives a vampire wild, and they stalk you waiting for the opportunity to feed. It doesn’t really matter if you’re not interested, they’ll come back at night to take a sample, when you’re asleep—and after the sex—you won’t feel a thing—or remember the experience (trust me).
The flavor of human blood is also affected by the food they eat. Those who indulge will tell you, you can taste the food in the blood (so you are literally what you eat). This is why vampires don’t like garlic, and it’s not because people wear it around their necks for good luck, no, it’s because the flavor of the garlic goes through everything and — — well you’ve really got to have the inclination for it.
Vampire blood is cold compared to human blood. Not because we have the biased view that vampires are cold-blooded predators—no, their blood doesn’t contain the same chemical concoction and so drinking blood from another vampire doesn’t deliver the same thrill as from a human. The distinct flavor of human blood encourages vampires to seek us over other animal sources and this means hunting for human blood regularly. Vampires fresh from the hunt attract their peers when the blood they have draining from their stomachs and into their veins is still hot. The mixing of hot blood drives the vampire into a sexual frenzy and they need hot sex to alleviate the tension created. After a few hours the effect subsides, physically spent during the libido boost induced by their veins brimming with fresh blood.
The Flavor Counts
Whether the blood is hot or cold has an affect on vampires depending if they are male or female. The females suffer less when drinking the blood of their sisters compared to male vampires. In the hunt, the hot blood of a human excites the female but she usually controls her urge to continue feeding. Male vampires are most susceptible to the flavor of blood and find all blood sources to have an extreme physical effect on them. Drinking the hot blood of a human, fresh from their veins, is the ultimate in pleasurable stimulation because he finds the fresh blood irresistible. It leads to an interesting problem with the male in that the sexual charge of the fresh human blood is so great that he also feels emotionally attached to the donor he feeds upon. The attachment leads to a commitment of feeding and usually ends with a conversion into the vampire state.
It is the emotional link of blood attaching the male to his chosen human which the vampires identify with love. In my novel Vampire Sexual Secrets, Vincent falls in love with Marie before he bites her, and consequently he can’t bite her, when knowing the implication of the bite to him as a male vampire. The male vampire is usually the only one to feel any love for humans and have any inclination to marry. Next time I will continue the theme of The Bite by looking at how the sex (and love in the case of males) controls the feeding vampires engage in with humans. Later, I want to look at the consequences of a male vampire falling in love with a human and the process of conversion the vampires refer to as marriage.
