By Suzanne Carré
Divorce in the human world is seen as a personal failure. In terms of relationships, marriage is always romantically intended to succeed. No matter the reasons for the intended union, the conjugal pairing of man and woman is a commitment—irrespective the distance it runs.
So we place the marriage of vampires in our own light. The supernatural being needs love, then seeks a human heart, and so marries to form a bond literally forever. But so too with our personal failings, we endow the preternatural vampire, and thus he suffers eternity when he cannot find that perfect, intangible property of pure love.
But the marriage vampire style is a sexual consummation taking days. It leaves both husband and wife transformed into vampires anew—her from a mortal and him from a sexually immature state. In the absence of vows, the divorce is also different to ours. The vampire reasons for annulment may resonate with us, but the solution to incompatibility is anything but regular.
Tell Me You Love Me Not
The main reason for vampires to decide on divorce is falling out of love. If the male made the wrong choice, usually through infatuation instead of carefully reading love, then the female is usually the first to demand separation. Males who intend to marry more than once, but have no permission from their first wife, might opt for divorce if his love is more intense for the human he wants. Females who bite men, purely for the taste of their blood, often divorce the male they converted since they never loved each other. Bed-attending males will usually choose divorce if their first vampire wife will not allow them to mature.
Time rarely separates vampires. When they take up the wedding girdles, and bind for the sex to unite them as one in mind and body, the love they have is pure emotional love. It is strengthened by the vampire lifestyle. Challenges to the love from outsiders can break up a marriage and so can spontaneous occurrences of love. Boredom in the bed is one thing the vampires pride themselves on avoiding so only another heart can change the balance of love.
Eternal Separation
Vampire marriage often requires many assistants to help the couple achieve their conversion, but the divorce between two vampires is strictly a personal matter. The separation is a simple request to their spouse asking, not pleading, for an end to the marriage. If the partner agrees then in an instant the marriage ceases to be.
Sounds easy in principle, but not so in practice. It is not only because the challenged partner refuses to grant permission to their determined spouse. Saying “yes, I accept” is usually a permanent arrangement and not a decision the vampires take lightly. In the preternatural domain, divorce tends to be forever.
Saying no to a divorce is as simple as kissing your partner. To the vampires, any acceptance of sex, from kissing to lovemaking, constitutes a reconciliation of the estranged pair. If the unhappy one will not accept a kiss on offer, the refusing spouse will use the approach of the so-called Virgin kiss—lips at the ready and awaiting the dissolution of resistance.
On getting the consent to kiss, they follow with a need for sex, anything to delay the process. Vampire law states, the request for a divorce cannot happen while the couple are embraced so after sex, vampires comfort to extend the connection of their bodies. Sex here is not to make up and be friends, but to prevent the aggressive partner from repeating the question, and relieve the passive spouse from the responsibility of answering. The demanding partner usually agrees in part but eventually the sex will end and the acceptance begins.
Love in Paradise Lost
After consent to separate, the couple might give criteria to their divorce. Only when time limits are placed is there ever a condition of reconciliation. This addition of terms is not usual, and if it occurs it is often suggested by the one forced to accept the termination of the marriage. If they feel time will heal the anger of their spouse, they are at liberty to make contracts for the divorce.
The divorce of vampires is instant. There are no legal implications and no third parties intervening to help the couple decide against a breakup. The couple brought into the marriage their love and they leave with this one precious commodity. Vampires do not accumulate personal possessions but the female will likely have a collection of sex toys, and these cannot be negotiated by her husband.
Children are not part of the divorce. If the couple raised offspring or if the female is pregnant when the separation takes place, the child or “perfect children” (a vampire term) are not subject to control by either parent. In a collective, the young are raised by both parents irrespective of them not sharing the bed together. But a disagreement between parents cannot punish the vampire kids. The vampire law protects them from the malice of either spouse.
Love Triangles and Squares
Vampire marriage can get very complicated due to the allowance of threesomes and extended groups. If a pair marry a third, fourth or more partners, then the group sex of the couple increases to boost the psychic sex shared between them. A divorce doesn’t directly effect the physical sexual access (after all it’s only a divorce, so what has that to do with the sex?) but it breaks the psychic sex link.
If the estranged pair can’t stand having sex with each others minds, this forces the other lovers to take sides and choose one of the partners with whom to remain loyal. One divorce can lead to several, depending on how many vampires are married together.
The same happens with favorites. A vampire couple might share females whom they are intimate but unmarried. Favorites of the wife usually return to her, and so to the male of his concubines, but the females have the free will to decide once the divorce settles.
Only in rare cases do females remain loyal to both when sex with one can be felt by the other for years after separation. Technically, this “feeling” of sex is not considered real sex being as it is not consensual. If the couple choose to share favorites to enhance the shared sex and feel their partner, then vampire law requires some move to reestablish the marriage.
Cheating Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
Vampires don’t consult marriage counselors but they do ask others in their family or collective for advice. If one spouse is given an ultimatum to separate, they have centuries of vampire wisdom from the ancient vampires around them and instructions recorded in their manuals of love. Provided one party is disadvantaged by the separation, the vampires allow for intervening measures to restore the conjugal bond.
A change in partner is often prescribed. This means with a vampire outside the collective or a human lover. Vampires can’t really cheat on their spouses because they can “feel” each others sexual activity. Exceptions to this rule apply if a favorite “hides” the feelings so the philandering can take place without detection. Permission is then sought for the victim of the separation as compensation. If refused, the divorce cannot proceed. If the two agree on a time for infidelity, the compensation must only extend for the trial period and the marriage reevaluated.
Lusted Once, Married Twice, Loved Thrice
Rare in the vampire world to have the same couple remarry but if the process of conditions and compensation work then the divorce has a shelf life and once expired, the couple are free to accept each other. The marriage ceremony is now only for the excitement of rekindling the sex. Any serious sex shared by the couple is purely to reset their sexual appetite. Once transformed, a vampire can never initiate the sexual changes again. But the divorce was a single request, and the reconciliation equally a simple yes.
So far I’ve dealt with what vampires do so now is time to look at where they do it. The bed is very important to vampires and is more than simply a place of rest and relaxation.
