By Suzanne Carré

So far this series is looking at the vampire of our minds as we created them. I’ve looked at the erotic nature of vampires and their sexuality, which as I argued before, is not like our sexual activity but for vampires. So it is with the marriage rite.

Vampires need love like us, or so Bram Stoker suggested. It is a tragic love, a forbidden longing that comes at a price. Vampires need to marry like we do, well it is proper—isn’t it? The incarnate unholy taking up the sacred vows of matrimony forms a pivotal point of tension in the eternal battle between good and evil. But is that all there is to vampire marriage?

In the Vampire Sexual Secrets, the necessity of marriage is a function of vampire biology. Vampires need love to enhance their supernatural powers but they marry for sex. The sexual drive governs the male vampire’s urge to find a mortal, bite her, and convert his beloved human into a vampire wife. Females borne vampires are sexually perfect (us girls already know that) so don’t require marriage. For the female vampire marriage is a matter of choice, and most do not bother. But the male is special (here that, all you guys out there?) and this means the vampire male must marry to complete his sexual development.

Immortal with a Kiss

Vampire marriage is not a ceremony promising dedication and devotion. The ritual is primarily sexual and sealed with the ultimate kiss, the vampire bite. In as much as the rite might be called sacred, it is to the vampires a transformation strictly based on private sex. This means the physical sex can be on display for witnesses, but the vampires protect the psychic sex. Favorites of either the male or his new wife often create a barrier and act as vigils to prevent any of the psychic energy escaping from the nuptial activity.

Unlike the human ritual, the vampire marriage leaves both the male vampire and his newly converted wife physically changed. The bite transforms her from human to vampire and this we accept as a physically irreversible process. The change to him occurs after the bite and is a chemical response to her conversion. When he has undertaken the whole process of change then the vampires recognize the male has lost his vampire virginity.

Long Preserved Virginity

Virginity is a relative state for vampires and has nothing to do with the sexual history of an individual. For a male vampire, this condition remains, irrespective of the sex he has, until marriage when he become fertile and completely mature. Vampires do not undergo puberty so all the changes, both physical and emotional, occur during certain rites of passage. In the case of male vampires, the marriage vampire style is a juncture in his existence affecting his status within a collective.

With a wife, he gains sexual rights. Once fertile, he now accepts females for his own harem. No longer a bed-attending male, the married vampire can sexually initiate females to prepare for the mating ritual. It is in his interest to marry once he has gained a sexual education from the vampire manuals of love. But the young male has no choice once he tastes hot blood.

A Taste of Love

In a collective, young males are protected from the flavor of hot blood harvested fresh by the females of the hunt. Inexperienced and immature, these males only drink the blood of other vampires now “cooled of want” as the vampires describe it. The sexual appetite promoted by fresh human blood stimulates the male to require a wife before he is ready. He will likely suffer physical pain and emotional anguish, with all the symptoms we associate with love-sickness, until he acquires a “cure” by drinking blood from his lover’s veins.

From the first bite to the completion of the marriage rite is a process the females of the collective are eager to protect. It is not uncommon then to have the marriage time set by the other vampires and consequently monitored to ensure the male completes the conversion of his wife. The prenuptial arrangements are then well documented, in the lovemaking manuals of the vampires, for the importance of gaining the most from a male’s bite.

Unlike us, vampires can’t elope. The sex of vampire marriage takes days, and the preparation can require weeks. Sexual activity shared between the couple before, during, and after the ceremony play an important role in the whole change process. Sexual pleasure provides a gauge for the effectiveness of his change by the way he responds. He can feel in his conclusion how fertile he is and in her sensual gratification how vampire she has become.

Examine Well Your Blood

The male uses his fangs to stimulate for sex just as much as he needs to feed from his love. The male’s fangs are erogenous zones well suited to deriving sexual sensations. Drinking blood also alerts him to her progress, and he knows her completion by the way her blood slowly cools—from hot human blood to temperate vampire blood.

The rate of change in her usually depends on his enthusiasm so other vampires often assist to prevent the couple exhausting or losing interest. If ever there is a sexual demand placed on the couple in their married existence, then it is in the conversion. But the sexual continuance is only an ideal. If a male sneaks into his beloved’s bedroom, then he risks extending the ritual or failing to convert her properly—simply because he’s not with her all the time. The vampires see the importance of keeping the pair together and providing all their physical needs. What we consider is the honeymoon, the vampires see as part of the “I do..[and]…with my body, I thee worship.”

Bound in Love

Their lovemaking modulates throughout the ceremony. Some of the sex is meant to be vigorous yet at other times relaxing. To prevent monotony from creating the first reason for divorce, the vampires play several sex games to maintain interest. They are also encouraged to relax together in the ultimate hug, called vampire comfort, just as long as they stay embraced. Within the collective, the females might bind the pair so the couple cannot physically part until the marriage is over. Because vampires do not recognize bondage the way we do, this only involves a special pair of interlocking belts worn by the lovers, and not a pair of handcuffs.

The Things We Do for Love

Vampire marriage is a commitment to pure love. In the most important ritual the male vampire ever undertakes, he matures and changes his true love into a vampire so they can be together, forever. He does this for capturing the power of love, for gaining a companion, and for drinking the tastiest, hot blood. It is for the male a sacrifice worth all the extreme in sexual demands.

The process described above is true whether he was born vampire or converted. Bed-attending males have the same problem as any young vampire in that they cannot drink hot blood without suffering the consequences. But if made vampire, he must first ask his spouse for permission to wed. The consent is based on the effects his maturity has on their relationship.

Females who bite humans often want their males to marry that they can receive the wife status through their mature husbands. Males who bite men see the advantage in letting their converted brother marry so he can assist in the mating ritual. Above the physical convenience of sexual initiation, the marriage of his lover also increases the amount of love each male can access. Two wives shared between them are more powerful than one.

Marriage in the preternatural domain is a process of creating two very powerful supernatural beings where once there was a mere mortal and a virgin male. It is the need of the male vampire, in his requirement for love, that drives him to seek matrimony. Unlike our ceremony, the marriage is not a convenience to vampires because hedonists don’t need legal sex to feel good about what they do between the sheets after midnight. One thing is certain, vampire marriage is very rewarding, and the sex for the male gets better once he finally loses his virginity.

But what happens if the male makes an error in his choice of partner? Do vampire marriages ever break down, and how? Next is a look at divorce when the estranged couple is supernatural.

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