Eric kissed her on the forehead and said, "It seems odd that we haven't done anything more than kiss and I feel as comfortable with you as if we'd had sex already. I guess in a way we have, with that mindblowing orgasm, but... we've not seen each other without clothes and we haven't, you know, touched each other. Well, not physically, anyway."
"How do you feel, Eric? Do you feel like you've lost blood? When you got up to go clean up were you dizzy or lightheaded or weak?"
"No, I feel fine, how much blood did you take?"
"Only about five ounces. For one thing I've already fed today and for another I didn't want to make you weak. If you want me to feed from you often then we have to work up to it so your body gets used to manufacturing more blood. If you don't want me to feed frequently then we'll figure out how much I can take at a time before you feel it. For some people it's five or six ounces, for others it's ten or twelve."
"How much blood do you need a day?"
"I need about thirty ounces of liquid a day. On a normal day I need from six to ten ounces of blood and the rest can be water. However, if I am injured and need to heal, or if I'm active and use up a lot of energy, then I need more blood and less water to make up that thirty or so ounces. If I'm badly injured then I need enough blood to replace whatever I lost plus enough to heal with."
"Does sex with a vampire work the same as sex with a human?"
"Yes, even though we can't make babies so you might think evolution would have made our bodies do away with that particular function. The ability to attract and hold onto humans sexually has helped us survive through the years, so we've evolved in such a way that sex works the same way, just without the reproductive possibilities."
"So, if you and I get together for.. for good... we can never have kids? I won't be a father?"
Kendra softened. "I'm sorry, Eric."
Kendra saw the wheels turning in his head, he was putting together all of the downsides to dating a vampire now. "You sleep during the day. Can you stay up if you want? Can you go out in the sunshine?"
"I haven't felt the warmth of the sun on my skin in thousands of years, Eric. I literally die at dawn. Most vampires awaken as the sun drops below the horizon at night. I'm strong enough that I wake up a little bit before the sun goes down, but I can't leave the basement of the house until the sun is down."
"Thousands of years? How old are you?"
"I don't know exactly, probably just under three thousand years old. At least twenty five hundred years old, though my best guess would be about twenty eight hundred."
"You'll watch me grow old and die?"
"Yes, unless you someday want me to turn you. But I'll never try to talk you into it. If that is something you think you may want at some point then you'll have to bring it up, and then you'll have to do a lot to convince me you are serious, and then you’ll have to talk to Abbot and convince him you are serious as well."
After Eric went a few moments without saying anything Kendra thought it was time to lighten the conversation.
"You were going to take me for a boat ride tonight? Can we still do that?"
"You are changing the conversation."
"Yes, I am. You've been hit with a lot tonight and I think you need time to think it over. It's a lot to take in all at once. Let's go for a ride and have some fun and then tomorrow night after you and Abbot are done we can talk about this again if you want."
"If it's fun you want then the taking the yacht out won't do it, we'll need to take out the ski boat. C'mon."
Kendra followed him outside and down the outside walkway area to the back of the yacht where she saw a smaller boat at the back of the one they were on. He flipped some switches and the smaller boat was slowly placed into the water. Then he opened up the railing so they could walk through it and reached his hand out to help her down. She took his hand but floated from the walkway to the other boat instead of climbing down.
He seemed to take it in stride. "Show-off."
"In two weeks when the moon is dark I'll take you night flying without a hang glider, if you want."
He climbed down into the boat. "Seriously?"
She kissed him and said, "Seriously."
After releasing the rope he started the engine and turned some lights on that didn't seem to act like headlights but were probably just so other boats would see them. And then he slowly drove towards the river. Kendra thought a turtle could swim faster and she knew she could swim faster.
"I thought you said this boat went fast?"
"This is a no wake zone so you don't knock the boats around in their slips. Once we pass the outer boundaries of the no wake zone I'll give you your adrenaline rush." He paused a moment before asking, "Do vampires have adrenaline?"