IT wasn’t a bad scream. It was a good scream. It was, in fact, a scream of ecstasy, like when I find out Gucci is having a shoe sale. Sinclair’s “ladyfriends”? Try harem.

It didn’t take long to find the room, even in a palace like this. I just followed the gasps and groans. By now I was pretty sure whoever had screamed wasn’t in trouble, but I was curious. And annoyed—if I was such a vampiric big shot, how come Sinclair the Fink was keeping me waiting?

I opened the door at the end of the hall and saw Tina standing before a large window. She turned, saw me, and spread her hands in apology. “They’re very busy,” she explained. “I didn’t have much luck getting his attention. It should only be a few more minutes.”

Curious, I walked over and stood beside her. The window was clear—it was like one of those rooms within a room you saw in police stations. And through the window I could see Sinclair and two—whoops, there was another set of tits—three women. They were writhing and groaning and purring in the middle of a bed that was, if possible, bigger than king-sized. I mean, that bed looked like a satin-covered acre.

It was a four-poster, and each poster was as big around as a tree trunk. The bed was covered in chocolate-colored satin sheets (well, at least they weren’t red…soooooo last year’s Cosmo), but the pillows—all nine—had been knocked to the floor.

Sinclair looked happy. He was almost smiling! And he ought to be, in the middle of a brunette nest like he was. The three women all had elbow-length dark hair and sturdy limbs…no anorexic models for this guy. One of them even had a gently rounded belly. Two of them were fair-skinned, and the third was the color of milk chocolate, with the high cheekbones of Egyptian royalty.

They were human. I was a little surprised at how easily I could tell. They had a glow, a vitality that Sinclair and Tina and I lacked. Maybe it was because their hearts had to beat so much faster, they had to take so many breaths.

I coughed. “Uh…should we be, like, spying on them?”

Tina looked surprised. “They can’t hear us. This glass is three inches thick. Besides, Sinclair doesn’t mind. This room usually has a watcher.”

“That’s sick!”

“No, that’s common sense.”

“Um, you know, I have a totally different definition of common sense.”

“Do you know how many men of power have been killed between the sheets?”

“I can safely say that I have no idea.”

“Well, it’s a lot. I told you he was a careful man. He never lets his guard down. Not even during times like these.”

I was (uncharacteristically) silent. That was one of the worst things I’d ever heard. If you couldn’t relax during sex—particularly during a Penthouse-inspired fantasy like this—well, that didn’t sound like much of a life. Being careful was one thing. Being buried alive was something else.

“Why can’t he stop?” I grumbled, folding my arms across my chest. Uncomfortable? Me? Naw. “I mean, I don’t mind being kept waiting if it’s—you know—business you can conduct while fully clothed. But why do we have to hang around while he gets his undead jollies? I had the impression this was important.”

“This is,” Tina said seriously. “We’re not like you, Betsy. We have to feed. We can’t put it off for a day or two. Sometimes not even an hour or two. For Sinclair, this is vital. It’s…it’s as close to life-affirming as we can ever get. Nothing else takes precedence.”

One of the women squealed.

“Life affirming?” I asked dryly. I glanced away before I saw something unfit for Christian eyes. Then, like Lot’s wife, I looked back just in time to see Sinclair position himself behind one of the women. Though it pained me on several levels to admit it, the man had the best ass I had ever seen. Taut, muscular, and sweetly rounded in exactly the right places. Yum.

“How come we can hear them?” I croaked, and realized just how dry my mouth was.

Tina pointed wordlessly to our left; I looked and saw the speaker on the wall. “That’s sick,” I said again, and looked back at the scene to assure myself that the depravity was continuing. I mean, somebody had to pay attention to this stuff, be aware of just what a pig Sinclair was.

“They’re so beautiful,” Tina said softly. She rested her hand on the glass, palm down. “So alive and fresh and young.”

Young? Tina was right, not a single woman in that room was hard on the eyes, but they were in their late thirties, early forties, at the least. They were beautiful but they looked like real women: soft bellies, heavy thighs, laugh lines. No nineteen-year-olds for Sinclair.

I sort of liked him for that.

After a minute, Sinclair pulled away, bent, and said something to one of the women, too low for me to hear. She gifted him with a sated smile and her eyes slipped to half-mast. Then he turned his attention to another woman.

It was really something to watch. Part of me was ordering myself to leave the room, give them some privacy. I mean, in life I didn’t even like watching late-night Cinemax—not even with the sound off—much less real people doing the sweaty mambo.

But it was hard to look away. For one thing, it was really hot. Unbelievably hot. Part of it was Sinclair’s stamina, but another was his three companions. There was no jealousy, no cattiness; they were happy just to be there, to take turns. It was unlike anything I’d ever imagined. I figured in a ménage a—shit, what was the French word for four? Well, anyway, I figured in any sort of ménage there were bound to be hurt feelings. Not here.

“You’ve got the best ass I’ve seen in fifty years,” Sinclair told his partner of the moment. He wasn’t out of breath. In fact, he sounded amused, and his tone instantly made my hackles rise. It wasn’t like he was detached; it was more like any three women could have been in there with him. Any three at all. “At least fifty.”

“A thousand years!” the one with the great ass declared, and the three women giggled in unison.

Sinclair snorted and pulled out. I gasped. I don’t know why I was surprised. Sinclair was huge—big, broad shoulders, powerful arms and legs—well over six feet, easily two hundred pounds, and not a scrap of flab on him. I should have expected—err—other parts of him to be—uhh—larger than average. All the same, I couldn’t help being shocked.

“Jesus Christ,” I said. “No wonder he doesn’t go for the nineteen-year-olds!” If some little club bunny saw that coming at her, she’d go for the whip and chair.

Tina, my little sex tour narrator, nodded. “Sinclair prefers older bed partners. If they’re not…experienced…he could hurt them. He wouldn’t mean to, and he’d be sorry later, but they’d be hurt, just the same.”

Meanwhile, back in Sodom, Sinclair was still hungry. He was gentle enough, but firm; one minute one of the women was almost asleep, and the next Sinclair was gripping her arms, holding her easily, while he bit her on the side of the neck.

She convulsed against him, crying out, “Ah, God, again, again!” while he drank from her throat, while her head rolled back on her shoulders in ecstasy.

Sinclair stopped drinking. A small rill of blood ran down his chin, which he caught with his tongue. His dick wagged in the air, momentarily friendless. “Don’t stop,” he said. Then, when he saw his partner of the second had to stop, was in fact in a near-faint, he said, “Someone else.”

Another woman was instantly kneeling in front of him, but he grabbed her hair and pulled her toward him, pushed her on her back, leaned in, spread her thighs with his big hands, and bit her in her femoral artery.

“These guys,” I commented dryly, “are in great shape.” I tried to sound cool and detached because, the fact was, I’d never been as turned on in my life. I could have watched them all day. Which explained why Tina had been so reluctant to separate them and tell Sinclair he had a visitor.

The new partner was moaning while Sinclair’s mouth was busy on her plump thigh. She was stroking her breasts, squeezing them hard enough to leave white marks in her flesh, screaming “More, more, more, more!” at the ceiling.

What are you doing?

Dead or not, vamp or not, I was standing in a strange mansion watching a creep and his harem have sex. This wasn’t me! Betsy Taylor did not watch soft porn, much less act like some icky voyeur.

“I-I have to go.” I said this with a complete lack of conviction. “I mean, they’ll finish up soon.”

“Yes, Majesty.”

“And then we can tell Sinclair what happened tonight.”

“Yes.”

“And figure out where to go from there.”

“All right.” Tina said this with all the animation of a store mannequin.

“You okay?”

“It’s just that I have to kiss you now.” She turned and pulled me toward her. Her pupils were huge. I looked down at her pretty, pretty face and tried to feel a little more shocked. I’d never kissed a woman in my life. Never even been curious. My stance on homosexuality was exactly the same as my stance on heterosexuality: If you were having sex with a consenting adult, it was none of my business. Just keep it out of my face.

“I must beg your indulgence,” Tina was saying. She went up—up, up!—on her tiptoes. Her mouth was dark red, with matching lip liner (I approved; clashing lip liners were so twentieth century), and her top lip looked like a little bow. The mouth of an enchantress…hopefully a good one. “Just…one…kiss.”

“Forget it!” I said loudly, breaking the spell. She had—it was like I’d been hypnotized for a few seconds. First a voyeur, now a lesbian? Don’t think so! “My God, you people are sick, sick! Does he do this every night? Don’t answer that! And you! You keep your hands to yourself, missy!”

I shoved her away. She had let go the second I resisted, so my shove sent her reeling across the room.

“I thought,” I said numbly, because even though I’d been right, I felt bad, “I thought you gave that stuff up a hundred years ago.”

“Men,” she said, watching me sadly with her big dark eyes. “I gave up men. I’m very sorry. I couldn’t help it. I haven’t fed tonight and you’re so beautiful. But I’m very sorry.”

“Well…” Being called beautiful momentarily distracted me, and I fought the urge to bask. Focus, damn you, focus! “Being dead is one thing, but having to watch Finklair romp in his bed o’babes…and then you decide to bring my latent lesbian tendencies to the surface—real latent, by the way, because when I was alive the thought of lip locking with another woman never crossed my mind, although there was that one time at summer camp when Cheryl Cooper dared me to French kiss her because we were playing Truth or Dare and like a moron I picked Dare and I-I—where was I going with this?”

“I have no idea, Majesty.”

“Forget it. Forget it! I’m out of here.”

“Please don’t go. It’s my fault. All my fault. I’m so sorry.” To my horror, she was sinking to her knees, and actually—was she? She was! She was kissing the toes of my shoes! “Please, Majesty, forgive my impertinence. Please!”

“Stop that!” I hissed, hopping back so her lips weren’t touching my shoes, then jerking her to her feet. She wouldn’t look at me, was cringing away from my anger. Which made me feel bad. Which made me even angrier. “Don’t kiss my shoes ever again! Jesus Christ—” She moaned and flinched away. “—why do vampires have to be so weird about everything? Why am I the only one who wants to live a normal goddamned life?”

She cringed at goddamned. I gave way completely to the anger and worry that had been plaguing me since I woke up dead. “God! God! God!” I screamed into her face, taking grim pleasure in the way she cowered. “Enough of this weird shit, I’ve had enough! Do you realize I haven’t even been dead a week?” I let go of her arm and stormed out. I practically knocked Dennis to the floor as I stomped down the stairs.

He jumped out of my way in a hurry. Lucky for him. “What’s wrong, Miss Betsy?”

“Nothing. Everything. I gotta go.”

“Please don’t!” Tina cried from the top of the stairs. “Please stay! We need you!”

“Well, I don’t need you,” I said, practically running across the marble floor. “And I’ve never been more grateful for anything in my life.”

I heard a swish, and suddenly Sinclair was standing in front of me, which efficiently scared the bejeezus out of me. “Aaggghhh!” I looked up. He’d obviously jumped from the floor above and landed in my path. “And you. Get out of my—hey!” He gripped my elbow and dragged me toward a door across the room. I set my feet, but it was no good. At least he’d wrapped a sheet around his waist.

He slammed the door, plunging us into near darkness (well, more like twilight since I had undead eyesight) and shutting Tina and Dennis on the other side. “Elizabeth,” he said calmly, as if we’d met on the street. “So good of you to drop by.”

“Ugh, ugh, ugh!” I hissed. I was trying to pry his fingers off my arm, with no luck. “Let go, you perv. I want out of this—this house of sin!”

“But I don’t want you to leave,” he said reasonably. “Not now.”

“Too damned bad! I don’t want anything to do with you! You—you slut!”

“Now, Elizabeth,” he said, and he had the nerve to sound reproachful, “I don’t come to your house and criticize your lifestyle, do I?”

“Eeewwwwww! Lifestyle? God, I can still smell them on you!”

“Jealous?”

I gagged. “Not hardly. Now let go; I’m out of here.”

“You’ve upset Tina dreadfully.”

“Get it through your head: You’re disgusting, I don’t care what you think, I could care less how upset Tina is, let the fuck go.”

“In a minute,” he said carelessly, and then, with that infuriating strength he’d shown in the cemetery, he pulled me to him and pressed his mouth to mine.

I opened my mouth to yell—or bite—which proved to be a tactical error, as he used it as an excuse to shove his tongue into my mouth. I made fists and hammered at his chest as hard as I could, and I actually heard something snap. He shrugged off the blows and deepened the kiss. My knees went weak, which was annoying beyond belief. I’d never been so attracted to someone I absolutely despised, and it was infuriating.

I could feel his hand on the small of my back, pressing me close to him, could feel his hard length against my stomach—how could he want anyone after what just went on upstairs? Didn’t he need a nap? Or a shower?

He pulled back, so abruptly I staggered. “There,” he said, sounding indecently satisfied. “Now you’ll stay, and we’ll chat.”

The crack of my slap was very loud, and I was savagely thrilled to see him rock back on his heels.

“If you touch me again, I’ll kill you.” I was practically crying, I was so angry. I turned and fumbled for the doorknob, and practically ran out of the room.

I ignored Dennis’s stare, Tina’s anguished “Wait!” and yanked open the front door. “Take a good look,” I said grimly, “because you’ll never see me again.”

Tina burst into tears, and I slammed the door on her dry sobs. And I didn’t feel bad. Not one bit. Nope. Not at all.

No.

Damn you, Sinclair.