She ran. Weak as she was from lack of blood, she was fast. A cheetah would have difficulty catching her. At full strength, none could have. She would need blood tonight, though. The physical exertion rapidly depleted her strength.

Keeping to the shadows, she saw people, but none of them were isolated enough for her to attack safely. Either they were accompanied by someone, or other people were nearby.

Eventually, Eli came to an older part of town and walked down a street. Many of the houses, individual dwellings and duplexes, were run down. She stopped in front of a small house. The blinds in the living room were open. Inside, she saw an old woman sitting in a recliner watching TV.

While Eli watched, the woman sat, smoking one cigarette after the other. Eli walked around the house, listening at each window. She heard no one. Even if someone had been sleeping in one of the bedrooms, she would have heard him.

Back at the front door, she knocked. No answer. She knocked again, louder this time. She heard the woman’s shuffling steps in the hallway. The woman called out, not opening the door.

“Who is it? What do you want?”

“Can I use your phone?” Eli said, in her best little girl voice, pitching the tone higher than her usual speaking voice, which was a young boy’s voice.

“My dad was supposed to pick me up down at the corner, and he didn’t show up.”

The woman opened the door, leaving the safety chain in place. When she saw Eli, she said, “Is anyone with you?”

“No. My dad: he didn’t show up; I need to call him.”

The woman shut the door. Eli heard her unlatch the chain. The door opened, wider this time. The woman stood beside it, an apparent but non verbal invitation for Eli to come in.

“May I come in?”

“Yes, yes, come in,” the old woman said, exasperation in her voice.

Once the door was closed, Eli leapt, landing with her arms around the woman’s neck. Placing her mouth against the woman’s throat, she bit. The woman fell forward on top of Eli. Her blood flowed down Eli’s throat.

Eli almost retched. The woman had cancer. Other substances – chemicals of sorts - were present in her blood. If Eli hadn’t needed the blood so badly, she wouldn’t have drunk it.

The woman lay in a pool of her own blood, which Eli had been unable to drink. Eli had pushed the woman off of her and lay next to her, unable to move. She was nauseated from the cancer and high on the painkillers the woman took. The virus within her worked on the poisons, expelling them through her pores. A sheen of blood covered her.

Visions of that day long ago, when she had been changed, flooded her mind. It was as if she was there, and he was drinking her blood.

The woman had long since stopped breathing – and she still didn’t breathe – but her body twitched. She was infected. She would change, but because she had died, she wouldn’t likely remember who she had been. The brain cells retaining her memory, her humanity, had died. She would be like Eli when the blood lust was upon her, a mindless creature only caring about blood.

Once Eli was able to move, she shed her clothes and went into the woman’s bathroom, where she took a quick shower. The visions had added to her loneliness, and she wanted to see Oskar, but she stank.

When she came out of the bathroom, the change was upon the woman. She thrashed, flinging out her arms and legs.

Eli piled paper, sheets, and towels around the woman and set them on fire. Naked, she went out the back door and climbed to the roof of the house. She held out her arms. A thin membrane unfolded from a line that ran down the inside of her arms, down her side, and to her legs. Her arms lengthened each growing over a foot longer; the membrane stiffened. She ran, leaping off the edge of the roof, and flew.

Eli landed on the window ledge outside Oskar’s room. Looking through his window, she saw him asleep inside. The membrane connecting her arms and legs retracted, folding upon itself, leaving a thin line along the inside of her arms, her sides, and her legs. Her arms resumed their normal length.

Picking up handfuls of snow, Eli washed off the blood. It was only on her face and hands. She had left her bloody clothes behind in the burning house: because they were bloody; and because she had to be naked to fly.

She tapped on the window.

“Oskar.”

“Huh?”

Sleepily, he looked up, squinting.

“Eli?”

“Don’t look at me. Invite me in, Oskar. Tell me I can come in.”

“You can come in.”

“Shut your eyes. Don’t look.”

Laying his head down, Oskar shut his eyes. Eli went through the window and climbed in bed with him, snuggling up next to his back.

He shivered.

“You’re cold. You’re like a big ice cube. ”After a moment’s hesitation, he added. “You don’t have any clothes on, do you?”

“No.”

“None at all?”

“No.”

Eli wondered how he would react to her being naked. He was aroused. Without seeing his erection, she could tell.

“Is it gross?” she asked, using one of his favorite words.

“No.”

“Do you want to get naked with me? Can I pull off your pants?”

She could feel him flush, hot blood rushing to his face, but he didn’t answer, so she slipped her thumbs beneath the elastic band of his briefs. Slipping them down to his hips, Eli felt them catch on his hard prick.

“I…”

“I know – I know. It doesn’t matter.”

She slipped them off, tossing them onto the floor. He tried to turn around.

“No, don’t. I don’t want you to look at me.”

“You said you weren’t a girl, but I don’t feel your thing.”

“I – I’m not a girl, but like I said, it’s complicated.”

She slipped her hand over his cock. She had done it for Hakan and her other helpers to entrap them. She did it to please him.

He gasped, a sharp inhalation of breath, and ejaculated. She had but touched his cock. Eli felt the wetness of his come. The poignant odor of it filled her nostrils.

“Oh…oh…”

Oskar thrust with his hips, driving his cock into Eli’s hand. When he had finished ejaculating, she stroked his hair with her other hand.

“Did you like it?”

“I – I guess. Why did you do it?”

“Because you wanted me to. You did, didn’t you?”

He nodded. “Uh huh.”

“Did it feel good?”

“Yeah.”

“And it doesn’t matter that I’m not a girl?”

“But I can feel you next to me; you’re pressed up to my butt; and I don’t feel your dick. Where’s your dick?”

“I had one once – just like you – but I don’t have one now. Does that gross you out?”

“What about…balls? Do you have balls?”

“No, I don’t have those either. Maybe that’s why I look like a girl. Are you grossed out, now?”

“No, but what happened? Were you one of those boys that always wanted to be a girl? We heard about them at school.”

“No. When I was a boy, I never wanted to be a girl. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you sometime, but not now, not yet.”

She couldn’t tell him without telling him the whole story, and he wasn’t ready for – probably wouldn’t believe – the whole story.

“Can I look?”

Eli nodded.

“OK.”

She rolled onto her back.

Oskar turned, rolling over on his side facing her, raising his head, resting his face on the palm of his left hand, that elbow resting on the bed. Slowly, he pulled back the covers, revealing Eli’s smooth chest. As the lip of the covers approached her waist, Eli stopped him.

“I have nothing down there. I’m not like a girl or boy down there.”

“I want to look, OK?”

“It’s dark. You won’t be able to see much.”

As long as there was any light at all, Eli could see in the dark. Her pupils expanded letting in all available light.

“I have a flashlight – over in my drawer. I’ll get it – OK?”

“If you want.”

Oskar threw back the covers, revealing his half-hard cock. It hung to the left, drooping, but sticking out from his body. Eli could see come glistening on his stomach.

He didn’t have a large cock; it wasn’t much over four inches long hard and was proportionately thin. Eli wondered if that was one of the things the other boys teased him about. She knew men – boys, also, she supposed – worried about the size of their cocks. Did Oskar?

Back with the flashlight, he slipped under the covers, pulling them up, over his and Eli’s heads. Only then, did he turn on the flashlight, shining it first at her face. She squinted, closing her eyes. With her pupils expanded, the bright light hurt.

“Ow!”

“Sorry.”

Oskar lowered the light, pointing it more at her chest.

“You look better.”

“I do?”

“Yes. The white streaks in your hair are gone, and your face – well…it looks fatter. I don’t mean fatter – just filled out more.”

“I had something to eat.”

“Doesn’t your dad feed you?”

“Not as often as I would like.”

“Can I look, now?”

With a dip of his head, Oskar gestured toward her groin.

“Only if it’s not going to gross you out. Like I said, I’m not like a girl or a boy down there.”

“It won’t gross me out. Nothing about you would gross me out. Can I look?”

Eli nodded.

Oskar moved the light down to her groin, following the light with his head. He sighed, a long exhalation of breath.

“Can I touch it?”

“Yes.”

“You’re so smooth down there,” Oskar said, running his hand over her groin. “You don’t have hair or anything.”

“No. Everything was cut off before I grew hair.”

“How old were you?”

“Twelve.”

“You’re twelve now. How long ago did…Did your father do it?”

“No. Not him. Someone else.”

“But, how long ago? I don’t see any…” He lowered his face for a closer look. “Is that a scar? You have a little pink line down there. It looks like a scar – kind of.”

“Yes. That’s where they were cut off.”

Oskar ran his hand down between her legs, feeling her groin from there to her navel.

“How do you pee?”

She pulled him away from her groin. How could she explain to him that she didn’t; she hadn’t urinated in two hundred years. Nor had she defecated. Any impurities in the blood she drank were expelled through her pores.

She was no longer human; she no longer had a human heart or lungs. She had no bladder or intestines. Blood entering her stomach went straight to her bloodstream. Only a part of her brain retained her humanity. Only there, was she still a child.

At least, she was until blood lust overcame it. Then, she was just that other thing.

“That’s enough, Oskar.”

“But, how…”

“That’s enough. Come up here with me.”

She pulled him up, until his face was even with hers.

“Do you still like me?”

“Yes.”

“Even though I’m not a girl?”

“I think you’re cool. I – I think it’s cool that…I don’t mean it’s cool, not if it’s something you didn’t want to happen, but I’ve sometimes thought about it.”

“Thought about what?”

“I wouldn’t tell just anyone, but you’re not just anyone, and since you’ve had your – you know – your things – your stuff - cut off, you would understand.”

“What would I understand?”

“I sometimes pretend that I’m going to cut my dick off. Once I even cut it a little.”

As Oskar spoke his left hand found his cock, which had become erect. He squeezed it unconsciously.

“Did you want yours cut off?”

Eli shook her head.

“No.”

“Do you wish you still had it? And your balls? Do you wish you still had them?”

“No.”

One of her kind, one with sex organs had an irresistible urge to fuck everything, which was one of the reasons she’d been castrated before she had been changed. Even her old master had been like her, no cock or balls. If she still had cock and balls, she would have fucked Oskar, and her ejaculate, virus laden blood, would have infected him.

“See.”

Oskar rolled off the bed, stepping over to the chair where his pants lay; he rummaged through the pockets, coming up with his knife. He took it out of its sheath and held it to the base of his dick.

“I could cut it off; then, I’d be like you.”

“No!”

“Shhh. You’ll wake up my mom.”

“Don’t do it, Oskar. You might bleed to death.”

Besides, even though she had just fed, she wouldn’t be able to resist drinking his blood. Just the thought of blood spurting from his cock made her fangs grow.

“You didn’t.”

“My cock and my balls were small; besides, someone sewed me up afterward. Put the knife down and come back to bed.”

Reluctantly, it seemed, he put the knife down on the dresser and came back to bed, crawling in beside her. He faced her, his mouth next to hers. She could feel his breath on her face. Reaching down, she grabbed his cock.

“Do they tease you because it’s small?”

“Do you think it’s small?”

“Do you?”

“Everyone else seems to have a bigger one, except for some of the younger boys; but mine’s the only one I’ve ever seen hard. I don’t know how big theirs get. Have you seen any – besides mine?”

“Yes.”

“Hard ones?”

“Yes.”

“Were they bigger than mine?”

“Some of them.”

All of them, actually. What was she supposed to do – lie to him? Wouldn’t he know? Didn’t he already know his was smaller than most?

“Oh.”

“It doesn’t matter Oskar. What does it matter how big it is? It doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care how big it is. I think it’s just right.”

She stroked it.

“Does that feel good?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to kiss me?”

“No. It would feel kind of weird kissing a guy.”

“I’m not a guy.”

“You’re not a girl either; besides, I’ve never even kissed a girl.”

Eli smiled. He was letting her jack him off, but he didn’t want to kiss. Kissing would be too weird.

Putting his arm around Eli’s shoulder, Oskar pulled her close, humping her hand. Before long, Eli felt him ejaculate, his hot come spurting onto her stomach. She kissed the corner of his mouth. He didn’t pull away from it.

Afterward, they lay, arms wrapped around each other, breathing the other’s breath. After a while, he spoke.

“Do you like doing it?”

“Doing what?” Although she knew what he meant.

“You know…jacking me off.”

“Yes.”

“Why? What do you get out of it? I’d do something for you but…”

“I know. You don’t have to do anything for me – not in that way.”

“But it doesn’t seem fair.”

“It’s enough that you’re my friend.”

“You don’t have to do it, you know. I would still like you, even if you didn’t.”

She had to do it, though. If she didn’t, he would jack off or even try to fuck her. The sexual attraction he felt – that any human would feel – for her kind was too great.

He couldn’t fuck her, of course. She had no opening down there.

Eli’s hand was still wrapped around Oskar’s cock, but it was flaccid. After a few moments, he spoke.

“You really don’t think it’s too small.”

Shaking her head in exasperation, Eli said, “Oskar, what does it matter how big it is? I think it’s perfect. I wouldn’t want you to have a bigger one.”

“Are you just saying that?”

“No. It’s just right. You have a beautiful cock.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

She felt it grow in her hand. Once it was hard, Oskar started humping her hand. After a moment:

“You can kiss me, if you still want to.”

She kissed him; he came.

Once Oskar was asleep, Eli climbed out his window and went to her own. Hakan still wasn’t home. It didn’t look like he was coming back.