This was not an uncommon occurrence in a French mountain town like ours.

The time is night and otherwise it is unimportant.

I'm having a fight.

"I'm tired," I say, my voice petulant. I look up at my companion, the one who has shared my bed for so long.

Understand that this is not a transcript, but rather a translation. Many nights not unlike this one, brought into one single memory for the purposes of written clarity.

"Come now," he says, sitting beside me on the bed. His hand trails down my back. My stomach feels ill. "Surely not as bad as that?"

I keep to my position. I do not move away for that would necessitate his coming after me. I would rather lie still and let us remain where we are. "Maybe yes," I say, wanting to test the waters now. I glare up at him. "Or is that not my right to say?"

"Lestat," he says it as a sigh and I can hear the tone in his voice. It is faint, but there. That harsh tone he takes when he is violent. I do not often hear it in these moments, though, and I think he realizes this. He tries to control himself. Tries to prove to me that he is not always so bestial. "Of course it can be whatever you want, Lestat. You have only to say. You know that."

I sigh now. He's smiling at me as he is talking, making it sound as though we are the grandest of friends.

Understand that this is not the beginning of our relationship. Not by a long shot. It has been going on for years now. I have gone beyond fumbling and wondering what it all is and have moved on into understanding. Understanding both of what sex and love is - or so I think - and understanding of his situation as well as mine. He is caught. By the nature of our secrecy he must now try to appease me. Spoiled as I am, I am learning to play mercilessly upon this.

He is always so pathetically glad when I return the attention and affection that he wants from me.

To smooth the waters I turn around. I'm lying on my back now, propped up on my elbows. I look out at him from under my hair which has fallen over my eyes just a bit. I know that he is watching me. The view, for him, is not that bad. "And what then?" I ask. "What will come of this? Won't it be just the same as before? I'm not sure I see the point of all this."

I see it in his eyes. He's hurt. And confused. "But… we will be together, Lestat." He smiles at me. This time it is more genuine. There is true pleasure there, true affection. "As you and I alone can be."

Ah. Yes. There is that.

He reaches out to me and I let him. I first allow myself to sit still for the touch - he merely brushes his hand against my cheek - and then in truth I enjoy it. It is affection. It is a moment of peace and caring and love. Which is something, as you know, I did not see often inside my father's house.

"You do…" and here he is careful. He knows better than to word this directly. Circumspection always, even in this. Especially in this. He lets his expression say it then, asking me to say that I do enjoy this, that I do not hate him as much as all that, to reassure him that I am merely having a teenager's flighty mood and will soon go back to being the partner in his bed that he wants so much.

"Of course I do," I say. The words are snappish, because I want to know I can make him flinch, but they are honest. "You know that." And then, because a small demon possesses my lips, I add "It's not as though I have a choice."

"Lestat!" he is standing now, so much taller over me, his hand raised as though to strike. I meet his gaze head on. He knows I do not fear this. Not after so long. Beatings are the least of my worries. In fact they clear the air.

And, perhaps, if he hits me now it will be the final truth. Admission from us both that he is too violent for this. That his sweet nighttime words are all a lie.

"Why do you do this?" he says, sinking down to his knees and kneeling beside the bed. He looks so much older, now. I see in him the elder man he is becoming, rather than the youthful man he once was. He holds his hands out as though to take mine in them. "Lestat, why? Please."

Pathetic. In every sense for I do pity him. I take mercy upon him then, turning onto my side and running my fingers through his hair. He sags in relief. "Hush," I say. "It's alright. Nothing's wrong."

"Good," he whispers. He looks up at me. He become fierce, suddenly, grasping my hand in a viselike grip. "I cannot stand your pain. You know that, yes?"

"Yes," I say, kissing him on the top of his head dismissing, with that gesture, all of the times he has beaten me into scarring. "I know. Hush. I don't want to talk about this anymore. It makes me unhappy."

My immature manipulations have worked. He's quick to obey. He's defensive of me now. In his mind he has now become the one man who protects me from the world, rather than one of the most painful things in it. He pulls me into his arms, making our embrace more intimate. I meet him touch for touch, forgetting all of the unpleasantness. For the moment it is as we pretend it to be - two caring lovers together in the darkness.

I can enjoy it, for that.

L.

Part 6

Reaction to my little affair was a mixed thing. That anyone knew of it at all was something never spoken, never brought to light. That I know others knew is merely my own conjecture.

But I'm fairly certain of it.

Augustin said nothing. However, as I've indicated before, he was always pleased for any thing which got me out of the family's hair. And it was one of my very few affairs that I bothered to be discreet about, and for that he could approve.

The wife of my lover kept her lips especially sealed. It has been many a guess by others - Louis in particular - that she must have known exactly what was going on. Although no one, to this day, can understand why she didn't stop it.

I've never asked her, which you know. I'm not sure I shall ever posses the desire to, or even the feeling of wishing that I had asked her at the time. Which is not to say that I am not curious, but rather that I am so tired of that aspect of it all the less I know and must deal with the better off I feel myself to be.

Whether or not my little affair improved or interfered with her marriage I could not say. I hazard a guess that it probably did both.

Only my other brother ever showed his knowledge of things. And even then he was quiet. It was a look. Given once, as we passed one another on the stairs. He stood on the landing, arms at his sides, his dark brown eyes staring at me as I climbed by. How he knew I could not say, but I know that he did.

The second born child is one never to be trusted, Armand. In the de Lioncourt family this was a lesson to take to heart.

How the information came to be known by anyone I could not say. Most likely it was guessed, based upon who was where at any given time. Most of our meetings came at night, which is to be expected, although sometimes I found my company was required in the day as well.

To begin the affair was not my choice. It never was. Blame for the affair has been placed upon me, of course, but starting this was never something that I wanted. Neither was ending it. In truth it never really ended. He simply died.

He told me that it was my fault. Which is not to say that he ever worded it like that, only that that was the real meaning behind his words. My fault that I attracted his eye, my fault that I distracted him.

But, on the other hand, he also felt he loved me.

This was something I found hard to understand when he hit me.

My mind proved to be a powerful tool. To dismiss that which bothered me became a talent I was most adept at. Anything I did not like, anything which hurt me was something I just would not think about. Ever. How easy is it to take your mind away from something that is troubling you with a minor distraction? Minor distractions became my life. My daily life, the world of hunger and beatings and poverty, was a distraction. Something that took my mind away from what happened at night.

My nighttime life, and my occasional daytime appointments, were something separate. And I didn't think about them.

By the time I became a teenager the worlds had separated for me. I had gone past not caring to not even knowing anymore. To forget was an act of will so ingrained I did not even know it happened. Ideas simply slipped past my mind and into my memories, never to be retrieved again.

At least, never to be retrieved until they were needed. Until I felt myself touched and called upon to act. Then and only then did the memories come and the instincts arise. Then I could do as I needed.

Otherwise I did not know. I could not know. Otherwise my screams would not end.

L.

Part 7

Pleasure is betrayal.

You wouldn't think that to look at me now. I know this.

However this was a lesson I could easily comprehend.

Imagine, if you will.

Here is Lestat, young and mortal. Very young, for he is a teenager. But of course teenagers were men in those days so surely his age should not upset us. Let us not put a number to his age, then, let us just say he is in his teens and let your own mind's eye form a picture that is pleasing to you.

Our young Lestat is lying in bed, sleeping or very close to it. As he rests he faces one of the small windows of his room, looking out over the mountains. If his eyes are open he is watching this.

But let's leave his eyes closed for now.

Eyes closed, breathing softly, resting after a long, hard day.

And then he feels the hand on his back.

Perhaps he starts awake, surprised. Perhaps he lies still, having expected this. Either way he is awake now.

The hand caresses him and a familiar voice whispers sweet words into his ear. They are the words any lover would say. The meaning is that Lestat was missed, and desired, and needed.

Need is ruling things now, for the most part.

Lestat is both bored and frustrated. He'd been trying to sleep. Although he knows he should know better by now - rare is the night when this does not happen. But, even still, part of him holds out hope that perhaps tonight it would not. Perhaps tonight he would close his door and it would remain closed.

But his lover is here now, and wants attention.

What would you do? How would you react? Would you push him away, knowing the fists that might meet this response? Would you pretend sleep, hoping he would go away?

You can't send him away yourself. This is not an option.

And as you sit there - as young Lestat lies there - pondering all of this our mysterious lover has continued his attentions. And now the mind fogs. Because it feels good.

You don't want it to. I never wanted it to. But it did.

Bodies do whatever they will. The mind can only follow.

So what do you do now? Fight? Push away from the sensations and remember your desire to be alone?

Why do that, when it's so unpleasant?

Cock hard now, the option is to give in. Only not to give in but to try to remain sane. Try to understand what is happening and react accordingly.

And, true, take the pleasure for what it is.

He was never a wholly incompetent lover. Hurtful, yes. The idea that our age difference could make sex painful was something that never occurred to him. But he fancied himself my paramour, the man I was destined to be with. After all, hadn't Fate put me literally into his lap?

I was his lover. I was his lover because I had to be. I would not have sought this out if given the choice. But I had no choice and thus did what I could.

And so I enjoyed it. Sexual pleasure from him was not unknown to me. How could it have been? I was a healthy young man. For it not to feel good would have been strange and highly unlikely.

And perhaps, especially when the whole thing started, I thought things could be as he said.

Of course circumstances kept us from taking this affection public. And of course it was widely understood that Lestat was always the child his father regretted having had born. But that was officially, the words spoken for the public ear.

Perhaps, perhaps, it was possible that in private the world could be different.

I became more jaded about that as time grew on. It was only later, far too much later, that I finally challenged and threatened and mocked him for what he was.

But I never stopped being with him.

The frequency changed, but the habit did not. I did not always share a bed with him at night - which you must know given how much time I spent with Nicki and all my other lovers in the village - but I gave him pleasure still. Even at the end when he was older, enfeebled, his eyesight gone and his body ravaged by time, I would still touch him. His cock in my mouth, or perhaps just a few strokes of my hand was all it ever was, but it persisted.

He'd gone far beyond the ability to hurt me. God knows by then I was bigger and stronger than he. But the relationship had gone beyond that as well. It had existed for years. He and I were paired for all time. His claim on me lasts to this very day.

I was his favorite child, after all.

L.

Part 8

I'm uncertain as to when my father decided he wished to take me.

I can speak of my memories, of course. For what they are worth in all of this.

My earliest known memory is of him. This says much, to me. I also know my earliest forgotten memories are of him as well. This also says a great deal.

Shall we turn the clock back again? Revisit the young Lestat from before?

Alright then, let's. Put Lestat back in his bed, lying on his stomach, facing out so that he looks toward his window. Only now erase his age. No longer a teenager, but a child. A boy. Arguably an infant, at that.

And yes there are those who would take a child so young. And children younger still. Although I don't suppose I need to tell you that, Armand.

I do not tend to hunt them, though.

The age? 3 or 4. Barely aware of the world around me, my young senses are now being filled with the thought of my father.

I understood none of it, of course.

To this very day, and you may ask Louis if you'd like, I dislike anything behind me.

This is naturally where he approached me most often.

I don't know why I didn't adopt the habit of sleeping on my back. Perhaps I never wanted to see him. If I could not see the door open or him steal into my room, perhaps it wasn't happening. Dreams have held stranger content, to be certain.

My earliest memory is that as I lie on my stomach, my father is behind me.

I know there is physical contact between us. The memory supplies me with nothing else. Right now, I don't care for it to.

At the time, I merely lay still. I did that for years.

What his words were to me then I do not know. He must have talked, but whatever he chose to say is now lost to me. Perhaps words of endearment. Perhaps words to soothe me and keep me quiet. Not that he needed to bother, my room was far away from anyone else's in the castle. And perhaps that was by design.

It was only as I got older that I was expected to participate.

6 years old? 8? Again the mind fogs. But I remember reaching out to him. I am sitting on my bed, he is perched on the edge of it beside me. His rough hand is around my wrist as my hand moves, no longer something I control, toward him. Fingertips stretch out as far as they can to caress, touch, feel the change of shape and form as he guides me.

My heart still beat wildly then. A pounding so harsh and thick that I thought I would faint from it. It was early enough still that I could remember this.

Or remember each time the sun went down.

By day the world was different.

Understand that this was never something acceptable. Never something that would be made public to anyone at all. That it was done was par for the course. You know this. But this was not a thing to tell the world.

During the day I lived in a fog.

Imagine it, if you can. Imagine that at night a lover comes to you, tells you everything you want to hear, swears to you that you are everything you wished you were, and then during the day he vanishes.

Not only he, but everything around him as well.

The difference between my father during our times together and in front of others was literally night and day.

By night he was my lover. Or so he fancied himself. I know that he felt I was made to be with him and, therefore, he with me. He obsessed, he terrified, he controlled, but he always acted as though I were his beloved.

By day he was once more Le Marquis. And I again the damned son.

But this was not something that was acted. This was not a play for the benefit of family. This was an entire shift in the reality of the world. Valere made sure of it.

I began to doubt my sanity.

As I sit here now it is impossible to describe. Impossible to show what it is like for a child to be told everything he knows about the world is wrong. Think of how many times I would question myself. Think of how many times I would look to my brothers - my mother - and wonder if they knew, if this happened to them to, if this was just something I was meant to go through.

Think of me and my father. Think of me knowing his darkest secret as he beats me to near-death time and again. Think of me trying to comprehend as he shouts insults and curses at me that contradict everything he purrs into my ear at night.

Think of him treating me at night, telling me that my wounds are such horrible things and that he will take good care of me to make sure I recover well. Treating me as though he were not the very man who had placed them on me.

For a while I wondered if this was true.

For a while I wondered if there were not only two versions of my father, but two versions of the world as well.

It's my shame to admit that I preferred the second one. The world of darkness, but honesty.

The concept of my sanity was always a subject of question. The habit was begun by my father and quickly picked up by my brothers as well. Whether my brothers did it to mock me or because they held the honest belief that I did not know what I was talking about I could not say.

I can guess, though. I believe that Augustin knew only that I was problematic. And Charlot simply knew how cruel it was to torment me.

It was never thought of that I was completely out of my mind. Should that have ever been believed I would have been banished to a sanitarium - Valere made sure I knew this as well. Rather, it was a habit to know that Lestat's words were not always the right ones. Not that I exaggerated, not that I made up stories, but rather that I did not speak properly. And even then not all the time, just sometimes.

It was a habit so ingrained that it was natural for Augustin to question my statement of killing the wolves. Surely I'd meant I'd chased them off, or that there had only been 3, or that they had been wounded but not killed, or deer but not wolves.

You see what I mean? Just a little word, here or there, that I might have misspoken.

Setting up such a thing thus made it very easy for my father to dismiss me when I would, stupidly, tell everyone at the breakfast table that I had seen him last night.

All it takes is a small change of wording for that statement to become perfectly benign.

After years of living in my father's house I finally learned to adapt to this form of doublespeak. It takes practice, but can be done. And now that I am a vampire I find it very useful to have a mind which can easily comprehend both the ordinary and the extraordinary. Taking in concepts that seem wholly impossible based on one's understanding of the universe becomes remarkably easy once you discover you know absolutely nothing about the universe you inhabit.

Not that I would recommend this as a prerequisite for our breed, of course.

To this day, though, memories of it linger. Language is always one of my weaknesses. Louis has learned to be patient with me as I ask him again and again to tell me what he just said - to rephrase it, please, so that my mind can understand. It is not that I did not hear his words, only that it is hard for me to connect words with meaning, particularly when emotions are at stake. And I, too, have learned little verbal tricks to get people to restate things for me so that I can be given another chance to hear it without seeming an utter imbecile.

Darkness, too, is something I am not overly fond of. Louis can enjoy reading by a single candle, I need the entire room ablaze. I mislike shadows that fog my vision, even though my vision is so much better than it was.

And, too, there are doors.

You remember how I was about doors in the brief time we lived together, I'm sure.

My preference is for privacy, always. Not that I mind eyes upon me in what others would consider intimate moments - as you know I can strip down and dress again in full view of everyone in a room without even realizing I'm doing it - but that I need to know when the eyes are there. The door to my bedroom, or study, or office, or anywhere is always kept only slightly ajar. And I am usually hidden behind it. Having my door open fully does not terrify me, but neither does it make me happy. Seeing something like that still puts a small, sick tilt on my heart. Not enough to hurt me, just enough to remind.

And amazingly enough, even with all such reminders around me, I still found it very easy to forget.

L.

Part 9

Tonight I am in the mood for technical details, fratello, so allow me to paint a bit more of my scenery for you.

My father was an older man, of course, although how much older than me I could not say for certain as I was never entirely sure of his precise age or, for that matter, mine. But the difference was significant and moreso than the fact that he was, literally, old enough to be my father. When I was a very small child I knew only the hints in his body of the fine man he'd once been and after that was age and deterioration.

He lost his eyesight sometime during my adolescence but here again the details of it blur for me. Sometimes I am tempted to say I had a hand in his blindness but without further clarity of memory I could not say for sure.

He was at least one decade older than Gabrielle, and even perhaps more. And it should go without saying that theirs was not a marriage of love.

Gabrielle had been married to him by arrangement. Specifically the arrangement of her Italian family after her father had died. They considered it utterly scandalous that he had taught her and traveled with her as he had and my mother, as you know, was and is a fiercely independent woman. Marrying a poverty-stricken man like my father was a social step down considering her father's station but her strange, masculine nature made her a less desirable marriage choice. And thus we may say that it is thanks to her father that she married mine. In a manner of speaking.

Her feelings regarding my father and my brothers you already know. My father's feelings towards her were something that I was not wholly privy to. I knew, however, that he felt more intimacy with me than with her. Although this is perhaps the standard thing to say to your partner when you are having an affair.

If Gabrielle took lovers outside of the castle I did not know of it. She was quiet, as you know, and not apt to share her secrets or her past history. What I've told you now and written down in my volumes is the whole of what I know and this gleaned only from years of half-conversations here and there. I tend not to press for more.

My father, as we all know now, did have affairs. And I was not his only partner. Outside of the castle, though, he took only women. And during my lifetime he rarely did this at all. Thinking on it now my mind volunteers the thought that he had one or two lovers leftover from before my birth that he had something of a loyalty to but that they were set aside once his relationship with me became more firmly established.

Bastard children by his deeds did not exist. Due to luck or strong potions taken after the fact but either way this was the case.

My brothers, too, had their mistresses in the village although they were not as subtle about this as my father had been and there were children about town who had a claim to their royal seed. Augustin, at least, did his best to provide for them and, in the manner of the times, acted in a way that was considered respectable and responsible. At no time was shame brought to my sister-in-law because of this.

Charlot had no such talent but subtly was never an art he had perfected by any means. A slob and a drunk he was far too likely to burst out with vulgar comments about his nighttime activities and far too often likely to do this in the presence of his wife. I often felt sorry for her, timid thing that she was and half his age besides.

My relations with my sisters-in-law and their children were distant but affectionate. Both ladies found me handsome and charming and I wager I could have easily found my way into their beds had I so chosen. Distance was kept between my brothers and I, though, which affected my relations with their wives as well. To have gotten closer to them would have required getting closer to my brothers and the latter was something I did not wish by any means. Nor did they, for that matter. So I stayed apart from them but showed what cordial affection I could.

I found my nieces and nephews very charming and, in them, saw the eventual future I would have as a father someday. Occasionally I would entertain the fancy of being their father in my own mind and I would imagine what such a thing would be like. This was never acted on, of course, save to again be cordially affectionate with them and to then later send them gifts of toys and other such things once I had Magnus's money to spend.

But still and all I thought I would have been a good father. I held no mental image in my head of when that would happen but, being a mortal man (and a rather randy one at that) I knew it would be my eventual destiny and did not shy away from it save for my natural fears that I would be like my father if push came to shove against my temper.

Thinking back on the innocent youth that I was then I can't help but share an ironic smile with myself as I think of the father I did turn out to be. But this is not the first time my romantic ideals have not met up with my reality.

Speaking again of my father himself I know that he was the second born son of his family and that his father - my grandfather - was known as being a stern man. Le Marquis before my father had been alive when I was born but only in the barest sense of the word. I think that my brothers knew him more than I but here again only barely.

The story of my grandfather is one not wholly known to me but one I am able to sketch if nothing else. Stern, as I have said, and decrepit for a long time. And not, from what I was able to tell, entirely fond of my father.

Let us understand something about royalty for a moment, particularly royal sons -

As is known by everyone, the eldest royal son is the royal heir. He is born for that reason. He is likewise loved and cherished for this reason as well. From birth he is the golden one, believed by some to be sent down from Heaven. If nothing else he is the proud extension of his father - a younger version of himself to carry on after he is gone.

The royal son who comes second in line is an afterthought. A safety device. A failsafe in case the other should die or any other such tragedy befall him.

In other words, nobody gives a damn about him until the first one's dead. And even then only if the first son dies before having any sons of his own.

This does not inspire the second born son to any noble deeds.

It is made painfully obvious from the moment the second son is born what their position is in life. They are trained in this from the moment they can understand. They come, as should be no surprise, to feel deep and bitter hatred of this.

Their hatred becomes even worse once they understand how they can fix things.

The second born sons of royalty should never wholly be trusted. Having been born knowing they are but a lifesbreath away from greatness they will spend their whole lives working against that fact. At best it will cause an aftertaste of bitterness in their mouths. At worst, and far more commonly, their personalities are shaped because of it.

My father was born second.

Le Marquis' first born son - my uncle - was said to have died mysteriously.

Imagine that.

My father's personality was forged in the fire of contempt. With only one person - one heartbeat - between him and what, but for the quirk of timing, should be his he found that it was easy to act and remove said obstacle from his path.

He, at least, can be said to have the courage to act out his wants and desires.

My father, second-born, learned how to plot and scheme and get rid of the first-born without too much natural suspicion falling upon him. Of course back then it was par for the course that murder amongst the royal classes happened all the time and most particularly for the sake of advancement but even still it was necessary not to trumpet the fact that you'd been the one behind the knife.

So the end result of all this was that my father learned something of secrecy and strategy and never let go of the fact that the world held out on him in fulfilling its promises. The stigma of being second best never truly left his perceptions and he remained convinced that he deserved more than he was getting and that anyone who denied him his desires deserved the swiftest and cruelest of punishments.

It was on such concepts our relationship was formed.

As for Charlot, the second son of my own generation of the de Lioncourt family, his was a different fate. Though he grew up with all of the de Lioncourt bitterness at his station in life he lacked my father's ability to act upon it. And thus he grew up not only filled with contempt for the world around him but for himself as well. He was smart enough, at least, to recognize his weakness for what it was even if he did not, perhaps, admit it to himself.

It was into this world that I was born and raised.

L.

Part 10

This is out of order, fratello, at least if we are speaking of these things chronologically. So I will ask your forgiveness and indulgence. But the mood strikes me and in truth I feel I should follow.

The night I didn't die.

You know it. It was the day I went into the Gobi, never to come back.

Or I hoped to never come back.

Louis has asked me, both outright and in that quiet, polite way of his, why I did this. Why did I try to kill myself and why did I not say goodbye to him. Why, of all things, I said goodbye to David Talbot instead.

Call it an odd mood of mine, but I'd like to answer him.

I'll get back to my father's house later.

Let us move the clock ahead and take another look at our hero. Here he is, in the birth of the 1990s, the epitome of everything vampires are meant to be. He is strong, perhaps even more powerful than the most ancient ones, and he is alive. Which for vampires at the time was saying a lot.

He wants to die.

Oh I know what I said after the fact. Pretty little lies to the world and myself. Flash of a quick smile and a nod to let the world know I was never that serious. Never truly that desperate, vulnerable and weak. I just wanted a tan to compliment my hair color. How like me.

I wanted to die.

And perhaps you can understand this, fratello.

You, former leader of the Damned. Leader of the damned still, in your own heart. You never gave that up. We both know it. You must have known the death I wanted.

I'm not sure if Louis ever did. Perhaps. In his own way.

Why? No Lady MacBeth, me. I had no blood on my hands.

That's what bothered me.

It has been argued to me, with intermittent success, that in my time with Akasha I did not have a choice. That in no way could I have stopped it.

Perhaps. But that didn't stop me from enjoying it.

I wanted it, Armand. When the slaughter began I wanted my share. I killed and killed and killed until the world was death and it was not enough. Their lives did not matter, their deaths did not matter. I wanted a world of death and I created it. There was nothing more to be done.

Do the math, if you will. Argue that those I kill even to this very day are no different from those I killed in that time. Argue that the numbers even out, when you take into account my time underground. Argue it all you like.

It doesn't matter.

In my heart I murdered. I did not drink their blood, I did not live from their lives. I murdered. Complete, utter murder for no good reason save my own pleasure. I was no different from that pissant Azim when it comes down to it.

Do the elders mock this self-indulgent guilt, do you think? I can't help but wonder if Pandora reads something of this and shakes her head, wondering why it bothers me so. To the Children of the Millenium this malady of mortality must seem needless.

But it is mine and my cross to bear. I'll wear it with the addiction of two hundred years.

Can the question really be why I wanted to die? Is that really the matter of dispute? Surely it can be understood the horror I felt at myself, the pain of living with myself. Oh yes, I could look into the mirror and proclaim myself the Vampire Lestat once more. Ducky. What a bastard.

The Vampire Lestat had to die.

Of myself I could not say. I was nowhere to be found, really, so it did not matter. The one voice I allowed myself was this vote that The Vampire Lestat was to be no more. He needed to die, I was the only one who could kill him.

So I did.

Death in the Gobi. Perfect for him. Burned alive, as he should have been. Burned as I had burned myself time and time again in my father's house, torn from my body as I had so many times torn my own skin.

Three days of such torture was, for him, as they say, a good start. It didn't last longer but it was enough.

When it was done, when I crawled out of that hole of Hell, I felt him buried in there. The bastard was still under all that sand, a corpse. Me, I was alive.

So I thought.

Raglan James was, I know now, his revenge. The Vampire Lestat did not die. He is still me, and I he. And the part of him that was left to speak inside of me after this attempt at slightly extroverted suicide took revenge on that part of me which was guilt-ridden and overly sentimental. The result of it was the logical extreme - trapped inside of a body as weak and stupidly vulnerable as I felt. Doomed to die a slow and proper death, as I felt I deserved. Banish the vampire, die like cattle.

The keenness with which I hate myself surprises me at times, and often draws a bit of self-admiration.

Trial by fire and ice, all self-inflicted, all with the hope of destroying that which I hated inside of me.

And perhaps to this extent it can be said that I did not want to die, as I wrote in my book was the case. Not truly. Instead I was punishing myself as was apt for the crime. One cut, one burn was not enough. For a crime such as this I needed torture. When none offered, I happily supplied it.

Thus explains Lestat's time of second mortality.

But we are also explaining a bit before.

Louis hurt me. Not deliberately, my God never that. No.

And in truth, Armand, the emotions are still so raw that I still cannot force my mind to focus on them. I can only speak of them vaguely, as though they never really happened. I can only surmise the words to be true because they do not feel themselves to be a lie.

But when I look at it I can say that Louis would have destroyed me. Being with him would have killed me. The scant time we spent together was enough to keep me sane but more than that and I think I would have died.

How could I touch him? My beautiful one, how could I corrupt him?

I was diseased, monstrous. I lived in horror of the memory of my strong arms around his frail form that night in New Orleans when we left Night Island by way of the U.K. He could have died in my arms and I would have never felt it. Like air to me, like nothing. So far beyond the human immortality that he valued so much, I was now the very epitome of everything vampirism represented to him and which he hated in turn.

I felt his contempt and condemnation of me, even if he never felt it himself. He didn’t need to. My imagination is active enough to cover such discrepancies between my emotions and my reality.

And how can this even be said? How could it even be brought up in conversation? How could I turn to him and say what I was about to do without explaining the why of it?

I held a secret hope that he never knew what I had done with Akasha. It was in the book, true, but not enough, truly, to paint the full picture. Like with my father's house, I used only broad strokes.

But I knew with Louis it would be enough.

That Louis knows what happened to me I do not doubt. Even though to this very day I have never told him the blow by blow of it. Louis can look at me and know my soul, never fear that.

But I could not confirm it for him. Or myself. Could not speak aloud the words which would admit finally the beast that I was. Could not hurt him with that reality, nor myself with his reaction to it.

And, stupidly, if I did not tell him I was dying perhaps in some way I would still live. In his mind at least I could still perhaps be the man he felt worthy enough for his occasional company, the man he cared for enough to sit still and watch a video with, from time to time.

Perhaps.

And, too, I was just a coward. One must admit the simplicity of that as well.

Craven coward, I did not tell him. I ran away. Which is far less than he ever deserved from me. Even as a monster, he deserved the right of my death more than I ever have. If nothing else I should have been brave enough to give him the first shot at my black heart.

But I couldn't bear the knowledge of that. Couldn't die thinking Louis truly and utterly hated me as much as he should have. So I fled, and denied him that which he deserved, and hurt him as he should not have been hurt, and it is as simple as that.

David was my last will and testament.

He was a scholar, so his opinion did not matter. His opinion was meant to be historical and not much more. I could talk to him and feel that I was not giving myself over to judge and jury. And that, moreover, whatever I gave would be recorded for any who cared after my demise.

That he helped when I needed it was a fluke.

That I turned him into a vampire was perhaps the last known act of The Vampire Lestat. His last known warning of why others should never befriend me too much. I will strike out at anyone close to me, no matter what they do.

But it was nothing, an afterthought. I didn't care, so I told him. That's all.

And thus explains my rather demented and pathetic little suicide. It wasn't the first time I'd thought such thoughts and we both know it wasn't the last.

I can't help but wonder what would happen if I truly could die.

Or perhaps the universe prefers me here.

One can never know.

L.

Part 11

Author's note: This part might make more sense if you first read Armand's views on Music in Part 9 of Jester of God.

Music, brother? Fair enough, and not without a point or two, but let us discuss sex.

Shocking to many, I know, is the fact that sex has been one of many topics of conversation I've participated in lately. Sex, and you, but as we know these are not necessarily one in the same.

I've promised not to talk about you in this and I'll keep that promise, unless prompted to do otherwise by none other than yourself.

So, sex.

Sex is without a doubt the most dishonest thing I have ever known. I have a companion who considers it the opposite, however only with the disqualifier that the only person who can be assured of any insight from the action is someone who is not participating in it.

Which may be true. Perhaps to a third party some insight can be gained by learning of the actions of two other people. As my companion pointed out, there is something to be said regarding whether or not sex is being had and with whom someone is having it.

I suppose.

But let's take the two partners, shall we?

Sex is contempt.

I will make this even clearer: I have contempt for absolutely everyone I have had sex with.

Sex disgusts me. Especially with men. Women, of course, have no previously created emotional attachments within me (my dear mother included in this) so they are somewhat exempt from this. However they are only exempt in that they are a bit more likely to fall under the concept of "fun" rather than "sex" when they were my bedmates.

Only a bit more likely.

So we are going to ignore them.

For now.

Men.

Let's paint a picture.

Take a man, any man. You'd be correct if the first image you thought of was my father but in truth any man will do. Picture this man however you like. Perhaps he's tall, perhaps short. Perhaps his hair is dark, perhaps it's fair. American, Italian, Japanese - these details do not matter.

Imagine now, if you will, what our man is thinking.

I'm in the room with him, and there is attraction of course. With few exceptions, there is always attraction. You know this. Quite a lot of our kind do, even when they were mortal. Most of us are incredibly attractive.

But it is also honest to say that a few, such as you and I, are a bit more attractive than most.

At this point, brother, I think you can start to fill in some of the blanks as to what I am thinking as I regard our gentleman, but I've learned never to assume with you so I shan't say this for certain.

Getting back to the situation at hand, we have a gentleman who looks at me with the tiniest bit of an idea inside of his head that feeling my body against his might please him.

What happens now?

Now I consider our gentleman. I do not sleep with everyone in the entire world so we already know that there is some sort of criteria for my bedmates to pass. We shall assume that our friend here has passed it. How? Who knows? Perhaps I find him vaguely interesting. Perhaps he is attempting to be a part of my life. Perhaps he's already a friend. There are many reasons why I do this. Pick any that you like.

Sometimes I do it because I hope it is love.

Sometimes.

In fact, let us even assume so. Let us paint what is perhaps the best case scenario for this situation and say that somehow my little heart has been struck and I desire this person for my partner. True desire on my part, true hope in my soul that I have found a companion.

Cruelly now, there comes the test.

I wonder if you know of it, and do it yourself. As I said before, I don't dare assume.

I suppose we shall see.

Back to our would-be lover in the meanwhile.

I have been told that I am pure sex. I have been told this by many people. Enough for me to assume there is something in this and also enough for me to report it here without any of my former or current lovers thinking that I am revealing the words they whisper to me in bed. Considering how different my lovers have been, and how they have felt about one another, I think it safe to say that a good deal of them have come up with this concept on their own without the influence of one another.

You, I have been told, are pure seduction. For what it's worth to you.

I will agree with my lovers. We are all given talents in life. One of mine - in addition to my music - is my sexual prowess.

Ah no - not my long list of bedmates, as most would use that term. No. Instead I refer to my sexual ability. An ability so fine and expertly tuned that I can discern the true sexual secrets of almost everyone.

Discern them, and use them mercilessly.

The first victim of this was my father.

He was easy.

The rest came naturally after that.

We all have hidden desires. Things that we don't tell anyone, sometimes even ourselves. But we secretly hope against hope that our lovers will fulfill them.

Most of my bedmates have discovered that I can fulfill theirs in ways that are almost frightening.

Take our patiently waiting gentlemen. There he is, thinking that he desires me. There I am, hoping in this instance that he too will fulfill my own dreams. So I approach him and like the best mind reader feel the impulses deep inside of him and I learn without even thinking about it what buttons to push.

I have found, for the most part, that most of my sexual partners have very similar desires.

What do they want? Submission first and foremost. Can you blame them? Who would not want to conquer me? Or to know that one as beautiful as I was their adoring slave? Few men, I find, can resist the idea of knowing they can control someone - anyone - with the palm of their hand.

So I purr at them, and give in to them, and continue to adapt.

Now we get into more fine tuning. What do they want next? It depends. Some want an experienced lover, others want a virgin. Often and unsurprisingly they want a youth.

After that it becomes even more specific to the man in question and his own hidden desires.

Their minds at this point are gone. Hormones completely rule them and they go deeper and deeper into the spell that is being woven, giving up all concepts of who or what I was for the vision that is currently before them and which fulfills their total and utter fantasies.

Completely and utterly pathetic.

And then they wonder where my contempt comes in.

It is - or rather should be - obvious.

The worship and desire in their eyes is not for me. Not truly. It is for my eyes and my lips and my cock and my body but it is never ever ever for me. And there, my brother, we discover their ultimate fantasy. They could not give a good God's damn about me truly. All their morals and values are dumped into what sums up as an extroverted session of intense masturbation. Let Lestat purr and coo at them. It's all they want. A pretty little oversexed toy to play with and never have to take care of.

Please.

I find it often only takes once for me to break the most stupidly insistent of my would-be lovers. However it must be said that even after I have done this I far too often delude myself into a few more sessions, convinced that the look of worship in their eyes is, this time, truly for me.

But even those relationships don’t tend to last very long.

The longest of these, of course, was with my father. After him I find I have spent my time with the expert in these matters and therefore do not care much for amateurs.

So there we have it. Finally and definitively it is stated the Lestat de Lioncourt, the Vampire Lestat, holds nothing but contempt for everyone he has or ever will have sex with.

There are no exceptions to this rule.

Take that as a condemnation of each and every one of my sexual partners or take it as a confession of my own contemptuous methods of sexual behavior if you will. Do whatever you want with it. I don't care.

Ah, but I can hear the protests now. The wails and lamentations for a romantic vision of me that is fading before everyone's eyes. So let me take just a moment to restore a little faith in me.

I feel contempt for those I have sex with.

Making love is another matter.

Few people have ever made love with me, but they are out there and I do adore them.

Making love is an incredible thing. It is something that I am still, to this very day, discovering. It is a stripping down of all of my barriers - and theirs - and a feeling of connection unlike any other, even the bond of blood.

This does not mean that some games are not played. Of course they are. But now, at least, the games are in fun. A shared enjoyment of some kinky entertainment, and of course always with some advance warning and an assurance of some sort of consent.

I enjoy making love.

And I will even make a small confession: One of the moments I enjoy most is when my lovers stop in the midst of things - even in the heat of passion - hold me still and tell me to stop. Stop acting, Lestat. Stop pretending. Be yourself. Be your flawed, selfish and arrogant self. That is what they find truly erotic.

I can't blame them. I find it to be that way myself.

And there's the final irony for all of my sexual partners who sought the fantasy of me. Every single one of them could not leave me colder. But those who seek me in love and true understanding find that I am almost unable to keep my hands off of them. And I most certainly find it near impossible to stop thinking erotic fantasies about them in my every waking moment.

I can't help but wonder if it's so much effort to ask in return for such reward.

My own arrogance again there, obviously.

The end for this letter then. No true tale told here, just a bit of insight.

I leave it to you to figure out who I have had sex with, and with whom I have made love.

And I'll leave you with the final bit of torment that sometimes - rarely, but often enough to matter to you - I have done both.

So perhaps the real question is which left the more lasting impression within me: the contempt, or the affection?

One can only wonder.

L.

Part 12

I was having a conversation with a mutual friend the other night.

“So, like, this is new for you, huh?” he asked. We were sitting in that small outgrove by the house that you're familiar with. The one with the rock garden and the view of the water.

“More or less,” I said. We were talking about emotions. Specifically my own, although he was being too much of a gentleman to truly say so aloud. It proved to be an interesting verbal dance.

The conversation in truth had started a few nights prior. I'd mentioned my occasional fear of sleeping – especially when I am drawn into it against my will. He'd professed ignorance as to why and, smiling, I had to gently remind him that for me the concept of nighttime invaders was not unknown.

He'd been horrified at his forgetfulness, but even so it peaked his curiosity a bit.

Which I didn't mind. I never mind the conversation, so long as I can be certain of where it is going.

Returning to the moment at hand, he was thinking about his next question.

“Why?” was his final choice, after a few false starts.

“Why do I find emotions difficult, or why do I find it difficult to express them?”

“Either. Both.”

“Emotions aren't always honest,” I said. “And expressing what you feel is a failure.”

“Now that-that's bullshit.”

I grinned. “In some ways. In others, not as such.”

“Why?”

I tried for a tone that was honest without being hurtful. “Because to express myself would mean letting others know how I feel. And to let them know that I feel pleasure, or hurt, would be to give them a victory over me for the emotion. I want my emotions to be my own.”

He thought about this, rolling it over carefully in his mind.

“It's different now,” I said, hoping to somehow lighten the cruelty of the images that he might be seeing. “Which is entirely thanks to Louis. With him I can trust enough to show how I feel.”

“Ah,” he said, holding up a hand to emphasize his point. “But do you trust enough to let yourself feel? This is the problem.”

“Oh?” I asked, but I was smiling.

“Yes. Because you hold back. You fight it off like-like…” he waved a hand dismissively, then shrugged. “I've seen it. You don't think you should feel pleasure. Which is why you let people treat you like shit. Anyone who wants to make you happy has to, like, trick you into it. You're only happy if you get surprised. Anything else is like –" another wave and shrug “it doesn't count.”

My smile became broader. "True," I admitted. "But just because I don't show my pleasure doesn't mean I don't feel it."

"Maybe," he said.

Throughout all of this I nursed a memory. It was one of feeling, more than sight or sound. It was something I could feel in my muscles and bones. A stiffness in my body. A woodenness to counteract whatever else might be happening to me. I could remember it from countless times, used it as a defense again and again to discourage whomever was lying on top of me.

Discourage him, and lie to myself.

I wondered if my companion could understand that. And, in a way, I wanted to speak the words – share the picture – but knew it would be too vulgar for this little conversation.

There was a spark of loneliness in that. Because of it, I must have looked away.

"Hey," he said. "None of that bullshit with me. You know better, Lestat."

And then, much as he said, I was surprised into happiness again. I grinned, enjoying the joke of my name. It was used only when I was truly being a pretentious bastard.

In response, I mimed putting my hand over my heart as though I'd been shot.

"Yeah, yeah," he said. "Well get over it." It was his turn to grow serious then. "You know, you shouldn't…. Don't put up with this crap, man. Don't let everybody rag on you. You're an asshole sometimes, yeah, but not all the time. You're not the guy you think you are. Don't go off with that 'suffering in silence' bullshit, ok? It's not worth it."

"Alright," I said, not entirely certain what his intentions were with all of it, but willing to agree to it nonetheless.

"Yeah, well, remember that," he said. He reached over and scruffed my hair in a comfortable gesture. There was a pause before he continued. "I'm here, you know. You've got a problem – you come get me, ok?"

"Ok," I said. And with that the conversation ended, leaving us to sit in companionable silence – him to his thoughts, me to my memories.

But still in all I was glad for it. Glad for the clarifications we had spoken, and for the feeling that in somehow, by speaking with your Child, I had also spoken to you.

L.

Part 13

I think you can imagine what I shall talk about tonight, fratello.

For the record it was originally going to be Nicolas, or Magnus, or my father, or Louis, or something else. Something that seemed appropriate to speak of, given all I had said before. But I need to pause. I need to stop a moment and talk about something else.

Mojo.

I met Mojo during my time with Raglan James, as you know. He was a stray, or a lost pet. I was never quite sure. I assumed James had stolen him along with the house but found no proof. Whoever owned him before I did remains a mystery to me to this day.

To say I have a love for animals and for canines is an obvious statement. They were my only true companions in my father's house and in my mortal life my only friends. To say that I have a liking for dogs is to be pedantic.

But Mojo was different.

Imagine the meeting. There I was, a wretched creature, aching to die, trying to undo my own evil nature, locked inside a monstrous shell that had so little to do with my enhanced body and had everything to do with my very soul.

Hate was my watchword. I was filled with it, seeped in it, lived it to my very pores. It was a hate begun with my concert and only added on to as the years went by. By the time of my meeting with James it was all that I was. It was my reason for being, and my reason for seeking him out.

I hadn't given up. That point was long gone. I merely was. And what I was, was despair.

To those that know of him, Mojo was known for a talent, a quirk of behavior that cemented him into my reader's minds: Mojo, the dog that knew Lestat no matter what form he took.

This was true.

When I made the body switch with James, Mojo stayed with me. Everything about me was different - my movements, my scent, my sound - but Mojo stayed by my side. He knew me. Knew who I was and that I was not James.

But, to me, it went beyond that.

Mojo knew me.

I cannot describe it, and even now as I look over the words that I am putting down here I feel they are painfully, pathetically inadequate for my task, but please God understand what this dog meant to me.

Mojo was my friend. He was perhaps my one true friend. A living creature of heart and soul who understood me for who and what I was and remained by my side in spite or perhaps because of it.

To have this dog come to me, to have him lick my hand, to have him stay by my side no matter what - it reminded me. Reminded me that I, too, had a soul and a heart and was not this created sum of my sins as I had told myself.

Mojo saw the man that I was. The man I had been, years ago, when two mastiff pups trusted their lives to me and the man that I still am today who is, at his heart, good.

He never rescued a child from a burning building, he never stopped a criminal or diffused a bomb, but he did something important in spite of all that.

He saved me.

He lit within me the spark of what I am and because of him I fought and struggled and determined not to give up, not to turn myself into this depression, not to become the evil everyone assumed that I was. I was Lestat, I was his, I was good.

When I killed him this Sunday it tore my heart from me.

His health was failing, which we all know. The clock was running out, which I bitterly resented. But this was fate, and it was inevitable, and not even my own supposedly God-like powers could deny it.

Mojo remained loyal to the end, as per his demeanor. That he did not die last December is, I believe, due solely to the promise that I extracted from him that he hang on for just one moment longer, that he not leave me before the year 2000. I wanted to start that year with him, I needed to have that memory of him at this crucial time. I was selfish in this but he forgave me. His health stayed constant and even well enough that he could be with me and stay with me as Louis and I moved houses and changed climates yet again and I could look at him and deny to myself the fact that he was mortal and he was elderly and he was leaving me.

Not by choice. No. Not mine nor his. But it was coming. And when it came I did what had to be done. For him and him alone would I make this sacrifice. It was merely painful irony that the sacrifice I had to make was him.

The decision hung over my head for months. I spoke of it to no one save Louis, and to Louis only because he spoke of it first, trying to somehow ease the path for me and for Mojo, trying to make sure that the end came before it was too late to be an ending of mercy.

From me Louis gained a few terse words and little more. The reality of Mojo's life was mine to worry about and, childlike, mine to assume that denial meant the event could somehow be averted. If no one pointed out his grey fur, his waning appetite, his pain-filled gait, it did not exist.

But it did, and I could not let that be.

I set upon the decision the night before after a mere chance conversation with your Child resulted in my helpless weeping at what was to come. I had known that the time was soon, and had guessed it to be sometime in the next few weeks, but knew at that moment I could put it off no longer. It did not serve Mojo, who only sought to serve me.

The next night he and I set out alone. I took him out into the countryside not long after rising. Using my own abilities I eased his pain and allowed him to walk without discomfort. We went out together, following the fading sun's rays and kept on until we reached a spot that was far away from the rest of the world.

I sat down against a rock and stretched my legs out before me. He sat as well, sprawling his pony-sized body across my lap, with his sweet, pink tongue lapping easily at my hand.

We stayed this way for hours. Long past the sunset, long past the navy blue of the sky, long past the appearance of every single star the universe had to offer. We sat this way together and did not move except for his mouth on my hand and my fingers stroking his fur.

I talked to him, sometimes aloud, sometimes silently. I told him of my love and devotion and how I would have followed him into the ends of the earth had I only been called to, and if it were only possible.

Mojo, always an exemplary example of his breed, understood.

He had understood, I think, his death long before I had, knowing it in perhaps the same way as he had known everything else he had needed to in order to be with me and comfort me all these years.

He understood, then, that the time had come and that it was my gift to him to do this. As he had saved me from my own death, so would I save him from his life. Because I loved him, I would not let him feel hurt, or sorrow, or regret that his final memories were those of being locked inside a pain-filled body.

I had debated how to do it. I thought about taking his blood, but that was horribly wrong. I then considered snapping his neck, but that was too violent.

Instead, I merely let him go. I held him in my arms and bid him farewell and released his soul into whatever Heaven might await him. Louis tells me he is now free and well enough to chase butterflies. Perhaps he does.

I took his body into the mountains. A small coffin was prepared but I ignored it, even though I had bought it for him. It was not right. Instead I carried him myself, holding him in my arms until I reached this safe place that could be his graveyard. I dug out the hole for him and carefully placed him in. I allowed myself one last glimpse of him and prayed to whatever God that cared to take care of him. I then covered him over with dirt and let his body sleep in this final rest as his ancestors might have done with nothing but the earth itself to protect him.

A small cross sits upon the spot now and his name is upon it. Woe to anyone who disturbs him.

It has been hard for me, since I have come back. My tears from the night before have exhausted me and I find my heart cannot bear to think of this anymore than I have to. Instead I remain somewhere between denial and despair, able to move about my day only if I distract myself, and convince myself that in truth he is just lurking around the corner, just hiding in the kitchen, just outside for some air, and not gone from me forever.

He can't be.

You had your cat, mi fratello. I had my dog. He was my soul and my humanity and he was my friend. There were none ever like him and there will never be another.

He was Mojo. May God please love him as much as I did.

Lestat.

Part 14

Where to begin?

The situation in my father's house was, of course, unbearable. Which is truthfully not as obvious a fact as one would think. At least not to me.

It is true that I prayed to get out of there, that God would somehow deliver me. I can remember myself quite clearly, kneeling in the little chapel inside of our castle, my arms outstretched as I offered myself to God in whatever way He wanted me in return for deliverance from this particular evil. This is all true. And it is worth noting that I did offer myself completely to God and that even to this day I would gladly become God's slave and lover, which is a state of affairs which I am sure you yourself are familiar with. I suppose that in my eyes God was merely another father, able to be placated and humored in exchange for whatever gifts he could bestow.

This was the other side of the situation. Yes the Marquis was impossible. Violent. Cunningly manipulative for a man who did not bear the education that you and Santino did. I nearly died in that house at least three times that I am aware of and each time was at his hand. This preternatural body that encases me now still bears the scars of some of his contact.

Yet, even in this, there could be pleasure of a kind.

I was perhaps my father's pupil and at his knee I learned the tasks which he deemed necessary of me. Painful, disgusting, but not impossible. As you yourself know, there can be an easing if you are seen to be willing, to understand, able to comprehend that you should not be too willing but that you should grow and delight in the touch.

And this is the little hidden fact of it, isn't it? We do not wish these things but neither are we stupid or blind. How dim-witted the child who does not understand what the adult wishes of them and, once understanding, to act upon this knowledge.

Such a common fact. Even Augustin comprehended it. Lestat could placate the Marquis like no other in the home. Send young Lestat into the chessroom and peace could once more fall upon the house.

Was I ignorant of this? Of course not. And once I understood it I, just as he had, could use it, take advantage of it, manipulate my father just as he in turn manipulated me.

What I sight I must have been then to any with such tendencies. A young and beautiful blond-haired boy, his eyes innocent and wide yet hinting, poised at the threshold of my father's room with lips pursed, head bowed in curiosity knowing - knowing such things would draw him to me, would make him my victim now, instead of me his. Why would I not do this thing? For freedom? For kindness? For affection? Why wouldn't I? How couldn't I?

How old was I when I began such things? Brother, I do not know. I think it was perhaps a gradual thing, and understanding and experience gained over time. Time to understand what was being done, time to understand what was being asked of me, time to understand the effect my reactions had on him.

So slowly, then. Gradually. Over years I was taught how to become my father's lover, and over years I understood all that such a status entailed - for good and for ill. Did I wish it? Not inherently, no. There was nothing about it I innately desired. Young as I was, ignorant as I was, I knew the violation, the understanding that this should not be, that this was a betrayal of my life unlike any other. But I could not stop it. And so, unable to end this affair, I could only do what I could to improve it, to bring something like control or sanity back into my existence. I could choke on my father's cock each evening or fellate him expertly into a loving stupor. How pathetically easy that decision is.

I think perhaps I gained an expert use of my mouth at the age of nine. Perchance ten. It was something I was rather adept at, even at an early age.

Of course the whole thing became easier as I grew larger and more physically capable of taking the man in.

So this was the dichotomy, then. Heaven and Hell, much like you yourself lived through. Which is why I begged God for release from this prison at the same time that I took pleasure in what it was. If I could change nothing, do nothing to send my father or myself away, then I could do little else but enjoy my unique station, take advantage of the fact that with the proper pout of my lips and sigh of my breath I could at least control my torture for a time.

And, too, let us be honest about things. It was the only form of love that I knew.

Gabrielle cared for me but was, as the world over knows, distant. Not inclined towards outward displays of love or affection. That she cared for me more than any of her other children was true, however her attempts to show this resulted only in a glance here, a casual touch of my shoulder there. In times of trouble it was she who rallied against my father and called in a doctor - thus saving my life those three times that I can think of - but it was my father, not she, who would tell me I was cared for. That I had to use every trick of my body to get this admission paled in comparison to the starvation that I lived in - starvation for affection that is, although it had not been unknown for Valere to make this a literal starvation of food as well. I remember quite clearly being locked inside of a little cabinet not far from the kitchen, left there to rot for my sins while bugs and rats crawled past my legs. I remember screaming, but not being released until Valere saw fit. I remember this happening more than once and yet no one in the family would come save me. Perhaps they knew better than to try when Valere was so angry. Perhaps they felt that for a time I was safer there than anywhere else.

But I do know I found it rather amusing that years later the experience put me in good stead for life as a vampire. Living in coffins, sleeping with the worms and insects underground - it was all comfortably familiar to me. In fact it remains so to this day.

The point of the matter is that there was good and bad to be found in my father's home - or rather I made what good out of what bad there was as a constant.

However it is not to say that the home was wholly pleasurable, or that I found great joy within it.

My habit of scarring myself came from this fact. The last bastion of control that I had in my life came from what little I could to bring myself harm. And anyone who has done this thing themselves, who has attacked their own skin with fingernails, knives, burning embers, cut glass - anything - understands that it is an event unto itself and entirely unexplainable save for the fact that it must be done.

If anyone in the house noticed I'm not sure. I would not have made a point to show them, or even to make the scars highly visible. They were mine and mine alone.

With time, though, came the ability to do other things to escape from and somehow dull the pain.

Drinking was one of these things. Sex was another.

When did I start drinking to become drunk? I do not know. I do know that at the age of sixteen it was a habit of mine, one encouraged by my failed attempt to escape with the actors, and habit enough that my nightly drunken state eventually brought me into a night of agony possibly worse than anything my father could have provided, and one that he ended up healing me from, much to my gratitude and humiliation.

I drank because I enjoyed becoming drunk. Because it blurred the lines of reality in my world for a time and allowed me to be a creature which lived these two lives - one the responsible Marquis' son who the villagers ultimately trusted to hunt and save them from the wolves, the other being the Marquis' secret possession and lover, a debauched little child who could do nothing else but make the best of his situation.

Drunk, this duality did not matter. Although it is worth noting that I only became drunk in situations which allowed me the luxury of this relaxation of my vigilance. At night, in a tavern, shamelessly seducing whatever travelers had happened by, it did not matter how oversexed or inebriated I was. By day I was the Marquis son, and the only one in the house who attempted to fix and improve things and so by day I was typically sober. And if you had asked me by day about what events transpired in my house during the night I would have stared at you blankly and not understood a word that you meant.

My first true sexual experience was by day. Rather, it began in a relationship which started during the day and as such was considered sacred enough by my mind to keep the truth of my situation from touching it.

I was - and here we shall pause while I wonder what age people would guess of me - fourteen. Or I considered myself fourteen at any rate. As you know my actual age is never a thing known to me. So we shall say fourteen because I feel it to be true and it is close enough, given perhaps a year in either direction.

She was a beautiful young girl, two years older than I - which is to say I knew for a fact that she was sixteen. Thin, but not painfully so, not what passes for thin today. Rather she was of a wonderful form, soft and gracefully rounded but with breasts and limbs which made her appear slight, from the right angle.

Her hair was blond though of a darker shade than my own. Her eyes were dark as well, a curious brown compared to her otherwise light coloring.

She was a daughter of one of the many farmers in the area and from this her skin was tanned, although I normally do not show a preference for such things. Her father's land was not far from the castle. Not bordering it, by any means, but close enough that in my travels on horseback hunting or otherwise escaping I saw her often enough.

I remember one day in particular when I came upon her. If I do not think too hard I can see her in flickers. Her hair bound up but falling around her eyes. Her hands and feet covered in dust. The contrast of brown and white in her clothing. In the memory I am thinking of she is holding a basket, which contained either food or laundry - whichever of the two I know topmost in it was a white cloth. She is looking at me and I think in this memory I am on horseback, and she is smiling.

I was old enough by then to understand my own urges. I will not call them desires because that implies far more sophistication for a boy of that age. Rather you and I both know that at that time of life it is merely the understanding that this is something to be done, something our bodies seem quite eager to do, and something which can be a lot of fun in the right circumstances.

I liked her. Which I think is the reason why she was my true first, my own actual attempt at lovemaking. It was she, however, who started the whole thing, being an independent enough girl that she could take an initiative like that and understand that this leather-wearing, completely disheveled youth had no concepts of proper flirtation or form in those days. That she knew I was the Marquis' son undoubtedly played a part in it from her side as well, but I do feel that beyond that there was a fondness for me. Or at least an appreciation of my looks which have always been appealing.

There is no great tale of romance to be related in this. I did not consider myself to be in love with her, or her with me. And understand that such things were unusual for that time. Sex and love and marriage were all entirely different things and in a village such as ours especially it was understood that many nighttime entanglements could ensue without anything resulting from them.

Or, rather, one hoped nothing resulted from it. I can't say there weren't a few near misses with children that could have borne my name on them. I never came close to being forced into a wedding but there were more than a few fathers who did try and I did have something of a reputation in town for being a heart-stealer. But this was all part and parcel of the thing.

With this girl, though it was merely the pleasure of lovemaking. And the relationship went from introduction to light friendship to flirtation to secret meetings with her in the fields. I do not know how many times we came together. The entire course of my relationship with her - which is to say from the moment we met until the moment we parted - was only that of a few months. She was married off not long after, never to be seen by me again since her husband did not live in town.

I knew that I enjoyed the lovemaking. I took great pleasure in it, in fact. I had, of course, no true experience with women and while I had learned at night how to pleasure a man and receive such pleasure myself this knowledge was useless to me as I coupled with a teenaged girl and was unavailable to my daytime mind besides. If asked, perhaps I could have understood and spoken of having sexual experience prior to this but I could not say for sure if this was so. In reality what occurred was that my unconscious mind simply provided assistance in helping me understand how the whole thing worked and how enjoyment could come of it. And I only know of this in the hindsight of years. I was unaware of it then.

Women. Oh I did enjoy them, Armand. I still do, as well you know. It is impossible for me to understand why I am one of the few of our coven who appreciates the female form. What fun it was to discover her, to understand how to touch her, to feel the softness of her breasts beneath my hands, to hear the special gasp that only the tug of my teeth against her nipples could bring, to feel the completeness of sliding myself into the slick, hot sex that waited only for my thrust and clung to my eager cock as though it was made for it and it alone.

Oh yes, this was pleasure. Not love, but amusement. Play. Something that I alone could do with these lovely companions.

My habit then was then torn between the sexes. In my female lovers I tended to take those of a lower station than mine, those who were somehow less advantaged than I was. This was not out of a snobbery on my part - well perhaps it was but not intentionally so - but rather a desire to bring about a unique pleasure to them, to be the dashing and handsome young lover that came into their lives and took them away from the sameness of it all, the drudgery. I could not marry them, but I could flirt with them, and bring small gifts to them and make love with them and make them smile, which made me greatly happy.

My male lovers, however, were a bit different.

True that there were fine young men of my age in the village. And true that some of them would have cheerfully come to me. But they did not attract me as much as their female counterparts. I did not like them for being peers of mine. I may have perhaps enjoyed the company of one or two - in the course of seven years I do not rule this out as being possible - but I did not seek them out as much as I sought out their sisters.

Which - and it is interesting how the memory only comes back to me now as I am writing - actually caused a small fight between me and one of the village boys. Damned if I can remember what his name is but I do know he was fairly attractive enough (dark hair, dark eyes, family too poor to be bourgeois but to rich to be classified with the other farmers) and that one evening he accosted me as I walked through town demanding to know why I constantly spent time with his sister.

Now let us understand this was a highly attractive girl. Small and rather fragile looking but quite a beauty and her ability to kiss was greatly intoxicating. Understand there was a good reason why around her I would be blinded to anyone else in the house.

But apparently he had formed an attraction for me himself and was quite put out that I had yet to return it. I've no idea what he had hoped to come out of this altercation but I can tell you the final result as it was did please him. I believe what occurred was that his bluster and anger were so amusing to me I could not help but want to see more of it. The evening ended in a nearby barn.

How old was I? Seventeen. Perhaps. I am guessing wildly in the dark on this I am afraid.

Coming back to the point in question what I meant to say was that this was not typical for me. More typical for my time then was to seek out older lovers, temporary lovers, lovers that I could find in the taverns and inns that dotted the village or which existed not so far from the castle that I could reach them on horseback in an undue amount of time. Here was where I found my male lovers.

Shall we analyze it? Point out that young Lestat is searching for his father in these bars? If we must. It was true enough. Consciously? Maybe.

I can tell you that I was making a conscious decision to learn. I had a hunger and this hunger was for experience. These men lived on the road, it was their nature to travel. I wanted to know what they knew. I wanted to take from them the knowledge that would let me perhaps travel in turn. There were certain things which I knew only they could teach me about this kind of survival.

What was I taught? The first lessons I sought out were sexual ones. I knew that I had to discover aspects of this which were unknown in my father's house. I had to learn things which he was unaware of, for this would provide me with power. And, too, another bargaining chip for these nighttime trysts.

And as I write this I can say that this, more than my female lovers, connected with what I have been terming my nighttime mind. In those pubs at night was not the Marquis' son but his lover. Not known to these men, perhaps, but known enough to me.

The next lessons were practical ones. Lessons in drinking, in imbibing liquor that was harder than the cheap wine that I was used to. Gambling was next and while I did not show the proficiency for it then that I do now, I could hold my own respectively well enough in a hand if needed.

Next were weapons lessons and it was from these men that I learned the use of my guns and how to wield a sword and knife in a manner for protection. Again, I did not learn these things as skillfully then as I did after I became a vampire but these were things that helped in my survival, which helped me live through the attack on the wolves for that matter, armed with only ancient weapons that had not been made for someone of my build or stature.

I became, in short, competent enough. Not enough to be considered an expert, not enough to be the best at these things in town, but enough that I could manage.

It was with these men that I also turned the tables. I was able to seduce and control these men on my own terms. Not to the heights of manipulation that my father and I worked on one another, but still to a respectable degree. Done because I could do it, and because I needed to know it was possible.

And, too, because it was fun.

Let us not think for a moment that these nighttime activities were nothing but mercenary prostitution on Lestat's part. That I was prostituting myself to these men is without question - I did as much with my father daily. But it was not just a part of my self-destructive nature. I enjoyed these men. I found them attractive. I enjoyed taking on male lovers who could match my strength and eagerness in bed.

As I think upon it now I come to guess that this had to be something not unlike Louis' life in the nights before I met him. That his misery and depression drove him to his destructive drinking is without question. But do not think for a moment that part of him did not enjoy the debauchery of a New Orleans tavern, or the sheer physical pleasure of a bar brawl. I should ask him about this when I see him next. I'm sure he would agree.

So, yes, in all of this young Lestat did sow his wild oats. He drank and gambled and fought and screwed just as so many men of his age did. The only true difference was the additional aspects that I wished to get out of it all.

Thus we can begin to understand how it was that I passed my teenage years. As I wrote in my book, time was spent with me acting as the man of the house and making sure we had food on the table and servants which behaved. But time was also spent drinking, and flirting, and fighting, and fucking and truly having just a grand old time of it given the resources that were at my hand.

It is probably appropriate, then, that many was the time that I ended up taking my latest partners in the very same chapel that I had prayed to God for my salvation in.

Potentially symbolic, although to be honest about the thing I must say I was just as likely to be seen coupling with someone in the back row of the church in town as well. One must do the best one can in a pinch.

All of this, you must realize, brings me up to the subject of one musician by the name of Nicolas.

But he's a letter unto himself.

L.

Part 15

To understand Nicolas you must first understand my relationship with my father at the time.

Throughout most of my life my father was an imposing presence. Larger, stronger. In control of me and both of my brothers as well. Physically capable of attacking me and causing damage well into my sixteenth year.

He was, however, older. And it was a beautiful quirk of Fate that as I became more my own man he became less of one himself.

His eyesight was the first to go. By the time I reached adolescence he was well and truly blind. He still possessed a keen ability to navigate, however, and this lack of vision did not in any way hamper his ability to do those things which he felt to be important. Highest on this list was, of course, his activities with me. He was able to continue those both from my bedroom and in his study. And as I have said before I did admire his ability to play chess long after his eyesight had gone simply by remembering where all of the pieces were placed. As I think upon it I would even wager that after his blindness he became an even better player than he had been. Perhaps because it helped him think more clearly. Perhaps because he felt that he needed to prove himself. Either way I do remember losing a lot of games.

His health began to fail not long after. Not due to any illness, as had happened with Gabrielle, but solely due to age. He managed to remain something of a strong figure during my early teenaged years but the night that I was brought back from the actors was the final night of true violence from him. I often thought that the beating he gave me in return for my actions took the last of his strength out of him for never again did he try to lash out at me in that manner.

The violence did not stop, of course. It just was not as often as once it was. And what cruelty he was unable to do to me physically was only channeled into other methods of keeping my attention. I was not left wanting in this area by any means.

But it was in these final years of living in my father's house that a curious change came over the relationship. I was now becoming the bigger one, the stronger one, the daring one. And it was because of this that I could go out in the evenings to seduce random strangers and he did not dare try to stop me. My brothers were scandalized by my activities - oh how well I was to come to know that fact - but their protests to my father fell on deaf ears.

It was a curious time, this. In many ways I wonder if he considered this my revenge, or perhaps the revenge of karma if he had believed in such a thing. For now I was well and truly my father's son who had learned his tricks of speech and manipulation and used each one of them against him. I defied him to stop me. Defied him with the full weight of over a decade of being his slave, knowing that by then he was just as trapped with me as I was with him. He did not dare say no.

On the whole I would say this was a state of affairs that you must be nodding along with, fratello, having surely been quite familiar with such a thing yourself.

Of course the crushing irony of all this was the fact that I was to come to regret this freedom and to find myself one night, years later, wishing that I had stayed in his home where at least my enemies were known. Or at least I thought them to be known. But that little bit of punishment was not of my father's doing, and I would even daresay that had he been his old self and had he been aware of what was in store for me, he would have put an immediate stop to it.

For it must be understood that in his own way he loved me and considered us to have an honest love affair. By what split of his own mind he was able to justify this I do not know but it was how he felt about it. And it was because of this that there were such violent misunderstandings between us.

The first of which, as you may guess, was my declaration to join the priesthood.

I do not think I need to describe for you what my brief time in that schooling was like. Suffice it to say it was a world which was clean, and ordered, and people spoke words which were true and without trickery.

By what stupidity I thought I could declare a calling I honestly do not know. I think upon that memory now and say to you that I do not understand this child. I do not understand how he thought that he could do this thing and somehow escape his father's house. Perhaps it was the tenderness of the priests which swayed him, perhaps it was his own delusion that God Himself would protect him.

Perhaps. I'm not sure.

Whatever reason it was the thing was done. I declared my vocation and woke not long after to face Augustin and Charlot looking down upon me with wrath and contempt as they came to drag me summarily home.

But their anger was nothing compared to our father's. Ah, brother, the look of betrayal in my father's eyes - I'd never seen its like before.

I was not to have done this thing. Not just because I had no hope for attaining a respectable ranking in the priesthood and not just because Gabrielle had snuck me away to it without really asking my father's permission. No. I was not to have done it because I was with my father, and he with me. Try to imagine what it would be like, Armand, if you were to ask your erstwhile spouse and companion for a divorce and you will then be able to imagine how my father felt about all of this.

I had turned away from him. Rejected him. Officially declared that I would be happy elsewhere.

I'd broken his heart, quite frankly.

So I was beaten, thrown back into my room, told by all and sundry that I could not leave and there we were. Back to square one.

The next attempt was with the actors, and here now I can tell you it was the arrogance of my youth which told me that I could sneak away with them into the night and none would find me. Stupid thinking, this, since the simplest of questions would have ferreted out the location of the next show and thus my hiding spot as well. But this was the first time I truly tried to rebel against my father and he knew it for what it was.

Again humiliated by my brothers, again brought home to be beaten, again the look of betrayal in my father's eyes.

But that was the last of it. Never again could he attack me in quite the same way and both he and I knew it. As with fathers and sons the entire world over we had had our moment where the balance of power shifted and never returned to how it once was.

Why did I not run away again? Many reasons. My brothers could have still hunted me down. I was not scared of them - I refused to give them that, Charlot especially - but I was practical enough to realize the uselessness of trying.

Also I think I enjoyed my new status. I enjoyed knowing I could torment him and make him watch me do as I damn well pleased. After all, he could not stop me. Did not dare to for fear of what I might do to him in return.

Did the relationship between us stop? Of course not. It did, however, become more infrequent. Particularly due to the fact that he became more and more physically incapable of participating in it and due to the fact that his increasing feebleness meant that for anything to occur I would have to come to him willingly and of my own volition.

Rare. But not unheard of.

And this, too, I know you understand.

So at the moment in which I met Nicolas de Lenfent I was in quite a unique position. My living arrangements with my father had become a pale shadow of what they had once been. In my father's place was Augustin, who did not ever attempt to truly cuckold my father's position with me but who did take it upon himself to condemn and chastise me as my father once had. It was an odd attempt at keeping some semblance of normalcy within the house. Lestat was the rebellious one. Someone had to look down upon him and punish him. My father did not so Agustin did.

This did not, you understand, amount to more than the occasional yelling match. Other than the times when he kidnapped me home again there was never any sort of violence or physical altercation between Augustin and myself.

And to this day I am convinced that with time, with my own mortality, Augustin and I could have become friends.

I don't envy my brother the position he must have had. That he had full knowledge of our living situation is, to me, unquestionable. But this was one thing in a long line of what made our family life impossible and Augustin, as heir, bore the full weight of it. He spent his life believing that it would be he who carried on our family name, who took over when our father died, who would bear the title of le Marquis de Lioncourt.

Of course he would dislike me. The youngest son, attached to our father in a way that he could not understand or even hope to compete with - in this you could argue that it was I who was attempting to cuckold him. Our father was not meant to notice me, to even care about me in one way or another. But our father was obsessed with me to a degree that none of my brothers ever saw or understood. Understandable that Augustin would hate me for this.

And, too, for the way that I tried to run things when I became of an age to do so. It was not my job to do so. My every attempt was, in fact, a direct insult to him. That I only did these things because he was such a failure at them was entirely besides the point. They were his to do. Not mine.

Of course I was blindingly ignorant of all that back then. These petty royal dynamics seemed so foolish to me and thus I ignored them willingly. Which, I am sure, shocks you to your core. Yes, brother, I was the rulebreaker even then. I thundered at the dinner table just as easily as my father did about how things were to be done and why the house should be run in the manner that I demanded.

It is only now that I understand what Augustin went through, and how he must have looked at me, and why he would have resented me so. Fine for me to pout and complain and say these things. I had the ability to do so. I had freedoms that he did not. I had advantages that he would never know. I did not understand then but I know full well now how trapped he was. He could not run away to Paris with his favorite lover from the village. He had to stay and take responsibility for the shambles that our family had become. Our father on one side of him, me on another. My God what a nightmare.

I think on Augustin now and remember a man as oddly out of his time as I was. He was of a wider frame than mine and I am certain that in his youth he had the build of an ox. I never saw him as such, however, since his body had fallen soft by the time I was old enough to notice such things. His hair and eyes were dark, just like our father's. Dark, pure brown. And he often wore a beard, which of course was entirely out of fashion for the time but what did we know of the jewel like beauty that men in Paris displayed in those days? Our family was firmly entrenched in centuries past and Augustin looked quite at home in our castle of rusting swords and armor. I imagine he would have been much happier back then, when our castle was first built and our family placed within it. I do not doubt he would have ruled well in such a time. It was his misfortune to be born when I was, in an age when the villagers held more wealth and power than we and knew it.

I feel sad for him, thinking that he died in the Revolution. That was not fair. For Charlot to have been killed thanks to one of the villagers is for me a comical working of justice and a thought entirely likely to make me burst out into laughter, if not for the fact that they killed his wife and children as well and that was not a fate that they deserved.

But Augustin could have been a good ruler. Centuries ago. Your time, in fact, Armand, or perhaps even a little earlier. He was a plain man who could comprehend a plain role. He was not meant to suffer through the dramatics that was life with my father and I. It was beyond him. I do not resent him for doing the best that he was able to.

Forgive me, fratello, I was going to speak of Nicolas tonight. I was going to tell you about meeting him for the first time and falling in love with him and of what he knew of the life that I lead. But I am afraid I can not do justice to such a thing. I am caught in a moment of longing. Longing that Augustin could have lived a bit longer and that he and I could have known one another honestly. But perhaps it is better this way. My memories of him can be fond because he did not live long enough to dispute them. In any event there is nothing that can be done to change it.

And so my mind now goes in two directions. Nicolas, and New Orleans. Do I speak of my musician lover or of the moment when I came back to my father once more?

I'm not certain. We shall have to see.

L.

Part 16

I reread your letters to me last night, brother, before coming to this letter today. It was a curiosity of mine, to look over what had been said and wonder what in future you might write to me.

I am glad now that I did, for I noticed a passage which did not come to my attention before.

But I'll get to that in a moment.

Nicolas.

Armand if you need to ask who the first love of my life was I shall be greatly disappointed in you. Be that as it may, we must look to Nicolas for the unique and startling creature that he was.

Real love this, and no mistaking it.

My mind runs wildly now, uncertain where to begin.

I knew of Nicolas as a child. He and I being of a comparable age and, due to his family's wealth and my family's title, almost of a comparable peerage. I saw him in lessons, mostly, those given by the village priest to all of us good Catholic children.

I did not keep company with him then or any such thing. I did not, as you might imagine, have any childish playmates. Such things were not done then and of course my father would have never allowed it besides.

But I saw Nicolas enough then that I knew of him and could recognize him when he came to me again years later with my cloak and boots.

His family was an interesting thing. Rich, as I've said, but unlike so many of the bourgeois they kept an interest in royalty. The relationship with my family and the town was often a strained thing - we resented their money, they resented our enforced leadership - but with me and the town it was at times an amicable business relationship.

Nicolas's family, though, was close enough to the old ways to care about titles. Which was why, barring a lack of daughters on either side with which to bring about some kind of marriage (and as I think on it now I can say a marriage between the Lenfent family and my own would not have been an unheard of thing) Monsieur de Lenfent senior was quite happy to discover that his son and the son of the Marquis were spending time together. I suspect that Nicki's father thought of it as the first remotely respectable thing that Nicolas had done in years. I'm sure this is a fact which still brings Nicolas no end of amusement.

I was, as I have said, twenty one or thereabouts when I met Nicolas again. All this you know the details of. Meeting me, dressed in Parisian finery, giving me the cloak, whispering that yes, he was impossible too. All true, that.

But I wonder how much you saw in my words? Did you see me, standing there, utterly infatuated with him? Watching his incredibly handsome form - and you and I both know of his looks, dear brother - with my keen eyes as he, in turn, watched me right back?

That is what did it, you know. More than anything else it was that Nicolas met my eyes.

He was challenging me. Little bastard.

Oh I had to know more of him.

And yes, he had been to Paris and yes he could tell me about a life outside of our town that had actors and singers and men and women so much like ourselves who only wanted to escape. Entirely true.

But there was more to this. Much more. Levels of emotion and interaction unlike anything I had known before.

Who were my lovers then? Young women of the village, older men who were travelers. Above me or beneath me somehow. Never my peers.

Then enter Nicolas. The draper's son. A man at odds with his own father in so many ways like my own. And that he would have these fights with his father over music - as at the time I considered my own fights to be over acting - only drew me closer and infatuated me even more.

The first day we spent together was, I think, the first time I had been truly myself since I had strutted out upon the stage with the players. It was I who sat there and spoke to him, asking him to tell me all he knew about Paris and flirting with him as shamelessly as he did with me. Why did he do it? I never knew entirely for sure. That he found me attractive was obvious, but there was more to it than that. Nicolas liked me. I could tell that he found me charming and interesting and there was something within me that managed to break through his ironic and cynical nature and made him smile and even a little vulnerable.

He called me "Monsieur" for hours. Me. A poverty-stricken harecatcher who could barely sign his own name. Who had been a diapered toddling youth with him years ago! "Monsieur," a word of respect, of deference, his way, I know now, of showing me how different I truly was for Nicolas was never one to feel overly respectful of anything at all.

We drank and there was not the danger in this for me that there might normally have been. The part of my mind which only came out in my drinking had been broken, locked away from years of denial and then, I believe, snapped out of my conscious attention the day I went out to kill the wolves. In front of Nicolas I was only Lestat, the wolfkiller, the handsome lad who sat beside him and listened to him with as rapt an attention as he listened to me.

So there was no trace of my father, there, in this meeting. Or in many of our meetings long after. I spoke with him of my home, yes, but our conversations were very much alike. We were cursed at, misunderstood, tormented by fathers who failed to understand us. Nicolas's father threatened to break his hands. Mine had actually done so years ago. We felt a kinship in that.

We drank wine and talked together and he ran home to get his violin and played for me and I knew I was utterly and undeniably in love with him. And he with me for it was not the wine alone which drew our chairs closer together and which had us touching and kissing one another long before the alcohol had taken away our sanity. He kissed me first, I believe, which impressed me as well.

Ah God. I did love him Armand. Well and truly. For him I threw my entire life away. I had taken all of my other lovers right up until the point of meeting him. And then after that night I stopped. I did not go back to those inns and taverns, I did not even make love with my pretty young maidens. I was devoted to Nicolas. And this was an emotion which even blotted out my father's light. Whatever little I could remember of our time together was now well and truly lost, locked away inside of my mind so tightly that only the most unusual of moments could make me remember it. I mean for the love of God, I brought Nicolas into the house! Into my room! And on the self same bed where I had been taken by my father I now took my lover, Nicki, with the two of us laughing like lovestruck teenagers and muffling each other's cries so we would not be caught.

Such a thing would never have happened if my father had been more like himself. But by then he had become so old and enfeebled that he was easily forgotten. Sometimes - sometimes - I could remember him, but never fully the whys and wherefores of it all. And if he understood the depths of my feelings for Nicolas and how this arrogant violinist had taken his place he never said or showed.

With Nicki I had a true love affair. And I think Nicki's love of me in return surprised himself. Cynics do not feel such things, you know. But I managed to make him happy in spite of himself and I think for that he loved me even more, however much the incongruity of it all bemused him.

Should I tell you more about this time? Most of it can be guessed. I continued my role as hunter and provider for my family and then, when such things were done, I was with Nicolas talking, drinking, fighting and falling completely in love. The days and nights did not end without our hands upon one another. We were usually colossally drunk, it is true, but the emotions were no lie.

Nicolas was not a romantic lover. For all that he was a musician it was I who provided our relationship with poetry. Which set up an interesting balance between the two of us later - me trying to use pretty words to lure him out of his depressions of practicality, he trying to use plain speech to bring me back from my morbid flights of fancy. In this, like so many other things, we were perfect for one another.

I could not help but feel even more love for him in the fact that he truly should have had any lover but me. It was not, from my end of things, a bad match. But for him to have fallen in love with the uneducated son of a poor Marquis - I needn't tell you that most of his Parisian university friends thought that he had lost his mind. He had gone into school to study law. He'd dropped out of school to become a musician and the companion of my disgraced self. More than a few of them commented that the choice had to be due to Nicki's love of alcohol or my abilities in the bedroom. Nicolas, ever my defender, was always ready with a wonderfully cutting remark for just these occasions. And this was never truly cruel. Whatever their words were for me I did not care. Nicki only kept time with them for a change of pace. When we were in Paris our time was mostly spent in the theatre and in our tiny apartment.

I skip ahead of things, though, to speak of Paris. There is a more important matter to discuss first.

Someone once told me, and I have now come to believe him, that at the age of twenty one I had my first breakdown. A mental collapse. You must know of the moment I am referring to - me, with Nicolas in our private room at the inn, with my hands to my ears hiccupping the word "Oh!" again and again for it was all I could articulate.

I speak now with the experience and understanding of 200 years, Armand. I talk of this now as I have come to know it, not as I knew it then.

Then I knew only that this darkness had come over me, a sickness of my heart and mind which tainted everything I knew or did. How I spoke of it then, in my book, was my sole understanding. Things had shadows to them which should not. I looked upon a world which should hold beauty and saw only the danger and despair.

Can you guess, Armand, where the thoughts were coming from? Ah yes, my supposedly locked-away secret. The rest of my mind, coming to the forefront again all to happy to remind me that I should not, could not trust what my eyes saw.

My mind in those weeks was chaotic. Thoughts and feelings thrust themselves upon me which I could not bear to see. I disliked sleep and though Nicki tried to return me to my bed and encourage rest from me I could not sit still. Ask young Lestat what he felt and he would say that he hated his room. That being inside of it was like a prison and to lie down upon that bed was to invite the darkness to smother him and take his soul away.

I drank, but the drinking naturally did not help. I attempted sobriety and found the world too crisp and painful. I write of this time now and remember for perhaps the first time in years that once again I attacked my own flesh, although not in front of Nicolas.

Nicki was beside himself. He attempted to talk some sort of calmness back into me. Failing that he played music for me, made love to me and upon a few occasions slapping me as one would any hysteric. He had no idea of what was going on. He knew only that his lover was out of control and that he did not know why.

Finally the fit left me, but not its aftermath. Though I could not remember fully what I had seen the emotions of it lingered still. Thus began habits of mine which last to this very day - my dislike of people behind me, my horror at rooms which are too dark. Although brave and foolhardy on so many things I became, in some things, skittish. I wept at moments which had no cause. Nicolas's loving hands became, at times, too much to bear. For months after the fact I experimented with him in secret, never revealing to him the truth that his touch had in many ways become strange to me. I attempted pushing him away, I attempted bringing him even closer. For the record my final decision was to damp down on all but the worst of my emotions and lead myself through drunken denial about the rest. It took only the slightest of subterfuges to ease what I felt to be the worries in Nicki's mind. I could not bear to feel his lips around me and so when he began to move in such a direction I would quickly turn the tables and take him in my mouth instead. It was with things such as this that I thought to regain control of my situation.

(And it is worth noting that my inability to withstand oral pleasure lasted with me for years. It was only through the patience and beauty of my loving Louis that I could joyfully submit myself to such a thing again - even though of course for our kind now it is merely a sexual pantomime.)

We ran away to Paris not long after that, as you know. How much Gabrielle knew of my situation and how much that influenced her to provide the money to me I could not say. But she did, and we went and started our lives over.

Can I describe the bliss of Paris again? Freedom. First and foremost it was freedom. Miles away from my father's house and I knew, confused as I was, that in spite of it all he would not send my brothers after me. Rumors came to us of our having been disowned and I agreed to this thing for Nicki's sake even though I knew for me it was not true. Valere would never disown me. Cursed me, perhaps, might possibly have finally committed me to a sanitarium if I had ever returned, but never, ever would he disown me.

I was with Nicolas then. And he himself would curse me roundly for this moment of oversentimentality but brother we were as good as married in those days. I think happily back to our tiny apartment with its little fire and lumpy mattress that was a perfect fit. Even our friends in the theatre understood it. Though there was a great deal of flirting and even a bit of lovemaking amongst our little incestuous group it was still known that Nicolas and I had eyes truly for one another.

And I think between us both I was the greater flirt, particularly with my leading ladies, but Nicki knew it to be my way and paid it no heed. I say all this to explain why, much later, he would hold the opinions that he did about the likelihood that I had run away with some heiress. In his heart of hearts he knew I would never do such a thing. Not to him. It was only some of our neighbors and friends who thought me tomcat enough to leave my poor musician lover for the life of a kept man.

To be fair, if I had never met Nicolas it's entirely possible I would have. I was bound and determined to leave that village somehow.

I am again jumping ahead of things, though, to talk about that time. That was later, after Magnus had taken me. We are still in the first flush of Parisian harmony between Nicolas and myself and I want to discuss just a bit more about it.

On our own at last, away from our families, Nicki and I became even more of ourselves for we had to use every one of our wits and abilities to keep food in our stomachs and a roof over our heads. We did in fact live hand to mouth for quite some time.

What is interesting here, though, was the contrast between us both. In education Nicki was my undeniable superior. He could read and speak several languages fluently. He could work columns of figures and look through our meager cash to provide us with a budget - something he regularly had to rework when I would grasp his hand and plead with him for tickets to see just one more show. I do not think I could count the times when Nicki threw away his meticulous financial organizing simply to please me.

Those were Nicki's strengths. His father had been a merchant, Nicki himself nearly a lawyer. For us, then, he was the planner. The one who took our schemes and reworked them into something resembling reality. This was a necessary thing.

But he was not, as you might be tempted to think, the only one of us who could contribute to this living situation.

What Nicki knew of in education he was completely and utterly lacking in what might today be called a sense of street smarts. He was not naïve by any means, but unlike me he knew nothing of how to actually live amongst people as poor as we now were. Like many his age he had been trained how to fight but his skills here were of duels and fencing. He could sit in a salon and play a hand of poker with his fellow students but he did not know how to sit in a rotting tavern and hold his own amongst men who might cheerfully cut his throat for having an intolerable amount of aces.

I do not say this to portray Nicolas as a babe in the woods. He was no such thing. I say this to point out that I had things which I was able to contribute as well, and to also reveal that much of what I did surprised him.

Did I move myself into the roughest bars of Paris and add to our finances by playing the card shark? No, of course not. I dedicated myself to the theater almost as soon as we crossed the city lines. But in matters of safety and weaponry it was I who took charge. And while I think he wondered how, exactly, a castle-dweller like myself could know such things he did not go so far as to ask me. Instead he saved his thoughts for the occasional comment about my status as a dreamer contrasting rather interestingly with my quick hand at drawing a knife. I think in some ways he was impressed that it was one of the few things which I dealt with in a manner which bore some resemblance to realism.

And we draw to a conclusion on this particular chapter of my life by saying that no, my melancholy had not left me and that all the words I wrote of still fearing the darkness and shying away from public executions and corpses decaying in the streets was all true. I still obsessed over this nightmare and Nicolas did what he could to comfort me or, finding that he couldn't, dismissing me and simply telling me to stop.

I do not think unfondly of him for this thing. I would have probably done much the same if it had been me.

This is not the last time I will write to you about Nicki but it is, I think, the brunt of what you must know about him and our time together. Except for one thing.

Which brings me to your letter.

I will speak this bluntly: did Nicki know?

That is the question I think we can all see upon the table and it falls to me now to answer it.

Had you asked me but a day ago I would have said no. For two hundred years I would have said no. I would have sworn on my very soul that the secret of my father and I had remained a secret, unknown even to myself until years later. I did not tell Nicolas about it. At best Nicki knew that my father had beaten me. But such things were so common back then that it would have meant nothing, if not for the fact that he immediately understood it all because of what went on between him and his father.

And the first time that I read that letter you wrote and saw the comments about Nicolas eluding his captors and attempting to go back home in order to destroy his family as only a vampire could I thought to myself "Yes, of course it would be so. For him that would be amusing."

I do not know why I did not see your mention of my own family.

But that is what you wrote, Armand, and in fact you said it many times and called it a "certainty" that were he to return home it would be my family who he would attack and merely "possible" that he might go after his own. You expressed no doubt whatsoever about this thing.

So. He knew.

In the blessed clarity of hindsight I can wager to figure it out. That he knew of my other nighttime activities is a certainty. My reputation in the village for bedding any man or woman who caught my eye was a well known one and a bit of gossip he was most likely to have gotten as soon as his father pulled him home. We were peers, after all, people would have been happy to speak of my life to him.

So he knew that I slept with women and with men and that my male companions tended towards the scandalous. We did not speak about this overmuch but I know for certain that he was aware of it because some mentions were made between us of how all of that was given up once I had found him. And, though he did not say it, I knew the small part of his soul which was romantic was pleased by this fact.

What, then, gave him the final picture? Look over my words now and you can probably guess it. My breakdown. My hysterics. The things I became terrified of because of it and the things I reacted to in manners where were entirely out of proportion.

Nicki might not have been as familiar with the gutter as I was, but he wasn't stupid. The most rudimentary knowledge of rape and aristocratic family relations would have been enough to piece the puzzle together for him. And let us not forget that Nicki benefited from actually having met my family in person.

Did he know the full picture? Probably not. But he knew enough, I suspect. Certainly enough to know better than to attempt to speak about it with me. God knows how such a conversation as that would have ended.

That in his time of ultimate madness he thought of nothing save attempting to sever this last familial tie for me is, I think, the final word that needs to be said on the subject of our relationship and of our feelings for one another.

There will be more of him, as I've promised, but that is the heart and soul of the matter. Nicolas de Lenfent, my first honest love.

I wasn't to know anything like it until I met Louis. And Louis, of course, was like nothing else in the world.

L.