Vampire Boyfriend: Raul (complete)

August, 1986

I’m coming home from working at the bar one evening - well, morning - when I see the flyer. It’s promoting medical trials for women ages eighteen to sixty who have an issue or complaint about their reproductive organs. I might have been leery, but I need the money, not to mention the help it could bring. I take the flyer home with me so I can call the number after I get some sleep.

Once I get home, I can hear my roommate’s boombox blaring from their bedroom. I stumble over the laundry basket still in the hallway. “This is bunk,” I grumble as I make my way to my room.

I close my door, still hearing the dull thump of the music. I sit down on the edge of my bed to take off my shoes and flop back in bed. I can shower when I wake up. Instead, I start cramping. I knew this was going to happen. All night at work I’ve been getting twinges of pain. I’ve had them since I was a teenager. Back in high school it would get so painful I would throw up or start crying. My parents thought I was faking it, and my doctor accused me of being promiscuous. Even in school, I was asked to ‘stop being dramatic’ by my teachers. I learned to cover the pain, but it still causes me great distress on a very regular basis. I used to fear it. It meant I could be sick, or dying. But I was afraid to go back to the doctor, and afraid to talk about it at all for a gamut of reasons. 

I decide to go ahead and call that clinic - I can at least leave a message. I sit up in a cold sweat and search through my purse for the number. I grab my phone, pulling the cord into my hand and twisting it around my finger as I listen to the ring.

“Dr. Vlada Polidori speaking. How may I help you?” I got a real person? At this hour?

“Yes, um...” I clear my throat. “I’m calling about the clinical trials you’re offering to women.” I look at the flyer. “I was hoping I could participate.”

“Oh, wonderful!” The woman has a slight accent. “Is there a specific reason you want to join the trial? Like, are you having any pain? Any discomfort? Perhaps infertility or irregular periods? Let me remind you, all of this will be kept completely confidential.”

I once again get that fear of speaking my symptoms. “Pain,” I finally squeak out. “Constant, awful pain.”

“I see,” Dr. Polidori murmurs. “Is it during your period? Or does it happen more often?”

“More often.” I twist the phone cord tighter and tighter around my fingers. “I swear I’m not lying.”

“I have no reason to believe you are. Would you like to give me your name?”

“Lucy,” my voice cracks. “Just put down Lucy.”

“Thank you, Lucy,” Dr. Polidori says. “I can schedule a meeting with you as soon as possible, if you’d like.”

“I have Mondays off. So sometime in the afternoon would work.”

“How about six this coming Monday?”

I nod. “Okay, that will work. Thank you.” I hang up and untangle the phone cord from my fingers.

I asked my friend, Henri, to come along with me that evening. He’s the bouncer at the bar I worked at, so if anything weird happens, I know he can take care of me. 

“You’re buggin’,” he says. “Something like this seems real off.”

“I’m desperate. Besides, the doctor on the phone sounded nice.”

Henri scoffs. “Speaking from experience, men can lie.”

“It was a woman.” I check the address on the flyer and look up to the street sign. “We’re close. Should be around here somewhere.”

“If it’s a woman, then why bring me along?”

“Chill,” I scoff back at him. “Speaking from experience, women can lie too.” We come to a rather inauspicious building. The front is covered with blue tarps, but there’s a sign on the door for Doctor Vlada Polidori, Vampire Specialist.

“Vampire?” Henri balks. “Are you coming to see a fucking vampire?”

I look back at the flyer. “It didn’t say so here.”

“Her name is fucking Vlada.”

I roll my eyes. “Your name is Henri and you’re not French! Barf, dude.” I open the door and walk inside.

For a moment, Henri struggles with whether to go in or not. Eventually, he charges in after me. “This is trouble, Lucy, come on,” he hisses at me.

I hold up my hand. “I’m not afraid of vampires. They’re just like us.”

“Oh, I forgot, you dated one in college.” Henri grabs my hand. “Come on, you don’t need this.”

I yank my hand away from him. “You don’t know what I need. If I knew you would end up being such a baby, I would’ve just brought my Boy Scout knife.” I walk up to the makeshift front desk and ring the bell. 

“Just a second.” It’s a man that responds.

Henri comes up behind me. “I’m not being a baby, I’m just worried.”

Someone walks up from the back, someone who sends chills down my spine. I know him too well. “Well,” he murmurs in surprise. He looks me up and down with those magenta eyes. His hair is shorter now, much neater and professional. “Color me surprised.”

“Hi, Raul,” I say shakily. “What are… what are you doing here?”

“I work here,” he says with a pinched brow. He holds up the clipboard in his hand. “I would ask you why you’re here, but… Good to see you. It’s been a while.” He smiles, then glances at Henri. “Oh, is this…?”

“My friend,” I say quickly. “He was here to protect me in case you were going to harvest my organs or something.”

Raul chuckles. “I still could be.”

“Don’t joke!” I snap.

Raul is just the way I remember him, only he looks much more put together. When we dated in college, he was notorious for partying. Quite the wild child. I can’t count the number of times I got his stupid ass out of trouble. 

“Come on, I’ll take you back. Vlada is waiting.” He looks at Henri again. “Leave your man here.”

I follow Raul, remembering how his white hair used to hang to the middle of his back. “So… you really did become a doctor, huh?” I chuckle. 

“What?” He sniffs. “Like it’s hard?”

I look down guiltily. I had been on track to medical school too, but I gave it up. “You cut your hair too.”

“That’s a longer story than medical school.”

He opens a door, and there’s a woman inside. White hair, pearly skin, red eyes - another vampire. It was only recently that vampires were allowed to receive medical licenses and practice, but there’s still a stigma working against them. Vlada is very petite and curvy, and her breasts seem to make up most of her form. “Good evening. You must be Lucy,” she says with a smile. “Come on in and tell me everything.”

“Be careful with this one,” Raul says with a smirk. He steps out of the room as I take a seat before Dr. Polidori.

“Sorry, I know him,” I murmur.

“Raul has a history. I’m sure a lot of people know him,” Vlada sighs. “You mentioned you suffered from chronic pain on the phone. Can you tell me more about that?”

“I’m not sure if it’s something to worry about or if I’m just being dramatic.” I look down at my hands. “I’ve had this pain since I was young.”

“Can you recall the exact age it started?”

“I was fourteen, I think. It would have been in seventy-five, so it’s been eleven years.” I look up at her to see her writing on her clipboard. 

“How long have you been sexually active?”

I get a little angry. “This started before I was having sex!”

“I know,” she says gently. “But it’s a question I have to ask. It can help.”

I glance at the door. “Since I was nineteen.”

Vlada nods. “Has it gotten worse at all? Any better?”

I go through my entire history with Vlada, even things I hadn’t shared with anyone else. It’s worse during the summer heat, but it’s even more horrible during the holidays when things get stressful. I’d pass out from the pain, and tell people it was just from drinking too much.

“I think we have a case of endometriosis,” Vlada says. “But I will have to run some tests to be sure.”

“It has a name?” I say breathlessly. I start to well up. For so long, I thought I was crazy, or weak. I didn’t know there was an explanation.

“Yes, it does, and it’s more common than you would think.” Vlada stands and hands me a box of tissues. 

“This is fantastic!” I take a tissue and sniffle. 

Vlada chuckles. “You’re perfect for the trials I’m running. But it would mean you’d have to work with Raul.”

I sniffle and nod. “If he’s okay with it, I am. What do I need to do? Anything I should know right away?”

Vlada hands me a booklet. “Read through this. It will explain what I am hoping to accomplish with my clinic.”

I blow my nose and nod. “What can I expect before reading?”

Vlada sits back down. “I want to integrate vampires and their natural behaviour into the practice of medicine,” she explains. “This means using various attributes of our physiology in the treatment of issues such as yours.”

“You mean your bites?” I ask.

Vlada nods. “That is one of them. My main focus is on our bodily fluids and how they affect the human body.” 

I think long and hard on this. “So you mean like… blood and...”

“Semen, yes. Purely medically speaking, of course.”

“Raul and I are familiar in that area,” I laugh nervously. I quickly clear my throat. “Sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t participate if Raul and I are that… intimately connected.”

“That’s up to you. I think it would help the study actually if you two were close before. Think about it, Lucy.”

I leave Vlada’s office and see Raul coming down the hallway with another woman. He takes her into the office and before I can step out, he catches up to me. “Will you be coming back?” he asks.

“I think so.” I look him over. “She said our previous relationship could be beneficial to the study.” I can feel my face get hot. Raul had been my first. I had been an edgy little goth back in the day - wore all black, dyed my hair black, and was easily attracted to the vampire clique at my college. Raul and I dated for most of my college career, and he’s still the best sex I ever had.

Raul smiles. “I wouldn’t mind revisiting it. Granted, I don’t want it to be on a futon again.”

I grimace. “Barf.”

Raul shakes his head. “Only trying to tease.” He pinches the tip of my nose, a gesture he made frequently in the past. “Good to see you.”

Over the next few days, I go over Vlada’s booklet, which describes procedures she wants to test out - things like ‘vampire plasma’, ‘menstrual feasting’, and other terms that make me feel a bit uneasy. It also mentions using vampire semen as a natural painkiller. That seems very odd, but I don’t know enough about vampires to discredit it.

I think about Raul often, remembering our time together. We both took night classes at college. He was a couple of years ahead of me, but he sometimes worked as a teacher’s aide in a few of my classes. The beginning of our relationship was hot and heavy, like we were addicted to one another. There were times after we broke up that I would think of him during sex. He was ace, but we broke up when I decided to drop out. He was continuing school, and we were going in separate directions. 

My next appointment at the clinic is one-on-one with Raul. I’m a bit nervous. It’s been a while since we’ve seen one another - I mean, he’s a big-shot doctor now, and I’m a bartender. I also haven’t been able to stop thinking about him since I saw him; my mind is filled with all sorts of fond, if not lewd, memories.

“Just sit down for now.” He pulls out a chair for me. “Vlada and I are still working on getting equipment for the place.”

I watch him as he takes off his white coat, hanging it on the door. His back seems broader than I remember it. “How do you know Vlada?” I ask.

“She’s my aunt.” Raul sits down with a clipboard and pen in hand. 

“Really?” I’m quite surprised. 

Raul looks at me, his expression serious, something that I rarely used to see on him. He was always grinning and goofy when I knew him, but sometimes he would get that look in his eyes, and I would find myself swooning over that broody, Byronic expression. I swallow the lump in my throat and giggle like a bimbo. “Well, what are we doing today?”

“A pain management regiment,” he says quickly. He looks away and clears his throat. “There’s a couple of options Vlada wishes to test out.”

“Semen,” I say.

Raul huffs. “This is harder than I thought it’d be.”

“Didn’t used to be,” I say jokingly.

“I can’t imagine you as a study subject.” He sets the clipboard aside and grimaces. “Maybe I should have Vlada assign you to Behr.”

I try to give him a reassuring smile. “We should talk first. We’re adults now, surely we can work something out.”

The next thing I know, I’m in Raul’s apartment. After talking in his office, he wants to catch up, but the taxi ride leads to more than catching up. Raul’s touch is just the same, only more skilled than before. He makes me breathless with kisses. I feel like that airheaded girl again, only I’m not leaving black lipstick smudges all over his pearly white skin.

Long fingers work inside me, churning me up while we kiss. We thrash and collide, falling into his bed and violently tearing it apart. There are no pillows or blankets on it by the time we’ve had our way. His voice in my ear travels along my skin, making me tingle from head to toe. His mouth, oh god, I wasn’t prepared for that. His tongue and sharp teeth, the way his jaw unhinges. I haven’t had an orgasm like that in so long. 

“You still taste amazing.” He licks his chops and grins down at me.

I gasp, clutching my chest as my heart continues to flutter. “It’s like I could feel your tongue in my brain.”

Raul lowers himself down on me. “Remember this?”

I moan softly and wrap my arms around him. “I remember that very well.” I go to kiss him when there is a pounding at his door.

“Ignore it,” he grunts.

“I have a bad roommate, too.” I smooth the hair from his forehead. “Keep going.”

The pounding continues. “Raul? Raul!” someone shouts. “Something smells good, what have you got this time? Raul?”

Raul gets up. “Don’t move,” he says to me as he goes to the door. “Go the fuck away! I’m busy.”

“You’re always busy!” A second voice whines. “What about us?”

“You all need to leave me the fuck alone. Got it?”

“Who's in there now? Why not introduce us?” A cacophony of laughter follows. 

Raul glances back at me and rolls his eyes. “Just stay there.” He opens the door and steps out.

I pull the sheet up to cover myself. As I do, I feel someone tugging on it. I pull, it pulls back. I yank and it yanks, pulling me off the bed. I start to scream, but my mouth is covered. 

“We just wanna fuck with Raul. Play along.” It’s another vampire. He has long hair with pink stripes through it and is wearing thick eyeliner and mascara. He pulls me under the bed, and suddenly I’m in another room. “Name’s Gabriel, but you can call me Gabby.” he says giddily. Gabriel is extremely beautiful, androgynous like David Bowie, with sharp cheek bones, piercing eyes, and soft, full lips. He’s wearing only a long t-shirt, but I can see the lace panties he has on underneath.

“Lucy,” I say unsurely. 

His eyes widen. “Oh fuck, not the Lucy?”

There’s a gentle knock on Gabriel’s door. “Gabby, sweetie, do you have my guest?”

“You didn’t tell us the famous Lucy was here! We would have rolled out the red carpet.” Gabriel chuckles.

Raul laughs haughtily. “Gabby, sweetie, angel, I’m going to kill you,” he says as cool as a cucumber. 

“You can certainly try.” Gabriel looks back at me with a smile. 

I pull the sheet tighter around me. “You know who I am?” 

“Oh, of course. There was a time when Raul wouldn’t even think about another woman because of you.” Gabrielwinks. “That’s how he and I met, of course.”

I’m intrigued. “You and Raul dated?”

“No!” Gabriel scoffs. “We just fucked.”

Gabriel’s door slowly opens and Raul steps inside. “Gabby.”

“Raul.” Gabriel puts his arms around me. “Why not come join us? The three of us could have a lot of fun together.”

Raul comes and picks me up from the bed, but as he does I see two more vampires watching from the door. “We’re catching up.”

“I’d like to catch up too. Last time Lucy saw me, I had my head in a toilet.” I recognize another vampire - Pidge. He and Raul had been friends, but the two of us got close during my final year at college. Pidge is short and extremely feisty. He got into so many fights at school he had very nearly been kicked out. He had a baby face, which went against his punk lifestyle. But he looks even better than he did in college, with his hair grown long out of the shaved mohawk.

“Pidge! Hi!” I wave at him.

“He’s the reason for this. Ignore him. I will not reward bad behavior.” Raul steps out of Gabriel’s room with me, and I catch a glimpse of the third vampire, who is absolutely massive and dwarfs Pidge. 

Raul takes me back to his bedroom. “Sorry about that.”

“You didn’t tell me you lived with Pidge!” I say excitedly. “I’d love to catch up.”

Raul kisses me, easing me back down into his bed. “We’re catching up. He can wait in line.” He pulls away the blanket wrapped around me.

I moan against his lips. “You have such exciting roommates.” 

“No, I don’t,” he huffs. “You’re the only one here who is interesting.” His fingers slip back inside me. “Are we still on the same page?”

I pull him down, kissing him. “I’m very ready to get reacquainted.” Once again, I am that young girl. Raul remembers my body like a favorite song. It doesn’t take us long to be singing together.

I get up early in the morning, while the house is still very dark. Raul pulls me close and kisses my neck. “Don’t get up.”

“I need to use the bathroom.”

Raul chuckles. “You’ll fall victim to my roommates. Don’t leave. Stay safe with me.”

I roll over to meet his kiss. “You want me to pee on you?”

Raul shoves me. “Second door on the left.”

I put on a shirt of his I find on the floor and wander out of his room, finding the bathroom easily. Once I step out, I see Pidge waiting. “It’s been a long time.” He’s just a tad shorter than me, but he looks more muscular than before. He approaches me and places a soft kiss on my cheek as we hug.

“I’m so happy to see you. How have you been?” I take his hand as we go back into Raul’s bedroom.

“I didn’t agree to this,” Raul teases.

Pidge sits on the bed with us. “This is certainly like old times. You two half-naked, me wishing I was half-naked.”

“Too bad we don’t have that old record player of yours.” The nostalgia takes hold of me as I remember the nights when it was just the three of us.

“I still have it,” Pidge replies. “It just doesn’t work. Well, what have you been up to, Lucy?”

“Bartending. You?” 

He shrugs. “This and that. I’ve been working on a novel between repairing bikes and nothing.”

“You’re still writing? That’s wonderful.”

Raul smiles. “He’s good, from what he’s willing to share.”

“I’m confident with a screwdriver, not with a pen.” Pidge smiles at me. “Do you still do poetry?”

I shake my head. “No. Not like I used to. I still have all those stupid notebooks full of it, though.”

We talk until I have to leave to get ready for work, but I tell Pidge where I work if he wants to come see me. “I’ll call you to schedule our next meeting.” Raul kisses me at the door. “Although, since we technically tried one of the methods today, keep track of any symptoms or lack thereof.”

“I can do that. I’ll see you later.” I wave to Pidge. “You know where I work now! Come say hello.”

“Will do!”

When Raul and I broke up and he went to medical school, Pidge had been there for me. He helped me move and comforted me. One night, I fell prey to loneliness and took comfort with Pidge. It was then Pidge told me his secret, and I’ve kept it close to my heart ever since. I wonder if Raul knows that.