An associate of mine has asked that I post an open letter on her behalf on this site. She wishes to keep her identity secret.
Without Editorial, here is her letter.
Vampires and Their Influence on a Survivors Life
When I was a teenaged girl, I was a fan of Anne Rice books. Especially her vampire series. I thought Lestat was the sexiest thing ever. I would lay awake at night dreaming and wishing that someone just like him would come into my life. It would be sooo romantic!
At the same time this was going on, my psychic abilities were manifesting and developing. I saw visions of fangs, blood and the moon and like the foolish girl I was, I went chasing after them. Of course I found them. Or rather I found the one I was looking for.
His name was Charles and he spoke with a sophisticated English accent that enraptured me, what with my vulgar Bronx mannerisms. This blonde Adonis took me under his (bat) wing and helped me 'better' myself. As I buried my upbringing under a facade of culture, he would offer me small rewards. A hug here, a kiss there.
I wanted more of course. I wanted him to help me improve myself in what I saw as the ultimate way. I wanted him to turn me. Looking back now I am so disgusted with myself and my silly ignorant desires. He resisted my requests. During long nights of eye gazing and passion I would make my pleas and he would ask me, "Would you give yourself over to me? All of yourself?"
I would always reply with an enthusiastic "YES!" What a stupid cow I was.
After this intense emotional build up, he'd always end it with a shake of his head and an apparently sad smile. "No, I can't do that to you." Then he would kiss me and be on his way.
One night though, I offered myself to him and he bit my neck and drank my blood. The next three days are a blur that I do not remember well. It seemed at the time however that I was on a cloud of rapture surrounded by mists of euphoria.
It was of course, too good to last. Charles did not turn me. He made me his slave. The three days he had spent drinking my blood had also torn away my will and my sense of self until I was nothing but an obedient drone. I was not in control of my own body most times, sitting in the passenger seat watching the scenery go by with no access to the controls at all.
That was when I was introduced to the rest of the pack.
They would drink from me until I was nearly dead and then have the witch they worked with heal me back to full health, over and over again. I would plead for death and they would deny it to me. Nor was this the least of my degradations.
These foul, disgusting monsters raped me. I'm not talking about some genteel subversion of my will where I was forced to cooperate with my debasement. No, that would have been far too humane for these brutes. Instead I was ordered to fight them off with every ounce of strength I had. And I did. And I failed.
I was their slave, unable to disobey the least nor the worst of their commands and yet they still found it necessary to torture and abuse me physically, mentally, emotionally and sexually. They didn't need to break me. I was already broken. They did only for their own amusement.
All of this they fit into four or five nights before I was finally rescued. A family of investigators and their allies burst in on the beasts bringing with them the light of the holy sun with them. I was emancipated but I've never been freed. Never been liberated. After ten years of therapy I still have nightmares. I still can't stand the thought of being in the same room as any of these creatures without breaking down into a balling mess, curled up in the corner, a scared and brutalized little girl once more.
It would be bad enough, if my story ended here. But it doesn't. Again the evil spectre of these monsters has arisen in my life, threatening my happiness, my equilibrium and even my very soul.
You see, I have a lover. We are engaged to be married and I love her with all my heart. My current job occasionally requires that I be away from home for months at a time. It was during the most recent of these absences that this evil struck.
To my lover, it seemed innocuous enough. The vampire she met through a friend she trusted seemed like a decent enough person. Her true evil was concealed or suppressed. Something these creatures are masters of. They look like us so we assign our attributes to them. Things like love, compassion and a soul are all things we believe they must have.
My lover knew of the turmoil of my youth. She wanted to know what I went through or so she claimed. I believe she was already more like me than she knew, tempted by that aura of aloof sexiness. The allure of danger and forbidden passion. She asked to be controlled. She asked to have her will stripped away and then forced to have sex with this vampire.
The she-devil in human form resisted, of course. That's part of their sinister method of seduction. She repeatedly asked if my lover was sure. She made it seem as though she was doing this only for my lover's sake. To help my lover. Even now, my lover does not blame her. That is how this sort of insidious evil works. It tells you that it's all your fault and you believe it.
Do not get me wrong. Just as I was wrong for seeking out the darkness as a girl, my fiancée was wrong to consort with this creature. She betrayed me and hurt me. She bears responsibility for that. But this vile disgusting creature helped enable my lover along her self-destructive path. She is fully as culpable for the pain both my lover and I both feel. Nothing, and I mean nothing excuses her from her role in this. She knew what it was like and went ahead anyway. She knew my lover had a fiancée and still she went ahead with it. This vampire was every bit the snake in the garden and if my lover has blame for eating the fruit, the vampire has blame for sharing the fruit.
But it's not fruit. It's poison.
It would be bad enough if my story ended here. I know my lovers faults and weaknesses and knew that someday she might be unfaithful to me. I long ago prepared myself to forgive her for that offense. The trust and love can be rebuilt.
But the evil persists and continues to work to tear down all around it. Even now it continues to influence my friends and loved ones. This creature now has the utter audacity to try and blame my friends for my lover's state. My lover is responsible for her own actions and knows this. My friends and my lover's friends are guiltless in this. But in an insidious master stroke of evil genius, she has actually managed to convince one of them to accept and share partial responsibility for what has happened.
Is an alcoholic's friends responsible for that persons self-destruction if they have tried to intervened? Can you save someone who does not try to save themselves? And why should these questions even have to be asked? It makes my blood boil and brings bile to the back of my throat that this... beast would seek to spread its own culpability, sin and guilt to others that I love. It saddens me deeply that my friends seem willing to do it.
Some of my friends do try to be cautious. Some of my friends are done taking her BS. What happens to these friends? The vampire makes snide comments about them to those they love. Tries to discredit their every act. She tries to undermine the most intimate of relationships to these people she does not approve of. They're supposed to take it.
If they try to call her out on her BS, she has hissy fits and insists that my friends instruct those who resist her to change their tone. Everything must be done her way, you see.
It would be bad enough if my story ended here.
But of course, it doesn't.
She actively flirts with and attempts to seduce people who are involved in intimate relationships. Oh sure, she'll stop if they say no but that they're in a relationship already has no bearing at all on her. That going through with the act would hurt her partner is an alien concept to this monster. The relationships, loves, concerns and heartaches of those around her are trivial things she either does not understand or simply does not care about at all.
Those are not the only sorts of relationships she seeks to destroy, either. She has actively targeted two daughters of a hunter with her 'affections'. One of whom has already been traumatized by a vampire in the past. What an insidious revenge against one who has spent their youth in trying to protect the rest of us from the horror these things represent.
I have heard that this one will kill me if I come after her. Apparently my grievance is of no worth in her eyes. Apparently I am allowed no discourse or defence against the assault she has made against me and those I love the most. It's not like I could be in the same room as her and still be functional but still I must hear of her threats against my safety should I seek retaliation.
I am not entirely helpless. I can at least make this desperate plea and hope. I hope that my friends realize that she is tearing down relationships around them. I hope they can see as she tugs away at the threads of their lives. I hope it is not to late to prevent any more damage from being done.
There is a saying that is very true and everyone on this site needs to be reminded of it.
Those who lie with dogs get fleas.
The dark can be tempting but it is there to be resisted.
You may be asking, what is the name of this vampire?
Does it matter? This vampire has claimed to be 'good' and yet she destroys love. She turns intimacy to ash and devours happiness. If this is how a 'good' vampire behaves then truly, none of them can ever be trusted.
If she's reading this, she no doubt knows who she is. I ask her to prove that she's got any decency. I ask her to walk away from everyone and stop destroying their lives.
For all the hope I have for my friends to escape this path, I do not hold any that she will do right by them and walk away. At every turn she has demonstrated her own selfish needs trumps those of everyone else around her.
That is my tale of survival and ongoing struggle.
Learn from it. Walk away from the darkness while there's still time.
