I wrote this a long time ago, and thought I would share.

None of the characters named belong to me.

There is a tone, or a colour perhaps I should call it, that lies in the space between amber, terracotta and umber. It is a delicately soft, animate thing, which encompasses all that passes within its reach. That skin is pulled tightly around the muscles, as soldiers' often are, but it holds the gentleness which draws me, like the dog seeks the warmth. Always trying to sit as close as it can to that fire; one might worry it will burn itself. No one wonders whether the dogs would like to be burnt.

Whilst his love of the daylight hours would sleep soundly in the bed, he would stir. I would watch him like a parent watches a sleeping child, and would pretend to be annoyed when he woke, but secretly overjoyed, holding his head to my neck and whispering to him in a voice I only ever intended him to hear. But it was never up to me who heard what. If another presence dare captivate me then I would have to beg him for forgiveness.

He was so forgiving.

We would walk together in the darkness, holding hands, linking arms, other things that grown men do not do in the day. But the night is my territory. I see night as an area, a plane, not a stretch of time. Things are different in the twilight. Echoes travel farther. More is heard, and nothing is seen.

I am known in darkness only, and the shadows are my mothers and sisters, nuzzling me malevolently against their bosoms. My shadow families do not judge as to what is right and wrong. Why does a man become a different man when the sun stops its vigilant patrol of the land? When the sun departs, the world breathes a sigh of relief. The people are no longer being watched; the omniscience of the sun is the deepest of intimidations. Suddenly, there is juxtaposition, and people evolve. They change. Like a metaphorical werewolf.

Or an emotional vampire.

He was full of questions. Once, he asked me if I knew why the moon shined. I answered him:

Why does a knife gleam in the dark?

Now that is a puzzling question. I always imagined one day I would know, but having spent all my life with knives, I've reconsidered. I doubt that I shall ever know. It is not a thing that can be explained.

For it only gleams in thine eye, my love.

Oh, but like the knife it would sting. When I saw him, with his wife and child, wandering the daytime streets as I watched from a darker, better place. How they would openly smile, and proudly display their affections to the world, as often a couple does. In part, it killed me to watch those exhibitions, that proved that I was a love of the night, and between sunrise and sunset I was nothing but a shadow.

I could numb that stinging with my thoughts of pity and superiority; the poor wife and child, who saw their man as the hero, the soldier who fought for them. A man's man.

Oh yes, he was a man's man.

But not his own.

He was mine.

In the night I would occupy his thoughts, and never the mother or daughter to know. Never the mother or daughter to understand.

Of course, I would remind myself that love is fleeting. A phrase that wouldn't even be half true if it weren't for death. I began to exact my revenge, in a mental state, wondering how it was I could make his murderer suffer. In the end, my efforts were not needed. Queen, she did this for me.

Her skin was that tone, or colour, between the tricolour of blends that was her father. It was pulled tight around her muscles, as is a soldier's; as was her father's. She did encompass me, I could never deny it. Sometimes I would wonder whether I was replacing her dead father or her dead husband. Was she my child or my lover? I could never quite get it, but I knew beyond all doubt that she was something of intense value. The only living preservation of my former love. She proved that he had existed. She proved that the virgin night was forever better than the violated day.

She would walk the streets with me, in the night. I would take her where I had taken him, and she reacted in much the same ways, sighing in much the same manner, as the man she never saw sigh. She had never known or seen her father's night persona, but she could imitate it flawlessly. I rejoiced in this, whilst rejoicing in the things that were ultimately her. That questioning. The fiery attitude. I began to feel as though I had a purpose to live again.

In the end though, the realisation would form like a cold steel suit around my skin. Holding her was like holding water. The edges of my being would feel right against hers, but over time I rusted. I would soon know, that it is the memory that makes the person, not the skin tone, or even the personality.

She had not seen what my love and I had seen. She had not been there when we had met, and his eyes flowed over me like I was a meal. She would not know that insatiable bloodlust.

I knew Helena would never be him.

So one day I told her, about my affair with her father.

To which, she smiled.

I told her the real reason people called me 'Vamp'.

And she laughed.

"My love..." she said, smiling coyly.

And then she said something, perhaps the most accurate observation ever made about me.

It will stay with me forever. Until the night is no more, and no knife doth gleam in thine eye.

Yes, Queen. You were right.

I 'm not of queer tastes.

I am but plain greedy.