Byron Hobbs sat on the stoop of his small apartment building, looking out to the streets and letting his eyes calmly survey his surroundings through the few strands of hair that fell down in front of them. The street was calm tonight, strange. He was used to the blaring of horns, the screaming of old women getting their purses stolen...That was just the part of town he lived in. But tonight, it was unusually mellow. He leaned back against the old building and enjoyed the soft buzzing of the few cars that passed.

With one knee up, a small notebook was proped up against his thigh, a pen in his hand. He waited. Waited for something to happen, someone to walk by. Anything that would trigger that sudden creative outburst in which he had been waiting so long for. Just one, small, nearly insignificant event, that could branch off into a world of ideas and images... from his deranged mind to his ninety-nine cent notebook paper.

He tapped his pen against his knee.

The asian woman stepped quietly through the dark street. Even her foot steps sounded moody. Her black heels clicked against the cracked pavement, one step at a time. Tsuka was wearing a long black skirt, complete with a black sweater folded around her skinny body. Around her neck was a tiny silver chain with a tiny saphire pendant. Despite her sweater, there was a chill in the air and she could feel it on her undead skin. She was grateful that the sidewalk was clear. Not many people were out this night. Down the road, still a distance from her own apartment was a man, just one. She shrugged, not caring tonight who she met, mortal or otherwise. It was the beginning of the night, her night off and she only felt like sleeping, even after her walk.

She had found a young man, maybe in his twenties. She had ended his misery. She could nearly taste the heroin that had coursed through his blood. She had put an end to his coloured dreams. She wondered idly if anyone who saw found him would give a damn, if he had family to be seen by.

These thoughts were interupted rather brutally by a sharp crack in her ankle and the pain that came with it. In annoyance, she realised she was on the ground, the heel of her shoe firmly caught in a large crack penetrating the sidewalk. She cursed in japanese under her breath. It did not help her mood that she had tumbled right in front of the lone man on the road. With a dark look at the side walk, she looked up at the man beside her.

Byron watched as the woman approached, still absent-mindedly taping his pen on his knee. He could smell the blood of a young man on her, and was reassured that she was a vampire, although to him it was already quite evident.

She was Asian, or so it appeared. One thing about any and every Asian girl that he had ever been in contact with, was that they always had the clearest and smoothest skin, and a very delicate faceframe. Byron admired that, and he inspected her as she got closer to him, not careful to hide the fact that he was doing so.

She fell directly in front of him, and he watched her on her way down. She moved very swiftly, but in Byron's eyes the whole process seemed very slow, and he felt as if he had time to catch her, or at least lessen the blow. But he didn't. When she looked up at him, he was filled instantly with guilt, and it was apparent through his eyes.

Putting his pen and notebook aside, he stood up and stared down at her momentarily, smirking. "I'm sorry," he told her with a small laugh. "Here, let me help you out there." He grabbed one of her arms and began to slowly and cautiously pull her up to her feet, not sure if her heel was still implanted in the pavement. He would've checked, but he wasn't about to go feeling around this total strangers body. After all, she didn't seem to be in the best of moods, and he didn't blame her. At the same time, he couldn't really relate...he had never worn heels.

Tsuka was annoyed at the crack she had heard. She could feel a throbbing in her ankle, radiating up through her calves. As she stepped back onto the foot, her leg collapsed, falling into the man who had helped her up. She realised it was futile to stand on it. The doctor peered at the taller man who had helped her onto her feet. She smiled grimly at him, though she could not make it cold. She had never been much of a people person, yet she had been touched by his kindness, despite her unwillingness to admit it.

The doctor smiled again, this time with a little warmth entwined throughout it. She carefully lowered herself back down to the curb, her hands sliding down the man's sides, keeping her balance. She felt the cold of the curb seep through her clothing as she took her weight of of him and placed it on the cement. She bent her knee, trying to look at the pained ankle. She saw that it was swollen and discoloured with newly consumed blood. She also noted that the was a bulge instead of smooth skin. That was more than swelling.

The vampire felt along the bones, nodding as she felt what she had assumed. Tsuka's ankle had dislocated. With a sharp jerk, she popped the joint back into place. Four hundred bloody years and there was still pain. Who'd have thought?

She realised she had been ignoring the man for the last minute or two but she turned aroundto see if he was still there. He was, and he was watching her movements. Tsuka looked at him in the eye and decided to speak, trusting that the man would do her no harm, and if he did, there would not be much she could do about it.

"This foot is useless for the moment," Tsuka said, peering at the man, "I can't walk."

Not quite sure what else he could do for the girl, Byron peered down at her from where he stood. When she began to speak he bent over close to her, his hands on his knees. "Wow. Yes, I can see that." he said gently and stared over her shoulder and down at her mangled ankle, his face close to hers.

Byron then stood back up straight and looked around the scuzzy urban streets. Yes, it sure is a rough area, he thought to himself. His manners, and not to mention his sheer curiousity, led him to want to ask her if she'd like to come into his apartment to get off her ankle and relax. Pretty girl. he thought. Pretty Asian girl. with a smirk. Pretty wounded Asian girl. he thought almost chuckling to himself outloud. Briefly after he stopped amusing himself with his own racy thoughts, realizing that this vampire could very well be able to read minds. Regardless, even if she could, she would also become aware of the fact that he was generally harmless. Aside from the odd hidden intention, which were after all, still good intentions. Depending.

He walked over to where he had set down his pen and notebook and picked them up, then returned to stand in front of her. Again, he knelt down and spoke to her at her level where she sat on the curb. "I live right here," he informed her, motioning towards his apartment. "You're welcome to come in until you can walk, or get help, or.." Okay, so he didn't know jack about these kinds of injuries. "I have a phone if you need it, we can put some ice on it, first aid kit....beer?" he added, laughing sincerely. Then a thought came to him. "Oh, right. I'm Byron. Byron Hobbs."

"My name is Tsuka Nitta" She answered his question levelly, though tried to get over her surprise at his generousity. She questioned whther his intentions were as pure as they seemed, but what could she say or do if they were otherwise. Men would tend to think in one manner, and she could not put him down for what they could not seem to help.

"Yes, thank you for your generousity. The swelling will go down enough in a bit, now that I've relocated it. I'm sorry to impose like this." She paused, realising that despite her recent feed, a drink might be nice. As she tried to stand, she realised her skirt had torn a little at the seam, riding the side of her leg even higer than the orginal cut had. This was how the night had been going so far. She could only wonder how it would turn as the hours past.

"Thank you for the phone, but there is no one for me to call, I am alone here."

Byron nodded, not to sure what to say to her last statement. He smirked. "Yeah well, I wouldn't have anyone to call either if the tables were turned...Except my cat, Simon. But I don't think he'd be of much help." he said finally, with a laugh.

He quickly moved closer to her and helped her up, gently putting her arm around his shoulder and slipping his own around her waist. Giving a short glance to her thigh revealed by the split in her skirt, he began to lead her to his front door. He helped her lift herself up onto the stoop and turned the front knob of his door.

Once inside, Byron's friendly tailess tomcat instantly was making his way in and out between her legs. "Careful Simon, wouldn't want to trip Tsuka, now would you?" Simon stopped and stared up at her with a compationate look on his furry little face, as if he understood. The cat then slowly walked behind them and stared as Byron led her into his livingroom, which wasn't very far from his front door, thank goodness.

"Sorry about the mess," he said reffering to all the pens and papers, and half-finished scripts, and contact information sheets scattered around the room. Carefully, he sat her down on the couch and then stood back up straight. He rubbed his hands together, clapped, then pointed at her (he was a very animated that way). "So what'll it be, Tsuka?" he asked. "Hopefully I can find it in this place. Food, drink, medication, bandages...you name it, my dear."

Tsuka reached down to pet the cat, nuzzling around her in injured leg. She heard its loud purr and almost smiled. She loked around at the piles of paper and manuscripts, that decorated the living space around her. She had not seen so much paper in her life. The closest had been her living in her first university victim's choice of residence.

"You...you write a lot then? What about?" She looked around her, her mind exploding with the curiousity, though her face would reveal little, as she had been taught from a young age. She restrained herself to a polite glance, trying to decipher what she could of titles from her distance.

"How long have you done this?" Tsuka inquired, "The writing I mean?". The woman continued to pamper the cat, playing behind its soft ears. She wondered also how long he had been picking up strange women in distress. How long had it been since she had toyed with anything for any reason beyond to kill it or t hurt it in some way.

"Please, could I have some water?" She asked this partially so she could glance around the room for another moment, without worrying over politeness and etiquette.

Byron picked up a random piece of paper from the coffee table and examined it. Written on it were a few thoughts, ideas, images. "Yes, I do, alot. At the moment I'm not working on anything specefic ..just brainstorming, jotting down ideas that come to me in my everyday life here." He smirked, dropping the piece of paper back onto the table. "I'm a filmaker, have been proffessionaly for.." He counted. "..Fiftety-three years? Yes. Ironicaly enough, I made vampire movies...before I was turned immortal. Now, I guess you could say, I'm planning on presenting a vampire story from a completely different angle."

He made his way to the kitchen and fixed her a glass of water with ice. "Well now that you heard all about me," he said with a laugh on his way back to the livingroom, "What about you, my dear. What's your story?"

Handing her the glass of water, he sat down next to her on the couch. He then reached over and grabbed a small remote control from the coffee table. Soon after pressing a small button, the apartment was filled with music coming from many small speakers hidden all around the room. Byron's home may have been in a rough area of town, and even appeared like a dump on the inside, but he sure hadn't left all his money back home when he came to Demaitre. Nothing but the best. He wasn't one to sit in silence for very long, which led him to cuing the tunes. It wasn't his intention to try and woo her. Although if that was the outcome, he wouldn't have been disapointed.

In the meantime, Simon had made himself comfortable in her lap.

"My story?" She absentmindedly continued petting the ball of fur that had shaped itelf to conform in her lap. "My story?" She asked herself again, her eyesgained a far away look. "What does one say about themselves?" She smiled and shuddered to remember all of her past.

The woman stared into the glass, remembering the first time she had seen light shine through such a substance. "My father...my father had a wife and three daughters...Santo, Keko, and Yoshita...Yoshita...that was me. I had two little brothers too. My father sold me into indenture when I was twelve. He sold me to the first walled in "pleasure section" of Japan. I knew nothing of what I was meant for when I left. I became some man's favourite. He was not a violent man unless he was drunk. In my foolishness I cried out for the darkness to take me. I don't know why. I was...dutiful...respectful...I knew my place. I somehow believed that I should want more. I cried for the darkness to take me one night...And I got exactly what I asked for, and what I deserved. In my bondage to the dark, I became another kind of whore. I became one of the most highest positions of whores in my country. I left my country with a man, after that I was on my own.

"In Canada, my pride returned to me, I atttended lectures at a university, feeding off kids, visitors, staff and the like. After years of prowling and learning...I consumed a young girl, asian, small, youngish. I've been transferring around ever since. We were not given an eternity to live, but an eternity to learn" Tsuka paused, that last bit had almost sounded deep, "It was pride that brought me to what I was, and pride that continues to course through my veins. I'm still prideful and strong to those smaller than me. To my superiors...I cannot help but be...obedient. It can drive one mad, though it is not often that that happens."

Tsuka peered around the room once more. "No that you are changed, will you continue your work at its full potential?" SHe continued to look at him, even as she drank from her glass.

Byron listened to her speak attentively. For one moment, his visual senses weakened and her figure became blurred, her lips seeming to move in slow motion. Suddenly only his hearing was of any importance. He sat motionless listening, and absorbing her story. He would've liked to have written it down, and that was his plan, but he didn't want to do it right away, not in front of her. He had a good memory.

When she had finished telling him about her interesting past, he blinked, and everything had returned to normal. A vampires senses..he thought to himself. What a trip.

"Full potential and more, I hope. Being turned took many things from me, but one thing it could never take away..is my dedication and my passion." he told her.

For a moment that seemed like an eternity, he kept his eyes on hers. We were not given an eternity to live, but an eternity to learn. Now that was grade A material. This girl was smart, wise. He assumed by the way she talked and what she had been through, that she was older than himself.

Suddenly, he remembered why she was in his apartment in the first place. He glanced down at her ankle. "How's the foot feeling?" he asked her, returning his eyes to meet her own.

Tsuka thought about what she had said. That had sounded bloody deep. She was beginning to get older...that she was. She was even starting to sound mature...more like her father. Not that he had known much of reading, writing...but learning none the less. The asian woman had smiled once, knowing that she had risen above all others women she had known at her time. Then it had scared her to think she had surpassed her own father's power. She had surpassed any man she had known from her era. She had become immune to the idea now.

"Why...why do you seem so interested? Interested in me I mean...do you not have your own story to tell?" Tsuka knew that she had begun to push at him, shaking loose a relic of a story...though given the age she guessed him to be...not that much of a relic. Still something hidden and buried...everyone has something hidden and buried. Dead or alive, this would be true.

'Is it not interesting' Tsuka began to muse, 'how we are all so similar in our pain?'

Tsuka turned her attention to the cat which had begun to clinging to her arm, its tiny teeth surrounding a digit playfully. Playful or no, she began to feel the tiny punctures in her skin. These did not hurt, though she did feel awakened as a stinging feeling enveloped her index finger. Like herself, the creature tried so hard to give pleasure, but was perfectly aware, content even, to cause pain at the same time.

Byron slowly reached his arm over across her and into her lap, petting Simon who was now playfully gnawing at her index finger.

"I've studied and disected so many stories about others, but my own story is one that I've never given much.. attention." He grinned, running his fingers through the tomcat's smooth furr. "Lets give it a go, shall we? In a nutshell." He cleared his throat, as one would do before giving a speech.

"Born in Cork. Ireland, that is. I was always a weird kid, but it was justified when I began to write and film horror stories with my neighbourhood friends, starting in my teen years." He spoke very quickly, as if telling his own story did not keep his interest whatsoever. "Soon, I moved to America, where I sold countless scripts and worked as a crew member in many productions of the horror genre. Umm..got hired as a casting director..casted many hit films..." He paused, stroking his chin with his free hand. "Then came Fang Fever. A film written by yours truely. Along with the hundreds of other aspiring actresses, came Charlotte, auditioning for the lead. Yeah, that bitch was special, unique. She had something the others didn't, and I made the mistake of not only hiring her, but sleeping with her. In the..heat of the moment..that young vampiress turned me into what I am today."

He took a long breath, looking up and around his room, then back to Tsuka. "And now here I am. A writer currently living in Demaitre, bringing injured girls from the busy streets and into my lair." he said with a smile, giving her a bit of a playful nudge.

"So I'm not your first, huh?" Tsuka continued to pet the cat, rubbing under its furry stomach for good measure. With her other hand she toyed idly with torn threads from the rip in her skirt. She was glad it had not been too high up the body. That would have been mildly embarassing. "What made you toy with your actress anyway, or allow her to toy with you?"

Tsuka glanced again at the paper, manuscripts and books around the room. "Do you live here alone? Or is your cat the only other keeper?" She had guessed already that he lived alone. It was impossible for two people to live together without their touch being here...and no one is so close that they could be told apart...and this apartment seemed all him, unless there was simply something she had not yet noticed.

"If not...have you been with anyone since that night?"

He listened to her questions and seemed to choke on his own laughter. Not that there was anything wrong with them, he liked a girl who was able to be blunt. It was a good traite to have.

"What can I say, Tsuka. I was a young and horny casting director." He paused a little on the word 'was'. It's not like he had changed much. "Girls were willing to sleep with me to get the parts, and I was fine with that. As long as they could act and had a nice pair of legs." He grinned at his own tell-it-like-it-is personaly. She was a tough girl, he could tell. She could handle it. And if she were to be offended and storm out of his house, then so be it. Regardless, he'd come out on top with a story to write about.

He looked around his apartment, then back to her. "Yes, I'm alone here." Back in his mansion in the U.S., he had many girls coming in and out of the house, even for the short time that Charlotte was living with him. Boy, did she ever hate that. Even now, he was still astonished at the fact that he left Charlotte, instead of the other way around, considering how badly he treated her. Ah, fuck it. She was nothing but a slease anyways.
He said none of this to Tsuka, not answering outloud her last question. He only sat there thinking and staring straight ahead with a peculiar grin smeared across his face, his expression alone revealing so much more about his story than words ever could.

She knew it was none of her business but old habits never truly die. She had been trained to please people, men in particular. Many times men would want an outlet to rant at, talk about, to someone who was either unlikely to bother remembering or they did not give a damn what they knew. What else was pillow talk for? Tsuka reminded herself that she was no where near pillows, let alone anyone's bed. Sharing a bed with someone had ended long ago. Still, this was almost similar, in a completely different sort of way. The woman frowned at her thinking, grateful that thoughts are not easily heard and that her own were incomprehensible to most. People think in their native tongue. even after a few centuries elsewhere.

She would smile, and the conversation would continue. He would respond when he was ready. "So she wasn't your first either then?" Tsuka bacame curious about this man. From his story, he seemed almost like the men from her own land, and the women like her fellow courtesans, nigh grovelling for attention and favour. She bit her tongue in disgust, how little 400 years had changed the world. Names, places and titles yes, but the actions, the people, the personalities. No one was truly any different now.

"Are you still that horny director, or did I happen to walk in at an abnormal time?"Tsuka asked, delicately.

Byron thought over all the girls in his life. Really, contrary to popular belief, if he sat down and tried he could probably count them. There were many, not countable on two hands, but it wasn't an impossible task. This was because, to an extent, he was a choosy man.

“No, Charlotte was not my first. Nor my last. But she was definitely the girl whom I was with the longest, who I have the most…history with.” he told Tsuka, with a small nod of his head. Staring off into the room, Byron began to grit his teeth, the muscles in his temples and jaw pulsating just as a fish’s gills would when it breaths. His eyes roamed momentarily as he reflected, then returned to meet Tsuka’s with a look of pure amusement. He smirked and let out a small chuckle. “Honestly, my dear, I have not changed much inside. Although my friends, environment, and even lifestyle have been altered and altered again… I am still the same Byron Hobbs I was so long ago.”

With that, he stood up from the couch and crammed his hands into the pockets of his dark denim jeans.

“As interesting as you are,” he began, taking one hand out from his pocket. “All this talk of the past depresses me.” he told her in a tone that sounded far from being depressed. “Would you like a tour of the apartment?” He offered her his hand. “That is, if your ankle is alright to be walking on.”

Tsuka decided to follow along with this idea. She needed to stretch it out now anyway. She had always been a believer in the theory that favouring something to much will only further injure it. A little pressure and strength would be good for the injury, so long as it was not to much. She coudn't sit on this man's couch forever.

She balanced on her good foot first, easing the other to the ground. It didn't her much like this so she took a step. A sharp pain shot through her leg and she lost her balance, falling into Byron. She pushed herelf away and eased her bad foot gingerly again. This time she knew what to expect. With every other step, as she walked across the room, without shoes, she grimaced but it was tolerable. Finally she looked Byron in the eye as if wondering where they would begin. Being cautious however, she slipped her arm loosely into Byron's and began to move with him.