"I have never been loved like this before."

"Rock Me Gently" - Andy Kim

I'd seen CD's office once or twice before and always when Star was with me, but I'd never seen his bedroom. Like the office, it was luxurious in a masculine way, with lots of dark wood - not that I was paying much attention to furniture by then.

We had sex. I won't bore you with details, though you can take my word that it was far from boring. All my new equipment worked just fine, and if my new body had been in fact virgin, that didn't last longer than another five minutes after we hit the door.

In case you haven't heard, women can come more than once in a very short time, which, as surprises go, was a damn good one. My sexy and accomplished lover made it through three of my orgasms before succumbing to his own, and just before that was when he gently turned my head to the side and I felt teeth press against my skin. You can imagine how cooperative I was feeling by that time, and I let his teeth sink in and felt soft lips seal onto my neck around the punctures. The gentle sucking sensation, the way he drew the blood into his mouth, almost reverently, brought me off again, all but screaming with pleasure. I felt him spurt inside of me, and he kept moving until we were both completely spent, then he just lay on top of me and sucked for another minute or two. Man, it was good.

Mind you, I'm not recommending you run out and find yourself a vampire lover. Experience has taught me that Mr. D is the exception rather than the rule when it comes to sensitive bloodsuckers. A lot of them would take more and give less, if you get my drift, though few vampires kill these days - too much bad publicity.

I fell happily asleep in CD's bed without a trace of the reluctance I had felt with Buddy. I think he slept too, but I woke to gentle lips sucking on one of my nipples. They had always been sensitive, so nothing had changed there. My newest sex partner was up and ready again, and I was happy to cooperate. Het sex was just as wet and wild as gay sex, and worth every bit of the muss and fuss. Vampires seem to have great staying power; we kept at it for the best part of twenty-four hours, with only minor breaks for sleep and food. He only bit me the once, though. Hey, it was our first date.

But not our last. I liked being a woman. The Grave Diggers accepted me back as their lead singer. I think Dex would still have had sex with me, but Mr. D was there to claim me after every gig, and Dex wasn't about to encroach on the boss's territory. I didn't have to look at Buddy anymore. He and his gang had taken an extended trip to Bermuda, or Antarctica, or somewhere - I had a feeling it was at CD's suggestion.

When I wasn't singing or fucking the Count, I shopped for clothes, sometimes with Xintaie, or even Vai. Considering that I was now another female and therefore maybe more of a rival for her husband's affections, Star's wife treated me with amazing kindness. Maybe it was because I continued to visit and bring gifts for the twins. Roca and Racho treated me like they always had, except I'm pretty sure I saw Roca eyeing one of my breasts with a speculative look. After that, I didn't wear low-cut blouses to visit… no chance of lunch from there, buster!

I couldn't resist sex with a couple of other straight guys - I mean… straight guys? I had to, you know? CD knew, and I knew he didn't like it, but hey, monogamy was not in my nature. We hadn't made any promises, and I wouldn't have known what to say if he had approached the subject. It was all so new to me, and even though I was over seventy years old, I felt like a kid around the vampire. The closer we became, the greater sense I got of his age, and it was considerable. Besides, he was still seeing Xintaie, and I had no problem with that.

Showing no more jealousy than she ever had, she invited me to her ranch in Colorado, and I spent a weekend there. While admiring her personal herd of horses, a great many of them white with Arabian delicacy but sixteen to seventeen hand size, she came out with the whole story about meeting Star.

She said that one day she noticed there was a new stallion in the herd - a big white one with dark eyes. She liked the look of him, figured he couldn't be just some mustang off the range, and tried to find out where he came from. None of her neighbors seemed to have lost a big white stud, so she let him stay around and turned him in with her mares when the time was right. The foals from those matings were large and strong and almost identical to the stud, which is thought to be an excellent trait by horse breeders. It never occurred to her to try and tame or ride him, but before long he would come to her for brushing or a treat, and she noticed the star mark on his shoulder.

Colorado has the occasional earthquake and, after a particularly strong one, she rode out to check on the herd. They were all there, except for the big white stallion. Getting more frantic by the minute, she kept looking, finally seeing a patch of white under a fall of rocks at the base of a cliff. Alone, she dug with her bare hands until she uncovered, not the stallion, but a man with white hair… and the same star birthmark.

That story left me with a lot to speculate about. What in hell was Star doing running around as a horse?

After a large amount of thought, I decided that, at that time, Star had been stuck somewhere between his desire to escape his destiny and guardians, and his feeling of duty. A good, if slightly psychotic, way out was to assume the body of a simpler life-form and live only in ways that it could understand.

It wasn't until years later that Star confirmed that my guess was right. Star was a horse for two years, and he might have stayed that way except for the rock fall that shocked him into remembering who he was. When he came back to himself, but still refused to go back to Lecurela, that was when they sent Suria to "advise" him. The big white horses in Xintaie's herd seemed normal and horsey enough, but I was pretty sure that the Lecurelan scientists didn't know that Star had more offspring than his and Vaira's twins.

I still saw a lot of Star, and would have been more than glad to add him to my repertoire of straight guys, but he was as benignly friendly and as immune as ever to my charms.

After six months as Eve, I felt as though my life finally made sense. I had plenty of lovers and no real stigma of "wrongness" attached to my behavior by today's society. One of the few drawbacks was that it was now possible for me to become pregnant - an idea that sent creepy cold chills down my spine. After I found myself in bed with CD one day, dreamily contemplating the lovely vampire sperm swimming around in my guts, I had to consciously remember to lock down my fertility. Luckily I remembered how to do that in time.

Other than that small problem, I had everything I'd ever wanted - plenty of friends and, thanks to Star and Vaira, a sort of family too. What more could a girl ask? Sure, I missed parts of my old, familiar life. Gay or straight, people just didn't treat women with the same sort of respect they gave a man, but I felt that a few drawbacks were a worthwhile trade for acceptance.

I had found my niche.

Famous last words.