Oleg and Penelope

Oleg, the clumsy Crapathian encountered a human, affectionately named Penelope. She had been singing in a very off-key sort of way, humming some sort of “Talking Heads” tune under her breath. At once, colors blinded him, so much so that in his Vulture form, he accidentally ran smack dab into a tree. THWACK!! Losing his focus for one split second, he lost his shape and fell to the ground in a solid “thud”!

“Curses,” he shouted to no one in particular, “why did I have to encounter my lifemate now?” Though emotionless for centuries, 300 to be exact, he was royally pissed to have made such a spectacle of himself before one whom he would claim as his.

At such a loud and obnoxious grating sound, Penelope turned to him, her short, choppy black hair plastered solidly to her head. She took one look at him and, seeing his overly portly figure standing so closely before her, she guffawed in screeching laughter. “And who might you be?” She asked, primly placing one pinky finger to the edge of her mouth, in a perfect imitation of Dr. Evil.

“Oh, I am going to be your husband and you have nothing to say about it.” Oleg stated defiantly. With a flip of his non-existent long hair, having been blessed with total baldness.

“Really now,” Penelope said, with mirth in her eyes. “And how might you think you can go about this task of making me your wife?” Rightly amused, she giggled like a schoolgirl, a gleam of self-satisfaction in her dull, gray eyes.

Penelope was a plain, ordinary woman who, though youthful, had seen a better time. She was average size, average height, average weight, just all around average. Though her complexion was clean, it could have used some blemish fighter when she was younger. Straight black hair, which barely brushed her shoulders, and dung-brown bloodshot eyes showed her extreme ambivalence about her looks. And the bags beneath her eyes testified to the short nights she got, considering her position as a help desk administrator and computer programmer at a major software company. Intelligent, she was not the most popular kid in school. Kind of geeky in a nerdy sort of way.

“You see, my name is Oleg Andrevski, and I happen to be a Crapathian. Now a Crapathian is not unlike a human. However, a Crapathian has similar weaknesses to the fictional vampires of myth. I drink blood, avoid the sun and shift shape like from this form to a bird, or dog, or whatever. I was also totally emotionless and without colors until I encountered you just moments ago. Now I am blind with colors and feel more emotion than I have in centuries.”

“You’ve GOT to be kidding me? Right?” Penelope was flummoxed, a bit befuddled at this turn of events. No amount of computer programming could have prepared her for this.

“Oh, but no, I’m not at all kidding you. Now, do you wish to come quietly, or do I have to shackle you to my wrist?” Oleg smiled, a facial impression he had not experienced for many years.

“Now, what would you say if I told you I don’t believe a word of what you just said? What could you do to prove to me that I am who you say I am, and that you are what you say you are? I mean, logically, this shouldn’t be the case. Analytically speaking, there is no such thing as vampires, therefore you are not this “Crapathian” you claim to be. I can also guarantee that according to all biological precedents and physical laws, you cannot shapeshift into anything else but what you are currently displaying to my tired eyes. And do you mean to tell me that you are a ROBOT, only robots are totally emotionless, and very few people have total color-blindness. I mean, honestly, I can see that you need some serious psychiatric counseling, but truthfully, I would have no idea of what your diagnoses would be.”

Penelope was miffed, as if he could REALLY tell her that he was anything but a nutcase. Truly, she was more irritated that he could have such a cocky, overbearing attitude so as to tell her that she WOULD be his, and there was no CHOICE for HER in the matter. ‘Hmpf…’ she thought to herself. It would take a lot more than just his casual, albeit interestingly crazy words, to convince her that she was to be his. In her best mental imitation of Frank Zappa’s Valley Girl, she muddled to herself, ‘Like, really, now, gag me with a spoon.’

“Hmm…” Oleg mused, “You do have a point. Allow me to show you a portion of my explanation, which you refuse to believe.” He backed away, then automatically shapeshifted into a jackass, then quickly back to his human form.

“Ok, then Oleg. You’ve proved your point, though I’d give anything for a sampling of your bio-matter for tissue analysis.” Her scientific nature took over, doing a more thorough analysis of the whole situation. Her ability to take small bits of information and analyze them into a complex whole always astounded her co-workers. She had an innate tendency to interface with machines and “understand” the computer’s problems before all data was compiled and analyzed itself. She was an uncanny programmer, her abilities far and away removed from the majority of people in her field.

It was precisely this near-psychic connection, this near android-like relationship to computers, which seemed to make her the perfect companion to him. He knew from his mental connection to his own race that some human women, some who showed psychic or other mental and emotional talents, could be converted to Crapathian. Well, she was psychic, it just so happened. But that the connection was to machines instead of people seemed not to make much of a difference, it appeared.

And, since computers were made and programmed by humans, one could logically argue that she had a “network connection” to humans by “default.”

“Now, Oleg, does this mean you want to have dinner? And that dinner will include me, perchance?” Penelope was mildly amused at the turn of events that had apparently led to her being singled out for the “honor” (she winced slightly at that particular euphemism), of becoming “supper” for this interestingly nutty male of the “species”. Was “species” the right word, or was it “race” or “genre”, oh well, semantics be damned. She only knew she was destined to be regarded as lunch for him for God-only-knows how long.

“As a matter-of-fact, yes.” Oleg smiled in an irritatingly sarcastic way. “I was a bit hungry, and you look as though you might be a tasty treat for me tonight.” Of course, he wasn’t about to tell her that she would be drinking his blood too.

Sighing, Penelope shoved her black hair off of her sweaty neck. Realizing to herself that she was a bit on the insane side, actually a tad psychotic for doing this, but oh, well…’whatever floated his boat’ she thought.

Diving in to taste her neck, Oleg tripped over his own two clumsy feet and fell to the ground in front of her with a loud “OOF!” Which then elicited peals of laughter from his would-be lifemate. Standing up with all the grace of an elephant attempting to do the tango, he bent forward and took her still-shaking-with-humor body into his arms. Licking her neck sloppily, leaving a trail of spittle, he sunk his teeth into her vein and gulped a mouthful of blood. Taking enough blood to satisfy him, he felt her tremble with faintness and knew then that he should stop and replenish her. How else would at least one blood exchange be accomplished?

Pulling away from her, he sealed the holes in her neck with his tongue. Nicking a hole in his own vein, he forced her mouth to the open wound and mentally merged with her, compelling her to suck at his neck. Ascertaining for himself that she had taken enough for an exchange, he moved her back from her, releasing her from his spell, and mentally healed his own little prick of the neck.

Now, he knew he should have sex with her. But how to go about this puzzled him. He was never one for too much sex as a fledgling, probably because everyone he had ever interacted with laughed at him when he would fall out of bed or lose his balance and go face-first into the ground. He knew his body’s logical reaction to this woman, his lifemate, was normal. Basically, he felt the growing stimulation and knew it would rage out of control, probably eventually making him more of a bumbling idiot than normal. So he thought probably he should just ask her to go to bed with him.

Clearing his throat, he turned to her and stammered, in a half-hearted attempt. “I-I-I w-w-was wondering…w-w-would you like to go to bed with me?”

Shaking off the lethargy of the bite, she looked at him through half-glazed eyes, wondering if indeed he was “normal” for his “kind”. Honestly, she doubted it. She thought that most of his “kind” would probably just take what they wanted and never look back. She probably should treasure at least being asked to go to bed with him, though she thought to herself, ‘Boy, this guy thinks I’m pretty EASY to go to bed with him just like that.’ As she mentally snapped her fingers. But then again, though a bit awkward, he seemed like a nice enough guy. And she analyzed the situation again. She REALLY didn’t mind him so much, just kind of wished he would have come into her life at a different time.

“Oh, all right. I guess. Wherever you would like to go, suits me fine.” Penelope had an air of indifference about her. She figured that if he were as immortal as he claimed to be, there would be no issues with STD’s or anything. But, then again, what did immortals DO for sex? Determining that she would find out soon enough, she turned to him and crooked her index finger at him, “Come on, I know a little cabin up here. I’ve owned it for years. When the corporation I work for actually LETS me get off work for a day or so, I come up here to relax and “power down” as it is.”

Turing on her heel, rather gracelessly, she toddled down the trail towards a rustic-looking cabin with smoke billowing from the chimney. Oleg puttered his way behind her, his tongue lolling out like a hungry dog. If he were salivating, he would most certainly have been dripping saliva strings from his gaping mouth.

Entering the cabin, Penelope motioned toward the bedroom with all the aplomb of someone completely unaffected by the changes that would be wrought in her life this night. And after some gawky and rather unskilled lovemaking, which woefully included falling OUT of bed four times, Oleg’s inability to keep up any sort of rhythm, and Penelope’s obvious virginal state, they managed to successfully attempt and complete one session of lovemaking. Both of them were horribly uninspired and rather inept at it, Oleg having not had sex since he was a mere 100 years old. And Penelope had never even entertained the thought; their mutual stimulation and unexpected climaxes took them both by surprise. Penelope knew of the mechanics of making love, after all, she had taken several classes of biology and biochemistry as well as health and anatomy class in college, but the actual pleasure centers of the brain had been beyond her own scope of study.