Vampires are everywhere in romance and erotica. They range from dark, brooding man-boys to wealthy, dangerous heroes. Sometimes they're descended from demons, other times angels. They can feed off blood, sex, psychic energy, you name it. In most mythologies, they are risen or returned from the dead, but in others they are born from an evolved species or created by a virus.

There's a lot of wiggle room when it comes to vampires in modern fiction. However, pretty much since Anne Rice came on the scene, vampires have been eroticized into supernatural sex gods who bite and fuck and woo women with their bad boy appeal. For our purposes, we're going to ignore the traditional blood-sucking monster version of the horror-genre vamp and focus on the romance-genre hottie.

The real question is: Sex with a vampire, hot or not? Let's examine...

HOT: Frozen for eternity at 25
NOT: Frozen for eternity at 15

HOT: Dark and tragic past
NOT: Pity parties

HOT: Centuries of knowledge and wealth
NOT: Nihilistic boredom

HOT: Biting
NOT: I look like the victim of a rabid mongoose attack

HOT: Forever in a body that never needs the gym
NOT: Forever in a body that never saw a gym

HOT: Strong, fast, flexible
NOT: I bruise easily

HOT: Cold lips on my nipple
NOT: Cold... everything else

HOT: No chance of diseases or babies
NOT: Unless you count vampirism and half-vampire babies (Or sparkly, psychic, fast-growing half-vampire babies! Thanks, Twilight...)

HOT: Knows what he's doing in the sack
NOT: Knows way more than me in the sack

HOT: Unlimited stamina
NOT: I fell asleep an hour ago

HOT: They're dying to love you...
NOT: No really, they're dead. HOW IS THIS OK?

What else makes a vampire lover hot or not? And stay tuned for my next Hot or Not? Werewolves!

To escape the vampire who made her, a former dominatrix takes a job in Costa Rica as an English tutor to the children of a wealthy widower, but she discovers her new employer is just as dangerous as her pursuer . . . and twice as tempting.

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Javier & Olivia's story, a teaser...

Her hands were so small, too small to hold the strength they did.

She fingered his shirt's buttons. One by one she undid them, along with his carefully held self-control. Her cool fingertips skimmed his bare skin. He shivered with pleasure and felt the first stirring of his cock. He reached for her, to lay his hands on her hips, to pull her against him. Would her body feel as soft as it promised, or would it be hard as the ice in her eyes?

She grabbed his wrists and pushed them down, against his sides.

"Don't move, unless I say so," she said.

"I want to touch you."

One of her deceptively delicate hands clasped his chin. Her thumb pressed into the dimple there, as much a warning as it was sensual. He knew how quickly she could turn her touch into something dangerous, something visceral. She lifted his head slightly. Her blue-black eyes surveyed the soft, exposed flesh of his neck. His pulse pounded there, and he wondered if she could sense his nerves.

"Don't speak, either," she said.

He grunted, his breath catching from her command and the implicit threat of violating it. If she wanted to take charge, he could allow that, if it meant getting closer to this enigma of a woman.

She returned to his shirt, one button at a time, sliding her way steadily lower. When she was done, she stalked behind him and slipped the shirt from his shoulders. Instead of letting it fall, Olivia caught it at his arms and began to wind it in such a way that his hands drew together, the linen fabric tightening around his wrists. It pulled his shoulders back and pushed his chest out. His muscles strained.

"I don't trust you to listen," she said.

"I never list--"

She spanked him. Once, but hard enough to sting through his jeans. His cock reacted instantly, stiffening and scraping lightly on the zipper.

"Dios--"

He never finished the curse. She wrenched the shirt around his wrists, and his back bowed. Her other hand wove through his hair and yanked his head until his throat was even with her mouth, her eyes sparkling with delight as they stared down at him.

It was so fast. Her strength stunned him, left him breathless. This tiny terror of a woman, as sleek and lethal as a jaguar, had subdued him. He wanted her. He opened his mouth to tell her so, to disobey her once again despite the uncomfortable position she had placed him in, despite the heat he still felt from the sting of her palm on his ass. Perhaps because of both. But she must have seen his lips part.

Olivia kissed him. Hard.

He had never been kissed like this. Her mouth claimed him, demanded he return her passion with equal fervor. Her tongue tangled with his, her teeth nipping his lower lip. He tasted tequila and something he couldn't name but wanted to drown himself in. His back ached from the way she held him bound in his own shirt, and his cock strained almost painfully. They were sweet pains, a kindling to stoke the fire rising inside him. She met his heat with a cool control. Every motion of her body was a graceful economy of movement meant to drive him forward as much as restrain him.

She abandoned his mouth, shifted his head to kiss his jawline, and ran her tongue along the pulse below. Her freehand swept across his chest, lingering over his hammering heart before sliding lower. She smelled of crisp night air and faintly of the ocean as she pressed herself against his side. The top of her head barely came up to his shoulder, but bent as he was and with her hands on him, he was under her power.

"I like this," she said, caressing the scar on his flank where a bull had gored him when he was younger. Small, gentle fingers caused him to tremble. She went lower. "And this."

She pressed her hand over his cock, cupped him through his jeans. When he moaned, she tightened the shirt around his wrists. She fit herself to his side, almost straddling his leg, her breasts brushing his bicep. It drove him mad.

"Please," he said, knowing full well that she would punish him for speaking.

In response, she bit his earlobe. This wasn't a playful nibble like those he'd experienced from previous women. Olivia pierced him, and he wanted to scream. Instead, he grunted as a wave of warmth and a sweet, painful pleasure swept through him. She pushed closer, seemed to surround him. She rubbed herself against him, suckling at his ear. Waves of pleasure crashed through him. It was enough to light every nerve afire. He lost his sense of time and place for a moment. Consumed in her. Wanting to be consumed by her.

He regained himself to find her licking her lips and whispering into his ear.

"The way you taste, almost perfect," she whispered, flicking his earlobe with her tongue. "But you think you're letting me keep you like this. You're playing at surrender, and I can taste the lie. You have no idea what I can do to you."

Lie? He wanted her to do anything she desired to him. He could surrender, right now. Just let her lay him down, undress him, ride him until they were both spent.

Olivia untangled herself from him, freeing his wrists and lowering him gently as his knees gave out. Why were his knees so weak? His head spun. He knelt before her and rested his head against her thigh. She stroked his hair. Her fingertips grazed his earlobe, which was throbbing softly.

"It will pass in a moment, Javier," she said. "And tomorrow, when we're both sober, we'll have a conversation."

“The beautiful is always bizarre.”
― Charles Baudelaire

As far as I'm concerned, Charles Baudelaire was a fucking genius. He was a French poet who lived during the 1800's and professed ideas of pleasure, beauty, the arts, and modern (at the time) urban life. Most of his quotable quotes were fairly scandalous, considering the time period, and he received both criticism and outrage from his peers.

But I believe good ole' Chuck had the right of it in his poem, "Be Drunk," or "Enivrez-Vous."

Upon first examination, the poem is funny in our modern context, but there is also a beauty there, an elegance of language. What Baudelaire is saying is not to get hammered every day (All right, maybe he is a little), but to be drunk on life. To be intoxicated by the pleasures and virtues existence offers, and to avoid the weariness of time.

It's a great sentiment for a Friday. The weekend is here, when time takes a break from grinding us into the earth, to our deaths.

So I tell you to go and get drunk. On wine, poetry, virtue. Be drunk on love, on your lover, on yourself. Be drunk with your friends or family. Enjoy your quiet time, your busy time, your naked time.

Or if none of that tickles your pickle, pick up a book, and drink the words until they fill you.

Gary was not smart. He wasn't particularly interesting or wealthy or funny. But he was nice enough and drop dead gorgeous. That's all I really wanted. Come to think of it, he looked a bit like a young Ryan Gosling, only with a more country-boy appeal. Just picture Gary as this:

I dated Gary for all of three months in my younger days. My mother thought he was, A very nice boy, but she wouldn't have if she'd heard the things he said to me when the lights went off.

Gary was smoking hot; he and I just didn't talk much outside of the bedroom. I liked Gary, but there wasn't a longterm there. Strong relationships aren't really built on a a foundation of getting wasted together and fucking like rabid squirrels. (Though good relationships include some of that.)

Truth was, Gary and I didn't have much in common besides a love of vodka and seeing each other naked.

One morning I'd stopped by Gary's apartment for a quick tumble before class. We were sprawled atop sweat-soaked sheets, smoking cigarettes and watching the smoke dance across the ceiling, when he turned to me and said, "We're really good just like this."

"Yeah," I said, still reveling in the afterglow.

He looked so beautiful right then, all tousled and sated, but his smile was contemplative. "But we're only good like this, aren't we?"

We called it quits officially later that day.

It was as amicable a breakup as I can recall. I gave him back his tee shirts; he gave me my underwear. We promised to stay friends, but we never did, not really.

In later relationships, I would realize how awesome his easy-going attitude and playfulness in the bedroom made him. I'd regret not getting to know him better, talking to him more. But I never regretted Gary or how things turned out. We just weren't meant to be.

The other day at the store I saw Gary's favorite vodka: Absolut Peppar. I picked up a bottle on impulse, took it home, and mixed our favorite cocktail.

It's spicy, it'll fuck your brains out, and it might even be good for you! Pretty much, it's just like Gary.

Thus, I present to you the Red Hot Gary, the best and hottest version of a Bloody
Mary you will ever sample.

1 part Absolut Peppar
2 parts Spicy Hot V8
Dash of Tabasco
Dash of Worcestershire Sauce

Mix well and serve on the rocks. Top with pinch of fresh ground black pepper and garnish with olives (black or green), skewered -- Because Gary has balls and Mary does not. Feel free to spice the rim or garnish with other veggies to your liking. Gary's pretty flexible...