Dear Diary,

Preparations are coming along for Mary's arrival on Tuesday. I still haven't publicized my decision, but with any luck I will be safe from the most severe possible consequences.

The biggest challenge I face here is avoiding simple enthrallment. Mary is very insistent that she has to turn me if she is to win our little bet, but if nothing else, vampires are known to struggle with self-control. I am not under the impression that consuming all the blood in a human's body is very pleasant for them, and I cannot afford for her to get bored, or whatever, while there's still enough blood inside me to ensure an ordinary death. Or worse, while there's still enough left for me to survive as a thrall. I cannot allow her to betray me and then force me to love her for that betrayal.

The protection measures are a work in progress. The key here is in one of the things I hope to regain: the name of the girlfriend my ‘mistress’ took from me. Since she was the one who buried that information deep inside my subconscious, simply enthralling me will not draw it out. Only once Mary is my begetter—and as such has more control over my mind than my ‘mistress’ ever did—will my subconscious finally release it from that cold mental grasp. And it just so happens I still have that lock my ‘mistress’ once tormented me with, the one that will only open to one who knows that name. I can take advantage of this.

I'm split on how to retaliate should she betray me. Death would be warranted, clean, and straightforward, but would also be difficult to configure. A timed silvered staking mechanism of some sort is the most obvious choice, but that is prone to a failure which I cannot afford. I might attempt to instead simply torment her eternally with, say, a silver clamp, but any such device which does not target the heart directly can be thwarted by simply removing the affected body part and allowing it to regrow. I am not sure if there is any physical retribution which I would be comfortable relying on.

Doxxing is a possible alternative. I could, for example, fashion a locked silver box to hold my computer, which would have been set to broadcast her home address to every hunter within 100 miles, at the very least ensuring a very bad outcome for her. However, that has much potential to spread the harm to others, and it’s frankly not something any potential version of myself at that point would want to be around for.

Whatever I choose, I have a key advantage: She has not yet been invited into my home, and she will not be invited into my home until whatever measures I need have been primed. Of course, she can always use her hypnotic gaze, but I've made a point of practicing my anti-gaze eye exercises in the time we've been interviewing. Counter in time with the heart… up counters down, left counters orange, stare counters up… I'm certain I can remember it well enough in the moment to buy myself a few seconds to close the door.

There is something satisfying about that, even as I know any plan I can conceive might easily be overcome by some combination of her ridiculous strength and her unbearable charms. At least in the beginning, on my territory, I will have some illusion of safety.

Once I have been turned, it will be a different matter entirely. I honestly have no idea how to ensure her compliance once she has that level of power, once her will is not just superior to my own, but is my own. Perhaps she will show a set of true and honorable colors, just for sport. Perhaps her obvious yet unacknowledged subconscious resentment towards her begetter will come in handy, if I play up wanting her to hit me enough.

Whatever happens, it’s a well-established fact that vampires are quite territorial, and that begetters are fully capable of releasing their fledglings whenever they feel they are “ready”, so it’s really only a matter of time. Assuming Mary does not suffer the same fate as her begetter at an inconvenient moment, of course. That’s another potential issue with the “doxxing” retaliation, and something to avoid at all costs if I do not wish to spend the next several hundred years as deathly convinced of my own “unreadiness” as she is.

All that being said, perhaps it’s time to shelve the discussion of mechanics for the time being, and shift to… myself. My feelings. That is what a diary is for, after all.

I have only a few days of humanity left. It's surreal to admit, but concerningly true. I am not so convinced as the government or the majority of hunters that what is about to happen will be my death, per se—I have long questioned the academic value of the ‘undeath’ terminology, as vampires don't seem to be dead in any way that matters—but it will be the end of this phase of my life in any case. If all goes according to plan, I will no longer be human.

I don't honestly know what it will be like, the nocturnality, the intoxicating power, and of course, the unceasing blood lust that drives vampires to drink so indiscriminately. The entire point is to find out, after all. It may be a trivial matter, something vampires ‘gas up’ due to some statistical failure of impulse control. It may also be all-consuming, something which corrupts me so quickly and totally that my only salvation is to stake myself before it's too late. Any case is fine, I suppose. I have lived a long, full life; if I must die to definitively settle the scientific corpus, then it will be an honor.

In more realistic terms, though… I still don’t actually know what I’m going to do under the weight of this unknowable sensation. I’ve been freezing samples of my own blood, but feeding off those samples in future would be a profound waste. That blood will soon be quite the limited resource, after all, and I doubt my ichor, or miasma, or whatever we’re actually calling the black tar that drips through vampiric veins, will have any similar properties.

So, my food will have to come from elsewhere. I refuse to take any thralls, obviously— I still remember well the insipid, cloying fluff that spent so long muddying and rearranging my thoughts, that even still hides so much of my life before my ‘mistress’ from me, and I will not under any circumstances force it upon anyone else. But then, enthrallment is instantly applied upon the direct consumption of human blood, whether desired or not, and that is the only thing which can sustain a vampire. I would have no choice.

This problem may be resolved for me if some groundswell of support erupts into a bountiful supply of donated blood, but I doubt that will be happening. Apparently I’ve already been blacklisted from a few universities for even considering this, if what Linda mentioned in our call the other day is anything to go off of. And besides, the whole reason I’ve been presented with this opportunity is because I said I could prove that there is some way to live ethically in Mary’s condition. Proving that someone with my resources can do it doesn’t really demonstrate anything at all.

I am… uncomfortable with the position this all puts me in. Vampires aren’t exactly forthcoming when asked how to remove from someone the curse of enthrallment. They don’t generally want to. All I’ve ever really managed to get, in terms of lived experience post-turning, is that their first encounter with a human is usually one of being utterly overwhelmed by hunger. They take all they physically can unless stopped by their begetter, then quickly come to the convenient realization that their victim either “ looks so much cuter this way” or “probably deserved to die anyway”. Mary is a bit more complicated in this regard, but her current testimonial remains the same. I doubt her thralls see much of a difference.

I suppose I’ll just have to start optimistic and fall back as necessary. If all goes well, I hope to be able to befriend a few women interested in being briefly enthralled (who I can surely source from the nearest BDSM dungeon, if absolutely nothing else), drink from them consensually as part of normal sexual encounters, and rescind their enthrallment at the end of said encounters using the very same hypnotic powers which created it. As a bonus, I cannot articulate to you how hot this would be to me in the moment. I have spent so long as a victim, if recovered, and the option to be the perpetrator is… it needs exploration. If it is possible at all to experience that sort of reversal ethically, I have to try.

…I feel guilty putting it that way. I promise this is not just simple self-indulgence. It has so many benefits, truly. But it is also unbearably hot and unbearably cathartic all at once. I need to finally take control of this piece of myself, and I need to hear the voice of one of these fucking bloodsuckers without my mind constantly threatening to crumple under the weight. I need to understand, finally, what it was that encouraged my ‘mistress’ in all the unrepentant evil she visited upon me. I want to know what it’s like to look in someone’s eyes and make them forget all that they are.

And perhaps more altruistically, I want there to be another way. For both our species. In a field full of frauds, manipulators, and the church’s least wanted, I do this so there will be someone actually approaching the horrible stalemate between humanity and vampires as a problem which may one day be solved.

Alright, I’m ranting about that again, which means I’ve probably ruminated too long. I’ll cut this off here. It’s been lovely writing to you, Diary, as ever; I’m sure I’ll have more to say soon.

Sincerely,

Luminita