Julias and Red were out, seeking a janissary for Red’s use. William was nervous; he still didn’t trust Red, but he had made sure both he and Julias knew the territory that Red was able to operate in. It was a small corner of William’s, one he thought was probably overly generous in size. He found himself growing more and more uncomfortable with Red being around.

He didn’t understand it. Beyond the somewhat frequent trysts with his fellow vampires that lasted only a few months or years, he had had relationships, including one that spanned three centuries. He had been both with elders, who he knew how to be appropriately deferent to, and youngers, who he knew to treat gently. He knew what it was like to be involved with someone that he could not feed from, he knew that a vampire’s blood smells different to a human’s,  he knew how to allay the instinct that had him on guard around others of his kind.

But Red was different. He had gone from smelling like the sweetest lily to the miasma of vampiric blood. He had gone from prey to a competing predator, one who had not yet been taught the correct way to act in the presence of his elders, who treated William still as an equal, rather than with the respect affording a vampire of his age. It was acceptable - almost cute - when a human lover gave orders, but such behaviour from even the youngest vampire did not receive the same sort of leniency. And when he had tried to explain this to Red, he’d not understood, thought it was a kind of voluntary servitude that he had left behind when he stopped seeking meals of William’s blood.

How long would it take him to see that the gifts of their curse, of having their souls so damned, would be more than wages of this change in their relationship? That the speed at which they would be able to speak, the shades of emotion and meaning they would be able to communicate that Red as a human could not hope to exchange with a vampire, no matter how much they loved one another? That being admitted into William’s innermost sanctum, the private places he would sometimes go with other vampires, or to be alone, would bring them closer than any amount of tiny, imagined power he thought he had as a human? In a lot of ways, a human lover gets such respect and attention because they are only temporary; they need not be endured for long. A vampire lover must earn respect that can last centuries, maybe even millennia.

And so, William was writing a letter to Red, and would provide him with some appropriate gifts. The letter would not be one of supplication, as was most often written by vampires, but one of dominance, demanding obeisance from its recipient. It would not be a threatening letter, it would be full of the firm love that an elder vampire should treat a young lover with. He would hand his protegé the letter, help him read it, explain the tiniest shades of meaning behind everything from the choice of words to the angle of the strokes. And then, he would sit beside Red and teach him to compose the appropriate response. It would be Red’s first lesson in letter writing and gift giving.