"Lestat" 1998 Chapter 3

"And Then I Got the First E-Mail"

When I opened my e-mail sometime in October 1998, my stomach flew into my throat. Inside was an anonymous message from someone who would not be identified, but only said hurtful and incriminating things about my beloved. Again, as with "the first phone call" the e-mail contained intimate things only an intimate would know. My mind spun: "Why wouldn't this person tell me who they were?" This made me more suspicious of the content and more likely to believe the accusations were untrue. It felt as if someone was deliberately trying to tear us apart. I had never experienced such viciousness from a third party.

I immediately told the Undead and he denied every single thing. He was a master at weaving cover stories and creating illusions that were believable (or at least, I wanted to believe them). Remember, a vampire's true talents lay in his ability to spellbind and create a picture of exactly what he wants you to see. He convinced me this was probably someone out to hurt him or us, because they were jealous. Perhaps this was the villainess from New York still trying to punish him for not wanting her. He painted her as crazy, vindictive, psychopathic. I chose to believe again.

While attending one of my classes in graduate school, I spilled my distress over this recent incident and my instructor asked me with true concern and empathy, "do you really want to be with someone who attracts so much craziness and negative events?" Of course the answer in my heart was no. At this point, my pride was on the line. I couldn't give up. If I did, that would mean I was wrong for choosing him in the first place; that I should have let him go at the first phone call.

Not long after this, I discovered another piece of evidence. I was checking my computer's temporary internet files and discovered some unfamiliar websites . When I clicked on the links, they were on-line dating sites, with specific links to various women, pointing out the trail of the person who had used my computer for this task. I checked the date of the links. They coincided with a visit from Lestat. He had used my computer during that time. In fact, he had been surfing the net and looking at other women while I was getting ready in the shower just 10 feet away. He seemed almost daring me to catch him.

Without hesitation, I confronted him. He knew he was caught, but minimized it. "I was bored," he said with a sneer. "I wasn't talking to any of them. I was just looking." He oozed scorn and distaste at my mistrust of him. He had an expert skill of turning any focus on him around to attack me, leaving me confused, hurt and feeling like the "bad guy." It would be quite some time before I could get clear headed enough to really see how he was twisting and turning reality.

He had another confounding technique of distracting me: when we were fighting (which was often), I would write heart-felt e-mails about my feelings and concerns. His only response to me for weeks at a time were of poems or flowerly language, and NEVER responded directly to my concerns. One of his poems was addressed in the "anonymous" e-mail. It claimed that the poem in question was authored by someone else, that Lestat had stolen it, and used it on many other women. I used the link and found a website which did indeed include the poem which was penned by someone I didn't know.

Yes, I told my Lestat. He simply said, "Someone stole my poem!"

He wrote me hundreds of poems. I have no doubt each one was forged and used to seduce many other unsuspecting on-line females. I simply shoved my fears back into that dark corner. But they kept piling up. So much so, that the dark corner was overflowing with clutter that I could no longer ignore.

My demon lover came home with me for Thanksgiving 1998 to meet my parents for the first time. He was mostly cordial, polite and pleasant with my father. His short stature, did not match his mildly cocky and defensive attitude, however. I cringed at moments when I sensed his bristling under my father's downward gaze. Although my father can be intimidating, he wants what is best for me. He has a way of "interrogating" any boy that I might be serious about. He might have sensed at this first meeting that this new boy was in disguise: a sheep in wolf's clothing.

This family holiday actually went quite well. Until I got the second phone call.