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Pam liked pain.
She'd already known that well before Eric delivered her first punishment, back when she was just-born, new-made. The distraction of feeding, of the sights and smells and sounds, had kept her oddly docile for a time. Not that she'd been gentle with her prey - quite the opposite, in fact - but it hadn't yet occurred to her that she could disobey her maker. He'd answered all her questions; his beliefs about their kind completely defined her world. But, slowly, the newness faded. She grew accustomed to the night and her desires...and she found the point where they did not intersect with his own.
So she did what any independent creature would do. She rebelled.
One of the things she loved most about her second life: her creator was always right there, able to appreciate both her fearlessness and her folly.
And he didn't take rebellion very well.
"Come here," he'd said, and he had never before used that voice on her, the one that she couldn't possibly disobey.
He'd been so careful, almost gentle, in the way that he turned her around and guided her hands up to rest against the wall that she hadn't guessed his purpose at all before the first slap landed against her ass. She'd been unable to hide her surprise then, her eyes wide as she turned her head to look back over her shoulder at him.
"I did not make you just to see you killed," was all he said by way of explanation, leaving Pam to make the connection that she had just discovered the limit of his tolerance for direct disobedience. He had none--a point which was emphasized by the way his hand slid up to pin her wrists together as she started to shift away from the wall.
"We're not done here," he'd informed her, and Pam had felt the words viscerally, as they conjured an almost-forgotten emotion: fear. She'd been punished often enough while still living, and had enjoyed none of it. As she waited for his hand to fall again, she tensed, close to misery, knowing she should have realized that her new life had fit her personality too well. She tensed even more as she felt Eric move closer to her, but relaxed when the only form of contact he initiated was a familiar one, his body against hers, his fangs scraping her throat.
"It's a punishment in name only, Pam," he whispered, his fangs pricking her skin, drawing blood. "We both know you like pain."
"You think I'll enjoy it."
"I can certainly think of other punishments you'd enjoy less."
She'd decided then, widening her stance and pressing her hands more firmly against the wall.
"Go ahead then," she said.
And he had, not holding back, the sound of it echoing throughout the room. Pam bore it in silence, holding her position even as she felt her fangs extend as the ache of it spread throughout her body. It was not at all an unpleasant sensation, and she found the only part of the experience that could possibly qualify as a punishment was the wait he made her endure for release.
She hadn't yielded, not really, merely biting her lip--but he recognized the relief she found in the laceration, turning her head to lick the blood off her chin. He'd taken her up against the wall then, roughly, quickly, and she still remembered it as the best sexual experience she'd ever had with a member of the opposite sex, as she found herself able to trace the shape of his body as he moved against her along the marks he'd left down her back.
When he'd finished, they'd kissed--and Pam knew she couldn't quite keep the wonder from her expression, or stop the soft way her lips brushed against his mouth. However, her smile as she pulled away from him was challenging. It had not escaped her notice that her enjoyment of the experience had barely eclipsed his own.
She'd walked away wearing the marks of his seniority, but the encounter had hardly discouraged further acts of disobedience. It was the real beginning of the games between them; the ones where Pam played to lose. Eric cared for disobedience not at all, but for her quite a lot--and that combination served them well. Especially as Pam never lacked in her ability to find new and creative ways to offend.
Her maker could be so very easy.
Not that she had always read him correctly, particularly not at first. She'd been surprised to discover, not long after he taught her about obedience, that his views on the subject were not rooted in ownership.
They had been visiting the vampire royalty in their area and one of the females of the queen's entourage had made her interest abundantly clear. It was not the first time another vampire had expressed interest in Pam, but it was the first time Pam wished Eric were elsewhere so that she wouldn't have to refuse.
Of course Eric noticed her reluctance, remarking on it as soon as they were alone again.
"If you like her, go to her," he said, as they walked home afterwards.
Pam didn't even try to pretend she didn't know what he was talking about.
"You made me," she said.
"But I don't own you. You are free to leave any time you want."
"That's not what you said after I rose."
"You were new then. Letting you leave would have been...irresponsible."
"I'm assuming this is not your way of asking me to go?"
"No. I would not make someone I did not desire as a companion. I'm just saying that we own them," he nodded towards some humans walking along the path ahead of them, "not each other."
"That's not how our hierarchy works," Pam said, wise now to the ways of their world.
"It's how mine works," Eric said. "So if you want to leave, leave. If you want Selena, go to her. I certainly don't plan on being exclusive for the centuries to come, and from the way you stare at women I think you would be bored if you tried."
Pam pulled away from him. "Fine. I'm going. But I'll be back."
"And I'll still be here," Eric said, nodding in the direction of their residence. She might have been offended at the remark as an attempt to reassure her, except that she could sense his own relief at her promise to return. Apparently, he'd really meant what he said; but then again, so had she...which meant all her threats to leave over the next several centuries would be threats without any real teeth.
She'd gone to Selena that very night, submitting to her the same way she had submitted to Eric, willing to wear the other vampire's marks on her body.
She was beyond pleased when it became apparent that Selena was willing to do the same for her. Pam spent the next several hours contriving to make welts that would defy their supernatural healing abilities; she wanted the evidence of the experience to last, she wanted others to know that Selena had briefly been her own. Finally, when the two of them had almost reached exhaustion, Pam took Selena the same way that Eric had taken her; up against the wall, hard enough to make the vampire moan from more than pleasure.
She'd left her new friend lying across the bed they had never used, naked save for the long fall of her silky, dark hair; waist-length, it still only covered a small fraction of the evidence of their time together. It left Pam with a mental picture she would always treasure, and one she knew Eric would treasure as well.
So she'd brought a human home with her for them to play with together, displaying her new skill set to an appreciative audience. He'd looked so oddly proud of her, as she made their human beg for her fangs and her fingers, and she knew then that he would always take part of the credit for her behavior--would always view her as his creation.
Not that he understood all of her. In his own way, he was softer than her and always had been. For him, sex was almost exclusively with humans and - a constant source of mystification to Pam - he sometimes even got attached to them.
The Stackhouse girl, for example. Pam understood the desire to fuck her; aside from those dresses of hers, she was in all other ways irresistible. But the amount of fuss he made over an obsession who would be alive for a mere handful of years was utterly incomprehensible to her.
Then again, for all she and Eric had in common, their opinions on humans frequently diverged in ways both subtle and strange. Particularly with regards to sex. Pam, like Eric, enjoyed sex with humans, but for her they were more of a diversion--all her lasting relationships were with her own kind. Humans were too easy to break, and she frequently needed more than they could provide.
She had felt surprise, the first time she realized that her limits during sex were far fewer than those of her maker. She'd found this out only within the last century, when he caught a glimpse of her naked after a session with Sophie-Anne. The Queen of Louisiana was a great playmate when Pam craved extremes, giving and receiving with equal fervor.
Her marks could last for months.
Eric's face had registered his disapproval when he walked in on Pam changing for a night in Fangtasia and saw the aftereffects of one of their particularly rough sessions. As he and Pam had just returned from Louisiana, it was hardly a mystery as to who bore responsibility for the marks; especially since Pam had shared a resting place with Sophie-Anne for the duration of the trip.
"There's a chance those types of marks will last," was all he said that time, before turning around and walking back out onto the main floor.
But he hated Sophie-Anne, hated her control of their business, and he couldn't seem to help himself from the occasional comment, despite the looks of utter disdain they earned him.
"I thought you had better taste," he said to her once.
Pam shrugged. "She fills a need," she said, and they silently agreed to disagree.
But Sophie-Anne really did fill a need. Her need.
Pam liked pain.
So when they came for the V, she didn't run. She called her maker, warned him, and held her ground as they came down the stairs.
She thought she could endure the punishment. She thought she could be stronger than them, outlast them; but the shock of it was too hard, too cold--too much. She hated what it did to Eric, when he finally arrived, watching them hurt her. He knew how much it took for her to break, for her to show emotion. He knew what she liked.
When she screamed, they broke together, and she knew how much he would sacrifice to save her, and how much she would allow him to do it.
It was his intercession that saved her--and she found herself as grateful to him for making the pain stop as she had been when he made it start, back when he gave her this new life.
As he looked up at her, naked emotion on his face, she knew her expression mirrored his own--and she knew that probably hurt him most of all. She hadn't openly showed emotion since she was newly created. It was an echo of their past, and a warning that they might not have much time to come.
And then the words came, explicit, no longer shrouded in silence and the possibility of denial...
"...the pain of losing a child..."
And the centuries between them meant everything - meant nothing - and it was just the two of them there, together, staring at each other.
She held his gaze, not caring who saw their connection, her hands still tightly bound above her head. And he nodded, hearing it, the unspoken:
You made me.
And she knew he wasn't leaving her as he had to walk away.