The Hunger: Yes, Virginia, it's for real, and it's not pretty!

[The article below is copyright Sarah L. M. Dorrance:  ICQ: 3022977, AOL: IsobelWren, Vampire/Donor Alliance and should not be copied or used on any website, book or other written material without her permission]

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Whoa. What a weekend. Well, at least I did manage (however involuntarily) to conduct one of my proposed experiments on myself: What are the effects of starvation, if my psyche and body do not go into "shut-down" mode after grokking that my needs will not be met anytime soon? (Last time I went without feeding for years, I was in a state of numbness, exhaustion, and depression, and I suspect that I still fed at a very low level from Scott and from those around me, just not on blood or on massive amounts of life force - picking fights with people is after all an easy way to get them riled up enough to soak some energy out of them. Obviously not enough to really do much good.)

The last day I fed, until this weekend, was 13 July (possibly 12 July - I'm a bit foggy about this).

I lost most of my stored-up, borrowed pranic energy on the flight to America, because I do not travel well and long-distance flights take a nasty toll on me. I was further weakened by sulfa drugs, which were being used to treat a case of cystitis; the sulfa drugs were taken for seven days, and the *mundane* effects (on normal people) include severe dehydration, dizziness, and photosensitivity (you can imagine how this would affect me. Yes, folks, the cure was much worse than the ailment.) Finally, I did not feed from Scott. Today's date is - um - 27 July. I fed on Saturday night/Sunday morning (depending on your perspective) so that makes for about two weeks of prolonged starvation while in a weakened condition.

The first week was not so bad; fatigue, headaches, urinary discomfort due to the cystitis (sorry if that was too personal, I'm trying to be as clinical as possible), thirst due to the drugs, low sex drive, mild depression.

The second week was when the reality of my situation really hit home. My appetite for food completely diminished, aside from my usual milk cravings, which intensified (the only explanation I can come up with is that milk is liquid protein, and easily digestible).I started getting severe PMS (Murphy's law, here - I did not time my starvation to coincide with my menstrual cycle). The headaches worsened, as did the fatigue. I developed dizzy spells - by Wednesday of the second week, I was blacking out and swooning nearly every time I stood up from a sitting or reclining position. My arthritis had become a constant nuisance. I had a couple of athsma attacks. My mental state was not wonderful either - I had begun to obsess about blood. Failing that, any substitute. Fellatio seemed to keep the worst of it at bay, but while sperm is rich in energy of both a physical and psychic sort, and has roughly the same chemical composition as blood, it wasn't quite the same.

When I arrived at the Bloodstock convention, I was faint, dizzy, shaky, thirsty, not at all hungry for solid food, achy in the joints, and very obsessive. I found the latter state particularly disturbing. one person had a neat trick of flexing his hand in such a way that he could actually move his veins from side to side; i shuddered and looked away because I had started to get stomach pains and my mouth was watering. The same sort of reaction happened when people would play with knives, which happened on three occaisions. It took actual effort not to do something embarrassing. I don't think I would have lunged at anyone unless that person actually cut him/herself, but the salivation and tendency to stare and heavy breathing and so on disturbed me enough that I didn't want to expose myself to temptation. It is enough to say that I actually looked away violently in each case of exposure to a potential source of blood, rather than facing such temptations with my usual blandness (I am good at being phlegmatic when the situation calls for it, as a general rule - such as the time a former lover walked into my room with a gashed-open, dripping arm and asked for first aid).

Eventually one of the attendees of the convention was "given" to me as a playtoy (by someone who probably intended on handing me this collared, manacled "slave" as a joke) and we went upstairs to converse (because I took the "joke" seriously and wanted to find out my slave's limits and needs. i never have been good at picking up on jokes, I'm very literal-minded). He offered himself as a food source, I held out courageously for all of maybe ten minutes (I barely knew him, but damn, I was hungry; oh well) and we necked for a little while (ahem) until he pulled out his knife, which he said was sharp but was mostly good for cutting butter. i had left my razor blades in my hotel room, far away from the house where the convention was being held. So i got no more than a tiny taste of blood for all that. Still, I did manage to get *something* while playing with him - he experienced a drain, and I in turn experienced...something hard to put into words. So did he. There was a connection made. He was a bit of a skeptic before the experience (one reason he offered himself was because he wanted to see what would happen) and I'm afraid he now believes in the vampiric experience, which is currently boggling his mind. I got no sleep that night - I was too keyed up - and made up for it by sleeping in the car on the way home, taking a nap upon arrival, and getting twelve more hours of sleep last night. I am still hungry, but not nearly as weakened and obsessive.

I don't want to repeat this experience again if I can help it. The intensity of my hunger was terrifying and humiliating.

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