“Some fifty years after that, 1775 to be exact, I met and fell in love with a woman named Petrissa Schubert. We were in Germany, and she was the daughter of an apothecary…um...sorry, a pharmacist. She was blonde and buxom and was as easygoing as the day is long.” Bennett chortled under her breath. “There it is again, hindsight being twenty-twenty.”

“Huh?”

“Cutting to the chase, we were together for six years. For the last three, she pleaded, begged, and did everything under her power to cajole me into turning her. Eventually, again, I put my reservations aside and did what the woman I loved wanted, and this disease decided to enhance her easy-going nature.”

“In what way?”

“She became quite the whore.”

Ruby suffocated her first laugh, but the second and third escaped. “Oh, my God. Seriously?”

“I’m afraid so,” Bennett said with a snort. “This woman I’d fallen in love with was now opening her legs to anyone who cared to have a go, female or male, and I was devastated. I no longer wanted anything to do with her, and I hid myself away for months. I lost myself in books, sleep, and enough alcohol to pickle my liver into atrophy if I’d been mortal until Max dragged me out of my doldrums and my drunkenness.”

“Is she still alive?”

“Yes, she’s part of Simeon’s clan now, and I’ve heard she’s still as indiscriminate as she is active.” After several silent seconds ticked by, Bennett said, “You’ve got the furrow between your eyes again.”

“I was just thinking. You said she was…well, promiscuous, and she was with men, so what about children? Can vampires have children? Oh crap. Do you still get your period?”

“Heaven forbid,” Bennett said, raising her voice. “Could you imagine having to put up with that for over four hundred years? I’d have sought out the closest guillotine and pulled the lever myself.”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” Ruby said, lightly slapping Bennett on the arm.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Bennett said, her eyes sparkling with merriment. “And to answer your question, when a woman becomes a vampire, that part of her body stops working. Men, on the other hand, remain their procreative selves for a few decades before time takes over and drowns all their little swimmers.”

“So, they can father children?”

“Yes, and they have numerous times over the centuries. Fortunately, the trait isn’t carried on. The children never showed any signs of vampirism and lived normal lives.”

“Interesting.”

“If you say so.”

Ruby paused long enough to take a breath. “Okay, so what about the other four?”

“The other four?”

“You said you were in love eight times, and tossing in Eliza, that only makes four.”