The sun had just barely set on Monday night when Andrew left his room. He carried his first painting wrapped up in a bedsheet, since he didn't have anything else to protect it with. He couldn't go out the window with his burden, so he cautiously braved the lobby. Thankfully it was empty and he went out into the night without incident. He followed Jen's directions and after half an hour or so of walking he reached his destination.

The gallery glowed with light. The windows were huge and he could see several pieces of art that had been hung so as to be visible from the street. Inside the walls were white and clean, with paintings hung sparsely, so that each stood alone. He hesitated outside the door, feeling horribly scruffy in his trench coat and jeans. But he had to at least try, even if he would probably be rejected. So he opened the door and stepped inside. A bell chimed as he entered and from somewhere above a voice floated down. “Be with you in a moment.”

He stood, looking at the art. There were some representational pieces, but most of what hung there was abstract, or non-representational, including a whole series by the same artist that featured geometric shapes in eye-searingly bright colors.

After a few minutes a woman descended the stairs from the second floor. “Hello there,” she said. “I'm Marian, you must be Andrew.”

“Yes ma'am,” he said. She was a mouse of perhaps forty years old, her face lined but not unlovely, her figure trim and professional in a navy blue pantsuit. He felt more scruffy than ever, but she held out her hand, and he hesitantly shook it.

“Come up to my office and we can have a look at your painting. Jen usually has very good taste, so I have high hopes.” She smiled at him.

He smiled back shyly and followed her back up the stairs.

Her office was plain and practical, the only furnishings were a desk with a computer, several chairs, and a bookshelf. The walls here were white too. She gestured at one of them. “There's a hook there. Hang your painting so I can look at it properly.”

Andrew nodded. He unwrapped the painting and carefully hung it on the wall. Then he stepped back.

Marian was silent for a long time, and Andrew looked over at her. Her eyes were flicking around the painting and her expression was one of surprise. For a moment he wondered if it was really that bad, but then she said “Wow. Jen wasn't kidding when she said this had some real energy to it. This is excellent.”

“Really?”

“Yes! And... it's true, what she said, that you're also a vampire, and that you painted this with your own blood?”

Andrew blushed a little bit. “Y-yes.”

“Amazing. That right there would guarantee this gets some interest, even if it weren't so well executed.”

She looked over at him and smiled. “I definitely want to exhibit and sell your paintings here. Come, have a seat, let's discuss the details.”

Andrew seated himself in one of the chairs, and Marian sat next to him.

“So! On to business! Now ideally I'd like to have a whole show of your work. This one piece would make a pretty good splash, but if there are more?” She stopped and looked at him questioningly.

“Yes. I've d-done eight more. Th-though I, uh, c-cut the c-canvas on some of them. I d-don't know if you w-would w-want those.” He tried to get his stutter under control. He was excited but also still very nervous. And it didn't help that he could smell her blood. He had managed to take one break from his painting to feed a few days ago, but he was hungry enough that the scent of her blood, faint as it was, was very distracting. He hadn't been this near a living person other than his victims since he'd become a vampire.

“I'll want to look at the cut ones, but I suspect I'll love them! Now usually I have a fifty percent cut of the proceedings on any sales. And I generally prefer to set the prices myself, artists don't always know what their own work is worth, no offense.”

“Th-that's okay. I d-d-don't mind.”

She smiled at him. “Oh good. You do have a bank account? I can write you checks for your portion of any sales, yes?”

“Y-yes. I d-don't use it much. But yes.”

“That's good.” She paused, then said, “You seem a little nervous. I promise I don't bite.” She smiled.

“I... uh... He licked his lips. “It's n-not that. I c-can smell your b-blood. I'm h-hungry and it's k-kind of d-d-distracting. C-could you p-please sit a little f-further away?”

“Oh.” She looked entirely nonplussed by this, but she obligingly got up and went to sit behind her desk. Andrew breathed a little sigh of relief. It was much easier to think straight without the distraction of blood-smell nearly under his nose.

“Now as far as a show goes,” she resumed, “I have one already scheduled for this month, but next month I don't have anything. It would probably be about six weeks from now. The show opening would be after dark, of course, so that you could be there. Eight paintings is very small for a show though. Given six weeks' time, do you think you could make more?”

“I think so,” he said. “But I don't have any more canvas left, and I don't know if I can get more. I don't have much money and a lot of stores aren't open after dark.”

“I can fix that easily enough. I'll buy you some canvases. I have a few on hand right now, in fact. But I'd love to get a giant painting from you to be the centerpiece of the show. Like this one,” she gestured at the wall, “but bigger. Can you work large?”

“Yes,” he said, remembering a long ago mural project he'd done. “But...” He swallowed, suddenly realizing the consequences that more painting would incur. To paint something that big the way he'd been painting he'd have to lose an awful lot of blood. He would probably have to hunt and feed, then paint, and then immediately hunt and feed again. With the catharsis that had come from painting he was coming to terms with the necessity of hunting in order to live. His last feeding had been less guilt-wracked than most. But to hunt and attack others merely so he could paint? He sighed. “I c-can't. Not... not with real blood. Not like that.” He looked at the painting on the wall and shook his head. “I'm sorry.”

Marian gave him a puzzled look. “Why not?”

“Because... because of how much blood it needs.”

“It would hurt you, you mean.”

“Not me. I would be fine. B-but I would have to hunt again, to replace it. I c-can't do that. I hate attacking people. I couldn't do that to some unwilling victim, just so I c-c-could paint.”

“Oh.”

Andrew sighed. “I d-don't think I could do any more paintings. Not like these. I'm sorry. I want to paint, but I d-didn't th-think this through.”

Marian considered that for a long time. At length she said, “What if your victim wasn't unwilling?”

He blinked at her. “Uh. Who w-would want to g-get b-bitten by a vampire?”

She chuckled. “You'd be surprised. There are all kinds out there. But tell me... the people you bite don't die of it, do they?”

He shook his head. “No. Though I th-think maybe some... some might lose enough to be sick.”

“I see. And they don't turn into vampires themselves?”

“No. That's not how it works.”

“Well then. I want this show to happen. I've been looking for years for the artist who will make this gallery's name, and I think it's you. It's hard to be new and different in the art world, everything has been done before. But you're new, you're different. And your work is... impressive. People will remember it. For the blood, if for no other reason. I could be wrong, but I think I'm right. And to succeed in the art gallery world I'd do a lot more than donate a little blood. So if you need blood to paint, you are welcome to mine. And I may be able to find others as well.”

He gaped at her. “You're crazy,” he said without thinking, the immediately regretted saying it.

She only laughed. “Probably. But this is my chance at fame, damn it! I'm not passing it by that easily. So come on, I might as well find out what it's like, if I'm going to donate to your art. Heck, I have a few canvasses here that you can take with you when you go, so you can put it to good use right away.” She rose and walked around her desk to stand in front of him. He licked his lips, his ears flicking nervously, and slowly rose.

She undid the top button of her blouse and pulled it aside, tipping her head to the side to expose her neck. Andrew looked at her and blushed. He'd avoided taking from women, most of the time. They made him feel even more guilty, and they also made him nervous. He'd never had any sort of relationship with a girl. But with her this close again he could once more smell her blood, and hunger was enough to overcome nervousness. He put his hands on her shoulders and bent his head to her neck. He tried to be careful as he bit in, not wanting to hurt her any more than he had to. She cried out softly as he bit down, a quiet sound of pain. But she made no move to struggle or pull away, and even if she had at that point it would have been too late. He was, as always, aware of little else as he fed, only of the need, and the taste of it, heady and intoxicating. He took until he was full, then he lifted his head and stepped back. Marian swayed, and put her hand on her desk to steady herself. Then she took a deep breath and straightened.

“That wasn't too bad.”

“That's... good. I'm glad,” he said. And then, “Thank you.”

“You just do some good paintings for me, make this worth my while,” she told him. He nodded. “I'll go get those canvasses for you.” She went out the door before he could stop her and came back only moments later with a stack of half a dozen canvases of varying size. Andrew quickly moved to take them from her. “Come back here in two weeks,” she said, “the Monday after next, and bring everything you have, so that I can start planning the show. I'll have the big canvas for you by then, and you can concentrate on that.”

He nodded.

“I assume you'll want blood again, before starting in on the big painting?”

“Uh. Yes.”

“Well, I'm going to ask around and see who else might want to volunteer, but if nothing else I should be able to provide again myself.” He nodded, feeling a bit dazed by how fast this was going, and still more than a little shocked at what Marian had just let him do. “Do you need paint as well? Anything else?”

“Uhm. I think I might run out of black paint soon. I'm using a lot of it. Other than that though... no, I think I'm good.”

“Wonderful!” She smiled. “I'm going to sit down and rest a bit, you can show yourself out, I'm sure.”

“You're okay?” He looked at her neck, where the two fang marks he had left looked worryingly bad. They were still oozing just a little, and the sight made him feel a bit queasy and more than a bit guilty as well.

“I'm fine,” she assured him. “Don't worry.”

“Okay...” he hesitated. But he didn't know what he could do for her anyway. It wasn't as if he'd done anything for any of the other people he'd taken from. And at least she wasn't crying, or trembling, or looking terribly upset at all. In fact she was smiling at him reassuringly. So he managed a faint smile in return, and turned and went back the way he'd come.

He turned the night's events over in his mind as he went home. The very last thing he had expected when he'd gone to meet Marian had been to be given blood. He had planned on going hunting the next night. But now... now he could paint for three or four days, depending on how much blood he used in the paintings, before having to go feed again. That was... wonderful. He was filled with a sense of profound gratitude. He knew she had done it for her own reasons, and he did hope for her sake, as much as for his, that the show would be a success. But even if her reasons had been selfish, she had done something he couldn't even imagine.

So when he returned home he immediately pulled out the smallest canvas. Marian's gift was an inspiration, and this time when he cut his wrist he didn't fling the drops across the canvas. Instead he dipped a brush in the upwelling blood and started to sketch out a rough outline. It was more painful to paint this way, since the wound kept healing and he kept having to open it again to get more blood, but it was somehow incredibly satisfying. His memory of her features was fresh, and he had always been good at portraiture, so it wasn't long before a recognizable face emerged from the canvas. He still used rougher strokes, he was not creating a polished portrait. The sketch that rapidly dried from crimson to rust was fairly accurate, and full of energy and life. Another trip to his box of art supplies got him a bottle of masking fluid, and he blocked off the mouse's face and shoulders so that he could work freely on the background. Another quick cut provided him with a scattering of splattered droplets, and then he filled in the background with the same jagged black abstract slashes. When that was done he peeled the masking off, once more revealing the smiling murine face of his benefactor. He considered it with the rough, dark background. He made one more cut and added a final finishing touch, two red dots on the side of her neck, with a thin line flowing down from one of them. He smiled. Perfect.

He set the canvas next to the others. He had given them titles in his mind. The first one he called “Unknown Girl.” He would have titled it the girl's name, if he'd known it, but he didn't. The next one he had indulged in a bit of dark humor and titled it “Therapists”. And this... He smiled and penciled the name on the back. “Freely Given.”