1. User Acquisition & Other Erotic Nightmares
The pitch deck was thirty-six slides of desperation.
She stood there — high heels, cracked voice, and that one rogue strand of hair refusing to be tamed — trying to convince a room full of predators that her startup could “revolutionise ethical finance.”
She didn’t know they were actual predators.
It was adorable. Delusional.
The kind of naïve idealism that used to get people burned at the stake — like old Jemima back in 1603.
He almost smiled.
Almost.
Silas Grosjean de Montforte, founding partner of Fangels, leaned back in his chair, swirling a glass of AB-negative like it was wine.
The glass was vintage crystal. The blood was not.
Some intern had pumped it from a donor named Jeff.
He usually liked Jeff. Jeff ate a lot of blueberries. Good notes.
Maybe it wasn’t the blood that was sour.
Maybe it was just the situation.
Beside him, his partner and worst habit, Rufus Beaulieu-Mercier, sipped delicately from a beige ceramic mug that read BITE ME.
“Is that milk?” Silas hissed, disgusted.
“Oat blood,” Rufus replied smugly. “From Guatemala, organic obviously”.
He took a sip. “It’s enriched with iron and conscience.”
Silas turned his attention back to the woman on stage. She was trembling now.
Not out of fear — not yet, anyway.
She believed in this farcical pitch about whatever-the-fuck tech she was building.
Enough to be nervous.
Silas would’ve been fascinated, but he already knew how it ended: sob story, big dream, inevitable failure. Next.
He tipped his head, leaning it on his hand, and raised an eyebrow as his hair fell about him, just enough for her to notice. Her words faltered mid-sentence.
Silas didn’t care about the product. What mattered was how long she’d last in the game she didn’t know she was playing.
Slide 12: Revenue Projections.
The founder stammered through a series of bullshit numbers as the drip of oat blood hit Silas’s lap with the softest splat.
“…Shit.” Rufus froze, ceramic mug tilted in slow horror. “That was limited batch.”
A damp stain spread across Silas’s immaculate black trousers.
He looked down at it, then up at Rufus — with the expression of a man who’d lived through the Black Death, the French Revolution and dial-up internet, but this was the final nail in the coffin.
“Limited batch?!” Silas snapped. “These trousers were handmade by Balenciaga!”
Rufus was blotting furiously at Silas’s crotch with a tiny bat-embroidered silk handkerchief, looking distressed.
The founder blinked. “Is that… milk?”
Silas threw up his hands in an elegant, exasperated flourish — the kind that wordlessly screamed, See? Even she thinks you’re an idiot.
“It’s murder-free and all the rage,” Rufus replied — like he was reciting an ad campaign he definitely wrote — while still blotting at the stain like it had wronged him personally.
Slide 13: User Acquisition Funnel.
The founder was starting to visibly go red in the face and tremble.
She clicked the remote.
Nothing happened.
Silas and Rufus were still locked in some kind of slow, glacial lap-cleaning ritual — but Silas had stopped gesticulating and instead leaned back in the chair now, looking positively savage.
“Careful, Rufus,” Silas murmured, voice low and dark.
“You know what happens when you touch me there, pet.”
Rufus didn’t flinch. He looked up through his lashes, mouth twitching.
“Yes I do, my dear. You buy another boring corporate venture and ghost me for seventy years while I have to play with other toys to keep me warm.” Rufus’s eyes gleamed — dark, wicked, and inviting.
The air in the room thickened like congealed blood.
Silas’s glass of AB-negative hovered mid-air, forgotten. Rufus’s hand stilled on his thigh. Neither of them moved.
The founder cleared her throat. “Um… the next slide is about user acquisition—”
Neither of them looked at her.
Silas’s voice dropped an octave.
“Still bitter, I see.”
Rufus gave a soft, sensual laugh while slowly running his hand up Silas’ inner thigh, his eyes twinkling. “You disappeared into the Austrian Alps with three interns and a bottle of 1842 Merlot. Forgive me if I took it personally.”
The founder went white, looked at the door, looked at the carnage, looked at the door again.
Slide 14: Projected Burn Rate.
The founder looked like she was going to vomit, faint or both.
The two vampires ignored her.
Between them, something ancient, unstoppable, and wildly inappropriate began to hum.
Slides flickered on behind them. No one cared — not even her.
She was now a side character in a theatre of neglect, stumbling into an erotic apocalypse.
She slowly, silently began to close her laptop as if that might erase the last five minutes from the timeline.
Silas’s fangs slipped out—just a little. Rufus’s pupils dilated. A soft, inhuman purring started to emit from Rufus’ throat.
“I’ll… I’ll just email the rest,” she whispered to no one.
And as she backed away from the boardroom, clutching her tote bag and what was left of her dignity, she heard Rufus murmur—
“In sanguine veritas, Silas. You always did like to bleed for it.” As he began to lean over Silas with one hand on his crotch and the other on his neck.
An ornate vase tipped over on the nearby table, the black rose inside tumbling to the floor much like the founder’s pitch, composure, and future funding round.
Rufus moaned softly into Silas’ skin, “Oh dear. How clumsy of me to spill already.”
The founder screamed — the kind of face Picasso once painted, inspired by Silas’s worst hangover.
Then she fled — slamming the door behind her.
Panicked footsteps drifted into the night as Rufus’ fangs drifted towards Silas’ pale skin…
Then—Rufus snorted. Loudly.
Silas blinked, as if waking from a trance. “Gods, she looked terrified.”
Rufus wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, laughing now and sitting back in his chair. “We do this every time. Not one founder makes it past Slide 14.”
“She didn’t even get to the metrics.” Silas shook his head, a smirk tugging at the corner of his rose red lips. “They never do.”
Rufus smiled wickedly. “To be fair, you did bare your fangs at me again darling.”
“I was acting, pet,” Silas said, straightening his silk ruffled shirt and scrubbing a hand through his raven black hair. “It’s called theatre.”
“You purred when I touched your thigh.”
“I was in character,” replied Silas, clearing his throat and looking sadly at the stain on his trousers. “Not everything’s foreplay, Rufus. Some of us are trying to work.”
They both laughed— Rufus more loud and indulgent, Silas quieter, more reserved — echoing through the boardroom like they weren’t the reason no founder had survived past seed funding this quarter.
Then the laughter faded as their eyes met. Violet fire melting icy sapphire.
Longer than they needed to.
Silas looked away first.
Rufus cleared his throat, suddenly very interested in his mug. “You should change trousers. You’re damp with conscience.”
Silas stood, straightening his trousers with sharp, unnecessary precision — as if tucking himself in might hide the traitorous fact that he wanted Rufus to be on his lap just that little bit longer.
Bite into the next post here ⬇️ 🧛🏼♀️
