MICHAEL: The blood is a conduit energy,
we can feel the energy tingling all around our body. It's really intense awareness like
drinking a powerful cup of coffee.
COMM: 48-year-old Michael Vachmiel, or Raven
as he's better known in the blood sucking community, is a self proclaimed vampire, who
believes drinking human blood gives him vitality.
MICHAEL: I started drinking blood shortly
after my 13th birthday. It was during a very intense sexual act that blood was drawn and
touched my lips. At that point, it was just an awakening, something inside my mind and spirit woke up.
COMM: His friend Blut, who's 28, has been
entranced by the vampire community since she was a little girl.
BLUT: I first became interested in vampires
when I was about seven or eight, I found a book that my sister owned and that kind of
got the wheels in my head turning. And I kind of mulled it over a lot and decided that it
wasn't the vampire I wanted to be, it was the quote unquote prey.
COMM: Blut is what's known as a black swan.
A willing blood donor. Both her and Raven are part of a thriving underground vampire scene
in Houston, Texas.
MICHAEL: We find people that we like, and
we enjoy who are willing to share with us by whatever means. Either by sex, by blood,
by ritualistic practice.
BLUT: For me being a black swan is really
more tying into my submissive side, it is a way that I serve and I enjoy serving a dominant
in that manner. Sometimes it's a little bit like when you get the shiver all the way up
your spine, yes it's sexually very pleasurable as well.
COMM: Blut now travels up to 250 miles several
times a year from her home in Shreveport, Louisiana to Houston, to let Raven suck her blood.
BLUT: First off you want to make sure that
the scalpel that you're using is sterilised. We use alcohol and tea tree oil to cleanse
and disinfect the skin.
MICHAEL: Now let's get a nice good flow.
BLUT: Some people prefer to use their fingers.
Generally Michael and I, he does lick and suck it off.
BLUT: My absolute favourite way is a Chinese
cupping set. It has a shallow bowl on one end, and a suction on the other, and you press
the suction over a cut and it will draw the blood through the cut by the power of the suction.
BLUT: Oh, that's good!
MICHAEL: The endorphins right now are flying really high.
BLUT: It's not a sexual pleasure, it's just
like getting a good massage, it's very relaxing on a deep level.
COMM: But the practice doesn't come without dangers.
BLUT: So of course there's the risk of AIDs
and sexually transmitted diseases, but with risk management it is a lot less than most
people would even think. Just don't donate to just anybody. A lot of people think that
it's oh "I'm a free buffet".
COMM: Blut and Raven want the wider public
to open their minds, and mouths, to the blood curdling sub culture.
MICHAEL: The social media around vampires,
the Dracula, the Twilight and other such, they haven't given vampires a bad rap, they've
humanised the vampire. With the swan there's the passion, there's love, there's understanding
and that powerful mix of relationship and sacrifice. And human bonding in connection
with another person.
BLUT: If there are people who are out there
and are interested, actually do your research, get your proper tools and make sure to sterilise
skin and scalpel. And don't fear us, we're not scary.
BLUT: How's it taste?
MICHAEL: Delicious.