From Dracula in Love:

"In the beginning, there was the voice.

That was how it began on that first evening, with a masculine voice calling out to me in my sleep; a dis-embodied voice slithering into my dream, a voice of deep timbre and tones, of sensuous growls, and of low, hollow moans – a voice laden with promise and with love. it was as familiar to me as my own, and yet I knew now whether it came from inside my head, from outside me, or from somewhere not of this earth. Hushed like wind through a valley and smooth like velvet, it beckoned me, and I neither had, nor wanted, power against it. The voice was my master."

Karen Essex is the author of four  novels, including the international bestseller Leonardo's Swans. Her award-winning essays and articles have appeared in many periodicals, among them the L.A. Weekly, Vogue and Playboy. She lives in Los Angeles.