Most couples like to share a glass of wine after a long day, but Lia Benninghof and Aro Draven prefer to drink...each other. The self-proclaimed 'vampires' drink each other's blood once a week, as is shown in the graphic video above.
Benninghoff, 20, and Draven, 38, are both from Haverhill, Surrey (the gentle, countryside market town) on a dating website in February. Both were into goth, but Draven was the one who suggested the blood drinking.
“When he explained that blood sharing would bring us closer together, I asked him to turn me," Benninghoff said, according to the Daily Star. "Aro cut himself with a razor and offered me his blood. Then I cut myself and he drank from me too. Suddenly I felt the energy rushing through me. It was a magical experience –- much more intimate than sex.”
It makes Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton's blood vial necklaces seem positively tame.
Aro Draven - formerly Glen Layton - is an unemployed 38-year-old father-of-five - claims to hail from the same region of Romania as Vlad the Impaler.
The couple plan to get married on Halloween this year, reports Hir24.hu, but whether they will work up the nerve to tell Benninghoff's parents remains to be seen. She told Barcroft TV: "My parents are totally happy with the relationship I have with Aro [but] they don't know we're both vampires and that Aro was the one who turned me."
Benninghoff wants to assure people that they don't flit around Haverhill biting people. She explained to The Sun: She explained: "It’s not like we’ll go round biting just any old person in the street. We only share blood with each other, and we’ve both had tests done."
Since Twilight, The Vampire Diaries and True Blood, interest in vampires is still at an all-time high. HuffPost UK Lifestyle blogged about the 'vampire face lift' which involves injecting blood from the arm back into the facial area, and HuffPost US brought to our attention Julia Caples from Pennsylvania, who who drinks almost two litres of blood every month.
She said, talking to the Mirror: "When I feed off of a person and drink their blood I feel stronger and healthier."
We'll stick to spinach, thanks.
Medical Daily voiced concerns about drinking blood such as blood-borne illnesses like bacterial infection, hepatitis, and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), adding: "By drinking human blood, or the blood of a cow and sheep, we run the risk of introducing prions into our system. These infectious proteins, usually located in the brain or along the spinal cord, have been known to cause mad cow disease by stimulating an inflammatory response in the body.
"And, despite Caples' claims of the energizing effects of drinking blood, there are no benefits."