by Bernadette Russo
Donovan replied
Donovan looked at the dead vampire. The blanket covering had been removed, and he looked magnificent in his human form. Donovan couldn’t help noticing how hot the man looked, even in death.
Mme. Ching said without turning to look at du Lac’s corpse.
Donovan’s eyes widened,
Donovan did not know the details, nor did he want to. But he understood that Mme. Ching was telling the truth. He also knew that she had wanted to get rid of the Vampire for some time now, and needed the right excuse without having to go through a long, drawn out Council Trial.
She smiled,
She looked at him for a long moment before finally nodding, “Keep this one in the cell,” she said aloud to the medics. “Alive. He could be useful.”
Then she walked off without even a by-your-leave, followed by one of the Changelings. The other handed over du Lac to the medics, who rolled the body away to do God only knew what with it.
Donovan sighed and slumped. He hadn’t expect to get his way, but he knew the way of his Clan. Ching Shenchi would want something in return for the life she had handed over to him. He just hoped he could afford the bill when it came.
He stepped out into the late night, feeling depressed. Despite the transformation, he thought Michel looked cute and would have liked to have gotten to know him. But he could have never stood a chance against someone who looked like du Lac.
Donovan stood five feet seven inches tall, and despite having a slender, muscular body from years of martial arts training that all Shreen underwent, he knew he was no looker. He had a plain face that could melt in a crowd, brown eyes and brown hair.
Michel had jet-black hair and the most arresting blue eyes, visible despite the growing redness. And such thick lashes! Any woman would die for them!
A man overtook him, then turned. Donovan smiled and bid him a pleasant good evening, but the man turned away and kept on walking, making his way down to the quay along the Seine.
Donovan sighed. He felt so lonely. Grabbing bits of light from the streetlights, of noise from the honking of cars, and the faint susurration of the river below, he wove an image around himself based on the man’s thoughts. Then he followed him down to the riverbank.
The guy was cute and blond, and despite the warm evening, wore a black, leather jacket. He turned at the sound of Donovan’s footsteps, and this time, he paused and smiled at what he saw. He fumbled with his jacket, pulled out a cigarette, and as Donovan caught up with him, the man called out.
“Eh, monsieur,” he said. “Do you have a light?”
“Sorry,” Donovan replied. “I don’t smoke.”
But Pierre Lamprecht barely heard him. He was on his way to a leather bar, when this vision of love appeared behind him. The nonsmoker was dressed in a conservative three-piece suit, and looked like all of his erotic fantasies put together. Pierre thought he would die.
“Monsieur,” he pleaded. “Please.”
Blond Pierre took brunette Donovan’s hand, and pushed him against the wall. He did not care that others might walk down toward the Seine from the street level above; only that he had to have this vision of perfection or he would die.
Pierre fumbled at the man’s zipper, trembling at what he knew had to be the perfect cock. He was right! He moaned as he took it in his mouth. He fumbled deeper, desperate to cup those balls. Ooh! So hairless! The man was perfection!
Pierre grabbed the cock and pushed his face forward, sliding it easily past his glottis. He normally jacked off around this point, but he couldn’t spare any hands for himself. He wanted, needed, to touch, to taste, to lick every bit of the man’s rod, his balls. Even the smell was driving him wild.
Donovan sobbed as he leaned against the wall. His cock was deep inside Pierre’s mouth, so deep his tip had rammed past the constriction of Pierre’s glottis. The blond’s face was mashed up against Donovan’s pubes, and he kept moaning. It added to the delight of the blowjob. And the things the blond was doing to his balls!
He tried to spread his legs, but his pants kept him from doing so. He held onto the blond’s head for balance. He could barely stand upright. It had been so long. Too long.
The blond was like a hungry machine, sliding wetly up and down Donovan’s cock so fast, he barely had time to breathe. Donovan knew he couldn’t hold it in much longer.
The blond looked up at him, piercing him with his own fevered, green eyes. They were the eyes of an addict on meth: desperate, wild, and hungry The realization dawned on Donovan: this wasn’t genuine passion coming from the other man, but a completely uncontrollable urge that Donovan had unwittingly taken advantage of, and with an illusionary image, at that.
This is wrong!
But it was too late. Donovan exploded into the hot mouth, crying out as if in pain. The blond still sucked, still held tightly to the base of his cock, still grabbed his ball sack.
Donovan whimpered, begging him to stop, but the blond remained insatiable. With a final cry, Donovan pushed him away. The blond fell on his back, then desperately crawled back toward him.
Donovan wove invisibility around him. The blond got up on his feet, then put his hands out against the wall, looking for his perfect love.
“Please!” Pierre cried, his eyes falling around Donovan, but never on him. “Please! Don’t leave me! I need you!” he sobbed.
“I’m so sorry,” Donovan whimpered as he pulled his pants up. “God, I’m so sorry. I was so… Forget! This never happened!”
Pierre blinked. He was standing with his hands against the stone walls of the service road that snaked along the Seine. Something glinted on his wrist. He pulled it toward him and was surprised to see a gold watch.
Pierre played as a BDSM Master at the leather bar at night, and worked as a janitor at a jeweler shop by day. He knew real gold and real stone when he saw it.
He had no idea how he got the… oh. Of course! One of his clients had given it to him. He smiled. He needed to take a closer look at the watch, but he was sure it was worth a lot more than what he made in a year. With a grin and a new bounce to his step, Pierre made his way to the leather bar.
Huddled by the Seine, Donovan wept, pummeling the pavement with his bloodied fists, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, he sobbed piteously.
CHAPTER 4
“It makes no sense,” Dr. Vergara told his colleague, sounding on the verge of tears.
“Little about your kind does,” said the human doctor with a chuckle. “Oh come on, Tomás. This technology is still rather new. You Clans People are the stuff of myth and legend. Fables! Our scientific understanding of ourselves is very new and there is still so much to learn about the human species and our variants,” she teased.
“Still, it is unprecedented,” Tomás replied, not catching the veiled insult. “I see your point, but we do have centuries of records to go by.”
Dr. Marie Beauregard shook her head as she looked through the one-way mirror at the patient: Convert V3XC7142.
The file read: Michel Martin; twenty-four years old; five feet nine inches, slender, and lightly muscled in human form; six feet three i
nches in Vampire form; and so on.
They had taken tissue samples from Convert V3XC7142’s patron: a certain Blaise du Lac. They had exposed these samples to Convert V3XC7142, but he had not reacted, either in his human or Vampire form. Since the patron was dead, this was not unusual.
What was unusual, however, was that Convert V3XC7142 had little interest in human blood. It had been almost two weeks since he had been brought into the facility, and in the first few days, he had hungrily consumed the blood plasma they had brought him.
After that, he had lost all interest in it, and chose to eat solid food, instead. Vampires could eat solid food, of course, but it did not provide them with their principle source of nutrients. While Vampires did not have to kill (as they did in the movies), someone with Michel’s build and size (in human form) needed to consume the equivalent of about half a cup of blood every three days in order to function. Otherwise, they began to deteriorate.
After six days without blood, tissues began cannibalizing themselves in order to survive, and bones turned brittle as the body began hoarding its stores of calcium.
Then the madness would consume them, and they would take blood from the nearest source available, regardless of the cost to them. A vampire who did not take blood in nine consecutive days would die as body parts began falling off – like lepers in an accelerated state of decay.
The researchers decided to let Convert V3XC7142 have his way, convinced he would eventually return to blood plasma. They were wrong.
It had been ten days now, and Convert V3XC7142 was still doing well on solid food. Not only that, but he was becoming more muscular, losing his slender physique in favor of a bulkier one. Even his facial features were changing, becoming more chiseled, making him lose the last bits of baby fat he had on him. He was looking less like a man in his early twenties and was looking more like a man in his late twenties.
Tests showed that Convert V3XC7142 had the strength and speed of a Vampire, while blood samples showed that he had the potential longevity, as well. Dr. Vergara had to issue gag orders to the staff. God only knew how the Clans would take this news, let alone the Vampire Clan as a whole.
Still, despite his best efforts, he knew it would only be a matter of time before the news spread. And with spies everywhere, who knew what the Americans would do with that information.
“Madre de dios!” he muttered for the umpteenth time.
Beside him, Dr. Beauregard laughed, “You can’t keep him a prisoner forever. So what now?”
* * *
As Donovan stepped out of his office and onto the Rue Croix des Petits-Champs, he made sure to avoid looking up at the sky. The last time he had sent up a silent prayer, all he got in return was a serious complication.
Fortunately, Michel was doing well, or so he was told. The last thing he allegedly remembered was getting fucked by Blaise, and after that, all he could recall was a fevered delirium of strange visions and painful thirst.
His hunger for blood was being assuaged with plasma, the active ingredient that really kept Vampires going. At this stage in his transformation, however, the Vampires had closed ranks and kept non-Vampires away – including Donovan himself.
Despite their secrecy, they were perfectly aware of Donovan’s role in saving a fellow Vampire’s life (even a lowly Convert), and seemed grateful. Small gifts began turning up at his apartment with no return address. Even the other Vampire employees of the bank seemed to warm up to him, but only just. He still ate his lunches alone.
To assuage his guilt, he had tracked the leather-wearing blond and found that the man did not seem traumatized by their encounter. Donovan even showed up at the bar he worked at, but the man did not react to him. But Donovan still felt awful.
Determined to make a change, Donovan decided to let his hair down a little. He had gone out and bought himself some casual clothes. He was never allowed to wear such while growing up, but he decided to give it a shot.
Giving himself a final look, he made his way out the door. He noticed the difference, right away. The people on the street seemed more relaxed around him, and he found himself less concerned about his appearance and just enjoying the feel of blending in.
Was this really all it took? he thought to himself a little sadly, thinking back to all the years he ate alone.
Despite reaching the Marais at dusk, the streets were already crowded, since it was a Friday night. He wandered aimlessly around, unwilling to go into any of the gay and gay-friendly establishments that dotted the place.
He found most to be too thematic: there was a place for bikers (even though most had no bikes with them), leather men (where Pierre worked), bearded men, etc. There was an almost Disney-ish feel to each place he had not noticed before, and it depressed him.
Here and there, he recognized four or five Clans People, mostly Changelings, though one was very definitely a Vampire. The blood sucker was an elderly gentleman with a young-looking Familiar. When he noticed Donovan, he gave him a slight smile and a nod, pointing to the tattoo the Familiar wore, to make it clear that he wasn’t doing anything illegal.
Donovan merely smiled at him and walked on.
A Changeling looked his way with a grin, and Donovan grinned back hopefully. The man was cute! Donovan’s heart beat faster as the man crossed the street, beaming in anticipation of…
But as the Changeling got to the middle of the street, he did a double take and froze. He recognized what Clan Donovan belonged to. His mouth opened in a comical ‘awk!’ and his face reddened. Then he turned tail and walked quickly away, eventually breaking out into a run.
Donovan sighed, and walked on.
The elderly vampire shot him a sympathetic look, which made Donovan even more depressed.
When a Shreen like me gets pity from a blood sucker like that, he thought to himself, then I know I’ve really hit rock bottom.
* * *
Michel couldn’t believe his luck.
He had been put up in a beautiful one-bedroom, fully-furnished apartment overlooking the Seine, as well as a generous bank account. And he didn’t even have to do anything except stay inside it – till now.
He sent money home to his parents and swore to them that he wasn’t doing drugs or anything illegal, only that he couldn’t talk about it. So now his mother thought he was some sort of government spy.
He had been out of the facility for about a week now, and since he hadn’t shown any signs of wanting to hurt anyone or going amok, was told he could go out of the apartment if he wanted to. He wasn’t stupid, however. He knew he was being followed.
Unable to resist, he made his way to the Marais. He knew why many men were looking his way, what with his new body and more mature looks. Heck, even he was impressed with his own body, and had spent several days ogling his naked self in the mirror.
He knew that if they ever let him out of the facility, he would run to the Marais and have himself a sex-fest. And yet there he was, getting the attention he had always craved for, and it didn’t do anything for him.
He remembered his encounter with Blaise, and considered that a cautionary tale. With his new senses, he could tell what each and every one of them were thinking as they salivated over him: as with Blaise, all they saw in him was a piece of meat.
Maybe it was his new body and new power, maybe it was his new place and new wealth, maybe it also had to do with the fact that his own Clan treated him like a lab rat. Whatever the case, Michel Martin was determined to be no one’s meat any longer.
Perhaps it also had to do with the new mature planes of his face, stripped of its last vestiges of childhood. Whatever the case, Michel felt that he had lived several lifetimes, and discovered that what used to turn him on no longer did.
To his surprise, Michel found that what he wanted most of all was a friend.
About twenty minutes later, to his even greater surprise, he found him.
At the height of his madness, when the world refused to stay solid, and time had stopped
working, Michel remembered how the universe had suddenly transformed itself from a tiny room into a large, infinite space. He could think and feel a cacophony of thoughts and emotions, some clearly his and others not, but as more and more poured over him, he could no longer tell where he began and where others did.
He wanted to lash out, to silence the other thoughts and feelings so he could find himself again. But his body would not respond. Into this vast sea of others’ thoughts, came a flame: solid, stable, and calm.
More importantly, it had been kind and compassionate. It had quieted the roar of a thousand seas crashing against his mind and eating away at the shore of his identity.
Michel never forgot. In the weeks since, whenever things became too much, he remembered that flame, and it kept him sane. It had allowed him to endure the poking and prodding and endless humiliation of being treated like an experiment.
But the flame was no longer a memory – it was walking the very streets he was on. It was housed in a young man of slender build, wearing a slight, sad smile as he walked slowly, taking in the sights and sounds like a tourist.
Michel liked his face, finding it handsome and strong, if a bit studious-looking, topped by closely-cropped brown hair. He admired the shape of the man’s lips: full, pouty, sensuous; as well as his eyes: heavy-lidded and squinty, as if he had just woken up.
Michel smiled at the man, projecting himself across the twenty or so meters that separated them.
Donovan stiffened. He looked around him, then saw a tall, muscular man with black hair beaming at him from several meters away. He looked to either side of him, but nope. The man wasn’t grinning at some gorgeous hunk who happened to be standing near him, the man was really, truly looking at him specifically. He looked back to the man, who was jogging toward him with a joyful look.
* * *
Twenty-four-year old Michel Martin couldn’t believe his luck.
Donovan looked so beautiful as he lay beneath him, writhing and moaning in his own ecstasy. Michel enjoyed the feel of their naked bodies together, and was doing his best to keep from cumming too soon. It was difficult, however, as Donovan’s ass was so tight and so hot around his shaft.