Midnight Thirsts: Erotic Tales of the Vampire

by Michael Thomas Ford

  “You okay back there?”

  He looked up. Her dark chocolate eyes were watching him in the rearview mirror. Her voice was a deep alto, without inflection or tone. Each syllable was the same note.

  He shrugged. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “On your way home?”

  “Work.”

  “What do you do?”

  How do I answer that? he wondered. Hell, she was a New Orleans cab driver. She’d seen and heard it all before. “I’m an escort.”

  She nodded. “Are you careful?”

  “Yeah.” He resisted the urge to say, I’m not stupid. He knew other escorts didn’t care about condoms. He saw them online all the time, peddling their bareback wares. He sometimes wondered why they didn’t care. Sure, there were drugs and stuff now, so it wasn’t a death sentence like it used to be, but you needed insurance to get the drugs, right? It wasn’t like they were passing them out for free. Why take such a risk? His friend Rory, the one who’d gotten him to place his ad in the first place, was willing to go condom-free.

  “If they pay extra.” Rory shrugged, uncaring. Rory never bothered to get tested, either. He could be passing it along to his foolish customers.

  Philip shuddered. The cab was rolling along St. Charles Avenue now. The streetcar clanged past them, glowing eerily in the mist. Huge oaks lined the Avenue, their thick branches arching over it like a tunnel. They stopped at the light at Napoleon, the redness glowing through the mist. He glanced out the window.

  A blond man was standing on the corner, looking right at him.

  He was good-looking, tall, with long white-blond hair hanging to his shoulders. He was wearing a black overcoat over tight black jeans. His eyes were an intense blue, as though shot through with lights.

  The man smiled at him and waved.

  Philip stared at him.

  They were in bed together, the blond man’s hard body pressed against his as they kissed. It was a tender kiss, the kind that lovers share, rather than the frantic face-eating kind driven by lust for a stranger. His lips were strong, firm, yet gentle and almost sweet. Philip leaned his head back, and the blond man started kissing his chin, his outstretched neck, sending tremors through Philip’s body. The scent of lilacs and roses was heavy in the air, and Philip luxuriated in the smell as his body enjoyed the feel of the silk sheets against his back, his butt, his legs. Philip put his hands on the blond’s back, feeling the strength of the rippling muscles there, trailing them down as the back narrowed and then began to curve outward into the hard, round muscles of his ass. The blond man was now kissing the cleft in the center of Philip’s chest, while the fingers of one hand were stroking a nipple…

  The light changed, and the cab started moving again.

  Philip’s eyes opened. He stared at the dreadlocks hanging down over the headrest.

  He turned and looked out the back window.

  The man was gone, like he’d never been there in the first place.

  Philip shook his head. What the fuck? He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his crumpled pack of cigarettes. “Do you mind if I smoke?” he asked as he shook one out.

  “Just open the window.” She smiled at him in the rearview mirror, showing gold caps on her front teeth. “Don’t bother me none, but you’d be amazed at the way some people bitch.”

  He cracked the window, and the cold, damp air slapped him in the face. His hand was shaking as he shook out a cigarette and lit it.

  What the hell was that? he wondered, inhaling the smoke and blowing it out the window. He turned and looked back, but he couldn’t see anything through the mist other than the headlights of the car behind him, the low hanging branches of the massive oaks, and the occasional streetlamp.

  New Orleans is a haunted city. Maybe it was just a ghost.

  He smiled to himself. Rachel Spielman, his best friend, whose apartment was just across the hall from his, claimed to see ghosts all the time.

  “So many people have died violently here,” she would say, rolling a joint. “Is it any wonder the city is full of ghosts?”

  He didn’t believe in the supernatural, ghosts, werewolves, witches—any of that. Bogeymen to scare children into behaving was all it was, old stories coming down from the less-educated times, when an eclipse was a sign of God’s anger. Rachel did, so he always humored her and listened to her wild stories of the ghosts in her parents’ house. It was part of her charm, part of the reason he liked her so much. A vivid imagination.

  He tossed the cigarette out the window as the cab turned onto Octavia Street. She pulled up in front of Arthur’s house. “Nine seventy-five,” she said without looking back, expertly flipping the meter off.

  He pulled a ten and a five out of his wallet and handed them over the seat to her. “Keep it,” he said.

  “Thanks, man.” She flashed her gold teeth at him. “You be careful, okay?”

  “I’m always careful.”

  Her smile faded as he opened the door. “There’s some weird energy in the city tonight,” she warned, “so be on your guard.”

  He looked at her for a moment, trying to decide if she was serious, and then climbed out of the cab. “You don’t have to wait till I’m inside.”

  She shrugged. “Suit yourself, man.” He shut the door, and she pulled away from the curb. He stood there, watching the red taillights disappear into the mist.

  The street was deserted. He looked around and exhaled in relief.

  Did you think you’d see him again? he asked himself as he went up the walk to the front door. You’re getting as crazy as Rachel. He climbed the steps to the verandah. A porch swing swayed gently, as if someone had just gotten out of it. Wrought-iron chairs beaded with condensation were scattered around, empty and forlorn. Green-painted shutters stood sentry beside darkened windows. A fountain in the side yard bubbled, water flowing through a marble urn held aloft by a bare-breasted woman. The front door was oak, half of it stained glass in the pattern of a Madonna and child, the Madonna smiling down at her giggling infant. The house, a huge old Victorian, seemed cold and uninviting. He pushed the buzzer, hearing the bell clang inside. Footsteps approached the door. He looked back to the street. It was still empty. The door swung open.

  Arthur was in his early seventies, a retired professor of English from Tulane University. His head was completely bald, white, crisscrossed with bluish veins. Long gray hairs hung from his nostrils. He was wearing a long red velvet robe that brushed the floor. His bare feet protruded from beneath its hem. His toenails were long and yellowed. His watery blue eyes were bloodshot. He smelled of sour Scotch. He always drank several Scotches before Philip arrived.

  “Philip.” His voice was slightly slurred from the liquor. “Do come in, my dear boy.” He smiled, yellowed teeth over bluish gums. He didn’t look well, not that he ever did.

  Philip stepped past him into the house. It was always spotlessly clean, everything in its appointed place, yet it always smelled musty, the air stale. Philip removed his coat and hung it on the coat tree just inside the front door. He walked down the hallway to the living room. The curtains were closed, as they always were. It was as though light and fresh air had abandoned the house many years before.

  If ever a house was meant to be haunted, he thought as he untied his shoes and removed them, it was this one.

  Arthur stood in the doorway. His glass of Scotch sat on an end table, next to the reclining chair where Arthur always sat. The ice was melted. The half-empty bottle stood, uncapped, next to it. Philip knew Arthur would not come into the room until he was undressed. He never did. Arthur didn’t want to touch him, as though somehow he were unclean. Philip placed his shoes on the hearth, then removed his socks. He stood back up and pulled his sweatshirt over his head. It was cold in the house, and goose bumps rose on his bare skin. He folded the sweatshirt and placed it next to his shoes. Arthur liked everything to be neat. Philip undid his belt, unbuttoned the fly of his jeans, and slid them down. He stepped out of them and fol
ded them, placing them on top of the sweatshirt.

  With only the black jockstrap on, he turned and faced Arthur, his legs apart, his pelvis thrust forward a little.

  Arthur smiled, pale lips parting to show his almost predatory teeth. “Beautiful, yes, simply beautiful.” He stepped into the room and removed his robe. His skin was pale white, pale enough to see the blue veins, and hung in folds from his arms. A patch of gray hair stood in the center of his flabby, sagging chest. His belly was round and hung over the gray pubic hair, the small pink cock, the even smaller balls beneath. He sat down in the chair and reached for his Scotch, taking a drink and smacking his lips. Philip turned so his back was to him, then bent over forward, bending his knees slightly, so the muscled orbs of his ass were rounded and uplifted, framed by the straps of the black jock. He glanced up at the antique clock on the mantel.

  Arthur was breathing heavier. Philip knew without looking that the little red cock was now hard, being stroked. Arthur never wanted to touch him, which was fine with Philip. He didn’t want to be close to Arthur, to feel that old, papery skin, to smell the stale Scotch on his breath or the slightly sour odor of his body. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, flexing each cheek in order. This was so much easier than the others, the closeted overweight married guys from out of town, who wanted to fuck him or be fucked, to have their moist, sour-smelling cocks sucked, their balls touched.

  “So pretty,” Arthur breathed.

  Philip straightened back up, bringing his arms up over his head, making the muscles of his back stand out, standing like that for a few minutes, watching the second hand on the clock moving ever so slowly around the Roman numbers on its face. He turned sideways, posing, his right arm dropping and flexing so the muscles of his pecs and shoulders jumped out, while looking at a point slightly above Arthur’s head. His own cock was still soft. That was fine as long as the jock was still on, but when it was time for the jock to come off, his cock had to be erect, ready to be stroked.

  He climbed up on the coffee table, flexing his arms again. He avoided looking at Arthur, and started thinking about something erotic, something to get his cock to start stirring.

  The man in the mist.

  That handsome face.

  The blond hair, the blue eyes.

  The blue eyes with the hint of unforeseen pleasures in them.

  He smelled lilac and rose again, felt the silk sheets against his skin.

  His dick began to stiffen.

  He saw the blond man unbuttoning his own shirt, revealing marble-like skin, muscles finely etched in relief like a sculpture, the round, pink nipples on his large chest erect and hard. The tufts of blond hair running from the navel downward, hinting of what was below.

  He imagined what the man smelled like, how his lips would taste, how his skin would feel against his own.

  He was hard now, the head of his cock sticking out above the waistband of the jock.

  He slid the jock down, spitting into his other hand, which he used to start stroking his dick.

  “So pretty,” Arthur said again.

  And Philip lost himself in the reverie of the fantasy from the cab, the blond man’s mouth and tongue working on his neck, his chest, then his stomach. Philip closed his eyes, imagining himself back in the room that smelled of lilac and rose, his skin lying on sheets of silk as candles flickered in a warm, soft breeze. “I love you so,” the blond man whispered, his fingers probing the cleft between Philip’s cheeks, looking for the entryway into his body.

  Philip brought up his free hand to pinch his own nipple.

  Arthur was breathing faster; he could hear him. “So pretty, so pretty,” he repeated over and over again, like always, and Philip began rubbing his thumb over the head of his own cock, the precum starting to leak out a bit, using the sticky drops of fluid to further lubricate his cock as he rubbed; and in his mind he was far away, far from this spooky, stale old house with an old man sitting on the couch in front of him, in a bed with the blond man, who was sucking Philip’s cock while probing Philip’s asshole with his fingers. Philip imagined looking down on that white-blond head as it moved up and down, worshipping Philip’s cock as though it were a totem.

  Philip heard the gasps as Arthur’s little cock ejected its few drops of semen.

  His own was ready, the cum rising in him, his balls tightening, and even though Arthur liked him to be silent, he cried out as he reached the point, his juices spilling out of him.

  He opened his eyes.

  “So pretty,” Arthur said again, his own eyes closed.

  So pretty.

  Chapter Two

  “Keep the change,” Philip said as he slid out of the cab in front of his building on Ursulines.

  “Thanks.” The cabbie, an older white man in his late fifties with his hair greased back, nodded.

  Can this fog have thickened? He shivered as the cab drove off and he dug into his pocket for his keys. He climbed up the five sagging wooden steps, blue paint peeling off in flakes with each footstep. He unlocked the door, stepping into the darkened passageway leading to the courtyard. A cracked birdbath with a naked cherub on its hands and knees stood in the center of the courtyard. Building materials lay in piles around it, the corners piled high with resealed paint cans, blue paint gummily dried down the sides. A wooden staircase stood in one corner, winding around in a squarelike pattern up to the fourth floor. His apartment was a tiny efficiency up on the fourth floor; an oven in the summer, always cold in the winter. He could hear sounds coming from the other apartments as he climbed the sagging wooden steps, one hand on the railing: televisions, stereos, laughter. About the third floor, his legs began to burn a bit, despite hours spent on the stair-climber at the gym. The stairs became rickety the higher he climbed, soft in some places, the railing giving beneath his weight a bit in others. Slightly out of breath when he finally reached the top, he lit a cigarette and stood there for a moment, waiting for the burning feeling in his legs to subside. He walked to the little corridor that led to his apartment. He slid his key into the dead bolt on his door.

  “Hey.”

  “Jesus!” He dropped his cigarette onto the damp floor. “What the fuck, Rachel?”

  Rachel stood in her doorway across the hall from his, her electric-blue hair hanging uncombed to her shoulders. She took a hit on the joint she was holding. She was wearing green camouflage army pants and a tube top that barely contained her large, heavy breasts. Her navel was pierced, as was her right eyebrow, and her nose. A tattoo of a sunburst surrounded her navel. She shrugged. “Sorry, man. Why you so jumpy?” She offered him the joint, and he took it, pushing his door open at the same time.

  The little room was frigid. “Fuck,” he said, turning up the gas heater mounted on the wall between the dormer windows, taking two hits off the joint. His lungs burned a bit, and he fought down a cough, blowing the smoke out. He shrugged. “You startled me.”

  She sat down on a tattered brown beanbag chair he’d bought for five dollars at a thrift store, pinching the joint out between her fingers. “Think I was a ghost or something?” She laughed. “Chill, boy. Where ya been?”

  “Arthur’s.” He shrugged off his jacket. “How was work?” He worked afternoons at the Jazz Café.

  “Slow.” She made a face. “Cold as it is, you’d think everyone would want coffee, but the Quarter’s deserted tonight.”

  “It was slow as fuck all afternoon.” He shook his jacket off, dropping it on the bed. “Thank God Arthur called. I was down to my last five bucks.”

  She pulled a lock of blue hair in front of her eyes, staring at it like she’d never noticed it was blue before. “A weird old man came in, though, and hung out for hours.”

  He walked into the tiny bathroom. A broken tile crackled under his feet. He pulled the clear shower curtain open and turned on the hot water. It took about five minutes for the water to get hot enough. He pulled the curtain closed and stared into the mirror. “What was so weird about him?” he called
back. There was a small, hard zit forming on his chin. Eyes a little bloodshot, maybe. He grinned at himself and walked out, sitting down on the corner of his bed, and started unlacing his boots. He grinned at her. “Come on, what creeped you out?”

  “He looked like he was a thousand years old, for one thing.” She let go of the hair, tapping her fingers on her knees. She shrugged. “Good-looking, if you’re into the grandfather type.”

  “Only if they pay.” He took his shirt off, shivering against the cold. He walked over to the wall heater and stood in front of it, letting the warm air blow against his skin. He turned back to her. “So?”

  “Yeah.” She shook her head. She relit the joint and took a long drag. “Anyway, he hung out there for hours, until I practically had to kick him out so I could close up, ya know? He just kept staring at me like I was from another planet, and then—get this—he tips me with a hundred-dollar bill, thank you very much.”

  “Fuck.” He grinned at her. “So what’s the big deal? A lonely old guy hangs out for a few hours, tips a pretty girl way too much. What’s so weird?” He shrugged. “Arthur pays me three hundred bucks to beat off in front of him. At least you didn’t have to get undressed.” He laughed. “Must be doing something wrong—they won’t pay me unless I get naked.”

  She grimaced. “Cute.” She slid her hand into her right pocket and pulled out a business card. “He left this with the tip.”

  He took the card from her. It was a rich cream color, thick. In raised black old-English letters it read “Nigel Witherspoon, Nightwatcher.” Below was a phone number.

  “Nightwatcher? What the hell is that?”

  “Maybe some kind of weird club.”

  He turned the card over. Written in spidery handwriting in red ink were the words “Your friend is in danger. Trust your instincts.” He handed the card back to her. “Did you see this?” He felt a chill and turned the heater up another notch. “That’s kind of weird.” He read the words aloud, slowly, his scalp prickling. “What do you think it means?”