by James Brock
Ty had spent decades, centuries, perfecting his skill set for feeding and sex. Everyone has something they are good at, this was his.
With New York nearby there had always, been an endless supply of the guys he liked best who gravitated to the city to be among their own. Since the loss of his partner the young vampire had never bothered with another relationship, although there had been a few that did last longer than the bite and orgasm.
There were a few times, though, in which he nearly met his match.
In a smoke filled saloon near the wharfs on what had fairly recently begun to be called New York he looked up one rain swept night to see one of the most amazingly beautiful men he had ever seen looking at him. The men exchanged smiles then casually followed each other outside, as was the case in the years before gay liberation and being out.
Letting the young blond lead, Ty followed him to one of the many inexpensive boarding houses that filled the city. Wordlessly the men looked each other up and down in the small room the blond had led them to. Ty feared nothing, but there was something even more erotic than usual radiating from the ethereal guy he was looking at. The angelic looking blond made the first move, unwrapping the long scarf from around his neck then dropping the rain damp cloak he had wrapped around himself.
The two men slowly stripped in front of each other, clothing wordlessly falling to the floor, smiles widening until they were fully nude, hard cocks throbbing. Ty felt a primal urge surging through his body, a thrumming in his ears knocked all other sound out as he felt the sensual play of his fangs slowly deploying behind his lips, his aching shaft and fangs feeling connected as he and the blond sized each other up by the light of a single candle burning in a stand on a table.
Reaching out to each other they fell onto the bed, wrapping limbs around each other as their crotches ground together, groaning they slowly brought their mouths together in a long deep kiss, Ty thinking ahead as to how he was going to ease his fangs into the tall blonds throat when suddenly he felt the sharp sting of fangs in his own neck.
Shocked, thrilled and suddenly on guard Ty let the blond begin to pull the fluid from his body, relaxing as he suddenly felt the blond on top of him slow his pull then roll off of him.
Smiling Ty revealed his own fully deployed fangs and it was on-the two young men biting into each other’s neck with abandon as they ground their bodies’ together-hands exploring each other they sucked, fucked and jacked each other into a frenzy while all but destroying the small room they were in, delighting in what they were able to learn from each other.
When the dawn was ready to break they locked themselves in the closet and started all over again when dusk fell. The two young vampires had become great friends; fucking, sucking and feeding for several years until his new friend suddenly disappeared. Which happened from time to time. Over feeding on a sailor who had over indulged and not getting safe in time for the sun; being caught and destroyed. Or just simply growing bored and moving on to another part of the world. His disappearance only added to Ty’s distrust of anything human or non.
“Ash has asked me to pull something from the special duty file for you to accomplish while we are gone,” I began, Ty cutting me off with a snarl;
“I WILL NOT be babysat!”
“Trust me junior; in that outfit no one is going to mistake you for a baby.” I replied with a head to toe scan that was NOT sexual.
Well, ok. It was a little sexual.
“Fuck you BOTH,” the young (well, OLD) vampire said, turning on his (stacked, Cuban, as if he needed that height either) heel and stormed down the wide hallway.
“And I think the term would be vampire sat,” I couldn’t resist yelling at his disappearing form.
Lifting both arms above his head Ty flipped me the bird with both hands and kept walking.
Chapter Five
The ship had been underway for hours; I had everything set up and was waiting for Ash. It was nearing three AM and I had seen no one on the upper deck I had been sitting on since Two-thirty. If this had been a gay cruise, of which I was quite the veteran, even this quiet dark place on the ship would have been hopping. I’d already had a great afternoon and hooked up so was pretty calm and relaxed.
Uncle loved cruising, commercial gay cruises or charting a yacht and taking groups out for weeks on end. He spent enough to rate us the best cabins, tables and service. I was the pet of the ship every trip, spoiled and pampered. Uncle stopped the trips cold when I hit fourteen and guys started hitting on me like poor Dicky had been hit on at Lavender Hill that long ago night. Didn’t stop our fun, Uncle kept renting yachts then and hand picking who traveled with us. I doubt Ash or Ty would have shown any less fury on anyone touching me than Uncle would have. He was she wolverine powerful when it came to me.
I had been missing Uncle of late and the salt air, movement of the ship brought him back in a very real way as I sat waiting for Ash. He couldn’t go fast enough, even with those powerful wings, to get to the ship in one flight from Lavender Hill so I plotted a course; he would night fly to Miami where we had kept Uncles condo. I had converted a room into a sleep vault-short of the actual vault it was a room that had been turned into a black out room with no light at all getting in. At dusk he would wake and hang out for a few hours before catching a cab to the Everglades and launch his flight to catch the ship there. Better to over pay for a cab and have a driver freak out a little at being asked for a ride into the swamp late at night than run the risk of going off the balcony of the condo and risking a fine from the homeowner board of directors.
Just kidding, of course. Fines be damned! It was the torch wielding mobs! Sharpened Wooden Stakes! Silver crosses! Cloves of garlic! Or was that for Werewolves? I could never remember. Didn’t matter as he hadn’t been spotted flying in decades. WWII had some pretty sharp eyes out on the horizon and there were some close calls no matter how cautious the old vampire had been. Bottom line was the safety of Ash above all and that was for the best. His flying was pretty low level off the radar stuff and he tried to keep in the dark as much as possible. Once he his open ocean he was un erring in his path to the ship. We had done this before.
While sitting topside as high as I could go on the sleek liner I thought how much Uncle would have loved knowing Ash’s secret life. Of course the good man could never, ever have KEPT the secret. Then again no one would have believed him, either. I also am remiss in not telling you that I loved him, well I love Ash, too, but Uncle with all my soul.
He didn’t HAVE to take me in. He was a handsome, sexy single guy living a HUGE gay life in New York of all places. He had a job, was a regular at ALL of the clubs (he had gotten to know those disco divas who graced his parties when they were on the way UP…), including ’54-the highlight AND decline years. While I am fuzzy as to who I was actually related to by blood I can tell you that my first memories are of his face, staring down into the crib in that tiny, tiny apartment. The love in those eyes cannot be written. Yeah, sometimes there would be another face or two of a guy he had brought home but nothing untoward ever happened and at the crack of sunrise there he was with a smile and a bottle (yeah, sometimes one for him too) and a song. I became his world in the two years the lawsuit moved on. I’m sketchy on a lot of that time in that tiny east village apartment but know that when he wasn’t at work that Uncle was for the most part with me. It was about then that Marta came into our lives. I used to grill the two of them without mercy on facts! dates! INFORMATION PLEASE! About how they met, did she come from an agency, was SHE (I CANNOT IMAGINE) one of his dozens of disco dollies? The ones who didn’t have hit singles who became my part time nannies, care givers, baby sitters and, well, family, to me as we all K.C. and the Sunshine Banded our way through that part of life.
“Little boys should not ask so many questions,” Marta would sniff, “or they might be eaten by a bear.” Her word came from on high and I believed anything she told me so I developed a healthy fear of even Yogi and Boo Boo after that. My refus
al of going into the polar exhibit at the Central Park Zoo was legendary among the huge group of walkers, attendees, and tour leaders I spent time with. I knew that park like the back of my hand but NO WAY was I going into that grotto where an ACTUAL BEAR lived because I KNEW I was an inquisitive kid and had no intention of becoming an afternoon munch for some dumb walking fur ball of a bear. This was, of course, in the years BEFORE some gay men of certain age and size became collectively known as bears or I would have probably spent a good deal of my childhood hidden under my bed in the tiny tiny apartment because Uncle knew some BIG. HAIRY. GUYS. Of course they were always the kindest, gentlest of men and generally had candy or gum or some kind of snack tucked away in a pocket they were glad to share with me.
And I now hung with vampires.
Once the lawsuit was settled and a trust set up Uncle weeded through the group, loyalty ALWAYS counting, and began hiring staff. Marta was first and as you know remains, but she IS family because there is not a memory I have (other than Uncle’s morning face visits) that does not include her. She never lived in at the tiny place Uncle brought me to that I can officially claim as “home”, well, first home, but once she moved into the small (but ON FIFTH AVENUE) three bedroom apartment nearish the village and then on to Lavender Hill, Marta was never NOT with us.
So between my questioning mind and Uncle’s honesty in telling me JUUUUUUSSSST about everything I asked there was a lot of learning going on even when I wasn’t in school;
“Why CAN’T you wear diamonds before six?”
“But WHY do the red wine, white wine and dessert wine glasses HAVE to form a triangle?”
“I KNOW bullets will kill a bear fast but wouldn’t a GRENADE be better?”
Marta would just ignore me after a while but Uncle always answered. Yeah, sometimes those responses were slurred but he gave me an answer.
Before I brought myself to tears thinking of Uncle the slightest rustle caught my ear and I whipped my head around just in time to see Ash settle onto the deck, the huge wings that had sprouted from his back shook once, twice then quickly curled up and settled down into his back, the tracks of sweat trickling down his chest already drying as I handed him a shirt. A huge smile was on his face. He would never admit it but I knew he loved these long distance flights. We could have figured a way to fly him in but he liked the challenge of catching up to the ship.
“Hey,” I said. Like Ty I was always in awe of the wings no matter how often I saw them.
“Everything ok?”
“Yeah, just somewhere else when I saw this giant vampire flew up behind me,” I grinned while we headed down through the ship toward the suite I had arranged.
“I meant with the meetings,” Ash responded, playfully jostling me on the shoulder. He was still pumped from the flight, not realizing his strength he nearly put me over the edge of the stair rail.
“Whoa, sorry!” we were both always taken back a bit when things like that happened. Ash grabbed my arm and steadied me, I blushed as I always did when he touched me. Those feelings seemed like they would never go away.
We went over particulars of the conference as we walked back slowly to the suite.
Reaching the suite I slid the card into the electronic reader and was grabbed by Ash before I could push the door open. Yanking me back he stopped for a moment, a hand spread out on the door. Was it another of his superpowers coming into play, did he Spidey sense something wrong? Looking at me he grinned, knowing the questions freight training through my head.
“I felt a draft from under the door.”
I’d known about all this vampire/super power stuff a long time but it just took a second like this for me to revert to being just a plain old dork.
Pressing the door Ash stepped into the dark room, me right behind him. The door to the huge deck was partly open, a strong gust of wind blasting back on us.
“Did you leave it open?” Ash hissed under his breath, so low I hardly could hear him.
Shaking my head no I started to step into the suite when he pushed me back into the hall, not caring about the force he was using.
Ash moved into the darkened room, me stepping in behind him. He didn’t turn on a light, just crept through the space without bumping anything. I knew he could nearly see in the dark so I kept my steps small. Getting to the balcony door Ash threw it open all of the way, from the middle of the large suite I could see a figure sitting on the top rail of the small private deck,
“Hey Ash, what took you so long?” Ty asked with a giggle while sliding down off his perch.
“How the fuck did you get here? Can you fly now too?” I blurted as Ash flicked on a small lamp and I leaned toward a wall switch and turned on a bank of lights to low.
“I took a red eye you dope. Jumped in the water, climbed the anchor chain just before sunrise and hid in a lifeboat. Nice ‘n dark in there,” Ty sneered. Yeah, in this case I had to cop to dope. I wanted, of course, to make a snappy come back like Nice use of fifties slang, why don’t you take it all the way back to YOUR era of slang and say Thou dope. Those sixteen fifties rocked, dude! But it would have been matching wits with an unarmed man and I didn’t want to piss Ash off. Comments like that did little to help our usually strained relationship.
“Don’t you have things to do back home?” the older vampire chided sternly, knowing getting Ty to follow instruction was like herding cats. Or young(ish) stubborn vampires.
Stretching back over the rail Ty looked awesome in the moonlight. I hated it when I reacted this way to his body, long, lean-well fuckin’ swimmer like ok-and I got hot.
“Who says I didn’t get ‘em done already?” Ty challenged. Was he here because he had abandonment issues? Well welcome to my world with that one, buddy! I didn’t even have fangs to back myself up with.
“Well me for one,” Ash sighed, “but what’s done is done. I don’t have time to take you back so Carter is now your Nanny.” Turning to me Ash said, with a face as determined as I have ever seen.
“But Ash,” I started, the look he wore cutting me off. I knew what he was communicating and we both knew why Ty was here to stay.
For all of his fangs and claws, I dunno, he may very well have had them, Jupiter knows he could be catty as a queen, for all of his ferocious behavior Ty just was scared of being alone.
Chapter Six
It was cramped but we managed to get the TWO blood feasting creatures of the night into the ONE custom designed sleep chamber. This one had no big deal alarms or systems to open and close it. Ash could easily take care of that himself but since I was there any way it had become part of my duty to open him up at night and close him up in the morning. Something familiar to both of us, a routine that gave continuity to the oddness of our schedule in our already odd lives.
Hey it’s what you do, figure out what works. I could have just played and partied but working with Ash and the foundation gave me a sense of purpose. And, I admit, a connection with Uncle since he had founded Connor Philanthropic with Ash a decade earlier.
Back in the stateroom at exactly sunset I lifted the lid. Ash and Ty were in the same positions I had left them in. Ty’s arm twitched and then as if the power had been turned on they were back. No yawning, stretching or wakey wakey eggs and bakey. Ty pulled himself up out of the chamber, followed by Ash. Eyes wide open, no blinking or rubbing the smutz out of the corners. Nothing associated with the way humans wake. I should have been used to it but it was still eerie that they didn’t even have bed head when they woke.
I had arranged Ash’s full evening schedule and handed it to him along with a full glass of the vile concoction he fed on while we were at sea. Without asking I handed Ty a container as well. He made a horrible face but downed it, knowing the old diluted blood was better than none at all.
Changing into a suit Ash left the cabin with the admonishment that we play nice.
“So what’s the fun, son?” Ty asked from where he hung. That’s right, hung. He had kicked off his shoes and manag
ed to find a way to wedge his toes into a tiny seam that ran the length of the ceiling, hanging down into the space like a human (well, ish) chandelier covered in Ben Sherman and Levi brands. There was no sense in trying to reason with him about stereotypes, but since Ash and I were the only ones who would see him there was no harm no foul. Besides, I was watching a really dumb, really fun movie starring Adam Sandler I would rather not have anyone know about either so Ty and I were quite even when it came to doing dumb things in the hanging out department. But trying to be dutiful I listed off the entertainment being provided for the evening, and we didn’t bring the dignitaries out with the usual cruise ship far of entertainment. We brought Superstars who would help our causes the most. I listed off the three top entertainments happening after dinner, Ty shaking his head No to each of them.
“Then it’s a movie with me.”
“Are you finally asking me on a date?” this was said as he unclenched his toes, flipped, and fell to the floor. Silently of course. I’d say cat like even but the (old) kid made the most silent of felines sound like a dump truck dropping a load of gravel as he swept in next to me, a wide grin cutting across his face. Sweet Jupiter he was cute. Being out on the ocean, away from the usual stresses of his vampire life had brought out a fun, easy side to Ty. I think he may have felt safe out there.
“Call it whatever you want. I’m sitting here, you there.” I said with a sweep of my finger toward the other end of the small sofa I was sitting on.
“Like this?” Ty snuggled his long frame in next to me. It was as if a commercial freezer had settled in next to me but I couldn’t help but get a little wood. It was rare he was playful and his mood was in direct opposition to his usual disposition. Ty was always easier to deal with when he was being fun playful rather than cat-plays-with-nearly-dead-bird- playful, his usual mode.
