Life Sucks

Life Sucks, Part 1. by Ganymede.

WARNING.

This story contains a graphic description of sexual acts involving men and a MINOR boy, who discovers the true meaning of the expression, "Life Sucks," when he is impregnated by a vampyre. His father and protector discovers from a Eleventh Century Russian manuscript that there is only one way that a vampyre can achieve Golconda, or enlightenment, before it is too late. A virgin vampyre must give his own blood to his lover at the precise moment that he tastes his first blood.

Be aware that this story is absolutely, definitely, positively not true. Readers are strongly cautioned not to make pacts with vampyres. Generally you should try to avoid sex with vampyres unless they are eleven-year-old boys who look like Christian. Be especially careful of vampyres who have the ability to transform themselves.

DEDICATION.

A story about a boy-vampire (sic), "Gerald", prompted the writing of this story. I found "Gerald" to be provocative, extremely well-written, and sympathetic to the love between boys and men, even if one was a vampire and the other had a death wish. So said, I wondered how Gerald became a vampyre. I could not discover the answer to that question. Thus, I began this story. It is dedicated to "Gerald", in the faint hope that the author might answer the question in a future addition to the story.

If the subject of man/boy sex offends you, if this material is illegal in your place of residence, or if you are under the legal age for such material, do not read further! You have been warned! Read at your own risk!.

The story is copyrighted under the pseudonym, Ganymede. Feel free to post it to other appropriate newsgroups or send it to your friends. It is not to be distributed in any medium whether in print or electronic form for monetary gain. If you enjoy my story, please contribute funds to a charitable organization providing services for boys.

The story is fiction. Any resemblance to any individual, alive or dead, is unfortunate.

FINAL WARNING.

If you are under the age of 18, if this material is illegal in your place of residence, or if man-boy relationships aren't your thing, then exit now and save yourself from a life of sin! And remember, don't be having sex with vampyres, unless,..."

LIFE SUCKS, Part 1. by Ganymede.

Chapter 1.

From the car window Robert could just see the side of Christian's head in the silvery moonlight. He was laughing. Robert heard his son's familiar voice, but although he listened closely, his words were could not be deciphered. He did not need to hear to know what Christian was saying. He could feel the boy's excitement as he stood before the stranger, his lust building to fever pitch when man grinned at him. Robert breathed out, sensing the familiar sick feeling building in the pit of his stomach. Christian laughed again, and suddenly, guiltily, glanced back over his shoulder towards the darkened car, towards his protector. Perhaps he saw his father sitting very still, watching through the window. He shook his tousled head carelessly. He was radiant in the evening, far too beautiful to be lounging there alone with his teasing smile. Even from a distance, he tempted every man who came close enough to see him.

Christian stepped back, still comfortably out of the stranger's reach, yet far too close to him for his father's comfort. Robert lifted his hand and felt his forehead, touched beads of sticky hot sweat. Inside he felt sick, rising bile that came from trepidation and hatred of himself and what they had become. He resented his apprehension at the same time as he knew it was well founded. His son was half-angel, half-demon. That was the way he had always been, every night since the night he would never forget. Christian laughed again when the man said something to him. Christian pointed towards the trees at the far side of the public toilets. No one would see them there. Again the man talked to him, lowering his head to share a secret. Without knowing him, Robert hated that stranger. He hated him son, even while he understood why the boy did what he did. Years ago he had come to the realization that there was no stopping him. Above all, he damned the unspeakable evil that had become part of Christian. He was the Devil's spawn, with the black seed of Satan buried deep within his otherwise perfect body. He had formed an imperfect union with Lucifer's agent, Prince Alexis of Moldova. The contract had been interrupted at the moment of discharge. There had been no consummation, leaving Christian neither alive nor dead. With a material breach, the boy was left soulless.

Yet, Robert was no different to this man when he savored the sweetness of his son's chilled flesh during the daylight. He tried to convince himself that it was different from an arm's length away, that there was no sin without touching him. However, he was far worse, for with his parental duty and his holy vows, he should have had the strength to resist the demon that resided within him. He prayed for the strength to turn and walk away, but he always stayed in the shadows and looked.

**** THIRTY-TWO YEARS EARLIER ***.

"I'm just going over to see Mister Mason before he leaves, okay?"

"Chris, I,... I guess it's all right. Don't bother him if he's busy packing,... and don't stay long. You've finished all your homework, haven't you?"

"Yes. I'll be back by six in time for dinner."

He turned and ran. He could run fast. Instead of going to the street, he went the back way, leaping the hedge that separated the rectory from the church. Robert could still see him as he bounded across the gravel parking area and behind the Chevrolet Impala, his legs pumping until he reached the oak trees. So alive, just eleven years old, and so full of energy that he could almost leap from the ground and take flight. He cleared the tree trunk that had fallen in a storm two years ago, and bounded out of sight into Mason's yard, his face beaming with sheer happiness. Mason was there with the baseball, tossing it high into the air and catching it without even looking.

"Hi!"

"Hi Chris! What kept a' ma man?"

"Homework!" Chris answered as he slid his hand into the softened glove and jogged back towards the trees. The baseball curved towards him and slapped neatly into his glove.

"Good one, kid!"

Chris threw it back. Another one, curving quickly, slammed into his glove as he darted ten feet to the side.

"Nearly missed that one," he yelled.

Mason grinned. The boy was good and getting better every day, but not good enough to be a major leaguer, not even if he gave it everything, even his soul. Some boys were like that. They would die for the chance to play in the World Series and they'd still end up as high school coaches. So many boys aspired to greatness, so few of them ever attained their dreams. However, there were always other dreams to follow, and nightmares too.

"Doin' good!" Mason bellowed. "Keep your eyes on the ball, boy. I want you ta watch them balls comin' right at yer."

Ball after ball followed. None of them were easy, all of them required movement, leaps, jumps, headlong rushes to catch the sewn-leather ball as it rocketed towards the waiting calf- leather hemisphere. After thirty minutes Chris was breathing quickly and he walked up to Mason with a broad smile on his face.

"Man, you really made me run today," he admonished with a grin.

"I made you play ball, boy. That's all!" Mason grumped at the slender boy. He handed over a luke-warm bottle of Coke after removing the fluted metal cap. "You really think you learn to catch standin' in one spot. You don't! That's the way dumb kids play catch."

Both man and boy grinned. Many weeks had passed and Mason had bided his time until now. It was now or never. Tomorrow he would be gone. His grin became a smile.

"You're doin' great, kid. Playin' ball's a lot like sex. You don't learn much by holdin' it in your hand. You got to work at it for a long while to know how to do it properly. Like most things, even jerkin' yourself off takes a lot of practice to really do it good."

Christian's ears burned and he blushed fiercely. 'Gutter talk', his father called it. His father railed at every chance. 'Talk against the Lord', 'the Devil's Words', 'evil talk', and on and on. He heard Mason's laugh and felt his ears burning hot like embers. He wanted to say the words his father forbid. Sex words, words about his bodily functions and parts, secret words that the boys at school used in a distant corner of the playground, bad words he dared not utter. He glanced up at Mason's dark eyes. He was awed. Mason was his special friend. His peers were jealous. He felt Mason's hand on his right shoulder, felt the power in the man's grip, possessing him as the fingers massaged muscle and bone mercilessly.

"You got to move 'round to have sex, you know," Mason added with a knowing smirk. "Sex is just like playin' ball. You sure cain't do it standing in one spot. You have to get yourself positioned right and be waitin' for them balls ta drop into yer hand."

Christian winced. His discomfiture made Mason smile again. He liked to see a boy become uncomfortable. It revealed understanding. He glanced around with pretended secrecy, although there was no one within a hundred yards.

"You're a virgin now, but you won't be a boy forever. You gotta be ready for it, when you start."

Christian's shocked look as much as his silence evoked a laugh. "You wanna have sex don't you? I don't know of any boy your age who ain't interested in gettin' his rocks off."

Christian swallowed in disbelief while the man squeezed his shoulder forcefully. He was still uncertain what to say when the hand slowly slid from his shoulder to his neck to the back of his head. Mason's fingers grasped the soft curls, his thumb stroking gently behind Christian's ear. It felt good to the boy, strangely reassuring and not unlike holding a familiar toy. He liked being touched. It didn't happen very often.

"I guess," he muttered.

"Cain't grow up till you do, you know," Mason chuckled. "It takes a good fuck to turn a boy into a man."

His hand dropped away, and for a mere moment Christian was anxious. He slapped the boy's buttocks playfully, lingering on the rubbery rounded form with a fond squeeze. There was an unmistakable tremble in the slender body so he squeezed a little harder, but only for an instant before his fingers relaxed. He knew better than to move too quickly. After nearly a thousand years, he knew what boys liked.

"Nothing quite like pussy, 'ceptin' boy-pussy, 'a course. With boy-pussy there ain't no comparison, not even when its got tits. Anythin' else is only good for one thing and that's havin' babies," Mason chuckled.

His hand stayed there as he talked, rubbing Christian's small firm rump with increasing pressure while the boy sipped his drink selfconsciously. It felt even better than the hand rubbing on his shoulder, strangely exciting and not unlike the way he felt when his friends talked 'dirty' at their clubhouse hidden behind the McIntyre's garage.

Mason's fingers pressed insistently into Christian's crack. The boy trembled, uncertain that he could move away even if he wanted to. He was frightened, intuitively understanding what Mason wanted, yet not understanding what he wanted himself. Within a matter of seconds he was erect again. He felt a wave of shameful guilt spreading out like the heat in his loins. It always happened when he played ball with Mason, and it seemed to occur with increasing frequency. It had happened earlier in the practice session. Then Mason had seen it, and he had stared at the little bulge in Christian's loose cotton shorts. Aware of what the man was looking at, Christian missed two balls in a row. Now, his penis hardened even further, intensified by forces beyond his comprehension. It grew outward until it felt like a little steel spike sticking out between his thighs, uncomfortably poking into his clothing. It would take a long time before it deflated to normal proportions. It was what his friends called a 'boner', hard like a bone was buried somewhere inside it.

"You're lookin' hot, boy," Mason said with quietly contained excitement.

His all-knowing smirk was barely concealed when he wiped his hand across his brow. Just looking at the perfect boy before him was making him hot as well.

"You sure know how to dress sexy. Maybe you outta take off your shirt for a while 'n cool off."

Christian hesitated and he took another sip of his drink. And then, not questioning the insistent subconscious message of warning, he lifted his arms up to drag his tee shirt over his head. He dropped the sweat-moistened cloth on the table and felt the comfortably cooler air on his bare chest. He felt the man's eyes on him even before he looked up. Mason smiled reassuringly, his eyes flickering with deliberate interest at the boy's exposed flesh.

"You've got a real nice body, Chris," Mason purred. "Real nice for a boy. Yes indeed. I 'specially like small nips, and you sure got some pretty ones right there. Smaller'n dimes ain't they? I sure do like 'em tiny. And your belly's taut. That's good. You're goin' to have some nice muscle tone when you get a bit older. Yer built just right for a boy.

Christian smiled shyly. He liked the man's admiring comments. Playfully he flexed his right arm and formed a muscle. Mason squeezed it affectionately.

"How soon will I look like you?"

"Couple more years yet before you even start fillin' out I 'spect from the looks of you." Mason smiled as he stepped back and sized the boy up. "You'll fill out fast once you get started, though. Probably start in the next year or two, I'd reckon. It usually gets goin' around twelve. Once you hit puberty, and your balls start pumping out juice, you'll grow some muscles that's for sure."

At eighty-five pounds and still several inches under five feet, the boy would never be big enough to play professional ball. Mason knew that he would have to be very careful in negotiating the contract. He could not promise what nature had not provided the raw material for.

"If you wanted anything in the world, what would it be, Chris?" Mason asked, deliberately changing the topic.

Christian grinned. "I want to be a ball player like you of course, Mason. I want to play pro, I want to be second base in the big leagues."

"Okay, not that! Anything else?" Mason said quickly. The boy didn't have it in him. Not that it mattered, a lot of second- rate players didn't have it in them, and a few still made it to a professional team for one reason or another.

"Hmm,... I don't know. I never really thought about it."

"Is there something you want so bad that you would give anything for to have it?"

Christian shrugged. "I don't know. I'd like to be,... um,... I don't know."

Sometimes I think I'd like to be rich and famous,..." like maybe a movie star,..." or fly an F-4 Phantom,... But not pro-ball? Gee, I don't know. I never really thought much about it. Other than playing ball? I don't want anything really, not something that's so important I would give anything for it,..."

"You got the looks for a movie star," Mason suggested. "You could make a lot of money. Have a big house in Hollywood 'n all."

"You know being famous and having money and all that is okay, but my father says those things really aren't important."

"Then what is important to you? You surely ain't interested in girls, are you?"

"I don't know. Like I said, I never thought about it all that much."

"What about sex?" Mason purred softly. "You want to have sex, don't you?"

Christian shrugged and began to blush. "When I get married I s'pose I will,... My dad always says that sex before marriage is wrong. In His Eyes,..." He stopped short. Whenever he talked "religion" it made Mason angry.

Mason smiled slyly. "That's nonsense. God don't make dumb-assed rules like that. It's men who make dumb rules, and I reckon being married is only important if you're wantin' to make babies. It's not important for guys."

"I don't understand," Christian wavered.

"Of course you do, boy," Mason glared, his eyes flickering with an interest that was difficult to control. "You know exactly what I mean."

"You're making me feel funny," Christian blurted out.

"You feel it, boy. In here," Mason smiled as he touched the boy's slender chest lightly. "You can feel your heart pounding. You want sex. Just the thought of it makes your heart beat fast like a bird's."

"I,... I,... don't,..."

Christian trembled as Mason's eyes stared into his. His heart lurched, beating like a vibrating drum. He quivered, wanting nothing more than to distance himself from the aching hot stiffness in his crotch. Darkly menacing eyes gazed into sky-blue innocence, wide open and subdued. He had been waiting for this moment for eleven years despite the fact that he had yet to understand what it was that he was waiting for. He swallowed dryly and squeezed his fingers into the palms of both hands, trying to close out what he heard. He held his breath until it hurt.

"You feel it, boy, boiling in your blood. You need sex,... you want it so bad you can barely stand it. It makes you feel weak inside, down there behind your belly. I know exactly how you feel."

"I,... No!" Christian mumbled as Mason's fingers traced a line across his fluttering chest, from his left nipple to his right nipple.

Mason smiled. "You feel it don't you? You feel good, boy. So good, up there inside your belly. It's growing inside you, coming alive inside and gettin' stronger like the little-boy- thing you got hidin' down there between your legs. It's gettin' bigger and harder. You can feel it becoming part of you. You know what it's for. You know what you want. You know it's there to have sex."

"I,... I,... can't."

Mason looked at the boy quizzically. Could he be wrong? He wasn't. He smiled and backed off. There were many ways to apply pressure. "It's a shame to waste it. 'specially for a good- looking boy like you. I can tell that you'll really like it when you do it," he said softly.

Christian tried to shake his head valiantly. Mason's eyes were mesmerizing. He tried to swallow again and found he could not. There was a buzzing inside his head, like an alarm telling him to wake up. Only the man's words penetrated the jumbled thoughts that filled his mind. Reassuring words, words that hinted at the reason behind the strange feelings and disconcerting thoughts. Unrealized desires were being ignited, firing like explosions that would destroy his innocence. Mason's eyes narrowed, his pupils dilating. Now he knew the way, the path he would follow to possess the boy's soul.

"Pity I'll be gone tomorrow. I could teach you a lot," he said pointedly. "You know I'm goin' first thing in the mornin', probably before you get out of bed."

I'm really going to miss you, Mason," Christian said sadly.

Mason smiled as his fingers brushed over the boy's slowly stiffening nipple. "I'll miss you too. You're special to me. I want you to keep in touch."

"I'll write you every day, I promise," Christian insisted as tears began to well in his eyes. He blinked rapidly, afraid to show emotion to the man who had befriended him. "You taught me how to play ball," he added sadly. "I'll never forget you.

"Like I said, I could teach you a lot of other things,... I could teach you things you need to know so you can grow up. It don't take long,... I could do it even before I left," Mason suggested.

"Yeah?"

"I can teach you what you want to learn more than anything else, boy," Mason breathed.

"I know," Christian breathed, wondering why he seemed to no longer control his thoughts and words.

"You want to learn, don't you?"

"I,... I don't,... I don't know."

"Of course you do. I can make your dreams come true. I know what you want."

"I don't know. I,... I'm,... I don't know what I want."

"You want to learn about sex. There's no hidin' it. It's perfectly normal. You have to learn sooner or later. That's why I'm here, boy. I'll teach you. I'll teach you what a man's dick is there for. That's what you want more than anything else, isn't it?"

"Yes," Christian blurted out before he could stop himself.

"Come back here tonight, boy," Mason whispered. "At midnight. I'll teach you everything then. First, I'll teach you how to suck cock, 'cause a boy's gotta be able to suck cock before he does anything else. But after that I'll fuck you,... because that's what you really want isn't it, boy? You want to learn how to be a little boy-pussy?"

"Yes, Mason ," Christian panted. He gazed with unsuspecting confidence into Mason's beguiling eyes.

Two black orbs, looming out of eternal darkness held him hostage. Yet, there was light shining out, sparks like diamonds within. Sparks of life, everlasting and eternal, never dying. This was the mystery, the source of the thing within him. Christian glowed, never disputing what he would do. Then the man stepped closer, touching him, touching him in places that no one had touched him. The fingers barely grazed him, but there was fire in his groin, raging heat like the blaze in his chest. Christian quaked and collapsed to the brilliant green grass beneath him, his slender body suddenly drained of its young strength. It was his first orgasm.

Mason walked away.

Chapter 2.

True to his word, Christian returned at midnight. There was a hazy moon, full and yellow, glowing through the silhouetted trees. The night was silent, still, brooding. A strange smell, musty, musky, fecal, like autumn's leaves rotting in the woods. He came barefoot, stepping cautiously as the dew-moistened grass wet his feet and ankles. He shivered when he crossed the unmarked boundary behind the church. He was no longer in God's territory, but on another's land. The two were so close, located side by side, yet as far apart as opposite poles could be. Only a hundred yards away, but it was so much colder there that he was covered with gooseflesh. The thin cotton of his pajamas offered no warmth. Despite the gloomy chill, Christian's body glowed with excitement. His mind was made up. He had vacillated all evening even while his heart fluttered with remembered sensations from Mason's curious touches, words, looks. In the end, it was preordained. Everything was preordained in the flow of time, from beginning to end. Tonight was his destiny. Mason waited for him beside the gnarled oak tree.

Suddenly cold, he stepped into Mason's strong embrace, like a virgin going to her husband. Strong arms wrapped around his shivering shoulders. He breathed quickly, nervously, afraid to speak and acknowledge the man who held him close. Warmth flooded into him when their bodies merged. One broad hand clasped his buttocks, covering both small cheeks. Christian trembled, very aware that only the thin cloth of his boxer shorts was all that stood between the man's grasping hand and his bare flesh. He closed his eyes slightly, not hearing his own soft sigh of longing. Then, wordlessly, Mason eased away and held the boy at arm's length. When Christian looked up, a questioning gaze bored into his eyes, seeking the answer to an unspoken question. Unbidden except by Mason's enquiring eyes, and driven by unspeakable desire, Christian nodded assent.

Mason smiled inwardly. Still, it was not enough. The boy had to give it all, freely and without hesitation. Then the contract would be formed. A promise for a promise, fully enforceable at the time of reckoning.

"What will you give me when you come to me tonight?" Mason purred.

A single finger pressed into the boy's deep furrow, parting the fleshy resilient cheeks. Christian trembled involuntarily. That hidden part of him, that part kept safe and secret from others now needed more, much more than the light touch of a single finger. That was why he was there, excited and desperately wanting the finger to enter him, to in where it belonged. Mason's finger rubbed gently, caressing a tingling place until Christian wriggled back.

"Anything," he sighed. "I love you, Mason. I'm going to miss you so much."

Mason smiled in the darkness. His lips were close to the top of Christian's head. He could smell the flowery odor of recently applied shampoo. Soft downy filaments brushed his nose. He inhaled, drawing the boy's scent into him. He smelled clean and pure, a perfect child unsullied by the world around him. Heartlessly, he remembered other boys. He had liked them too at the time, and he had no doubt that this boy loved him. This boy would do anything he wanted, would give him what he wanted, would willing serve him. His finger pressed forward into the heated indentation. The virginal anus tightened instinctively, small cheeks clutching at his finger. He pushed harder, an unyielding arrow pointing at the boy's opening.

"What do you want, Christian?" he purred.

"I want you to teach me."

"I will teach you everything you need to know, but what will you give me?"

"I,... don't know. I don't have anything to give you."

"Yes you do. Will you give me anything I ask for? Even your soul, boy." Mason whispered urgently, his head bent low and close to the child's ear. "For your soul,... I will give you what you want."

Again Christian nodded, no less certainly, yet still silent on his promise. Mason growled. He needed acknowledgment, words had to be spoken for the contract to take effect.

"I love you, Mason," Christian breathed out.

He gasped when the insistent finger passed through his portal. Between fingertip and anus, the cloth had disintegrated. He felt the man's finger boring into him, touching the inner wall of his sphincter. It did not stop there. He quaked, his legs weakening as it continued onwards to prod into his bowels.

"Say it boy," Mason pressed. "Tell me what you want."

"I,... don't know."

"Yes you do. You know what you want."

"You know already," Christian squeaked.

"Say it aloud!" Mason instructed. "What do you want me to do to you? What will you give me?"

"I can't say it!"

"Yes you can. Don't be afraid. No one will hear you. Say it."

"I can't!"

Mason smirked. The harder they fought. the better the contract in the long run. A good contract was the result of negotiation, of both sides giving ground until they came together for a single purpose. The pursuit was almost as much fun as executing the terms of the contract. In a few hours he would long gone, celebrating the victory. He could be patient. It was more than the means to the end. In a few minutes he would be the winner, the contract irrevocable. He withdrew his finger and felt Christian's body squeeze back vainly trying to retain his presence.

"No? You can't say it? That's too bad. Well, I guess you're still too young to know what you really want," he commented cruelly. "Or maybe, boy, you're just too scared to say it."

Christian stared fixedly at his tormenter. His voice was uncertain, little more than a whisper. "I want you, Mason. I want to,... to suck your thing."

"It's not called a thing, boy. It's a cock! You want to suck my cock? Mason taunted. "Go on say it."

"I want to suck your cock," Christian said awkwardly.

"What else?"

"The other thing."

"Say the other thing. Say what you really want."

"What you said about me,... about me having a boy-pussy this afternoon,... I want that too."

"Yes, of course you do. You want my cock in your ass, don't you?" Mason taunted. Christian nodded slightly. "You want to feel me deep in your ass. You want to feel my jizz squirting inside your bowels. You want my cum inside you. You want my strength to become yours. You want me to become part of you."

Christian breathed quickly. The words were like barbs, stinging when they pierced his mind. Yet, they were also musical, striking a chord that reverberated through his entire body. He was beyond guilt and shame. He quivered, the knowledge growing inside him like a fire, his thoughts no longer like barely glowing embers of tainted innocence, but igniting and burning bright. He was sexually aroused. His face flushed, the heat flowing out of his quaking heart.

"What do you want?" Mason demanded. "Tell me what you want. You have to say it."

"I want you in me," the boy whined.

He recoiled against the detestable words, yet unable to deny their truth. Whether it was in his mouth or his bottom seemed to make very little difference.

"In your ass is nothing. Above that! Above all things, tell me what you want from me!"

"I want to stay like this," Christian whispered. He wondered momentarily where the words came from, and then accepted that they were entirely right.

"What do you mean, like this?"

"I want to be like this forever."

Mason regarded the boy with surprise. "Like this? What do you mean?"

"A boy. I want to stay like this."

"A boy?" Mason demanded brusquely. "You want to remain a boy? You don't want to grow up. Is that what you want? A boy for all time? So men will always fuck your little ass?"

Christian nodded sullenly. "I want that. That's why I want to say a boy forever," he answered shamefully.

Again, he was uncertain where the words had come from. He knew it was an impossible wish. However, it was the truth. It was a wish that could never come true, a hope that burgeoned from within him and terrorized him while he stood before the gaunt man. He remembered the man's touches earlier during the afternoon. Being touched like that made him feel more alive than he could remember. At first, he had been sad because it was the last day he would play catch with Mason. When Mason touched him, he felt intensely happy. His inner longing was finally being satisfied. And as a boy, he would always be happy when a man touched him.

"What will you give me?" Mason said softly.

Christian looked at him dumbly. His mind reeled. Everything and nothing. What did he have to give? What did this man, his friend want from him? He had nothing of value, and yet, what Mason offered was the reason for life itself.

"Anything," he mumbled. He shivered as a sudden ice-cold chill formed in his spine. "Whatever you want,..."

"No!" Mason countered roughly. "Not anything, not whatever I want. You have to say it." He took a deep long breath. "Tell me! WHAT WILL YOU GIVE ME TO STAY A BOY FOREVER?"

It was not enough that the boy gave his virginity. Innocence accounted for nothing but a transient hiatus in carnal pleasure until the body developed and needed to its releash pentup desires. There were always virgins to be had. It made no difference whether they were boys or girls, or as sweet and pretty as the trembling child who stood before him. A virgin was nothing more than a body to be plundered, in this case a tight untried ass to be fucked until it was bloodied and raw.

Again, Christian shivered. He felt the man's hands on his body. Strong, warm hands that roamed across his buttocks and cupped the rounded form of his small cheeks. He wanted the finger inside him again. In those few seconds he had never felt so close to anyone before, or felt so full of life. Then, he realized that Mason had given him something, had taken something from him in a way reserved for someone very special. For a short period of time, Martin had taken possession of him. Again he wanted to be possessed, to be owned, to belong to this man. He wanted Mason inside him, although exactly how that could happen he had not figured out.

His anus tightened and a strange thought crossed his mind. For an instant he imagined Mason's thing, thick and powerful and swollen red with pounding blood, contained within that place hidden deep within him. He had touched that place only one time with a single, soapy finger. Within seconds he had quaked and his knees had buckled so that he nearly collapsed to the floor of the shower. He had discovered a special place that came with feelings so overpowering that he was frightened to his very core. He felt the same way now. He knew with sudden certainty how Mason could be inside. It was how a man and boy could join together. He knew that he would be happy only after he had done that with Mason. Yet, it was not the only way that Mason could be inside him. The other way, with his lips stretched tightly around Mason's penis seemed just as exciting. Instinctively, he knew the taste would be nice. The thought was as terrifying as it was intoxicating.

"Mason!" he cried. "I,... want you,... only I have nothing,... I've got nothing to give you."

Mason purred. "I'll let you swallow every drop when you suck me."

"I'd like that," Christian answered meekly.

"And I'll put my cock in your ass, boy. No matter what you say I'll do it in your ass, but you can have much more than that. You can have it all. You can have everything and you only have to give me what I want. You say you want to belong to me? If that's what you want then give yourself to me. It's only fair. Give me your soul, boy. Give me that and you will be mine. Only then will you belong to me. Your reward will be to stay young for all eternity. You just have to say it to make it happen!"

For a few seconds Christian's reason floundered. There was no reason why Mason should know the thoughts within his head, yet he seemed to do so every time he spoke. How could he know the terrible longing that he had only just discovered for himself? He trembled. The urge to be joined with Mason was as overpowering as his longing for eternal life. He succumbed to selfish need just as every boy before him gave way to it. His depraved desire triumphed.

"Yes,..." he sighed wistfully. "If you want it you can have it."

Mason towered over him, breathing hard now that the moment had dawned. He had won. He glared down at the child, overwhelming with his demand. "NOW SAY IT ALL! SAY WHAT YOU WANT AND WHAT YOU WILL GIVE!"

"I,... want you,... I want to be a boy forever. I want to suck your cock. I want you to,... fuck me. I,... I,... give you,... my soul. OH GOD!" Christian squeaked.

It was a shadow in reverse, a shimmering ethereal luminance, that drifted from within his every cell to establish a new presence. His shadow was an image cast by his reality, the light from outside. Christian's soul was the essence of his being, the light from within him. It was shapeless, yet not without form. It was strangely beautiful, a shimmering apparition of the boy. His soul was cast loose and Mason gazed upon it with intense loathing. So pure, unsullied by evil deed or thought, perfect in every way like the trembling child who stood before him. It hovered protectively around the boy, no longer part of him, yet not separated. Only one thing would break that bond and for that, the contract had been formed.

Mason brought the boy into the chapel using the side door. Even if he had chosen the main entrance there was little chance of being seen, yet it was a risk he preferred not to take. So much was at stake. Oak trees crowded the side of the old stone church, almost hiding it from view. The lock on the water-stained door had rusted and broken years earlier. The door was so concealed that it had not been deemed an essential repair. Now, Mason's free hand grasped the handle and turned. Rusted hinges squealed like a crow until he pushed the door all the way open. It was dark just beyond the door, yet further back the moonlight penetrated the space with a silvery glow. The lingering perfume of flowers from Sunday's service greeted them. Used to the stale fetid stench of his basement, the smell repulsed him, yet he did not hesitate longer than a few seconds to close the door behind them. In the gloom, he saw the boy's face, excited eyes wide, still willing. He smiled triumphantly. Only minutes remained for the contract to be executed.

"Mason?" Christian whispered. "What if someone comes?"

"Hush, boy. No one is going to come here tonight. Take my word on it."

"I'm scared, Mason."

Mason's powerful hands grasped him and held him tightly. He had come too far for the boy to back away now. A promise for a promise had been exchanged. It remained only for the promises to be performed, the contract executed.

"Don't be frightened," he said warmly. "Trust me." He hesitated. "I promise it won't hurt you." It was a lie, but lies were acceptable once the contract was made. "You can always say no.

It was the one necessary condition and his only reference to it was made in passing so as to seem inconsequential. The contract was always revocable, right up to the moment of consummation. Mason glanced around. The walls were thick and the stained glass windows were high. No one would hear them, not even when the boy screamed. And he would scream when his virginity was taken and his bowels were filled with the man's seed. He guided Christian past the long wooden pews, past the lectern where his father sermonized about the worldly ways of men, past the choir where he sang with half-a-dozen other boy-sopranos, the picture of innocence. Mason had often listened from outside, waiting until Christian lifted his head and praised God in song. He remembered the first time he had heard the pure notes of Christian's tremultuous song to the heavens, and later, when he looked with astonishment upon the boy's hauntingly beautiful face and knew that he was the one.

They reached the altar, a polished red-granite slab, waist high. It was covered with a cloth, a white satin brocade with delicate patterns. A gold challis stood in the center, flanked either side by vases festooned with day-old flowers. Mason faced the boy and watched him intently.

"Undress," Mason commanded.

Meekly Christian complied. He was no longer able to question his actions so strong was the desire than had been ignited within him. He longed for the man's touch upon his skin, and to feel his warmth again. However he wanted more than a mere touch. He also wanted to have the man's sex contained within his body, although he was still uncertain how that could physically happen. He removed his elastic-waisted boxer shorts without hesitation. The cloth dropped soundlessly to the flagstones. He waited for the man's acknowledgment of his naked body. There were no words spoken, yet for some reason Christian knew that men would find him attractive.

His bare body was stunning, even to Mason's jaded eyes. Perfectly proportioned, unblemished skin covering a divinely sculpted form of muscle, bone, and sinew. The man sighed softly as his eyes lowered slowly. Remarkably, the child's neatly circumcised penis was still soft, dangling impotently between his slender thighs. It was still hairless, still boyishly small. His testicles were barely visible in his shrivelled scrotum. However even when the tiny pouch was loose, he still lacked the signs of testicle growth that heralded the onset of puberty and the spurt of growth that would change him into a man. Yet that part did not interest Mason beyond its contribution to the boy's overall beauty and the visible indication of his gender. He would leave defilement of the boy's genitalia to the men who followed him. His interest was elsewhere.

"Turn around," Mason commanded.

The boy's buttocks were pale. Lightly he touched the firm cheeks, marvelling silently at the soft resilience. His fingers traced the dividing line, not penetrating the crevice, yet implying where his entry would naturally occur when the time arrived. He followed the warmth to Christian's tailbone, then upward across the mounded spine to the start of his neck. Mason's hands glided down and around, flowing with the boy's gentle breathing and soothing him further. He felt the indentations of his ribs, the ripple of his belly muscles, the soft warmth of unbelievably smooth skin until he neared the groin. Still he did not touch him, although the child's flesh was already responding to the gentle caresses. His hands drew back to hold the boy's bony hips. He easily lifted the boy up and tilted him forward to lay him over the altar.

For a moment Christian struggled when he felt the cold hard granite against his chest and belly. However the powerful hands held him down and his feeble effort to resist faded rapidly. He felt the chill of the granite against his cheek and chest, the edge cutting into his lower abdomen, painful against his pelvis, pleasantly cool against his heating groin. His feet did not touch the floor. He felt the man's hands caress his buttocks, a loving touch like a drifting feather on his tingling skin before prising his firm cheeks wide apart.

"Mason?" Christian begged. His confidence vanished with the immediacy of their impending union. "Please,... please don't hurt me."

"Quiet, boy! You wanted this, remember? A promise for a promise, and I promised to become one with you. Long after I'm gone you'll remember who fucked you the first time. You'll live forever with this memory."

Christian gasped when a thick finger found the target again, this time skewering into him as it rotated mercilessly. The man grunted when the dry flesh gripped, tightening as Christian's body endeavored to protect his virginal innocence. There was pain, inexplicably brief until the boy realized Mason's finger was gone. He breathed heavily, waiting for it resume again as he knew it would. It stabbed back, striking deep into the sensitive flesh. His body quaked, still fighting back against the now saliva-slicked insertion.

"Relax, 'n it won't hurt half so much," Mason growled. "You're still too tight."

"I'm trying. It's so big. It really hurts."

"This ain't nothin' yet. It's just my finger."

Mason stepped back and gazed down at the naked boy lying on the altar. Just the sight was almost enough to make him climax. The boy looked small and frail, almost feminine. He felt his sex throbbing. He had to hurry. Again, he drooled vile green spittle upon his tobacco-stained finger, quickly bringing it back to what was left of the boy's pucker. He pushed carefully, firmly, without mercy.

Christian whimpered and his anus tightened reflexively. He heard Mason's words, tried to obey, tried to relax behind him, tried to accept it into him, pushed down hard. He wanted it inside him. He felt the force increase, driving relentlessly into him. He gasped when penetration occurred.

"You like that, don't you?.

Christian nodded. Suddenly the pain had vanished. He felt the finger lodged tightly within his anus. It felt good. It was a strange sensation, a relentless pressure against delicate tissue, a feeling of being joined to the man who stood behind him. He heard Mason's voice, muted words of encouragement, cajoling him to take even more. He felt the finger moving up inside him, pushing deeper into the taut tube of his rectum until it felt like it could go no further. The joy welled up in him, until his body tingled, until the torturing spasms stopped. His sphincter quivered, no longer able or wanting to interrupt the building pleasure. Every part of his trembling body submitted to the man's firmly applied pressure.

"It's feels so good," Christian muttered incoherently.

Mason smirked and dragged his finger away, feeling the slender body grasping vainly to keep it prisoner. There was no doubt that the boy wanted it. All boys wanted it, sooner or later. Again his copious spittle flowed but this time his thick hard cock returned to take the place of his stabbing forefinger. He rubbed the purple crown across the boy's crevice, smearing silver slimy fluid like glistening snail mucus over pale skin.

"I know you want my cock in your ass, boy. You'll soon get your chance to prove it," Mason crooned as he leaned forward. His fingers played in the added slipperiness. "Push back and take my two fingers all the way inside you. Then you'll be loose enough to fuck," he commanded. "Push back as hard as you can, boy."

For the last time when he still retained some control of his faculties, Christian obeyed. He pushed down as hard as he could against the two fingers placed against his anus. At the same time, he felt Mason repositioning him, lifting him bodily across the granite altar. He felt the huge cock-head bulging forcefully against his lips. His reaction was visceral and impulsively he opened his mouth wide. He tried to swallow, but the behemoth was already between his teeth. Between his buttocks, the fingers probed forcefully, and he strained down with all of his strength. His puckered hole was stretched wide, yet the portal was still too narrow for the three fingers poised at the threshold. The pain intensified and he screamed. His agony was muffled in the back of his mouth. For one terrible moment, Christian wondered whether the man would tear him apart when it came time for the penis to go into his nether opening. His anal muscle already felt like it would burst.

His cries echoed in the blessed precinct of Christianity. He struggled valiantly, but Mason was resolute. His forward movement was determined and he gripped the boy's hips and head and pushed. He pushed hard, hard enough to tear the flesh and cause blood to flow. Positioned on his belly, his thighs restrained by the edge of the granite altar, Christian was unable to escape, even if he wanted to. He felt the hot thickness of man's cock ramming deeper into his mouth, the fingers grinding slowly into his bleeding anus each time Mason tried to force the tiny opening. Again Mason rammed into the boy, burrowing his rampart sex into the gaping mouth. His glans was flared like an arrow-head, as hard as flint, pushing the boy's tongue to the side. Christian's eyes opened wide. Unable to breath, he panicked. The fingers tortured his anus, intent on preparing him for the loss of his virginity.

"Push back, boy. Take my fingers into you. You must be looser it you want to become one with me. You wanted to live forever, this is the only way you can,..." Mason urged.

Christian clenched his teeth and tried to accomplish the impossible task. He felt the man strike again, even more forcefully than all the other attempts combined. His body yielded, not ruptured but breached at last by the three fingers. His crack was like a bloody gash between his buttocks. He felt the man's cock expand into his throat, a fullness that kept on growing. One inch followed another, until half a foot was inside him. He wondered if he was going to die.

"Good boy," Mason growled as his hands released and allowed the boy to move freely. "I told you you'd like it."

Christian shuddered. His bowels spasmed and gripped the fingers that were now inside him. The pain defied description. It was beyond human comprehension. It felt like a red hot poker had burned a searing hole until his anus was finally conquered. However, despite the terrible pain, he could not deny that he liked it. It was impossible not to like it. He needed to breath and he struggled, pushing at Mason's hips with his hands. Slowly Mason withdrew, the swollen head of his penis leaving a silvery strand that connected it to the boy's pale lips.

"You're doing fine, boy. Won't take but a few minutes more 'n then I'll show what a boy-pussy can do with a man's cock. Hell, your ass is tight."

"I,... I,... I'll be okay,..." Christian gasped. "Don't worry about me."

The boy's pain was not Mason's concern. The pain would not kill him. He paused, flexing his thick fingers. The boy's sphincter held his fingers with a strangling grip. Beyond the binding muscle, he felt the pulsing of life itself, recognized the rhythm of a small frantic heart. A downward glance confirmed the extent of penetration. Mason smiled. His hand cleaved the small buttocks, his fingers bulging so far into the tender flesh that it prevented him achieving greater depth. He was barely to the mid-point, and time was running out. The boy had to be much looser for there to be any chance of him taking his penis. Still, there was time left and until the boy was ready, there were other ways of taking his pleasure.

"Open your mouth wider this time," Mason grunted. "Your teeth can hurt."

He moved back into position, gripping Christian's head with both hands and holding him steady. One hand pulled the boy's jaw down, the other hand pushed against his forehead, forcing the small mouth to open fully. Even in the dim light, he could see the start of the boy's throat. He pulled against Christian's head until his neck was stretched and he looked down into the narrow passage where his penis would go. He guided the tip between the soft red lips, smiling as he observed the boy's body quiver with anticipation. The desire to suck was inborn, an innate part of him that responded to the succulent warmth entering his mouth.

"Yes, cocksucker," Mason growled. "Suck my cock. Suck it all the way inside you."

Christian needed no encouragement. Indeed, there was nothing short of biting that he could have done to stop the ingress of Mason's penis. He swallowed, tasting salt drooling across his tongue. His eyes closed, concentrating on the single goal of giving pleasure. Mason's penis went deeper and deeper, now moving relentlessly back and forth.

After what seemed an eternity to one, and only moments to the other, Mason jerked away, tearing his rampart penis back out. His organ had swollen to disproportionate size. Fully engorged it was longer than his forearm and nearly as thick. The veins were crimson and bulging, the purple crown broad and inflated to bursting pressure. It jerked, dribbling copiously. He breathed heavily, recognizing the urgency to finish quickly.

"Roll onto your back," Mason ordered. "Now!"

The boy was barely conscious, yet he tried to comply. It was not fast enough, and he felt Mason's hands take hold mercilessly. Pushing, shoving, dragging him into a new position. His head hit the granite, his legs bent, knees forced beyond his ears, buttocks lifted higher and higher until cool air reached under his spine. He risked opening his eyes and immediately regretted doing so.

The man loomed threateningly over him. The thing he wanted was like a gigantic stake pointed directly at his face. It grew in size even as he looked at it, until its end was as big as a clenched fist. His eyes opened wide and his teeth clenched. Despite his fear, he wanted it inside him again. Again his mouth opened, his throat raw from the brutal assault it had already sustained.

Mason's penis dominated his own rigid appendage like a master did his slave. He had been conceived for a single purpose.

He felt Mason's hand touch his bottom again. His hands instinctively gripped his thin ankles. He felt fingers touching his exposed anus. He closed his eyes, offering himself.

Mason paused there, his body quivering with the thrill of what he was about to do. Not for the first time he appreciated the boy's matchless beauty. Among all the boys and girls that he had taken over a lifetime that stretched back to the Middle Ages, this boy had no equal. That the boy was sexually stimulated despite the intense pain made him even more enjoyable. No other pleasure could compare to this, except taking his virginity and that would come before the first light of dawn. He pressed forward, concentrating on the task at hand. His rigid penis felt so huge up against the tiny mouth that the likelihood of it going back inside the boy was very remote. He grunted and rammed forward, his hands clutching at any part of the naked body that offered a hold. Then again he plunged forward, driving the screaming child across the altar.

He sensed the boy's choking shrieks ending when the head finally wedged into his mouth. At the same instant, his fingers pierced the small anus again. From both ends he progressed inward. Another thrust, more powerful than the others combined, then another, and another. The boy choked, no longer able to breath even through his nose. His bodily functions took over when reason departed, his sphincter squeezing with all its might on the fingers that were jammed into his anus. He spasmed, his sphincter slackening completely after a volley of contractions had ripped against the man's powerful thrusts. He longed for air, his saliva dribbling from the corner of his mouth. His little penis grew so hard that the glans turned blue and the tiny arteries and veins swelled to ripple the short pulsing shaft.

Then, realizing that all resistance had finally vanished, Mason began in earnest. The cock slammed harder, faster, deeper, pounding like a jack hammer that sank further and further into the boy's mouth. His fingers massaged, stretching the other tender orifice until it was wide open. He lifted the writhing body up into the air, his free hand grasping arms, legs, or hair. He turned the boy, inverting him like a puppet until Christian was upside down and suspended by the fingers wedged into his anus. So positioned, the man's penis sank even further into his oesophagus. The boy's penis pulsed, frenzied with the pressing need to ejaculate seed that had yet to exist. Mason leaned forward, his lips curling back to reveal teeth that were razor sharp. For a few seconds his roughened tongue tip tantalized the boy's tiny sex, licking like sandpaper across the minute unprotected glans. Then after sucking strongly enough to pull the boy's penis into the hot cavity of his mouth, Mason gave vent to his rage.

Most of the light came from around Mason, his own soul breaking free and like a grim specter, ready to consume the child's meek apparition. It was a frightening sight. Mason was naked like the boy beneath him, pale and gaunt, and overpowering. His thighs strained with desperation, his heavy mucus-streaked testicles slapping loudly when they bounced against Christian's forehead. The boy's narrow buttocks were bloodied, the once-tiny opening yielding ingloriously, defeated by the continued onslaught of Mason's writhing fingers. Anal muscle and tissue stretched even further and tore in a dozen places. His anus gave way, now distended to man-sized proportions and finally ready to accept Mason's penis.

Still the huge penis pumped viciously, sliding freely in the lubricant of saliva and mucus that drained from the boy's stomach. The sweet fecal smell of the child's seeping rectal juices was overcome and the stench of the underworld seeped into the sacred precinct. The boy's luminance dimmed, the fulfillment of his promise draining its intensity until it flickered uncertain of its owner.

The other light shimmered, danced, glowed with life. The lights came closer but did not merge. They appeared to be dancing a courtship ritual that had existed from the beginning of recorded time. The one still pure was pursued relentlessly by the other, fearfully evil and intent on domination.

Nearly a minute had passed since Christian's last breath. His blood ran freely, trickling from his anus. One rivulet dripped down his back and onto the altar, the other dribbled across his belly and down his narrow chest, pooling vividly on his neck. His thighs were splattered with blood. He grew fainter, his brain no longer ale to focus on anything except the chance to breath, his silent pleading unheard by the beast who reared above him. And still his penis remained hard, pointing down towards his navel. There was no end to it. No matter how much he wanted it over, he also wanted it to never end. With each powerful uplifting thrust Mason's sex sank deeper in his throat. His massive penis stretched the boy's lips into thin line, until it could go no further, until Christian could take no more, until the swelling in his neck was beyond his Adam's Apple. It showed the depth of Mason's sex. And still it went in further, finding room within the narrow throat as it extended out of the man's body like a serpent from a cave. Further and further, until a full cubit (the length of a man's forearm with fingers extended) compressed his insides, until the boy was fearfully close to extinction. His eyes closed in futile denial that he could continue to live with the monster taking so much space inside him.

And Mason sucked hard, dragging the silky smooth flesh of the boy's rigid penis along the shaft until more than an inch extended beyond his glans. He held it there with his teeth, seemingly oblivious but relishing the faint taste of virgin blood where they penetrated the foreskin. The skin stretched, becoming translucent, revealing the tracery of veins beneath. The tube of skin grew longer, still retaining its pucker, completely shielding the bulging glans from sight.

Before Christian, wings of skin suddenly appeared on the half-man-half-beast's body. They sprouted from his shoulder blades like a bat. Huge, concave folds of black-veined translucency reached into the moonlight that eerily glowed from the clerestory windows. His feet became talons, six hooked claws with wrinkled, glistening verdigris scales all the way to his knees. His hands were gnarled, with three fingers and thumb and a claw halfway up his arm. His eyes became red, liquid pools of fire. He thrust violently, lunging upward with all his strength deeply into the nearly unconscious body. He sucked urgently, as if sucking the life and strength out through the boy's penis. He could feel the seed boiling within him and his tumescent organ began to swell to gigantic dimension, lengthening, thickening, increasingly rough, ever harder. He lunged, pumping furiously, pausing on the outstroke while driving his fingers all the way into the boy's anus with inhuman strength.

"Uh-uh-no-no-uh-uh-more-uh-uh-uh-m-o-r-e," Christian ranted.

But the breath was pounded from Christian's lungs, forced from deep within him each time he was slammed upward. His head bounced against the granite. Still, his body sucked the demon as if his life depended on it. There seemed to be no end to it. Behind him, the beast grunted, now fucking frantically. His turgid sex was sucked of its slime by the gaping orifice that had once been Christian's mouth, yet it still left pearly trails to streak the boy's face. Each time it emerged it possessed a wet, glistening sheen. His bat-wings extended fully when he felt the final rush. His back arched. His teeth closed. The taste of virgin blood became stronger when he bit into the tight foreskin. The sweet blood of youth flowed into his mouth. His penis was now completely impaled within Christian's throat. He lifted the boy higher and plunged him down with the single-minded goal for forcing his penis lifted into Christian's belly. He paused there, throbbing, staring down at the breathless boy's blood-streaked buttocks, barely believing that he still lived. But amid the tears there was something that left him cold. It was a hint of something pure, a sublime glow of inner happiness that transcended the pain. Mason's scaly testicles drew taut, bursting with the need to ejaculate. He pulled his penis free in a single violent movement, prolonging the moment of release. His talons scrapped the floor, leaving scratches in the marbled stones.

"Give your soul to me, boy," Mason groaned. "And you will be a boy forever. SAY IT AGAIN!"

"Uh,...I,...uh,...can't!"

Christian rasped almost inaudibly.

"SAY IT!" Mason screamed as he felt the first seeds rising. "You have to say it or you die right now!"

His felt the seed rushing forth, sending the first spurt splashing onto the altar before it cleaved the boy's lips again. It breached again, a single plunge into the gaping hole that was Christian's mouth. It pierced Christian's innards for the last time. The boy was forced down, impaled on the stabbing monstrosity. His face contorted when he felt the seed explode up, out, and into his throat. It consumed him, boiling upward, melting his stomach with liquid fire as it became part of him. Spurt after spurt gushed forth from the beast, now embedded full depth within him. He shuddered, feeling his body yielding its own mystery. A surge from within, boundless joy that reached into heart and squeezed until his penis jerked in frenzied expectation of its own release.

"SAY IT! SAY IT NOW!" Mason shrieked as he jerked his penis free for the last time.

"Uh,...I,...uh,...I,...uh,...I,...uh,...give,...uh,...ohh hhh,...uh,...ohhhh,...uh,...you,...uh,...my,...uh,...ohhhh,...uh, ...my,...uh,..."no,...uh,...nohhhhh,...uh,...my,...uh,...,ohhhhhh ,..."uh,...NOOOOOOOOO!."

A terrible scream rent the night. The pale body heaved, giving up. One last time the boy exhaled. Then as the final breath passed through his lips, Christian's head flopped back, stretching the pale skin of his slender neck.

Mason's anger at being cheated knew no bounds. For an instant, he watched the tiny pulse fluctuate beneath delicate skin. He leaned forward, his brilliant white teeth sinking into the artery of Christian's penis. Christian's hovering light flickered once, a momentary resistance of fading innocence, and then it was exhausted, overcome by death instead of the foul spirit that filled his belly and suckled at his throbbing cock until it wilted. However, death came a moment too late.

Robert also came too late. He did not see the blond- headed boy walking briskly away from the church. Prince Alexis of Moldova was attired in a dark woolen cloak with ermine trim that was held closely to his chest to shield his nakedness. He was slightly older than Christian, perhaps only a matter of few months, but he was not as tall. He was a boy with very fair skin, and hair like spun gold. His lips were red, stained vermilion with a virgin's blood. He hummed the notes of a song that had not been heard for almost nine hundred years. He stopped, glancing at the blood still wet on the fingers of his right hand. He licked his lips lasciviously. He smiled to himself, then suddenly looked around suspiciously. There was no one to see him. His fingers unfastened a metal brooch at his chest and the cloak parted. His body was pale, nearly white, his sex pitifully small and barely distinguishable between his legs. He was a young boy again. He began to run, his feet barely touching the ground. Within moments he was gone from view.

Robert would never forget how he found his son that night. That was why the bile still rose in his throat whenever he saw him. It was worse in the night. Only at night was Christian alive, and then he remembered that night of horror. And Robert always remembered. Perhaps that was his punishment for his sin, for all eternity to dwell upon the horrors of that night. Only during the day when he stood before the satin-lined casket, could he forget and begin to accept the joy that came from loving him.

Long ago, indeed if Robert ever really knew, he had forgotten why he went to the church. It was after midnight, a matter of minutes, perhaps as much as an hour or two, but it was too late. There was no reason why he awoke, and it seemed as if he was being led there by an unseen presence. He sensed an immutable force whose motive he could neither determine nor reject. No matter how much he willed the force to leave him sleeping, it was his destiny. Robert rose and used a gown to cover his nakedness before he went outside to the fate that waited.

The grass was wet with dew, prickly and cold under his bare feet. The door to the chapel was wide open, a shadowy light revealing the depths of the chapel. The smell was repugnant, a sickening smell akin to rotting eggs. That some horror had occurred on the sacred stone was apparent at first glance, although surely Robert reasoned that it was unlikely to be more than the antics of a few high-school boys than the work of unspeakable Evil. He approached the altar cautiously, very aware of the noise of his bare feet on the flagstones. Yet, for some reason he was not appalled by the blood that still dribbled down the granite face of the altar. Neither did the smell, fecal and corpus, distress him beyond a sense of foreboding. Robert breathed heavily, not understanding why, yet accepting that what he observed was not the idle games of teenagers or the rites of witchcraft. Amateurs playing at black magic occasionally violated the sanctity of a church. This was not that.

Robert stopped before the altar and gazed upon the defiled granite. The droplet had the consistency and color of crude oil, yet from the smell it clearly was not that. It was thick, black, pungent, viscous. A single globule had dropped unrealized on the altar, dissolving the fabric to reveal the granite beneath. He touched it with his finger tip and recoiled. It was still hot, and the drop appeared to coagulate then separate. Like a living thing it seemed to grab, attaching itself to his finger tip. Intuitively he understood that it possessed the power of life, and of death. The odor was unmistakable, yet he had never smelled a man's orgasm, not even his own. It was earthy, an musky aphrodisiac that prompted an immediate erection. Without any deliberation, he shuddered, leaping to the inevitable conclusion of why his son's bed was empty. He did not question what it was or why semen stained the holy place. The answer was simple. It was semen that should have been inside Christian's body. All reason argued 'impossible', but the truth coated his finger tip.

Robert would never know why he licked the tip of his finger. It seemed like the natural thing to do at the time. It was bittersweet and for several long seconds he inclined his head and considered the unusual taste, familiar yet foreign to him. And then it stung, burning like wasp's sting on his tongue, until his entire mouth felt on fire. He reeled, stumbling heavily against the altar. He brought saliva up from his throat to dilute it, then tried to spit. Instead, he gagged and swallowed. As it went down his throat he tried to retch. He panicked, coughing frantically to stop the seed from entering his stomach and finding domain within his body.

Robert was lying on the floor when he regained consciousness. He had no recollection of fainting, or of falling. His head was still woozy when he sat up. He shook it valiantly, trying to clear away the fogginess that pervaded his thoughts. Where was he? The Church! What was he doing there? And, where was Christian? Christian! CHRISTIAN!! CHRISTIAN!!! He wanted Christian in a way he had never wanted him before.

Robert staggered away groggily, shuffling bare feet on the cold stone floor until he reached the threshold. Beyond, the first grey light of cold dawn illuminated the dark silhouette of the rectory. He hurried back, oblivious to the dew-wet grass, and climbed the stairs two at a time. Robert found his son in his bed, sleeping with apparent calm. His face was angelic, his translucent eyelids closed, his chest rising and falling with a gentle rhythm, his lips slightly apart with a hint of a blissful, satisfied smile. The teeth beyond were like polished pearls, each one small and perfect. There was a small red blotch on his neck, a love bite that decried his innocence. He leaned over him, silently admiring his unparalleled beauty. The slender boy was radiant and divinely perfect in every way. The white cotton sheet was pulled to his hips, exposing a flawless young torso that had no equal on the Earthly plane. The pale smoothness of his brow was touched by an unruly lock of silver-blond hair.

His pert nose was upturned, suggesting both youthful pride and curiosity, the furrow beneath leading to delicious red lips that pursed expectantly. His father leaned forward and kissed him lightly, and in passing, tasted the freshness of his barely exhaled breath. Christian's eyes opened, pale blue and beaming with lustrous consciousness of his father's presence. He smiled slightly, enough to cause slight dimples to appear in both soft cheeks.

"Are you okay?" Robert whispered.

Christian nodded once and immediately lifted both of his slender arms up. Robert felt small hands on his shoulders, pulling him down. Years of moral conditioning argued against the powerful lust he felt. Indeed, there was no logical reason why his ingrained sense of parental duty was so overwhelmed by rampart desire. It was a desire that had never existed prior to that moment, yet it seemed eternal. For a man who had never experienced anything other than love for women and had no felt nothing more than a father's love for his son, it was overpowering.

Christian's fingers were velvety soft and warm, moving with deliberate pressure over the depressions of the man's collarbone. Then fingernails scratching lightly, followed the curve of his neck. His wanton smile and wide-open pellucid eyes were captivating, imprisoning the man in the tortured confines of unrequited passion. Robert wanted him like he had wanted no other, not even the child's mother. His son's thin fingers twisted in his hair. The boy smiled again, flashing brilliant teeth, his two front ones slightly larger and now very sharp. His lips pursed, puckered to make a kiss. His innocent eyes were inviting and he welcomed his father into his arms by offering an embrace of his own. The man succumbed as men had always succumbed when confronted by a beautiful boy. When they parted Robert breathed deeply, fighting back against a powerful urge that rose up from the hidden recesses of his mind. Lust won. With a single gesture, he lifted the sheet away and gazed upon his offspring's perfect beauty.

He was dumb struck. Pale buttocks, smooth alabaster thighs, long slender legs, sinuous muscles, prominent mounds of pelvis and pubis, divinely sculpted groin the central treasure of which was still sleeping. He felt the desire conquer his remaining willpower. He was imprisoned merely by the sight of the delicate flesh. He felt his hand trembling uncontrollably and watched it move instinctively towards the boy's limp penis.

A single caress was enough to end its slumber. Christian smiled shyly, attentive to the pleasure from the first loving touch. He sighed quietly, waiting silently while gradual swelling brought his penis from repose to full erection. It stood proudly, mysteriously showing only one sign of prior abuse.

The tip was flushed, delightfully crimson-purple-hued. The glans was no longer veiled by translucent foreskin. The anomaly, that his son had been uncircumcised only a day before, did not seem at all strange to Robert. It seemed entirely appropriate that the end of the boy's penis was unhooded. There was no sign of a scar. There was brown smudge, a ring that evidenced a distant circumcision. The small penis danced before him, rising up from Christian's belly. It begged a kiss from its admirer, and he leaned forward to obey the unspoken command. From its reddened appearance he knew that it was hot to touch. Indeed, the moistened tip burned against his lips until he had no choice but to soothe it with his tongue. He licked across the burnished glans, trembling with excitement and the need to quell his burgeoning passion. His own penis raged with a spontaneous flow of blood and immediately grew stiff. It was so hard that it ached and he endured an urge that sought only to give pleasure to the boy below him.

Christian quivered expectantly, and Robert backed away with guilty reluctance. His eyes traced his son's nude form from thigh to face, enraptured with the beauty of his slender torso and unable to look elsewhere. Then Robert felt the small hands lock, fingers entwined behind his neck, the full strength of a boy's arms and shoulders pulling them together. Did the man lower or did the boy rise up to greet him? Robert felt the fiery heat of the smooth bare chest through his robe when Christian came forcefully against him.

Age and experience argued for restraint, Church dictum bringing a twisted notion of sin to confront the boy's depraved offering. His unspoken intention was in his eyes. They were full and wide, and no longer sheltering any pretence of innocence. They were the beguiling eyes of a whore whose salacious intent was clear. Now Robert was the innocent, a servant under his son's silent spell.

He obeyed his heart, lifting Christian's face to his. Deeply he stared, into other eyes. There in the liquid pools, beyond darkened pupils there was a place that had always been secret. There they merged, two of the same, man and boy needing each other. Then in a momentous rush, silence interrupted only by pounding hearts and the rustle of flesh against flesh, they came together. Lips brushed, joined, sealed. Tongues touched, rippling, darting, uniting. Robe discarded, both completely nude, writhing. Robert's sex, hot, hard, throbbing against a slender hot thigh, his son's boyish fist wrapped tightly. His glowing penis, like a small stake was pointed into his father's belly, his small body jerking with spasmodic bursts of juvenile energy. Groaning, grunting, gasping. This boy was no virgin, Robert thought momentarily. He remembered only a day earlier, of Christian's childish games when they played on the living room floor.

Now, his son's tender age was contradicted as much by his forceful passion as by his easy control of all that happened. He moved naturally. He wriggled up, positioning his heated groin against his father's so that they worked in unison. Small and large came together and were equal partners in unbelievable ecstasy. The writhing boy was so warm and smooth that his tender skin melted under Robert's roving hands. Man and boy touched places that they had never touched. Christian's breath was hot against his father's cheek and neck, his head turning wildly, away then back, until face to face, groin to groin they became one being as their rigid organs slid side by side.

By the time their breathing became raspy, both scrotums were wrinkled and tight. One was fat and rounded and covered with dark wire-like hair, while the other was like a shrivelled prune, certainly no larger. Yet that physical union was not enough and the need to join together fully grew ever stronger. The sensations so strong that the desire to couple overpowered all moral conditioning, until Robert could stand it no longer and then the inevitable was upon him.

Robert was breathing heavily by the time he lifted away. Poised above his son, he looked down and the naked boy smiled up at him with glee. His mouth opened and he mouthed words of encouragement, of endearment, of desire.

The boy's thoughts echoed in Robert's mind. 'I love you.'

"I'm yours." Robert responded. "Forever and ever. I'll love you for all eternity."

'Then prove it! I need you to love me before I go. I want you to love me! Take me! Make my body become part of yours.'

Robert shoved his son's knees all the way up to his shoulders, lifting his buttocks high off the white sheets that covered the bed. His small cheeks were parted to reveal a dark slit of a crack, a reddened hole to prove that another had been that night. It was without pucker, still swollen and much larger than was normal. His father should have showed restraint, but evil invoked a deeper desire than any human could withstand. The urge to mount his son was overwhelming. Robert's throbbing penis pointed the way and he leaned into his son's offering, stabbing for the opening. He gasped with surprise when he felt the purple crown of his penis begin to pass through the weakened orifice. There seemed to be no resistance, just the hot softness of the cheeks that surrounded him, enclosed him. He had to go just beyond the narrow opening, stretching even as he pressed his advantage. Only a few inches ahead was an even hotter, softer, wetter place, a place where he needed to be. His hands grasped Christian's hips, and the boy's arms strained, pulling his father into him even as the man's swollen penis rammed against him with increasingly desperation.

Intent on penetration, Robert was oblivious to impending orgasm. His son's eyes opened wide when the bloated glans bulged into his anus. Both man and boy strained together. Only a second remained before they were joined. Robert cried out in frustrated lust. Without warning, a gush of thick semen spurted over the boy's small anus, followed by six bursts of hot white liquid. Waves of pleasure overwhelmed them. Yet, in the ensuing interruption of intercourse, Christian was unviolated, his anus contracting and tightening, pushing out the spent fluid until it seeped like lava between his quaking buttocks, until it puddled on the sheets. Silently Christian nibbled on his father's neck, nipping with razor-sharp teeth midway between shoulder and jaw as the first rays of sun peered over the horizon. Then and only then did the still-virgin vampyre-boy close his eyes and bravely enter into another realm, no longer alive, but not dead.

**** THIRTY-TWO YEARS LATER ***.

There was no hiding the fact that Robert was envious of the other men who came to Christian during the night. He could not explain his jealousy. Even after thirty-two years, it still didn't make sense. For one thing, he had never been able to decide whether was it right or wrong? On the surface there was no denying that it was evil. However, he loved Christian with all his heart.

That was the problem he had grappled with alone over all the years. How was it possible that what was so evil could also be loved? Even now, after grief had long departed, the moral question still tormented him. There was supposed to be a difference between good and evil, but if there was he could no longer determine what it was. Right and wrong no longer had meaning for him. He mouthed the words in his sermons, sounding sanctimonious but knowing he committed sins every night that could not be forgiven. Some time during the last thirty-two years he had come to accept that morality depended entirely on one's perspective. What was morality when the son he loved more than life itself had become a vampyre? He tried momentarily to look away and focus his thoughts on something less insidious than Christian's playful seduction of a complete stranger, although in truth it was impossible to tell who was seducing who.

Robert was powerless to stop his gaze. The fact was that he always watched every chance he got. The man followed Christian's sideways glance towards the car that had been carefully parked in the wooded glade. In the darkness it was impossible to tell what was there. He spoke again, stepping forward to bring his head closer to invoke a secretive tone again. He suggested going deeper into the woods and further away from the trysting places frequented by homosexuals. The shared secrecy brought the man and boy closer together and formed a mutual pact that imbued the impending sex with something akin to mystery. For Christian, it had become a ritual bonding. Robert shuddered when the boy slowly shook his head. It was Christian's way of letting him know that he was powerless to stop what was going to happen. Sex was certainly no mystery to blond-headed boy who now smiled earnestly at his new admirer.

The man nodded with mute acknowledgment of a boy's implied need for an understanding friend, and accepted that no one would see them. Then his hand dropped possessively on Christian's shoulder. Robert shuddered when the man's fingers toyed with the strap of Christian's muscle shirt. Even in the darkness, the shirt showed too much skin, too smooth, too enticing. Robert regretted buying it, just as he regretted buying the neon-blue Lycra shorts that emphasized his son's boyhood.

Although he looked and played the part of a whore, Christian's seductive innocence was strong enough to arouse overpowering lust in even the most chaste of minds. Robert's mind reeled, chasing thoughts into hidden recesses of unspeakable depravity. Just watching Christian at work aroused his own desire. Old pious habits had long departed. Unspeakable lust had challenged his reason and triumphed over religious inhibition. For a while he fought back with liturgy and sanctimonious apology and he had lost. Every time he looked into the small cherry wood casket hidden in the mausoleum behind the church, he surrendered his faith. However, he still tried. He tried not to touch him. He tried as hard as he could, but he always lost in the end. He tried to hate what he did, yet his feelings of self-loathing made no difference. He would always love Christian.

At such times he whispered words that no longer had meaning for him. Try as he could, the words always came out the same way for he had discovered that a young boy's flesh was the greatest temptation of all. The Devil was waiting in every boy despite his canting parents and self-righteous ministers who warned him of moral turpitude. However, no one warned of the consequences of making a contract with the Devil.

Robert sighed longingly, envious of men he had never met and desiring physical release more than ever before. For thirty- two years he had resisted carnal sin, and now as he stoically contemplated that his own life was drawing to a close, he hoped he could continue to be as strong. Although he had yet to act on it, he still longed to feel his penis penetrate his offspring. Although the night was young, Robert silently prayed for daybreak. In daylight, he could rest his troubled mind.

How long would it take Christian this time? A minute or two? Five minutes? Longer? How far would he go? Would he finally go all the way this time, or follow habit and offer a feel before performing the customary blow job? He pictured what was happening in the concealing darkness. Clinging Lycra peeled away, down narrow hips, away from the firm curve of a boy's slim buttocks, along lean thighs. His circumcised boy-sex, barely three inches long, was already erect, stiffly proud and jutting out towards the stranger. His eyes flashing, eager and anxious, his rampart member throbbing when he finally stepped into the welcoming embrace. So smooth and unbelievably hard. His pouch wrinkled like a walnut with barely discernible testicles. The man's hands trembling like leaves in a breeze, holding the precious flesh of a quivering boy, touching skin so soft that it melted under his caress. Christian kneeling, his lips the color of ruby, parting to reveal pearl-white teeth that were razor sharp. Robert could feel the man's groan when his member discovered the succulent sweetness of the boy's mouth.

Each and every time Christian tempted another man, Robert tasted rising vomit. The taste was always sour, the bile coming up from the depths of his stomach until he cringed and swallowed it back. He loathed waiting for his son, all the while knowing what he was doing. Sometimes, when Christian's newly made acquaintance was unattractive or unpleasant, he hurried back to his father and the safety of the car. At other times he lingered, drawing out the pain to an unbearable degree. His torture was deliberate and the result of a gnawing hunger that was briefly satisfied only to return again when it seemed safe for his father to release him from the secure confines of the house. But when the urge returned, it's strength was never less. For the boy's protection, his father became an accomplice. Then they travelled miles by car, sometimes as many as a hundred, to distant parks with reputations of being frequented by homosexuals.

Robert's mind filled in what he could not see, adding fanciful elaboration and personal experience of his son's beautiful body to complete the picture that was nearly out of sight. Sometimes if there was no fear of being disturbed, the boy undressed completely for the man to see his unsurpassed beauty, revelling unashamedly in his nudity. At other times he merely exposed his private parts, treating his admirer to a glimpse of hard, bare flesh before he knelt. Always he sucked his victims, with a vigor and expertise that seldom went unnoticed. It was enough to suffice most men. Nothing had changed over the years, only the names of men who came to him, and the unsatisfied boy who returned to Robert until he was too old to raise an erection sufficient to demonstrate his interest.

Did it really matter that Robert loved his son in ways that a father should not? Despite that love, after the first time filial devotion had ensured respect that never transgressed beyond gentle touches. He had shared Christian with so many others since that first fateful night that he had lost count.

Christian chose his partners as he always did, with wanton disregard to his own safety. In the park, any man was his to torment, and he selected them without regard to race, age, or religion. He left them unsatisfied as a matter of course, just as he was similarly unsatisfied by the hurried oral copulation. He had never bitten, though the urge had been all but overpowering with a few of his companions. Sometimes, when the need was fierce, he bit down hard enough to leave teeth marks. Always, his immature fangs scraped the surface of a man's penis, for one provoking near insanity, for the other nearly drawing the essence of life itself. For Christian needed blood to achieve that metamorphosis that would make him whole. He was driven by that unspeakable carnivorous need, contented for the night yet never satiated. Similarly, needing more than suckling, this man, like the other men before him, would be motivated to an endless pursuit of boys like Christian. Robert smiled grimly, knowing as he did that after this night, an affectation for prepubescent boys would be indelibly inscribed in the man's will to live. Just as his memory of Christian on a single night so many years ago dominated his brain, this man would never forget. The men who had been tormented by Christian would always want boys, embarking on a search to find the fulfillment that had been denied to them by the boy who was a virgin vampyre. Although Christian was without fear or inhibition, the single vice that defined the species had remained untouched. Always bloodless, Christian returned to his casket and his father's protection. Between sunrise and sunset he breathed so faintly that a polished mirror showed no sign of it, but he was Robert's to love and he loved him dearly.

That night he came back to Robert, as he always did. He stepped into his father's welcoming arms, lifting back his head. His eyes were closed while they kissed. No longer driven by lust that could not be consummated, the kiss had become More chaste than passionate. Even Christian was repulsed by the sight of his father's shame and guilt. His slender body, unchanged despite the years, melted into the old man's. Mere fabric separated them. It was barely enough to hide the sight if not the feel of his flesh. Robert hesitated to strip him, throwing his clothes to the side until the boy was naked. Later, he would dress the boy in his funerary clothes and escort him back to the mausoleum. There, they would kiss again, a single time before Christian returned to the casket where he rested.

Now, there was barely enough light to see his son and for that reason Robert was very grateful. Whenever he gazed upon his son's bare lustrous flesh he always remembered that others had touched him, that one person had forever soiled his perfection, that the seed of evil would always be within him. Only in the light of day could Robert believe that Christian was truly his. Then and only then, in the private shelter of the mausoleum, did his desire give way to base instinct while the boy slept safe. He satisfied his demented lust with looking, dreaming, and self abuse. Still, Christian always tempted him at night, playing his eternal game. He teased his father with the warm stiffness under his Lycra shorts. He rubbed against the man with deliberate pressure, exciting further stiffness until his small bulge was thicker and harder, and defied the force of gravity. He teased his father with his slippery-sleeved smoothness, quivering muscles, vibrant beating heart. He could never conceal his passion from the man who protected him. With both hands Robert cupped his son's firm buttocks and the boy squirmed, pushing his hot stiffness against his thigh. Christian seldom spoke afterwards for to do so would shatter the mystery of it and announce to the world what he had done. With the silence of one, it became the secret they shared.

'Feel it?' Christian teased.

"Yes, I feel it."

'It's hard for you.'

"It's always hard," Robert admonished. "One day it'll snap off. Then where will you be without this little cock of yours?"

Christian giggled. Then suddenly he turned serious. 'He sucked it.

"He sucked it? He sucked yours? That's unusual. Are you getting sick or something?"

Again Christian giggled. 'He didn't want to do anything else. He said mine was the most beautiful one he had ever seen.'

For a moment there was silence as father and son regarded each other. Robert nearly said he was glad, but he bit off the words just before he uttered them. There was no point in saying anything. It was impossible to argue with Christian and win. After thirty-two years, he knew better.

For thirty-two years Robert had studied the subject of vampyres, and in some circles he was regarded as a lay expert. Long ago he had discounted the myth that the 15th century Hungarian, Vlad Dracula was a vampyre. There was certainly no question of his brutality, even burning, impaling and torturing people. However, he was not a vampyre. That was the misguided inspiration of an author resulting in an unfortunate re-direction from fact to fiction that served the interests of real vampyres by deflecting attention almost entirely to heterosexual liaisons and neck bites. The few real vampyres relished the obscurity that resulted.

Instead, Robert believed the first true record of a vampyre (upyr) was a Russian prince of the Middle Ages, Prince Alexis of Moldova. He had a copy, albeit tattered, of a document dated 1047 that was sent from Cardinal Melnyck to Pope Clement II in Rome. It referred to an 'Upir Lichy', a 'wicked vampyre' who was "a boy fair of skin and hair of gold" That this 'upyr' was a boy very like Christian was even more remarkable. Robert's research on the subject was both difficult and tedious.

Interestingly, Pope Clement was poisoned shortly after receiving the letter. Blame was laid upon the partisans of Benedict IX, but it was suspicion without proof. Father Erosius, the subject of the letter as much as Prince Alexis, was excommunicated shortly after the letter arrived in Rome, giving Robert cause to wonder whether the priest was also a vampyre or simply the boy's protector.

Further history of the matter was scant, consisting mostly of second-hand reports written many years later and apparently based on the original letter. It was the end of the Pagan Rus, the Last Heathen Empire, when witchcraft and magic was the norm and few records were kept. However, there were rumors of other letters from the prince's father to the priest that hinted at a very different story. Requests to the Russian Orthodox Church and the Vatican for more information fell on deaf ears, yet Robert persisted in his daytime passion to know more. A single source, a distant relative of the priest's family, long departed from the mother country, told him more than all the rest combined. His clammy hands had been shaking when he read the handwritten letter the first time. The writing was hard to read, but then the hand was palsied, and the writer nearly ninety years old herself. What he learned chilled him to the bone, yet the letter also raised the possibility of salvation.

It took four days to translate the Latin on the old manuscript included with the letter. He learned of Golcondo, enlightenment, when a vampyre no longer needed blood. There were thirteen types of 'upyr' ranging from the Tremere (wizards) to the Nosteratu (horribly deformed vampyres who lived in sewers). The Russian prince had been a Gangrel, a shape shifting vampyre who was able to morph from different human forms to animal. For Robert, there was some satisfaction that Christian would probably become a Toreador when he finally succumbed to taste his first blood. It accounted for his physical beauty, and his enduring fascination with art.

Later that day, with the door to the mausoleum securely locked, he stood before Christian's open casket and gazed upon the boy's face and slender hands. He had not aged a single day since that fateful night. The unblemished skin, dare he to touch it, seemed even softer than in life. The small hands that clasped a man's testicles while he gave succor, were immaculate. Like the rest of his body, Christian's newly formed nails were flawless. And the faint smile on his beautiful face, it too was virtuous. Robert ran his fingers through the soft locks of hair, brushed silvery silken strands back from his son's pure brow, touched his chilled cheeks, and cried.

Now, aware that the darkness of night was soon to be replaced by the dawn of a new day, he gazed at his own prince, a boy who was fair of skin with hair of gold. Compared to the vampyres of legend, Christian was still an innocent.

There were some vampyres, mostly girls and young women, who had accounted for as many as six hundred victims before they were impaled. However, unlike the exaggerations of legend, more often than not, vampyres almost always preferred younger victims. They chose from either sex, and not because young blood was essential for eternal life. Simply, the victims were always virgins, for virginity was untainted purity. Evil demanded the desecration of perfection.

For a boy-vampyre, his virginity remained until he took his blood from a man's engorged penis. Until then, the boy did not age, and afterwards it was impossible to know. All Robert knew was that in thirty-two years, Christian had not changed. That was the only reason why Robert lived. Although his son had often came very close to taking that one irrevocable step, he had never succumbed. Robert lived for the sole reason of protecting him, knowing full well, that when his son tasted blood, he would no longer be needed.

'I want to suck you,' Christian demanded silently.

"Now?" Robert teased. "Didn't you get enough semen earlier?"

'I already told you I didn't suck him.'

"Maybe you'll see him again. I thought he looked very handsome."

'He's,... he's different to all the others. I think,...'

"What?"

'I think I wanted to,... you know,... bite him. If he let me suck him, I think I might not have been able to control myself.'

Christian's fearful thoughts settled over Robert and squelched any desire he might have had. He sighed and slowly shook his head. In a way it was only natural. While there were still no fangs in his mouth, not even the retractable kind that movie-goers shrank from, for good reason Christian's teeth were very sharp. It was only a matter of time until the urge became irresistible.

"You have to control yourself, Christian. Otherwise,..."

Otherwise! Otherwise what? With a single bite that brought blood into his mouth, Christian would become a true vampyre. With his first taste of blood he would no longer be a virgin. One victim would follow another, an endless stream of ecstatic prey, of men who discovered that was contained inside Christian's young body was much stronger than their own. And when the beautiful boy sucked the life blood from their wilting penises the frenzied agony the young vampyre would experience would be a very different ecstasy.

'I'll never get enough,... except when I bite.'

Robert laughed and playfully tousled the boy's hair. That Christian had completed his thoughts with unnerving accuracy no longer bothered him.

"I'm too old to care any longer, my beautiful bloodsucking boy. Bite away if you must," he said aloud.

Christian shrugged sullenly. "Life sucks! I'm ready to go home," he said aloud.

Chapter 3.

Robert knelt and prayed for forgiveness for his sins. He prayed every morning before Christian's casket. He still could not bring himself to plead for divine mercy in the church, but in the mausoleum it was different. There he was so close to Christian that the words came easily, cribbed from often repeated sermons. The words had lost their meanings, yet he said them anyway. Without thinking, he crossed himself and then he instinctively shuddered at the foreign gesture of Catholic righteousness. He stood slowly, feeling the familiar ache of arthritic joints. He glanced down, studying his withered hands. The passing years had not been easy on him. He closed his eyes, pleading for his torment to end, yet not wanting to die. There was Christian's future to think about. He needed to be protected. Robert sighed, recognizing the futility of it. His own years were limited, yet Christian's life had barely begun. Indeed, the hiatus of thirty-two years left him thinking that Christian might even survive a virgin until the final day of reckoning. What redemption would be there for him then? His soul hung in the balance, tentatively swaying between good and evil. However, as a thought passed swiftly through his mind, he found himself thinking that perhaps there was a chance after all. Then, slowly Robert shook his head, acknowledging the futility of it once again. There was only once chance for Christian to achieve enlightenment.

He stumbled weakly from the mausoleum, breathing deeply as soon as he could no longer smell the rank mustiness of the stone chamber. He closed the iron gates, securing the padlock with the key he kept on a string around his neck. He walked back to the house, barely cognizant of the breeze that ruffled the trees. A shower of green and golden leaves oscillated gradually down to the ground. Another Fall was approaching. Soon it would be winter. Winters were the most difficult. The nights were bitterly cold. Darkness came early and stayed longer, yet Christian's urge did not diminish. He demanded to be taken out, free to roam the frozen parks in the faint hope that a man would be there.

Robert reached the stairs and paused. If only Christian could know love first. If a man truly loved him first, and willingly offered his life's blood in return for Christian's, then it would not matter if the boy's teeth pierced when he bit down. But who would love a vampyre, even a boy-vampyre as beautiful as Christian?

Inside the house, he opened the metal box that contained the most precious of his ruminations about the subject that consumed his every waking moment. There were notes, taken in tiny script, observations of Christian's ways, his thoughts, and fears. There were letters exchanged with other people who chose to study vampyre lore, even a few letters from people who pretended to be vampyres but more often than not were too ignorant to use the proper spelling for vampire (sic). There was one letter and a parchment document that Robert valued over all the others. It was the creases and the color of the paper that showed the signs of age as much as the date, 1972. He had read the letter so often that he knew the words by heart, but he still carefully unfolded it. Tears formed in his eyes. His hand started to tremble until the words were blurred beyond recognition. Finally, he dropped the letter and began to sob.

"Christian. I can't! I love you, maybe I could even make love to you if that was all it took, but I could never hurt you. Someone else must do it."

He walked unsteadily across the room and slumped into the armchair he had used when preparing his sermons for as long as he could remember. From there, he looked out towards the mausoleum. As always he began thinking of the boy who was confined there. Over the years the stone chamber had become as much his home as the rectory, yet he still thought of it as a prison. Behind the rusty wrought iron gates, Christian slumbered. At least Robert thought of it as sleep. He clasped his hands together, almost as if praying. There had to be a solution to the problem. It was only minutes later when he remembered Christian's words from the night before. "He's different to all the others. I think I really wanted to bite him. If he let me suck him, I think I might not have been able to control myself."

The strange thing, the almost inexplicable thing, was that the man had insisted on sucking Christian's penis instead of offering his own. Although his son had consented, and it had never happened in the past. It had never been so,... Robert searched for the word, pondering. Always the men had wanted to use Christian's mouth and the boy wanted nothing in return. No night had passed without the man wanting the boy to take his penis into his mouth. Only one man had been selfless? Robert shook his head and breathed out in frustration.

Perhaps there was a simple explanation. More often than not the men who stood before Christian were practicing homosexuals who naturally took the dominant role with a younger partner. It was the nature of the act. Big over small, strong over weak, old over young. The others were family men, or men who felt the stirring of need for other males and were tempted by the beautiful boy in a way that could not be explained. For them, oral sex was a new experience and they accepted Christian's offer with eagerness and the expectation that the boy would offer his ass as well. Christian had left no man satisfied but kept that one thing back.

But one man, the man of the previous night had wanted nothing except to give pleasure to the boy. Although Christian gave no sign of it, Robert had no doubt that the experience had been exquisite, for both his son and the stranger. He remembered the slight flush in Christian's face and his flickering eyes that revealed lingering excitement. Perhaps a single man offered a solution. If only Christian could find true love with him. He templed his fingers, lowered his head, and prayed. They would return to the same park that night, and next night, and the night after that. They would go back to the same place again and again until Christian found that man.

It seemed to take forever for darkness to fall. Still finishing last of his meal, Robert hurriedly scraped the remnants to the side of his plate when he heard the eighth chime of the grandfather clock in the hall. He pulled on his overcoat and walked quickly through the quiet garden until he reached the grave yard. He had no qualms going there at night. It was a familiar place and he knew every step of the way so that he did not trip even when there was no moonlight. He was late. The wrought-iron gate was already open and a cold fear gripped his heart. His hands clenched. It worried him that Christian was already out without his protection.

Robert carefully yet hurriedly picked his way among the stones, until he came to the squat marble obelisk that marked his son's supposed resting place. The boy was there as he often was, standing silently in the shadows. His sigh of relief was audible. He stepped forward and waited until Christian turned to greet him.

"Hello."

The boy's smile was faint. Nothing more than a hint of dimples in his cheeks, measured to convey recognition. Robert took another few steps closer. Whenever he saw Christian like this he wanted to hug him tightly.

"Hello Christian. Did you sleep well?"

The boy nodded slightly. "Why me?" he asked softly.

Robert was startled. "I,... I don't know! It isn't your fault though," he added quickly.

"I,... I,..." Christian began. His voice trembled. "I feel cold, Daddy."

"Come here then," Robert said gently. His arms opened, welcoming his son. They folded around the slender boy and his head lowered until his lips touched the top of the small tousled head. "Everything will be okay."

"I want to go out tonight," Christian said meekly.

"So soon? It's barely dark."

"I can't help it. You know that!"

"I know. I'm sorry. We will go out in a little while. You have to change your clothes first. Maybe I should bathe you as well."

"I'm not dirty."

"I know you're not. But you should smell nice,... so you're fresh and clean."

Unable to tell his son that the dank air of the mausoleum tainted him with the odor of death, Robert gently took the boy's cold hand and led him towards the rectory. They walked slowly, as if each step brought them closer to an inevitable destiny that could be postponed simply by going slower.

"Where are we going tonight?" Christian asked softly as they approached the stairs. "Can we go to the same place as last night?"

Robert stopped and regarded the pale face, illuminated by the yellow light that spilled from the lead-light door. He wondered whether the boy could read his mind even when he was not trying to communicate. There was nothing he had read that suggested vampyres had that ability, but it was entirely possible.

However, in many ways, Christian was unique. Robert knew of no other situation where a boy-vampyre had lasted thirty-two years without tasting a man's blood.

Neither had he discovered another impregnation by the Russian prince who was born nearly a thousand years earlier. He suspected the impregnation of both boys and girls was a common occurrence among children in rural areas. Vampyres were created by other vampyres, by an unholy union of innocence and evil. The seed that had spurted deep within Christian, that had been absorbed into his bloodstream, was pure and unsullied evil.

"You know, Christian, we are breaking the rule never to back to the same place so soon."

"I hate the rule!"

"The rule is there only to protect you. But yes, if you wish, we can go back there."

"Please take me," Christian said mournfully.

Inside the familiar house, the boy became more alert, his movements more agile, his nature more rambunctious. He quickly climbed the stairs to the second floor, leading his father who plodded laboriously behind him. By the time Robert followed him into the bedroom, the boy was already delving into the closet in search of clothes. He pulled them out haphazardly, studied them thoughtfully, and discarded item after item on the floor. Robert looked on in amusement. For the moment, he could be any boy of the late 1990s. Shorts and jeans, tee-shirts and sweaters, jackets, and shoes were apparently unsuitable despite the fact that Christian had selected them to wear frequently before. At other times, Christian was diligent about replacing the clothes in the proper places, but not tonight. He vigorously pushed the clothing to the side until he found the clothing he had worn the previous night. He held them up, grasping the colorful shirt in one hand and the Lycra shorts in the other, and examined himself in the mirror. The transformation from innocent child to erotic youth was startling, Robert realized. The boy was intensely sexual.

Then, without warning Christian threw the clothing as far away as he could. "I don't want to be like this."

"Like what?" Robert asked gently.

"The way I am. Doing it with every man who comes along."

"I thought you liked doing it," Robert ventured. "I mean,..."

"Sucking them? Of course I do. I have to suck them. I don't have a choice. It's just that,..."

"Christian," Robert prompted. "I think I understand. Last night was different, wasn't it?"

"Yes. I,... I was so frightened."

"You were frightened? Why? Did you think he was going to hurt you?"

"No! of course not! I don't know why. I think,..."

Robert smiled warmly. "You liked him, didn't you? That's why you wanted to bite him."

"Yes!" Christian said uncertainly. "He wasn't like any of the others. He wanted to make me feel good. He kept looking up at me the whole time. It was because he wanted to see me enjoying it. He wanted to see me smile."

"And you did feel good, didn't you?" Robert said.

Christian tried to shrug, to pretend that what happened was no different to any other night. Slowly, he nodded. "What's happening to me?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"I feel strange,... like my skin,... it's crawling and cold. I,..."

Robert opened his arms again and Christian rushed forward into his embrace. As they hugged, Robert felt his son's quivering body, felt the energy and warmth rushing between them until the gooseflesh disappeared and the boy's sobs faded to muted whimpers. Only then did Robert sink to his knees and cautiously begin to remove Christian's funerary clothes. Silently he removed the boy's striped tie, unfastened buttons, peeled away the white cotton dress shirt. His eyes were half-closed and he concentrated on thoughts that did not have to do with Christian, now standing half-naked before him. Still, his fingers fumbled when he tried to undo the belt buckle, the metal clasp, and zipper. He tugged gently, pulling the white trousers halfway down the boy's slender legs, stopping to remove socks and shoes, then all the way past his feet. He dared not look, but he did.

As always, the boy was resplendent in his natural state. His flesh, although lifelessly pale, was unparalleled. His pink nipples were pointed as if they had just been pinched. His chest was firm and contoured by muscle. His waist was slender, and his pelvis equally slim so that the boy's body tapered continuously from his shoulders to his feet. The child, for that was what Christian still was, was sublimely proportioned. Mid-height, Robert gazed upon the center of perfection. The boy's sex was magnificent. He was confronted by an impressive erection of three inches that tapered like his body from the head downwards. The blue-tinted bulb swelled a quarter-of-an inch beyond the shaft.

The swollen glans formed a pear-shape, a precious crown surmounting a pink translucent shaft. The base flowed outward to join seamlessly with his groin. And below, the pouch hung loosely with its precious contents. There, within each egg, the vampyre's sperm had come to rest. The seed lay dormant. Only the loss of virginity, the first taste of blood, would initiate the maturing process of a vampyre.

"You're so beautiful," Robert sighed.

Christian's hands moved cautiously to his father's head. His memory was recent, and it was very strong. His willpower was tested while he held the man less than inches from his genitals. He closed his eyes dreamily. He could feel the embracing pressure of lips and tongue, hot soft, wetness flowing around the rigid spike that rose up hungrily from between his thighs. His body shuddered as an unexpected spasm rippled through him. He felt his sex pulsing, jerking as a fusillade of feelings cascaded through him. Some of the feelings were all but foreign, a single time experienced yet anxious to be repeated. They began under his spine deep inside his body. He felt his penis stiffening even further, his entire body glowing with the pressure to expel something from within, his hips straining with growing urgency. His body trembled, then began to thrust, giving and taking, feeling the seed stir inside him as his eggs bounced back and forth, slapping against the insides of his thighs. Another memory was very distant. He shuddered, remembering a pain that had no equal, pain so great that he had died before life was given back to him. Yet he could not remember why the pain had come or where it had been. Neither could he remember the ache that had been in his testicles for weeks afterwards. He glanced down, hoping that the nice feelings had not been a dream. Slightly red-faced, Robert smiled slightly and stood up. His joints were stiff. Absently, his fingers touched the dribble of saliva that had escaped his lips.

"I'm sorry," he murmured guiltily. "I couldn't help it."

"I don't mind."

Christian stepped back, barely realizing that his erection had immediately dissipated and his penis had contacted to little more than an inch and a half in length.

"It felt,... nice," he added as an afterthought.

"Well,..." You'd better take a bath. I'll watch you if you like."

"I'd like that," Christian said joyfully. "Then we can go out again."

Robert washed him attentively, sponging the slender pale body with the soapy hot water until the boy's flesh turned pink and tingled. He avoided contact with the inquisitive part of the boy's anatomy that rose up beyond the water, directing Christian to clean properly around his genitals. He watched, both amazed and amused as the youngster soaped back below his scrotum, cleaning the virgin opening, Then Robert took over again. He shampooed the silky hair, fingers massaging, lingering until all that could be seen was a mop of foamy suds.

Satisfied that the boy could not be any cleaner, he rose to his feet and held out a large towel. He wrapped it around the boy's wet body, until there was no part of him that could be seen. Christian had become a mummy, he mused wryly, as he carried the shrouded body back into the bedroom. He laid him on the bed and waited for the giggle of anticipation before he started to unwrap the cloth that girdled his son. Of course Christian tried to prevent him and they laughed together when the covering was finally pulled away to leave him naked.

His penis was erect, and Robert gazed upon the squat organ with something more than curiosity could explain. He felt his heart beat faster, the surge within his chest that he always tried to deny, to stop, to put aside. He had to close his eyes, but even behind closed eyelids he saw the beautiful body. Within his head he heard Christian's urgency. He shook his head in futile resistance. He saw another man taking Christian's hand and leading him into the darkness.

Robert shuddered and slowly backed away. Christian's eyes followed him, becoming suspicious as Robert neared the open door. He mouthed the words, pleading for his father to return to the bed. deliberately his legs moved outwards and upwards, until his thighs were wide apart. His penis was at a right angle, standing straight up and quivering for attention. From the doorway, Robert looked back. He closed his eyes again, clenched his hands, prayed that he would not yield. The voice inside him was insistent, demanding, offering, pleading. He sighed. He had no other choice. It was the only way he could protect his son.

Robert stepped through the doorway and closed the oak- panelled door behind him. He turned the key in the lock as the voice rose to a shriek of despair, although whether it wanted Robert of freedom he could not say. This night, Christian would stay home and he would go out alone to find the stranger in the park.

Chapter 4.

I went back the next night. I had to return. There was a chance, perhaps a very remote chance, but still a chance that my blond-headed angel would be there again. I waited in the same spot, a hundred feet or less away from the public toilet. I was almost entirely hidden from view, just as he had been all but hidden when I approached and he stepped out of the darkness and into my life. Indeed, some men came very close to me as they walked down the footpath. However, they were intent less on being seen by one of the undercover policemen who frequented that part of the park at night than on seeing me.

I stood quietly in the dark shadow cast by the gnarled fig tree, its bark rough against my hand as I leaned back into an enclosing nook formed by the trunk. I listened and watched, and smelled the cool night air. Again and again I thought I heard his voice, only to realize that it was one of the night birds in the distance. Every sound carried across the lake with remarkable clarity. I could hear the occasional sounds of sex as two or more men met in the darkness. It was hard not to smile. It was amusing, thinking of them somewhere in the park, their voices muffled as they spoke in whispers, yet still unable to conceal the sound of frantic rutting. There were squeals that sounded more than a little painful, gasps, and even infrequent moans of passion exploding in a sudden fury as someone achieved orgasm. They were the kind of sounds that made you think twice about wanting to be in their place. A horn tooted. Someone yelled "fuckin' homo", and someone else screamed. Two men in drag came down the pathway. The hour hand on my watch moved steadily around, one tick-mark at a time. I glanced at my watch, trying hard to see the time, almost wishing that I had not decided to risk coming into the park and take the chance of being mugged, or worse. My eyes found it difficult to focus and I blinked rapidly, stifled a yawn, and return to my silent sentry duty. It was late, later than the night before. Perhaps he was with some other man. The thought turned my stomach. However, that was what the boy had come to park for the first time, if it was the first time. He didn't want money. At least, he never asked for it, and he refused the twenty-dollar bill that I tried to give him. He wanted only one thing.

He was still a child, and he was hungry for sex. That thought should also have turned my stomach, as it would have sickened any normal person, but instead it excited me. It excited me in a way that I had only dreamed about. I had come to the park in the hope of meeting a teenager. Instead I met a boy, a beautiful blond-headed boy who was wiser than his years. He made no secret that he was on a similar quest for carnal pleasure, although his interest was clearly in meeting someone older than himself. It could only mean that the boy was gay, or going to be when he was sexually mature, and that was reassuring. The mere idea of influencing a boy's sexuality to become something than he was already inclined to be, was depressing. However, having sex with a gay boy, or a boy who was at least already inclined to his own sex, was an entirely different matter.

I pushed my hands deep into my pockets and continued the vigilant watch over the pathway. I stood in exactly the same place that he had been when I first saw him. He was leaning against the tree trunk, deep in thought and surveying the path, watching the entrance to the toilet. Perhaps he had been listening to the same noises from across the lake. After a while, a period that could have been as little as fifteen minutes or as long as an hour, I was ready to give up for the night. I sighed in frustration, thinking how good it could have been had he returned. He was everything I dreamed about, and much, much more. I started back along the path towards my car. He stepped out of the darkness after I had gone only a few paces. God only knew how long he had been there watching me. Only it wasn't a blond-headed boy whose head came up to my chest. It was a man, and an elderly man at that.

"Hello," the man said awkwardly.

I glared at him, wondering what would bring a man of his age to the park at night. If he was looking for illicit sex, there were very few men who would be interested in him, and those who were would more likely have larceny or blackmail as a motive for going into the bushes with him.

"You were here last night," the man said when I continued to star at him. "What are you doing here now?"

"What I do here, now or last night is none of your damn business," I retorted grumpily. "Maybe I like to go for walks in the park at night. I could ask you the same question."

A look of surprise passed across the man's face, and then slowly he smiled. "He's not coming."

"Huh? Who's not coming?" I asked. It was my turn to be surprised.

"The boy you met last night."

I backed away, wondering who the old man was, wondering whether the boy had serviced his depraved desires the same as he had allowed me to satisfy my desires. Yet, it seemed unlikely. There was something about the old man that simply did not belong in a park at night. He wasn't the type to be out hunting for young boys.

"What about him?" I demanded querulously. My demand prompted another smile. Instead of answering, the old man shrugged. "Tell me,... please." I heard myself begging yet I could not avoid it. I had to know more about the boy, even if it confirmed my worst thoughts.

"I can offer nothing important, nothing that you don't already know. My own knowledge of him is nothing more than an old man's memories. I was wrong to come here. I cannot change,..."

He started to back away, his face crumbling, his hands trembling nervously.

"No! Stop! Don't go! Please don't go," I implored.

"I tried,... Oh God, how I've tried to stop him from going out at night. I know it's wrong. And so very dangerous for him, but he would go without me anyway," he said in despair. "I have to watch over him. I can keep him safe."

I gazed at the old man, feeling a strange sense that he had been watching over the boy the night before, the night when I had experienced feelings that up to that point in time, had been foreign to me.

"Who are you?" I asked cautiously.

"His,... I'm his father, if you must know."

"But,..."

"I'm so old? Is that what you were going to say. I'm seventy. It's really of no importance. My age changes nothing. I'm still his father, and I worry about him."

"You were here last night too, weren't you?" I asked nervously.

"Of course." The old man sighed. "I brought him here. I will not let him go out alone at night. It's too dangerous, nowadays."

"Nobody in his right mind would bring a kid here at night. I don't understand." I shook my head. "Why would you bring him here? Surely you know what goes here at night? You can't be that naive," I asked cruelly.

"I've been coming here for years, my friend. For many, many years, in fact," he said. His voice faded away wistfully, thoughtfully. "Until last night, I thought it would never change."

"What? What would never change?"

"Life...."

"You know what happens here? What he does here,." with men?"

He smiled weakly. "I know what he did with you. We are what we are, my friend. I have no misconceptions about my son. He has no choice in what he does. He does what he needs to do."

"He's gay?" I asked.

"Gay? My son? Such a stupid word, gay. It means so much today, yet it really has so little to do with what a person is, and what he feels. If you are asking whether my son prefers men, the answer is obvious I would have thought. Does it mean he's happy with what life has given him? He is anything but gay."

"Is he unhappy?"

"He comes here to feed a hunger, my friend. That's all." The old man shrugged. "He's young so that his need is stronger if only because it is not diminished by age. So far my son has not succumbed. But he will, I have no doubt. Once he has tasted forbidden fruit, the hunger is rapacious. He must be protected because of it."

My mouth opened to speak, to deny categorically. Instead, I stared at the man in disbelief. With a few words he had ruined all of my dreams. "He,..." I began painfully. "No! I can't believe it."

"That a boy is like that? Surely your experience last night tells you otherwise."

He stopped and swivelled around to watch two teenagers walking slowly out of the nearby toilet. I could not remember seeing them go in. A silent alarm bell inside my head shrieked a warning. They walked a few feet apart, eyes shifting, looking.

"We'd better get out of the park," the man whispered. "Come with me. My car is parked close by."

I followed him for I had little choice. We hurried along, ducking off the path several times to avoid people. The old man moved with more speed than I would have credited him, and he seemed to have a sixth sense that warned him of approaching people long before I heard their footsteps. Finally we reached his vehicle, a mini-wan emblazoned along the side with "St. Jude's Episcopalian Church." He hurried to open the door as a group of teenagers came out the darkness. Several were carrying long sticks, waving them from side to side in a very threatening manner. It was not the first time high school students had come into the park to prove their manhood by beating homosexuals senseless.

"Hey, there's a couple more fuckin' homos. They're getting' ready to leave."

"Come on, let's spear a queer," another shouted as the pack began to run.

"Hurry, for God's sake," I shouted as the old man fumbled for his keys.

"God is on our side," he muttered. "I'm trying to find it. There, I think this is the one. Yes, yes, it is."

I heard his door slam shut and for one horrible second as the engine cranked over, I thought he was going to leave me there. The teenagers were running fast, the nearest of them perhaps a hundred feet away, when I heard the door lock on my side click. It was the most welcome sound in the world. I grabbed the handle and lifted up, threw open the door and jumped into the seat, slamming the door behind me.

"Go! For God's sake go, man," I shouted.

Through the window I could see the face of one of the youths leering at me, his mouth forming the shapes of words that I could not hear over the roar of the engine. The wheels were spinning furiously in the dew-moistened grass.

"No! You have to go the other way. Forward it, and go easy till the tires grab."

I don't know if he heard me, yet he must have for his hand grasped the shift and yanked back. The engine was still shrieking but somehow the wheels got traction. At least the wheels on the left side got traction. The minivan slewed to the right. I saw one of the teens leaping to the side, the look on his face nothing but pure hatred mixed with hysterical fear as the van missed him by inches. Gravel showered over him as the wheels came off the grass. I could hear my heart thumping, and my hands were shaking. A quick glance at the old man and I saw he was in the same condition. Indeed, the pallor of his face was enough to suggest he might be having a coronary.

"You okay?" I asked.

He nodded, grasping the steering wheel with both hands so tightly that his knuckles were white. For an old man he drove very fast. He drove for several miles, down roads that should have been familiar to me because I had spent the last ten years of my life driving them. Yet, silently I stared out the window with a surreal sense that everything was foreign to me. I remembered the sounds I had heard coming across the lake, the voice that shouted, 'fuckin homo', and the other sounds that had sounded like men having sex. More than likely the teenagers had found at least one victim that night. My stomach turned, imagining what had been done. It was only when the old man turned into the parking lot of an all night fast-food restaurant did I begin to relax. With the engine switched off we sat for several long seconds before either of us spoke.

"That was a close call," I acknowledged. "You're a good driver."

"For an old man," he said quietly.

I smiled. I had not finished the thought. Again the silence hung between us. I shook my head as if to shake out the cobwebs. Inside the restaurant I could see a few people lingering over cups of coffee and hamburgers. More than likely it was the second shift from a nearby factory, or people who had spent many hours driving on the nearby interstate.

"I've been here before. The coffee is okay. I get so tired, I need it to be able to drive home."

"You come with him?" I asked.

"We come here afterwards. If that's what you mean. Usually I'm very tired. It's all I can do to keep my eyes open sometimes."

'I'm David Lancaster," I offered.

He glanced at my hand. "You may call me Robert." He hesitated thoughtfully. Slowly he smiled. "If you saw the side of the van you'd find out who I am. My name is Robert Williams. I'm the pastor at St. Jude's over in Burlington."

"And your son?"

He smiled again, hesitating to reveal the name I really wanted to know. "His name is Christian."

"Oh," I mused wryly. "It's a nice name, especially for a pastor's son."

"It was appropriate when he was younger," Robert said with wry humor.

"You must think I'm a terrible person," I said flatly as if any contrary opinion on my part was irrelevant.

"You? There are others much worse. We saw some of them tonight. Being gay is not so terrible. Last night, you made a young boy very happy, Mr. Lancaster. In some eyes, that's nothing less than evil, but real evil causes pain for no other reason that amusement."

"True enough. I'd like a cup of that coffee. I'll buy you one if you come with me."

He chuckled to himself, enjoying a private joke. After a few seconds, he glanced back at me. "Yes. I'd like that."

Inside the ubiquitous restaurant there was a sense that life was normal. I carried a tray with two large coffees and we sat in the most distant corner. I sipped slowly, enjoying the aroma and slightly bitter taste of stale coffee.

"Tell me about yourself?" Robert prompted.

"There isn't much to tell. I'm an artist by training. I've taught for a few years at a junior high school. You can probably guess why I left," I commented ruefully. "I didn't do anything to one of the boys you understand. However, I was worried about how I felt. There were some boys in their early teens who were so good looking it took my breath away just to be near them. After that, well I did some work for a design company, packaging mostly, while I painted on the side. It's hard to make a living as an artist, even if you're good."

"And you are good?"

I shrugged dismissively. "I'm okay, I guess. I sell a few paintings. There's a lot more money in marketing. I could make ten times what I made as an artist and,..." I shrugged again. "I have an offer from a firm in New York. Until last night, I was planning on taking it."

"Ah, yes, last night. Can I ask you a question?"

"Fire away."

"Why did you do it?"

"With Christian?.

"Who else would I be talking about?"

"I don't know why," I said uncertainly. "I've never done anything with a boy before. They've always been older."

"He's only eleven," Robert said absently. "At least that's his age in years. If you were interested in teenagers, I would have thought he was too young to be of interest to you."

"You have to understand that I've never done anything with a boy before," I repeated, cupping my hands around the paper container of coffee. I felt the warmth seeping through. "I've always wanted to, though. The boys at the school were,... They were exciting I suppose. But they weren't what I really wanted, so I didn't. It wasn't all that difficult to control myself."

"Because you've always wanted to have sex with a young boy," Robert ended. He smiled slightly, knowingly. "And?" he prompted.

"And what? What do you want to know? Did I enjoy it with your son? Is that what you're asking? Was it worth the risk? Do you want to know how can I live with myself afterwards?"

Robert glanced at me curiously. "How you feel is your business. All I really care about is how Christian feels."

"And?" I prompted.

"Touche!" Robert slowly looked around, making sure than we were not overheard.

"Why did you suck him?" he asked quietly.

I looked at him in surprise. "Because,..."

"Don't say because he asked you to. I know my son. I know what he wants. I know what he does. He would never ask you to suck him."

"I wasn't going to do anything at first. I tried to tell him he should go home. I couldn't take my eyes off him. It's like,... It's hard to explain. I couldn't control myself. If you know him as well as you say you do,..."

"I've had more time than most men have to get to know my son."

"Then you know what he wanted to do. He wanted to suck me off." I breathed out. "He asked,... no he begged to do it. He wanted my cock is his mouth so badly he couldn't stand it."

Robert smiled. "Yes. I know all that. Believe me, it wasn't his first time. But you chose not to. Instead you sucked him. Why?"

"I wanted to make him feel good." I glared at the man before me. "I think I did make him feel good. I didn't want him to be unhappy."

"You gave him an orgasm?" Robert queried.

"Several. Well, actually I can't be certain, but I think it was several. It's hard to tell with a prepubescent boy. He kept pushing my head away each time he started shuddering. Maybe he just got close. I don't know. I assumed he was getting off and his cock was feeling too sore to continue."

"Why didn't he tell me about this," Robert thought aloud. He looked up slowly. "Until now, he's always done it to the man. Sucked him, I mean. That's what most men like apparently. It was what he needed to do as well. You were different. He liked what you did to him by the way."

"Why do you think he does it?"

"Why do you?"

"You said he does it because he wants to. I presume that means that he likes doing it. I guess it also means he's gay. He's probably a bit over-sexed."

"That's a nice way of putting it. The truth is that Christian can't help himself. It's hard to explain. I think of it as a sickness. There's something inside him that makes him do it. He wasn't always like this. There were signs when he was younger that he was gay, of course, little things that made me worry about him, but nothing like this. He changed overnight."

"A gene?" I suggested. Robert shook his head. "A virus?"

"No, it's nothing like that. But it's a good analogy. I like to think of it as a seed that's planted deep inside him. Rather like a seed you might plant in the garden. Only it still hasn't germinated, so he nurtures it until the conditions are right. The things he does with men in the park at night,... it's how he nurtures it. It's like it's trying to take control of him."

I watched Robert carefully as he struggled with the vague analogy for his son's psychological problem. I was quite certain that a few hours on the couch with a qualified child psychologist would reveal that he had been sexually abused when he was younger. I wondered whether his father had done it. He did not seem the type. Robert drank some coffee. It seemed to restore his energy and he continued unabated.

"He hasn't given in to it, not yet anyway, but I can tell it's getting stronger and stronger every day now. Eventually. He'll succumb and then he won't need me. He have all that he needs to be happy."

"You mean going all the way?" I asked. "You're trying to tell me he's a virgin aren't you?"

Robert winced visibly. "Yes, in a way, you could say that."

I chuckled. "I think virginity is pretty clear. Either you are or you aren't. Of course a boy doesn't have a hymen, but it's basically the same principle for a different place."

"He's a virgin with that definition," Robert joked.

"Maybe it's the blood," I suggested lightly.

"What? What about blood?" Robert asked quickly.

"You know, blood from breaking the hymen and all that. Most guys bleed a bit the first time or two as well if they're on the bottom. I expect there's even more from a boy when he starts having sex."

"I expect so." Robert gave me a quizzical look. "I thought you were referring to something else. You quite took me by surprise talking about blood."

"How?"

"It's nothing important."

"Well, now you know all about me, tell me about you and Christian," I said.

"Such as?" Robert queried. "What do you want to know?"

"Like why you came to the park alone tonight. Or at all, for that matter."

"I told you most of it already. I protect him."

"Right, you're seventy years old and you're going to protect him in a park full of fag beaters. Fat chance."

"I didn't mean it like that. I take him where he wants to go. I bring him home afterwards. I keep watch over him as best I can. I,..." The old man choked on the words and he coughed several times.

"I'm sorry."

"You're right. I am too old to be doing this,... but Christian's my son. He's all I've got. I have to make arrangements for later on, especially now that,..."" Robert stopped, closing his eyes and shaking his head slightly in denial of something he had been about to say. "I have to find someone who can take over from me."

"Me?" I said. Was I volunteering for the job?

"It's no secret that Christian likes you. You wouldn't have been able to do what you did, if he hadn't taken a liking to you. You do like boys, don't you, David?"

"Not so loud for God's sake. Sorry, Robert. There's no need to tell everyone here. Yes, I like boys. I can't help it."

"Why?"

"Why what? Why do I like boys?" I queried. "I always have for as long as I can remember, if you must know. It's a sad thing, you know to be like this."

"Why sad?" he asked.

I shrugged. "For one thing it's against the law. Just about every person in this country hates men like me. And if that's not bad enough, think about what it means. Let's say I fell in love with a boy like Christian. He's ten years old, right. Okay, in four more years, he'll be fourteen."

"And then he's no longer a boy, is that it?"

I nodded. "Something like that. I really don't know why it is,... why I'm so attracted to young boys. Maybe because they aren't really male, well they are, but not like a man, or a teenager. Maybe it's the innocence. I don't know. All I know is that I'm attracted to boys until they start puberty. A year or two older than that, when their voices get deeper and they have hair everywhere, I lose interest. The good part only lasts for a few years. That's the saddest thing of all."

"Hm,... well, we all live with our own madness."

"I dream sometimes of meeting a boy who I'd be able to love for all eternity instead of just a few years," I said glumly.

Robert acknowledged me with a slight hesitant nod. "Such a thing is possible.

"God, I wish. I want it so much, to have someone I can love like that. I want to share my life with someone, Robert. I only come to the park, because I'm lonely. A few hours here, that's all it takes to get me through the week, but I'm never happy afterwards. They're always strangers so I can do what I want. There's no feelings involved. You know it isn't anything more than sex. I can walk away and never think about the guy again. That is until last night. Everything changed. I wanted to see Christian again so badly I couldn't stand it. I think I might have gone home and killed myself if he didn't turn up tonight. I guess I was lucky you showed."

"Christian wanted to come to you as well," he confided.

"I want Christian more than I can stand, if you must know." I felt more exposed before the old man than I had ever been. I hoped he would recognize the truth when he heard it. "Maybe it's more than just liking him. I've never felt like this about anyone else."

"And just how do you feel about him?" Robert asked gently.

"I'm beginning to think that I'm in love with him. I know it sounds silly. A grown man chasing after a young boy."

"I'm not surprised. He said much the same thing about you. That's the problem, of course. I'm afraid that things will get out of hand and he won't be able to control himself,... and yet, you're his only chance. If you wanted him, I'm quite certain he would be yours,... but you'd have to be very careful, David."

"You make him sound dangerous. Jesus,... sorry,... I mean he's only a boy."

"He might be a boy but he could still take a bite out of you. No, don't laugh. I really think that he would bite if you gave him half a chance. He won't be able to stop himself. He's ready now."

I regarded the old man with suspicion. I had no idea what he was talking about. In the other corner of the restaurant, people were talking loudly, yet there was still a chance we might be overheard. I tried to analyze what Robert was saying and relate it to what I already knew about Christian, but it was so late that I was exhausted. I yawned and unsteadily came to my feet.

"I think I'd better find a taxi and go back and get my car from the park," I said dryly.

"I'll give you a ride back, of course. There's no way you'll get a taxi this late, especially to go into the park. It's the least I can do for the coffee," Robert said agreeably. He stood up, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. "You should think about what I said tonight for a long time before you decide. Whatever it is that's inside him, it will become part of you too if you're not careful. If you do love him, then come back here tomorrow night an hour after sunset. But let me warn you one more time," he said with emphasis. "Don't come unless you really do love him. Otherwise, Christian will become your worst nightmare."

I followed Robert out of the car and waited until he opened the passenger side door. All of the way back to park we sat in silence. It was only when Robert asked for directions to where my car was parked did either of us talk.

"It's dangerous for him to come here at night," I said morosely.

"You think I don't know that. Don't you think I worry about him every minute, every second he's out there in the darkness? Tonight, when those youths were approaching, all I could think of was what would happen if Christian was there by himself. I get sick to my stomach just thinking about it."

"So do I," I admitted. "Will he ever change?"

"For the right person, perhaps his hunger will fade, maybe even be satisfied. Maybe it depends on what you do." Robert turned off the engine and parked next to my car. He turned to look at me. "Remember what I said. Don't return if you don't love him, please!"

"I love him, Robert," I answered confidently.

The old man nodded thoughtfully. "I have no question of it. There is one more thing I need to ask."

"Yes?"

"Are you circumcised?"

"Me? Yes!"

He smiled mysteriously. "So is Christian. But then you know that already, don't you?"

I smiled, remembering. "Why is it important?"

"You'd better hope he's careful when he sucks you," he answered ambiguously.

I opened the car door and shivered, although the night was hardly cold. "I'll see you at the restaurant, Robert. Tomorrow night, about nine-thirty."

His car roared to life, backing away quickly so that I was left in darkness. I shivered again, wondering why I was chilled. There was gooseflesh prickling my arms and legs. Suddenly I realized why. I was excited, more excited than I had ever been. I felt like I was embarking on the greatest adventure of my life. I felt as if life and death hung on a balance beam and all I needed to do was step one way or the other. I breathed deeply, feeling a warm glow suffuse through my veins. I felt alive and strong and ready to take on any challenge.

There was something magical in the air, a feeling that everything would turn out for the best. At the same time, I felt threatened.

Chapter 5.

The engine slowed to an idle, the noisy exhaust gurgling with a low rumble. I shifted into low gear, turned off the engine, and applied the hand brake with a metallic squeak. The engine noise died away. In the distant corner of the park, nearly a mile from the entrance, the silence was audible. Although it was dark inside the car, a sideways glance confirmed that Christian was as nervous as I was. The boy's head turned away quickly when he realized that I was looking at him.

"Well,..." I began awkwardly, "we're here."

"Yeah," Christian mumbled. He turned back to face me, smiling shyly. "We are, aren't we."

I breathed deeply, bracing my arms straight out against the steering wheel in a race-driver style that was inappropriate in my aging car given its questionable mechanical condition. For the first time in my life, I was truly happy. Since the first night, I had longed to be alone with Christian again. The realization had come to me suddenly that morning. I loved the boy who I had met in the park two nights earlier. I had been sitting at my desk, a pile of sketches of Christian drawn from memory and imagination, some naked, some partially clothed, strewn across it. It was the moment of truth. What I felt for the boy, I had never felt for anyone else. It was love and I could no longer deny it.

"Do you think anyone saw us?" Christian asked nervously.

I shook my head confidently. There had been at least three other cars parked in the woods, but with the car's headlights off, it was unlikely that any of the occupants noticed us. Certainly, this time his father was not watching from the shadows.

"Are you cold?" I asked. Christian shook his head. He swallowed. He glanced away again, looking out the window. "What's wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing."

"Nothing? This from the boy who was so talkative last night," I teased. It provoked a shrug, nothing more. "Christian,... come on, tell me what's bothering you," I asked persistently. "Are you cold?"

"Nothing's bothering me. I'm never cold."

After a moment Christian turned back to look at me again, his innocent eyes meeting mine, eyes that were darkly brooding.

"I love you. You know that, don't you?" I said gently.

Christian nodded slightly. "I know. I love you too, David."

"And you know I'd never do anything to hurt you?"

The boy smiled. "Yes, I know that too."

"You don't have to do anything if you don't want to. If you want I'll take you home."

"It isn't that, okay," Christian answered adamantly.

"Do you want to go home?" I asked persistently. "It's okay with me if you do."

"No! Of course not. I want to be here with you."

I smiled slightly. I slowly lifted my hand up and lovingly caressed the boy's smooth cheek. It was unbelievably soft.

"You're beautiful, you know that?" I said in awe."

"You probably say that to all the boys you meet."

Christian leaned towards me, increasing the contact with my hand so that I supported his head. I sighed, thinking of how much he had longed for this moment. In the space of only a few short days my life had changed. Indeed, in a single night our relationship had progressed from distant appraisal to awkward familiarity, But it had changed even more than that. My feelings for Christian were such that I wanted to believe that our friendship bordered on an intimate closeness where we had no secrets from each other. It was the first time Christian had not opened up to me since the first night that I had kissed him, and not even understanding why myself, told him that I loved him.

"That's because you're so beautiful." I answered boldly. "I love your eyes, and your nose, and your lips, and your ears."

"Hmmm," Christian murmured. "So just my face is beautiful?"

"No, all of you is beautiful."

"But you haven't really seen anything else," Christian challenged. "It was too dark the first time."

I grinned. I held up a flashlight. "I know how to fix that. However, you'll have to take your clothes off for me to see the rest of you."

"I think you're joking. You are, aren't you?" Christian smirked. Suddenly, he felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from him. He wanted this man to see him naked more than he had wanted anything before. "You want me to undress now? In the car?"

I shrugged, pretending disinterest, yet taking what I felt to be the biggest risk of my life. "What I really want is to for you to kiss me."

"If that's all you want, it can easily be arranged," Christian giggled gleefully.

He scooted out his seat, kneeling on the aged leather to bring his face closer to mine. His kiss was barely a peck on the cheek before he moved away so that his back was against the car door. He grinned at me with obvious delight in his taunting game. His eyes glanced up, through the trees that loomed overhead and into an endless black night with a myriad sparkling stars. He pretended nonchalance as if the kiss mattered not at all.

"Okay,..." I grumped. "I admit that was a kiss, but it wasn't a real kiss. I had in mind that I would kiss you, and you would kiss me back. A proper kiss."

"Oh! You didn't say you wanted a real kiss," Christian teased. "I'll have to think about that."

Following Christian's lead, I lifted my head up and gazed through the plastic-covered sunroof. There was a fracture from one side to the other that I had hastily and ineptly sealed with masking tape before the winter set in. That had been two years ago. Overhead, the spreading branches of the adjacent tree blocked out most of the moonlight. Still, silvery bands filtered through. It was nearly a full moon. For a moment I thought about the future and the career that awaited me in New York. Suddenly, the thought of spending a lifetime without Christian was depressing. I breathed out slowly.

"What's up Doc?" Christian asked.

He tried to make it sound right, but the impersonation sounded nothing like Bugs Bunny. Even to my ears, the deep-south twang of the pre-pubescent boy seemed out-of-place. Still, I smiled. It was his my to play the offended role.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" Christian asked teasingly. "Don't you want something?" He raised his head, fluttering his eyelashes mincingly.

I suppressed another smile. I had seen the signs the first night. Already the eleven-year-old boy was following a pattern of behavior typically associated with the stereotype of the homosexual. At the same age, I suspected I had been very similar. If taken in conjunction with his tight clothing and the glittering stud in his right ear, Christian communicated an unambiguous message whose meaning it was unlikely that he understood. The men he met at night knew what he wanted.

"I have everything I want right here," I said quietly.

"Everything?" Christian asked boldly.

"What more could I want? I'm sitting in a car under the stars with the most beautiful boy I've ever seen."

"Yeah, right! Hardly!"

"That from a boy who's drop-dead gorgeous?"

Christian shrugged, pretending to be disinterested. Finally, he looked directly at me and smiled shyly.

"My dad thinks you're really handsome."

The shock passed quickly. "The important question for me is what you think," I responded.

Christian regarded me for a few seconds, and then he shrugged with a deliberately casual air. I also pretended to be disinterested, but I lasted only a few seconds before I took the offered bait.

"Not handsome, huh?" I asked.

Slowly Christian shook his head. "Not even a little bit, perhaps?" I prompted.

"Nope!"

"Not even okay-looking?"

"No!"

"What then?"

"Hmmmm."."" Christian smiled slightly. "Okay, I'll tell you, but on one condition. First you have to answer a question."

"Okay," I replied. "Fire away."

"If you really wanted to tell someone something really badly, and you liked him a whole lot, and if you couldn't tell him what it was because he might think it was bad."

"That bad?"

"Maybe it was so terrible that,... well I can't tell you, but anyway, what would you do?"

"Like what? I have to know a bit more first," I prompted.

"Um,." I don't know. Anything I guess, only it was the most terrible thing in the world to you."

"Only you don't want to tell me, huh?" I asked cautiously.

Christian nodded slightly. "Because! I can't."

"Because I'm the someone?" I asked.

"Uh huh."

"Well, you told me one thing anyway."

"What?" Christian asked nervously.

"That you do like me a whole lot. That's nice to know, Christian. Because I like you a whole lot too."

The boy smiled shyly from the other side of the car. The distance, only a matter of feet, seemed to have become much less. Suddenly he wanted desperately to be held close. He needed a man's warmth so much that he shivered slightly.

"I know that," Christian whispered.

"Well, why don't you just tell me? You can trust me, you know that, don't you?"

"I just can't, okay."

"Hm.". Well I don't know why. It must be very personal if you can't tell me," I suggested.

"It is," Christian answered uncomfortably.

Suddenly, his face flushed with embarrassment. The color spread to his neck and he shifted in his seat nervously. I smiled reassuringly, vaguely suspecting what was on the boy's mind. He was begin to realize, to understand how he was different to other boys.

"Well," I began. "I think the best thing would be to just come out and tell me. What's the worst I could do?"

"You might start hating me," Christian said flatly. "You might not like me anymore. You might even tell people about me."

"I could never be that angry with you. I,..." I hesitated, unable to say the words, 'I love you,' again without acting on them. "I hope you know you can trust me by now."

"Yeah, I guess," Christian said softly. "Well, based on what you know, what should I do?"

"I have to know what it is that you can't tell me."

"I can't tell you. I don't want you mad at me because of it."

"Can't you ask your Dad?" I suggested lightly. "I don't know if he knows, but he seems like a really nice person."

"He knows of course. He's always known. Anyway, I already did ask him. He said I had to decide for myself, and if I wanted, then I should tell you."

"You know, it probably isn't as bad as you think."

"Maybe. Maybe it's worse. Maybe it's much worse than you think," Christian said sullenly.

I smiled, reached out and gently caressed Christian's soft cheek. It was impossible to think that there was anything that could be so bad that Christian could not tell me. Even if the boy was getting ready to admit that he was gay, it did not seem that bad. The satiny warmth of the boy's skin suddenly faded and it startled me. At the same time, an instantaneous thrill of excitement sent a shiver down my back. Christian was going to tell me he was gay, that his feelings were more about love than friendship. I gazed at Christian with unwavering eyes, increasingly hopeful.

"Please tell me what it is?"

"First, promise you won't get mad at me," Christian said insistently.

"I promise."

"Okay!" Christian took a deep breath and slowly let it out. A moment later he blurted out, "Idon'twantyoutoleave."

"That's all? You don't want me to leave?"

Red-faced, Christian nodded awkwardly. "Okay!"

"Okay?"

"Okay, how about if I don't go to New York, then you don't go home until tomorrow morning. You know, Chris, we've haven't been friends long enough to know a lot about each other, but you know what? I feel like I've known you for years and years," I laughed. Christian smiled uncertainly but was unable to conceal the look of dismay that darkened his face. I was oblivious to the boy's sudden change of mood. "Anyway, now you have to tell me."

"Tell you?" Christian asked absently. A sudden look of dismay crossed his face.

"What you meant about me,... about not being good looking."

"Oh, that! It doesn't matter. I'm ready to go home," Christian said dryly.

"I don't understand."

"It's what I want, okay. You always said, if I wanted something I had to say so."

"Yes. I did say that. I thought you wanted to, you know be here with me."

Christian breathed out. He no longer knew what he wanted from life. He only knew that he could never bite the man he loved.

"What's wrong, Chris?" I demanded. I leaned forward, my eyes pleading. "Please tell me. I want to help. I would do anything I could."

"You want to have sex with me," Christian said softly. "That's what's wrong."

"I'm sorry. I can't help it." I groaned. I had been born a boylover. From the day I first started thinking about sex, boys filled my fantasies. From the day I lost my virginity to a seventeen-year-old neighbor, I knew exactly what I wanted out of life. It was like a sickness, an incurable disease that grew stronger and stronger every day. "If you don't want to see me, I'll understand."

"Don't be silly," Christian admonished. "You really don't understand, do you?"

"Huh?"

"I want to have sex with you too. I want to do everything. And not just suck each other, okay. Of course, I want that too, but I want the other thing. You know, so we get joined together," Christian answered. "That's the problem you see."

"Why? Do you think being gay is bad?"

"Of course not. It's just,... well I'll kill you."

"WHAT on earth are you talking about?" I asked uncertainly. The fear loomed up before me and threatened my sanity. What I thought was impossible, yet all my dreams crashed and everything else seemed insignificant compared to the answer to a simple question. The words tumbled out of my mouth, seeking the answer to a question that had been in my mind since the night before. "Do you have AIDS or something? I mean you can't? You're too young. You're only a kid, Chris.

Unless you got it from a blood transfusion or something. I guess that's possible, I know, but hell,... No, you can't."

Christian smiled. "I,... don't,... have,... AIDS," he said with deliberate slowness that left no room for any continuing uncertainty on my part. "Then what on earth do you mean when you say you'd kill me," I demanded angrily.

"Nothing! Don't get so angry."

"What did you expect me to think?"

"Nothing!" he replied quickly. "I didn't mean it the way it sounded, okay? I'm not going to die. Not ever!"

"You're weird." I laughed nervously, as much as from instantaneous relief and amusement. "No one lives forever!"

"How can you be so sure? Maybe there are some people who don't die"

I reached out and playfully ruffled his hair. "Well, I hope you do. I want you to stay the way you are right now."

His face beamed. "I will."

Suddenly he turned serious. "What did my father tell you?"

"Not much!" I answered. I paused. "It was all pretty strange. I think he wanted to say more, but he was afraid."

"Tell me what he said," Christian said insistently.

"Well,... He said you were different,... That there was something inside you.

Something that didn't belong there, but you hadn't given in to it."

"Yes," Christian said softly.

"He made it sound like, well like it was a disease. That's what made you come to the park at night."

Christian regarded me thoughtfully. "No, it's not a disease, at least not like a virus or something like that. It's not like when you get sick."

"He called it 'a hunger'."

The boy smiled playfully. "More like a thirst actually." His lips parted to reveal small teeth that were perfectly shaped and very, very, white. "I can't help it. I need to drink your blood," he whispered. "Let me suck on your neck."

I laughed at his funny deep growl. "Are you sure you want blood and not something else. Maybe there's another part of me you want to suck instead."

He sat up suddenly, his small pale hand instinctively rubbing across his red full lips. His eyes fluttered, delicate dimples appeared in his cheeks. The moonlight was strong enough to illuminate his face. It seemed that even his hair glistened. I smiled gently, barely resisting the impulse to reach across and pull the boy into my embrace. He was unbelievably beautiful. Surely he felt the same desires. Of course, it was pure fantasy on my part. The boy was sensuous and his sexual urge was undeniably strong, but that was the extent of what he felt. he was much too young to know about love. It was raw animal instinct that drove him to come to the park at night. He was not looking for a partner to share his life, for someone to be by his side throughout the night, to protect him during the day. Those were his father's words, but they were all I had to go on. I tried to rationalize my feelings on the presumption that a young boy would reject my love out-of-hand. He would not love me back, no matter how much I loved him. I was doomed to unhappiness if Christian was not going to return my love. Yet at that moment, he was mine to love, even if that love was unrequited.

"Let me suck you this time," he said urgently. "It's my turn."

I glanced around the car. The idea of doing anything with Christian in my dilapidated Firebird was depressing. "We can take turns. Maybe we should go somewhere else," I suggested awkwardly.

"Why?" Christian asked.

"Because,... because I want to take all of your clothes off. I want to look at you and I want to see all of you. The car isn't the right place."

His hand reached out for mine, his slender cool fingers slipping between mine like they were made to be there. I felt my heart begin to beat faster. For a second we gazed silently at each other. He felt it too, the strange magnetism, the sudden flow of blood. I realized an immediate stiffening in my briefs.

"Come one. Let's get out of the car," I said insistently.

By the time I was out of my door, Christian was standing beside me. His hand tugged at mine. He was breathing quickly, his eyes meeting mine. I clenched his hand tightly, afraid to go, afraid that he would leave me standing alone. My eyes, already accustomed to the darkness darted around the unfamiliar glade, looking for a place to go. I pulled him after me, pushing my way through the low branches of bushes, stumbling over rocks and clumps of knee-high grass. I felt my heart pounding as I ran. A sharp stick tore at my leg, a near tumble threatened to sprain my ankle, yet we still went on as if an unseen force was pursuing us.

I had never been there before, yet I knew it was the right place. A clearing, no larger than a small bedroom, a narrow gap between trees that revealed the oil-sheen water of the lake, a blanket of leaves and grass.

We stopped there, both breathing in gasps. I tried to calm myself. I shivered, not from cold but raw excitement. We were together in a place that guaranteed absolute privacy. I felt as if no one had been there before us, but they had.

There were empty beer bottles, the wrappers from candy, a silver foil package, a latex condom still with fluid. Christian smiled shyly.

"Let me suck you first, okay."

"Are you sure?"

"I'll swallow," he offered. "I don't mind the taste."

"Jesus, you don't have to do that."

"Yes I do! I want to."

"You shouldn't, you know. It's dangerous without a rubber."

He shrugged. "It won't hurt me. Nothing can hurt me."

"If we have sex, I'll hurt you."

"I guess. I don't expect even that will hurt me all that much."

"You,... you haven't before,... have you?"

He shook his head slightly and then he stopped. "I,... I don't know. I don't remember. I remember a,... I don't know. I was sore there for a while,... where the man's cock goes,... but it was a long time ago. Maybe,..."

"You're still a virgin," I teased. "No one ever forgets their first time."

Christian smiled and turned to look beyond the trees. He was very alert, listening, smelling, absorbing the world around him like an animal in the forest when it thinks it is being threatened.

"I like it here," he said softly.

"I like being here with you," I replied.

"David?" he began cautiously.

"Yes."

"I haven't told you everything. Neither did my father."

"It doesn't matter," I said to his back.

"I can't help it. I can't stop myself."

I breathed out. "You're a beautiful boy, Christian and,... being as sexy as you are, it's only natural for you to want to do it. Maybe if you have me around, it'll be different."

"Maybe," Christian answered uncertainly. "It's something inside me. I wasn't always like this. It's hard to explain."

"Your father said it was like a disease, only it's not caused by a virus. He said something about it being like a seed inside you."

Christian inclined his head, listening to the night. "He would say that. It's how he thinks. He's talking about seed in the Biblical sense. Because of the semen. I like to swallow. It affects me, I think."

"You are what you eat?" I commented. "I don't think it affects you like that. It's all in your head, not in your stomach."

"If only it was that simple. It's just a matter of time until I give in to it."

"Your father said that too. I just hope that when you do, the lucky man will be me," I joked.

Christian's shoulders slumped. "You don't want it to be you. Not if you knew what it was like."

"Are you afraid it will hurt or something?"

"No, not really. It's not that at all. I just don't want you to hate me. I'm not like the rest of them. At least not yet. But I will be, when I give in."

I shrugged, wondering what he was referring to. It could only be the other homosexuals who roamed the park in search of chance liaisons. Until two nights before, that had been Christian's destiny as well. I wondered what peculiar combination of genes and upbringing brought men together in that way.

"I'll always love you, no matter what," I whispered.

Slowly he turned to face me. The moonlight illuminated his head and shoulders.

"You really mean that, don't you?"

I nodded. It was impossible not to love him deeply. I understood why his father had accompanied him on his nightly sojourns. The force of love was that strong. Yet my love was different. I lifted my arms and held them out. He stepped forward like a frightened boy seeking protection from an angry world. He was cold. As my arms wrapped around him, I wanted only to warm him, to hold him close, to smell him.

'I love you, David.'.

The words formed in my mind. It was Christian's voice, strong and clear, and without any shame. I felt his hands moving across my face, pulling me closer against him. I lowered my head. His kiss was soft, his lips wet, neither hot or cold. A moment later I felt his breath, moist with vapor, against my cheek. My right hand followed the flowing curve of his spine, tracing the vertebrae to his bottom. There my hand settled, cupping the firm small cheeks that lay under his tight shorts. I drew back, gazing into his innocent eyes. I saw my own reflection. Then, I no longer had any doubts. I knew he loved me, that we would make love in the darkness of the night.

'Take my clothes off.'

He was insistent and I had no will to resist. Perhaps it was the same for Christian. He was giving in. I could hear it in his voice, fainter now than the first time his words had entered my mind. The love of boys was ingrained within me, but my desire for Christian was much more than physical urge or human psyche could explain. My intuition told me that part of him was missing. Not that it was very far away, because I sensed the closeness of it. Just as he was touching me, something unseen but very present was surrounding us. I had a strange feeling that what was missing from this boy somehow existed within me.

My hand cupped his chin and gently lifted his head. His eyes closed even as his perfect lips formed a kiss. I brushed against the softness of his lips ever so lightly. I felt him trembling in my arms. Between us, my hand fumbled at his waist, unfastening the metal button of his shorts. He tugged with one hand, while I pulled at the opposite side. His shorts came down, not all the way but far enough to give me access to his groin. There we stopped, still kissing tentatively.

I heard his passion growing. A whimper came when my hand kneaded the swelling bulge behind his briefs. His boy-penis was already firm, yet still not hard and straight. My arm locked behind his shoulders to hold him tight, my hand guiding his head. As my tongue cautiously entered his mouth, I had the distinct impression that he had never been kissed before in a way that was not chaste.

Yet, he held nothing back. His teeth parted as my tongue probed beyond. His own tongue greeted mine, soft and hot, and very wet. His mouth was sweet and succulent in a way that no other person's mouth was. I felt his breath entering me and I breathed in to draw more of it into me. My hands shifted, taking hold of the tee-shirt at his hips. Lifting upward, bringing his arms above his head, ever higher until it was free. I dropped the shirt, replaced my hands upon his back, held him even tighter. His bare skin was even softer and smoother than I anticipated. He pushed against me with an urgency that was as compelling as the night I had taken his small penis into my mouth. His nipples were so hard that I could actually feel them through my shirt. And between his lips, his tongue came forward into my mouth. I cupped my hand over his genitals. During the seconds it had taken me to remove his shirt, his penis had become inflexible. It stuck out like a little spear, pulling his briefs into a tight 'v'.

'You can take everything off, if you want.'

I wanted to tell Christian that I was afraid he would get cold, that if someone came close we would have to get dressed in a hurry, that there was no need for him to be completely naked. Instead, I reached down, pushed down, forced his shorts to his knees. From there on down there was sufficient room for his shorts to drop to his feet. He stood before me looking more than a little sheepish. He was dressed only in his dark-colored briefs and sneakers with his shorts bunched at his feet.

"Well?" he teased in a sing-song voice. "Are you, or are you not going to undress me?"

"There's not all that much left to take off," I said with a smirk.

I wanted to tell him how beautiful he was, yet any words I could think of were insufficient to describe him. I gazed, open-mouthed at a small bulge that was pointed at the top. I reached for his hands, felt his fingers entwined with mine, drawing him down onto the blanket. He knelt before me, eyes sparkling, chest rising and falling, a shy smile. He was as nervous as I was. I swallowed, breathed out, could not take my eyes off him. His hands left mine, tracing along my arms with a feathery touch until he reached my shoulders. He held me, gazing intently.

'Say it!'.

"I love you!"

'And I love you... I want you to make love to me!'

"Now?"

'Yes. Now!'

I reached out, pushing his shirt higher before taking his slim body in my hands at the same instant that Christian pulled me against him. I felt his warmth, his vibrant strength, the powerful beat of his heart, the softness of his bare skin.

I felt his lithe, alive body moving, aware that his head had tilted back, delicate lips joining with mine. His succulent mouth opened, sucking, drawing my tongue into him. I followed him down onto the blanket, tugging frantically at his colorful briefs. His penis was impossibly hard. It was totally inflexible. It was hotter than I expected. I lay half over him, kissing again and again. His hands strayed, eagerly unfastening my belt, opening my zipper. I assisted, lifting up so that he could slide my jeans down.

And then we were both exposed. I felt his small hand caress my penis, sliding slowly up and down. I grasped his male part, no longer needing to be gentle with him. he groaned and pushed hard into my enclosing hand. My fingers squeezed his testicles, discovering that although they were surprisingly small compared to mine, they provided sensations that were more than ample to give him pleasure. He writhed against me, sticking his tongue between my teeth as he took my tongue all the back into his mouth. I felt his hands pulling and pushing and clumsily aware that I had been squashing him, I rolled to the side.

Christian jerked away. His eyes were wide, strange, threatening. He twisted around, taking a different position, a position that left his face adjacent to my crotch, and my face buried in his groin. The smell was intoxicating, almost as much as the sight that greeted me. His penis twitched expectantly, pulsing with life.

His tongue touched the tip of my penis. He licked tentatively, testing the taste to see if it was to his liking. I returned the intimacy. His taste was sweet, unlike the tangy saltiness of a teenager. I sighed, came closer so that the acorn- sized tip slipped between my lips, suckled gently to draw Christian's mouth onto my own turgid member. He nibbled with his lips, brushing my glans across the smooth slipperiness of his wet lips, against the front of his teeth, caressed with his velvety tongue.

His head undulated, his tongue curling around my glans and enveloping it in saliva. I let his penis enter my mouth as I simultaneously pushed forward. His lips provided a tight embrace, yet within his mouth it was soft and hot. I felt his cheeks drawn in, providing a joyful suction that became stronger and stronger until all of my penis was inside him, until the skin was stretched tight, until the skin shrouded my glans like a foreskin. In turn, I reciprocated, performing the same act on his small penis, accepting the inevitability of life and death now that I belonged to Christian, just as he belonged to me. I closed my eyes, knowing that I would experience no greater pleasure during my the rest of my life.

From the darkness, I heard Robert's whispered words as clear as day.

"When he bites, bite back. Do not wait a single second."

A moment later, I felt the boy strike, his vampyre-teeth sinking into the skin that now stretched beyond my glans. I felt a sharp stabbing agony, a terror that exploded amid the most incredible sensations in my penis. Yet, in that instant, I knew that I loved him and he loved me back. The pain was mind- shattering. It was a miracle that I retained enough sense to follow Robert's direction. I felt my body shaking uncontrollably as my blood dribbled from the severed skin. I sucked as hard as I could, pulling the skin along the shaft of his stubby penis until it came beyond the tip. Then I bit down, my teeth penetrating the boy's delicate skin. His blood rushed onto my palate, urging me to finish the wound. I clamped my jaws together, gnawing on the tender morsel until it separated from his penis.

Although it was scarcely more than a trickle, I drank the life that spilled from him.

THE END (Until Halloween 2000).