Masters of Midnight

by Michael Thomas Ford

  Now was the time to feed. Daniel was perfect, and his for the taking. The young attendant panted even more heavily now, and reached down to drop his trousers to his knees. He humped the back of his ass against Bradon’s throbbing crotch.

  Bradon moaned with the pleasure and wrapped his arms around Daniel’s waist. He ground his pelvis against the supple flesh of Daniel’s ass.

  “I’ve never done anything like this before,” Daniel managed to whisper between pants.

  “No, of that I’m quite sure.”

  “I want you, Bradon. I want you so badly.”

  Bradon nibbled on Daniel’s earlobe and kissed him softly on the neck. His lips tingled with excitement and hunger as they passed over the thick, throbbing vein running across the length of Daniel’s silky smooth neck. His own heart was now racing as quickly as Daniel’s, and his cock throbbed painfully against the constraints of his jeans. He closed his eyes and quickly shoved his jeans to the floor in one move.

  He pressed his hardness against the smooth, muscular ass in front of him. His flesh was hot and hard against the cool, soft, smooth ass cheeks, and he moaned again. This time his moan sounded desperate and animalistic. His heart raced faster, and he looked up at his reflection in the mirror again. Daniel was bent all the way over the sink, so that Bradon could only see the back of his head. Bradon’s own reflection was different now than it had been a couple of minutes earlier. His eyes looked red, and his skin was so pale it looked translucent. He opened his mouth wide and looked at his teeth.

  They were there. His two front canine teeth were long and sharp. Bradon moaned and leaned his body against Daniel’s.

  “I’m sorry, Daniel,” Bradon said as he rubbed his naked, hard cock against Daniel’s butt and legs. “I don’t want to do this. I swear, I don’t want to do this.”

  “It’s okay, Bradon,” Daniel whispered back encouragingly. “I want you to. I want you inside me.”

  Bradon began sobbing. He lifted his head from Daniel’s back and leaned forward. When his lips touched the supple skin of Daniel’s neck, he breathed in, savoring the sweet smell of Daniel’s sweat and his cologne. He opened his mouth and pressed his tongue against the warm throbbing flesh.

  “I . . . don’t . . . want . . .”

  “Do it, Bradon. I want you insi—”

  Bradon bit down softly into Daniel’s neck, just barely enough to pierce the skin. It was enough to startle Daniel, and his body stiffened beneath Bradon’s.

  “Bradon? What’s going on?”

  Bradon cried softly, as his fangs sank another quarter of an inch into Daniel’s neck. As the first trickle of warm blood slid across his tongue, he squeezed Daniel tighter beneath him and sucked softly on his throat.

  “Ow. That’s a little rough, Bradon. It hurts.”

  Bradon continued sucking for a few seconds, but did not sink his teeth completely into Daniel’s neck. If only he could feed for just a couple of seconds, he would be fine. If only he could stop himself before he went too far. Just a few drops were all he needed for right now. He could wait to fully feed until he was safe in San Francisco. He didn’t want to kill Daniel. Daniel was a nice kid who’d made the mistake of flirting with Bradon while he was in a weakened state of body and mind.

  He drank for a few seconds more, and when he felt Daniel’s body begin to quiver and grow limp, he quickly withdrew.

  “Daniel?” Bradon cried out as he pulled himself away from the young flight attendant. Daniel’s body grew heavy and more limp as it slumped to the toilet seat.

  “Oh, Christ,” Bradon whimpered as he crumpled to the floor next to Daniel’s unconscious body. “No. Please don’t let this happen. I didn’t drink too much. I swear, I didn’t drink too much. Just a little bit. I only needed a little bit. Please don’t be dead, Daniel,” he said as he gently shook Daniel’s body.

  “What happened?” Daniel said dazedly as he came to.

  “I’m so sorry,” Bradon said as he rocked Daniel in his arms. “I didn’t mean to . . .”

  “Did I faint?”

  Bradon choked back a sob and wiped a tear from his eyes. He took a deep breath before answering. “Yes.”

  Daniel looked down at his trousers, which were still around his ankles. He reached down and touched Bradon’s naked thigh beneath him.

  “Damn, you must really have been fantastic. I’ve never fainted before!”

  Bradon laughed softly and leaned against the sink.

  “I just wish I could remember it. After a fuck that good, it’s usually nice if you can recall all the juicy details later, you know what I mean?”

  “Yes, I do,” Bradon whispered. He stood and helped Daniel do the same. “But trust me, you were fantastic.”

  “Well, of course I was. Hell, I passed out. How much more fantastic can you be, right? I always did have a flare for the dramatics.”

  Bradon laughed, and the two young men began getting dressed.

  “What the hell is that?” Daniel asked suddenly.

  “What?” Bradon asked.

  “This mark on my neck.” He leaned in closer to the mirror. “Did you give me a fucking hickey? My supervisors will freak when they see this.”

  “No, I didn’t give you a hickey. It’s just a scratch. I think you might have knocked against the sink when you passed out. Nothing to worry about. Borrow some of Pamela’s foundation and cover it up. No one will notice.”

  “I hope not. I just got this promotion. The last thing I need is for someone to find me getting screwed in the can on my second trip as ranking attendant.”

  “Believe me, no one will notice a thing. I promise. Now, should I leave first, or do you want to?”

  “I’ll go first. Wait about thirty seconds or so before you come out, okay?”

  “I will.”

  “And thanks for a really great time. At least, I guess it was.”

  “It was fantastic. Thank you.”

  Daniel opened the door and squeezed himself out into the galley of the plane. Bradon waited a full minute before he opened the door and left the restroom himself. Every passenger was still reading a book or sleeping or working on a computer. No one seemed to notice the two young men having been gone. No one seemed to notice the locked bathroom door. No one seemed to notice that Bradon’s face was slightly less pale and slightly more flushed. No one noticed the tiny dried trickle of blood on the corner of his now fully soft and pink lips.

  The Boy Vampire

  “Tell me again, Daddy,” the young boy said anxiously as he struggled to push the heavy chair closer to the kitchen table. After a couple of minutes, the chair was at a sufficient distance from the edge of the table, and the young boy took a deep breath before raising his leg high enough to rest his knee on the padded seat, shoving himself up to the top of the seat. “Please, Daddy. Just one more time.”

  “I know what you’re doing, son,” Victor said, as he pulled the plastic Ziplock bag from the freezer and laid it carefully in the sink. He waited until the water turned warm, and then directed the spout so that the warm water ran over the plastic bag. “This will take about five minutes, and then I have to nuke it for a minute. You know the drill, Bradon. There’s not enough time to go into the story again.”

  “Five minutes is a long time,” Bradon said. “The stories have been getting shorter, anyway. Pretty soon they’ll only last a couple of minutes.”

  “You’re pouting, son. That’s not an admirable trait. Especially for a big five-year-old.”

  “I’m not pouting. I just want to hear the story.”

  “But it’s time for your feeding. I know you don’t like to feed, Bradon. But it’s very important. I’ve told you before, you will die without the blood. You’re trying to manipulate me into letting you skip today’s feeding. It’s not going to work. You haven’t fed for ten days. That’s three days longer than you should go without at your age. You’re not a baby anymore, son. You’re growing very fast, and you need more and more blood as you grow and get older.”r />
  “I’m not going to grow or get older in the next five minutes,” Bradon said, and crossed his arms across his chest defiantly. “My food will be ready by the time you finish the story.”

  “Oh, you have your mother’s wit. And her mouth. You’re very intelligent for your age, son. Maybe too smart for your own good.”

  “That’s not possible. You’re just trying to get out of telling me the story again.”

  Victor fought the urge to smile. Instead, he turned his back to his son, and turned the Ziplock bag over so the warm water could heat the other side. He sighed and walked slowly across the room to the kitchen table.

  “Your mother was an angel, Bradon. A gift from heaven. I knew it the moment I laid eyes on her.”

  “You were walking along the Charles River, right?” He knew the story by heart, and was determined to fill in the many blanks his father seemed increasingly intent on creating.

  “That’s correct, son. It was about midnight. A small riverside concert had just let out, and there were several young people walking around the banks of the river. It was dark outside, of course, but your mother’s smile and the sparkle in her eyes shined right through the darkness and beckoned me to her.”

  “It was cold outside, right? And she wasn’t wearing a coat.”

  “That’s right, son. It was late August, and the nights were beginning to get a little chilly.”

  “We’re in August now, aren’t we, Daddy?”

  “Yes,” Victor sighed, as he turned his gaze to the darkness outside the kitchen window. “Next week will be the seventh anniversary of the night I met your sweet mother. You’ll never know how much I miss her.”

  “That’s not part of the story, Daddy. Stick to the story. I’ve only got five minutes, remember.”

  Victor laughed out loud, despite his attempt to the contrary, and ruffled his young son’s head. “Rachel Suazo was the most beautiful woman who ever lived.”

  “Prettier than Alexis Carrington on Dynasty?”

  “Much. And so much nicer, too.”

  “Prettier than Heather Locklear?”

  “No comparison.”

  “Wow!” Bradon whispered, and shook his head in disbelief. He’d often brought up lots of pretty girls’ names during this part of the story, but he’d never dreamed that his mother could actually have been prettier than Heather Locklear.

  “Yes, wow, indeed. I knew the very moment I saw her that I had to have her. She was several yards away from me, but I saw right through the damp morning air and darkness, and I fell in love with Rachel even before we’d said a word to one another.”

  “And that’s when you gave her your coat.”

  “You know this story better than I do, squirt!”

  “Yeah, but you were there.”

  “I was, indeed. I walked directly up to your mother and she fell madly in love with me instantly.”

  “Yeah, right. That’s not the way the story used to sound when you first started telling it to me.”

  “Yes, it is!”

  Bradon rolled his eyes, and walked over to the sink to check on the bag of blood warming. He used a small stepladder to reach the counter and leaned into the sink so that he could turn the bag over.

  Victor smiled as he watched his son preparing his own meal. It was good that he was beginning to get hungry. At his age, going too long without food could quickly become fatal. Though Bradon didn’t like to feed, he always came around when the hunger began to get too strong. He was a good boy.

  “All she wanted was your coat,” Bradon said, and crawled into his father’s lap.

  “Maybe at first. But it didn’t take long for her to come around. I walked her home that morning, and before I left, she gave me her phone number. I called her the next evening, and from that moment on, we were madly in love with one another.”

  “Why didn’t you get married?”

  “That’s complicated, son. My family was against the relationship from the very beginning. They didn’t see Rachel the way I did.”

  “How did they see Mommy?”

  “They saw her as a mortal, and as a threat. But it wasn’t just my family. Rachel’s parents were not thrilled with our arrangement either.”

  “Because you’re a vampire?”

  “No. They never knew that. Rachel didn’t even know that until a couple of months into our relationship.”

  “Why didn’t they like you, then?”

  “Because I had money. Because I was not Puerto Rican. Because I only came to see Rachel at night, and they were sure I stole her innocence. Because I took their little baby girl away from them.”

  “Mommy wasn’t a little girl. She was nineteen.”

  “She was still their little girl. And they were right, really. I had no right coming in and sweeping her off her feet like I did. But I couldn’t help myself. When I finally decided to tell her I was a vampire, I prepared myself for the worst. I had all my bags packed and was ready to flee Boston forever. To run and get away from your mother so that I could never hurt her.”

  “Where would you have gone?”

  “I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought it out that far in advance. But I never had to leave. When I told your mother I was a vampire, she was a little stunned, but not shocked. She was very smart for her age, just like you. She believed in vampires and ghosts and angels and spirits equally. She understood that we are all a part of the cycle of life.”

  “So she didn’t care that you eat people?”

  “We do not eat people, son. You know that. And so did your mother. Flesh is filthy and poisoned. It is only blood that we need for survival. It took your mom a couple of weeks to completely accept who I was. But eventually her love for me proved much stronger than her fear of me. When she finally came back home after spending some time at her parents’ house she wrapped her arms around me and wept for a very long time.”

  “Why was she crying?”

  “Loving a vampire is not easy, son. She knew her life was going to be difficult. But she swore her love to me, and promised never to leave me. She only had two conditions of her undying love. Do you remember what they were?”

  “That you never feed on her, and you didn’t tell her about your feedings.”

  “That’s right. She understood that I was immortal, but she was very adamant about not wanting to become immortal herself. She wanted to live a natural life. So I was never to feed on her, and never to convert her.”

  “Why didn’t Mommy want to live forever?” Bradon asked as he snuggled against his father’s chest.

  “Because she was smart. A vampire’s life is a very difficult one. It’s not easy living for centuries.”

  “Then why did you want to be a vampire?”

  “I had no choice. I was born into a long family of vampires.”

  “So nobody ever bit you?”

  “No. But even though I never chose to be a vampire, I am proud of my ancestry and my heritage. We come from an extremely noble line, son. It’s all I’ve ever known. I do not kill for the sake of killing. I kill in order to survive.”

  “But not all vampires are like that.”

  “No, that is true. Some vampires were born mortal, but have made a conscious decision to convert to vampirism. Many of those are just hungry for immortality. They are stupid and greedy, and do not realize the painful existence of eternity. Others hunger for violence and the thrill of killing. These people become vampires because the thought of hundreds of lifetimes filled with violence and blood excites them.”

  “How do they choose to become a vampire?”

  “They study vampirism. They know the underground, and they hunt us out. Then they offer themselves to us as a sacrifice. There are many among us who find the idea of mentoring a new convert challenging and exciting.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I find the thought reckless. True vampires are born into it. To bite a human being and allow him to live through the conversion is a horrendous act, and it only r
esults in creating hybrids. Sometimes vampires find a mortal they feel is their soulmate, and they convert that person so they can spend eternity together.”

  “But you didn’t do that with Mommy.”

  “No, I didn’t. I loved and respected your mother too much to do that to her. If she’d wanted to convert, that would have been another story. But she valued her life as a mortal human and wanted to remain that way. She also valued my life for what it was and never asked me to be anything else. I respected her for that and vowed to honor her conditional love.”

  “That was nice, Daddy.”

  “Yes, nice and also difficult. But your mother and I grew more in love with one another with every passing day. Her parents hated our relationship and would have nothing to do with us. My parents hated our relationship and warned of the impending doom that would result. They also wanted nothing to do with us. So we were on our own.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “Not really. We got along just fine. And then when we got word that you were going to enter our lives, we became ecstatic. It was a long and painful pregnancy for your mother, but we were so happy that you were going to join our family.”

  “And then Mommy died.”

  Victor lifted Bradon off of his lap and set him on his own chair, then walked over to the sink and removed the now thawed bag of blood. “Yes,” he said as he walked with his back to his son over to the microwave. “She died while giving birth to you.”

  “Did she ever see me?”

  “Oh, yes,” Victor said as he removed the bag of blood from the microwave. He took a straw from the cabinet above the stove and slid it into the tiny slit at the top of the zippered bag. “She held you in her arms for a couple of minutes right after you were born. You were so tiny cradled against her breasts. Her last words were ‘take care of my son.’ I promised her I would.”