“Where have you been?”
“Out,” Bradon said, and brushed by his father.
“I was worried about you,” Victor said, as he followed his son into the kitchen.
“Well, don’t be.”
“Son, look at me,” Victor said. He turned Bradon around by the shoulders to face him. Blood was still dried and streaked across Bradon’s mouth and cheeks. “Oh, son! Good for you. You’ve been out feeding this evening. I told you it would get easier as time went on, didn’t I?”
“Dad, I wasn’t out feeding tonight.”
“What? I don’t understand. The blood . . .”
“I didn’t leave the house tonight with the intention of feeding. I went out to have a good time with some friends.”
“Friends? What friends? What happened?”
“I met someone, Dad. Someone special. Someone I liked very much.”
“Oh, Bradon, this doesn’t sound very good.”
“No, Dad? Why not? Because you can’t stand the thought of me being happy?”
“Son, it’s not that. You know that’s not true.”
“It is true!” Bradon yelled. He stormed out of the kitchen and into the living room, where he stared out the large window.
“Bradon, I want you to be happy. Of course I do. How could you ever think I want anything else?”
“Dad, I fell in love tonight. I was happy for the first time in my life.”
“But, Bradon, the blood on your mouth.”
“Yeah, apparently it didn’t go so well.”
“Who was she, son? Where did you meet her?”
“Dad . . .”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing someone. I could have prepared you better for dealing with mortals, son. Women are seductresses, and young, handsome men must be mentally prepared for their games. Oh, god, son. I should have seen this coming. I thought you would have learned from the story about your mother and I. Mortal women are nothing but trouble, son. Nothing but trouble.”
“His name was Josh, Dad.”
Victor stopped pacing and looked at his son. “What? I don’t understand.”
“I fell in love with another guy, Dad. His name was Josh.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No, it’s not. I never knew it was possible either, until tonight.”
“Son, you’re confused. Something terrible happened tonight, and you’re very upset. That’s all.”
“No, Dad, that’s not all.”
“Vampire men feed on mortal women.”
“Not this vampire man, Dad.”
“What are you talking about?”
Bradon jumped to his feet. “I’ve never liked women, Dad!” he yelled. “Never. I’ve always despised the taste of female blood. It’s sour and rancid in my mouth. I vomit every time I feed on women. Have you not noticed that over the last few years? I hate women, Dad. I like guys. I like the taste of men. I like the feel of men. I like making love to men.”
“No, no, no. That is not true. Something terrible happened tonight and you’re upset.”
“I’m gay, Dad. I don’t like women. I like men. I love men. I loved a man named Josh, and tonight when I was making love with him, I bit him. I fed on him and I killed him, Dad. Are you listening to me? Do you have any idea what I’m saying?”
“No, son. I don’t. This is not possible.”
“It is possible, Dad. I’m gay. I always have been. And you didn’t prepare me for that. You didn’t let me know it was okay. You didn’t let me know I could fall in love and that it could be dangerous. You didn’t tell me I could kill someone I love.”
“Bradon, you did not love this man you fed on.”
“You’re not listening to me, Father,” Bradon screamed. “I was not feeding on Josh. I was making love with him.”
“I don’t want to hear any more of this.”
“Too bad, Dad. I don’t care if you don’t want to hear this. I am your son, and you have to listen to this. I am gay, Dad. I loved another guy tonight. For the first time in my life I felt whole and complete and happy. I felt right. And right in the middle of my first time with another man, I bit him, Dad. I wasn’t feeding on him. I didn’t mean to bite him. I was kissing him and making love to him, and before I knew it I had drunk the life right out of him.”
“I’m going to bed now. We can talk about this tomorrow evening.”
“No, we can’t. There’s nothing to talk about. You let me down, Dad. From now on I’m on my own. I’ll figure this all out myself. You can figure your life out on your own, and deal with it however you see fit. But this is my life. I’m gay. I will never again feed on women, and I will never again feed with you. Ever. Do you hear me, Dad? Never.”
Victor stormed up the stairs. Bradon could hear his father slamming every door as he roamed without purpose from room to room. Bradon ran downstairs, kicking his father’s bedroom door as he passed, and then slamming his own bedroom door behind him. He flung himself on his bed and cried himself to sleep.
Bradon and Victor hardly saw one another after that, and they spoke even less often. Bradon woke just a few short moments after sunset each night, and showered and shaved before Victor arose. Sometimes he would fix himself a sandwich or some other light snack. But more often than not, he rushed out of the house before he heard his father stirring around his bedroom and the bathroom upstairs. He went out dancing with Monica a lot, who was happy to have Bradon’s attentions all to herself once again, and seemed none too eager to press Bradon on what might have happened to Josh.
When he came home in the early hours of the morning, his father was usually nowhere to be seen. Sometimes Bradon could hear music coming from behind his father’s bedroom door and the drunken slur of his father’s voice trying to sing along with his favorite songs. But usually the house was heavy with the absence of Victor’s presence altogether. After awhile, that was actually preferable to Bradon, and he retired to bed early enough to avoid running into Victor as he stumbled through the front door increasingly closer to dawn.
It was Monica who introduced Bradon to the magical world of the Internet. One night, a couple of years after the incident with Josh, and when Bradon was sure his father would be out late, he asked her to come over and show him how to browse around.
“It’s really boring, actually,” she said as she went over the basics with Bradon, “unless you know exactly what you’re looking for.”
“I’m not looking for anything in particular,” Bradon said, as he watched over her shoulder. “Just something to kill some time late at night. The bars are getting to be pretty monotonous. You know what I mean?”
“I know exactly what you mean, sweetie,” she said, as she scooted to one side to allow Bradon a better view. “Voila!”
“Monica! What is that?”
“MaleSex.com. It’s the hottest site out there right now.”
“But . . . those two guys are . . .”
“Yeah, I know. Fucking fantastic, isn’t it?”
“I can’t believe they’re doing that right on my computer screen.”
Just then the computer screen went black, and then blinked a couple of times. When it came back to life, there was an advertisement filling the entire screen.
“Shit!” Monica hissed. “Just when it gets to the juicy part they always cut you off. It’s just a teaser, really. If you wanna see the whole show you gotta pay a monthly membership fee.”
“How do you know all this shit, Mon?”
“Please. When you have as many gay friends as I do, it’s all you know. Sometimes we just sit for hours and watch guys get it on. They even have some sites where you can tell the guys what to do and they perform just for you.”
“Well, that might be all right for a couple of times, but it seems like it’d get boring after a while too.”
“I suppose,” Monica said, and leaned forward to type something else onto the computer. “That’s why most people spend the majority of their time in chat rooms.”
<
br /> “Chat rooms? What are they?”
“Sit back and watch,” she said, as she quickly went through the process of creating a screen name and profile for Bradon. Ten minutes later they were in the middle of a lively room.
“What does BostonM4M mean?” Bradon asked.
“Boston men for men. It’s a chat room for gay men in Boston. Lots of raunchy talk mostly, but sometimes it’s a good way to hook up with other guys.”
“Why did you call me Exotic9?”
“Because you are exotic looking, sweetie, admit it. And the 9 . . . well, let’s just say it will get you some attention.”
Just then a window popped up in the upper left corner of the computer screen:
<
“Told you,” Monica said, and smiled as she scooted away from the desk to give Bradon easier access.
“What am I supposed to do?” Bradon asked.
“Talk dirty to him. It’s really what most of them are looking for anyway.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Bullshit,” Monica said, and leaned forward to type Bradon’s response.
<
“Monica!”
<
“He wants to know what you look like and how old you are. Most guys on here are fat old trolls who lie and make up some outrageous profiles. But you don’t have to. The truth is better than 99% of anything out there. So go for it. Describe yourself. Leave out the boring part, okay.”
Bradon typed out a response and found himself engrossed in the chat room. He became bolder after only a couple of minutes. It didn’t take long before he had three or four windows going on at a time.
“Oh shit,” Bradon said, as he inhaled deeply and scooted back from the computer.
“What is it?” Monica asked, as she jumped to her feet and shuffled closer to the screen.
“This one wants to come over.”
“He sounds yummy. Your dad gonna be home soon?”
“Not for another three or four hours.”
“Then what are you waiting for? Invite him over.”
“I can’t . . .”
“Of course you can. Just give him your address.”
“But what if he’s . . .”
“Then you curse him out for lying to you, slam the door in his face, and come back down here and start all over again. I’m telling you, some of my friends have hooked up with some really hot guys this way.”
“Really?”
“Cross my heart,” Monica said, and typed Bradon’s address and hit the Send button.
<
“Oh great,” Bradon said as he stood up and paced nervously around the bedroom. “Now what am I supposed to do?”
<
“Monica!”
“I’ll just slip into the closet there. You’ll never know I’m there. I can videotape it if you want me to.”
“Get out!” Bradon said as he ushered her to the door.
“All right, all right. But call me tomorrow. I want all the juicy details.”
It was the first of many such encounters over the next couple of years. Bradon was fascinated with the world of chat rooms. As he became more comfortable navigating the Internet, he found more chat rooms and sites that interested him. He even found a site called InsomniacM4M. With so much activity available to him on his computer, he found himself going out to the bars less and less. He could avoid Victor without ever leaving his house, and that suited Bradon just fine.
Sins of the Father
“Are you sure no one’s home?” the young blond boy asked as he tripped over his own feet into the open doorway. “I’d hate to get caught with my pants down around my ankles, you know what I mean. You said you lived with your folks, right?”
“My dad,” Bradon corrected. He sniffed the chilly air inside the living room. “But he’s not here.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I don’t smell him.”
“Huh?”
Bradon laughed softly and shut the door behind him. “Just kidding. I know he’s not here because he works at night. Usually gets home around four-thirty in the morning. Which means,” he said, as he looked at the grandfather clock near the stairs, “that we have about two hours for a little fun of our own before he gets here. Do you think that will be enough time?”
“Hell yeah,” the blond boy said with a grin. “But why rush it, right?” He leaned forward to kiss Bradon on the lips.
“Right,” Bradon said. He pulled the young man closer to him and kissed him long and deep. The kid was an inexperienced kisser, and he thrust his tongue in and out of Bradon’s mouth awkwardly.
“Slow down,” Bradon said. “What’s your name again?”
“Tanner.”
“Okay, Tanner, I’ll tell you what. Just lie back and relax. Let me do all the work, all right?”
“Sure,” Tanner said. “But don’t you at least want me to—”
Bradon shoved Tanner backward onto the sofa and leapt on top of him playfully. When Tanner’s arms were pinned beneath Bradon’s knees, Bradon reached down and licked tenderly at his lips. Tanner tried desperately to arch upward enough to suck Bradon’s tongue into his mouth, but Bradon pulled away.
“Remember, let me do the work.” He began unbuttoning Tanner’s shirt slowly. Beneath him he felt Tanner respond to the aggression as his erection pressed against the back of Bradon’s legs. He ripped the rest of the shirt from Tanner’s torso and threw it to one side of the couch.
“Fuck, yeah, man,” Tanner said, as he sucked in a deep breath.
Bradon looked into his eyes and smiled as he lowered himself to Tanner’s chest. Tanner was breathing heavily, and his twin pecs quivered as Bradon got so close that his breath caused the tiny nipples on Tanner’s chest to harden. Bradon licked the hard nipples for a moment, then sucked them one at a time into his mouth.
“That’s great, man,” Tanner gasped, as Bradon sucked harder and then bit on the nipples lightly.
Bradon barely heard Tanner’s hoarse moans. His own head was spinning with bright pins of light and a sharp, high-pitched tone that rang in his ears. The salty beads of sweat that dotted Tanner’s lightly hairy chest were intoxicating. Bradon was drunk with the taste of this young man. He couldn’t get enough. His own arousal grew harder against his jeans as he licked his way down Tanner’s smooth, taut stomach.
It had been such a long time since he’d last allowed himself to feel this way with another man. Sure, he’d fed on many men in the five years since Josh, but he’d never allowed himself to feel anything for the men he fed on. It was all about survival.
But this was different. It wasn’t love, or anything remotely close to it. It was sex for the sake of sex. Not for love and not for feeding. Just raw sex. As he got closer to reaching the waistline of Tanner’s jeans, he began to get short of breath. Just inches away from the thick curly hair that sprouted below Tanner’s navel, Bradon inhaled deeply. The sweet musky scent of Tanner’s sweat-soaked body and a light trace of his cologne sent Bradon over the edge. He ripped Tanner’s jeans from his legs, and leaned down to kiss the bleached white jockey shorts. Tanner’s hardness throbbed against the thin cotton material and beckoned Bradon closer.
Bradon licked his lips and lowered his wet mouth to the mound of flesh under the bright white shorts. The buzzing in his ears was more intense now, and he was dizzy as the lights stabbed behind his eyes. He licked and sucked on the wet shorts for several minutes, until the sharp, clean line of Tanner’s cock was soaked and clearly visible.
“Do it, man.”
Bradon kicked his own jeans from his legs and onto the floor. Then he lowered his head back down into Tanner’s lap. He ripped the damp briefs right down the center and
threw the tattered underwear across the room. Now Tanner’s sweat-shined body was completely naked and thrusting beneath him. Bradon strained to hear Tanner’s coarsely moaned words above the screeching noise behind his ears. Then he decided it didn’t matter.
He licked at Tanner’s swollen shaft for a moment and then sucked gently on the throbbing head. Tanner bucked beneath him, causing his cock to slide deeper into Bradon’s mouth. Bradon took a deep breath and swallowed the entire length deep inside his throat.
“Oh, shit, man,” Tanner moaned, clutching the sides of the couch.
Bradon was ecstatic with the tastes, the feel, the sounds of Tanner’s quivering and moaning body. He tightened his lips and throat around Tanner’s hardness and swallowed eagerly as Tanner dripped a salty-sweet drop of pre-cum from the tip of his cock. He reached down to touch his own hard cock, more to ease the rising pressure he felt building up than anything else.
But it was too late. At the slightest touch of his hand, Bradon released five years of pent-up emotions and passion all over Tanner’s silky smooth legs and the side of his dad’s favorite leather sofa.
“That’s it, man. I can’t take anymore. I’m gonna—”
“What the fuck is going on?”
Bradon recognized the stern sound of his father’s deep baritone voice even above the incessant ringing in his ears. He loosened his grip on Tanner’s cock just a second before Tanner sprayed his own sticky fireworks display across his lips and chin.
“Dad . . .” Bradon stammered as he struggled to get to his feet and wipe the evidence of his lovemaking from his lips.
“Oh, shit!” Tanner yelled, and grabbed his jeans from the floor. He hopped to the front door as he struggled to get his legs into his jeans.
“Tanner,” Bradon called out softly, but it was too late. Tanner was out the door and halfway down the sidewalk before Bradon had finished wiping the semen from his warm lips.
“What the hell was that all about?”
“I can explain . . .”
Masters of Midnight Page 22