Excerpt from Mortal Companion

It took Ulric two tries to start his Harley. Too bad the people who made these things could never get certain details right, like making them start up when you turned the key. Finally he kicked it alive, and the violent gesture calmed him down. Some of the shaking went away as the big bike’s vibrations went through his hands, up his arms, and into the rest of his body. He went back to Folsom, got his bearings, and took Howard Street back toward the Eagle’s Lair. Alain had bought a building close to the bar. There were three apartments in the building. He lived on the top floor.

Ulric parked outside the somewhat dilapidated facade of the building and went to the front door. There were buzzers for each apartment, but the front door was unlocked, so he simply went in. The stairs were a nuisance, but he bolted up them, more and more angry with himself for staying away so long. Why let Alain send him away in the first place, hmm? Vampire reflexes were so much quicker than mortal ones, it wouldn’t have been that risky to take the gun away from him. If only he had dragged Alain out of the alley and taken him home! When you lived forever, it was too easy to lose touch with mortal frailty, the brevity of their life spans. Ulric cursed himself in the Old Prussian dialect of his boyhood, a language he used only when he was very upset or surprised.

Then he was at Alain’s front door, and he did not know what to do. He wanted to break it down, but that would be crass, and might attract unwanted attention. He gently rattled the knob. This door was locked. Ulric shrugged and rapped it hard with his knuckles.

There was no response. But he could feel warmth inside the apartment, the heat of a human body. So he knocked again, more sharply this time, leaning into it. Someone on the other side opened the door abruptly, and Ulric stumbled in.

“What’s your goddamned hurry?” Alain snapped, then he saw who had troubled his day off. “Well, speak of the devil,” he said in an awed tone of voice, and grinned. Ulric found himself being picked up and vigorously hugged, an embrace that would have cracked a normal man’s ribs. Then Alain was kissing him, the black stubble on his cheeks scraping Ulric’s face. His tongue was big, his mouth tasted like sex and cigar smoke. Ulric petted his shaved head (more coarse black stubble there) and massaged the big muscles in Alain’s broad shoulders. He had not been wearing a shirt, just a pair of dirty 501s, so Ulric could run his hands across the planes of muscle that outlined his back. There were more tattoos than there had been when they last met, and the rings in Alain’s nipples were a bigger gauge.

When Alain was done smooching him, he put him down, and Ulric gasped. He had not been able to expand his chest to draw a full breath for several minutes. Alain was talking a mile a minute, and Ulric was having trouble following it all. The phrase “you bastard” appeared frequently. “How the hell did you ever find me?” Alain demanded.

“The Bear Cave—Billy—” he gasped, and Alain nodded.

When Alain spoke, Ulric could hear the faint remnants of an accent leftover from his bayou childhood. He didn’t use a lot of Cajun slang, but Ulric loved the French tang of his Louisiana-paced sentences. Alain could read the phone book in that voice and make it sound like the dirtiest dressing-down a cowering slave ever got from a belligerent master. Ulric was so lost in a potent desire to fall to his knees that he jumped when he realized Alain was talking about something other than raw, mean, no-holds-barred sex.

“I should can his weasly little ass for handing out personal information,” Alain said. “But I’m so goddamned glad to see you, it can wait until tomorrow. What can I get you? I know it’s early, but let’s have a drink. Or would you rather smoke a little bud?”
Ulric gave him a look that said, Be real.

“Oh, no, I guess you wouldn’t.” Alain stood three feet away, chewing his full lower lip, trying to think of some other form of hospitality he could offer his strange visitor. Ulric had a few moments to examine the furnishings of the room, which were simple but expensive, all the furniture made of oak and upholstered in brown leather. While he was distracted, Alain advanced upon him, embraced him a little more gently this time, and began to unzip his leathers. “Get your clothes off, man,” he said impatiently. “I’m not going to let you get away this time.”

If Ulric had been able to weep, he would have been in tears. His sexual encounters with mortals had been brief, controlled affairs. It was hard to let go when you had to keep your true nature a secret. (Thank the Horned God for the vampire blood he had ingested less than two days ago. It made it possible for him to be erect between Alain’s hands without feeding on him first.)

The experience of being undressed and fondled was terrifying. Ulric found himself hyperventilating, straining to get away and straining to get closer to the big man who had gone straight to the heart of a hunger that was much more difficult to satisfy than a mere need for blood.

Then Alain picked him up again and was taking him into another room. Ulric once again felt the panicky sensation of wanting to escape and wanting to have this moment last forever. He was being held, comforted, practically abducted by a handsome, brutal man who knew he was a vampire and wanted him anyway. He stared wildly around the room, trying to distract himself. It was a cross between a bedroom and a dungeon. There was equipment hanging on all of the walls, workmanlike stuff that was obviously used frequently. There were a couple of posters, framed, from bars that Ulric remembered, places where he had found sweet young men who tasted of springtime and workouts in the gym. On his way into the room, Alain had punched a button on his tape player, and the big reel had started to turn, surrounding them with the spacey sound effects and insistent beat of queer disco, the kind of raunchy, high-tech music straight people were afraid to dance to.

Alain dumped him on the bed, wound his hands in Ulric’s long, black hair, and stretched out on top of him. By the way their bodies sank into the mattress, Ulric guessed it was a waterbed. Heated, fortunately. Then Alain was kissing him again, taking the time to do it right, and Ulric almost came from the wonderful feeling of having his mouth explored with so much ruthless tenderness. He dared to put his hand on the buttons of Alain’s fly and ease them out of their holes. When he palmed Alain’s erection, the bartender groaned and dug his tongue so deeply into Ulric’s mouth, he was about to hit his tonsils.

Ulric had seen Alain’s cock a time or two years before, when he took a piss at the Eagle’s Lair. The Prince Albert was still there, the thick ring that went through his piss-hole and came out just below the rim of his cockhead. But he also had a series of smaller rings that went down the underside of his cock, and a couple in his ball sack. Figuring anybody who liked to get pierced this much wouldn’t be able to do without a certain classic ornament, Ulric reached a little farther back and found the guiche that pierced Alain’s perineum. When he tugged on it, Alain’s cock jumped, and his precum stained Ulric’s thighs.

His own cock was painfully rigid. Alain was stroking it with one hand, and running his thumb across the head. Ulric made himself meet Alain’s gaze, saw the question that made one of his eyebrows go up. “I don’t do that,” he explained. “I mean, I come, and I come really hard, but it’s dry. No jizz.”

Alain shrugged and began to play with Ulric’s nipples. His broad thumbs were capable of small, delicate motions, and Ulric felt his pelvis lurching forward, toward Alain, driven by the arousal that was heating up his chest. Alain, sadist that he was, quit toying with Ulric’s nipples and stuck his fingers in his mouth. He felt his pointed fangs, then stuck another finger in, and moved them in and out. “Did you ever think of getting your tongue pierced?” Alain asked. “It’s already a wild trip, kissing you with those big, sharp canines. But a ball in your tongue would be too much. I’d come just from swapping spit with you.”

“I don’t know if my body would hold a piercing,” Ulric said, trying to sound thoughtful and objective. The truth was that the idea of it frightened him to death (well, not quite that much). “Does it hurt a lot?” he asked, trying not to sound as timid as he was.
Alain wasn’t fooled, and laughed so hard that Ulric thought he might suffer internal damage. “Oh, what a big old chicken you are,” Alain guffawed. “Mister Nightmare, creeping around in shadows, has to catch and kill his own dinner every goddamned day, and he’s afraid to get a little old needle stuck through his tongue. What would you do if I made a big fucking hole in the head of your dick, Ulric? Pass out on me?”

Ulric hid his head against Alain’s chest and swore he was blushing. “I hate you,” he said.

“Well, of course you do,” Alain said comfortably. “Everybody I bring into this room comes to hate me sooner or later. Why else do you think I do it? Nothing makes my cock get harder than that cold stare of pure hostility, when I know if a guy could get loose he’d break my neck. Except he can’t get away, all he can do is rage against me, and he’s so frustrated he’s ready to cry. Pure gold, that is pure gold. Better than a case of champagne or a pile of cocaine. So, scaredy-cat, get your nose down there and lick around those big old rings of mine. If you can’t stand the thought of getting a few of your own, you better admire the ones that I’ve got.”

Ulric was happy to oblige. He slid the head of Alain’s cock into his mouth and down his throat, carefully guiding the shaft so that it ran between his fangs. It wasn’t easy to keep from puncturing or scratching it. None of Ulric’s teeth were dull. But he wrapped his lips around them, trying to cushion their edges. He didn’t care if he cut his own mouth up a little in the process. His tongue was equally problematic. It was thin and raspy, more of a file than a human tongue. But Alain seemed to enjoy the way it felt, moving back and forth on the underside of his dick.

If he thought about it, Ulric would have had to admit that he was not protecting Alain from the sensation of having his cock scored. Anybody with this much gold in his equipment would probably love to be nibbled by vampire teeth. He was protecting himself from Alain’s blood, and from the unwelcome knowledge it might contain.
Alain rapped him on top of his head. “Quit daydreamin’ and tend to business,” he snapped.

Ulric obeyed. Soon he was rewarded by a dose of hot cum that nearly choked him. Alain hauled him up so they were face-to-face and licked off the spit and white stuff that had spattered Ulric’s mustache and beard. “I always like to come before I play,” Alain murmured in his ear. “It makes me so much meaner if I’m not distracted by a hard dick. Know what I mean?”

Ulric did not know, but he was certainly trying to figure it out now. Alain interrupted this anxious reverie. “So, tell me about yourself,” he said, tugging on Ulric’s hair to force his head back and focus his eyes on Alain’s face.

“What do you want to know?” Ulric replied.

“Don’t be a smartass.” Alain tightened his grip on Ulric’s hair and slapped him lightly on one cheek.

“I’m honestly not being flippant,” Ulric said patiently, relishing the smart along one side of his face. “I don’t know what you are planning. I don’t know what you need to know. Ask me questions, and I will answer them honestly.”

“Stand up,” Alain said, and roughly dragged him off the bed and onto his feet. Ulric played along, allowing himself to be manhandled. It was delicious to be able to pretend he was out of control. Alain handed him a piece of chain. “Can you break that?” he demanded.

“Of course not,” Ulric said, relishing the way each cool link slid through his hands, like the scales on snakeskin. But he could not look Alain in the eye and say it, and the master sensed his lie. For that, he was kicked to the floor.

“Don’t jerk me around, grab that chain and show me just how strong you are,” Alain said impatiently.

Ulric shrugged, yanked the chain taut, and snapped it like a piece of string. “I’m sorry,” he said, when he saw Alain’s look of disbelief.

“Bend over the horse,” Alain said, not acknowledging his apology.

Ulric went on his knees to the piece of equipment Alain indicated, stood, and bent over it. The padded surface was comfortable and sturdy enough to make him feel quite secure. “I’m going to hit you with something,” Alain said. “You tell me how it feels.” A braided cat-o’-nine-tails landed hard across his shoulders. Ulric sighed happily. “Well?” Alain said impatiently, poised for another blow.

“It’s hard to know what to say,” Ulric said sadly. “It’s been a long time since I was changed, and there are so many things I’ve forgotten. And other things I don’t know how to describe, since you have never experienced them.” He took a deep breath and did his best to explain private facts about his body that he had rarely shared with another person. “I’m not very sensitive to pain. I don’t need to be, my body can repair almost any injury. That insensitivity helps me to ignore the risk to myself when I go out to feed. When you hit me, I know it should hurt, but it doesn’t exactly. It’s more as if it makes me remember what pain used to feel like.”

“Well, goddammit, that sucks,” Alain said. Ulric knew without looking that he would be chewing his lower lip.

“I want you,” Ulric said. “I’ve wanted you for years. Think of it this way, Alain. You can do your worst with me.”

“You’ve got my attention now,” Alain said. “Go on.”

“Haven’t you ever wanted to go as far as you could? You’re a sadist, Alain. But you’re smart about it. You don’t go around kidnapping and torturing strangers. You ask for permission. You prefer men who don’t have a lot of limits, but you stay within those boundaries. But surely you’ve wondered about it. What are your limits, Alain? I’m willing to bet that no bottom has ever been able to give you carte blanche. And I’m hungry for this. Think about how horny you get if you’ve got to do without sex for two weeks. Then imagine what it would be like to be me. I’m a creature of physical, sensual appetites, Alain. That’s all that I am. I live to satisfy the cravings of my body. I manage to get a few other things done from time to time, but mostly I exist to feed, to feel the pleasure that comes from satisfying that hunger. But I have other appetites, just like you do, and this has never happened to me before. I’ve never had this opportunity. It’s been centuries, Alain. If you tell me to stand inside your chains and leave them unbroken, I will do that. I will. You are the only person here who needs to set any limits. Not me.”
His long-lost master knelt on his heels where Ulric could see his face, and slapped him to make sure he saw the sharp look he gave him. “That sounds too good to be true. So there’s nothing that can permanently damage you or threaten your life? You’re just immortal, you live forever, nothing can kill you?”

Ulric had thought he was completely open to this man, and would hold nothing back from him. But he balked at answering this question.

“I thought so. Well, that’s okay. We’ve all got our little secrets. I like secrets. Just promise me you won’t hate yourself when I make you give them up. I’m going to take you up on your offer, Ulric. I haven’t been this horny for months. Don’t know what’s been wrong with me. Ever since this winter I haven’t been myself.” Alain shook himself like a wet dog. “Well, nothing’s more boring than having to listen to somebody whine about their health like a senile old lady.”

He took Ulric by the shoulders and guided him to a wall where chains dangled from heavy eyebolts that were sunk deep into the building’s supporting timbers. After turning Ulric to face that wall, Alain wrapped the chains around Ulric’s wrists and secured them with large padlocks. “No need to protect your nerves and tendons with a pair of wrist cuffs, is there?” he jeered. “So, just to make this official, I’m telling you: Leave those chains alone. If one of them breaks, I’ll find a way to make you sorry. It’s a tough order to find a way to punish somebody like you, but I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve that might surprise you.”

Ulric bowed his head and waited while Alain sorted through the whips that hung from a circular cast-iron frame that was probably manufactured for gourmet chefs to hang up their anodized aluminum pans. His sharp hearing caught Alain murmuring under his breath. “Forget that, too light. Too candy-assed. Ha, ha, don’t need to bother with that bugger. Well, fuck all. I don’t need to warm him up at all, do I? Goddamn. Let’s see. What have I got that’s really effective? Yes, you, and you, and you. You too. Come to the party, babies, daddy’s about to have himself a good time.”

Alain began with a wire brush that he’d bought at an auto supply store. Ulric supposed it was used to clean machine parts. The brass bristles were sharp and stiff. Alain pulverized the skin over his shoulders, back, butt, and thighs. It felt to Ulric like lying out naked under a hailstorm. There was more of a feeling of pressure than anything else, although occasionally a bright thin spatter of pain would penetrate his consciousness.

“Yesss,” Alain hissed. “Gonna have myself a good time.”

A rubber cat was next. The heavy latex cords had been tipped with metal nuts, knotted to hold them in place. This made Ulric grunt a bit. It was a nice, deep massage. Then he felt Alain’s hands all over his back and butt, smearing thick liquid across his skin. “Baby,” Alain said gently, “you’re a mess. Let me make it all better,” and turned his head to kiss him. The kiss created far more sensation than the beating. Ulric drank it in, giddy with pleasure. Alain was full of fierce joy, and it made Ulric happy to be able to put him in that altered state.

Other implements followed. It made Alain cheerful to show him each one before using it, and tell him a little story about where it had come from and how it had been used in the past (if ever). The truck antenna had been set into a steel handle by a tool and die worker in Seattle who promised Alain he would make him a new one if it ever broke. Alain had managed to bend it on its maker, but it remained intact. And the little flail tipped with hooks was something Alain made himself to frighten away a persistent would-be slave who was not his type. The beautifully shaped wooden club was acquired on a fishing trip. (It was made to knock out big salmon.) Until now, it had mostly been used to fuck boys who wanted something bigger than a dick up their asses.

Ulric’s feet slipped. He was apparently standing in a puddle of his own fluids. Alain was growing progressively more and more excited. Finally he left Ulric’s side and came back with a blacksnake, six feet long. “If this won’t make you dance for me, nothing will,” Alain declared, and let it snap.

This was not a massage. This was a slicing caress, with just enough of an edge to it to make Ulric wonder if it was pleasure or pain. The novel sensation made him crazy. He panted, whined for it, and almost forgot his vow to leave the chains unbroken, just because he was so excited. Again and again Alain let him taste the snakebite edge of the long braided whip, until Ulric was chewing his own lips and crying, “More, more, more!”

But before he had enough, Alain was at his side, unlocking the padlocks and catching his limp body, turning him around, locking him up again so he faced out from the wall. He drew a bowie knife from a scabbard that ran down his right thigh. That’s a monster knife, Ulric thought. Not quite big enough to be a bayonet or a sword, but definitely longer than the four-inch limit on a legal pocketknife.

“Remember,” Alain said evenly, “I told you not to break those chains. And you told me you would obey me. Do you have honor?” The point of the knife came to rest between Ulric’s nipples, slightly to the left of his breastbone. Ulric keened in terror at the sight of it, but Alain was still talking. “And if you have honor, how far does it go?” he asked thoughtfully. The point of the knife went into Ulric’s body a full half-inch. “Far enough to trust me with your precious overextended life?” Alain wondered.

Ulric was shrieking, rattling the chains that he had given his word to leave intact. Alain’s face was set in a snarl, the lips drawn back in exactly the same expression as Ulric’s when he was ready to drink. To the excited vampire’s senses, Alain’s hand seemed to draw back in slow motion. This was it, the killing stroke, the knife to the heart that could end his life. Ulric found himself howling in his wolf-voice, driven by desperation back to the animal part of his nature, and then the knife arced forward—

 

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