Queer Vampires

Christopher's Dilemma

By Nicola Ward

Part 1: Changes
Chapter 5

I felt strange. Not my usual self, but strangely an unusual self that I was used to. My body seemed rejuvenated from its previous form, every movement I made part of the graceful dance that I performed. My eyes showed wisdom of a thousand ages, blue as the ocean, and my temper quick to flare. My mouth a tender smile changing to a ravaging snarl. My skin seemed to glisten and my body shaped delicately, each detail made to perfection, every layer of my body carefully selected and put into place with the most graceful and determined of makers. My voice an exquisite sound to the ear, rising high with pleasure and low with pain. Hair as soft as silk and as black as the darkest night, shifting with wind unknown to human sense of touch. Seductive, beautiful, graceful – like a swan. Yes, like a swan. Powerful, pure and calm.

And hungry.

I sighed deeply as I felt the first tremors of hunger in my gut, knowing that it wouldn’t be long until I was unable to abstain from satisfying this need. My body trembled as I walked through the corridors of the Academy, passing a few students here and there. But they didn’t notice me. I didn’t let them.

Every nerve in my fingers seemed to be on fire as I punched in the code to unlock the dorm door, having memorised it from the main computer. Scent filled my head and lungs as the door slid open and the sweet smell of what I craved reached me. I teased myself, slowly entering the room and closing the door, touching everything I passed on my way to the bedroom, the door left open by an uncaring student. I could see everything in the room, the clothes on the floor, the tag on the table. The doctor’s coat hanging from the bottom of the bed.

The boy was beautiful to my sight, half of his body covered by the quilt. His breathing was so soft that it was like music to my ears. Such a sweet sound. I went and sat on the edge of the bed, my body barely making a dent in the mattress, the boy’s heat caressing my skin. I looked at his face for a moment. Yes, so beautiful. So young. His short brown hair looked so inviting that I wanted to run my fingers over its softness, savouring that touch. His lips were shaped perfectly, so much so that I wanted to caress them with my own. Oh, such beauty. But I knew that all this was the cover for what I truly hungered for, what I really needed. And yet … there was something different about this one, something that I knew I knew about, but couldn’t quite place at the moment. I could smell his scent overtaking me, my desire for what he held growing stronger by the second. I leaned over him until my face was close to his own and waited until he stirred. Green eyes met mine as he woke; a gasp uttered his surprise, his body growing taut beneath me. My fingers grazed his cheek tenderly. I was always so tender before I took what I wanted. But tonight I decided to do things a little differently. My hands held onto his head gently, my fingers sliding into his warm hair. The boy’s breath brushed my face; his lips trembled with fear. I wanted to quell that fear.

I passed my face close to his own, our skin just touching as I breathed in that scent once more. So intoxicating. And kissed his lips. So soft, so gentle, the taste unlike anything I ever knew. Just a few more kisses. Please, just a little longer.

The hunger grew in me, making me breathless, but I forced myself to calm down, lifting my head from his own and kissing down to his neck. The boy’s arms encircled me in an embrace and I sighed as he held me close. "Good night, sweet one," I whispered in his ear, and buried my fangs into him.

I woke with a moan; my body stiffening a little as I sat upright, my body sweating and my shaft erect, aching painfully. Oh God what a dream! I threw the covers off of my body and took my underwear off, easing the tension on my manhood. The alarm was on beside my bed and I hastily switched it off, not wanting to wake Pip. The date caught my eye. Monday 25th August. That was the date in one of my dreams. But it can’t be

I groaned and lay back on my bed, closing my eyes. My erection was beginning to throb and I soon realised that if I didn’t do something about it soon then I was going to have an orgy. Oh sod it I thought and abandoned my mind and body to those few moments of pleasure, my hands doing what little work there was for me. But I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that the only reason I had this boner was because I was kissing a boy and giving him love bites. How sick I am. Only after my climax did I lose my arousal and decided to have a cold shower to stop any further stiffening and to wake myself up.

The water felt good running down my back and shoulders, my hair dripping with its coolness. I closed my eyes and immersed myself in the spray, my body covered in goose pimples. I got out of the shower and quickly towelled myself off, when there was a knock at the door. Hastily throwing a dressing gown on and looking at the time, which was half six, I went to open the door.

"Good morning." Lor stood there, looking extremely gaunt. He didn’t look well.

"Are you all right?" I asked him.

He nodded weakly. "Yeah. Just feel kinda woozy. Could you do me a favour?"

"Sure," I replied.

"Could you go to the Medical Centre for me today and tell them that I’m not going to work? I’ve written a note to authorise it so don’t worry about that. Could you do that for me?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I’ll do that for you." I took the note he held out for me and took one last look at him. "Are you sure you’re all right? You don’t look well at all."

"Yes," he said weakly. "I’ll be all right."

"I don’t think so." I took his arm and pulled him inside the dorm. "Something happened to you didn’t it. Someone did something to you." I closed the door and made him sit down in the lounge.

His head sank between his legs, his hands holding his head. "I had a dream last night," he whispered. "There was this thing in my room. I didn’t know what it was, but it was there. It looked like a beast, a wolf. Or maybe a big cat. I don’t know. But it was there and it was on the bed pinning me down. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything." He looked at me. "I felt as if the life was being sucked right out of me. I felt as if I was going to die then. But it left after a while and disappeared." He laughed to himself. "Strange isn’t it. Dreams like that."

"It was only a dream," I assured him. "You said so yourself. You probably don’t feel well because it’s your body reacting to what your mind thinks up when you dream. I’ve had dreams like that. But not as visual as the one you’ve described." Hey, I knew I was lying to the guy. But I couldn’t tell him about the dream I had had.

Lor smiled. "Maybe you’re right. I’m just letting it get to me."

I patted his shoulder. "You’ll be fine. Just go back to your dorm, get some rest and you’ll be better before you know it. I’ll pop round later to see how you’re getting on. Pip’ll come too."

"Thanks." He stood up again, though rather shaky, and made for the door. "How’s Pip doing?" he asked, stopping. "Is the medicine working?"

I told him about Pip’s condition and he nodded approvingly. "Almost gone," he whispered. "That’s good. Very good."

"Lor?" Pip had woken up and wandered into the lounge, rubbing his eyes. "That you?"

Lor smiled. "Yeah, I’m here."

Pip took his hands away from his eyes and smiled. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to see Chris," he replied. "Had to see how you were getting on with your medicine."

"It’s working really well," Pip said, walking in front of Lor and showing him his bare back. "See that? They’re almost all gone."

Lor ran a hand down the boy’s back and said that he agreed with Pip when the boy turned back round. "You keep on taking that medicine though until those cuts are gone. Otherwise it’ll be uncomfortable for you with the itching and everything else."

"I promise I’ll keep on taking it, Lor," Pip said. "Right until they’re gone."

My mind closed from there. I felt, although rather guiltily, that I wanted to go back to sleep and dream that dream I’d had only half an hour ago.

Everything went on as normal as possible from that day. I kept my promise to Pip and kept him away from Thea who had started giving me the evils whenever she made eye contact with me. Ian and Reo had boosted up another level to their training regime, but it still wasn’t as high as mine was. Anri and Kate had started getting new jobs. Good luck seemed to be showering the Academy, with almost everyone I knew having a job of one description or another, although no one was allowed to know what they were.

Well, almost everything was normal as possible. My dreams had been getting more intense and one night I woke up sweating and panting, having remembered almost instantly after I woke up that I was with that boy again, but our contact had been a little more intimate than it was previously. Even though the thoughts of kissing another boy weren’t repulsive, I had no intention of doing that with any guy I knew. But that dream, as it became more and more intense, became more and more seductive and I felt as if I wanted to sleep all the time. However, the dreams only came at night so after a while I stopped sleeping during the day and had to wait for night to arrive so I could indulge in my sick pleasure.

"Have you been paid yet for that job you did?" the headmaster asked me three weeks later while I was in his office filing a report.

I shook my head. "No, I haven’t been paid."

"And why is that?"

"I…" Hesitation. "The job I was assigned wasn’t completed."

The headmaster blinked in surprise. "Not completed? Chris, that isn’t like you to do something like that."

"I know."

"Any reason why you didn’t complete it?"

"Risk of casualties."

He carried on looking at me. "That’s never stopped you before."

"…I know." I pushed the drawer back in and put my hands in my pockets. "But it was different this time. I didn’t have a choice."

"Everyone has a choice, Chris," he replied.

I sighed. "It wasn’t just the risk of casualties, Sir. It was the fact that the assignment was impossible to complete."

"How so?" Jackson gave me another folder and, after looking at it, I put it in the filer.

"It was just different this time. I wasn’t able to complete my job. There was nothing I could do." I sat down heavily in a chair.

Jackson sat down behind his desk and made an arch with his hands, looking at me above his fingers. "Tell me what your assignment was."

I started. "But Sir, that is out of the question. The first rule in my training was that-"

He motioned me to be silent. "I know the rule well enough, Chris, because I was the one to create it. But now, with you, I have decided to break it. But it will only be this one time. Now, tell me what you had to do."

"But I can’t," I protested.

"Yes you can. Now tell me."

My hands curled into fists on the arms of the chair, but I gave up trying to convince the headmaster. "My assignment was to assassinate Lucifer Cattral, the leader of Metra City."

Jackson leaned forward slightly, surprise flickering on his face. "Lucifer Cattral?"

"Yes. I was to kill him, but was unable to because he wasn’t there."

Jackson laughed softly. "It was no wonder that you weren’t able to complete your task, Chris. Lucifer Cattral has been dead for well over fifty years."

I gaped. "But on the newspaper I read that he had disappeared!"

"What?" Jackson stood, leaning on his hands on the desk. "What was that? A newspaper?"

I bit my bottom lip and breathed deeply. Shit, now I’m in for it

"What newspaper?" he persisted.

I closed my eyes and hung my head. "When I entered his house I went into the drawing room and found a newspaper in a corner of the room. It stated that Lucifer had disappeared after a mob attacked his home and that Vagrant, his son, disappeared soon afterwards."

"Did it say anything else?" His eagerness caught me off guard.

"…Yes. The date was strange. It was five thousand years in the future on 24th October."

Jackson’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. "You always take things so seriously, Chris. That report was a hoax to throw you off guard."

"What?" I stood up. "How do you know it was a hoax?"

He laughed loudly this time. "Your employer came to me two weeks before you were scheduled to receive the letter and told me what he planned for you. I didn’t object to it because of the vast amount of money he was offering the Academy as a result of my co-operation."

My eyes widened as I looked to the floor, trying to understand what was happening. "So, you were involved in this. And what did my employer say that he wanted with me?"

"He told me that he wanted you to be his apprentice. Your employer asked that you were automatically expelled from Orion Academy and that you were to live with him, carrying out his operations."

My breathing quickened. "But why me?"

"Chris, your report is excellent." The headmaster walked around the desk and took my shoulders in his hands firmly, making me look at him. "Ever since you came here, your attitude to your work has been outstanding. A lot of the profits came from the jobs that you completed on your own. The Academy owes you a great deal. So, in return for your services to us, the Academy decided that it was in your best interest to leave these walls that you have been surrounded by for so long and went into the real world. Marcus was the perfect start for your first step."

"And what a first step that was." Marcus came into the room, hands behind his back, his hair tied back. "Good morning, Christopher."

Jackson took his hands from my shoulders and stepped back, politely. I looked at him, then my employer, and back to him again. "What do you want?" I looked at Marcus.

He spread his hands before himself. "Why, I came to collect what I asked for of course. You running off like that weren’t very nice of you, Christopher. But I guess that I can’t really blame you for what you did. I did, after all, threaten the child that you picked up off of the streets. How is Pip anyway?"

I backed off from the both of them until my back was against the wall. "You’ve been here all this time? Spying on me?"

"Good heavens no!" Marcus looked genuinely shocked. "I’ve been here for two and a half weeks but I haven’t been spying on you. I’ve just obtained some information from your dear headmaster who has been looking after you under my request while I’ve been in hiding. After you came back of course. I am pleased to hear that Pip is recovering and that you yourself are well." He walked towards me, smiling. "Don’t be so unsociable. I’m not here to harm Pip, as you have so fondly christened him. Indeed, I have come here to apologise and to take the both of you home."

I looked away from him. "I am home."

"Not anymore you’re not. Remember what Jackson told you? I asked that you were to be automatically expelled from this Academy. You don’t belong here anymore."

I couldn’t believe this, couldn’t accept it. My whole world was collapsing around me. "No. No I can’t accept this. I won’t."

"I’m not asking you too and neither is anyone else here. But you don’t have a choice in that you have to leave the Academy. Another student, a new recruit, has been allocated to your dorm. Jackson has been informed that you have twelve hours to collect your belongings and leave the premises until further notification. Of course, there will be a farewell party to commend you on all that you’ve done these past eight years."

Swallowing, I headed for the door. "Chris." Jackson took my arm and turned me round. "I’m sorry about the lateness of this news." I shook his arm off.

"Don’t you ever talk to me again," I said, turning my back on him and heading for what used to be my dorm. Pip was asleep on the sofa, the television blaring, and the control still in his grasp. I went into my bedroom and sat on the edge of the mattress, water filling my eyes. I sobbed quietly, my body shaking, the ache inside me growing and growing, until I retrieved my suitcases and began packing Pip’s things and mine. Ten hours were left when I finally finished getting everything that I wanted to take with me and Pip still had no idea what was going on because he was still fast asleep.

The word went around fast that I had been expelled from Orion Academy. The gang came round my dorm when they’d heard the news and said that they didn’t understand how it could be happening to someone like me, a student with a clean record. Thea was there too, to my amazement, tears streaming down her face. "I’m sorry I had a go at you and Pip," she said.

"Don’t worry about it," I replied. "It doesn’t matter anymore." Then before I knew it Kate, Anri and Thea all had me a hug, me sitting in the middle on the sofa, filled with even more surprise when Ian and Reo joined in as well. All of us sat there for a few minutes, the girls crying and the boys telling me how they’d come and visit as often as they could. But where could they visit me? I thought. I haven’t got anywhere to go, not really, that I belong too

Five hours left and everyone in the Academy knew that there was going to be a celebration regarding my achievements in the main hall. Decorations were put up and tables were put out, food prepared and a live band hired. It all seemed as if they were glad to be rid of me, all of them.

Three hours before I was to leave the celebration started. Pip and I were forced to come and were sat up front as everyone came up and said in front of everyone how glad they were to have gotten to know me and what good I’d done for the Academy. But I knew that what they’d told me had all been rehearsed. Not one of them gave a damn. Lor was there, as gaunt as that morning weeks ago when he’d come to my dorm, asking me to do him that favour. One hour into the whole affair, when I finally got away, he cornered me and embraced me. "I didn’t find out till one hour ago when someone came and told me the news." He released me and I realised that he’d been crying too. "What happened?"

I summarised the conversation that went on with Jackson, Marcus and me while we walked through the Academy’s gardens. It was eleven at night and even though it was cloudy I felt I could still see the stars shining brightly. Lor shook his head sadly. "There’s nothing to worry about," I told him. "It’s not as if I died and everyone’s never going to see me again."

"I know that," he replied. "But there’s something I have to tell you. Remember that morning I told you about my dream?"

I nodded. "Yes I remember. What about it?"

"Well, what I told you wasn’t exactly true, and I was worried about telling you the truth because I didn’t know what your reaction might be."

"Wait, what are you saying? What did you dream?"

I could tell that he was blushing, the pale light showing that his cheeks were darker than the rest of his face. "It was you who came into my bedroom and took the life from me." He averted his eyes from my own and carried on. "When I saw your face I could tell that something wasn’t right with you. Your eyes glowed deep blue light and there was desire in them. I was scared at first, but then you kissed me and it felt good. I could feel the goodness in my sleep. And then you fed off me. You bit me." He looked at me. "Ever since that night I’ve been having the same dream though what you did to me before you fed got more sensual each time."

I could feel my own face blushing as I remembered my own dreams, what I had done to that boy. I hadn’t realised that that boy was actually Lor. "I’ve been having dreams too," I said shakily. "That I was drinking this boy’s blood every night."

A fist punched me round the face, my body hitting the ground hard. Lor was standing above me, his eyes wide with anger. "So it was true than. You were coming into my room every night and doing those things to me before drinking my blood."

I shook my head. "No, you’ve got it all wrong! I’ve never been in your dorm except in my dreams. I’ve never been in anyone’s dorm ever since the attacks started."

"What? So it was you who was doing that? To all them people?" Lor bent down and lifted my up by my shirt, pulling me to my feet. "You did it that way to cover your tracks didn’t you. You drank their blood in their dreams, in your dreams. That was why there wasn’t any physical evidence was there to say who did it." He stepped back from me. "You’re sick."

My cheek throbbed painfully and I could taste my blood where my teeth had bitten into my lip. "I didn’t realise I was doing it," I cried desperately. "I didn’t know that it was me that was doing it. I don’t even know how I do it, why I do it. I don’t know anything about it!"

Lor seemed to calm down a little. "You swear on your life?"

"Yes! I swear on my life. I have no idea why I did those things to those people, why I did any of those things."

He calmed down and sighed. "I can’t say that I believe you, but something tells me that you’re not lying either." He came towards me and touched my throbbing cheek with his fingers, feeling the lump that was beginning to rise there. "Come on, we’ll get an ice pack for that."

I sat on the bed holding an ice pack to my cheek while Lor fetched two tablets from the cabinet across the room. I’d always liked this room of the Medical Centre because I’d hardly been in it since I first came to the Academy. It always seemed brand new every time I walked into it. Lor handed me the tablets and gave me a glass of water. After I took them he sat in a chair and seemed to be thinking deeply. I put the ice pack back against my cheek, wincing. "When you were in my dreams," Lor said after a while, "I didn’t know what you were going to do to me. And when you finally did what you came to do I began to look forward to it every night that you came back." He closed his eyes. "I even enjoyed the feelings I got when you seduced me before feeding."

I refused to look at him, my cheeks heating up again. "I’m sorry," I whispered. "I’m sorry for doing those things to the people that suffered because of it. I’m really sorry for what I did to you too."

Lor came and sat beside me, putting an arm around my shoulders. "Don’t be," he said softly. And then more hesitantly, "I’m not."

This time I did look at him. "You’re not?"

He shook his head. "No."

My eyes began to water again and tears leaked from them slowly, one after the other. "You mean that?"

"Yes." I hadn’t realised that our faces were so close. I could see the patterns of colour in the green of his eyes. "I’m sorry for hitting you," he whispered.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded. Moments seemed to feel like decades in that room. My heart had begun beating rapidly and I found an ache in my body that was different from my other experiences. It was longing. We didn’t break the eye contact and ever so slowly our heads inclined towards each other. Our eyes closed as our lips met. I put the ice pack down, one of Lor’s hands wrapping itself round my head to keep me close to him.

We broke the kiss; the both of us crimson with nervousness. "You taste different in the dreams," Lor whispered softly and we kissed again.

Chapter 6

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