Don Travis: NIGHT FRIENDS, Part 3 of 4 Parts

Thursday, October 22, 2020

NIGHT FRIENDS, Part 3 of 4 Parts

dontravis.com blog post #412

Last week ended with Chad standing on the porch of a remote home with a weird stranger. Antonescu asks if they can go inside.

*****

NIGHT FRIENDS

“Sure,” I said, fumbling with the Multiple Listing keybox. It took a little longer than it should have, but we were soon inside. Antonescu donned a heavily smoked, wrap-around pair of shades and made a slow, methodical round of each of the rooms.

Within thirty minutes, he turned to face me. “I like it. It will serve me nicely. Do you think an offer of three hundred thousand would be accepted?”

“I don’t know,” I answered frankly. “The listing agent says they’re motivated.”

“Motivated,” he repeated softly. “That means they are anxious to sell. Perhaps I should lower the offer.”

“Motivated, not crazy,” I said quickly. “It’s listed at three hundred fifty and is worth every nickel.”

“Do you suppose a deposit of twenty-five thousand would convince them that Antonescu is serious?”

“Couldn’t hurt, but it’s excessive.”

“Good. Perhaps it would be of inestimable value,” he said with a small smile at the corners of his broad mouth. It was, of course, a play on his name. I grinned to show that I got it. “I think I shall walk through once again,” he announced.

I tagged along behind him, noticing that he removed the shades, but did not turn on the lights we had carefully snapped off as we left each room. The darkness didn’t seem to bother him as he absently noted that this or that piece of furniture would fit here. When he reached the master bedroom, I hesitated at the door, reluctant to enter for some reason.

Antonescu halted in the middle of the room and turned to face me. He was swaddled in darkness, the pupils of his eyes picking up errant shards of light and reflecting them back at me. He stood waiting silently.

I had an unreasonable urge to flee, but my feet were rooted to the carpet. I swallowed hard as something swirled around me in the darkness, caressing my body, gently propelling me into the room. My shroud was warm and comforting, and in some manner emanated from the dark, still form standing in the room. Puzzled by my helplessness, uncertain of what I wanted, I moved to him, reaching a tentative hand to his breast. The moment my hand touched the soft, expensive suede of his jacket, I suffered a desire so intense that my sudden erection threatened to burst the seams of my trousers.

Strong, gentle hands pulled me into his embrace. His lips brushed my neck, and I had a moment of discomfort until they moved to my jaw, my cheek, and finally, to my mouth. The intensity of his kiss robbed me of all strength. I slipped to the floor, his strong arms easing my fall. He lay beside me, long, tapered fingers exploring my face.

“You are truly a handsome man, my love,” he whispered. So desirable. So manly, so…vulnerable,” he finished, bending to kiss me again while his hands loosened my shirt, my trousers.

It was as if no one had ever handled my manhood before. His touch sent sparks throughout my body. He slowly moved down my torso, exciting every part of me as he went.

Recovering my senses, I made as if to push him away, but his mouth closed over me, robbing me of my will. I was his, and he knew it. I sprawled across the carpet, helpless before my desire…his desire. And then my moment arrived, and never had I experienced an orgasm so intense, so powerful, so enervating. I thought it would never end, and when it did, I was exhausted, unable to move.

“Be easy,” he cooed in a calm, sure voice. “This wa an act of love, Chad…my own St Chaedda. My beloved. Can you not feel the love between us?”

I fought to raise some protest, some feeling of revulsion, of outrage, but it would not come. I lay naked beneath him as he straddled my body and offered himself.

The next few minutes should have repulsed me, disgusted me, shamed me, but they did not. I was eager for him, desiring him as I’d never lusted after another… man or woman. My world shrank to the strong, handsome man atop me, what he was offering me, what I was taking from him. His calm voice guided me, but I heard him only dimly.

Finally, he rolled off me and lay at my side. Despite his exertions, his breathing was not particularly labored, whereas, I puffed and sucked oxygen.

“That was your first time?” It came out something between a statement and a question.

“Y…yes,” I stammered, feeling ten years younger than my true age, like a fumbling adolescent anxious to please rather than a mature, sexually experienced man.

“You were magnificent,” he said gently, his hand stroking the small tangle of hair between my nipples. Your semen is thick and strong. A man’s seed.”

“Doesn’t it all taste alike?” I asked.

“No, not at all”

I frowned. “You do this with a lot of guys?”

He rose on an elbow and gazed through the darkness into my eyes. “Only with those I care for.”

“Come on,” I tried to make light of it. “You don’t even know me.”

“I know enough. I know that I’m attracted to you above all other men. I know that I want you again and again. I know that I want you to save your semen for me…only for me!” His voice gained in intensity. “Do you understand?”

“Wait a minute!” I protested. “I’m not a queer! I like women. I’m a man!”

He laid a strong hand over my mouth. “That you are! A real man! If you were not, I would have no interest in you. But you learned something about yourself tonight, St Chad. Admit it! You liked what we did. You’ll like what we do in the future. You will come to love me, Chad Quarles! You will see!”

“I scrambled to my feet and clawed my clothing more or less into place. “This is a one-time affair! I’m not gonna…”

“Ahhh, my beloved, but you will. We will do things you cannot even imagine.”

Suddenly repulsed, I ran out of the house to my car tore out of the driveway in a panic with a strange finger of fear puckering my back as I roared off into the night.

I was skittish the remainder of the week. Every time the phone rang, I jumped. I flubbed a perfectly straightforward sale on a small, two bedroom, and was a wreck by the time Friday afternoon rolled around. What little calm I had managed to restore to my shattered life evaporated when the receptionist handed me my mail. I knew before opening the expensive, cream-colored envelope with no return address that it was from Ariel Antonescu. As I unfolded the letter inside, a certified check fluttered to the desk. I picked it up. Fifty thousand dollars! The guy had been serious. He’d even doubled his outlandish deposit.

Grabbing the phone, I reached the listing agent phone before he left his office and gave him the offer on the house. He was impressed by the news that I held a sizeable deposit. The man, whom I knew slightly, promised to call me at home on Saturday with an answer.

My hand was shaking as I hung up, and I sat in the nearly deserted office allowing myself to finally think about what I had blocked from my mind. I sat up straight in my chair as Moose’s words came back to me. “A fucking vampire, that’s who he is!” Those were his words. Impossible! They didn’t exist. They were the stuff of legends and novels. Slowly, I reached for my keyboard. Accessing the Internet, I pulled up a search engine entered the word, ‘Vampire.’

My boss, normally the last one to leave, checked out and said goodnight around eight. I hardly heard him. What I had found rattled my bones. It had taken a couple of hours to sift through all the bullshit and find gold.

Apparently stories of vampires began to appear about 1047 A.D. There were the usual references to Vlad Dracula, or Vlad the Impaler. I read about Elizabeth Bathory, tried and convicted of the vampire killing of several hundred girls. Something called the de Masticatione Mortuorum, some sort of German vampire text, was briefly described. I read about Fritz Haarmann, the Vampire of Hanover’s arrest and conviction for killing more than 20 people. There were vampire legends, vampire stories, vampire novels. There were descriptions of Kali, the Indian vampire goddess, of a Gypsy incarnation called the Black Goddess. There were Slavic vampires, Romanian Strigoli, gypsy mullos, Camazotz, the bat god of the caves in South America.

I found the nugget among the gold grains in material claiming that there were modern vampires among us today. And things finally began to make a screwy kind of sense. It did not speak of legions of the undead stalking the unwary or horrible creatures turning themselves into bats and flying away into the night. It reasoned that vampires share a physical existence on the human plane yet are not quite human. They appear eccentric to others...to mortals. Eccentric… like Antonescu.

A vampire is born with an extraordinary capacity to absorb, transform, and manipulate something called ‘pranic energy’ or life force. Among the prime sources of such energy are fresh blood and a man’s semen! Like Antonescu.

A vampire had psychic ability, absorbing vibrations from everyone, becoming an involuntary vortex, draining all energy. Like Antonescu sucking the life out of everyone in the bar, leaving them numb and lethargic. Like Antonescu draining my energy and leaving me exhausted. Like Antonescu drawing even the smoke in the air into his vortex!

A vampire is selfish and seeks to control others. Like Antonescu telling me he wanted my semen for himself alone.

A vampire functions in the night because of photosensitive eyesight and an upside-down internal clock. Like Antonescu wanting to meet me only after dark, wearing shades as we turned on lights in the house as we inspected it.

A vampire may or may not take blood, but if he does, it’s to gain energy. Like Antonescu licking my neck, making me suspect that he had been about to bite me.

A vampire may travel through a dimension undetectable by humans. Like Antonescu arriving at the show home without a car.

A vampire may have tremendous sexual energy, exchanging this force with another, who is attractive to him. Like Antonescu coercing me into unwanted sex.

The next sentence sent chills down my back and ice into my bone marrow. A vampire may establish a long-term relationship with a single person who derives satisfaction from being a psychic servant or martyr!

*****

Is Chad in the grip of an eternal who bends him to his will? If so, what will the creature demand of him next?

Did you notice the story has gone from three installments to four?

Now my mantra: Keep on reading and keep on writing. You have something to say, so say it!

The following are buy links for my BJ Vinson mystery The Voxlightner Scandal. The next one, The Cutie-Pie Murders,

Dreamspinner: https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/books/the-voxlightner-scandal-by-don-travis-11285-b

DSP Publications: https://www.dsppublications.com/books/the-voxlightner-scandal-by-don-travis-537-b

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Voxlightner-Scandal-Vinson-Mystery-Book-ebook/dp/B07VL33P99

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-voxlightner-scandal-don-travis/1132632844?ean=9781640809260

iBooks: https://books.apple.com/ca/book/the-voxlightner-scandal/id1473985039?mt=11&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Google: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=H3ilDwAAQBAJ

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/the-voxlightner-scandal