Midnight Thirsts: Erotic Tales Of The Vampire. Michael Thomas Ford
with each eruption through the slit at the tip of his cock.
And he thought he smelled, for just a moment, roses and lilacs.
The poem wasn’t coming right.
Rachel gnawed on the eraser of her pencil. She always wrote in pencil. She liked the way the lead would become softer as she wrote; she liked the clean, neat way the words appeared on the page. She didn’t use ink, because scratching words out bothered her; it spoiled the way the page looked, and distracted her from the writing. If she wrote in ink and changed her mind about a word, a sentence, a phrase, she would have to start over on a clean sheet of paper. She looked over the line she’d just written. “Shit,” she said, angrily erasing the entire sentence.
She put the notebook down, frustrated.
Probably should have gone out for a drink, she thought, putting the pencil down and reaching for the canister with her pot supply and rolling papers. She ground the pot up in her coffee grinder to a fine powder, which made rolling that much easier for her. She hummed to herself a Dixie Chicks song, “Goodbye Earl.” She loved the Dixie Chicks. As she finished rolling, she realized the apartment was silent. She always listened to music when she worked on her poetry, getting so lost in thought that she often didn’t notice when the CD ended. Lighting the joint, she hit the Play button on her portable stereo, and soon Beyonce’s voice was filling the room again.
She sat on the edge of her bed, letting the mellowness of the pot take hold of her. She coughed a bit and then fell backward on the bed, staring at the water spots on the ceiling.
Your friend is in danger. Trust your instincts.
She bolted upright, shivering. The gas heater on the wall was blowing hot air right onto her, yet she felt cold; she reached for a blanket.
Can’t be, she thought to herself. It sounded like the old guy was right there in the room with her, but that was impossible.
She wrapped the blanket around herself and put the joint out. Don’t need any more of that, obviously, she thought, reaching for her notebook again.
Philip liked Thursday nights in the gay bars. The crowd was usually more relaxed and laid-back than it would be on the weekend proper. The crystal and ecstasy wouldn’t come out until Friday; no one wanted to risk losing their jobs by showing up on Friday morning at eight coming down from a drug. Thursdays were more about getting tipsy or slightly drunk, maybe hooking up with someone. People were more relaxed on Thursday night—the desperate pressure to get laid, to hook up with someone, wasn’t there the way it was on Fridays and Saturdays. Thursday nights were more about going out with friends to blow off steam.
He walked into Oz just as their weekly Calendar Boy contest was getting under way. Jambalaya Crawfish, a drag queen who towered over most of the bar boys, was standing on the stage with a microphone, braying with her thick parish accent. Her towering blond Dolly Parton wig added at least another foot and a half. She was wearing a black sequined evening gown over her massive bulk. She was a big girl—looked like she’d maybe been a linebacker in high school thirty years ago. Philip walked up to the bar and ordered a longneck Bud Lite, tipping the pretty blond bartender two bucks, and turned to watch the show, leaning back against the bar, tilting his pelvis forward. An older guy, maybe in his early fifties, walked by and stopped, staring.
Not if you paid me five hundred dollars, Philip thought as he turned his eyes away. Go away, Gramps.
“Are you ready to see some dick?” Jambalaya shrieked into her microphone. The crowd on the dance floor cheered. She consulted a napkin. “First up is Johnny!”
Johnny was maybe twenty, with long brown hair he liked to flick around as he danced. He peeled his clothes off in what he apparently thought was a seductive manner, but he couldn’t dance to save his life, which was distracting. He just kind of bounced from foot to foot, wiggling his ass every once in a while, out of sync to the music. There was a cross tattooed on his left pec, and a sunburst around his pierced navel. He stripped down to his underwear, red-and-white-striped bikinis covering a very small dick. No chance in hell of winning. Philip yawned, finished his beer, ordered another. What are these guys thinking?
Philip had won the contest a few years earlier after getting talked into entering by Rachel. The shots she’d bought him to steel his nerve and loosen his inhibitions hadn’t hurt, either. He remembered standing off to the side of the stage, watching the other guys, his stomach in knots, the liquor jumbling his mind a bit. When it was his turn, he’d gotten up. The music had been “Beautiful Stranger” by Madonna, and he started dancing. He’d always been a good dancer, and he figured, The other guys might be hotter, but I can blow them away dancing. He’d peeled off his T-shirt and eventually worked his shorts down until he was just dancing in front of the crowd in his white Calvin Kleins with the blue waistband. The crowd had cheered when they saw his semi-hard dick.
And when it was over, he was the winner and had two hundred bucks in his pocket.
Instead of watching the next few contestants, he scanned the crowds, looking for familiar faces. He recognized some of the guys, faces he’d seen in the bars before. Some of the guys he didn’t recognize were hot: tight, round asses, broad shoulders, bulging arms. He made eye contact with a tall man, maybe about six four, standing in the corner by the stage, just off the dance floor. He was good-looking, maybe about twenty-five, with smooth skin and light brown hair. He was wearing a muscle shirt showing off his nice biceps and the obligatory tattoo around the right upper arm. His jeans hung loose and low off his hips. Philip allowed his line of sight to drift down to the crotch of the man’s jeans. Nice, he thought, nodding and smiling at the guy, who started walking toward him, a friendly, eager smile on his face.
“Our last contestant is Gunther!” Jambalaya shrieked in her weird falsetto, and he turned his head to look at the stage.
It was the blond man from the corner of Napoleon and St. Charles.
Jambalaya towered over him, meaning he was maybe about five ten, maybe five nine. He was wearing a black leather jacket with a white ribbed tank top under it. His black jeans were tight, cupping the bulge under the button fly. Jambalaya moved away from the center stage as the blond began to dance. Philip stared, transfixed, as the blond shrugged off the jacket. The crowd cheered as he ran his hands up and down his hard torso, pinching his nipples.
“How you doing?” It was the tall man, standing next to him now, very close, almost touching him.
“Good.” Philip nodded, unable to stop staring at the blond.
“I’m Steve.”
“Philip.”
The blond had undone his pants, kicking off his shoes. He slid them down, revealing a pair of tight white underwear over thickly muscled legs. He stepped out of the pants, kicking them off to the side, shaking his hips so the big cock flopped under the white cotton.
“Where you from, Philip?”
“I live here.” Philip stared as the blond pulled the shirt over his head in one fluid motion. His torso was smooth as marble, carved and chiseled. The crowd cheered again. The blond turned so his back was to the audience; his back rippled with muscle, narrowing to the waist. Two dimples just above his round ass deepened as he leaned backward, then forward so his ass became rounder and fuller. He looked back over his shoulder, right at Philip.
Their eyes locked, and the blond smiled.
His eyes were blue, a pure, crystalline color.
The blond closed his right eye in a wink.
His eyes, Philip thought, staring back into them from across the room, his eyes…
He started moving forward, leaving Steve behind at the bar as he stepped onto the dance floor, pushing his way through the crowd. Have to get closer; have to get right up there to the stage, get as close as I can to him; he’s so fucking beautiful. He edged around people, never losing sight of the blond, who was turning again to face the crowd, his hands coming down to cup his bulge.
Their eyes were locked.