Faith in the Atmosphere - Part 5 (A Dark Shadows Story)
The hour was unknown to him as he rolled over yet again, taking the blankets with him and leaving the pillow. It was almost too much effort to drag the thing under his head, but his body knew that if he did it, he would be asleep inside of a second. Just like it had known the last ten times. And of course, as he did it, he was more awake than ever. He wanted to sleep, maybe he was half asleep already, with the rustle of rain against his window, the soft slough of wind somewhere in the trees, the almost touch of warmth against his skin in the cool room.
One of the floorboards popped as it tended to do in damp, warmish weather, waking him up fully again. He tried taking a full, relaxing breath and rolled over on his side to face the wall. And tried not to think about how long it was taking the vampire to return.
Still awake. Still staring at the wall. Still waiting for sleep to come. The floorboard popped again, and he was so awake there was almost no point in pretending he even wanted to sleep. He sighed and rolled over on his back.
"Restless tonight, my spark?" The voice was deep and quiet.
Willie's eyes flew open to look at the darkness. To listen to the slow tread coming closer to his bedside. How many times had he heard that particular floorboard snap? How many times, then, had it been Barnabas watching him while he slept? His hair seemed to be suddenly sticking to his forehead while his heart began a slow, icy increase, as if he were running up a hill. And still. He stayed still, feeling his heart thud and his lungs press against his ribs.
He made himself think of this, of his privacy invaded, of all those nights when he thought it had been the wind, but it had not been. But it was no use. His body was drawn to the weight coming closer through the air, weight like gravity, pulling him to it and pushing him away at the same time.
Can you find me? In the dark?
Though why Willie should want to be found was beyond him
Of course, the master of the Old house could do it, with ease. Barnabas had vampire eyes, could read the air with his fingertips. Should Willie move so much as a moth's whisper, Barnabas would know it. But the night was spare and smooth and filled with the heavy velvet of silence. Barnabas was there, at his bedside, bending close, moving the veil of hair from Willie's eyes, trammeling the edge of his jaw with the heel of his palm.
Then the darkness was there, like velvet, bending down, the whisk of a breath across his chin, and then a brush of dark, oiled hair against his cheek. He felt the presence of the vampire, close now, but not touching him. Except for that hand, running down one side of his neck, the cool stir of air from the vampire's mouth down the other.
Willie was still. A wild thing in the grass, waiting for the lion to pounce. This one did, and Willie never saw it coming.
The weight of Barnabas' hand moved down his side, somehow familiar from the times that the vampire had grabbed him to throw him about. But now, now, the hand, though heavy, was smooth. Not timid. Tugging back the weight of woolen blanket, and oft-washed cotton sheet. Taking away the cotton of his briefs and undershirt. Sparing Willie a touch now to expose him to the soft rawness of a spring night.
Barnabas' mouth was close now, those shoulders, as he bent down, pressing Willie's body down with a gentle weight, pressure of cool fingertips pulling his jaw towards the darkness of the vampire's chest. Almost across him now, but not upon him, he felt the first, tiny sharp pin-pricks of the vampire's fangs in his flesh. Sliding into him with a flicker of light that grew. Spread as the hand that had pulled the blankets back now stroked him. Followed the length of his ribs and thigh. Felt the pulse of his heart-beat easily through his shivering skin. The bite in his neck withdrew, and the vampire sucked, almost not at all. Like a brush of a ribbon in a stray band of sunlight. Willie's flesh was pulled into that cold mouth, and pulsed with warmth as the blood seeped from him.
Then his body began to tighten, and under that hand, that cool, sweeping hand, his sex grew hard, and he pressed back into the mattress, his hips wanting to push forward. His hands were fists along his thighs, not knowing what to touch or where, or to what end they might come to should they do so. His toes were curling and uncurling and he found he was shivering, up and down the length of his body. As if blown by unbearable cold when warmth and light were just out of reach.
Barnabas withdrew. Slowly. Pulling himself up as his mouth came away, not moving far enough to expose Willie to the ever-present current of air in the room. But far enough so that there was space between them. Space enough for warmth to grow and the tension of two forms, close, but not touching, to spire into sharpness. Willie felt it, in his head and his chest. And his legs, they felt like iron now, cock tightened up and pulsing, waiting, hot.
The weight on the bed surprised him. Shocked him as much as the touch of two hands, warm from some distant, internal fire. They pushed him on his side to face away, to face the wall. To face the dark reflection of two shadows wall, where before there had been only one. The weight settled behind him on the bed, an arm sliding beneath him to hold his chest and pull him back against woolclad firmness. The other arm, draped across his hips. The liquid feel of fine linen edging the wool of a suit-jacket. And that cool hand, warmed by Willie's own blood, sliding up his thigh, encircling his crotch. Gathering all of his sex, snugging his balls up, all in the palm of silver flesh. Tugging. Teasing.
Barnabas' mouth was pressed into the small hollow behind Willie's ear. Willie could hear the low moisture of that mouth, smell the faint, salty darkness there. And heard the whisper.
"For reparations made."
Boy, I wish I knew what that meant.
He did not know. But that wasn't stopping the vampire. Not that, or the fact that Willie was shaking hard enough for his teeth to click together, but it slowed him. The vampire released the boy's hard sex, and laid his hand on the side of Willie's face and let it rest there Let the hand move down the length of this neck, the slope of his shoulders, and over again. Gentling him like a wild island pony. Finding the ease of muscle under his flesh. Petting him, making him sigh with it, his chest rising with a long heave and then settling into a smooth cadence as though he were sleeping. He felt like he was, that he was at rest and held there, safe in arms of iron, braced to keep out the cold of an unforgiving night.
Barnabas' head tipped forward, Willie could feel the ends of dark hair along his jaw, almost as rough threads from a ragged bit of silk. And then he was pierced. Fast. Quick, dark lances pushing into him and pulling out. His mouth gasping with it, almost choking as pumping out of him, the hot blood spilled down his neck. For a moment he wanted to struggle, to get away when the hand took him again. It was disembodied, that hand, only the coolness of it made him see the folly of thinking this. It had a body, and the body was behind him, pressing close. Grounding him against long, hard limbs, and that broad, solid chest. The echo of a faraway heart. Was it the vampire's? Or was it his own?
He forgot how to breathe. Until his spine felt the relaxed pulse of the vampire's breath and followed it. Until the mouth began to suck, gentle, gentle, the edge of a tongue tabbing at the raw edges of wounds only enough to entice. And that hand, as the mouth sucked, and eased, and sucked, the hand began to stroke him. It slid up his sex and then down. Circled the tightened flesh between his legs, and spread the moisture building up at the crown. His mind refused to stop and make sense of it, and, indeed, could not, as the hand took him where darkness had always begged him to follow.
The sucking was harder now, as the hand moved up and down him, slippery with his own sweet sweat. His hips pushed back into the woolclad hips behind him, and then forward into that fist. And he could not find it any-where, even in the corners of his soul, to stop it.
Pulse and suck. The slip of a palm, jarring him into a pleasure always sought but never gained, the sensation one that he would go mad trying to find again. And the low, satisfied sound of humming.
Silver-lined, it caressed his flesh until he was hard as stone and pulsing newborn. He exploded into the vampire’s dark. The white shroud in reverse as it went away from him in a tunnel of sparks in the darkness of his closed eyes, while his body stiffened and his spine almost broke with the pleasure of it. He could not even grunt with the effort of it, this too, was swallowed by the darkness. And the vampire's hand, one last stroke before it stopped. Released him. And casually, as if from many turns of practice, wiped Willie's own spent seed on his bare and sweating hip.
*
The first thing Willie did when he got up in the morning and slid on some clothes, ignoring the tatters of his underwear and t-shirt among the tumble of blankets, was to go down the stairs to the library to look up reparations in the dictionary. Standing there, with the early, slanting sun bouncing off the pages and gilding their edges with light, was far easier than realizing he felt as good as if he’d been ridden by an Atlantic City showgirl the night before. It was easier, too, to only think about shaving over the metal sink in the kitchen and heating up some coffee and to drink it standing up, staring out the window, one hand on his hip, the cup cradled in the palm of the other hand. To feel the ease of his skin across his bones without a twinge of anything hard or sharp. It was easier to think about these things than about anything else. But he felt good. Deep inside, as though petted for hours in the right direction, soaked in sweet perfume, and dusted with a sparkle of stars.
He rubbed the back of his neck. Yeah, there was still a welt there, but it didn't feel like much, didn't bother him at all. The ones on his legs didn't trouble him much, either. The Atlantic City showgirl, who he pictured in his mind to be a tall, flexible brunette with a bottom firm enough to balance a plate on, kicked her long legs through his memories of the night before. It was easier to think of her, the she-with-no-name, or the idea that he'd made amends, and, as the dictionary had put it, given satisfaction for a wrong or injury, than to let his mind dwell on the suitor that had actually claimed him.
That suitor. Coming out of Willie's own darkest dark and taking him back into it. Saying very little and shaping Willie's pleasure with hands that had, before last night, only hurt and controlled. His stomach shivered at the thought of what they would say to each other come sun-down. Barnabas was not his idea of someone to whom he should owe any gratitude.
Finishing the last gulp of coffee he felt he could man-age, he dumped the contents of the cup in the sink and took a deep breath. Spring had come in to Maine, walking through the night, pushing past the last resistance of winter. Planting itself in the air with a smooth breeze that tossed Willie's hair as he grabbed the keys to the truck and walked out to it. Layering the air with the smell of green-growth and the promise of more heat as the sun pierced through the sky. A nice time of year, this, his mind focused on it as he started up the truck and drove into town.
The village was just throwing off a shroud of fog, the rooftops bright and crystalline with dew and sunlight. Willie went straight up the hill to Wesley's house, expecting that he'd have a repeat of the day before. Have to make the rounds from one spot to the next and still not find what he was looking for. But Wesley was there, though it seemed not for long. There was a medium sized rental truck parked in the drive, and the front door was open. Even as Willie slid behind it and killed the engine, Wesley Dale came striding out, box in both hands. He wore his usual button-down shirt and jeans, though they looked a tad slept in, even for Wesley. And when he saw Willie, a smile lit up his face. He put the box down in a puddle and came straight over, practically pulling Willie out of the cab.
A hearty hug was his greeting, and that smile, the one that lit up his green eyes, a flash of teeth, and the familiar smell of gasoline and oil.
"Hey, Willie," he said. "You look like hell."
I don't feel it.
His mind shied away from the reason as to why.
"Yeah, hey, got a day off, an' all."
"Oh?" asked Wesley. "Well come on in, then." He dragged Willie with one hand into the house, where there was a gathering of boxes littered with sheets of newspapers, and paper cups on the table, and a canister of instant coffee. "Have some coffee, huh?"
"I mean," said Willie, realizing how it must have sounded. "I had the day off. Yesterday. Not today."
"Ah." This was all that came out of Wesley as he busied himself scraping the brown powder out of the glass jar and filling the paper cups with hot water from the tap. "Well, I'm glad you came by anyhow, another coupla hours or so would have seen me gone."
"You goin' somewhere?" Willie asked this, feeling the sudden pitch in his heart.
Wesley motioned for Willie to sit down and he pushed the paper cup of coffee at him. Willie took it and sat, curling his hands around the cup. Looking at Wesley, Willie realized that soon, quite soon, he would be all alone.
"We're going to Boston, you see." Wesley took a sip of his coffee and seemed to be waiting for something. Then Willie realized why this was significant.
"You and Laura?"
"Yeah." There was a sigh of contentment in his voice. "She's gonna forgive me, but I gotta change. I'm going into a different line of work, yes, for my brother-in-law, but driving trucks. Not in an office."
Willie nodded. It was a good thing, Wesley getting his beloved Laura back, all told, but he couldn't imagine who he would talk to once Wesley was gone. "Did you ever, I mean, who told-"
"Butcher."
"Butcher?"
"Yeah. He was pissed I was drinking so he ratted me out. For my own good, he said. He didn't care how much I hated him, he was going to do the right thing by me."
"That's a good friend," said Willie, swallowing.
"Yeah," said Wesley. "And so're you, taking the pounding I gave you without saying a word. Looked like your boss whipped you for it, anyway, even if it wasn't your fault."
Ice cold. Willie felt the frost spring up inside of him, coating his stomach with rime ice inside of a heartbeat. He shook his head. "No, no he didn't, it just-"
"Look," said Wesley, pointing to Willie. "I can see it from here."
Willie lifted a hand to his own neck. He should have worn a turtleneck, but he'd not thought of it because nothing seemed to be hurting. He was as limber and at ease in his body as if he'd received a rubdown every day for a week. But his eyes could barely meet Wesley's. A ripple of feeling exposed ran through him.
Wesley shrugged, casual, easing Willie's tenseness not at all. "It's not like you could have hid it. All those times. Even Butcher knew."
Butcher knew? Worse and worse. Willie pushed the coffee cup away, unwilling, just then, to even pretend he was drinking the stuff, which had the consistency of bath-water. "Can we not talk about it, okay? He doesn't like me fighting, is all."
"And he doesn't like you having lunch with friends, or getting back a little late, or anything. I ain't blind, Willie. Your boss is a jerk, like I always said. Even if he does have the manners of a prince."
"What?" How would Wesley know?
Wesley seemed to be laughing a bit then, taking a sip of his coffee and making Willie wait for it, as though what he was about to say were the punch line to a very saucy joke. He put the cup down, and pushed it with his fingers, looking at it, and then, flicking up his eyes at Willie. Willie's heart lurched. He would miss that rascally smile, the green glint, like gemstones flickering through a dark night. And the manner, that what was so, was so, and no need to be shady about it.
"Yer ole boss came by last night," he said, a long, low chuckle jigging at his shoulders. "Yeah, bold as brass, and could he come in an' all."
"Come in?" Willie's voice squeaked. Barnabas had been late coming in the night before, but never, in a thou-sand years, never could Willie have guessed he'd been here. In this house. Talking to Wesley Dale. Drudge of the village. And, it being Barnabas, it was amazing that Wesley was alive to talk about it.
"Did he, I mean, what did he-" He couldn't get the words out. Shock took every sensible question he could think of.
"He asked if he could come in, like he was here to visit the King of France or something. So I said yes, and he and that stupid cane of his came in."
Willie's jaw flexed open, he could feel his brows fur-rowing together, and found that while, yes, he could picture it, he could not, in any way, understand it.
Wesley was laughing now. He slapped his leg and spilled his coffee a bit, and titled his head back to howl to the ceiling.
"Wesley," said Willie. Terse.
The other man collected himself, smiling too wide to actually take a sip of the coffee he raised to his lips. Then he put the cup down, eyes sparking at the thought of it. "Well, I ain't the King of France by any stretch, and he's taking a good look around, at my pile of crap, the grime on the walls, I mean, you could see him mentally deciding it was a hovel, and so he couldn't really expect too much. You know what I mean?"
Willie nodded.
"So, he asks me where I am going, and I tell him, and then he wants to know why, as polite as you please. And all the while, he's standing right on the cat pee stain that we could never get out of the carpet, that cane of his on his arm, looking down that long nose of his. And talking to me like I was the King of France, even if I wasn't. If you know what I mean." There was a puzzled expression on Wesley's face now, where before there had been derisive laughter.
"Yeah," said Willie. "I know what you mean." Barnabas had that way, of making things as serene and cultured as he wanted them to be. For as long as he wanted it that way. Until he decided it should be otherwise, and sent you into next week with a flick of his wrist.
"Then he goes, like, and for what reason do you find yourself in this troubled state. Like that, you know?"
Wesley's imitation of Barnabas was pretty good; Willie could hear it exactly as it must have been said.
"So I found myself, for some fucking reason, telling him about the drinking. Like, why in the hell would I tell that peckerhead anything like that?"
"The peckerhead," said Willie, trying not to laugh now, the first time he'd felt like it in ages and ages, "is good at that. If he wants to know, he'll find out."
"Tell me," said Wesley, shaking his head. "So then he goes, perhaps this is a lesson to you, yammer, yammer, yammer. And then I look at him, and I says, so I go, well, sometimes you want things you can't have, and then you get things you shouldn't want. And you know what he did then?"
Willie had no idea.
"He looked like I'd smacked him. Right upside his head. But he stretches out his hand and he takes my hand and he shakes it. He's got a cold grip, that one, but he says, I wish you well on your journey, Wesley Dale. Like I was somebody maybe he liked."
In the silence that followed, Wesley gave him a jab across the table. "Can you beat that? Your boss, shaking my hand."
The miracle, Willie realized, was that Wesley was still alive come the dawn. Barnabas, he was sure, had come over to rid the world of the latest distraction in Willie's life. He'd gotten permission to cross the threshold and had surveyed the scene. Surely having gone to that particular hovel in the village, his intent must have been to strike and kill. What had stopped him? It could not have been Wesley's pitiful state, Barnabas would have considered it just and right that someone as lowly as a tow-truck driver would live in squalor. That Wesley was an admitted out-of-control alcoholic would have been another strike against him. That his wife had left him would prove that he could not control his women, and would also not have been in his favor. That he was planning to get a job driving a different kind of truck would have impressed Barnabas not at all. And certainly Wesley didn't have the manners of a court jester, let alone the King of France. He said what he thought, and hang who it irritated.
Which of course, might have been it.
Yeah, it really might have been.
Maybe Barnabas had found Wesley's candor refreshing. Or heard, as Willie often had, the very thing he needed to hear, when he needed to hear it. Wesley had the darndest skill at saying the very thing. The very thing.
"So?" asked Wesley. "You don't seem very impressed. Even Laura was impressed. I called her before the phone got shut off."
"I'm impressed," said Willie. "I can't hardly believe it, is all."
"What? You don't think I'm worth a visit from your boss?"
Wesley looked almost ready to be insulted, so Willie shook his head and smiled. "That's bullshit, Wesley Dale," he said. "You're worth more than he is, any day."
Then Wesley smiled back at him. The corners of his eyes crinkled up, and there was a faraway feeling, coming closer, that this might be the last time Willie would ever see that smile. Feel the warmth of friendship coming at him across a very cold ocean. After today, Wesley would be gone, and whether Willie would ever see him again was in the hands of a God he did not believe in. But he had this moment, and a string of others like it. They would keep him company, he hoped, a good long while.
"Hey," he said. "You need some help moving boxes?"
Now Wesley shook his head. "Naw, but thanks. Butcher is coming over, and he won't want to see you. He thinks you're a baaad influence."
This made Willie laugh for no reason at all. "Right. Well, I'll go then, before he gets here. Wouldn't want to create a hassle."
They got up and Wesley walked Willie to his truck. The box he'd left in the puddle was soaked through and Willie hoped it wasn't anything valuable in there. Or maybe it was a knee-jerk impulse from working too long for a picky vampire. Barnabas would no more allow any-thing of his to be soaked through with rainwater than he would permit the slightest stain on his reputation.
As Willie got in the truck, Wesley shut the door for him, his hands hanging on the open window. There was a pause between them as Willie contemplated getting Wesley's phone number or the name of the company he would be working for. Sure, Willie could look up Brewster's Quarry in the phone book and track Wesley down. But then he thought that maybe Wesley didn't want to give it, that he'd just as soon put Collinsport and all of its citizens behind him. Including Willie.
"Hey, buddy," he said. Nodded, once, feeling his eyes get hot. "See you around, then."
"Yep," said Wesley. He took his hands away, and stepped back. Sober and still, his face growing a little dark. "See you."
The only thing that saved Willie was that he couldn't cry and drive at the same time. So he drove.
***
Faith in the Atmosphere - Part 6
Master Fic List
One of the floorboards popped as it tended to do in damp, warmish weather, waking him up fully again. He tried taking a full, relaxing breath and rolled over on his side to face the wall. And tried not to think about how long it was taking the vampire to return.
Still awake. Still staring at the wall. Still waiting for sleep to come. The floorboard popped again, and he was so awake there was almost no point in pretending he even wanted to sleep. He sighed and rolled over on his back.
"Restless tonight, my spark?" The voice was deep and quiet.
Willie's eyes flew open to look at the darkness. To listen to the slow tread coming closer to his bedside. How many times had he heard that particular floorboard snap? How many times, then, had it been Barnabas watching him while he slept? His hair seemed to be suddenly sticking to his forehead while his heart began a slow, icy increase, as if he were running up a hill. And still. He stayed still, feeling his heart thud and his lungs press against his ribs.
He made himself think of this, of his privacy invaded, of all those nights when he thought it had been the wind, but it had not been. But it was no use. His body was drawn to the weight coming closer through the air, weight like gravity, pulling him to it and pushing him away at the same time.
Can you find me? In the dark?
Though why Willie should want to be found was beyond him
Of course, the master of the Old house could do it, with ease. Barnabas had vampire eyes, could read the air with his fingertips. Should Willie move so much as a moth's whisper, Barnabas would know it. But the night was spare and smooth and filled with the heavy velvet of silence. Barnabas was there, at his bedside, bending close, moving the veil of hair from Willie's eyes, trammeling the edge of his jaw with the heel of his palm.
Then the darkness was there, like velvet, bending down, the whisk of a breath across his chin, and then a brush of dark, oiled hair against his cheek. He felt the presence of the vampire, close now, but not touching him. Except for that hand, running down one side of his neck, the cool stir of air from the vampire's mouth down the other.
Willie was still. A wild thing in the grass, waiting for the lion to pounce. This one did, and Willie never saw it coming.
The weight of Barnabas' hand moved down his side, somehow familiar from the times that the vampire had grabbed him to throw him about. But now, now, the hand, though heavy, was smooth. Not timid. Tugging back the weight of woolen blanket, and oft-washed cotton sheet. Taking away the cotton of his briefs and undershirt. Sparing Willie a touch now to expose him to the soft rawness of a spring night.
Barnabas' mouth was close now, those shoulders, as he bent down, pressing Willie's body down with a gentle weight, pressure of cool fingertips pulling his jaw towards the darkness of the vampire's chest. Almost across him now, but not upon him, he felt the first, tiny sharp pin-pricks of the vampire's fangs in his flesh. Sliding into him with a flicker of light that grew. Spread as the hand that had pulled the blankets back now stroked him. Followed the length of his ribs and thigh. Felt the pulse of his heart-beat easily through his shivering skin. The bite in his neck withdrew, and the vampire sucked, almost not at all. Like a brush of a ribbon in a stray band of sunlight. Willie's flesh was pulled into that cold mouth, and pulsed with warmth as the blood seeped from him.
Then his body began to tighten, and under that hand, that cool, sweeping hand, his sex grew hard, and he pressed back into the mattress, his hips wanting to push forward. His hands were fists along his thighs, not knowing what to touch or where, or to what end they might come to should they do so. His toes were curling and uncurling and he found he was shivering, up and down the length of his body. As if blown by unbearable cold when warmth and light were just out of reach.
Barnabas withdrew. Slowly. Pulling himself up as his mouth came away, not moving far enough to expose Willie to the ever-present current of air in the room. But far enough so that there was space between them. Space enough for warmth to grow and the tension of two forms, close, but not touching, to spire into sharpness. Willie felt it, in his head and his chest. And his legs, they felt like iron now, cock tightened up and pulsing, waiting, hot.
The weight on the bed surprised him. Shocked him as much as the touch of two hands, warm from some distant, internal fire. They pushed him on his side to face away, to face the wall. To face the dark reflection of two shadows wall, where before there had been only one. The weight settled behind him on the bed, an arm sliding beneath him to hold his chest and pull him back against woolclad firmness. The other arm, draped across his hips. The liquid feel of fine linen edging the wool of a suit-jacket. And that cool hand, warmed by Willie's own blood, sliding up his thigh, encircling his crotch. Gathering all of his sex, snugging his balls up, all in the palm of silver flesh. Tugging. Teasing.
Barnabas' mouth was pressed into the small hollow behind Willie's ear. Willie could hear the low moisture of that mouth, smell the faint, salty darkness there. And heard the whisper.
"For reparations made."
Boy, I wish I knew what that meant.
He did not know. But that wasn't stopping the vampire. Not that, or the fact that Willie was shaking hard enough for his teeth to click together, but it slowed him. The vampire released the boy's hard sex, and laid his hand on the side of Willie's face and let it rest there Let the hand move down the length of this neck, the slope of his shoulders, and over again. Gentling him like a wild island pony. Finding the ease of muscle under his flesh. Petting him, making him sigh with it, his chest rising with a long heave and then settling into a smooth cadence as though he were sleeping. He felt like he was, that he was at rest and held there, safe in arms of iron, braced to keep out the cold of an unforgiving night.
Barnabas' head tipped forward, Willie could feel the ends of dark hair along his jaw, almost as rough threads from a ragged bit of silk. And then he was pierced. Fast. Quick, dark lances pushing into him and pulling out. His mouth gasping with it, almost choking as pumping out of him, the hot blood spilled down his neck. For a moment he wanted to struggle, to get away when the hand took him again. It was disembodied, that hand, only the coolness of it made him see the folly of thinking this. It had a body, and the body was behind him, pressing close. Grounding him against long, hard limbs, and that broad, solid chest. The echo of a faraway heart. Was it the vampire's? Or was it his own?
He forgot how to breathe. Until his spine felt the relaxed pulse of the vampire's breath and followed it. Until the mouth began to suck, gentle, gentle, the edge of a tongue tabbing at the raw edges of wounds only enough to entice. And that hand, as the mouth sucked, and eased, and sucked, the hand began to stroke him. It slid up his sex and then down. Circled the tightened flesh between his legs, and spread the moisture building up at the crown. His mind refused to stop and make sense of it, and, indeed, could not, as the hand took him where darkness had always begged him to follow.
The sucking was harder now, as the hand moved up and down him, slippery with his own sweet sweat. His hips pushed back into the woolclad hips behind him, and then forward into that fist. And he could not find it any-where, even in the corners of his soul, to stop it.
Pulse and suck. The slip of a palm, jarring him into a pleasure always sought but never gained, the sensation one that he would go mad trying to find again. And the low, satisfied sound of humming.
Silver-lined, it caressed his flesh until he was hard as stone and pulsing newborn. He exploded into the vampire’s dark. The white shroud in reverse as it went away from him in a tunnel of sparks in the darkness of his closed eyes, while his body stiffened and his spine almost broke with the pleasure of it. He could not even grunt with the effort of it, this too, was swallowed by the darkness. And the vampire's hand, one last stroke before it stopped. Released him. And casually, as if from many turns of practice, wiped Willie's own spent seed on his bare and sweating hip.
*
The first thing Willie did when he got up in the morning and slid on some clothes, ignoring the tatters of his underwear and t-shirt among the tumble of blankets, was to go down the stairs to the library to look up reparations in the dictionary. Standing there, with the early, slanting sun bouncing off the pages and gilding their edges with light, was far easier than realizing he felt as good as if he’d been ridden by an Atlantic City showgirl the night before. It was easier, too, to only think about shaving over the metal sink in the kitchen and heating up some coffee and to drink it standing up, staring out the window, one hand on his hip, the cup cradled in the palm of the other hand. To feel the ease of his skin across his bones without a twinge of anything hard or sharp. It was easier to think about these things than about anything else. But he felt good. Deep inside, as though petted for hours in the right direction, soaked in sweet perfume, and dusted with a sparkle of stars.
He rubbed the back of his neck. Yeah, there was still a welt there, but it didn't feel like much, didn't bother him at all. The ones on his legs didn't trouble him much, either. The Atlantic City showgirl, who he pictured in his mind to be a tall, flexible brunette with a bottom firm enough to balance a plate on, kicked her long legs through his memories of the night before. It was easier to think of her, the she-with-no-name, or the idea that he'd made amends, and, as the dictionary had put it, given satisfaction for a wrong or injury, than to let his mind dwell on the suitor that had actually claimed him.
That suitor. Coming out of Willie's own darkest dark and taking him back into it. Saying very little and shaping Willie's pleasure with hands that had, before last night, only hurt and controlled. His stomach shivered at the thought of what they would say to each other come sun-down. Barnabas was not his idea of someone to whom he should owe any gratitude.
Finishing the last gulp of coffee he felt he could man-age, he dumped the contents of the cup in the sink and took a deep breath. Spring had come in to Maine, walking through the night, pushing past the last resistance of winter. Planting itself in the air with a smooth breeze that tossed Willie's hair as he grabbed the keys to the truck and walked out to it. Layering the air with the smell of green-growth and the promise of more heat as the sun pierced through the sky. A nice time of year, this, his mind focused on it as he started up the truck and drove into town.
The village was just throwing off a shroud of fog, the rooftops bright and crystalline with dew and sunlight. Willie went straight up the hill to Wesley's house, expecting that he'd have a repeat of the day before. Have to make the rounds from one spot to the next and still not find what he was looking for. But Wesley was there, though it seemed not for long. There was a medium sized rental truck parked in the drive, and the front door was open. Even as Willie slid behind it and killed the engine, Wesley Dale came striding out, box in both hands. He wore his usual button-down shirt and jeans, though they looked a tad slept in, even for Wesley. And when he saw Willie, a smile lit up his face. He put the box down in a puddle and came straight over, practically pulling Willie out of the cab.
A hearty hug was his greeting, and that smile, the one that lit up his green eyes, a flash of teeth, and the familiar smell of gasoline and oil.
"Hey, Willie," he said. "You look like hell."
I don't feel it.
His mind shied away from the reason as to why.
"Yeah, hey, got a day off, an' all."
"Oh?" asked Wesley. "Well come on in, then." He dragged Willie with one hand into the house, where there was a gathering of boxes littered with sheets of newspapers, and paper cups on the table, and a canister of instant coffee. "Have some coffee, huh?"
"I mean," said Willie, realizing how it must have sounded. "I had the day off. Yesterday. Not today."
"Ah." This was all that came out of Wesley as he busied himself scraping the brown powder out of the glass jar and filling the paper cups with hot water from the tap. "Well, I'm glad you came by anyhow, another coupla hours or so would have seen me gone."
"You goin' somewhere?" Willie asked this, feeling the sudden pitch in his heart.
Wesley motioned for Willie to sit down and he pushed the paper cup of coffee at him. Willie took it and sat, curling his hands around the cup. Looking at Wesley, Willie realized that soon, quite soon, he would be all alone.
"We're going to Boston, you see." Wesley took a sip of his coffee and seemed to be waiting for something. Then Willie realized why this was significant.
"You and Laura?"
"Yeah." There was a sigh of contentment in his voice. "She's gonna forgive me, but I gotta change. I'm going into a different line of work, yes, for my brother-in-law, but driving trucks. Not in an office."
Willie nodded. It was a good thing, Wesley getting his beloved Laura back, all told, but he couldn't imagine who he would talk to once Wesley was gone. "Did you ever, I mean, who told-"
"Butcher."
"Butcher?"
"Yeah. He was pissed I was drinking so he ratted me out. For my own good, he said. He didn't care how much I hated him, he was going to do the right thing by me."
"That's a good friend," said Willie, swallowing.
"Yeah," said Wesley. "And so're you, taking the pounding I gave you without saying a word. Looked like your boss whipped you for it, anyway, even if it wasn't your fault."
Ice cold. Willie felt the frost spring up inside of him, coating his stomach with rime ice inside of a heartbeat. He shook his head. "No, no he didn't, it just-"
"Look," said Wesley, pointing to Willie. "I can see it from here."
Willie lifted a hand to his own neck. He should have worn a turtleneck, but he'd not thought of it because nothing seemed to be hurting. He was as limber and at ease in his body as if he'd received a rubdown every day for a week. But his eyes could barely meet Wesley's. A ripple of feeling exposed ran through him.
Wesley shrugged, casual, easing Willie's tenseness not at all. "It's not like you could have hid it. All those times. Even Butcher knew."
Butcher knew? Worse and worse. Willie pushed the coffee cup away, unwilling, just then, to even pretend he was drinking the stuff, which had the consistency of bath-water. "Can we not talk about it, okay? He doesn't like me fighting, is all."
"And he doesn't like you having lunch with friends, or getting back a little late, or anything. I ain't blind, Willie. Your boss is a jerk, like I always said. Even if he does have the manners of a prince."
"What?" How would Wesley know?
Wesley seemed to be laughing a bit then, taking a sip of his coffee and making Willie wait for it, as though what he was about to say were the punch line to a very saucy joke. He put the cup down, and pushed it with his fingers, looking at it, and then, flicking up his eyes at Willie. Willie's heart lurched. He would miss that rascally smile, the green glint, like gemstones flickering through a dark night. And the manner, that what was so, was so, and no need to be shady about it.
"Yer ole boss came by last night," he said, a long, low chuckle jigging at his shoulders. "Yeah, bold as brass, and could he come in an' all."
"Come in?" Willie's voice squeaked. Barnabas had been late coming in the night before, but never, in a thou-sand years, never could Willie have guessed he'd been here. In this house. Talking to Wesley Dale. Drudge of the village. And, it being Barnabas, it was amazing that Wesley was alive to talk about it.
"Did he, I mean, what did he-" He couldn't get the words out. Shock took every sensible question he could think of.
"He asked if he could come in, like he was here to visit the King of France or something. So I said yes, and he and that stupid cane of his came in."
Willie's jaw flexed open, he could feel his brows fur-rowing together, and found that while, yes, he could picture it, he could not, in any way, understand it.
Wesley was laughing now. He slapped his leg and spilled his coffee a bit, and titled his head back to howl to the ceiling.
"Wesley," said Willie. Terse.
The other man collected himself, smiling too wide to actually take a sip of the coffee he raised to his lips. Then he put the cup down, eyes sparking at the thought of it. "Well, I ain't the King of France by any stretch, and he's taking a good look around, at my pile of crap, the grime on the walls, I mean, you could see him mentally deciding it was a hovel, and so he couldn't really expect too much. You know what I mean?"
Willie nodded.
"So, he asks me where I am going, and I tell him, and then he wants to know why, as polite as you please. And all the while, he's standing right on the cat pee stain that we could never get out of the carpet, that cane of his on his arm, looking down that long nose of his. And talking to me like I was the King of France, even if I wasn't. If you know what I mean." There was a puzzled expression on Wesley's face now, where before there had been derisive laughter.
"Yeah," said Willie. "I know what you mean." Barnabas had that way, of making things as serene and cultured as he wanted them to be. For as long as he wanted it that way. Until he decided it should be otherwise, and sent you into next week with a flick of his wrist.
"Then he goes, like, and for what reason do you find yourself in this troubled state. Like that, you know?"
Wesley's imitation of Barnabas was pretty good; Willie could hear it exactly as it must have been said.
"So I found myself, for some fucking reason, telling him about the drinking. Like, why in the hell would I tell that peckerhead anything like that?"
"The peckerhead," said Willie, trying not to laugh now, the first time he'd felt like it in ages and ages, "is good at that. If he wants to know, he'll find out."
"Tell me," said Wesley, shaking his head. "So then he goes, perhaps this is a lesson to you, yammer, yammer, yammer. And then I look at him, and I says, so I go, well, sometimes you want things you can't have, and then you get things you shouldn't want. And you know what he did then?"
Willie had no idea.
"He looked like I'd smacked him. Right upside his head. But he stretches out his hand and he takes my hand and he shakes it. He's got a cold grip, that one, but he says, I wish you well on your journey, Wesley Dale. Like I was somebody maybe he liked."
In the silence that followed, Wesley gave him a jab across the table. "Can you beat that? Your boss, shaking my hand."
The miracle, Willie realized, was that Wesley was still alive come the dawn. Barnabas, he was sure, had come over to rid the world of the latest distraction in Willie's life. He'd gotten permission to cross the threshold and had surveyed the scene. Surely having gone to that particular hovel in the village, his intent must have been to strike and kill. What had stopped him? It could not have been Wesley's pitiful state, Barnabas would have considered it just and right that someone as lowly as a tow-truck driver would live in squalor. That Wesley was an admitted out-of-control alcoholic would have been another strike against him. That his wife had left him would prove that he could not control his women, and would also not have been in his favor. That he was planning to get a job driving a different kind of truck would have impressed Barnabas not at all. And certainly Wesley didn't have the manners of a court jester, let alone the King of France. He said what he thought, and hang who it irritated.
Which of course, might have been it.
Yeah, it really might have been.
Maybe Barnabas had found Wesley's candor refreshing. Or heard, as Willie often had, the very thing he needed to hear, when he needed to hear it. Wesley had the darndest skill at saying the very thing. The very thing.
"So?" asked Wesley. "You don't seem very impressed. Even Laura was impressed. I called her before the phone got shut off."
"I'm impressed," said Willie. "I can't hardly believe it, is all."
"What? You don't think I'm worth a visit from your boss?"
Wesley looked almost ready to be insulted, so Willie shook his head and smiled. "That's bullshit, Wesley Dale," he said. "You're worth more than he is, any day."
Then Wesley smiled back at him. The corners of his eyes crinkled up, and there was a faraway feeling, coming closer, that this might be the last time Willie would ever see that smile. Feel the warmth of friendship coming at him across a very cold ocean. After today, Wesley would be gone, and whether Willie would ever see him again was in the hands of a God he did not believe in. But he had this moment, and a string of others like it. They would keep him company, he hoped, a good long while.
"Hey," he said. "You need some help moving boxes?"
Now Wesley shook his head. "Naw, but thanks. Butcher is coming over, and he won't want to see you. He thinks you're a baaad influence."
This made Willie laugh for no reason at all. "Right. Well, I'll go then, before he gets here. Wouldn't want to create a hassle."
They got up and Wesley walked Willie to his truck. The box he'd left in the puddle was soaked through and Willie hoped it wasn't anything valuable in there. Or maybe it was a knee-jerk impulse from working too long for a picky vampire. Barnabas would no more allow any-thing of his to be soaked through with rainwater than he would permit the slightest stain on his reputation.
As Willie got in the truck, Wesley shut the door for him, his hands hanging on the open window. There was a pause between them as Willie contemplated getting Wesley's phone number or the name of the company he would be working for. Sure, Willie could look up Brewster's Quarry in the phone book and track Wesley down. But then he thought that maybe Wesley didn't want to give it, that he'd just as soon put Collinsport and all of its citizens behind him. Including Willie.
"Hey, buddy," he said. Nodded, once, feeling his eyes get hot. "See you around, then."
"Yep," said Wesley. He took his hands away, and stepped back. Sober and still, his face growing a little dark. "See you."
The only thing that saved Willie was that he couldn't cry and drive at the same time. So he drove.
***
Faith in the Atmosphere - Part 6
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