Canon Excerpt from "The Dark Tower"
"I was in New York a little over a year that first time," Callahan said, "but by March of 1976, I had..." He paused, struggling to say what all three of them understood from the look on his face. His skin had flushed rosy except for where the scar lay; that seemed to glow an almost preternatural white by comparison.
"Oh, okay, I suppose you'd say that by March I'd fallen in love with him. Does that make me a queer? A faggot? I don't know. They say we all are, don't they? Some do, anyway. And why not? Every month or two there seemed to be another story in the paper about a priest with a penchant for sticking his hand up the altar boys' skirts. As for myself, I had no reason to think of myself as queer. God knows I wasn't immune to the turn of a pretty female leg, priest or not, and molesting the altar boys never crossed my mind. Nor was there ever anything physical between Lupe and me. But I loved him, and I'm not just talking about his mind or his dedication or his ambitions for Home. Not just because he'd chosen to do his real work among the poor, like Christ, either. There was a physical attraction."
Callahan paused, struggled, then burst out: "God, he was beautiful. Beautiful!"
"What happened to him?" Roland asked.
"He came in one snowy night in late March. The place was full, and the natives were restless. There had already been one fistfight, and we were still picking up from that. There was a guy with a full-blown fit of the dt's, and Rowan Magruder had him in back, in his office, feeding him coffee laced with whiskey. As I think I told you, we had no lockup room in Home. It was dinnertime, half an hour past, actually, and three of the volunteers hadn't come in because of the weather. The radio was on and a couple of women were dancing. 'Feeding time in the zoee,' Lupe used to say.
I was taking off my coat, heading for the kitchen... this fellow named Frank Spinelli collared me... wanted to know aobut a letter of recommendation I'd promised to write him... there was a woman, Lisa somebody, who wanted help with one of the AA steps, 'Make a list of those we had harmed'... there was a young guy who wanted help with a job application, he could read a little but not write... something starting to burn on the stove... complete confusion. And I liked it. It had a way of sweeping you up and carrying you along. But in the middle of it all, I stopped. There were no bells and the only aromas were drunk's b.o. and burning food... but that light was around Lupe's neck like a collar. And I could see marks there. Just little ones. No more than nips, really.
I stopped, and I must have reeled, because Lupe came hurrying over. And then I could smell it, just faintly: strong onions and hot metal. I must have lost a few seconds, too, because all at once the two of us were in the corner by the filing cabinet where we keep the AA stuff and he was asking me when I last ate. He knew I sometimes forgot to do that.
The smell was gone. The blue glow around his neck was gone. And those little nips, where something had bitten him, they were gone, too. Unless the vampire's a real guzzler, the marks go in a hurry. But I knew. It was no good asking him who he'd been with, or when, or where. Vampires, even Type Threes - especially Type Threes, maybe - have their protective devices. Pond-leeches secrete an enzyme in their saliva that keeps the blood flowing while they're feeding. It also numbs the skin, so unless you actually see the thing on you you don't know what's happening. With these Type Three vampires, it's as if they carry a kind of selective, short-term amnesia in their saliva.
I passed it off somehow. Told him I'd just felt light-headed for a second or two, blamed it on coming out of the cold and into all the noise and light and heat. He accpeted it but told me I had to take it easy. 'You're too valuable to lose, Don,' he said, and then he kissed me. Here." Callahn touched his right cheek with his scarred right hand. "So I guess I lied when I said there was nothing physical between us, didn't I? There was that one kiss. I can still remember exactly how it felt. Even the little prickle of fine stubble on his upper lip... here."
"I'm so very sorry for you," Susannah said.
"Thank you, my dear," he said.
-- The Wolves of the Calla, by Stephen King