Undesirable Chapter 28
TITLE: Undesirable (A vampire novel)
RATING: NC-17 (This chapter NC-17)
SUMMARY: What does George get out of all this?
Word Count: 6935
Chapter 28
Wally!" I yelled.
"George," said Chuck, calmly. "Please, relax."
"WALLY!" I shouted and backed away into the hallway again.
"They are asleep," said Chuck, following me but leaving quite a bit of distance between us. "Save your voice. No one is going to wake up."
"Because you are in their minds."
"Yes," said Chuck. "Exactly."
I fled to side door, then out onto the narrow porch that served as a walkway around the perimeter of the house. I stopped at the front stoop with the stiff, cold breeze cutting into my clothes. Beyond the range of the halogen bulb lay nothing but darkness as far as the eye could see. Where was I going to go?
"I was wondering that myself," said Chuck, leaning up against the one of the corner supports. His eyes were focused and his smile had slipped away, but he didn't seem angry at all. Merely observant. Waiting for his moment to pounce.
"What does this mean, Chuck," I asked, squaring myself to him. "Why let me know now?"
"You'd have figured it out momentarily anyway." Chuck shrugged and gave me a wolfish grin. "I'm very hungry. It's been a long, draining day and you had to go and tease me with your scent all afternoon. It gave me very nice dreams, but rather unsatisfying."
"Listen, I'm sorry about that shirt thing, I wasn't trying - I forgot you were back there."
"Yes, I know, George," said Chuck. "And that's the thing about you. It's never deliberate. You aren't trying to be a flirt, you wouldn't even know how to flirt with vampires if you wanted to. It just who you are. Well, I'm no monk, even if my Sire was. My willpower has a breaking point and accidentally or not, you found it."
"I'm sorry, I truly am!"
"I don't want your apologies," said Chuck. "I want your blood. But it's not that bad, and you know it isn't. Forget about the shirt, I was going to feed on you anyway tonight. I hadn't intended that it be a full meal though, just a nip to satisfy curiosity, but as you can see, there is no one in range for me to hunt. You are all that's left."
I couldn't help it, my eyes flashed over his shoulder to the RV, then I schooled myself back, my face warming with embarrassment. I wasn't selling Wally out like that. No way. I'd rather Chuck take me.
"I can't feed on Wally anyway," said Chuck, soothingly. "He's been fed on twice already this week. Deeply both times. Any more would be abusive."
"What about Rod."
Chuck made a face. "You've heard him talk - imagine his mind. No. I'm not that much of a masochist." He then held out his hand welcomingly. "Come back into the house, you are getting cold. And besides, I know part of you wants this anyway. I can feel the temptation in you."
"No, I don't -- I'm not!" I insisted, embarrassed at my own body. "I'm not going to be unfaithful. Not if I can help it."
"This has nothing to do with faithfulness. That concept is meaningless with vampires." He let his hand drop and cocked his head. "Do you really consider what Wally and I did together cheating?"
My dream reared its ugly head. I felt the pain again. The abandonment. The cutting, unfair words. Even though my mind rationalized it, emotionally it was a huge sore spot. And now I knew it wasn't a dream. It actually happened. If this was how Wally felt under Chuck's influence, how did he feel when it was my turn to be the cheater? How could either of us compete with a creature that could manipulate our emotions and make us feel attraction, even love, to such an unnaturally strong degree? That was the depressing crux of it. Whatever it was that Wally and I were to each other, I wasn't sure it could survive vampires' interference.
"No! It didn't happen like that," Chuck was saying, earnestly. "You have it completely wrong! There was no argument. Wally never accused you of anything! Wally never even knew you were there -- I was in complete control of his perceptions the entire time. Those words, those feelings, they never happened. It was just a dream."
"But-"
"All that happened, George, was that in the midst of a feeding, I let my control of you slip. The noise woke you; you left your room to investigate and saw us together. At that point I recognized my mistake and sent you back to bed with a strong suggestion you return to sleep and forget about what you'd seen. Which is what you did. No one spoke a word. Not a word. Any cruel arguments or accusations you thought you heard were simply your own insecurities talking through your dreams -- dreams which had nothing to do with either of Wally or me, or what either of us think of you." Chuck sighed out a deep breath. "Perhaps I didn't clear your unconscious as completely as I should have. I was distracted. I probably left just a suggestion of our behavior to seed your later dreams. But I'm sure, if I hadn't revealed myself to you just now, you'd have forgotten the whole thing entirely in a week or two."
I wasn't so sure of that, but I had more pressing thoughts on my mind: "So how long has Wally known you were a vampire?" It wasn't a question. It was an accusation. I knew the answer: Two interminable car drives, sitting right next to me, not breathing a word. Why hadn't he clued me in? Had Chuck somehow stopped him. Was this all a joke that everyone was in on except me?
"Nothing so sinister," assured Chuck. "He didn't tell you because he doesn't know. I wasn't distracted when I edited Wally's memories. He didn't even get a dream out of it." Chuck looked wistful. "It's best that way, not leaving a trail, even though it means that every meal has the awkwardness of the first seduction."
Chuck took a tentative step closer, narrowing the distance between us. I backed away down a step and he stopped, looking frustrated.
"You still feel betrayed," he stated. "Is this still about what I did with Wally? George, don't you see, you can't judge what I do the way you would a human affair. Vampires can't be faithful to their humans. It would be horrible if we did. Imagine it! Even being as careful as possible, taking just the barest minimum to keep myself alive, I would eventually drain you down to a shell. You would become an invalid, unable to enjoy life, every moment misery except for the few that I squandered for myself. Except for when I forced your body to forget its own needs so that it could serve mine. That's abusive."
I shuddered at the thought of it.
"--And don't think that some vampires aren't tempted to recreate that special one on one relationship you humans hold dear! Don't think that some humans don't let jealousy cloud their common sense. But it's an impulse that has to be fought. Vampires have to have multiple partners - for everyone's sake. And it would be unfair of us to demand one-sided faithfulness from our harem, even though that happens as well. The only way for this to be fair to our humans is if everyone throws out the notion of faithfulness all together. Let something other than sex be the bedrock of your relationship with Wally. There are so many better things to found your love on."
He stepped closer again. This time I held my ground. One step, two. I felt his hand on my shoulder. It was seductively warm. Christ, I was so cold.
"It doesn't count," said Chuck. "What I did with Wally two nights ago, what I will do to you in just a few minutes, doesn't count as far as human relationships are concerned. You will still be faithful to him and I will just be a pleasant interlude, like a dream."
If even that. I had no doubt that Chuck was going to edit my memory when he was done, just as he had with Wally two nights ago. Even this conversation would be lost. Why was he even bothering with it? He could do just as all the other vampires had done and simply flip that switch and turn me on. Without Jeffrey to switch me back off again, I'd be the slut for him that I'd been for all the other vampires. And then, once he'd had his fill, he'd erase it all from my memory and tomorrow we'd set off for Portland as if nothing happened. Chuck would be fed and I'd… I'd be nothing.
"What do I get out of this?" I said angrily. My last hurrah before I gave in to the inevitable. "Everyone else gets whatever the hell they want from me, but what do I get in return?"
"What would you like?" asked Chuck.
I wasn't expecting that. Staring at him, I thought for a couple seconds. What could Chuck give me? Money, but that's not what I wanted. A way to avoid my fate? Even he didn't know how to do that. I needed something more fundamental. Something that would make this situation tolerable. Something that would give me real power over my life again.
"Answers." I said, suddenly. "Straight answers. I want straight answers!" I sucked in a deep breath and straightened my spine. "I'll give you what you want, willingly, but in return, I want you to answer all my questions. All of them. None of this evasion. No huge database full of petty details and … hats… and worthless shit to sift though to try to find what I need. My life is in the balance on a decision I don't have enough information to make."
"Agreed," said Chuck, eagerly. He grasped my hand and shook on the deal before I could comprehend what he was doing. Then Chuck relaxed, happy, I suppose, that he wouldn't have to drag me unwillingly to his bed after all. He doesn't want to force me, I realized with a bit of an epiphany. After all his talk of abuse and vampires doing humans wrong, perhaps he considers it hypocritical. Strange that the vampire who had betrayed my trust the most would also be the only one who cared about my feelings.
"--For tonight, I will answer any questions you have," he continued. "No matter how personal or detailed -- but after I've fed." He smiled toothily. How had I not noticed those fangs before. They were flipping obvious. Christ. "Now come," he said, briskly. "I know you are cold. I can feel how much it hurts you. But I really am so hungry that I'm going to take you on the porch here if we delay any longer. I don't want to be responsible for your hypothermia."
I felt his grip harden on my shoulder, pulling me tight against his body and pushing me back towards the unlocked side door. On a sheer sensual level it felt good not to resist leaning into that warmth. I realized with some guilt that my promise was as much a permission for myself as it was for him. He was right. I was tempted. Vampire sex was good. Guaranteed. Chuck released me as soon as we were back inside, content to follow a step or two behind as I retraced my steps down the dark corridor to the bright oasis of Scott's room.
On the threshold, I girded myself. This was the first time I'd willingly stepped into a vampire's feeding room. There was no chickening out now. And yet, it was sheer willpower that kept me from turning around and running. Willpower and the fact that Chuck was blocking my way. He really wasn't much taller than me, and certainly no wider, but he filled the corridor behind me with such a solid presence that I felt almost pushed to take that final step forward. And there we were. In his bedroom. I stared at the bed, full sized with flannel sheets and a red and black checked comforter. Plenty of room for the deed. The walls of Scott's room were covered in sports regalia and religious tokens. Bits and detritus of a wholesome god-and-country existence. Christ looked down on me from his cross above the bed. Rod would have a kitten if he knew what was going down feet away from where he slept.
"Willingly, huh," said Chuck with just a trace of bitterness.
"Okay, Chuck, I give in," I said, hugging myself. "If you can make this feel less creepy, please do it. Do that vampire mojo thing and make me want this. Make me not care." I looked him in the eye. "Willingly."
"Done," said Chuck. His voice was in my ear. In my mind. A true vampires voice for once. And then came the touch I was waiting all this time for. Chuck slipped into my brain like a drug. There was no pain, just a simple feeling of pressure and a momentary lightening of the world. And then everything changed.
I drew a sharp breath in, and was flooded with sensation. I was hyperaware of my surroundings and yet unable to attribute even the simplest meaning to them. The room stopped being Scott's and became a collection of colors and shapes and textures and smells, layers upon layers, each distinct, each it's own thing. I breathed in and smelled the warmth from the heating grate, the cotton sheets, the dust. I smelled Chuck, warm, too, but almost perfumed, like some exotic spice that made my mouth water. I laughed in sheer childish amazement at this shifting kaleidoscope.
I felt Chuck's hands unbutton my polo shirt and lift it off my chest and over my head. I tried to help but I couldn't quite figure out how to do it. Too complex. Too many steps and angles and elbows and…
… and I was drunk. Not drunk -- high. High on Chuck. I giggled. Then laughed harder when my arm brushed his chest and I realized it was smooth and soft and warm and firm. How'd he get naked so fast? It was hilarious! Cartoon vampire goes bluuuuuur. And I was going to wake up Rod if I didn't cool it.
Don't worry about that. Don't worry about anything. Leave it all to me.
"So this is how you hunt, Chuck?" I asked. Chuck. What kind of name for a vampire was Chuck anyway? Chuck was a big rig driver. A plumber. Chuck was the guy who took your order … would you like fries with that… Never made any sense that he'd be a resistance fighter. Resistance fighters should be called Renee or Etoufee or something French, viva la revolution…
Chuck laughed. Maybe it was aloud, maybe it was in my mind. I couldn't tell. It seemed to bounce off the walls of the room, or the walls in my skull. "Only how I hunt you," he replied.
I didn't feel hunted. I felt like hunting. I was starving and achingly empty and Chuck smelled absolutely delicious. What was that scent? Whatever it was, I'd drag my tongue over him if I could just figure out how to get my face pointed in the right direction.
Chuck was spinning me, or maybe the world was spinning and he was just making sure I hit the mattress instead of the floor. Not that I would have felt any pain if I hit the floor. I giggled again. The angles of the room seemed to melt and reform in different places. Back and forth. Prismatic and confusing. I held still, waiting for this crazy mirror effect to diminish. But even as the outside lost its sense, I felt a strong surge of inner understanding. Chuck seemed to brighten against the background, full of new significance. I gasped in awe.
Reaching my hand up, I felt Chuck's face, amazed momentarily by the texture of his skin and the shape of his cheekbone.
"Has anyone told you, you are beautiful?" I murmured. He was. Like an angel now that I could see his features. They were delicate in a masculine sort of way. No mistaking him for a girl. But maybe a beast. Something sleek and lithe and powerful and dark. Elegant. Raw and magnetic.
Flatterer, he thought, genuinely pleased, as he took my hand and lowered it.
In the last 25 years he could count on one hand how many people, vampire and human, he'd allowed to see him properly. Everyone else saw him as fat or thin, dark or light, whatever their minds felt most comfortable with. Even during feedings. Especially during feedings. Being invisible was a constant drain. It felt so good to be seen for once, to let that control slip. To finally be fully himself, unguarded and relaxed. And I, who had no reason at all to compliment him, thought he looked beautiful and exotic. Oh yes, he was very pleased.
Then I saw myself through his eyes. Without the layer of self-conscious criticism, I realized I was handsome. Short, of course, but it wasn't a bad thing. I was perfectly proportioned for that size. Soulful eyes. Features that seemed deceptively fragile and yet firm with determination. I was as attractive as Wally. Always had been.
And I was more. I tasted good. There was no doubt about it. That smell, that wonderful enticing smell was coming from me.
I was in Chuck's mind.
Chuck growled, not really in response to my thinking although I knew he could hear that, but rather that he was so desperately hungry that he didn't think he had the patience to sweeten me properly.
"Feed," I told him, lifting a wrist. Curiosity overwhelmed me. I wanted to know what it was like.
His eyes flashed and I knew I'd hit a weak spot. His control crumbled and he bit.
It felt marvelous. Not like the pain Jeffrey had given me that once and not like the many times I'd been made to feel sexual pleasure either. It felt like relief. Like I had been starving and now finally I got what I needed. Every part of my body felt eased at once. And I tasted something amazing. Something delicate and intricate and powerful. So different from any flavor I'd ever experienced that it seemed more like music than food. I wanted it to go on, so I could fully understand it, but I knew if I stopped now and was patient it would be even better. Or rather Chuck did.
Chuck stopped feeding - or was it me feeding - no, of course, it was him. I was confused. The borders of him and me were merged. Part of me felt the tremendous weight of years, centuries, schooling me back, and part of me was as impatient as child, weakly reaching for something I didn't know how to take. I did my best human effort and bent upwards, fighting gravity, closing the distance between us. I found his mouth and took it in a hungry kiss, hoping for more of that elusive flavor. Instead I found it lightly soured with a distinctly unlovely flavor. Blood - familiar, mundane, flat and pointless to my own tongue.
How are you doing this? I asked.
It's just one of the skills that comes with being very old. Though I don't often use it like this.
Why? Why show me?
You wanted answers. Here they are. This is how you are to us. Be patient, there's more to come.
What little distinction between us grew even blurrier. Our surroundings grew even less distinct. There was only me and him now. An oasis of us. I don't know if it was me or him who closed the distance, who turned that first kiss into many. Perhaps it didn't matter. I felt it all: everything I did, everything he did. My nipples hardened to gentle sucks and lower down, I hardened as well, as soft, practiced hands stroked and tickled and teased. I tried my best through the confusion to return touch for touch. My hands skidded across his belly, misjudging distance and pressure. Why was such a simple activity so difficult? By sheer chance I found his cock and moaned with delight to realize his skin there was as sensitive as mine.
Chuck pulled my hand away after a moment and pressed it to my side. Stay still, for tonight, just feel. Let me take care of everything. Here, think of this…
My mind flooded with memories of past sexual encounters. Some I recognized, some I didn't. Bodies, perfect and varied, ripe and willing. I wanted them, and I wanted Chuck and I wanted myself. I remembered taking Marc in my mouth, the glorious feeling of holding him there and sucking him. And I remembered others, men and women, sliding my cock into their mouths, laving it with their heat and breath and tongues. I opened my eyes when had I closed them and saw Chuck's face between my bent legs, his mouth sealed around my shaft, bobbing, fast, fast, sloooow. Somewhere beneath I felt a slippery hand part my buttocks, invade the ring of muscle and press firm circles into my prostate. I moaned and let my eyes shut again - and drowned in a sea of memories. Marc, Jeffrey, Rick, Tina, Amy, Wally, Gregory, Sydney, all the guests at the party that had teased me - this time they did what I told them to. This time I was in control.
Somewhere in the confusion of past and present and sheer fantasy, Chuck breached me. I opened my eyes to find myself rolled onto my upper back, my hips high in the air, my legs hooked over his shoulders. The past encounters dimmed away and I focused on him as I knew he wanted me to. We were locked together, our minds as coupled as our bodies. Our needs melted together, and I didn't know quite if I were the one being fucked or the one fucking. It made no difference, I felt both and so did he.
I had no control at all. If I had, it would have all ended quickly, but Chuck had enough discipline for both of us. When it seemed I couldn't bear to continue for another moment, he forced both of us to slow and draw it out. When the urgency waned, he notched it back up again, keeping us both teetering on the edge for what seemed forever. Finally, I felt my body growing exhausted. If I was going to come and have it be good, it would have to be now. Chuck agreed and rocked his hips quickly, and I felt the friction of my body against his cock, and then Chuck's orgasm, which was mine, which was ours.
If this had been a human act, it would have stopped there. I'd have fallen off my orgasm down to a satisfying afterglow. But instead, a second need reared up hard. Incredible hunger matched with joyous anticipation.
Chuck pierced me again, this time with his teeth. That flavor was back, stronger, more distinctive, more elaborate and amazing than ever. Like the most beautiful music I'd ever heard. I didn't just feel sexually good, I felt healthy. I felt strong and powerful and like sunshine after weeks of rain. I felt alive. This wasn't just pleasure, this was satiation of the soul.
It went on much longer than the orgasm had. Dizzying in it's intensity, I wanted to it to last forever, savoring every second. But it didn't, and when it ended, it ended fast. Chuck withdrew abruptly, rearing back from my throat and arching his spine in a sensuous stretch. The communication cut off between us like a door slamming. He was out of my head, out of my body. The world fell into place, and I was lying flat on my back, knees spread and bent, gasping, with the sheets bunched up in both my fists.
"I needed that," murmured Chuck. "Thank you."
"Whoa," was all I could manage in response. I let the sheet go and wiped my sweaty forehead. I was coming back to myself, now, rediscovering my skin and my boundaries. I felt an ache below where he'd fucked me, but it was minor. Mostly I felt exhausted, like I'd finished a race. The urge to curl up and go to sleep was strong but I resisted, forcing my eyes to stay open.
Chuck had promised me.
"I did," he said, sitting back on the chair next to Scotts desk. His legs spread out as he slouched indulgently. "But the nights still young. Go take a shower. Think of what you want to ask. I'll answer."
I became aware of the wetness on my own belly. I'd come in long, gooey streak stretching from where my pubes would normally be all the way up to my chest. I put one hand to the mess and sat up, looking to see if we'd soiled the sheets in any obvious way. To my relief we hadn't. They weren't even particularly damp. Chuck, ever-conscientious - even during sex - had managed to contain the evidence.
Taking Chuck's suggestion, I padded the short distance down the hall to the bathroom and showered myself clean once more. When I returned to his room, he had dressed and my clothes were neatly folded at the foot of the bed. Chuck closed the laptop lid and watched as I put my dirty clothes on once more. I needed a laundromat bad.
"Well?"
"So there never was a resistance," I said.
"What do you mean? Is that a question? Because, there most certainly is."
"Vestalar, you promised you wouldn't bullshit me. Your organization was never about making a resistance and winning human freedom back from the vampires. It was just about flushing out any human resistance and neutralizing them." I shrugged on my shirt. "I just need to know where I stand with you."
"You need to know if there's some other resistance you can appeal to." Chuck nodded. "The answers no." I winced. "And by the way, you are right. That's exactly what my resistance was… when I started. But don't get me wrong, George, it was never about being against humans. Every pocket uprising I found and stopped, I did it for them."
I grabbed a pillow and tossed it hard against the wall. "Stop it!" I said. "Stop it. This isn't about humans, it's about protecting vampires. It's about maintaining the goddamn status quo, with us humans at the bottom."
"Honest answers," said Chuck, clearly no longer in such a happy mood. "We have a difference of opinion on that."
"Oh fuck that-"
"-Let me finish. You want me to explain myself and what I'm doing, let me do so."
"Okay."
"The Coup of '82 was put into place -"
I interrupted: "You are evading."
"Patience!" snapped Chuck. "You want things to make sense, you need some context." He waited a moment for me to say something and when I didn't he went on. "The Great Coup of '82 actually began on August 10th, 1945. To say that Hiroshima and Nagasaki rocked the vampire world would be an understatement. We were terrified to the core. The atomic bomb was an abomination to the very laws of physics. We had no idea how many more bombs there were out there, only that we couldn't allow humans to possess them. Life long enemies among my kind jumped to the telegraph to send messages to each other, begging for cooperation. It was a truly transcendent moment." Chuck gazed out into the past. "I'd never seen anything like it."
He glanced at me to see if I were still listening. I was. "For once in our history we had something that we all could agree on. And that was that Humans had finally gone too far. They had to be stopped, before they destroyed everything. But how to do it? That took the better part of 38 years to fully figure out. One thing we knew early on was that we would be outing ourselves when we did. We would lose our protective camouflage and become vulnerable to annihilation."
"So you are saying you started the Resistance to protect vampires from humans." I shook my head. "I can't even begin to tell you how backwards that is. What the hell can we do to you? You are the one who keeps reminding me how easy it is for a vampire to stop an attack."
"I built my Resistance to protect humans from vampires as much as I did vampires from humans." Chuck leaned forward. "Calm down, George, let me finish."
"Okay, make this make sense."
"All the textbooks that they publish for schools present the Coup of '82 as this precision strike that was flawlessly executed. They say that it began on May 12th at 12 am Greenwich Mean Time, at key military and civilian instillations around the world. That part is mostly true, though 'flawless' might be a wee bit of an exaggeration. Those textbooks also say that it ended precisely 5 days later, when the president of the United Nations declared a resolution, whereby the UN would hire Vampires to enforce and ensure the peace between all nations."
"Kumbaya," I said.
"Oh yeah," said Chuck. "Very much kumbaya. Also a total lie. Less than half the military instillations in the US alone had been contained at that point. The fighting, with guns and tanks and jets, the whole deal, went on for nearly two months after that. Disbanding the navy was the worst. It was incredibly dicey. If not for a total lock down on the media, enforced liberally with every vampire trick in the book, it would have all blown up on us. Humans gave up in large part because they thought they already had."
"So it was a big trick."
Chuck decided to ignore me. "But even after that terrifying two months it still wasn't over, George. I'm not familiar with how it was in Japan and South Africa, but here in the US, where I was fighting, it seemed that every yokel and his aunt had at least one gun tucked away in the closet. Disarming them was too great a task for even human laws."
Chuck sat back and rubbed his face. "There wasn't any one moment when fighting the 'Coup transformed into running the Resistance. I know that sounds impossible, since on the surface the two seem to be completely at odds with each other. But it's true. The genesis of my Resistance began with the mopping up all those ad-hoc militias."
"Go on."
"I have a skill, you see, that's a bit unique in the vampire world. Most vampires can take over maybe a dozen minds, tops, at a time. If they really work at it. But I can take over entire crowds - so long as what I'm doing is very, very simple. Planting a feeling, reinforcing an image. I figured out that I could walk into one of the many, many meetings where people gathered to discuss what to do about the take over of Vampires. By the end of the meeting, all but the most die-hard would miraculously decide to wait and see before becoming more involved. And those die-hards - those I'd - " Chuck stopped.
"Take out."
"Yes. In the beginning I killed them. There were just too many of them." Chuck sighed. "I'm not happy about that, George. But at least I killed them quickly. They didn't suffer."
"And then you decided to take out vampires, too?" I asked skeptically.
"Of course, not. That was much later, and the idea was never to kill humans or vampires. I created my first resistance with the idea that I could save everyone. I concentrated on the rebels. It seemed to me that I just needed to redirect them to something that didn't seem like giving up and eventually they'd see that they had no reason to fight their Patrons. If I could get them doing something - planning -- busywork - training, anything to keep them from actually going kamikaze after the local Lord or Lady, I'd have the time to actually change their minds on a deeper level.
"At first, it was a losing battle for me. In the first year, for every group I saved there were at least ten who gathered up their garlic and silver and stakes, and stormed a Vampire's home. None of those people ever survived. It was the biggest etiquette we had at that point, that under no circumstance would a human ever survive an outright attack. Nor would they be allowed to see us injured. We had to seem completely invulnerable.
"But gradually, over time, the scales tipped. I started to save more and more of them. My resistance fighters helped me. They'd go out and recruit people who were sympathetic to the cause, people I would have never found on my own, who would have eventually formed their own resistance movements if I hadn't reached them first. I visited each of these groups and convinced them to let the fight go. One by one, they did. They realized that grocery store was still stocked, their jobs still kept them busy, and the TV shows still played - we made damn sure of that -- and golly gee, they hadn't even seen the local Lord or Lady. Summer was awfully hot. It was just easier to stay at home with the wife and kids and drink a beer and watch the ball game."
I could see it, Chuck with his ingratiating smile entering a room full of conspirators and convincing them that it was all too much trouble. Hadn't he done something of the same to me? Not three days ago I was fired up on joining the resistance and in the space thirty seconds, Chuck had stomped that notion out of me so completely that I hadn't even thought of looking for another resistance to join.
"There are no other resistances," said Chuck in response to my thoughts.
"Because you stopped them," I said. "They'll never be another 'Coup, because you are going to stop it. You say you are doing this for humans, but it sure seems to me like protecting vampires is your first priority."
"What do you want me to say?" Chuck said. "Of course, I'm not going to allow humans to destroy my kind. You know that that's how it would be, if humans succeeded in a counter coup -- my kind would be mercilessly hunted out of existence. We vampires know damn well we need humans. But the average human thinks that they'd do fine without us."
"Humans don't need vampires."
"But they do!" said Chuck. "They do. We balance you. We keep you from going too far. We keep you from being constantly ruled by petty, short sighted desires. It wasn't just the atom bomb, don't you see? Humans were deforesting the Amazon at an insane rate - where did you think you were going to get air when that was gone. And the genocides. The oil embargoes. The pollution. The wink and handshake deals with dictators. All designed so that at a very small group of powerful people could get very wealthy, while most around them lived in abject poverty. You humans couldn't stop that. Most didn't even realize they should be trying. But we Vampires could - and we did. We are the only thing out there that can say 'no' to you anymore."
"We could have done it ourselves - we had environmentalists, the whole Cold War was about spreading democracy and preventing dictators. If you folks hadn't come along, we might be just fine."
"You are romanticizing." Chuck shook his head. "Nothing over the nearly five hundred years of my existence has shown that humans would ever sacrifice in the short term for the sake of the long. The goodness of your hearts will always be eclipsed by your need for immediate gratification."
"That's awfully bleak."
"It was, before we took over," said Chuck. "And now we have a new dynamic. Humans and Vampires, together, a true symbiotic relationship. You feed us, we keep you from killing yourselves." Chuck's eyes were those of a true believer.
There was uncomfortable silence between us for a moment. I happened to glance up at the clock on Scott's dresser. 3:40 am. My time was running out.
"And so, why the vampire killing now, Chuck," I said. "If your resistance is all about getting humans to surrender, why are you bothering to take out Abram?"
"Twenty-five years ago, my Resistance was about taking out other resistance groups. The Great 'Coup has been over by any measure for more than two decades. Things have changed and my goals have changed with it." Chuck opened up the lap top and started hunting for something. I waited, then he turned the screen my direction. There was a scan of a Polaroid, somewhat yellowed with age. A handsome, bearded man in his early thirties smiled brightly out at me.
"This guy is the one who changed it," said Chuck. "He looks nice, yes? Huge homophobe, like Rod. He was -- is a devout Muslim. But unlike Rob, he is also very bright -- one of the smartest men I'd ever met. And articulate. I was so in love with him." Chuck smiled. "His passion for life was contagious. His blood was a work of art. A true work of art."
"You slept with him even though he was a homophobe?" I covered my face with my hand. How could Chuck be so caring and disrespectful at the same time.
Chuck looked at me, skeptically. "Why shouldn't I have? I controlled his mind during the act and he never remembered afterwards. No harm, no foul." Chuck stopped and seemed lost in himself for a moment.
"Anyway, by the time I knew him, back in '86, the number of resistance movements I was taking in and dissolving had reached a kind of plateau. It wasn't as many as when I started, but it hadn't gone to nothing the way I'd predicted. I was impatient, wanting to give up the project and go back to my life, but I couldn't in good conscious let good people like Joseph throw their lives away. And I really couldn't understand why you humans kept on perpetuating this fight, even after we vampires had proved that we weren't the boogiemen you feared. The standard of living had soared under our rule."
"You really couldn't figure it out?" I said, amazed.
Chuck stared back annoyed. "No, I'm sad to say, even prying into human minds, it took me an awful long time to realize that the reason wasn't just stupid human stubbornness. It wasn't about our killing them or even ruling over them. It wasn't really about us being vampires at all. It was about sex."
"Sex."
"Oh yes, they didn't like the taxes, they were oddly okay with donating blood, but the sweetening process was too much. Even the clearly undesirable were afraid we were going to rape them and turn them gay. It was a deep, gut terror that didn't get any better over time. Joseph made the problem personal for me.
"And that's when I quit the Resistance movement," said Chuck.
I jerked with surprise. "You did what?"
"Quit it. For a couple years. Obviously, I went back or we wouldn't be having this conversation."
I nodded.
"I realized that the conflict was bigger than just a few homophobes here and there, it was a discomfort felt all across the land, by women as well as men. And it wasn't getting better, it was getting worse. My resistance fighters were just the tip of the iceberg on a seething mass of fear and resentment. But vampires can't change their nature. I realized that the only way to save both humans and vampires was to treat the whole society, not just my resistance fighters. I had to make sex less scary for everyone. Especially gay sex. I had to make it mundane.
"I wasn't the only one who came to this conclusion. Gregory of Los Angeles had figured it out before me. He'd already started insisting that gay and bisexual characters be included in every show. He worked with writers to glamorize casual sex, to make it less connected to morals and more connected to just being social. That was fine for what it was, but I knew that for the average human to accept our vampire lifestyle, it had to, to a certain extent, become their lifestyle. They couldn't just watch others sleeping around, they had to participate.
"And so, down in Oregon City, across the river from where I lived, I bought a building a few blocks down from the famous elevator and created the first sex club."
"Wait, wait, wait, you own the Cliffside? Wally's club?"
"I own over 800 clubs, worldwide," said Chuck. "Including the Cliffside. The Cliffside was the first."
I felt like my head had suddenly become over full. Without realizing it, I jumped to my feet and pointed a finger at him accusingly. "I know who you are!"
"I am-"
"You are-"
"Your Patron."
"Chauncey Towers."
Back to Chapter 27
Forward to Chapter 29
RATING: NC-17 (This chapter NC-17)
SUMMARY: What does George get out of all this?
Word Count: 6935
Chapter 28
Wally!" I yelled.
"George," said Chuck, calmly. "Please, relax."
"WALLY!" I shouted and backed away into the hallway again.
"They are asleep," said Chuck, following me but leaving quite a bit of distance between us. "Save your voice. No one is going to wake up."
"Because you are in their minds."
"Yes," said Chuck. "Exactly."
I fled to side door, then out onto the narrow porch that served as a walkway around the perimeter of the house. I stopped at the front stoop with the stiff, cold breeze cutting into my clothes. Beyond the range of the halogen bulb lay nothing but darkness as far as the eye could see. Where was I going to go?
"I was wondering that myself," said Chuck, leaning up against the one of the corner supports. His eyes were focused and his smile had slipped away, but he didn't seem angry at all. Merely observant. Waiting for his moment to pounce.
"What does this mean, Chuck," I asked, squaring myself to him. "Why let me know now?"
"You'd have figured it out momentarily anyway." Chuck shrugged and gave me a wolfish grin. "I'm very hungry. It's been a long, draining day and you had to go and tease me with your scent all afternoon. It gave me very nice dreams, but rather unsatisfying."
"Listen, I'm sorry about that shirt thing, I wasn't trying - I forgot you were back there."
"Yes, I know, George," said Chuck. "And that's the thing about you. It's never deliberate. You aren't trying to be a flirt, you wouldn't even know how to flirt with vampires if you wanted to. It just who you are. Well, I'm no monk, even if my Sire was. My willpower has a breaking point and accidentally or not, you found it."
"I'm sorry, I truly am!"
"I don't want your apologies," said Chuck. "I want your blood. But it's not that bad, and you know it isn't. Forget about the shirt, I was going to feed on you anyway tonight. I hadn't intended that it be a full meal though, just a nip to satisfy curiosity, but as you can see, there is no one in range for me to hunt. You are all that's left."
I couldn't help it, my eyes flashed over his shoulder to the RV, then I schooled myself back, my face warming with embarrassment. I wasn't selling Wally out like that. No way. I'd rather Chuck take me.
"I can't feed on Wally anyway," said Chuck, soothingly. "He's been fed on twice already this week. Deeply both times. Any more would be abusive."
"What about Rod."
Chuck made a face. "You've heard him talk - imagine his mind. No. I'm not that much of a masochist." He then held out his hand welcomingly. "Come back into the house, you are getting cold. And besides, I know part of you wants this anyway. I can feel the temptation in you."
"No, I don't -- I'm not!" I insisted, embarrassed at my own body. "I'm not going to be unfaithful. Not if I can help it."
"This has nothing to do with faithfulness. That concept is meaningless with vampires." He let his hand drop and cocked his head. "Do you really consider what Wally and I did together cheating?"
My dream reared its ugly head. I felt the pain again. The abandonment. The cutting, unfair words. Even though my mind rationalized it, emotionally it was a huge sore spot. And now I knew it wasn't a dream. It actually happened. If this was how Wally felt under Chuck's influence, how did he feel when it was my turn to be the cheater? How could either of us compete with a creature that could manipulate our emotions and make us feel attraction, even love, to such an unnaturally strong degree? That was the depressing crux of it. Whatever it was that Wally and I were to each other, I wasn't sure it could survive vampires' interference.
"No! It didn't happen like that," Chuck was saying, earnestly. "You have it completely wrong! There was no argument. Wally never accused you of anything! Wally never even knew you were there -- I was in complete control of his perceptions the entire time. Those words, those feelings, they never happened. It was just a dream."
"But-"
"All that happened, George, was that in the midst of a feeding, I let my control of you slip. The noise woke you; you left your room to investigate and saw us together. At that point I recognized my mistake and sent you back to bed with a strong suggestion you return to sleep and forget about what you'd seen. Which is what you did. No one spoke a word. Not a word. Any cruel arguments or accusations you thought you heard were simply your own insecurities talking through your dreams -- dreams which had nothing to do with either of Wally or me, or what either of us think of you." Chuck sighed out a deep breath. "Perhaps I didn't clear your unconscious as completely as I should have. I was distracted. I probably left just a suggestion of our behavior to seed your later dreams. But I'm sure, if I hadn't revealed myself to you just now, you'd have forgotten the whole thing entirely in a week or two."
I wasn't so sure of that, but I had more pressing thoughts on my mind: "So how long has Wally known you were a vampire?" It wasn't a question. It was an accusation. I knew the answer: Two interminable car drives, sitting right next to me, not breathing a word. Why hadn't he clued me in? Had Chuck somehow stopped him. Was this all a joke that everyone was in on except me?
"Nothing so sinister," assured Chuck. "He didn't tell you because he doesn't know. I wasn't distracted when I edited Wally's memories. He didn't even get a dream out of it." Chuck looked wistful. "It's best that way, not leaving a trail, even though it means that every meal has the awkwardness of the first seduction."
Chuck took a tentative step closer, narrowing the distance between us. I backed away down a step and he stopped, looking frustrated.
"You still feel betrayed," he stated. "Is this still about what I did with Wally? George, don't you see, you can't judge what I do the way you would a human affair. Vampires can't be faithful to their humans. It would be horrible if we did. Imagine it! Even being as careful as possible, taking just the barest minimum to keep myself alive, I would eventually drain you down to a shell. You would become an invalid, unable to enjoy life, every moment misery except for the few that I squandered for myself. Except for when I forced your body to forget its own needs so that it could serve mine. That's abusive."
I shuddered at the thought of it.
"--And don't think that some vampires aren't tempted to recreate that special one on one relationship you humans hold dear! Don't think that some humans don't let jealousy cloud their common sense. But it's an impulse that has to be fought. Vampires have to have multiple partners - for everyone's sake. And it would be unfair of us to demand one-sided faithfulness from our harem, even though that happens as well. The only way for this to be fair to our humans is if everyone throws out the notion of faithfulness all together. Let something other than sex be the bedrock of your relationship with Wally. There are so many better things to found your love on."
He stepped closer again. This time I held my ground. One step, two. I felt his hand on my shoulder. It was seductively warm. Christ, I was so cold.
"It doesn't count," said Chuck. "What I did with Wally two nights ago, what I will do to you in just a few minutes, doesn't count as far as human relationships are concerned. You will still be faithful to him and I will just be a pleasant interlude, like a dream."
If even that. I had no doubt that Chuck was going to edit my memory when he was done, just as he had with Wally two nights ago. Even this conversation would be lost. Why was he even bothering with it? He could do just as all the other vampires had done and simply flip that switch and turn me on. Without Jeffrey to switch me back off again, I'd be the slut for him that I'd been for all the other vampires. And then, once he'd had his fill, he'd erase it all from my memory and tomorrow we'd set off for Portland as if nothing happened. Chuck would be fed and I'd… I'd be nothing.
"What do I get out of this?" I said angrily. My last hurrah before I gave in to the inevitable. "Everyone else gets whatever the hell they want from me, but what do I get in return?"
"What would you like?" asked Chuck.
I wasn't expecting that. Staring at him, I thought for a couple seconds. What could Chuck give me? Money, but that's not what I wanted. A way to avoid my fate? Even he didn't know how to do that. I needed something more fundamental. Something that would make this situation tolerable. Something that would give me real power over my life again.
"Answers." I said, suddenly. "Straight answers. I want straight answers!" I sucked in a deep breath and straightened my spine. "I'll give you what you want, willingly, but in return, I want you to answer all my questions. All of them. None of this evasion. No huge database full of petty details and … hats… and worthless shit to sift though to try to find what I need. My life is in the balance on a decision I don't have enough information to make."
"Agreed," said Chuck, eagerly. He grasped my hand and shook on the deal before I could comprehend what he was doing. Then Chuck relaxed, happy, I suppose, that he wouldn't have to drag me unwillingly to his bed after all. He doesn't want to force me, I realized with a bit of an epiphany. After all his talk of abuse and vampires doing humans wrong, perhaps he considers it hypocritical. Strange that the vampire who had betrayed my trust the most would also be the only one who cared about my feelings.
"--For tonight, I will answer any questions you have," he continued. "No matter how personal or detailed -- but after I've fed." He smiled toothily. How had I not noticed those fangs before. They were flipping obvious. Christ. "Now come," he said, briskly. "I know you are cold. I can feel how much it hurts you. But I really am so hungry that I'm going to take you on the porch here if we delay any longer. I don't want to be responsible for your hypothermia."
I felt his grip harden on my shoulder, pulling me tight against his body and pushing me back towards the unlocked side door. On a sheer sensual level it felt good not to resist leaning into that warmth. I realized with some guilt that my promise was as much a permission for myself as it was for him. He was right. I was tempted. Vampire sex was good. Guaranteed. Chuck released me as soon as we were back inside, content to follow a step or two behind as I retraced my steps down the dark corridor to the bright oasis of Scott's room.
On the threshold, I girded myself. This was the first time I'd willingly stepped into a vampire's feeding room. There was no chickening out now. And yet, it was sheer willpower that kept me from turning around and running. Willpower and the fact that Chuck was blocking my way. He really wasn't much taller than me, and certainly no wider, but he filled the corridor behind me with such a solid presence that I felt almost pushed to take that final step forward. And there we were. In his bedroom. I stared at the bed, full sized with flannel sheets and a red and black checked comforter. Plenty of room for the deed. The walls of Scott's room were covered in sports regalia and religious tokens. Bits and detritus of a wholesome god-and-country existence. Christ looked down on me from his cross above the bed. Rod would have a kitten if he knew what was going down feet away from where he slept.
"Willingly, huh," said Chuck with just a trace of bitterness.
"Okay, Chuck, I give in," I said, hugging myself. "If you can make this feel less creepy, please do it. Do that vampire mojo thing and make me want this. Make me not care." I looked him in the eye. "Willingly."
"Done," said Chuck. His voice was in my ear. In my mind. A true vampires voice for once. And then came the touch I was waiting all this time for. Chuck slipped into my brain like a drug. There was no pain, just a simple feeling of pressure and a momentary lightening of the world. And then everything changed.
I drew a sharp breath in, and was flooded with sensation. I was hyperaware of my surroundings and yet unable to attribute even the simplest meaning to them. The room stopped being Scott's and became a collection of colors and shapes and textures and smells, layers upon layers, each distinct, each it's own thing. I breathed in and smelled the warmth from the heating grate, the cotton sheets, the dust. I smelled Chuck, warm, too, but almost perfumed, like some exotic spice that made my mouth water. I laughed in sheer childish amazement at this shifting kaleidoscope.
I felt Chuck's hands unbutton my polo shirt and lift it off my chest and over my head. I tried to help but I couldn't quite figure out how to do it. Too complex. Too many steps and angles and elbows and…
… and I was drunk. Not drunk -- high. High on Chuck. I giggled. Then laughed harder when my arm brushed his chest and I realized it was smooth and soft and warm and firm. How'd he get naked so fast? It was hilarious! Cartoon vampire goes bluuuuuur. And I was going to wake up Rod if I didn't cool it.
Don't worry about that. Don't worry about anything. Leave it all to me.
"So this is how you hunt, Chuck?" I asked. Chuck. What kind of name for a vampire was Chuck anyway? Chuck was a big rig driver. A plumber. Chuck was the guy who took your order … would you like fries with that… Never made any sense that he'd be a resistance fighter. Resistance fighters should be called Renee or Etoufee or something French, viva la revolution…
Chuck laughed. Maybe it was aloud, maybe it was in my mind. I couldn't tell. It seemed to bounce off the walls of the room, or the walls in my skull. "Only how I hunt you," he replied.
I didn't feel hunted. I felt like hunting. I was starving and achingly empty and Chuck smelled absolutely delicious. What was that scent? Whatever it was, I'd drag my tongue over him if I could just figure out how to get my face pointed in the right direction.
Chuck was spinning me, or maybe the world was spinning and he was just making sure I hit the mattress instead of the floor. Not that I would have felt any pain if I hit the floor. I giggled again. The angles of the room seemed to melt and reform in different places. Back and forth. Prismatic and confusing. I held still, waiting for this crazy mirror effect to diminish. But even as the outside lost its sense, I felt a strong surge of inner understanding. Chuck seemed to brighten against the background, full of new significance. I gasped in awe.
Reaching my hand up, I felt Chuck's face, amazed momentarily by the texture of his skin and the shape of his cheekbone.
"Has anyone told you, you are beautiful?" I murmured. He was. Like an angel now that I could see his features. They were delicate in a masculine sort of way. No mistaking him for a girl. But maybe a beast. Something sleek and lithe and powerful and dark. Elegant. Raw and magnetic.
Flatterer, he thought, genuinely pleased, as he took my hand and lowered it.
In the last 25 years he could count on one hand how many people, vampire and human, he'd allowed to see him properly. Everyone else saw him as fat or thin, dark or light, whatever their minds felt most comfortable with. Even during feedings. Especially during feedings. Being invisible was a constant drain. It felt so good to be seen for once, to let that control slip. To finally be fully himself, unguarded and relaxed. And I, who had no reason at all to compliment him, thought he looked beautiful and exotic. Oh yes, he was very pleased.
Then I saw myself through his eyes. Without the layer of self-conscious criticism, I realized I was handsome. Short, of course, but it wasn't a bad thing. I was perfectly proportioned for that size. Soulful eyes. Features that seemed deceptively fragile and yet firm with determination. I was as attractive as Wally. Always had been.
And I was more. I tasted good. There was no doubt about it. That smell, that wonderful enticing smell was coming from me.
I was in Chuck's mind.
Chuck growled, not really in response to my thinking although I knew he could hear that, but rather that he was so desperately hungry that he didn't think he had the patience to sweeten me properly.
"Feed," I told him, lifting a wrist. Curiosity overwhelmed me. I wanted to know what it was like.
His eyes flashed and I knew I'd hit a weak spot. His control crumbled and he bit.
It felt marvelous. Not like the pain Jeffrey had given me that once and not like the many times I'd been made to feel sexual pleasure either. It felt like relief. Like I had been starving and now finally I got what I needed. Every part of my body felt eased at once. And I tasted something amazing. Something delicate and intricate and powerful. So different from any flavor I'd ever experienced that it seemed more like music than food. I wanted it to go on, so I could fully understand it, but I knew if I stopped now and was patient it would be even better. Or rather Chuck did.
Chuck stopped feeding - or was it me feeding - no, of course, it was him. I was confused. The borders of him and me were merged. Part of me felt the tremendous weight of years, centuries, schooling me back, and part of me was as impatient as child, weakly reaching for something I didn't know how to take. I did my best human effort and bent upwards, fighting gravity, closing the distance between us. I found his mouth and took it in a hungry kiss, hoping for more of that elusive flavor. Instead I found it lightly soured with a distinctly unlovely flavor. Blood - familiar, mundane, flat and pointless to my own tongue.
How are you doing this? I asked.
It's just one of the skills that comes with being very old. Though I don't often use it like this.
Why? Why show me?
You wanted answers. Here they are. This is how you are to us. Be patient, there's more to come.
What little distinction between us grew even blurrier. Our surroundings grew even less distinct. There was only me and him now. An oasis of us. I don't know if it was me or him who closed the distance, who turned that first kiss into many. Perhaps it didn't matter. I felt it all: everything I did, everything he did. My nipples hardened to gentle sucks and lower down, I hardened as well, as soft, practiced hands stroked and tickled and teased. I tried my best through the confusion to return touch for touch. My hands skidded across his belly, misjudging distance and pressure. Why was such a simple activity so difficult? By sheer chance I found his cock and moaned with delight to realize his skin there was as sensitive as mine.
Chuck pulled my hand away after a moment and pressed it to my side. Stay still, for tonight, just feel. Let me take care of everything. Here, think of this…
My mind flooded with memories of past sexual encounters. Some I recognized, some I didn't. Bodies, perfect and varied, ripe and willing. I wanted them, and I wanted Chuck and I wanted myself. I remembered taking Marc in my mouth, the glorious feeling of holding him there and sucking him. And I remembered others, men and women, sliding my cock into their mouths, laving it with their heat and breath and tongues. I opened my eyes when had I closed them and saw Chuck's face between my bent legs, his mouth sealed around my shaft, bobbing, fast, fast, sloooow. Somewhere beneath I felt a slippery hand part my buttocks, invade the ring of muscle and press firm circles into my prostate. I moaned and let my eyes shut again - and drowned in a sea of memories. Marc, Jeffrey, Rick, Tina, Amy, Wally, Gregory, Sydney, all the guests at the party that had teased me - this time they did what I told them to. This time I was in control.
Somewhere in the confusion of past and present and sheer fantasy, Chuck breached me. I opened my eyes to find myself rolled onto my upper back, my hips high in the air, my legs hooked over his shoulders. The past encounters dimmed away and I focused on him as I knew he wanted me to. We were locked together, our minds as coupled as our bodies. Our needs melted together, and I didn't know quite if I were the one being fucked or the one fucking. It made no difference, I felt both and so did he.
I had no control at all. If I had, it would have all ended quickly, but Chuck had enough discipline for both of us. When it seemed I couldn't bear to continue for another moment, he forced both of us to slow and draw it out. When the urgency waned, he notched it back up again, keeping us both teetering on the edge for what seemed forever. Finally, I felt my body growing exhausted. If I was going to come and have it be good, it would have to be now. Chuck agreed and rocked his hips quickly, and I felt the friction of my body against his cock, and then Chuck's orgasm, which was mine, which was ours.
If this had been a human act, it would have stopped there. I'd have fallen off my orgasm down to a satisfying afterglow. But instead, a second need reared up hard. Incredible hunger matched with joyous anticipation.
Chuck pierced me again, this time with his teeth. That flavor was back, stronger, more distinctive, more elaborate and amazing than ever. Like the most beautiful music I'd ever heard. I didn't just feel sexually good, I felt healthy. I felt strong and powerful and like sunshine after weeks of rain. I felt alive. This wasn't just pleasure, this was satiation of the soul.
It went on much longer than the orgasm had. Dizzying in it's intensity, I wanted to it to last forever, savoring every second. But it didn't, and when it ended, it ended fast. Chuck withdrew abruptly, rearing back from my throat and arching his spine in a sensuous stretch. The communication cut off between us like a door slamming. He was out of my head, out of my body. The world fell into place, and I was lying flat on my back, knees spread and bent, gasping, with the sheets bunched up in both my fists.
"I needed that," murmured Chuck. "Thank you."
"Whoa," was all I could manage in response. I let the sheet go and wiped my sweaty forehead. I was coming back to myself, now, rediscovering my skin and my boundaries. I felt an ache below where he'd fucked me, but it was minor. Mostly I felt exhausted, like I'd finished a race. The urge to curl up and go to sleep was strong but I resisted, forcing my eyes to stay open.
Chuck had promised me.
"I did," he said, sitting back on the chair next to Scotts desk. His legs spread out as he slouched indulgently. "But the nights still young. Go take a shower. Think of what you want to ask. I'll answer."
I became aware of the wetness on my own belly. I'd come in long, gooey streak stretching from where my pubes would normally be all the way up to my chest. I put one hand to the mess and sat up, looking to see if we'd soiled the sheets in any obvious way. To my relief we hadn't. They weren't even particularly damp. Chuck, ever-conscientious - even during sex - had managed to contain the evidence.
Taking Chuck's suggestion, I padded the short distance down the hall to the bathroom and showered myself clean once more. When I returned to his room, he had dressed and my clothes were neatly folded at the foot of the bed. Chuck closed the laptop lid and watched as I put my dirty clothes on once more. I needed a laundromat bad.
"Well?"
"So there never was a resistance," I said.
"What do you mean? Is that a question? Because, there most certainly is."
"Vestalar, you promised you wouldn't bullshit me. Your organization was never about making a resistance and winning human freedom back from the vampires. It was just about flushing out any human resistance and neutralizing them." I shrugged on my shirt. "I just need to know where I stand with you."
"You need to know if there's some other resistance you can appeal to." Chuck nodded. "The answers no." I winced. "And by the way, you are right. That's exactly what my resistance was… when I started. But don't get me wrong, George, it was never about being against humans. Every pocket uprising I found and stopped, I did it for them."
I grabbed a pillow and tossed it hard against the wall. "Stop it!" I said. "Stop it. This isn't about humans, it's about protecting vampires. It's about maintaining the goddamn status quo, with us humans at the bottom."
"Honest answers," said Chuck, clearly no longer in such a happy mood. "We have a difference of opinion on that."
"Oh fuck that-"
"-Let me finish. You want me to explain myself and what I'm doing, let me do so."
"Okay."
"The Coup of '82 was put into place -"
I interrupted: "You are evading."
"Patience!" snapped Chuck. "You want things to make sense, you need some context." He waited a moment for me to say something and when I didn't he went on. "The Great Coup of '82 actually began on August 10th, 1945. To say that Hiroshima and Nagasaki rocked the vampire world would be an understatement. We were terrified to the core. The atomic bomb was an abomination to the very laws of physics. We had no idea how many more bombs there were out there, only that we couldn't allow humans to possess them. Life long enemies among my kind jumped to the telegraph to send messages to each other, begging for cooperation. It was a truly transcendent moment." Chuck gazed out into the past. "I'd never seen anything like it."
He glanced at me to see if I were still listening. I was. "For once in our history we had something that we all could agree on. And that was that Humans had finally gone too far. They had to be stopped, before they destroyed everything. But how to do it? That took the better part of 38 years to fully figure out. One thing we knew early on was that we would be outing ourselves when we did. We would lose our protective camouflage and become vulnerable to annihilation."
"So you are saying you started the Resistance to protect vampires from humans." I shook my head. "I can't even begin to tell you how backwards that is. What the hell can we do to you? You are the one who keeps reminding me how easy it is for a vampire to stop an attack."
"I built my Resistance to protect humans from vampires as much as I did vampires from humans." Chuck leaned forward. "Calm down, George, let me finish."
"Okay, make this make sense."
"All the textbooks that they publish for schools present the Coup of '82 as this precision strike that was flawlessly executed. They say that it began on May 12th at 12 am Greenwich Mean Time, at key military and civilian instillations around the world. That part is mostly true, though 'flawless' might be a wee bit of an exaggeration. Those textbooks also say that it ended precisely 5 days later, when the president of the United Nations declared a resolution, whereby the UN would hire Vampires to enforce and ensure the peace between all nations."
"Kumbaya," I said.
"Oh yeah," said Chuck. "Very much kumbaya. Also a total lie. Less than half the military instillations in the US alone had been contained at that point. The fighting, with guns and tanks and jets, the whole deal, went on for nearly two months after that. Disbanding the navy was the worst. It was incredibly dicey. If not for a total lock down on the media, enforced liberally with every vampire trick in the book, it would have all blown up on us. Humans gave up in large part because they thought they already had."
"So it was a big trick."
Chuck decided to ignore me. "But even after that terrifying two months it still wasn't over, George. I'm not familiar with how it was in Japan and South Africa, but here in the US, where I was fighting, it seemed that every yokel and his aunt had at least one gun tucked away in the closet. Disarming them was too great a task for even human laws."
Chuck sat back and rubbed his face. "There wasn't any one moment when fighting the 'Coup transformed into running the Resistance. I know that sounds impossible, since on the surface the two seem to be completely at odds with each other. But it's true. The genesis of my Resistance began with the mopping up all those ad-hoc militias."
"Go on."
"I have a skill, you see, that's a bit unique in the vampire world. Most vampires can take over maybe a dozen minds, tops, at a time. If they really work at it. But I can take over entire crowds - so long as what I'm doing is very, very simple. Planting a feeling, reinforcing an image. I figured out that I could walk into one of the many, many meetings where people gathered to discuss what to do about the take over of Vampires. By the end of the meeting, all but the most die-hard would miraculously decide to wait and see before becoming more involved. And those die-hards - those I'd - " Chuck stopped.
"Take out."
"Yes. In the beginning I killed them. There were just too many of them." Chuck sighed. "I'm not happy about that, George. But at least I killed them quickly. They didn't suffer."
"And then you decided to take out vampires, too?" I asked skeptically.
"Of course, not. That was much later, and the idea was never to kill humans or vampires. I created my first resistance with the idea that I could save everyone. I concentrated on the rebels. It seemed to me that I just needed to redirect them to something that didn't seem like giving up and eventually they'd see that they had no reason to fight their Patrons. If I could get them doing something - planning -- busywork - training, anything to keep them from actually going kamikaze after the local Lord or Lady, I'd have the time to actually change their minds on a deeper level.
"At first, it was a losing battle for me. In the first year, for every group I saved there were at least ten who gathered up their garlic and silver and stakes, and stormed a Vampire's home. None of those people ever survived. It was the biggest etiquette we had at that point, that under no circumstance would a human ever survive an outright attack. Nor would they be allowed to see us injured. We had to seem completely invulnerable.
"But gradually, over time, the scales tipped. I started to save more and more of them. My resistance fighters helped me. They'd go out and recruit people who were sympathetic to the cause, people I would have never found on my own, who would have eventually formed their own resistance movements if I hadn't reached them first. I visited each of these groups and convinced them to let the fight go. One by one, they did. They realized that grocery store was still stocked, their jobs still kept them busy, and the TV shows still played - we made damn sure of that -- and golly gee, they hadn't even seen the local Lord or Lady. Summer was awfully hot. It was just easier to stay at home with the wife and kids and drink a beer and watch the ball game."
I could see it, Chuck with his ingratiating smile entering a room full of conspirators and convincing them that it was all too much trouble. Hadn't he done something of the same to me? Not three days ago I was fired up on joining the resistance and in the space thirty seconds, Chuck had stomped that notion out of me so completely that I hadn't even thought of looking for another resistance to join.
"There are no other resistances," said Chuck in response to my thoughts.
"Because you stopped them," I said. "They'll never be another 'Coup, because you are going to stop it. You say you are doing this for humans, but it sure seems to me like protecting vampires is your first priority."
"What do you want me to say?" Chuck said. "Of course, I'm not going to allow humans to destroy my kind. You know that that's how it would be, if humans succeeded in a counter coup -- my kind would be mercilessly hunted out of existence. We vampires know damn well we need humans. But the average human thinks that they'd do fine without us."
"Humans don't need vampires."
"But they do!" said Chuck. "They do. We balance you. We keep you from going too far. We keep you from being constantly ruled by petty, short sighted desires. It wasn't just the atom bomb, don't you see? Humans were deforesting the Amazon at an insane rate - where did you think you were going to get air when that was gone. And the genocides. The oil embargoes. The pollution. The wink and handshake deals with dictators. All designed so that at a very small group of powerful people could get very wealthy, while most around them lived in abject poverty. You humans couldn't stop that. Most didn't even realize they should be trying. But we Vampires could - and we did. We are the only thing out there that can say 'no' to you anymore."
"We could have done it ourselves - we had environmentalists, the whole Cold War was about spreading democracy and preventing dictators. If you folks hadn't come along, we might be just fine."
"You are romanticizing." Chuck shook his head. "Nothing over the nearly five hundred years of my existence has shown that humans would ever sacrifice in the short term for the sake of the long. The goodness of your hearts will always be eclipsed by your need for immediate gratification."
"That's awfully bleak."
"It was, before we took over," said Chuck. "And now we have a new dynamic. Humans and Vampires, together, a true symbiotic relationship. You feed us, we keep you from killing yourselves." Chuck's eyes were those of a true believer.
There was uncomfortable silence between us for a moment. I happened to glance up at the clock on Scott's dresser. 3:40 am. My time was running out.
"And so, why the vampire killing now, Chuck," I said. "If your resistance is all about getting humans to surrender, why are you bothering to take out Abram?"
"Twenty-five years ago, my Resistance was about taking out other resistance groups. The Great 'Coup has been over by any measure for more than two decades. Things have changed and my goals have changed with it." Chuck opened up the lap top and started hunting for something. I waited, then he turned the screen my direction. There was a scan of a Polaroid, somewhat yellowed with age. A handsome, bearded man in his early thirties smiled brightly out at me.
"This guy is the one who changed it," said Chuck. "He looks nice, yes? Huge homophobe, like Rod. He was -- is a devout Muslim. But unlike Rob, he is also very bright -- one of the smartest men I'd ever met. And articulate. I was so in love with him." Chuck smiled. "His passion for life was contagious. His blood was a work of art. A true work of art."
"You slept with him even though he was a homophobe?" I covered my face with my hand. How could Chuck be so caring and disrespectful at the same time.
Chuck looked at me, skeptically. "Why shouldn't I have? I controlled his mind during the act and he never remembered afterwards. No harm, no foul." Chuck stopped and seemed lost in himself for a moment.
"Anyway, by the time I knew him, back in '86, the number of resistance movements I was taking in and dissolving had reached a kind of plateau. It wasn't as many as when I started, but it hadn't gone to nothing the way I'd predicted. I was impatient, wanting to give up the project and go back to my life, but I couldn't in good conscious let good people like Joseph throw their lives away. And I really couldn't understand why you humans kept on perpetuating this fight, even after we vampires had proved that we weren't the boogiemen you feared. The standard of living had soared under our rule."
"You really couldn't figure it out?" I said, amazed.
Chuck stared back annoyed. "No, I'm sad to say, even prying into human minds, it took me an awful long time to realize that the reason wasn't just stupid human stubbornness. It wasn't about our killing them or even ruling over them. It wasn't really about us being vampires at all. It was about sex."
"Sex."
"Oh yes, they didn't like the taxes, they were oddly okay with donating blood, but the sweetening process was too much. Even the clearly undesirable were afraid we were going to rape them and turn them gay. It was a deep, gut terror that didn't get any better over time. Joseph made the problem personal for me.
"And that's when I quit the Resistance movement," said Chuck.
I jerked with surprise. "You did what?"
"Quit it. For a couple years. Obviously, I went back or we wouldn't be having this conversation."
I nodded.
"I realized that the conflict was bigger than just a few homophobes here and there, it was a discomfort felt all across the land, by women as well as men. And it wasn't getting better, it was getting worse. My resistance fighters were just the tip of the iceberg on a seething mass of fear and resentment. But vampires can't change their nature. I realized that the only way to save both humans and vampires was to treat the whole society, not just my resistance fighters. I had to make sex less scary for everyone. Especially gay sex. I had to make it mundane.
"I wasn't the only one who came to this conclusion. Gregory of Los Angeles had figured it out before me. He'd already started insisting that gay and bisexual characters be included in every show. He worked with writers to glamorize casual sex, to make it less connected to morals and more connected to just being social. That was fine for what it was, but I knew that for the average human to accept our vampire lifestyle, it had to, to a certain extent, become their lifestyle. They couldn't just watch others sleeping around, they had to participate.
"And so, down in Oregon City, across the river from where I lived, I bought a building a few blocks down from the famous elevator and created the first sex club."
"Wait, wait, wait, you own the Cliffside? Wally's club?"
"I own over 800 clubs, worldwide," said Chuck. "Including the Cliffside. The Cliffside was the first."
I felt like my head had suddenly become over full. Without realizing it, I jumped to my feet and pointed a finger at him accusingly. "I know who you are!"
"I am-"
"You are-"
"Your Patron."
"Chauncey Towers."
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