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Revenant

By: SadieRose



This is a very old and deeply disturbing gay male, rape and revenge story, one that's been kicking around in my folders since I began to write the Manchester arc that would lead to A Portrait In Blood and Underwear some four or five years ago. It's among the darkest of the Vampire Arc tales, hence it's posting in Erotic Horror. I'm a liberal soul at heart but I believe that there are some crimes for which there is no other just reward than the spilling of blood. Since Rayne became a Vampire there existed the inevitability that he would take a life and he has never tried to hide from that destiny. Revenant is the story of a terrible crime and a fitting punishment. If you flinch from the dealing of death and have no stomach for evil-deeds or men fucking other men, turn away now. 

*

"What do 'you' believe in?"

Crouched on the banks of the Rochdale Canal, on a bitingly cold night towards the tail end of the year, was a Vampire. Clearly, he was a Vampire, for he was clad entirely in black from the collar of his fine, open-necked, silk shirt, through his faded, charcoal-coloured jeans, to the toes of his expensive, Cuban-heeled boots and no sign of a coat, or even a trendy poncho! And this was in Manchester, England. In October! Furthermore, his head was bent low over the exposed throat of a young male victim. His quarry was not a child; that is, he was beyond puberty but not yet fully grown to adulthood. Sad to say, his chances of ever doing so were becoming increasingly slim. The creature hunched over him was lean and small, no broader in the shoulder than his slender meal ticket. A cascade of dark hair poured down like oil across a pale, heart-shaped face. Beneath the slick of sable locks, sharp eyes the colour of green chartreuse in a glass of crushed ice closed briefly as the rush of blood from his victim's neck wound slowed. Gradually, the young man in his loose embrace began to lose his battle with mortality. 

The boy hung limp and unresisting in his arms; not yet dead, but Death would not be long in coming for him. From time to time, a slow shudder wracked his cold, skinny body. The night air, rising rank and slightly stale from the stagnant canal, stirred his auburn curls and his sightless eyes sought out stars obliterated by the glare of the city lights. Beneath the bridge, where its inky shadow fell across the lonely towpath, he would breathe his last. 

The Vampire knelt over him, lapping rapidly and efficiently at the cruel gash that had opened up his throat like a second mouth. Without lifting his head, he tugged the boy's jeans back up, preserving some last shred of dignity. Single-mindedly he continued to run his searching tongue to and fro within the bloody slash holding the youngster in his arms and across his knees as gently as a mother with her babe; a suitor with his lover. The rent was slowly healing as he licked away like a cat over a bowl of milk. His bite wounds tended to heal quickly, thanks to the regenerative compound existing in his saliva, but this was no bite and it was too little too late for the boy in his gentle embrace. 

The pool of blood that spread out around him, merged with the puddles along the towpath, all turned to frosty mercury by the light of a moon that was not quite full. It soaked into the knees of the Vampire's well-worn black denims. The scent filled his nostrils until it was almost unbearable. His mouth watered, invaded by the rich, ferrous flavour of warmth and life; a life denied him for over ten years now. 

With the blood that he consumed came memories; fragments of an existence that was not his own, yet mirrored it in strange ways. As if through his Undead, ice green eyes, the Vampire saw a violent row culminating in a storming exit from the suffocating warmth and too-bright lights of an over-protective home. He stumbled from the cocoon of a bus that stank of nicotine, vomit and chip-fat out onto chill, dark, unfamiliar streets that, in places, smelled far worse. Like an angel fallen to earth, he wandered the neon-lit, urban wasteland; so familiar and yet seen through an alien's eyes; wondering at the grimy, fascinating, chaotic pull of the city at night. He shared a brief memory of mortal hunger, and knew the biting cold that invaded thinly clad flesh and skinny bones. Another man's desperation was his own. In his ear, a slurred, drunken voice muttered obscenities; he felt the press of clammy, crumpled notes into his palm, then he was in darkness, slapped against a black, slimy wall like a piece of meat. Rough hands yanked down his jeans and gripped his narrow hips. He was thrust into from behind; used vigorously, with no mind for his feelings or his inexperience. Hot tears ran down his cheeks but he cried in silence.

The Vampire shuddered with him and held him closer, tasting his fear and the loose, empty, dirty feeling that remained after it was all over. The meagre payment was enough for food and coffee, but not for lodgings too. He saw the blackness of a deserted street in the small hours of the night, his eyes hunting out a hiding place, somewhere he could rest in safety until the morning. The last dregs of humanity stumbled on by, making their way home from the pubs and clubs and the late bars of Princess and Canal Street. They would go back to warm beds and familiar faces. On a narrow bench in a little park at the foot of Sackville Street, he shivered and curled himself up, alone, making himself smaller as the sounds of cruel, inebriated, male laughter came closer. He tried desperately to become one with the shadows, closing his eyes, trusting that if he did not see them, they would not see him; flinching incredulously as hot, heavy hands pulled him to his feet. Two strangers towered over him, making crude jokes as they dragged him, struggling, back towards the bridge and down into the dark places beneath. 

"No... please... I have money!" The imploring words sounded high and reedy to the Vampire's ear; not his own voice. He hugged the boy closer to him, wishing he had warmth to share, or a way to reassure him during his final moments. The last tendrils of spilt blood curled over his tongue, tasting like shavings of iron made fluid. The memories they carried were cold and cruel; hard hands striking at him, ripping at his clothes; the sound of greedy, careless laughter as they threw him to his knees. One knelt behind him, ramming himself in mercilessly; taunting him with the promise of freedom if he satisfied them both adequately. Terrified and submissive, he knelt and cowered and did everything they forced him to; every last filthy thing, quaking with fearful humiliation and uncontrollable, impotent rage. The Vampire could still taste their sweat and the sharp, salty flavour of their semen.

"You'll let me go now?" he whispered hopefully, looking up from face to face as they rose and zipped their pants. A dribble of spent cum ran slowly down his chin, another trickled slowly down the inside of his thigh. He did not dare lift his hands, not even to rub them away. 

They stood tall and imposing against the sheen of the streetlights up above, both smooth-pated; ears, lips and nostrils twinkled with piercings like cold cruel stars. The Vampire absorbed a fleeting image of smart, dark, casual suits, one over a plain, white T-shirt, the other an open necked shirt. A golden crucifix pendant hung in the V of exposed flesh. They looked at one another briefly. A hand reached down to stroke through his curls, almost tenderly, then gripped his hair fast and hard, tugging his head back with unnecessary violence.

"Yeah... we'll set you free, faggot!"

He saw a flash, like lightning in front of his eyes and felt the metal bite into the softness of his throat, surprised at how little it hurt. The pain came afterwards as he slumped to the ground, trying to crawl, one hand groping forward and then the other, struggling to pull himself over the impossibly vast slick of blood that poured from his fragile body. He heard their laughter grow fainter, the crunch of gravel beneath their boots gradually receding as they turned and walked away. 

That was the last coherent memory; disbelief; abandonment. Stars and streetlights swam before his eyes and the mocking laughter echoed and faded like the close of a distant radio play.

'You can't leave me like this. I don't want to die alone! Mum...I'm scared!'

The Vampire curled around him, holding him tight as the savage images faded and grew hazier. He touched his mouth to cold, gasping lips as the last desperate spasm of agony wracked the child's fragile body. When it was finally over, he gently laid the youngster down in the shafts of yellow and gold light from the silent street above. With luck he would be discovered quickly and returned to his grieving kin before the carrion and vermin of the city had time to ravage his poor body further. 

Rising steadily to his feet, the Vampire bent his head in a brief act of benediction. Tendrils of fine, dark hair framed his ashen face like a wreath of smoke. He was shaking with a slow-burning anger that made his own slender limbs tremble convulsively and several minutes passed before he was calm enough simply to move away.

"This is not the end. It's just the beginning," he promised the dead boy in a soft, husky, voice, more resonant of the Thames Estuary and the grimy dark of London than Manchester's twisting, canal-bound streets. Then he turned and strode back along the canal path, following the lingering traces of aftershave, sex and sweat and the dwindling auras of his quarry.

*Their faces still burned bright in his mind as he perched on top of the railings hemming in the uppermost storey of a towering carpark that loomed over Chorlton Street and its bus garage way below. His booted heels were braced against the upright posts, and he hunched forward like a bird of prey on the handrail, chain-smoking his way grimly through a packet of Benson & Hedges Gold. He was thinking about a good many things, but particularly he thought of the men who had killed that boy beneath the bridge. He had followed their vile stench to the depot and there, in a place awash with the overwhelmingly pungent chaos of diesel and sweaty, dismal humanity, he lost them. But he would not forget. 

Ten years Undead, he had had keenly honed his senses until the most distant speck of darkness on the horizon was as clear as a close-up zoom photograph; the slightest whiff of heat from the kitchens over in Chinatown set his mouth watering at the memory of a mortal banquet. With every year that went by he grew in physical strength and mental acuity. The smallest sounds from the street below were an aural chaos that he still struggled to block. The constant drone of urban noise drove him crazy, but this was his environment of choice. Here there was unlimited variety when it came to eating out! In the city there were enough moral reprobates roaming free to feed him well each night without fear of guilt. He was one of them, no matter how much he might try to distance himself. Already his mortal existence was beginning to feel like a distant dream. 

He had come north from London to escape the clutches of his past, but some memories were impossible to run from. Tonight had reawakened old nightmares for him.

*When he was little more than a child, Raymonde James Wilde suffered a systematic catalogue of abuse at the hands of an older relative that left him mentally scarred for the rest of his mortal life. By the age of 19 he had fled from his birthplace on the Kent coast and was living rough on the streets of Mile End, an unforgivingly cruel, urban sprawl in the Capital's East End. No chirpy Cockneys pushing barrows here... he was quickly snapped up by a predator known to the locals as Rabid John, a pimp and drug dealer hailing from North Yorkshire but claimed by the city as one of its own. The slow, seductive fumes rising from the twist of foil over John's lighter numbed the pain and dulled the memories for a little while but the continued promise of relief made it harder and harder to walk away. For the next eighteen months, John sold young Raymonde's body to any willing or gullible punter who would have him, in exchange for hard cash or crack-cocaine. 

He came to London with little more than a small bag of clothing and a beaten up bass guitar. At 21, growing too old for the tastes of most East End predators, he sold his soul to Rock 'n' Roll. The hours were terrible but at least the quality of the Coke improved! 

Success was slow in coming, but enjoyed to excess when it finally arrived. For five glorious years he rode the Rock Rollercoaster with reckless abandon. Then, three months shy of his 30th birthday, Rayne Wylde, charismatic, chaotic, drug-fuelled singer-songwriter with the rock band Whipsnade, was bitten by a Vampire and his world came crashing down around him. 

Now blood, not cocaine, was his drug of choice; an addiction he would never break. 

*Sitting on the railings, five levels up from the ground, Rayne sucked on the filter of a cigarette that could no longer damage his health and surveyed his new urban playground cynically. He knew addicts. He had been one for long enough. The pair who had killed the boy were Users, and Users always came back for another fix. He could wait. He had plenty of time. 

ONE WEEK LATER

The skinny, dark haired man sheltering from the rain in the entrance to Chorlton Street Bus Station could have been any age from 21 to his early thirties. He had smoked his way through half of the twenty Bensons in his jeans pocket and hugged himself now as he lit another from the dying embers of the last. Anyone watching might have been forgiven for thinking that he was shivering from the damp and cold. His sable hair hung lank and soaked to his slim shoulders and he was dressed in little more than a black mesh T-shirt and tight fitting hipsters, both of which clung wetly to his light-framed body. Barely a handful of passers-by spared him a glance. This was the edge of Manchester's infamous Gay Village and pretty, ill-nourished, under-dressed boys were ten-a-penny. Coupled with those lean hips and that pert backside, the sullen, preoccupied pout of his narrow, full-lipped mouth as he sucked on the filter of his cigarette only added to his untouchable allure. 

He was small and angular, with a sharp, hostile facade that repelled all would-be boarders in any case. His pale, heart-shaped face with its impish, upturned nose and huge, drowning-pool eyes had wooed thousands of teenage fans in its time, but that was over ten years ago. How quickly teenagers forget! Rayne Wylde was not especially distressed by their negligence. Anonymity could be a boon, particularly in view of the task he had set himself tonight. 

Had they known the truth; that he had not fed properly in seven days and was trembling from a violent bloodlust that left him feeling physically sick each time someone got too close, they might have given him an even wider berth. Any sane person looking too intently into those unblinking, red-rimmed, junky eyes would have walked on by. Rayne's pale lips framed a humourless smile as a fellow in a business suit did just that. He took another pull on the wilting cigarette between his fingers and he waited.

He knew them the moment they stepped down from the bus, reeking of Tommy Hilfiger and Marlboro Lites. They dressed in the safe, suburban uniform of casual thugs the world over. Both wore dark, baggy two piece suits, with deep pockets, convenient for hiding a cosh, a knife, maybe even the odd plug or two of resin or blister pack of pills. No one searches boys like these at bus stops or taxi ranks. They're just a couple of lads, out on the pull, in town for a few beers and a laugh. The stark, electric lights glistened off their hairless heads, the diamond stud in the nostril of one, the earrings, lip-stud and crucifix pendant of the other. 

One looked him over as they went by, but quickly moved on; the other strode past as if he did not exist - not turned on by junkies, then! These boys liked their toys young and clean; naïve and easy to predict, or drunk and incapable of resistance. Rayne Wylde inhaled the scent of their hot blood like a starving man at a banquet. The hunger was ripping him apart, but still he made himself wait. 

As they crossed Chorlton Street and headed down towards Bloom, he pushed himself away from the pandemonium of the bus terminus and followed.

*They cruised the bars along Richmond and Canal street, laughing, joking, drinking; taking their time. Their close, tight, hard-edged camaraderie excluded others, pushing them away, cutting through the swathes of revellers like an ocean liner through a harbour filled with tiny, inconsequential boats. These boys had danger sewn into every line of their designer suits; it glittered in every jewel of sweat on their shaven skulls. The regulars edged around them; bar staff handled them rapidly; politely but with caution. 

The Vampire trailed them like a watchful shadow, sipping neat vodka over ice and mingling discreetly, always with an eye on the pair by the bar. In one basement hostelry, he was assailed by a party of girls on a Hen Night, wrecked and raucous already; gushing drunkenly over his sleek sable hair, his pretty face and skinny hips. He laughed along with them, even flirted with the bride, pretending shyness, praising her fresh, blonde curls and faking raptures over the tiny, flawed solitaire diamond on her third finger. When the others were diverted by some commotion at the doors, he sat in her lap, astride her hips, kissing her mouth and neck, boldly nipping her flesh with perfectly sharp teeth, taking little more than a sip of her blood. It was enough to take the chaotic edge off his ravenous hunger and the madness from his eyes. 

She was so inebriated that she barely noticed. He doubted that she would have protested even if he had pulled up her skirts right here in the bar and ridden her hard on the table. He found himself feeling sorry for her, then rebuked himself for it. She had her life and her friends and soon would marry a man who probably loved her well enough, in his own way. 

Instead, he adopted the girls' carefree, drunken mien, playing tactile and teasing with any man who would take him on; laughing wildly at meaningless jokes whose punchlines he did not even listen to. He danced on tables, heedless of the hungry hands that stole caresses from his bared waist and tight-denim-clad, backside, all the while spinning a lie, weaving his allure. It was working, for all around him people were trying to catch his eye and draw him outside, to get him alone. He laughed and drank and shook his head at them playfully.

At the bar 'they' were watching him now, talking together urgently, eyeing him up as he put on the show of his Unlife. He took a chance, the chance that his fishes were on the hook. 

"Come to Candyland with me?" The guy who had been feeling his arse for the last ten minutes now leaned across and shouted the words in his ear to be heard over the music and commotion in the bar. 

He went, and now they followed. 

*They tagged self-consciously onto the end of the queue of shivering, giggling clubbers in the shadows of tall Victorian tenement blocks that flanked Princess Street. The Vampire experienced a new level of euphoria as they fed his senses with their mindless eagerness for hedonism. He linked arms with his companion, edging forward, closer to the suited and booted heavies on the door with their rigid, anti-straight entry criteria, turning away the gawpers and the Hens. 

The Vampire batted long lashes at the bow-tied muscle-boys on the steps; made huge, mellow 'fuck me' eyes at them both and then he and his consort were in. At the top of the stairs he looked back anxiously while his escort checked in his coat. The skinhead pair had reached the door now, confrontational and slightly ill at ease. The bouncers bristled at the hard-edged approach but finally yielded and let the pair inside, not looking for trouble. Had Rayne been mortal he would have heaved a huge sigh of relief. 


Revenant



Danny frowned when he saw the paddle lying on the table at the foot of his bed.

On his way to the bathroom, to take a shower, he'd noticed that the implement was missing from its place in the collection of Roger's spanking instruments. Although several equipment items adorned the wall--"adorned" had been his late lover's term, not Danny's--including paddles, straps and strops, riding crops and whips, martinets, birch bundles, and bamboo and rattan canes, a missing item was readily apparent, because its absence left an empty space in its stead. Where the small, oval, white plastic paddle had hung, there was now but an unused peg.

The paddle itself was on the table at the end of the bed, but how had it gotten there? Who had removed it from its place of honor--Roger's term, again, not Danny's--and placed it upon the table--and, perhaps more importantly, why?

His intended shower now forgotten, Danny was frightened by the thought that the condo that he and Roger had once shared (and that was his alone, now that his life's companion had died a few months ago) had possibly been invaded. There might be an intruder in his home, hiding in a closet, in the other bedroom, or elsewhere in the house, perhaps waiting for his chance to ambush the homeowner, to rob him, or even to kill him.

After Roger's passing, Danny had reluctantly given away or sold most of his lover's possessions, which had been agonizing. One thing that Danny hadn't been able to bring himself to dispose of was Roger's collection of spanking implements. Although Danny wasn't any too fond of them--and with good reason; they'd been used, mercilessly and frequently, upon his bare bottom for years, subjecting him to both emotional distress and physical pain (despite his erections)--the instruments had been more than merely important to Roger; they had been something akin to the idols of a perverse, if powerful, faith.

Roger had spent hours polishing them, oiling them, inspecting them, researching them, seeking them, testing them, refining them, and otherwise having what amounted to a relationship with them. They had not been merely wood and leather and plastic and bamboo and rattan and metal to him. They'd been fetishes imbued with magical powers and invested, as Roger had told Danny many times, with their owner's own vitality, with Roger's essence, with his very soul.

They were talismans. By virtue of the attention, the loving care, and the devotion that he'd given to the spanking instruments over the years, Roger had said, he'd invested himself in the paddles, straps and strops, riding crops and whips, martinets, birch bundles, and bamboo and rattan canes, so that they were as much a part of him, or of his soul, as he, or it, was part of them.

Knowing his late lover's sentiments, there'd been no way that Danny could ever have parted with Roger's collection, even if the mere sight of them sometimes made Danny uncomfortable. There was a disquieting, even frightening, aspect to the well-polished plastic and wood and to the well-oiled leather that seemed, somehow, malignant and malevolent.

As Roger himself, on occasion, could be, Danny thought.

Immediately ashamed at having thought ill of the dead, especially when "the dead" was the man he'd not only loved with all his heart, mind, and soul, but with whom he had also lived for most of their adult lives, all the way up to Roger's death from pneumonia a few months ago, Danny sought to repress his impetuous characterization of his paramour as "malicious." However, he found, he could not put the troubling thought to rest, for, as a matter of fact, Roger could be, at times--all right, was, in fact, most of the time--a malicious man with a nasty temper and a volatile demeanor.

The many, many spankings that Roger had delivered to his beloved's bare, defenseless buttocks hadn't always been simply and solely for the purpose of "disciplining" him, Danny knew. Sometimes, Roger had wielded his paddle or his strap or his whip for no other reason but that he'd felt like doing so. There had been more than a bit of the sadist in his late lover's character. Roger really had been much like the cruel instruments he'd used to spank--and to beat--Danny into submission and to keep him there. 

As these thoughts passed and flitted through his mind, Danny, having selected the four-foot rattan cane--it left not only welts, but deep, long-lasting cuts in one's buttocks--as his weapon, searched his condominium for a possible intruder. Someone, after all, had removed the plastic paddle from its peg; the instrument hadn't floated off the wall and onto the table at the foot of his bed by itself. Therefore, whoever had done so, might still be inside the condo.

Cane in hand, and feeling awkward as hell and more than a little frightened, Danny crept to the door of the master bedroom, where he paused, just inside the massive frame, and listened intently, holding his breath.

He heard nothing.

Still, he waited, straining to hear the least sound. There was, he discerned a faint humming in his ears. Cautiously, he turned his head to the left and the right, hoping that he might identify the source of the reverberation.

He squinted, peering straight ahead, down the carpeted hallway that led from the rear of the condominium to its front, where lay the study, the living room, the dining room, and the kitchen. He saw nothing and no one.

At last, wiping the back of his free hand across his perspiring brow--he hadn't been sweating a few minutes ago, and the air was actually slightly chilly, thanks to the central air conditioning that filtered and cooled the suite of rooms--he realized that he was the source of the sound he'd heard; it was the coursing of his blood through his veins and arteries: those closest to his ears conveyed a dim, muffled drone.

He smiled, not daring to laugh, at his foolish fear. He'd heard of people who were afraid of their own shadows, but he'd never heard of a man who was afraid of the circulation of his own blood.

Adopting what he hoped was a more manly and resolute posture, he stepped carefully from the door frame.

Turning to his left, he crept toward the guest room, the door to which, he saw, was open, as he'd left it last night after vacuuming the carpet and dusting. Nothing seemed disturbed. 

He tiptoed across the carpet and, seizing the closet's doorknob, turned it and snatched open the door, all in one quick motion, brandishing his--or, rather, Roger's cane--at nothing.

The closet harbored only the few items that Danny had stored there, memorabilia of his life with his late lover, mostly: photograph albums, travel brochures, newspaper clippings, reviews of Roger's theatrical performances on and off Broadway.

A quick glance into the guest room's private bath also revealed no trespasser, and Danny was beginning to feel as bit sheepish. He'd always been meek and timid, Roger, who had been anything but either, had told him time and time again, usually before, during, or after a sound spanking, whipping, or caning. It seemed that Roger had been right about that, as he'd been right about most of his other beliefs.

Still, having checked the rear of the condo, Danny thought that he might as well err on the side of caution--it was better to be safe than sorry, he'd always maintained--and be sure that no one lurked in the front of the apartment, waiting to bludgeon or shoot him. Not all men were as submissive as he, after all; some were aggressive, indeed. Some were dominant and domineering, as the love of his life had been and as, presumably, an armed robber and housebreaker would be.

Danny dared not think of what he'd do--probably piss himself, if he didn't shit himself--if he actually came face to face with an armed intruder. He didn't allow himself to think of such a possibility.

Instead, he pressed forward, cane at the ready--probably to have it stolen from him and used by the burglar to beat him to death--and checked the kitchen, the dining room, and the living room. All were clear, and he breathed a sigh of relief. 

Only the study remained to check, and it had its doorway was occupied by double doors set with windows nearly as long and as wide as they, so that anyone could see inside the room from outside. Danny wouldn't even have to go into the room, but, when he saw the photograph, he did.

It was a picture of Roger and Danny, together, in the master condo's bedroom, Roger's collection of spanking implements on the wall, the leather looking as well oiled and the wood as well polished as ever

All but one of the implements, that is, were on the wall, for, in the photograph, Roger was holding the same rattan cane that Danny had been holding, in his own hand, when, just a moment ago, he'd looked through the one of the long, wide window panes, into the study. Seeing the photograph , he'd dropped the cane immediately, involuntarily, suppressing the scream that had launched itself within him.

After Roger's death, Danny had consigned this very photo to the walk-in closet of the guest bedroom he'd just visited, along with the other memorabilia of the life that Roger and he had shared as lovers--and as master and slave, respectively. This picture was the last which showed Roger in what appeared, at least, to have been good health. In the photograph, cane raised in his steely grip, ready to strike Danny's naked buttocks yet again, adding another bloody stripe to the lacerated flesh of his arched bottom as Danny knelt on his elbows and knees in the bed that the two men, master and slave, had shared for so many, long years, Roger looked robust, hale, and hearty. He was in excellent shape, and his body was conditioned and toned. Outwardly, at any rate, Roger was the very picture of good health. The early stage of Alzheimer's wasn't apparent in the photograph. Pictures do lie, Danny had learned, as this one did, showing a trim, fit, vigorous man where, in reality, there was but a hollow husk of one.

Within a few months following the picture and the spanking--one of the most terrible (and, therefore, memorable) that Danny had ever endured at his lover's hands--Roger's health had declined noticeably, as Stage 1 of his Alzheimer's manifested itself in his forgetting where he'd left his keys or eyeglasses. Then, he began having trouble remembering the names of acquaintances and even friends.

Later, checkbook errors became frequent--and costly--as he paid--or tried to pay--the couple's bills. Roger couldn't tell his Mondays from his Fridays, and he began to lose track not only of his siblings' birthdays and names but also forgot that he had two sisters and a brother.

Danny had considered a nursing home, after the diagnosis had been made, but he'd loved Roger too much, despite the many spankings and savage beatings he'd endured at his dear, familiar old hands over their many years together as domestic partners, ever to confine him to such a facility, and, before the end, he'd had to brush Roger's teeth, wash his body, dress him, and even wipe his ass for him after Roger had used the toilet or, for that matter, when he'd pissed or shit himself, which he had, with increasing frequency, as his decline had continued.

Toward the end, Roger had begun to suffer delusions, imagining that Danny was an imposter or an intruder, and his behavior had become bizarre in other ways as well. He'd polished the wooden and plastic paddles and oiled the leather straps and whips with obsessive-compulsive zeal.

Finally, before the final stage had had the opportunity to visit the most extreme of the disease's indignities upon Danny's lover, Roger had passed away in his sleep, beside Danny, in bed, a victim of pneumonia complicated by his Alzheimer's disease.

There was no intruder in the house. There was no burglar hiding in a closet or behind a shower curtain or under a bed or a desk. In fact, Danny had checked and double-checked the doors--they were locked--and the windows--they were not only locked, but also unbroken--and he'd had to conclude that there was no one in his condominium but himself.

How, then, had the cane been taken from its place in the collection, and how had this photograph found its way from the guest room's closet to appear in the study, its frame propped up on the desktop, polished as brightly as any of Roger's wooden or plastic paddles?

There was but one answer, Danny thought, fighting down a terror inside him as dark as malevolent mindlessness and looming death. He himself must have Alzheimer's, just as Roger had had. Danny himself had moved the cane, for some reason, just as he had the photograph, and he'd forgotten that he'd done so. He'd also imagined that someone else might be in his residence, an intruder who was present only in his own mind.

He'd watched his lover's slow, but inevitable decline, a relatively young victim of the disease that had robbed its victim both of dignity and health and of self-respect and sanity, and Danny knew that he couldn't endure such a horrible fate. He just couldn't!

Not that he'd have any choice in the matter, if he really, truly had dementia.

With a faint heart and a trembling hand, he returned the photograph to the guest room closet and the cane to its place on the master bedroom wall, and he got into bed, forgetting his intended shower.

He managed, after tossing and turning as he moaned and groaned in terror and panic for half the night, to fall asleep.

When he woke the next morning, his buttocks were afire.

He leaped from his bed and streaked into the bathroom, where, in the mirror, he saw that his bottom was red and purple with deep, horizontal gashes, half a dozen in all, one above the next in a neat parallel series, across both buttocks.

The bamboo cane hung beside its rattan mate, and, under it, thin lines of a dark, ruby fluid--Danny's own blood--streaked the beige wall!

* * *

"The good news," Dr. Chambers announced, speaking across his desk to his patient, "is that you do not have Alzheimer's."

Danny breathed a sigh of relief. "You're sure?"

Dr. Chambers permitted himself a slight smile. "Positive."

Danny sighed again, more deeply. "That's a load off my mind." He'd settled back into the deep cushions of the armchair. However, he sat forward abruptly, his brief relief a thing of the past. "What is wrong with me?"

The internist's slight smile faltered. "I'm not sure," he admitted, "not yet."

Danny was as forthright as he'd ever been in his life, asking, "Am I losing my mind, doc?"

"No, of course not."

"So, what the hell is the matter with me?" Danny demanded. "You can tell me."

"I already have told you: I don't know, not yet. I'm ordering a battery of tests."

Danny looked worried.

"Don't worry," Dr. Chambers told him. "We'll get to the bottom of this."

Danny tried to return the internist's reassuring smile, but he wasn't reassured, and his lips refused to pretend that he was.

The doctor handed his patient a slip of paper.

Danny looked at it. "What's this?"

"A prescription for a tranquilizer."

"Will it make me stop imagining things?" Danny had told him of his delusion about the invader. He'd told him about the fiery sensation in his buttocks and the sight he'd seen of his lacerated bottom in the bathroom mirror. He'd told him about the misplaced items, too, including the paddle. His confessions concerning the BDSM games that he and his late lover had played had been the most embarrassing admission of his life. His face reddened again as he recalled the declaration.

Dr. Chambers considered his words carefully, meting them out as if they were pearls of wisdom not likely to be understood or appreciated: "They will keep you tranquil."

* * *

Roger was waiting for Danny when he got home.

The sight of his dead lover, as substantial-looking and robust, as vigorous--and virile--as he'd been in his best years, in the flower of his youth, and handsome as the devil was more than Danny's senses, even tranquilized, could bear. He keeled over in a dead faint.

* * *

The paddle--not the oval plastic, but the heavy, rectangular pine one with the holes drilled through its blade to reduce air resistance--hovered above Danny's bare buttocks.

The terrified victim, lying naked across the knees of his unseen spanker, his bottom arched upward to receive the paddle's falling blade, screamed once, through the haze of the tranquilizer he'd taken just before he'd returned home from Dr. Chambers' office an hour ago, before the pain exploded in his ass cheeks, igniting a fiery sensation that blasted through him, as hot as molten lava.

The paddle launched itself into the air again and descended a second time, with even greater force, its blade flattening Danny's buttocks as the wood struck with an enormous CRACK!, loud as a gunshot.

Six more strokes of the paddle fell, rapid-fire, making Danny's bouncing buttocks quiver as if they were jelly rather than flesh and blood, and he howled in agony.

He glanced back, over his shoulder and, as the paddle rose into the air again, he saw the semblance of flesh take the shape of a fist, wrapped about the instrument's handle. More "flesh" assembled itself out of thin air, forming a forearm, an elbow, a pair of biceps, a shoulder, and, before Danny's terrified eyes, the body of his late lover appeared, piecemeal, as it were, wearing the very tweed suit in which Roger had been laid to rest.

"What are you?" Danny screamed. "A demon out of hell?"

There was a horrific laugh as the Roger-thing opened its mouth, and Danny, suddenly, didn't want to know the answer to his question and was sorry he'd had the temerity to ask. The horrid sound rose and echoed, sounding like the chorus of a thousand fiends guffawing over the sight of a sinner suffering the pangs of eternal torment. Then, the Roger-thing spoke in the voice of Danny's late lover. "I am a revenant," he answered, "one who has returned from the dead. A poltergeist, your kind might say."

"My kind?" Danny bleated.

"The living," the apparition explained.

The paddle fell with a resounding crash against Danny's red-and-purple ass. He squirmed, moaning, his erect cock rolling and pressing against his returned lover's ghostly thighs. They seemed substantial enough, Danny thought, for a phantom.

"I have returned from the grave to continue our loving relationship."

The paddle landed again, with devastating pain. Danny screamed. "What relationship can we have?" he bleated. "You're dead!"

In place of the paddle, a razor strop pelted Danny's ass, leaving wide, red stripes in his black-and-blue ass. "The same relationship we had when I was quick instead of dead," the ghost declared. "That of master and slave."

A half dozen strokes of the strop lashed Danny's bruised and lacerated ass, and he shrieked, rolling his hips hard against the ghostly sadist who held him fast.

Danny recalled the sight of his bare buttocks in the bathroom mirror the other day, raw and bleeding, and the missing cane, like the misplaced photograph of Roger in his prime, standing, proud, before his array of spanking implements. It made sense--if he could accept the impossibility of it all: a poltergeist returned from the grave, if not from hell, to resume the relationship he'd had with Danny during the ghost's mortal years. It was incredible. It was laughable!

The strap lashed into Danny's buttocks, and he howled, but not with laughter. The anguish that ballooned inside his buttocks, spreading through his ass cheeks like a wildfire, made Roger's absurd claim that he'd returned from the grave to resume his domination of his slave believable, and, between teeth gritted in pain, Danny said, "Welcome home, sir."

The lash of the strop was the revenant's response, and it was all the answer Danny would ever need.



Revenant



On the compact dancefloor, he gyrated crazily, easily exhausting several would-be mates. A lean youth in camo' T-shirt and khaki cut-offs put a blotter on his tongue as he danced. Rayne Wylde drank in the exuberance of the night and writhed to the thumping beat like a dark serpent on the tight skin of a drum, untouched by the chemical kiss of the acid. 

In the shadows, on the peripheries, the hunters lurked and watched; sizing up victims; biding their time. This was the most dangerous period. There was so much temptation here; so many young men, single, drunk or wasted. If one slipped away, would they simply follow? Would they be drawn to the kill, congenitally unable to resist the lure, or were they dedicated to the chase? Once they had selected their victim, would they be true to him until his bared flesh was sticky with their sweat and spunk and the blade was caressing his throat?

Under swirling lights, Rayne swung his hips and flirted extravagantly; a black clad, sinuous geisha boy, simultaneously satisfying the mental fantasies of every man who locked eyes with him. He flung his head back, lips parted, dark hair streaming like oil and water around his frenzied features. In that instant he provided a brief, seductive glimpse of what it would be like to have him subside beneath them, writhing in ecstasy; urging them on as they bucked between his widespread thighs. 

In turn, he absorbed their fantasies, feeding his sense of purpose with the tide of their desire. In their dreams these men stripped him and sucked him, licked his naked body all over -- on a rug, on the wooden floor of a faceless hall, on a vast bed, up against the wall in an alleyway outside. He was spread and lubed and rimmed and rammed, with fingers, cocks and well-greased fists, on his back and on his knees; in his arse and between his glossy, pouting lips. As he gyrated, they bombarded him with their need until his nipples stood proud against the fine black mesh of his T-shirt and his stiffening sex tented the tight denim of his sable jeans. The Vampire swallowed their hopes and dreams and used them as fuel for his inner fire.

It was late when he scrambled for the doors, alone, pumped up with the heat and lust of over a hundred men. He was rock hard and desperate to feed and masturbate, feverish for the cooler night air, although he no longer needed to breathe it in order to survive. The feast of emotions and desires had awaked his pulse and it was hammering at his throat and chest and in the swollen head of his cock as he made himself stagger onward. His body was in chaos but deep inside that clinical vampire brain, motivation ticked away like a hidden bomb. As he clawed his mock-inebriated way down Princess Street, his emotions slowed and stilled until he was cold and purposeful as ice. 

Briefly, he worried that they would not come, but the line had been baited and the nets were ready. Two blocks he stumbled, reeling blindly into doorways and rebounding like a pinball, heading for the bridge over the canal. The silence was eerie at this time of the morning; no people, very little traffic. The occasional cab hurried by and was gone, rattling into the darkness before he could raise his hand. 

They caught him there, on the bridge. He heard them coming but did not fight as they snatched his arms and marched him down between them into the darkness beneath that arch of stone. His body exulted at the rough handling. They were going to make this so very easy for him. The car park beyond the canal was deserted, a few derelict revellers still staggered the streets but their voices echoed distantly from the high walls. It was late and cold, a transient time way beyond the last hour of most nightclubs but still too early for the first risers of the morning. Perfect for the kind of assignation these two had in mind. 

"Where are you goin' then, eh?" the bigger and burlier of the pair, the one with the nose stud and a tattooed dragon curling up out of the open collar of his shirt, around his thick neck, asked dryly as they steered him beneath the bridge. 

"Home... I'm going home..." he feigned bewilderment, looking blankly from one face to the other as if he thought he should know them. His slender body burned with hunger and he rubbed himself against the first speaker wantonly. "Are you going to take me?"

"Oh yeah!" That was the other, the leaner, meaner one with the crucifix pendant. "We're gonna 'take' you all right!"

At once, Rayne sensed the malice in his tone. He could read the dark passions in this man's warped mind. The Vampire was a past master when it came to sex games. He knew full well how 'this' match was played. They would take their time. They could not be rushed. Against one assailant it was easy enough to bring the quarry down and bleed him straight away, but with two you had to wait until the timing was perfect. Even vampires were not completely untouchable in this day and age. It only took a single opponent with the knowledge of what you were to bring you down. 

Rayne did not think that this pair were Vampire hunters. Nor were they expecting him to play along quite so readily. Even so, he elected to tread carefully.

"Don't hurt me!" he panted, pretending anxiety as man with the crucifix reached around him, fumbling immediately with the buttons of his fly and rubbing up against his arse. He felt the rapist's erection bulging in his pants; pressing against his bum.

"Why? You're not tryin' to tell me you're a virgin, are you?" the fellow laughed caustically. 

"I've never been with two guys together before," Rayne lied, making big eyes at the fellow in front of him since he could not turn his head far enough to meet the speaker's gaze. The big, muscular skinhead grinned at him like death's head. He wore a silver stud in his tongue and a small, silver skull in one earlobe along with the diamond in his nose. There were tattoos a-plenty on his hands and neck; A whip curled around his forearm and he had manacles inked around his wrists with bloody roses twining through them. 

"Well tonight we're gonna teach you," he promised, backing up to the wall and gripping Rayne's upper arms tightly, pulling him close as the one with the pendant and the lip piercing, roughly yanked their captive's jeans down to his ankles. The breeze felt cool on his legs and buttocks. Rayne heard the buzz of a zipper behind him, then the ripping sound of foil and plastic and the wet, elastic squelches of a rubber rolled rapidly onto a stiffening cock. 

'Can't be too careful'! he thought wryly. These days even a rapist can't be 'too' careful. 

Impulsively, he tried to put his arms around the one holding him, rubbing his throbbing sex against the man's powerful thighs. He felt something hard within the right trouser leg that was longer than even his own most lurid fantasies could have predicted. Trapped between the pair of them, he wriggled and keened softly as hot, callused fingers spread his cheeks, pressing on his ring and he was breached none too gently from behind. Years of whoring had taught him to shut it out but the fury burned in him all the same, rising steadily to an inferno as his assailant forced his way in. The initial penetration was clumsy and painful. This man was not interested in pleasuring a male partner, only in satisfying his own lust and humiliating his victim.

Even so, the Vampire put on a show, moaning and panting, trying to get his arms around the guy who restrained him; attempting to kiss him. At last, the thug relented. Rayne's arms looped around his burly neck and he clung on, sucking the fellow's pierced tongue and rubbing urgently against him, gasping and sighing into his mouth as he was savagely used. Rough hands gripped his arse cheeks and hips, pulling him back hungrily onto a fat, rapidly thrusting cock. He moaned involuntarily as it opened him up, then began to pound in and out of his tight hole like a jack-hammer. A sequence of tiny, breathless sounds escaped his throat as he wriggled between the pair, to all intents and purposes, hot, stoned, and eager for both of them. 

On the inside, he was colder than ice. 

"Hold his arms for me," the one in front grunted now, frustrated and eager for his turn inside their victim. The big, tattooed thug reached down, as his companion's grip moved from Rayne's slender hips and bare bum to close tight just above his elbows. His big tool stilled briefly as he fumbled to restrain their captive before resuming his assault. Briefly, whilst he was still, the Vampire could feel his attacker's rapid, eager pulse deep in his arsehole. It felt so good that his own cock rose steadily in response until it was nodding in time with the thrusts of his mate. 

With frantic, shaking hands, the guy in front of him unfastened his fly, releasing a long, purple hard-on, illustrated with writhing vines and a circle of barbed wire inked just beneath the glossy head. He gave it a brisk rub, pulling back the foreskin to squeeze a droplet of pre-cum from the eye of the glans. It was a thick, meaty cock, about eight inches long, nothing to be ashamed of normally. Of course, what he was about to do with it went beyond the bounds of common decency but Rayne Wylde was less concerned by that than he was with his own stratagem. Coarse fingers snarled in the Vampire's dark hair and his head was forced to waist level.

"Open wide faggot," Tattoos instructed him with a little huff of laughter. "It's feeding time."

"I don't know what to do," Rayne lied in a small, tremulous voice. 

"Don't you worry about that, you little fairy slut! Just do as you're told and we'll sort you out!" That was the other guy, the tall, lean one with the crucifix. There was no humour in his voice. His fingers were closed tightly around Rayne's slender arms now and he was bucking hard between the Vampire's cheeks again.

He opened his mouth as instructed and at once it was urged onto the tumescent purple crown of his abductor's swollen sex. He inhaled the hot musk and sweat scent of his captor's masculinity, then wrapped his lips obediently around it, nodding and swallowing until it was sheathed to the hilt. Tattoos gripped his hair with both hands and began to fuck his throat. Even though he was skilled in the art of fellatio, Rayne did not have to fake the impulse to gag at first. He could only imagine how this must feel for a young, inexperienced cock-sucker.

"Maybe he's not kidding. He could be virgin," Tattoos panted, rutting away in his captive's face.

"His fuckin' arse is tight enough!" the other grunted appreciatively. He pushed Rayne's hands up higher behind his back, rucking up the young man's dark shirt as he did so and giving himself a good view of his victim's stretched and violated hole. With one hand he held both of the Vampire's skinny wrists in the middle of his back and eased the other down between Rayne's naked thighs. Grabbing the young man's balls he held onto them as he began to hammer his colon harder. "I reckon we're gonna have to fuck him three or four times each to get his little fag hole good and loose enough for both our dicks together. Either that or give him a good hard fisting first!"

Tattoos laughed cruelly at the idea of that. Rayne could feel how the idea of roughly fist-fucking him excited them both. Their pulses were racing and the blood hunger was driving them on blindly. He understood it because, to a certain extent he felt the same when he had a feeder lined up. The only difference was that he rarely hunted to kill, even when ravenous. These bastards got off on the idea of humiliating their frightened victims. Humiliating and slowly murdering them.

His jaws clenched, an involuntary response to the rising fury and impatience within him. Tattoos gave him a good hard blow to the side of his head to warn him off for biting. It was tempting just to chew the fucker's cock off and be done with it, but Rayne forced himself to remember that he was playing a waiting game. He was 'supposed' to be vulnerable; terrified; helpless. Until they actually threatened his life he had no grounds for a physical assault. If he went for their throats now, did that not make him just as low and depraved as they were?

'You mean, you're not'? his conscience sniped before he shut it out.

Maybe other victims would have closed their eyes. To the Vampire, this was just one more small indignity to add to an impressive back-catalogue. The sex was nothing to him, (not that he failed to become aroused as his balls were groped and his g-spot tormented by the incessant thrusting) but he could imagine how an innocent might feel; some naïve kid whose first physical experience this might be. First 'and' last! He seethed inwardly at the very idea of it even as his cock leaked a steady trickle of cum. 

Whilst he was sucking and licking his attacker's magnificent cock, Rayne paid close attention to everything around him. Impressive as the tool in his mouth was, it certainly had not been the object he felt whilst rubbing himself up and down Tattoos' leg. He focused now on the other item of elongated stiffness in his abductor's pants. Writhing between them, moaning softly in the back of his throat, he fellated the one and urged his bared cheeks frantically into the thrusting crotch of the other. All the while he kept one eye on the handle of the machete sheathed within the belt-line of Tattoos' open trousers. What he really needed to do was to make Crucifix let go of his arms. 

Quivering with bloodlust and a burgeoning need of a different kind, stimulated by the rapid cock-friction against his prostate, he began to struggle forward, nuzzling the hairy groin that bucked in his face. His mouth was watering around his captor's solid, thrusting prick-meat, a delicious apéritif to the blood boiling away inside the horny mortal. A mixture of pre-cum and saliva spilled from Rayne's lips and ran down his chin whilst he struggled to sink to his knees and suck it properly. Crucifix cursed him and took a firmer hold between his legs to keep the little whore from sliding off his dick. Gasping with pain and surprise, the Vampire only wriggled more fiercely until Crucifix gave up and let go of his arms in order to hold onto Rayne's slender hips with both hands. As the tall, humourless rapist tooled him faster the Vampire slid both hands seductively up his oral assailant's thighs, making little appreciative noises as he sucked and swallowed. Tattoos caught hold of them at once, pulling them away but in order to do so he had to let go of Rayne's tangled, black mane. At once, Rayne lifted his head, taking a gulp of fresher air before the guy released one slim wrist in order to push his captive's mouth back down on his glistening, tattooed hard-on. 

"No touching!" he panted. 

Rayne got his head up far enough to whimper; "But I want to get you off! I want to make you cum in my mouth!"

"You're gonna get a face full soon enough," Tattoos promised gruffly. "Keep sucking me, slut!" 

The Vampire let him urge himself deeper and deeper. He had always loved giving head and by now he was so deeply immersed in the web of their vicious, dirty fantasies that he was quite prepared to let them have their way, so long as he got his! 

This time, when his deft, cold fingers curled around the blow-job's heavy balls, the skinhead did not try to stop him. He grunted with pleasure and leaned back against the wall, pounding the skilful mouth of their skinny plaything energetically. They were fucking him in almost perfect syncopation by now. Rayne half smiled, the musician in him appreciating the rhythm and the surge of pleasure their pounding tools sent coursing through his nervous system. They were used to working a boy together, this much he could feel. The grunting and groaning intensified both in front and behind and he rode them both now, in synch with their motions; nodding into one hot crotch and grinding his arse back into the other. Crucifix's big, hot penis felt impossibly good in his arsehole and the steady trickle of spunk in his mouth and throat tasted incredible. Even their rough handling of his body left him buzzing with excitement. 

His submissive compliance fired them both up and their increasing stimulation fuelled his own arousal to even greater heights. Rayne had been keen for vengeance, but he had not expected to get such a fantastic spit-roasting into the bargain. A low moan began deep in his throat as he started to spurt without even touching himself. His exposed balls felt tight and hot and his cock-head was so stretched and sensitive that the slightest breath of air across his glans was enough to make him cum hard. The river of spunk just kept on coming as he serviced them both.

It certainly got them hot. He felt Tattoos stiffen and groan and those big hairy nuts contracted in his palm as Rayne squeezed and milked them for him. The two rapists moved to their knees together and he was lowered to the ground between them as they began to cum in him simultaneously. Crucifix rammed himself in as far as he could go and swore huskily as Rayne squirmed and moaned astride his lap. Any protest he might have made was stifled by the presence of the other man's spurting cock head pulsing against the back of his throat. Hot, salty spunk pumped down his gullet and backed up into his mouth, dribbling from the corners, down his chin. The hand that gripped his hair tightened briefly at the moment of climax then let go. Behind him he felt Crucifix pull out quickly and heard the wet, slurping sound of the condom being rapidly peeled off before the skinhead ejaculated over his buttocks and bare back. Rayne closed his eyes briefly, sharing the sense of relief, coupled with the cooling trickle of spilt semen on his skin, then rough hands were pulling off his open shirt from behind and discarding it. Just as abruptly, his jeans were tugged off and he was pushed to the ground on his belly, stripped naked.

"What are you doing?" he exhaled, still pretending fear.

"Shut your mouth, or I'll cut your balls off and gag you with them!" Crucifix told him breathlessly. He pulled a bowie knife from within his baggy fitting jacket and showed the gleaming blade to the dark-haired youth on the ground. Rayne let his eyes go wide and fearful and he complied immediately, biting his lips and shivering, as much with the need for blood as anything else (sex always made him hungry, just as feeding invariably left him feeling impossibly randy).

Crucifix spread Rayne's legs and knelt between them, then eased his free hand into the slick of cum between Rayne's arse-cheeks and circled his well-fucked ring with the slippery pad of his thumb. The young man lying beneath him moaned ecstatically as the steady teasing opened up his twitching hole again. Crucifix carried on rubbing and touching for a moment, then firmly inserted two probing fingers into the Vampire as he sprawled naked on the rough stretch of asphalt beneath the bridge. Rayne Wylde closed his eyes, conscious that he was getting hard again as the tall thug frigged and stretched his rectum. He knew that the idea was to remind him of how vulnerable he was. He could guess that he was being warmed up for another bout of sexual humiliation but it felt good so he let the man do it to him. 

He was hungry and he was on fire. Tonight he was going to cum and feed until he was utterly sated. So long as he kept his cool, these bastards would pay in blood for their abuse of him.

"'Urry up!" Tattoos urged his friend. "I want a go up his arse before we sort 'im out. And you wanna get 'im to suck your cock. He's a fuckin' natural!"

"He's fuckin' tight, I'll give 'im that!" the other grunted, wriggling a third finger into the young man on the ground between them. "Even after a good hard shag!"

"I reckon he's good for three or four rounds!" Tattoos laughed crudely. "He kept tryin' to snog me though. He's a lyin' little faggot. I reckon he's done this before!" His fingers tangled in Rayne's dishevelled hair and he pulled their victim's face out of the dirt and peered at him. "You're a proper dirty slut aren't you? You like plenty of cock, I'll bet!"




Revenant



"You wanna give 'im some?" Crucifix asked his partner, who nodded eagerly. The fingers inside him withdrew and the pair swapped places. 

"Lick my hand clean," his molestor ordered as he knelt by Rayne's head and thrust his musky, sticky fingers into the Vampire's face. 

Behind him, the big guy was fingering him experimentally, trying to discover how many digits he could get into their captive's tight young arse. Rayne whimpered; "Please! Let me go. I did what you wanted."

"We're not done with you yet," Crucifix told him. "You're our bitch tonight, understand? You do as 'we' tell you or you get this!" He slashed Rayne's left cheek with the point of his knife and the young Vampire winced and tried to struggle free. At once he was slammed down into the dirt again, his face rubbed against the ground. The thug kneeling by his head wiped his hand clean on Rayne's dark hair, then grabbed his wrists and forced his hands behind his head, holding him in that position. "Just fuck the little twat and let's get on with it!" he snarled at his companion, the first sign of anxiety he had exhibited all night. 

At once, Tattoos hauled the naked youth to his knees, though the other man kept his head and shoulders pressed down to the dirty floor. Rayne heard the rip and rustle of another rubber being extracted and rolled on. He squirmed as he felt the cold, slippery head of Tattoos' sheathed penis probe his sore hole, then push into his vulnerable anus eagerly. A muffled groan escaped him and he struggled harder until he was threatened with the knife again. This time the blade caressed his throat. The red mist was rising as Rayne Wylde submitted to violent buggery for the second time that night. He focussed on the knife and kept his jaws clenched, though he felt the longer dog-teeth extend of their own volition now. 

The second bout of anal rape was fast and rough. Tattoos was only on his back for a few minutes, bucking that big cock into him like a randy bull and cumming quickly inside him. The wet heat of climax filling his loins told Rayne that the rubber had torn long before his assailant slumped forward and pulled out, his huffs of satisfaction turning to curses as he peeled off the sticky remnants of his condom. The Vampire did not care. They could give him no disease that would affect him and they would both be dead in any case before the sun came up.

They switched places again. Rayne whimpered an objection but was cuffed around the head for it. Behind him, he felt the bastard who had cut him begin to frig him again, firstly with the hilt of his knife, then with all four fingers at once.

"He's lovin' that," Tattoos laughed, listening to Rayne moan and hyperventilate as he was abused. "What a fuckin' slut, eh?"

"Then we wanna teach 'im what we do to dirty little queers, don't we?" Crucifix pressed his fingers in to the third knuckle, a good bit harder and more roughly than before. Under him Rayne winced and yelped with pain. "Shut up!" Crucifix told him sharply, pulling them out smartly and balling his fist, rubbing his knuckles over their victim's exposed perineum. "Christ! Hold 'im down will you, Gaz!" he complained as the Vampire bucked and tried to scramble free.

The tattooed man, Gaz was laughing nastily as he rested a hand in the small of Rayne's naked back, forcing him back down. He leaned all of his upper body weight behind it, bending forward to get a better look as his mate forced most of his hand into their wriggling plaything. 

"Aaaaaaahhh!" Rayne exhaled, shaking his head vigorously. "Don't! 'Please'! It hurts."

"I 'told' you to fuckin' shut it!" Crucifix pulled back again, ignoring his gasping cries of reluctance. "Gaz, if the little bitch even 'squeaks' again, cut his pretty face for him!"

He passed the knife to his partner in crime and Gaz showed the blade to Rayne with a menacing grin, then stroked his wounded cheek with the point. The lack of sustenance meant that fortunately he was healing very slowly so the slash still looked quite raw. The Vampire bit down hard on both lips and tried not to cry out this time as he felt the other man's balled fist punch its way deep into his anus. His eyes closed tightly and he fought the rising groans forced into his throat by each thrust of his assailant's muscular forearm.

His traitorous cock stiffened as he was pounded more fiercely and he concentrated on breathing slow and deep as Crucifix impaled him almost to the elbow. Rayne began to keen softly, unable to keep the sound inside. He knew that his friend, Matty loved being fist-fucked and now he thought he understood why. It was agony, (and Matt was a notorious masochist) but it was also incredibly stimulating. His rectum was stretched to it's full capacity and the weight and heat within his colon and lower bowel sent little tendrils of energy fizzing along all the nerves in his arms and legs and up into his neck and his head. He felt his cheeks grow hot as he was rammed harder, panting eagerly on the ground; "Oh yeah! YEAH!!"

His chest and belly were wet with cum and he realised almost belatedly that it was his own. The climax left him dazed and bewildered. Crucifix pulled his fist out with a disgusted oath and hauled him onto his back, slamming him to the ground. 

"You dirty little queer! You get off on being our bitch, don't you?" There was a glint in his eye that was far from sane. "Looks like we're gonna have to go all the way with you after all."

By Rayne's head, Gaz the tattoo-freak uttered a belly laugh, his cock jutting half-erect from his pants. Out of the corner of his eye he measured the distance, wondering if he could get a hand to the grip of the machete that still hung down his trouser leg before they realised what he was up to.

"You wanna castrate the little slag, or shall I?" Crucifix asked as Tattoos handed him back the short knife. Rayne's eyes flew back to his sweaty face, glistening orange in the sodium light from up on the street above his head.

"I wanna do it," Gaz said eagerly. He pulled the longer, single-edged blade from its sheath in his pants and Rayne looked quickly from one to the other, tensing for the fight. If Crucifix got him onto the ground they could easily rip him apart down here before he was able to stop them. Properly fed they were no problem for him, but he was starving and shaking from the combination of sustained withdrawal and the exertion of the double rape and vicious fisting. He needed to feed, and quickly.

"Don't... I'm begging you. I'll do 'anything'. Please don't cut me!" he implored, turning his gaze on Tattoos whom he had already decided was the softer touch of the pair. Even if it was only because he thought with his bollocks.

"If you wanna be our bitch, you need a cunt," the big man told him, grinning maliciously. He stroked the blade as tenderly as a lover. "A big, gaping, bloody cunt!"

Crucifix leaned over the Vampire and grabbed him by his now flaccid genitalia, pulling Rayne's cock and balls away from his pelvis to make it easier for his partner. He eased the point of the bowie knife into the softer skin behind his victim's ball-sac. It was his first and last mistake. Rayne might not be at full strength but he was fast, and that threat to his manhood was just the provocation he was looking for. 

"Not if you were the last fuckin' meal-ticket on earth!" he hissed as he went for the rapist with his fangs bared, grabbing the skinhead by his dangling crucifix pendant and pulling his head down violently so that he could bite. The knife slipped free and clattered to the ground as Rayne barrelled into his assailant with one shoulder and knocked him backwards towards the edge of the towpath. The chain broke in his hand, his teeth connected with soft, thin flesh and he bit down hard, tearing skin and sinews like a wild animal. It was not a normal attack and certainly not dignified but he was beyond concerns about his dignity. 

A spurt of hot blood hit him in the face as he crouched over his shocked and furious victim. The attack had fortunately startled Tattoos so much that he was momentarily paralysed. He remained on his knees for a few seconds, the machete in his hand, watching as their little whore ripped out his friend's throat mercilessly and drank greedily from the spill of gore that spurted it's scarlet climax over his pale skin.

"Gaz..." Crucifix gurgled at last, breaking the spell. "Kill the little fucker! 'Kill' him!"

Rayne gulped and swallowed faster. He never liked to rush a meal but 'this' was serious. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the fellow called Gaz stumble to his feet and trip over his cascading pants, which were still unfastened and quickly snarled around his ankles, bringing him back down. He allowed himself another indulgent mouthful, then another, empowered by the flooding warmth of it in his gullet. As the second thug found his feet and went for him with the machete, perhaps expecting him to curl up in a ball or run for it, he did the last thing any sane person would do. He leapt 'towards' the tattooed man, fending off a savage sideways blow that slashed into his shoulder and upper arm and grabbed him by the neck with his good hand, blocking out the pain that seared down his right side like cold fire. The little golden cross on its broken chain dangled from the limp, twitching fingers of his wounded arm as he slammed Gaz back into the wall under the bridge and brought his knee up hard between the big skinhead's legs.

The tattooed rapist doubled over at once, his forehead hitting Rayne's shoulder. As he howled in pain, the furious little Vampire went for his jugular, virtually oblivious to all but the smell of blood. It was a mistake he had been warned against time and time again but his fury and his hunger over-rode all common sense. As he bit down hard and revelled in the gush of rich, coppery, viscous heat that filled his mouth, the big man brought his knife hand up hard and fast in a last act of desperation. The Vampire's jaws released his neck as the blade of the machete sank into his abdomen, driving upward, and impaled him to the hilt. It was too low for a heart strike but it checked him briefly. He collapsed against the bigger man, unable to ignore the fierce, gut-twisting, flames of hell within his intestines, panting fiercely and rapidly as he tried to work around this all consuming pain. Not since Jabez, his Sire, had put him through intensive self-healing sessions when he was first Turned had he known agony like this.

The pain did a curious thing to him, however. It focussed him, utterly. Somehow it put him in a clear space where everything made perfect sense. He knew what he had to do. If he wasted time now the energy he had gained from feeding on Crucifix would channel into the healing process leaving him weak as a child again. He had to finish them both while he still had the strength. Then and only then would all of their other victims be avenged. Only then could he rest.

Rayne Wylde brought his head back slowly and looked his assailant in the eye for a moment that bared his black, soul-less heart to the mortal. He thought he saw a glint of triumph in the man's slate-grey gaze as he slowly turned the blade in the Vampire's belly, watching Rayne's fanged jaws clench against the lancing agony and long, girlish lashes veil his acid-green stare. 

"Gonna cut you a soft, wet pussy, little whore," he promised, his voice still high and husky from the impact of the naked vampire's kneecap between his legs. "And I'm gonna fuck you there til you can't scream any more." 

Then the bloody fingers of Rayne's left hand gripped the bastard by the throat and slammed him back against the wall, breaking his neck. His struggles ceased instantly and the blood-spattered Vampire dropped him to the ground and stood over him, huffing softly like a winded racehorse, hands clasped around the hilt of the weapon that still protruded from his belly.

Bracing himself, he closed his eyes and eased it slowly out, his tortured breath coming in short, rapid little sobs as the sharp blade scythed through soft flesh and grated on the pelvic bone. He dropped to his knees beside his vanquished foe as the weight of the weapon carried it out of the tear in his belly and it slipped though his gory fingers. It hit the ground before him, with a clash that made him flinch. His hearing was ultra sensitive, as was his sense of touch right now. All he could smell, see or taste was blood. Too much of it was his own.

Bending over the tattooed corpse of his assailant, he lapped at the deep bite wound in the man's neck, but already the red warmth had stilled in his veins, deprived of the pulse that powered it through his body. It would be an effort to leech him, Rayne decided. It would take energy that he could not spare. He lifted his head with obvious difficulty to see Crucifix's bright blue eyes staring right at him. The mortal was in shock, bleeding copiously from the opened arteries of his neck, but still alive. Rayne drew a long, grateful, sobbing breath and crawled over to him. 

As the Vampire bent over him and lapped like a kitten at the spill of blood around the dying man, his mortal victim struggled to move his hand and Rayne backed off this time, conscious of how close he had already come to True Death by underestimating his opponents. His wounded body still hurt but the feast of blood from this man's veins was helping the healing process along. Rayne Wylde rarely drank his fill from one victim. He had no need to drain a grown man under normal circumstances. Tonight, he had already decided, he was going to make an exception.

The Skinhead's trembling hand groped towards the little golden cross whose chain was still wrapped around the Vampire's slender fingers. Rayne tilted his head quizzically, looking from the crucifix to it's previous wearer, then he flashed a startling, bloody smile. His fangs were still as long as a child's finger. There was madness in his red-rimmed, lime-green eyes.

"You want this?" he hissed softly, dangling the cross just out of reach. "You think it can do you some good?"

He laughed breathlessly, shaking his head. Dark hair tumbled, lank and bloody around his pale, crazy, beautiful face. 

The dying man struggled to frame words. His voice was no more than a whisper of sound as he forced them out. "Mine... Godless... pervert freak... "

Rayne's smile waned. He stared for a long time at this man, who had raped and used him along with so many naïve kids, fixing that in his mind. He dwelt for a time on the dying misery of the boy who had expired in his arms beneath this very bridge, a victim of this evil creature's crusade.

"You think it'll save you? It hasn't done you many favours tonight, has it?" he looked at the little trinket pityingly.

"You... no belief... you mock..." The mortal ran out of breath and just glared at him, panting rapidly.

"What god would watch what you do to helpless kids, just because they have to sell their arses to survive, and bless you for it?" he asked at last, his voice curiously neutral.

"You... ask for it... all of you..." The blue of those insane eyes seemed to intensify as he lost the fight for life. "Queer scum!"

The Vampire's lips twitched humourlessly. 

"'You' fucked us! What does that make 'you'? Will 'He' forgive you for that? Or will he send you to hell, where you 'deserve' to be!"

With his last strength the skinhead pointed a quivering finger at him and gasped; "See 'you' in hell!"

He slumped to the ground then and the furious intensity in his wide-open eyes seemed to die with him. His gaze slid skyward and Rayne looked up instinctively then sighed and shrugged his slender shoulders wearily.

"If there's a hell, we're already there," he said to no one in particular, closing his fingers around the little golden cross. 

He knelt by the canal-side for a little while, feeding, shrouded in darkness, looking at the results of his handiwork with no particular pride. At last the hot, throbbing pulse in his punctured belly eased sufficiently for him to make a move without the fear of losing his intestines. Pushing himself to his feet, the Vampire tossed the golden pendant into the canal, then retrieved and pulled on his clothing stiffly and awkwardly. The cruciform burn mark on his palm lingered for a few moments then faded and vanished. 

He watched it go with a little surprise, then shook his ragged, gory mane slightly.

Anyone watching from the bridge up above might have been astonished to see a slender, blood-stained wraith walk away from the scene of carnage below, melting into the shadows like the mist that rose from the still, dark water. He flung out his arms as if he could catch the breeze beneath his wide spread fingers and glide like a dark spirit, then uttered a husky ripple of mirthless laughter, disappearing into the gloom as if he had never been. Though if they strained their ears a moment longer, they might still have heard the caustic cadences of his black humour. 

"What do 'you' believe in?"

:END:

© Sadie Rose Bermingham. 2004