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Hematoma Ch. 01

By: Asbel



The autumn sun streamed through my kitchen window that morning, gleaming on the blackened patches of skin on my arms where ink lay. I was half-dressed at the table, just me and my jeans. Scraps of scrambled egg and bagel crumbs stuck wetly to a plate in the sink from my breakfast, where they would probably remain for a day or two until I decided to do the dishes again. It was my day off from work. And I had chosen to start it with this.

On the chair next to me was a first aid kit. On the table in front of me sat a bowl of ice water, a folded handkerchief, a candle, and a steel piercing needle.

They were all pieces of my vice for the day.

I had, in the past, researched possible reasons for why I was the way I was, desperate to find justification for my actions. People called it "masochism" -- the desire for self-harm in order to achieve sexual gratification. Some articles said that masochists often self-harmed because they thought they needed punishment for something in their lives. I wouldn't know. That wasn't true for me, anyway. I'd grown up spoiled and loved by my nuclear family. I had a normal life. I had no guilt or past that I felt I needed to be punished for.

Except the guilt of punishing myself in the first place.

I struck a match and lit the unscented, white candle. The scent of carbon sat thick in the air for a moment. It was not the same sort of candle I had around the house on the surfaces of my dresser or coffee table. It only had one purpose, maybe two at most. 

For a moment I stared at the tiny flame atop its wick, fluttering as it consumed the oxygen around it. The next thing I reached for was the handkerchief. Black and white striped. I lifted it to my mouth, parted my teeth, and clenched it between my molars on the left side. The walls were thin in my apartment, so I'd rather no one heard this. Or at least, I'd rather they heard it less.

My right hand reached for the needle. It was thick and long, of polished steel, and regularly cleaned. My fingers were trembling. I was always like this in the beginning. The tension went away once I actually got started. The nerves relaxed. The mind cleared. 

The tip of the needle was put to the flame, about half an inch of it submerged. I tried to hold my hand steady. It wouldn't heat properly if it didn't stay still. I needed to keep it there for a whole minute if I was going to do this right.

My right wrist already showed scars from me doing this before. It was a technique I learned when I decided I couldn't use the piercing needle in my hand for its rightful purpose. Not that I was a stranger to piercing. My face was lined with surgical steel. The cartilage of my ears was full of silver piercings. The first holes I got in them were now half-inch wide gauges, held open with ebony plugs. An industrial bar traversed the shell of my ear like a bridge. All these combined with the patterns of ink running up and down my arms and shoulders were souvenirs of my dangerous addiction. 

The needle looked hot enough. Carefully I positioned myself as always. My left hand gripped a corner of the handkerchief in my teeth; my left elbow braced itself on the table. I turned the needle so its blunt edge was squeezed between my fingers, its point at my bare wrist. My hand was shaking again. I inhaled sharply through the polyester and tilted the needle down against my skin. 

White hot pain shot up my arm. My immediate reaction was to want to pull the hot metal away from my seared skin. I bit down on the cloth harder, hissing through my teeth. It was almost unbearable... but only at first. My nerves were alight with activity, screaming their message back to my brain. Stop now. It hurts. It's painful. I felt as though the needle was melting through my flesh like animal fat. I was in agony. My body was begging me to stop... and begging for more.

It felt incredible.

Within at least ten seconds the pleasure I felt from the burning turned back into ugly, brutish pain. I dropped the needle with shaking fingers, instead plunging my hand into the bowl of ice water. The ice and the pain in my wrist hurt so wonderfully... It was still throbbing through my veins. My fingers were going numb and my new wound was stinging. I groaned into my handkerchief. My head was down on the table, left hand delving into the fly of my jeans. I was hard already. I breathed heavily against the laminated wood, shuddering as the stinging pain in my wrist ebbed away to a steady, hot pulse. The more the ache subsided, the more I craved its return... I wanted more... I wanted to feel that agony again.

In an aroused panic I looked up from the table, the handkerchief still between my teeth. It would take too long to heat the needle again. By the time it was hot enough to burn the sensation would be gone. I staggered up from my seat, my bare feet chilled on the kitchen tile. I was vaguely aware of my nails digging themselves into my palm. It's the kitchen; I've got to have something here. I'm surrounded by the tools of my trade, makeshift weapons and toys. My eyes flicked over the cutting block, the gas stove, the canister full of cooking implements. Breathing fast, I reached for the cutlery drawer, pulling it open with a crash. My tingling fingers found a steak knife. The serrated blade gleamed at me. I felt a twitch between my thighs. My hand was shaking again. I brought the tip to the palm of my hand...

No. No, no, no.

Quaking, I carefully returned the steak knife to its rightful place. Not good. I had to be careful with these urges. I had to take care of the wound I had already made. I pulled the wet handkerchief from my mouth, eyes fluttering as I exhaled. I was coming down off the high from my burn. I could think more clearly now. I went back to my chair and sank into it in relief, and slowly I felt the heat in my abdomen quelling. I opened the first aid kit. 

This is how things had been for years. I was addicted to pain and the sexual release it brought me, completely enveloped in my vice. I couldn't do much with myself anymore, as I always went for more dangerous things in the heat of the moment. My mind was constantly full of new ways I could think of injuring myself, of finding that same amazing agony I experienced before. It was best, I thought, to leave my vice to a professional. I rubbed aloe into the new red scar on my arm, next to the white ones that had long since healed up, all identical minute arrowheads.

I had begun to rely on professional help to serve my increasingly unmanageable addiction years ago. I had at first considered S&M clubs... Living in a big city, I imagined I could have plenty of options where I could be whipped and flogged by some bitch in a latex suit. But that sort of thing never did anything for me, and I had never wanted to be made into that sort of person; the sort who goes to these dark little clubs amidst sweaty, fat older men looking to escape their wives' nagging under a Dominatrix's paddle. No, that wasn't me. 

I had turned instead to my local tattoo parlor. I could indulge in a safe, clean pain, and at the end I had something pretty to show for it. The ink on my arms and the holes in my face were trophies of my desire, my arms an interlacing bramble of roses and trees. But I had become addicted to body modification, and it was a costly lifestyle that kept me in the lower end of town, in a shit apartment, living off wages made by moving boxes in a warehouse. At the age of 26 I was still eating cup noodles. Not that I altogether minded my poverty. I was comfortable where I was living and never dreamed of a better life. But it was a reminder; just more shame of what I had become.

My wounds treated, I zipped up my first aid kid and began to clear up my mess. Bowl of ice water into the sink. Handkerchief into the washing machine behind the slatted door in the kitchen. Candle extinguished and returned to the kitchen counter next to the coffee pot. The needle I picked up and carried with me to my bedroom, where a large blue canvas box was sitting out with my 'playthings' in it next to the bed. I picked it up and sat down on the mattress, the brass bed-frame banging against the wall as I moved. One hand dug in the box for the piercing kit, the other reached to my nightstand for my cell phone. I had to make a call. 

Contacts, Inkjet, Call this number.

My digging fingers found the little rolled bundle with the piercing needles inside. I unrolled it as I waited for the number to pick up.

A woman's voice answered me, muffled music playing in the background. "Thanks for calling Inkjet on South Street, what can I do for you."

"Karen, hey, it's me," I said.

There was a pause on the other end. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Shay, sorry. Took me a second there. How's your ear, you cleaning it?"

The industrial bar in my left ear had been the last thing I'd gotten done. "It's fine, it healed up pretty fast," I told her, tucking the needle back into the roll. "I still have my appointment for noon today, right?"

Another pause. 

"Kar?"

"Shit."

"Shit, what," I repeated monotonously, shoving the bundle into my box and closing the lid. 

"Look, it's not like I forgot you, Shay, just, so much has been going on..." Karen began.

"Well that's okay, as long as Em doesn't have anyone booked for noon we're good, right? I can still come in?" I said.

"No, that's the thing, I mean... Emily walked out on us."

"... Are you serious?" Emily was my usual artist. I'd finally become comfortable around her enough to not hold back my reactions to her needle, and now... "When did she leave?"

"About a week ago. She suddenly told me we weren't paying her well enough and that she'd find better work. But in all that, I had so many people I had to reschedule with our other artists; I must have skimmed you over. I'm sorry, Shay."

I ran a hand through my hair. I couldn't understand why Emily had skipped out and not told me. She was probably the only person I'd ever been okay around enough to show my true self. And without telling me, she leaves. Fucking cunt.

"Shay?"

"Yeah?" I answered, sighing.

"Look, I don't want to just cancel your appointment, I know you already paid us in advance. So just come in today at noon and I'll set you up with another artist."

"Who with?" 

There was yet another pause, maybe the sound of shuffling paper. I couldn't be too sure. "Uhm, let's see. Ricky... Sorry, Yorick is free today around noon." There was more shuffling and a sigh. "Actually, he seems to be free all day. Why the fuck are you here!?" I heard her yell away from the phone.

I mulled this over in her absence. I wasn't too sure about letting another stranger see my reactions. I'd have to go back to hiding it. And what if this other artist -- a man to boot -- just didn't do the same job Emily did? What if it just didn't feel as good?

Karen interrupted my thoughts at her return. "Anyway, he does great work, Shay. I don't think you'll be too disappointed."

In the back of my mind I doubted this, but Karen had a point. I had already paid for the appointment. Not to show up would just be a waste. 

"So, noon then?" I said.

"Sure, or just come whenever," confirmed Karen.

"See you then."

"See ya."

She hung up before I could. Karen was all business. 

My phone call done with, I was left to ponder my new situation. I was about to submit myself to the needle of a strange man, someone who was going to see my ugly pleasure. I'd have to be able to keep control of myself.

I thought of the distress and desperation of my arousal from burning myself not half an hour before. A shudder. A swallow. I closed my eyes.

No, I wouldn't let him see that.

Hematoma Ch. 02



AN: Due to my original judgment and the vast amount of comments regarding the payment for the piercings, it has been changed. My thanks to the readers on this one.

~

I bundled up against the cold outside. In Philadelphia, where I lived, it got cold quick with the shade from thousands of surrounding buildings. The sunshine warmed my back as I locked the door to my apartment behind me, but once I had descended onto the pavement, level with the iron-grated windows, I was plunged into cold shadow. The metal sticking into my face didn't help with the cold. The spots where it sat in my skin felt like drops of ice. I tucked my hands into the pockets of my black jacket, pausing only to watch the mist billowing from my mouth, and went on my way.

My appointment at Inkjet was for a body piercing. Or, two to be precise. After running out of spots to pierce my face and still look... socially acceptable... I had finally decided to move on to piercing the parts of my body that I hadn't yet inked. Namely my torso, which remained bare. I had paid in advance to have my hips pierced. Nothing fancy. I was paying fifty for the work and the metal to go in it. There was always more with the tip -- you don't become a repeat customer of someone with a needle unless you tip them well, for obvious reasons. But it had been a month since I'd gotten work done, that being the new industrial, and so I'd saved up a bit of my meager paychecks made by hauling boxes in the warehouse district. 

I didn't get many funny looks. A guy my age with steel constellations in his face was normal by South Philly's standards. The black coat and white jeans were just everyday fashion on South Street, where punk stores stood on side roads and sex shops had open window displays. Maybe a couple scene girls visiting from New Jersey for a weekend of shopping would look at me and giggle. Maybe I'd glance back, not that it mattered much. I was absorbed in my own head, trying to keep my excitement at a low rung. I couldn't help a little palpitation as I thought of the piercing needle running me through. I pushed my hands further into the pockets of my jacket, balling them into fists. A tattoo parlor was a completely respectable place of business. I felt like I was going to a brothel.

The place itself was not unlike any other shop on the strip, though perhaps a bit further from the bridge than most tourists like to shop. Red brick outside, with a single wide window painted with their logo, embellished with the word "Inkjet". I noticed the shades were down partway. Wonder why I noticed this. It probably meant I was lingering outside too much. 

A bell jingled over the door as I went in. I kept my eyes on the floor just at first, studying the ages-old white and green speckled linoleum. One hand still in the pocket. Don't be a pussy, I thought. I looked up to see Karen at the front desk fussing with her clipboard. Her dark red hair curled around her face nicely, lending a soft, feminine air to the harshness of her black clothing and heavy makeup. Her eyebrows, for as long as I had known her, had been shaved and tattooed on in a floral pattern, and the dimples in her round cheeks were studded with metal piercings. She looked up at me distractedly at first, but she smiled when she recognized her new visitor.

"Shay, you're early!" she said, getting up from her spinning chair. Her heels clicked as she walked around the desk to give me a warm hug, which she had to do on tip-toes. Karen was short and a little heavy. Even with her in four-inch heels, I was too tall for her hugs.

I half-smiled and pulled one arm around her shoulders. "Hey, Kar," I returned. "I figured I didn't have anything else to do today, so I may as well meet my new artist." At this I looked up, letting her remove her arms from around my neck. There was a faint buzzing noise from behind Karen's desk where another of her artists, whose name I knew was Brent, was working on his own client in a dentist's chair. The only remaining female employee, Ally, was at her workspace drawing something for a tattoo. But I saw no sign of someone I didn't recognize. "So... where exactly is he?"

Karen seemed to give me a sardonic look and let her shoulders go slack. "Yorick is... He's in his room," she said finally, twitching her head towards a red-painted door covered in posters in the main room. "He doesn't normally stay out here with us pedestrians." There was a teasing note in her voice; I couldn't tell what she really thought of Yorick. She leaned in towards me and dropped her voice. "But he doesn't judge, so that's why I wanted to set you up with him. You know I know what you're like; there's no shame in it. I'd just rather you have an artist who's not going to weird out on you."

I kept my eyes on the door reproachfully. There seemed to be music coming from the other side of it, music that faintly disturbed the radio out here and didn't match it. "I don't think I've met him before."

"No, honestly, you probably haven't met him because he usually works the night shifts, when you're not here. He just recently started doing days to pick up the slack. He's one of my best artists and he's very professional. I don't think you'll be too disappointed," she reassured me, and led me behind the desk over to the door. Her silver-ringed knuckles rapped on the painted wood sharply. 

There was no answer. 

Karen crossed and uncrossed her arms huffily, and banged a fist on the door. "Ricky, open up! Your client is here!"

"The door isn't locked," said a muffled voice from the other side. 

"Oh, you fatheaded...!" Karen hissed, and she pushed the door open roughly. "At least say 'come in'!" 

"Come in, then," the voice said coolly.

Once the door was open, the music playing inside was clearer, and very loud. I recognized the song playing. Sex Pistols. Over Karen's shoulder I saw only a red room and a pair of black boots propped up on something, but she turned to me and smiled forcibly. 

"The doctor will see you now," she said sweetly, then added in an undertone, "If he gives you any shit, tell me."

With that, she clicked back to her desk and I was left alone in front of this open doorway that seemed like a gateway to a torture room. 

"I did say come in, right?" said the voice inside. I looked at my feet and nodded, mostly for my own benefit, before ushering myself inside. 

The room was small, no more than ten by ten. The only light source was a floor lamp that seemed capable of moving to many different positions quite easily, but was currently pointed down at the white linoleum floor. This floor seemed to be the only part of the room that wasn't completely crimson. What little of the walls I could see, between various music posters from every era, was painted red with a ceiling to match. There was a red leather doctor's table long enough to lie down on in the center of the room. And in the corner was a matching red velvet armchair, and this was where he sat.

What hit me first was that he was sitting quite relaxed as if napping, with his boots up on the end of the doctor's table like a foot stool. He was wearing a white muscle shirt and plain black jeans, his hands casually folded on his stomach. Long black hair spilled over his shoulders and, despite how dark the room was, his eyes were hidden behind aviator sunglasses.

Who the fuck does this guy think he is?

I had only a moment to take all this in before he lifted his sunglasses and glanced at me. "Go ahead and close the door, then," he told me.

He's demanding. That annoyed me. But I reluctantly obliged, unzipping my jacket as I did so. The door snapped shut and trapped me inside with the music, which turned down to a quiet hum as I listened. Boots clunked onto the floor behind me, and a click lit the room up beyond the floor lamp. I turned to see Yorick on his feet, one hand halfway up towards a hanging bulb that was gently swinging. He turned to me with a bored look. A smile spread over his face, completely devoid of piercings. In fact, any bit of skin I could see was clean. No tattoos. No metal. From what I could see, he didn't even have earrings in. How was this guy a tattoo artist? His voice snapped me out of my thoughts. 

"So," he began. "You're Shay?" His voice was deep and purring. 

I slipped my jacket off, lowering my eyes. "Yeah... um. Nice to meet you." Once one arm was freed I held out my hand. He took hold and shook it rather firmly. Black nail polish. "Karen said you were doing my work for me today."

"That I am," said Yorick. He turned away from me and picked up a piece of paper from his clean workspace, along with a small clear box. I recognized the piercings I had selected and purchased a while ago inside. "So you're just here for your hips?"

"Yeah," I said.

Yorick looked up from his paper and smiled again. He replaced the paper on the desk, setting the piercing case aside and reaching for a blue box. "All right. Let's get that shirt off now."

"You don't want me to just lift it up?"

"It would be easier if it were off," he said.

Reluctantly I put my jacket aside on a nearby stool and slipped off my shirt. I found myself folding my arms over my chest as I turned back to Yorick. 

He looked up in the act of pulling on a pair of blue nitrile gloves, the cuffs snapping on his wrists. I watched a grin spread over his face. "What, are you a woman? Put your arms down, it's not like I've never seen a man's chest before. Unless you think you have something to hide."

I put my arms to my sides sullenly, thumbs digging into my pockets. Yorick walked over with a felt-tip pen and a small square packet, an iodine swab, which he unwrapped and wiped my stomach with. The sanitary aroma of iodine struck my nose. It always made me think of hospitals. The spots on my skin where he'd wiped turned pale orange. He stared thoughtfully at my midriff for a second before undoing the top button of my fly and tugging my jeans down a few inches. 

"What are you doing?" I demanded, yanking them back up.

He shook his head and tugged them down again. "Keep them here, please. It'll be easier to pierce and more comfortable afterwards when we pierce here, otherwise it'll be rubbing your waistband all day. Relax."

Right... Normal shit. I don't know why this person made me so nervous. Just because I couldn't stop thinking about how I had to bite my tongue to keep my noises coming out... I watched the path of his hand as he poked me with the felt-tip pen. He then had me turn around, now facing a floor-length mirror beside the door. "How's that look? Too high, too low, too close together?"

I looked at the blue dots on my stomach, marking the bones of my hips. Tiny little target marks.

"It looks fine," I mumbled. 

He stood up and turned me around again, ushering me forward. "Onto the table then, there's a good boy."

This really did feel like going into a bordello, I thought to myself as I awkwardly sat on the edge of the table and laid down. Or a massage parlor with a happy ending. I could imagine the same feeling of guilt, as if I were a wayward husband seeking pleasure with a fake name. Those feelings of shame had subsided with Emily, but now with this new, pretentious artist, I felt rotten. I felt dirty. I watched from the corner of my eye as Yorick pulled up a metal tray on wheels beside me and started unwrapping things. I kept my hands still by my sides, palms touching red leather.

"So, Shay, have you ever gotten a body piercing? Any that I can't see?" Yorick asked. 

"No," I replied. "Just my face."

"Well, it probably won't feel too different than your eyebrow, you'll find. Same technique." A clatter of metal on metal, a clicking noise. "Hip piercings. Weird place for a guy to get them, in my opinion. But I'm sure they'll look good. You seem to have fine taste in metal. Where shall we start?"

I was busy thinking of when I'd gotten my eyebrow done. Momentary pain, but wonderful. I felt my eyes flutter. "The left, please," I said quietly.

"All right then." A gentle brush of cold steel made my skin twitch. First the clamp... I was not ready for this. I hadn't prepared myself. My stomach clenched as Yorick slid the clamp into place and prepared to squeeze. My breath came short and fast. The metal hesitated.

"Shay?" Yorick patted my stomach, giving me a bit of a start. I looked up, vaguely aware of sweat forming at my hairline. "I'm going to need you to relax for me. It's not going to hurt as bad as you think. You know that."

I closed my eyes and laid my head back, my teeth grazing my bottom lip. "I'm not... afraid of it hurting," I muttered.

"Then relax."

The clamp found its mark, clipping my soft skin in a vice. I breathed in sharply. Light pain... Enough to give me the first stirrings of sensation... I felt my stomach twitching. Just a little at first, I thought. Go easy on me... And then make it hurt...

"All right now, Shay. I'm going to need you to take some deep breaths."

I nodded vaguely and swallowed. 

"So breathe in..."

I inhaled. Cold air flooded my body. My mouth opened. I felt my bottom lip quivering.

"And breathe out..."

My breath came out slowly. My hands were gripping the sides of the table. Please just do it...

"And breathe in again..."

The needle came without warning, as was intended. For a teenage girl getting this done, the technique was intended to lessen the pain. For me, it heightened every sense in me with its surprise. Its stinging drove through me ferociously, tearing skin from flesh in its path and leaving cold metal pressing against my heated insides. I clenched my teeth, my breath catching in my throat. My eyes squeezed tight, my spine trembling. Fuh... Not too much, not at first... that's it... 

"See, already done, look at that. Relax. You're fine," came Yorick's voice reassuringly.

Don't baby me... You have no idea what I'm feeling right now... Don't lessen my pain.

The hole in me twitched as Yorick threaded the piercing onto the needle. It dragged through my new orifice smoothly, the bead at the end tugging one side of the hole. I hissed through my teeth. The sensation was sending little waves through my belly like electricity. 

"And there's one," said Yorick smoothly. "Just one more to go. You gonna be all right?"

"Yes," I said through my teeth. I kept my eyes closed. I didn't want to leave my little bubble. My body had begun to filter endorphins through me. The pain was subsiding, just a light throb in my skin... Please, do the other...

The clamp pulled at the flesh of my hips, gripping my skin for another needle to go through. My hands tensed again. Yorick's fingers probed my belly, only serving to add to the sensation. I felt the tip of the needle prick my skin as it settled where the clamp was. Cold. Frigid metal. Bury it in me... 

"All right, breathe in again..."

I felt my body shivering as I inhaled slowly, my spine arching slightly away from the now warm leather.

"And out again..."

Just like before, the needle drove through without warning. I felt myself twitch with its presence, felt every millimeter of it rend my flesh open into a perfect, cold little hole, stinging sharply. Adrenaline ran through me like an electric current. My breath came out in a muted groan. My fingers trembled. 

To anyone else, I often thought, this must feel so mundane... I'm not even sure if this is a common feeling for other masochists... To feel the act of piercing as sex. I let myself fall into this figurative fantasy in my mind, the penetrating steel in my body becoming cold flesh inside my own... Stinging, gentle fuck. Ripping me open. Tearing inside me. Puncturing my insides. Shit...!

Yorick's voice came to me abruptly. "And you're all set. Have a look and tell me how it turned out."

What...? It's over already?

I sat up shakily, propped up on my elbows. Yorick was wiping my new metal-filled wounds with an alcohol pad, making the newly torn flesh sting. My hip bones were now defined by a double set of steel beads. These piercings... They hadn't hurt as badly as the industrial bar from the last time. It was a tease. I was left wanting... needing more. 

"Well?" Yorick prompted me. "Tell me what you think."

My mouth felt dry. I was still in the haze of pleasure from my stinging new holes. Pain still lingered in each puncture. I didn't want it to be over.

"Now, you'll want to take care of these the same way you took care of the rest of your piercings. You know the drill. You probably have the cleaning fluid at home, you use the same stuff. If you don't, we sell bottles here, as you know-"

"I want to get one more," I interrupted.

Yorick looked up at me in midsentence. His brow furrowed slightly, his face almost... puzzled? Amused? I couldn't tell... "One more?" he repeated. "I finished your work. You're done for the day. You paid for two hip piercings."

I felt my upper arms quaking as they held me off the table. "I want another one," I said firmly, my voice hollow. My mind was racing, my heart thudding against my ribs. "No, two... I'll pay, it doesn't matter, just do one -- two more."

Yorick shook his head and turned to his tray, putting used needles in a plastic bag. "I'll make you an appointment for another time. Talk to Karen--"

"Karen said you don't have any other appointments today," I said harshly. "And if I'm paying you for it, what does it matter? Just give me two more. Please." 

Yorick opened his mouth as if to argue back, but stopped. Finally he sighed and ran a latex-gloved hand around the back of his neck. "What piercings?" he asked resignedly. 

Inside my body begged, pleaded for a harsher punishment. I wanted one that would actually hurt, that would make me cry with pain. My eyes ran over my own body, flicking nervously here and there. Navel... too feminine. Too much skin for it to hurt. My clavicle... No, I didn't want that now. My tongue...? I had never wanted a tongue piercing; the lip one had already made it hard to talk normal... Finally I felt a manic grin plucking my lips up as I realized where I wanted the needle next. 

"My... I want my nipples pierced..."

I saw Yorick's eyebrows dart up for a second. Was that weird, to want this man to pierce my nipples...? No, I was just a client. Surely he'd done it for other people. He glanced at my chest for a moment, then gave a gentle jerk of his head. "Ring or barbell?" he asked.

He's going to do it... I felt my heart pounding. "... Rings."

"As you like."

Yorick stepped out of the room, the painted door swinging shut behind him. I was left alone with the throbbing holes in my belly. Dry blood had gathered around the base of each steel bead embedded in my new puncture wounds. I wanted so badly to pull on them and make myself cry out... I wasn't that stupid. Let them heal, Shay. Then you can torment your body all you like... 

The click of the opening door snapped me back to myself. Yorick was carrying a plastic packet, which he opened and spilled out onto his tray table. Two open rings and two captive beads. I watching him open another iodine swab. 

"All right, let's see here," he said with a sigh. His hand came to rest heavily on my chest, pushing me back onto the table. The swab went over each of my nipples. Cold. There was a moment of hesitation. "Man, these things don't want to perk up for me, do they. You're awfully soft." Latex fingernails pinched and plucked at my flesh. Then it turned to flicking. I winced, shuddering. That felt weird as fuck... "Sorry about this." Nothing to apologize for... They had to be stiff to pierce through. I lifted my head enough to watch my nipples peaking under his fingers, the skin tightening in protest to its teasing. "Just lie down, you'll see when it's done." Obediently I let my head fall back again.




Hematoma Ch. 02



The clamp came down again, right side. My eyes squeezed shut, my body tensing up again. Even just that heavy pinching felt good... I wanted him to pull, to twist, make it hurt with just that. But no, I still needed that needle in me... 

"All right, try not to breathe..." 

He didn't even bother to finish that last word before the needle went through. Static pain flickered through my body as if I were short-circuiting. My stomach tightened. My ribs felt as if they were clamping onto my lungs. I let out my breath in a short howl and gritted my teeth. 

Yorick's reassurance didn't come this time, only a breathy sort of hissing noise. Maybe I was annoying him. The thoughts in my mind were punctuated by stings and burning. I became deafened to the man over me with the needle. All that mattered was this... One moment, one burst of pain, and the afterglow of it all... It felt so good...

"Shay, you're all done."

His words came to me as if through a fog, and I drunkenly sat up, trying to focus as I examined the new metal in my chest. Little silver droplets caught on shining circles impaled my sensitive, pinked tissue. My body tingled with heat. I felt a smile tugging at my mouth, and a small laugh crawling up my throat. "Looks..." I was about to comment on the work, on my new artist's skill, when I realized there had been a side-effect to the pain. My unbuttoned jeans, pulled down just enough to give access to the flesh of my hips, were cradling a powerful erection. 

The smile that had been creeping up on me became a horrified grimace and I pulled my knees up to my chest without thinking. Hesitantly I looked up to see if Yorick had noticed.

Yorick's fist was up at his mouth and he had a stony look about his eyes, which he averted slowly as they locked with mine. I watched his shoulders twitch upwards as if he were stifling a laugh. He'd seen it. My face burned.

"I'll be at the counter then, Shay," Yorick said with a smile, giving me a hard pat on the back... reassuring me? "Take your time."

I sat frozen on the leather table as Yorick stepped out and clicked the door behind him, leaving me alone in his small, red-stained workroom. 'Take your time?' What did he think I was going to do, masturbate alone in his room? My horror-stricken face hardened into a pout, and then softened into misery. I let my head fall onto my knees. I had let someone, a stranger, see me at my weakest. At my most shameful. I felt my excitement ebbing, felt the blood returning where it was needed in me. The seam in my jeans stopped straining. Even with it gone, I wanted to cry. I was steeped in humiliation. But the longer I sat there, I thought, the more Yorick might actually think I had decided to relieve my tension. It was the last thing I wanted. I sat up and shook myself out of my pity, redid my fly, and located my discarded shirt. The tissues on Yorick's table were going to go unused, and I wanted him to know that was the case.

~

I counted bills at the counter with my face tucked down. Yorick's clean white elbows were just barely in my peripheral on the heavily decorated desktop. Without a word I placed a wad of paper on top of the sign-in sheet and mumbled a word of assent. 

Yorick's fingers dragged the money out of my vision, and I heard the rustle of paper flipping through them. I turned and started putting on my jacket, barely paying attention as he went silent. 

"Shay, hold on a second," he started. 

I didn't look up. I couldn't. "What's up?"

He tapped me on the shoulder with the money. "This is too much," he said. "The cost of your piercings was a hundred. You've given me two. Count it again."

I hesitated. "I didn't miscount."

"You sure? I counted-"

"Keep it," I grunted. "Your tip. Just keep it."

When he went silent again, I couldn't help but glance up. Yorick's expression was not one of surprise, nor of guilt. It was bemusement. He stood on the other side of that counter with his chin on his fist, folded bills between his fingers. At length he spoke again. "Is this a prostitution fee?" he purred. 

My upper lip twitched and I instantly regretted the tip. But I did not retract my action. "No... You earned it," I muttered. "I asked for more than you were signed on for, and you took me on from another artist. Your work was good. Keep the tip, give it to Karen, I don't fucking care. I don't want it."

Behind him, Karen had not heard our exchange. I was glad she hadn't. Before Yorick could reply I had turned and walked out, with the radio dying behind me as I stepped back into the chilled city air. Prostitution fee, he had said. Is this a fucking joke to you? Like it was you who gave me a hardon? Don't flatter yourself. I was angry with his jest. It wasn't something to joke about, not with me. But my anger gave way to shame again. I imagined he was already telling Karen about what had happened. It had never happened with Em. I had never been so... Was aroused the word? The words stuck to my lips as I walked home. Arousal. Excitement. Stimulation. I had become so stimulated my body reacted to it in the most private of ways, in full view of another man. Why? Well of course, I thought. My body is far more sensitive to piercing than my face; of course it was more stimulating. But it wouldn't happen again. It would never happen again. 

Ugh, but the tip! I was already regretting it. I wanted to run back in there and snatch my hard-earned money out of his nailpolished hands. Maybe punch him in the face while I was at it. There went my fucking groceries, and for what? 

I hope you buy yourself a nice fat dildo with that tip money, Yorick. Shove it in your uppity little ass!



Hematoma Ch. 03



As I returned home from Inkjet, my angry and shameful thoughts began to fade from me. My cotton shirt brushed at my newly punctured nipples, and the waistband of my jeans rubbed at my studded waist. I flung my jacket onto a dining chair and dragged my feet to my tiny living room.

My apartment was nothing special. The living room and kitchen were the same room separated by two feet of protruding wall and a threshold between carpet and tile, both of which were dingy and stained. The carpet under my feet, which had once long ago been some shade of beige, was a coffee-stain brown and had been trampled to a threadbare floor. A small bathroom lay behind the door right beside my front entryway, and my bedroom door sat in the living room. My home was a square. But it was home.

I threw myself onto the futon couch in the living room that had once served as my bed. I still kept a blue bedsheet on it, as the fabric underneath was stained just like every upholstered thing I owned. The coffee table between me and my tube TV was ringed all over from a lack of coasters. Here and there I still saw ash specks on the wood from friends who smoked. Friends who hadn't visited in months. Every time I saw the state of my apartment I got the urge to clean it. But of course, I never would. I had a staring contest with a white ring on the table. The ring won and I closed my eyes, sinking further onto the futon. Back to the self-pity.

I was slowly beginning to realize I was not sad or angry because Yorick had seen me get hard over a piercing. No, there was more to it than that. It was because this was something I had to keep to myself. It was something I could never share with someone. It was a pleasure that no one would ever indulge me. Just me, stabbing and burning myself while I masturbated alone in my filthy, tiny apartment. Alone. It was depressing. 

Pathetic. 

But was I really the only person with these desires? I have to find a better outlet, I thought. I can't keep using the tattoo parlor like it's my porn shop. Poor Karen for putting up with a sad fuck like me. I rolled over on the futon and slid further until I was lying on my side with my feet splayed out under the coffee table. What did Karen think of me? She knew a little bit about me. She knew that I got turned on by her workers' skilled needles, cradling ink and metal through my skin. I had revealed this to her ages ago, when I finished my eyebrow piercing with my face red and my tongue lolling out.

"It's interesting," she had said simply. "You've got nothing to be ashamed of, Shay. Come by anytime. We'll take care of you. Just don't make a mess on the floor."

Her teasing had relaxed the tension that lingered, and she, Em, and I had had a good laugh over it. The two of them had become my support, the only two who knew my dark secret. With Em gone, Karen was the only one... Stupid bitch Em. Why did she leave without telling me? 

And I began to think more about the horrid thought that had haunted me. What if Em and Karen had never really accepted this about me? What if, after my sessions under Em's needle, she simply went and shared stories with Karen and they just had a good laugh about the freak who got so aroused about getting ink done? I felt a sharp pain in my chest, and my eyes squeezed tight.

Then there was Yorick. I didn't know what to make of his reaction to me. Had he been laughing? He was amused, probably telling Karen what happened and talking about his 'prostitution fee'. 

But why did I care what some pseudo-goth asshole thought about me? Deep down, wasn't I the one who was hardest on myself for my predilection? 

I need to get out more. 

The living room darkened as the sun drifted down behind the Philly skyline. I lazily stretched an arm up and groped for the switch on my lamp. Yellow light flickered into the room. My last thought lingered. I did need to get out more. Staying indoors and rotting wasn't good for me. With a groan I lifted myself off the futon and ruffled my hair with a lazy hand. It had been forever since I'd done the social thing away from my friends. Tonight, I thought, was as good a night as ever. 

~

At nine PM, I was on the street. I had changed into a cropped black tank, fingerless gloves, and my only pair of black cyber boots for the night. There weren't many places I considered for my outings. Coffee shops, mostly, or the occasional bar with my friends. Tonight I was headed for my local club. A bit of bass-heavy electronic music was sure to do wonders for my mood. 

I had two great pleasures in life. Pain was my first, but aside from my body modification, it was bedroom-restricted. My other passion was dance. Not to say I was skilled. My "dancing" looked out of place anywhere but a club, but there was something about the rush I got going all-out on a dark and flashing dance floor. No matter how stupid I might have looked.

I was greeted at the door by a man in a black shirt who checked my unused driver's license and waved me through. My usual club was never a popular rave spot, thank god, so there was a pleasant lack of glowsticks and ecstasy addicts. That being said, it was still colorful. My fellow patrons sported dyed hair and neon clothing, or were otherwise dressed in metal and black outfits like I was. Even just barely in the door, the buzz of voices and the thudding of music were almost deafening. The front hall split into two stairways and I immediately took the upper one that went straight into the dance pit. 

I was met by an enormous crowd of people jumping up and down rhythmically in place of dancing to a pounding, electronic crash of noise. Strobe lights and a rainbow of flood lamps flashed overhead, staining the patrons different colors as they moved. It was the same scene every time I visited. 

In another minute I had squeezed myself into the throng and discovered a spot with enough room to do my thing. And I danced. No grace, no style, no technique. My feet followed the rhythm of the electric song as always, and I let go. The beat of the music penetrated my ribs and formed a second heartbeat, pounding in my lungs. My muscles grew hot and my skin beaded with sweat. My tall boots scuffed the floor beneath me. If ever I looked up I would have caught the eye of an onlooker cheering me, a girl tossing her hair beside me with her arms over her head, another dancer mimicking my movements. Lactic acid beat through the fiber of my body. It was another kind of pain altogether. Where piercing was sex, the thrill and ache of dancing brought out a soreness in me that felt wonderful and rough. I was drenched with perspiration. My exposed skin sparked under the strobe lights. My shame in front of Yorick dripped out of me with my sweat, the day's events gone. I at last had reached the wonderful feeling I craved, straining my muscles to move as they were never intended to. 

~

Half an hour later I was panting and worn out. My adrenaline was spent for the time being, and my throat was dry and oddly cold. Water, I thought faintly. I managed to fight my way back to the stairs and down the set on the right where the lower part of the club lay. Upstairs was the thronging dance floor. Down here was a pleasant room with a hardwood floor, scattered with leather chairs and a soothingly dim light. Patrons here took to the cozier wood dance floor with much less craze and abandon, some grinding and others merely moving back and forth with friends surrounding. A pair of television screens played accompanying videos to match the music. 

I swaggered to the bar still panting softly and ordered a bottle of water (three dollars), wiping sweat from my studded brow. My hand was shaking as I lifted the bottle to my lips and tipped water down my throat. It wasn't freezing cold, but refreshing enough to bring me back to life just a bit.

As I raised the bottle again, I felt something brush against the bare skin of my left arm. 

"Hey," said a voice over the music. Were they talking to me?

I looked up to see I had been joined at the bar by a guy about my age with a shock of violet hair. He was surprisingly dark-skinned, with a heart-shaped face covered in makeup: black lipstick and bright purple eyeshadow around green eyes. He was decked out in a black band shirt and skinny jeans with boots like mine, except his were white and neon green. Around his slim forearms were a number of silicone bracelets with numerous bands and creeds on them. He gave me a little wave, grinning and showing white teeth.

"I saw you upstairs," he said loudly. "Hard to miss that hair of yours. Like a ghost," he added, nodding at my bleached white fringe. "You dance like a madman. Pretty hot."

"Ah... thanks," I said with half a smile, taking another sip of my water. 

"I'm Jade," he said with an outstretched hand. I took it in my own and shook, feeling lukewarm sweat under my palm. "What's your name, beautiful?"

He's gay. Not that it bothered me. I had kind of figured. "Shay," I replied. 

I got another flash of teeth. "Sweet name," he commented.

How am I supposed to reply to that? I thought. Thanks, I guess? But I kept silent, only nodding a little. 

When I looked up again, Jade was waving to get the bartender's attention. "Long island iced tea," he said loudly, a moment before slinging his arm over my shoulder. "And one for my friend!" 

Friend, huh. That was fast. Free booze, though. Can't argue with it. I started draining my water as we waited for the drinks.

"Hope you don't mind," Jade added as I finished my water off.

I choked on the last drops of my drink and shook my head, eyes watering. "No, of course not."

"It's just, y'know..." He gave an awkward grin and pushed his fingers through the violet mess on his scalp. "It's not often I find someone like you. I just knew I had to talk to you, just got this feeling, like... Holy shit, I'm gonna miss out." He laughed. 

Two drinks had appeared in front of us as he spoke, and money was exchanged. My now cooled fingers wrapped around the glass of ice and amber drink, complete with a sliver of lemon. I had never ordered a drink at this club before. 

We both lifted our drinks, and Jade flashed me another crooked grin. "Cheers," he said, clinking his glass against mine and drinking deeply. I followed suit, taking a gulp of my own drink. It was sweet, refreshing, and stung lightly with the cocktail of hard liquor within it. After that first gulp I set it back down, but Jade had polished off half the glass already. Damn, this guy can drink. Or maybe he was downing liquid courage to do whatever it was he was planning to do in the first place when he came up to me.

"So," Jade said finally, having replaced his own drink on the bar and swiveled in his seat to face me. His eyes were alight with a youthful sparkle.

"You here alone?"

"Yeah," I replied with a short laugh. "Yeah, I just come here to dance... Take my mind off things, I guess,"

"That's cool," he said, and he sounded like he meant it. "You move really well. So... Is it just on your feet?"

I had just taken another gulp of alcohol and choked into my drink at these words, laughing. Did he really just imply what I thought he did? "I... I wouldn't know..." 

"No?" he said in disbelief. "Wait, a guy like you? Seriously?" He shook his head and took another swig of booze. "I dunno, I thought you were... You look it."

"Look what?"

"Like you get approached by a lot more people than just me. You don't?"

I thought, taken aback. "No," I said truthfully. "No, not at all..."

Jade shook his head again. He brought the glass to his lips as he looked up at me to speak. "It's that crazy white hair," he said knowingly, taking a drink. "Ghost. Maybe you pass under the radar."

I laughed and drank deeply from my glass. This guy... He was trying too hard to compliment me. But somehow I didn't mind. It felt good... Felt normal. I was being flirted with. 

Upon seeing that my glass was empty, Jade looked to the bar with a grin. "Hey, bartender... Another couple of these, please!"

"Another couple of these" later and Jade had dragged me back up to the dance floor. My head spun pleasurably from drink and my new companion's infectious demeanor. The thudding of the music in my chest matched my newly heightened heartbeat, and I soon followed Jade in an exhilarated dance. His violet hair tossed in the strobe light, his feet shuffling rhythmically beneath him and arms outstretched. I matched his movements, laughing at our drunken attempts at club dancing. 

Within minutes he had moved to grinding on me, his hips pushing against my thigh, one arm wrapping about my waist. My body tingled with excitement. This felt different... It felt good. I returned his motions. Our hips soon pushed against each other's, Jade daring to bring his lips close enough to graze my cheek with a breathy laugh to my ear. His hand went over my chest, lingering on the new rings in my nipples that stuck through the shirt. God... That felt good. 

And then in a blur his lips were on mine, awkwardly clashing in the heat of our movements. I tasted the bland tang of lipstick, felt something strange and pleasurable against my tongue -- his own had a stud through it. This was what this kind of thing felt like, I thought dizzily, as his fingers delved into the ghost-white hair he liked. This was... Incredible. 

~

A few hours of dancing and several more drinks later, and I was staggering home, with my arm around Jade's sweaty shoulders as I laughed nonsensically. He held his liquor better than I did, though I'd been guzzling to banish fear. Well, fear was gone now. I pushed my face awkwardly into Jade's neck, and he struggled to hold me up, laughing at my loss of motor function. It was all I could do to lead him to my home. 

We did eventually make it, the two of us soused and aroused by each other. I felt Jade's lips on my neck even as I clumsily unlocked the door, and we both stumbled into the doorway in a fit of grins and drowsy groping. 

"Jade, stop," I mumbled, smiling and biting back laughter. He ignored me, seizing my lips in his again, and again. Our jackets came off in the tangle of hands and fell in a heap.

"Where's your bedroom?" he asked quietly, teasing the collar of my shirt.

We both staggered to what passes for a bedroom in my house -- Jade seemed contentedly oblivious to the state of my home, and wasn't even bothered by the banging of the metal bedstand against the wall when we fell entangled onto my bed. He pinned me below him with his mouth, sucking at my bottom lip as he kicked off his boots with difficulty and bid me to work on mine. With some chagrin I managed to reach down and undo the straps on my boots, pushing them off my feet with my toes one by one off the bed, where they clunked onto the floor beside Jade's white ones. 

And then came the shirts, and the jeans, each of us grinning unabashedly as we took it in turn to dig at each other's waistbands in desperation to strip ourselves. Despite the numerous Long Island iced teas, I had managed to avoid whiskey-dick and, with a satisfied gasp, I quickly saw that Jade did not suffer either. Even in my stupor, though, something came to mind -- was he "safe"? I hadn't bought condoms... But my fears didn't last long; Jade had retrieved a foil square from his wallet and was ripping it open with fevered gusto. 

Oh -- right, lube, I thought. Liquor stimulated an inappropriate giggle from me as I rolled onto my stomach on the bed and reached for the box at my bedside; the same box that housed needles and knives held a bottle of lubricant that usually only knew my hand. Jade's spindly hands were caressing my back. I moaned out and lifted the bottle of lube from the box, my teeth at my bottom lip. Jade's fingers ran the length of my arm and took the lube bottle from me, leaving shivers in his wake. 

"You ready?" Jade slurred, and I heard a note of amusement in his voice. 

I laughed in return and nodded. "Oh god, yeah..."

I struggled to my knees on the bed in order to lift my ass into a better position, crossing my arms underneath my head. Cold lube hit my back end and I gave a gasp of surprise. Jade's fingers followed, clumsily slipping in and out of me one and two at a time, and without warning or hesitation I felt the tip of his cock pushing at me in fingers' absence. 

I groaned, shuddering as the sting of unfamiliar penetration ripped through me. How long had it even been? Jade filled me slowly, his hands now gripping my sides for support. His bony hips met mine and slowly, slowly the stinging left me... The wonderful stinging of my muscles ripping to accommodate something inside me... 

I missed it.

Jade started to move. Slowly, slowly dragging in and out, and then faster, his breath increasing with his pace. My stomach juddered with sensation, and I held my hips steady as he beat against them. "God, Shay," he gasped between breaths. "You're fucking tight, man..."

Tight... This felt pretty good... But as time passed and Jade continued to piston into me, I realized that this wasn't enough.

I wanted more.

More.

But what could I do? The pain of first penetration had left me long ago. In desperation I lifted my fist to my mouth and bit down hard. 

My nerves sparked to life again, pain spiking through my knuckles as I forced my teeth into them. I dragged my canines across the skin, further sending sensation ripping through my arm. The feeling echoed in my core and resonated to my own pulsing sex, egged on by Jade fucking me. Oh god, this felt amazing... But I had gotten a taste for the pain, and it wasn't enough.

In drunken stupor, in ecstatic fervor, I tore my hand from my jaw and went for the box next to the bed, still within arm's reach. My groping fingers met a piece of metal and I seized it. 

And I regretted -- and was grateful for -- doing so. 

What I had grabbed was a steel box cutter -- I knew it by its familiar grip. But I had to have left the blade out last time, elongated and deadly, and the sharpened steel had sunk itself into the soft flesh of my fingers. The pain of it shot through me like a bullet, and a shiver ran the length of my body and pooled in my belly. I gasped, eyelids fluttering. Fuck, that felt good! Unthinking, I pulled the box cutter out, feeling wet blood under my fingers, and with quaking hands I dragged the tip of the blade across my forearm. 

I moaned out loud, feeling icy pain where the blade skated. I felt my warm blood sliding over my skin, and my arm shook as the pain pulsed back to my core, spreading through me as if a fuse had been lit. The sensation hit me hard. I was pushed over the edge, groaning in pleasure as my body tightened and I let loose. I was racked with orgasm, shuddering hard, splattering the sheets beneath me -

"What the FUCK are you doing!?"

Jade's voice threw me back to earth again. I rolled onto my side in a panic, looking up at the man with the violet hair who was looking back at me as if I had just vomited scorpions, long since withdrawn from me in a fevered rage. I saw his eyes flick to mine, then to my arm and hand splashed with blood. 

"What do you think you're doing!?" he shouted. "What the fuck -- why are you -" At a loss for words, he shook his head furiously and leapt from the bed, gathering up his clothes.

"No -- No, wait, Jade, wait a second!" I sputtered, scrambling up after him. I staggered, my arm and my hand still throbbing with pain. "Wait, listen to me, please!"

"Do I even want to know?" he spat back at me. He stumbled into his jeans and shot an almost sickened look at me over his shoulder. "Fuck this, man, I'm not sticking my dick in crazy..."

"I'm not crazy -- Listen to me, please, don't go..." 

"Fuck you!"

Jade stomped his boots on and struggled into his shirt, a look of pure disgust drawn over his face like a mask... Like a different man than the one I had brought into my home. I followed him to the door, at a loss for what to say, only looking desperately through my thoughts for something, anything, to say. 




Hematoma Ch. 03



"Jade, please..."

The door was thrown wide and Jade looked at me once more, his face contorted still in that way. "You need help," he said bitterly. "You're fucking sick. Don't come after me."

I stood there in the wake of the slamming door. My ears rung from the abrupt silence that fell over my home. And then, as my blood still dripped onto the linoleum landing, the elation that I had felt earlier that night was replaced by the sullen unfeeling cold that usually filled me. Ah... Right. I had to clean these wounds. 

I dragged myself to the bathroom and turned on the cold water in the sink, sticking both arms under the spigot. The basin filled with marbled pink liquid, and slowly my skin turned from red to unstained white. 

But as I turned the water off and watched as the cuts began to weep once more into the water droplets on my arms, I wondered if it was even worth bandaging them. Why had I done this? Why had I ruined the only normal night I'd had in years? 

I sank onto the bathroom tile and wrapped my soaking arms around my bare knees.

And wept.



Hematoma Ch. 04



Life became normal that week. If my life could be normal. My fellow boxpushers at the warehouse teased at the new swath of bandages on my hand and arm as I sat working the box tie machine. 

"What'd you do, Shay?" laughed my supervisor.

"Oh you know... Damn cat got to me again," I said lightly. 

"What breed, a fucking tiger?"

But beyond that, no questions were asked. This might have been the only job I could get where my injuries were never a cause for concern unless they interfered with my work. I had never been able to hold a job in retail because of my constant bandaging and the increasing number of piercings in my face and tattoos on my arms. 

I got off work that day at just past noon, having gone in early in the morning. My exhaustion had just set in from the long hours and, as I changed back into my street clothes in the staff room, I desperately needed a pick-me-up. 

My favorite coffee shop was a dozen or so blocks east of the warehouse, which sat by the Delaware river. Walking or biking was the easiest way to get around the city, and I favored walks. Those dozen blocks would give me time to think about what I'd been putting off for the last couple of days.

The incident with Jade had left me feeling numb. For a few hours after he left, I had felt... inhuman. I felt like a monster. My wounds had already started to scab by the time I decided to bandage them up. After draining my tears, I stopped feeling or caring. I shoved the "toybox" far under my bed, ashamed of myself and no longer wanting this part of my life to be in me. 

Why, why did I have to be like this? Why was I given this predilection? I began to hate myself for it again. I didn't leave the house for anything but work that week, and this trip to the coffee house was the first venture into society I had undertaken since the club. The club wouldn't be happening again. I had promised that to myself. With sadness I promised I would never go again.

Why did I have to have this thing inside me that made me give everything up? My friends, my love life, my sex life, my social life. Everything was disappearing because of my sexual addiction to pain. 

I reached the coffee shop in a half-hour's brisk walk, a tiny place on the edge of South Street with wide glass windows and a very earthy interior. A bell chimed above me as I pushed the door open and strode to the counter. I ordered only a coffee, with cream and sugar. 

Having sat myself at a table near the back of the shop, still next to one of the wide windows, I slipped off my wool coat and sighed, letting my eyes flutter closed for a moment. Only half past noon and this day felt like it had taken forever. Every day was an eternity now. I righted myself in my seat and wrapped my hand around the white ceramic cup, savoring its warmth that seemed to bring life back to my body. I emptied my mind and watched passersby from the window, hipsters on their single-speed bikes and men in suits coming and going somewhere. 

As I took a sip of my coffee and continued watching the sidewalk, a passerby in a black hooded jacket walked into my view.

And he stopped.

I paused with the coffee cup halfway up to my mouth for another sip, and watched as the man turned his head and met my eyes beneath the hood of that jacket, zip-up hoodie beneath black leather, and my heart dropped into my stomach as I recognized their gaze through the aviator sunglasses. 

It was Yorick.

I sat open-mouthed and wondering why he had stopped and looked at me, when he turned his head forward and kept walking. My breath released. Just a coincidence... He was just walking by. But why had he even looked at me?

The bell over the door tinkled cheerfully again. It couldn't be...

But there he was. Yorick sauntered past the counter and directly towards me, his long legs taking their long strides in heavy leather boots that clunked loudly on the wood floors. One hand was buried in the pocket of his aging leather jacket, the other lowering the hood from his face and unleashing that sheet of inky hair. The sunglasses followed suit, folded and tucked into the collar of a gray t-shirt under his jacket. Finally his boots thudded to a stop in front of my table, with Yorick smirking down at me with a strangely knowing sparkle in his eyes. 

"Hello, Shay," he said smoothly. "What a coincidence meeting you here."

I finally managed to get my mouth closed and looked from him to my barely-drunk coffee. "Uh... yeah, Yorick, right?"

He smiled wider, his eyes narrowing. "This is a nice little shop. I'm going to fetch myself a drink. Do you mind if I sit with you?"

"Um... n-no, go ahead."

"Thank you."

Yorick turned on his heel and walked back to the counter, leaving me in a panic. What was this asshole doing here? Why had he walked in after seeing me sitting in the window? What, to come and ridicule me again? To get more money out of me for another piercing? Or was he here, possibly, to try and make me feel better about the whole thing? No way. That didn't seem like his style. In any case, he had followed me in here. This was not a coincidence, no matter what he said. 

In the midst of my thoughts, Yorick returned with what seemed to be a miniature version of my own coffee cup. A shot of espresso... Completely black. I hadn't seen him add sugar. That was his taste? He drew out the metal chair with a scrape and sat down gracefully, crossing his legs under the table. His jacket remained on. 

"So," he began, as thin steam curled from his espresso cup, "It's been a while, hm? I thought you'd call for another appointment."

I took a gulp of my coffee, trying not to meet his eyes. "Yeah, well... I don't really have the money now."

"I'd imagine, with that healthy tip I received."

This again... I sank my eyes into my coffee cup indignantly. How dare he bring this up... 

"You're transparent."

"Huh?" I looked up blankly. Yorick's eyes danced with amusement... Pale gray eyes I hadn't noticed before. 

"I can tell what you're thinking," he elaborated, lifting the espresso cup to his lips. He took a long, slow sip of black liquid before continuing. "I am not admonishing you, Shay. I know you did it because you felt like you had inconvenienced me, or made me uncomfortable somehow. I'm going to tell you that isn't the case."

My insides flared. "Why can't you... Just take it and shut up already?" I spat. "Who cares why I want to pay you extra for something? Why even keep harping on it?"

Yorick shook his head with a sigh and swirled his espresso in the cup. "Because it's clearly bothering you. I felt a need to clear the air. That's all." He turned his eyes to me again. "Isn't it you who's harping on it?"

Me? Was I? I averted my eyes from his and took another drink of coffee. Maybe a little... I hated him somehow for seeing me at my weakest. But somehow... I hated him more for barely reacting. Maybe it would have been easier to deal with if he had laughed out loud, if he had recoiled in disgust just like -- I shook my head. I didn't want to think about Jade... Please don't...

"Everything all right, Shay?"

Yorick's voice brought me back to earth. I nodded mutely. 

I saw him raise his eyebrows at me as I finally looked up. "You don't have to be embarrassed about what happened, Shay." He lifted the espresso cup thoughtfully, looking sideways out the window. "To be quite honest, I was fascinated."

What...? My heart climbed a few inches in my chest, crowding my lungs. 

"You were... Fascinated?"

"Well, yes," he admitted with a shrug, taking a sip of espresso. "It isn't every day I see such a display on my table. Watching you react to the needles was... How to put this." He set the tiny cup down, gray eyes lifted to the ceiling before dropping down to my own. "Erotic?"

Erotic... What was he saying? Was this the same man who had pierced my hips, who had told me to wait for another piercing before giving in to my demands for rings in my nipples? I felt for those same rings, still healing, unconsciously. That word, erotic... It dropped all sense of business between us. I drained my coffee and promptly choked on it. 

"Shay?" Yorick said with a laugh, leaning forward in his seat as I spluttered. "For fuck's sake, don't die on me."

"I'm fine," I gasped, grasping at my shirt collar. "Just... why did you..."

"It's the truth," he chuckled. "Do you always react that way to... What were you reacting to? Needles? Is that it?"

I paused, fixing my eyes on Yorick's tiny cup instead of Yorick himself. Could I even tell him this? I didn't feel safe exposing this part of myself to Yorick... But when I lifted my eyes to his, that discomfort was snuffed out without warning. Yorick's eyes, those calm and cool eyes like rain-stained clouds... No, I felt safe. Why had I even questioned it?

"It's... Pain," I said quietly. "I'm into pain..."

Yorick's pale lips parted in slight surprise, eyebrows lifted. "You enjoy being hurt?" he mused. "Unusual. There's a word for that, isn't there?" A smile spread across his face and his eyes darkened. "A masochist?" The word hissed from him like steam, caressed between those lips. My eyes couldn't tear away. I kept following the lines of his angular face; his high cheekbones, his sharp jawline, his heavy and shadowed eyelids... Why was I so entranced by him...?

Yorick finished off his espresso and replaced the cup on the table with a small clinking sound. His eyes fell to my own cup. "A refill?" he prompted. "My treat."

I retrieved my voice from somewhere just above my stomach. "No," I croaked. I cleared my throat and tried again. "No thanks... I had enough." 

Yorick sat back in his seat, still smiling. I took the opportunity to finally speak. "Why are you fascinated by this?" I asked, pushing my elbows onto the table. "It's... I mean, it's not normal. Other people don't do this. It's not like, you know, BDSM or something like that, it's not ropes and handcuffs. That shit, even married couples try it out. But this is -"

"You're harder on yourself than you need to be," Yorick said calmly. "No, it's not 'normal' by the standards of society, in all things a taboo. But what's wrong with that? I am fascinated. And I'm more fascinated with the medium in which you indulge this pleasure of yours -- my medium. Although..." He reached forward and traced a painted fingernail over the bandage around my hand that stuck out from the sleeve of my shirt. I pulled my hand back nervously, flushing. Yorick met my eyes again. "You don't only use the parlor to do this, do you? You do other things."

Maybe I was transparent... I swallowed and lowered my eyes to the table. Yorick seemed to see right through me... But anyone could have made that connection to my bandage if they knew, couldn't they? 

"Don't look ashamed of it."

I lifted my head and sighed. I wanted to get away from this subject. "So... were you in the area today or something?"

Yorick smiled. "Just out to get some fresh air, I suppose."

I looked him up and down mildly, remembering the hood over his head and the aviator sunglasses -- and having just noticed the leather gloves on his hands. "Fresh air in that getup?"

He laughed and glanced at his own gloves, shaking his head. "Just enough fresh air. It's been getting rather cold lately. But no... I wasn't stalking you." He had answered my unspoken question. "I try not to keep holed up in my home when I'm not working. I fancied a short walk and -- what do you know, I see your bleached mug in a coffee shop window. I simply decided I couldn't pass you by."

I kept silent. How could I respond to that? 

"What it comes down to is this," Yorick continued. "I would like to do more work for you."

At this I finally looked up again. "More work?" "Yes," said Yorick. "Tattoos, piercings, whatever you like. If you consent, you would be my canvas, to do with as I please. You set down your limits and I will paint you with ink and metal as much as I want. Oh, and of course, I wouldn't ask you to pay for any of it."

The thought of this was making my spine tingle. To be under Yorick's needle constantly? To be a 'canvas'? I wondered what Yorick's work was like, his artistry. "But... why, though?"

"Why?" Yorick repeated, his lips bending into an amused, yet restricted smile. "Because I have never seen someone like you. And I would like to play with that very unusual and receptive body of yours."

Yorick's words dripped like honey and stung like acid, and stole the breath from my lungs as they fell. Each syllable seemed to be caressed and fondled by his tongue before hitting my ears, and each seemed to strike at my insides like the plucking of a violin string. Could a voice feel like this? Could mere words make my body resonate in this way? Something strange had come over me. At last my dry throat found the strength to respond. 

"I barely know you," I said. "We've met all of twice now."

"Then get to know me," said Yorick simply. He crossed his arms and lounged back in his seat. "I'm not going anywhere. So please, go ahead."

The strange sensation in my body at Yorick's words disappeared as suddenly as it had come on. I shook myself lightly and cleared my throat, seeking a question. "So... Yorick -"

"Ricky."

"Huh?"

"You may call me Ricky," said Yorick. "Karen started doing it ages ago and I'm rather fond of it."

I remembered Karen's nickname as well. "Well... Yeah, I guess Yorick is kind of a weird name, right? It's like, European or something, isn't it?"

"Scandinavian," supplied Yorick, hence now Ricky. 

"Are you from there?"

"Originally. A long, long time ago."

The finality with which he said it made me think Ricky didn't like discussing his origins. When he spoke I had detected the faintest trace of an unidentifiable accent, and never really thought about it -- was that the Scandinavian coming out? But I left it at that. "So... How old are you anyway?"

Ricky's eyes flicked to the ceiling for a moment before settling back to mine. "Twenty-nine," he replied. 

"Oh... I'm twenty-six." Damn, but he looked good for almost thirty. "How long have you been a tattoo artist?"

Ricky chuckled. "Now that's a question, isn't it... Let's see... I believe I started apprenticing at twenty-three, and I've been doing it professionally since twenty-four, so five years would be about right."

"You only apprenticed for a year?" I laughed softly and shook my head. "Are you really that good?"

"Yes," Ricky said bluntly. 

Huh. Was that confidence or conceit? I still didn't know how I felt about Ricky's arrogance. "What made you wanna do it?"

Ricky looked contemplative. "What indeed," he mused. "I suppose it's the idea of creating a permanent piece of art on skin. Other artists have work that hangs on walls and draws eyes on occasion, but tattoos become part of a person. Not to mention..." He chuckled and looked at me darkly. "I am somewhat your opposite."

My opposite? "What do you mean?"

Ricky's eyes glimmered. "You enjoy receiving pain, don't you? Well... I enjoy giving it."

I felt the air leave my lungs again. "So... you're a sadist?" "Is that what you call it?" He glanced out the window, eyes squinted against the muted light coming from just beyond the awnings. "Fascinating, for there to be a word for it. Sadist," he repeated, and his tongue stroked each syllable with a hiss that made its way down my own spine, just as the word 'masochist' had. "Lovely word, I think. Yes, I am a sadist." Ricky's head tossed back to face forward, his silky hair tumbling back over his shoulders. That thick, black hair like shimmering crow feathers, healthy and beautiful; compared to my crop of strawlike chemically ruined hair, it was perfection. 

And then something came back to me I'd been meaning to ask. "You... I mean, you like doing tattoos and stuff, right?" I asked. "Why don't you have any? Your skin is completely clean... I mean... Unless you have some that aren't... you know..."

Ricky smirked at my trailing words. "You mean, do I have tattoos that aren't visible?" he prompted. 

I nodded, looking away. 

"No, I don't," he said silkily. "My skin is indeed clear of any abrasion or ink, even my own work. As for why... They simply don't agree with me."

"You're allergic or... like, something like that?'

"Something like that."

It seemed to be an odd profession for someone who couldn't take tattoos. I felt like Ricky wasn't giving me the whole story. But, curious as I was, I figured I shouldn't pry. 

I glanced out the window. In the oncoming wintertime daylight changing, the sun was already starting to set. I pulled my phone out of my phone and checked the time... It was four in the afternoon. How long had I even been here with Yorick? I hurried from my seat. 

"Leaving?" asked Ricky, an eyebrow raised. 

I nodded. "I... should probably get going. It was nice to see you again."

"Likewise," he said. 

I started for the door, pulling my jacket back on, when that same voice stopped me.

"Shay."

Hesitantly I turned around, my hand on the door. Ricky had also gotten up, the clunking of his boots following me to where I stood. His mouth parted for a moment before closing again, looking me over. "What are you doing today?"

I stared at him blankly. "Uhm... Nothing, I guess... I was just going to go home..."

A smile spread over Ricky's face, his eyes sparkling again. "Come home with me," he said quietly. "I really would like to work on you."

Come home with him? This man, who I barely knew, who entranced me in a way I didn't understand, who knew and was fascinated by my addiction to pain; he wanted to take me home. 

And there was only one response for it all.

"Okay."



Hematoma Ch. 05



I went with Yorick to his home the same way I was headed to my own; on foot, in silence. He had donned the aviators again, leaving the hood of his jacket down as the sun dipped down below the roofs of buildings in front of us. The sidewalks were drenched in shadow and the late autumn chill swept over me as I followed Yorick's tall black boots. By the time we reached a long row of well-kept rowhomes on a pretty and quiet street, the sun had almost disappeared.

"You live here?" I asked, looking around. These rowhomes were all three story houses, and the rent here wasn't cheap, I knew that for a fact - I had tried to get an apartment here a few years back. They were tall, slender Americana homes made of brick with wrought-iron accents, all clean and well-kept, some sporting mini gardens beside their stoops.

Yorick looked back at me from the front door. "Of course," he replied. "Please, come in."

I did. And I was very nearly floored by the interior. I knew these rowhomes were nice, but none of them were THIS nice.

I felt as if I had just walked into an Ikea showroom. The floors were wood, of a very light color and with a slight shine to them, nary a scratch or speck of dust. A modular black leather sofa and two armchairs framed a polished glass and steel coffee table, which sat on a rug of some gray high-pile fiber. On the dark gray walls hung a number of paintings: some ink, some watercolor, others clearly original oil paintings which caught the light from the track lighting above. In the middle of the left wall was mounted a widescreen television, beneath which sat a credenza packed to the brim with leather CD cases.

"Come in, take your jacket off. Stay a while, won't you?" Yorick chuckled, having seen my open-mouthed reaction to this room. 

"This place is incredible," I said dryly, shoving my tongue back into my mouth. I looked around as I slipped my jacket off, then glanced at the CD cases in the TV console. "What's in those?"

"Movies," said Yorick simply, having already hung his coat by the door and collecting mine from my hand. His t-shirt was clinging to his muscled frame pleasantly, I saw. "I'm quite a movie buff, and when I ran out of room for my DVDs I moved onto these cases. Each one probably has fifty or so in it. I've built up quite a collection." 

I counted maybe twelve of these cases offhand... "That's a lot... Shit."

"Oh, that's nothing," he chuckled, returning to my side with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "I have a bookcase upstairs for my VHS tapes, and a VCR too. I couldn't give them up, I'm afraid. Too many to throw away."

"VHS?" I choked. "I seriously don't know anyone who still keeps VHS tapes, Ricky."

He gave me a grin. "There are some I simply can't give up. Very old, or very rare, or just my favorites. Do you remember when they had Titanic on a two-tape set?"

"You really have that? That's old as fuck."

"Yes, and nostalgic. I couldn't give it away. But we aren't watching movies tonight. Not right now, anyway. Come," he added, walking to a spiral staircase by a large archway, to what I assumed was the kitchen. "I want to bring you to my workroom."

Workroom? I wondered if his workroom here was anything like his room at Inkjet, all red paint and outdated band posters. Yorick seemed to be the sentimental type somehow, with his band posters and VHS tapes. I was surprised he didn't have vinyls everywhere. 

I followed Yorick up the stairs to the second floor, where the hallway's floor and walls got the same treatment as downstairs plus a small rug here and there. There were three doors up here, one of which must have been Yorick's bedroom - but I wouldn't get to see it yet, it seemed. He led me instead to the door at the far end.

Whatever I was expecting, it wasn't there. This was just a small studio room, with the same wood flooring as the living room and a single window facing the street. In one corner stood a black leather dentist chair and a matching leather table; the walls were plastered with blacklight posters, all depicting tripped-out patterns, dragons, and other mythical creatures in neon rainbow. I hadn't pegged Yorick as a stoner. In the other corner of the room was a tilted drafting desk, on which were scattered different types of pens and pencils surrounding a large black-and-white drawing. Filling with curiosity, I walked over to take a closer look.

The drawing was entirely ink and extremely elaborate, a mess of thin and intricate lines and broad strokes all forming the figure of a massive, eight-legged horse reared back on its numerous hind legs, surrounded by a brocade of delicate patterns that melted into a dripping mess at the bottom. The horse's plaited mane and tail flew amidst the sea of ink, its eyes black and lifeless, and its muscles weaving throughout its many tossing limbs.

"It's Sleipnir," Ricky said over my shoulder, catching my unbridled staring. "The eight-legged horse that carries Odin in Norse mythology."

"it's incredible," I said in awe. I turned to look at him. "Did you do this?"

"Of course," he replied. "I very rarely get to use my own art in my work. Lots of people coming in asking for butterfly tramp stamps or cartoon characters." He grimaced and stepped over to the drawing. "This was for you."

"You... drew this for me?"

"For your back, actually," said Ricky. "I would like to tattoo this on you."

It was a beautiful piece, and without much hesitation I decided I wanted nothing more than to bear Yorick's beautiful artwork on my shoulders. Was this why he brought me? "You mean... right now?"

Ricky laughed and shook his head. "No, no, not right now. This isn't quite done, and it needs more planning. No, today I thought I'd pierce you again, just to test the waters."

I watched him as he walked away from the drafting desk and over to a tall standing metal toolchest near the leather furniture. He rolled one of the smallest drawers at the top open and fiddled with it. "What kind of piercing did you have in mind?" I said waveringly, trying and failing to hide my excitement. 

He chuckled, no doubt at my failure to contain myself. "The nape of your neck," he said smoothly, pulling open a drawer at the top and fishing through it for who knew. "It's rather bare and I thought you'd look beautiful with some titanium lining that neck of yours."

His words were taking me over again, just like in the coffee shop. I felt gently at the back of my neck, where my bleached hair was most closely cropped and shaved. I had never thought of a tattoo there, much less a piercing. But I trusted Ricky completely... and if he said it would be beautiful, then I wanted it. In the back of my mind, close to where he wanted to pierce me, I began to think that I wanted to please him... badly. 

"Do you want that, Shay?"

My eyes fluttered and I chewed on the side of my lip, teeth clattering against my snakebite ring. "Yes," I said breathlessly. 

My eyes met Yorick's again, and he smirked. In his hand were two small sealed packets: one contained a pair of metal beads, the other a sort of minute plastic tube with a bulb on one end. "Take off your shirt. Get up on the table, on your stomach."

The stomach in question was quivering with apprehension. I lifted my arms and pulled my shirt off, in every way unlike the last time I did so for him; without hesitation, without shame. Each muscle in me was twitching eagerly as I turned and clambered onto the leather doctor's table, near identical to the one in Yorick's room at Inkjet. Cold leather held up my quaking body and sparked sensation into my still-healing nipple rings. Behind me, I heard the familiar snapping of nitrile gloves.

Ricky's fingers probed at the nape of my neck, gently, teasingly. I heard the tear of a packet and a cold swab rubbed at my skin. My nose tingled with the smell of iodine. 

"I won't be giving you breathing instructions or warnings anymore," Ricky said calmly. "Not now that I know what you like. Be still."

No warnings, just plunging in... I shuddered despite his order. Not a clamp but fingers pulled at my skin and squeezed hard. 

"Relax."

Hard pressure, pricking, sting. The needle drove into my skin without mercy, without restraint. Only this was different - the needle was incredibly thick, but didn't feel cold like the metal ones normally did. The strange sensation of skin pulling from flesh rippled through my body.

But, for all the sensuality and wanton buildup to this scene... It didn't hurt.

I laid quite still as Ricky painlessly fitted the new piercing, a teflon thread bearing two titanium beads. His fingers pressed at my skin, pushing the piercing into place with some soreness. Barely any at that. 

A pause.

"Well, that was quite anticlimactic," said Ricky. "Not what I expected, really."

"It didn't hurt," I muttered, sitting up awkwardly. 

"Truly?" He seemed surprised. "So close to the spine, I thought it would. But then again, with the thick skin there, the scruff of the neck... I suppose I'll have to experiment with you more, won't I?"

Experiment... But why wouldn't he know this didn't hurt? He did this for a living... My eyes traveled over his fair and unblemished skin, not a freckle or scar to be seen. 

"Still," he continued, and he reached behind my head to play with my new bearing, "It's a beautiful piece. It suits you wonderfully."

Ricky's fingers on my neck felt wonderful. Still I was left wanting, disappointed from my lack of agony. 

The wanting didn't last. I felt pain like white noise shoot down my back in streaks and I gasped aloud. Ricky had dragged his long fingernails down my shoulder ferociously, leaving trails of stinging heat. 

"I suppose I'll have to hurt you some other way," he crooned. 

Pain! Incredible pain. No warning, no explanation. I groaned and shuddered as his nails scraped down my back again, both hands this time. "Fuck!" I hissed out. "Ricky... god, please..."

"Please?" he purred.

I shook and strugged to turn to him, still feeling the tingle of his scratches on my spine. His gray eyes were ablaze and his smile broad. My apprehension and shyness melted under his stare. Without knowing what I was going to say, I blurted out whatever was inside me:

"Hurt me!"

"As you wish," Ricky said smoothly, his shoulders up in a slight shrug as if I had only just asked for a beer from the fridge. His hand went out and he hooked his little finger into my week-old nipple ring, and he pulled me to my feet by it. Not enough to rip it, but enough to tug so that it caused me an indescribable pain. I howled as I struggled to keep up with his pulling, staggering up from the table and stumbling in his wake. As if my chest was a leash Ricky led me only by this tiny steel ring in my flesh, with a pulsing pain radiating through my breast. "Fuck, fuck, oh SHIT that hurts!" I yelled. 

"Good," Ricky chuckled.

God... He was serious. And it excited me.

Ricky steered me down the hall to the door at the far end, pushing it open with his foot. Bedroom... I took note only that a bed existed and that I was being pushed onto it, and the pain in my nipple went through me in a final wave as the ring was let go. I gasped and groped at my chest, trembling. No longer distracted by the erotic pain spreading through me, I became overwhelmingly aware of my hard cock pressing into the seam of my fly. One act from Ricky and this was my body's reaction. This had never been done to me before.

"That was quick, hm?" Ricky smirked, taking note as well. He reached for me and gripped the bulge in my jeans, eliciting a loud gasp from me. The sensation of his strong fingers squeezing my erection was enough to send sparks up my back. He wasn't playing around... "Now, what will I do with you?"

As Ricky let go of my hard-on, I caught my breath and took in more of my surroundings, though by now they were doused in the darkness of early evening. The bed was curiously enveloped in a thick black canopy that hung from the ceiling, completely encircling the king-size mattress on which sat an incredibly soft gray comforter... My hand sank into it. Down comforter. As if this wasn't sexy enough, this may have just been the best bed to do the dirty on, ever.

Interrupting my thoughts, Ricky mounted my lap and straddled my hips, one hand threading itself into my hair and pulling hard. The prickling of my follicles straining from my skin sent a fresh, subtle wave of pleasure over me and urged out a faint moan. Ricky's face was over mine and I could do little else but stare endlessly into those cold, gray eyes. He smiled. 

"This will be very fun, I think," he whispered. "I'm going to experiment with you a little."

"Anything," I found myself whining.

Ricky chuckled and drew his face closer to mine. His lips parted and his teeth bared. My eyes fluttered and then sprang wide as he bit into my lip. No blood was drawn but it hurt so wonderfully... So much better than kissing. I groaned against his upper lip, feeling my cock straining against my waistband. A wet spot was beginning to spread in my boxer briefs. I lifted a hand from the bed and pushed it clumsily into my jeans, rubbing at the ache between my legs that had begun to grow inside me as Ricky continued to chew my bottom lip. He pulled back, his teeth clamped around my lip ring. The metal circle tugged hard in its hole and stung me, eliciting another gasp of pain. Ricky's teeth released and he let out a low growl of laughter against my cheek, scraping his nails down my chest. 

Plunged into almost complete darkness, I fumbled with the fly of my jeans. My hands felt numb and ill-suited to pulling a tiny piece of metal. Ricky shook his head with a chuckle and moved my hands aside. The zipper came down effortlessly. Taking his lead, I reached forward for Ricky's jeans too and...

"No," he said calmly. My hands were pushed away. "Not yet. Not tonight."

Not tonight? What not tonight? Why not yet? I wanted for him so much. But Ricky left it simply at that and turned back to undressing me. He slid off of my legs and knelt on the floor in front of the bed, pulling down both my jeans and boxers around my knees and to my ankles. My now freed sex pulsed against the cold air. I groaned and looked from it to Ricky, whose eyes were glimmering with amusement. 

"Incredible," he mouthed, "what this does to you." He sliced his nails down my thighs as he spoke, leaving white trails that quickly turned to red. I let out a breathy moan and shuddered, my cock twitching in response. "How long has it been since someone has pleasured you, Shay?" Ricky mused. 

How long? I didn't even know. Did the thing with Jade count? Probably not. And never, never like this, not with anyone. "Never... Not this way," I said raspily. 

"I see," said Ricky with a quiet smirk. "Am I your first pain partner?"

I paused, then nodded mutely. 

"I'll do my best to make it special," he murmured. Without another word or warning my sex disappeared into his mouth, buried with his lips against my base with his tongue sliding along the whole length. I gasped loudly and let my breath out in a groan of arousal. His tongue... It was all I could do not to grab Ricky by the back of his head. The thick, wet muscle of his tongue massaged my length as he withdrew and pushed his mouth back onto me, his nails digging hard into my hipbones. The combination of this and the insane sensation of his skilled mouth on my cock was almost unbearable. My entire body began to shake, My eyes sliding out of focus as the pleasure shot throughout my limbs and made tremors in my belly. Time came undone. Within no time I was at my limit.

"Fuck... Ricky... Ah, fuck," I gasped. "I... I'm gonna..."

He didn't slow down, didn't look up, and the constant motion of his thick tongue down my length brought me to my edge and his teeth, Ricky's teeth! The sudden and unexpected feeling of Ricky's teeth bared against my cock tipped me over and I cried out loudly, shaking as my body was racked in orgasm. I came hard, unhindered, head back and every muscle tensed in me. That mouth, strangely lukewarm mouth swallowed me up and I melted into him. Oh, god... I shuddered and groaned out breathlessly, and my body fell limp back onto the bed.



Hematoma Ch. 06



It was dark.

I had woken up in an unfamiliar place, groggy and sleep-eyed. I inhaled deeply, trying to place my location. Very dark. Was it even morning? Had I woken up in the middle of the night? 

I began to remember the night before. Oh, the night before... It was real, wasn't it? Yorick had brought me home... I stared up at the ceiling and recognized Yorick's black canopy hanging over the bed. I felt the wonderfully soft mattress under me and the warm duvet over me. This was not my bed. So that must mean...

I pushed myself onto my elbows and groaned, blinking. To my left, fast asleep, was Ricky, with his dark hair splashed over his pillow like an ink spill and one limp hand raised to his cheek. Even in the darkness I could make him out with how incredibly pale his skin was, almost glowing... If I hadn't just seen his chest rise and fall (if only very slowly), I would have thought he was dead. 

Assured of Ricky's presence and remembering what had happened to me, I began to feel out the side of the bed, pulling my legs over it. I pushed aside the canopy in front of me to find a blue glow emitting from a digital clock on Ricky's nightstand. Nine thirty-two A.M. Wow, it was morning. Why was it so dark then? I felt for the floor with my toes and got to my feet, only just then aware of my nudity. Pants first, or at least underwear. 

I scuffled my feet along the hardwood floor and the edge of the rug under Ricky's bed, searching for my discarded clothing. My toes met a pile of denim. Ah, there it was. I fished into my pants for my underwear and pulled them on, then turned about looking for a source of light. I saw just then a sliver of it coming from the side of a curtain... Thick black curtains were drawn over both of the windows in Ricky's room, so impenetrable that I couldn't see an ounce of light coming through; just this splinter at one curtain's edge. I walked over and threw the curtain open.

As the harsh sunlight flooded the bedroom and made me squint, I heard a loud groan and a rustle of blankets. "Close the fucking curtain!" I heard Ricky's voice snarl from the bed. 

I looked over my shoulder, bewildered. Ricky had thrown the duvet over his head, shielding himself against the sunlight from the window and the canopy I had left open. 

"Are you deaf?" he growled, voice muffled by the blanket. "Close that fucking curtain already."

"Oh... sorry," I said, pulling the curtain shut and plunging the room back into darkness. Clearly Ricky wasn't a morning person. 

I sat back down on the bed as Ricky emerged from it, looking ruffled. He sat up and groaned as he rolled his broad shoulders, and then looked to me with darkened eyes. "You're still here," he noted plainly. 

I blinked. "Well... yeah," I said. "Am I not... supposed to be?"

Ricky waved a hand dismissively and reached up to run that same hand through his hair, scratching at his scalp. "I assumed you'd have gone home when you woke up. Of course, you passed out pretty hard last night. Right after coming in my mouth."

I could feel my face heating up as a blush crept over my cheeks and the bridge of my nose. I had done that... I wondered momentarily if Ricky swallowed or spit. Then I wondered if I should ask. 

"Um..."

"Yes?"

"... Nevermind." I couldn't. 

Ricky tilted his head this way and that, his neck crackling softly. I watched as he slid himself from under the covers, and tried and failed to take my eyes away. He slept naked. In the dim light I could make out the lines of his muscles beneath the ivory skin. In unhindered curiosity my eyes fell below his waist as he stood up... His manhood was soft but thick... I met his eyes again. Even in the dark I saw a glimmer in them, his mouth perked at the edge.

"See something interesting, Shay?" he asked, amused.

"No," I said quickly. "I mean... yeah but... I wasn't staring or..."

Ricky laughed, shaking his head and turning away. "I was teasing you. Look all you like. I had your cock down my throat last night, there are no secrets here." He reached over and flicked on a lamp on another nightstand, then stood quite still, seemingly thinking. "Perhaps one or two," he added. 

With the light on, I was able to see more of Ricky's bedroom. The walls were a neutral color, only one or two simplistic paintings here, a closet which Ricky had just opened up, and indeed another TV and a combination VCR and DVD player on a large bookshelf in front of the bed. I wondered how he'd managed to hook up a VCR to a flatscreen TV. 

"Anyway," said Ricky, pulling a shirt and a pair of dark jeans from the closet, "What are you doing today, Shay? Perhaps we could spend a bit of time and get to know each other."

Get to know each other? Well, Ricky certainly knew me well enough. But what did I know about him? Nothing, I thought. 

"That sounds great," I said. 

Ricky's smile appeared from the collar of the shirt he'd just pulled on. "Good. Then let's fetch breakfast. I imagine you're starving."

I felt slightly ashamed to be wearing the same clothes I'd worn the previous day; even now they still smelled of my warehouse locker, musty and slightly sweaty. But that didn't seem to bother Ricky, so I guessed it shouldn't bother me. I watched him from the sidewalk as he locked his door behind us, my eyes straying to his tall and polished boots, very different than my raver ones. Once again he was wearing those leather gloves, but his sunglasses were tucked into the collar of his jacket and his hood was down this time, his hair hanging wayward where it liked. I looked up as he joined me, my eyes scanning the cloudy city sky. 

"Think it'll rain?" I asked mildly. 

"Not likely," he replied. "I don't smell precipitation."

"Smell? What, you can do that?"

"Oh, anyone can," he said. "Rain has a distinct aroma before it comes. It's usually easier in the summer... Come, then. I don't expect you'd like to hang around chatting about the weather."

The weather... Geez, I was doing that, wasn't I. This man blew me last night and I was talking about the weather. I snapped back to earth and picked up my stride in order to catch up with him on the sidewalk, our steps scuffing up dry leaves beneath our feet. 

"So where are we going for breakfast?" I asked, shoving my hands in my pockets. Ricky had done the same. 

"Just a little place up the road," he said. "Hole-in-the-wall. Their breakfast smells delicious."

"Just smells?" I laughed. "You HAVE eaten there, right?"

He shrugged. "They make a decent coffee," he said. 

Ricky was taking me to a place he hadn't even eaten before? That sounded weird... "I mean... Is there a place you'd rather go? It's okay if it's a bit of a walk..."

"This is fine, don't worry. You'll enjoy it."

I had to trust him, I guess. 

I soon caught a whiff of something frying as we walked, and indeed, it smelled amazing. Ricky turned to the door of a tiny diner, its few windows plastered with ads and posters - missing dogs, band members needed, personal ads, local gigs, and lots of papers with their cut-up bottoms lined with phone numbers. Over the top of the door was a frayed awning with peeling letters telling me that this was "Gio's Diner and Eatery" established in 1973. I looked quizzically at Ricky. With his expensive taste and his high-end styled home, this hardly seemed the type of place he'd frequent. But it did smell incredible. My mouth was watering from the aroma. 

"Don't be put off. This is the sort of place that the real Philly people frequent, so you know it's good. Come on," said Ricky, and he pulled open the door to usher me in. 

Immediately I was hit with a wonderful warmth which carried the smell of bacon fat and griddle leftovers. There were no booths or tables, just a row of barstools with chipping vinyl covers, on which were seated an assortment of customers: a businessman with a tie and briefcase, a pair of flannel-shirted workers, and a black Fed-Ex driver who was gulping down coffee and checking his watch. The little chatter that was going on between the customers was drowned out by the clattering of dishes, the hiss of the griddle, and the scraping of the line cook's spatula under pancakes and eggs. 

I took Ricky's lead and sat on one of the cracked stools at the far end of the bar. "Need a menu?" he asked, plucking his fingers from his gloves. 

"Er... No, I always get the same thing in these places," I said truthfully, and no sooner had I gotten that out then an older waitress with curled brown hair stepped over to us. 

"Mornin', Rick, the usual?" she shot to Ricky, a slight flutter in her mascara-caked eyelashes. Her voice was curt, and I became relaxed in the presence of one of our city's many abrupt mid-40's waitresses. You usually knew you were in good hands with these ones; what you saw was what you got with them, and they'd usually been working in whatever restaurant for as long as the place existed. 

Ricky smiled, weaving his fingers together on the bar. "Yes, thank you, Maddy, and whatever my friend here wants," he replied, giving a nod to me. 

Maddy turned her blue-rimmed eyes to me, not bothering to ask what I wanted. "Oh, um... Eggs over-easy and rye toast, thanks," I said.

"Coffee, hun?" she supplied. 

"No thanks, but... that bacon smells good. I'll have some of that too."

"Sure thing. Be back with your coffee, Rick."

I watched her march away to give the line cook my order, then turned to Ricky. "Rick?" I questioned. 

He shrugged, eyes rolling. "Karen has her nickname. Maddy has hers. If it's endearing, then so be it."

"Yeah but... Rick doesn't suit you at all. Ricky is better."

"I see. Well, it fits in here. Thank you, Maddy," he added, as a stained coffee cup had appeared brimming with steam at his hand. 

My breakfast arrived as well, unbroken eggs and bacon with a side plate of buttered rye toast, and a small selection of jams with it. No jam for me, but I added salt and pepper to my eggs before sampling the bacon. Thick, juicy and wonderfully crispy, just the way hole-in-the-wall diners should make it. Amazing. I grabbed a half of toast and pushed it into my egg yolk, digging into my meal with vigor. 

"Hungry, I take it?" offered Ricky, smiling over his coffee cup. 

I nodded, chewing hard in order to clear my mouth for speech. "Starving," I said. "I haven't eaten since yesterday afternoon... We didn't eat dinner last night..." I licked my lips and reached for another piece of toast, swiping the yolk up that had spilled around the whites. Taking a wide bite, I chewed thoughtfully. "Neither have you, for that matter," I said suddenly. "You.. I mean, did you eat last night after I feel asleep?"

Ricky contemplated me mid-sip. His coffee cup clinked into its saucer as he shook his head. "No, actually. I was quite worn out myself," he said. "I merely read for a bit and turned in for sleep with you."

"But you're not hungry now? I mean, just coffee, really?"

"I suppose not. Don't worry. Eat your breakfast."

I became concerned. I wondered why Ricky wouldn't eat. He seemed to simply be thriving off his caffeine, yet he seemed very healthy and normal. It couldn't be anorexia. But I barely knew Ricky... There had to be secrets about him I might never know.

And I left it at that.

Full of eggs and with the taste of bacon lingering on my tongue, I walked with Ricky down the streets of south Philly under the day's constant cloud cover. My curiosity about Ricky as a person was in full swing. He didn't seem to mind.

"I heard you listening to the Sex Pistols when I came in for my piercing the first time," I said. "So... You're into punk?"

"I'm into a lot of things," he replied lightly. "Punk was a bit of a phase for me. Shortly before the grunge period, followed quickly by the metal period. I like plenty of musicians. And I've traveled for my pursuit of that art."

"Traveled?"

"Yes, quite a lot. I've been to a lot of concerts." He turned to me as he walked, pushing a lock of hair from his face. "And you? What do you listen to, Shay?"

I laughed, shaking my head. "Ah, geez... I guess my tastes aren't as broad. I mean, I like some metal, but not that 'screaming bloody murder' stuff, you know? Like -"

But I slowed to a stop, having watched Ricky halt in his tracks. 

He turned slightly, glancing over his shoulder. "Can I help you?" he said coolly.

I turned as well, wondering who he could have spoken to. Behind us was a young and willowy Asian girl, maybe seventeen with a cascade of straight black hair squared to her face with her short bangs. Her hair stood out to me the most, as the rest of her was completely white... Her ivory ensemble comprised a long peacoat with the frills of a skirt puffing out its hem around her thin legs in their white stockings and short ankle boots. Everything on her seemed to be accented with bows, from her scarf to her gloves to the umbrella she carried in her hands. Most poignantly, she was staring daggers at Ricky.

"I'd like for you to stop avoiding me, Yorick," she said coldly. "We seriously need to talk."

I looked at Ricky incredulously, as if to say "Who the fuck is that?" But he didn't meet my eyes, only shook his head laughing under his breath. "Whatever you have to say, save it. I'm really not in the mood today."

"You're never in the mood," she said harshly. "You can't dance around this. And who is this?" she snapped, looking straight at me. 

I stared at her, taken aback. Shouldn't that be my line? I wanted to say as much, but with my mouth halfway open, Ricky interrupted me.

"None of your business," he replied. "Am I not allowed to have friends?" 

I watched her almond eyes narrow. She crossed her arms huffily. "That's a flat-out lie. Tell me what you're doing with him."

"Walking away. Come on," said Ricky, and he took my arm in his, leading me back the way we were going. 

"Don't you dare!" I heard the girl yell behind us. "Yorick! Don't you dare keep ignoring me!"

But ignore her he did. We kept silent for the next block, and when I finally got the courage to look back over my shoulder, she was gone. 

"What was that about? Who was she?" I asked Ricky. 

He kept his eyes forward, chuckling. "An ex-girlfriend. I'm sorry you had to see that. We haven't dated for ages but she just won't let go. Seems to think I've wronged her in some way."

An ex-girlfriend... Oh... "I mean... Have you, though?"

"Of course not," he said slickly. "We didn't even do anything. I left. That was that. Don't fret about her."

So I didn't. 

"So what were you saying about metal?"

"Ah... yeah..." 

I spent the rest of the day with Ricky, and yet our conversations never strayed from the vanilla. We talked about music and movies, and the great many that Ricky had seen. He seemed to have a lifetime of experiences that went beyond his years. But deep down I wanted to see the hypnotic power he could exert over me again, and taste his fearsome aura just like before. My body remembered how good it felt to be afraid and yet so very wanton of the pain he could cause me. So as our day grew dark and the sun fell down still behind its veil of clouds, I asked what I wanted to.

"Um... Hey, Ricky..."

"Yes?" he prompted, elbow resting on the bench we were seated on. 

I hesitated, chewing my lip. "D'you... wanna come back to my place tonight?" 

My eyes met his, and I saw them flare with excitement if only for a moment. "I would love to, Shay," he said quietly. "But I'm afraid I have the graveyard shift back at Inkjet... And you should rest away from me."

Crestfallen, I let my eyes return to my lap. "Oh... Okay."

"Tell you what," said Ricky, and he dug in his jeans pocket to fish out an iPhone... Latest model, I noticed, with a slim and well-made case. He swiped a couple things and handed it to me. "Trade phones. Put your number in here for me."

"Oh... sure!" I scrambled to pull my own cell phone out of my pocket, though mine wasn't nearly as nice, of course. "Here..."

We traded and I punched my number shakily into his keypad. 

"There we go," said Ricky, and we traded back. Within a few seconds my phone jingled and a text appeared with his name. I had Ricky's phone number. I felt... giddy. As if my high school crush had just returned sentiments of a love note. I lifted my eyes to meet his, excited, and felt my breath freeze within my lungs as his gray eyes gleamed silver. His smile was intoxicating, a grin beneath the darkened lids of his eyes... I suddenly felt as if I had to catch myself in mid-fall, and jerked back to reality as the vertigo faded. Ricky was still grinning broadly. 

"S-so..." I stammered, shifting my weight to cover up the sudden falling. "I'll see you... When?" 

Ricky contemplated, rising from his seat. "Tomorrow?" he suggested. "Do you work?"

"I do, at the warehouse... But I'm only there until three."

"Four o'clock tomorrow, then. How about dinner?"

"That... sounds fantastic." 

"Good," said Ricky with a smile. "Come by my place after work. I have so much I still want to talk about."

Without a goodbye, Ricky turned and walked back the way we had come, his long hair fluttering behind him in the early winter breeze. I felt its chill in the bowels of my lungs, as if frost had grown in my airways, and simultaneously my blood boiled with excitement. I wondered... would we...? Ricky's words, "Not yet," still rung with a promise for me that I wanted fulfilled. Yes, I thought feverishly as I walked off for my home. I wanted Ricky to fuck and hurt me until I bled for him... The thrill in my mind made my heart race to catch up with the runaway ideas. Ah, fuck, I was getting hard in the middle of the sidewalk. Calm down, calm down. 

But for some reason, I couldn't calm myself. Even as I got myself back home, my breath and heartbeat carried on with their labor to excite my body, which longed for Ricky's fingernails and for harsher, sharper pains still... That night I laid in bed with cock in hand, masturbating to thoughts of Ricky drawing blood from me in various ways... Thoughts that then carried me to unwilling sleep.



Hematoma Ch. 07



AN: I've added a note here because a main point of this chapter has been heavily edited. In the original, Yorick states that he cannot feel pain. I have decided that this is not only an unnecessary point, but also detrimental to the story. Ergo, it's been changed. Enjoy.

~

"Man! Shay, what's got you so fired up today?"

My coworker, an older guy named Tom, had just stopped in the midst of moving a pallet with the forklift to marvel at my speed. I was moving boxes that day as if it were my passion, not my ten-dollar-an-hour job. I huffed and pushed the box I was carrying onto a stack to rest, wiping sweat from my forehead with my sleeve. "Dunno?" I said lamely.

"Aw, shit, Tom," said Frank behind me, carrying another of the boxes we were moving from shipment. "Lil' Shay here just fucking loves shipments from Wisconsin, clearly. It's the highlight of his life."

"Hail the boxes from Wisconsin."

They laughed, and I joined in breathlessly.

I couldn't quite tell them the real reason I was so fired up. It was almost the end of my shift, and in a few minutes I would be heading home to get myself cleaned up and presentable for dinner with Ricky... I wanted to know him more, and I was excited about that, but... Truthfully, my boyish sex drive was at work for this. God, but I wanted to fuck! If Ricky was that good with his mouth, then I could only imagine what incredible experience I'd have with him inside of me. And more! I was very eagerly awaiting him to further indulge my pain cravings... The very thought of it made me shudder. 

I just about launched myself out the door as I left work, running with my bag flouncing over my shoulder. That was what I had in mind for tonight, anyway. What was Ricky planning, though? Dinner... Well, I'd see him eat, at least. Maybe watch a movie, one of his hundreds. Or would we just spend all night fucking? I had to admit, I wouldn't mind it. I was eager to be at Ricky's mercy.

The thoughts in my head were on spin cycle as I bathed, nearly scrubbing myself raw. Sweat and the smell of the Delaware Bay wouldn't be the best cologne to be wearing for dinner with Yorick. Dinner with Yorick! I kept saying it, but I knew I meant something else. Fuck the dinner. SEX with Yorick!

Hair still damp from the shower, I dressed myself appropriately; Ricky had made this sound like it wasn't very formal, so my gray jeans and a black t-shirt would do, I thought. I shrugged into my jacket and slipped on sneakers at the door, fiddling last-minute with my MP3 player and tangled earbuds from my pocket. The earbuds were in as soon as I hit the sidewalk, and soon I was going at a trot to Ricky's place with harsh music drowning out my perverse mind.

Substantially calmed, I arrived at Ricky's apartment for the second time in a week at just past four. I pummeled the doorbell and stepped back, rocking on my heels. 

"Just a moment." I recognized Ricky's muffled voice beyond the door and heard several clicks before it creaked slightly open, just enough. "You're a tad late, Shay. Come on in."

"Late?" I laughed, stuffing my earbuds in my pocket where they would surely form a tangled nest again. "Come on, it's barely after four o'clock. Are you gonna open the door?" I pushed it open when it seemed Ricky wasn't going to, only to see that he had already retreated away from the doorway. His semi-formal look was becoming of him, button-up shirt undone at the collar and sleeves rolled to his elbows, paired with faded jeans. Ah... Geez, just seeing him this way was already entrancing me. The slightest glimpse of his collarbone under that shirt was... I shook myself out of it, catching sight of his dark smile. I flushed, smiling back weakly in return. 

"Hang your coat up," he told me, throwing a hand up towards the hanger by the entryway. "And come on into the kitchen. I'm afraid I haven't made anything to eat for you. I must confess I have no prowess with cooking."

"Well, y'know, not everyone's a five-star chef," I shrugged, hanging my coat up and following Ricky to the kitchen. "I usually just survive on ramen... I'm sure whatever you have will be fine..." 

But my words failed as I stepped into Ricky's kitchen. The kitchen of anyone's home, friends or family or otherwise, had always been able to tell me something about them. Past friends in their college days had had filthy kitchens full of dirty dishes and booze bottles on the counters. One girl I once had an interest in had a clean and homey kitchen with rooster-patterned oven mitts and dishtowels. 

Ricky had... Nothing. 

Sure, there was a standard refrigerator and an electric stovetop, but neither looked like they got much use - the stovetop in particular was immaculate and looked brand-new, completely devoid of the usual patina that always builds up from cooking. The counters were clean and empty as well: no utensils, no towels, nothing except a large and expensive-looking espresso machine sitting in a corner. This seemed to be the only thing that saw use, though it was still quite clean. There were no dishes in the double sink. Nothing.

I found Ricky standing by the curtained window across from me, his arms folded. He seemed to be observing my reaction. I could only gape at him before I found words. "Do you... ever cook? Like, at all?"

"No," said Ricky, a hint of amusement in his voice. "I see no need to."

I frowned, trying to make sense of what he'd just said. "What do you mean, no need to? You've gotta eat, even I cook at home..."

"But I don't," he said. "Eat, I mean. Not the way you do, anyway."

"What's that supposed to mean?" 

He sighed wistfully and turned at the pristine kitchen counter, leaning his lower back against it. "I suppose we're going to have to just jump right into why I brought you here," he said calmly. "I'm a vampire, Shay."

"You... what?"

My head spun if only for a moment. I couldn't feel the bottoms of my feet. There had been absolutely no lead-up to this statement, and I thought for a minute that Ricky was playing a joke on me. I scanned his face for a perk in his mouth, amusement in his eyes, but there was nothing. He was cool and calm, and completely unreadable. 

"No, you're not," I said suddenly. 

Ricky lifted an eyebrow. "I'm not?"

"No, there's no such thing."

"Isn't there?"

"No, there isn't." But I could no longer feel the conviction in my words. Ricky was slowly smiling now, but it was not the smile of someone who was playing a prank. It was full of assurance and positivity, and I was not. But I couldn't simply accept what he'd just said.

"So..." I said slowly. "If you're a vampire, prove it."

He laughed softly and ran a hand through his hair. "I would have thought you'd seen the proof so far, Shay."

"What proof?"

"Well, for one," he replied, "my lack of piercings and tattoos. You had already pointed out how odd that was. I told you they didn't 'agree' with me. I was telling the truth... Somewhat." He pushed away from the counter and walked close by me, slowly. "My body heals every injury I could possibly inflict on it. Every scar, every hole, everything I could ever inject inside me. Piercings fall out of my flesh in minutes. Ink bleeds from my skin as fast as it goes in. It just isn't possible to keep them."

I gazed at Ricky's exposed forearms as he spoke. His porcelain skin, bereft of imperfections, seemed to testify to this. Even the hairs lining his musculature seemed to fall just so. But I could not yet be convinced. Not of something so outlandish.

"What else?" I demanded. 

Ricky contemplated, passing by me and moving into the living room. I turned to watch him. "Well," he began, "my aversion to sunlight is certainly one proof. I can go out in daylight as long as I avoid direct contact... Hence the sunglasses and the hood and gloves and whatnot. You must have noticed I forgo the hood and glasses when it's cloudy... But you nearly exposed me yesterday morning. Those curtains," he added. "What else... The food, as I mentioned. I can't eat the way you do." He paced around the couch and stopped, mildly staring at a spot on the opposite wall. "It's possible for me to eat food, but not pleasant. Food is like ash. Drink parches my throat. I can neither taste nor feel texture on my tongue."

"But you were drinking espresso-"

"Ah, caffeine," he chuckled. "It's a stimulant and still affects me as a drug would. For a short while, anyway. But I'm afraid I've never known what espresso actually tastes like, having never tried it when I was alive. That being said, the smell is quite exquisite, and enough to satisfy, I think."

I was veering back and forth between trust and disbelief over what Ricky was telling me. It sounded... well, frankly, it sounded like a load of horse shit.

"I don't believe you," I told him. "You can't expect me to believe a word you just said."

"I suppose I can't."

Ricky's voice, which had only a minute ago been coming from the living room where he stood, was suddenly behind me. I whirled around and nearly fell over, having just seen him leaning on the kitchen counter again with his arms folded neatly across his chest. 

I gaped, heart pounding. "How'd you get over there?" I said hoarsely.

"I walked," Ricky said coolly. 

My fingers felt cold. What had I just seen? He couldn't have walked past me so fast... I hadn't even seen him move. 

"You're right, Shay," he said. "I can't exactly prove I am what I say with words alone. But this should help."

Without warning, Ricky threw open a drawer to his left with a crash, thrust his hand into it, withdrew a very large kitchen knife, and plunged the blade into his chest. 

I yelled. 

"Shit!" I shouted. "Shit, oh shit, Ricky! Stay right there, I'll call-"

But my panicked cries were drowned out by Ricky's deep laughter, which slowly pushed me into a state of complete confusion. Sure enough, Ricky was standing there quite nonchalantly with the kitchen knife still sticking out of the right side of his shirt. "Don't freak out so much, will you?" he smirked. "Look, it's quite safe. Watch." And he yanked the knife out of himself and did it again, jamming it into his own breast once, twice, three times, over and over again, each time eliciting twitches and cries out of me as I watched in horror. "It doesn't hurt at all," he said. "Do you want to give it a try?"

"No!" I squawked, mortified. "How are you doing that!?"

He smiled, placing the unstained knife on the counter beside him. "I told you, I can't be injured. I heal far too fast. Wounds like these, made so cleanly, are repaired almost instantaneously." He looked down at himself, plucking at his ruined shirt, which was now littered with wide holes. "I'm afraid the same can't be said about my clothing," he added bitterly, and began unbuttoning the offending garment. 

I gawked at Ricky. My body shook in fear and shock. As I watched his pale flesh reveal itself from under his shirt, I saw, if only for a second, hairline scars where the knife's blade had surely struck him. But even as I stared, these faded and vanished until his skin was smooth and perfect again. Not a trace of them remained. 

I stepped forward as if in a daze, gaping with hand outstretched. Ricky said nothing as he dropped his button-up rag to the floor, watching me as I did him. My fingers grazed his chest, searching for a remnant of the scars I'd just seen, of a hole that had to be there, but they found nothing. Just skin as soft and flawless as polished marble.

My eyes found Ricky's again, which were full of unexpressed mirth. "Doesn't that hurt?" I croaked.

"Of course," he replied lightly. "But my pain tolerance is far above yours, personally. I hurt. But not like you, oh no. Your pain fascinates me, Shay. Your masochism." His voice was a whisper now, soft and tantalizing, and I felt myself falling into it. "The way you react is beautiful. Your cries of agony. Your pleading. I like that very much." 

Ricky's fingers were running along my jawline, lifting the hair of my neck in shivers. I could no longer doubt what he was telling me. I opened my mouth, struggling to speak.

"You're... really a vampire?" I breathed tremulously. 

He smiled. "Afraid so," he told me. "You should eat, Shay. Shall I order you something?"

My body was starving, but my mind was so full. I didn't know how I could possibly eat like this. I thought about running. I considered it, just turning and leaving this place, never to speak to Yorick again. But I found his eyes in my gaze, his beautiful iron eyes, and my fear dissipated instantly. What was I afraid of? I felt safe... so very safe. I nodded to him, mouth open slightly.

Ricky's smile broadened. "Let's get you something to eat, then."

~

Not wanting to be a burden, I had allowed Ricky, still sans shirt, to order me nothing more than a sandwich and chips from the shop up the street from his house, and felt rather strange as I ate my food in front of him. He merely watched me patiently as I polished off my dinner as if I had never eaten before. 

"Are you-" I swallowed what was in my mouth, trying not to talk through a mouthful of turkey and cheese. "Are you going to eat anything? I mean... How do you... um..."

"How do I eat?" he finished, smirking faintly. "Actually, that's why you're eating now. You're going to need your energy if you're going to be with me tonight."

Energy! I finished off my remaining chips with trembling hands. "I'm.. going to feed you, aren't I?" I said, my voice shaking. 

Ricky's smile widened, showing his teeth. His canines... I hadn't noticed before how sharp they were. I shuddered. "Only if you allow it," he said quietly. "But, Shay, understand this. If you do not allow it, this will be our last meeting. I mean that. I'm not interested in a platonic relationship with you. And a sexual one is impossible if you don't do as I'm asking."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm talking about the reason I couldn't allow you to undress me the day before," he said calmly. "I have no pulse of my own and no blood to pump through my veins. It goes without saying I can't get an erection because of this."

This information stunned me. "You... can't have sex?"

"I didn't say that. I said I don't have blood." Ricky leaned forward in his seat on the couch, arms crossed on his knees. "But you do, Shay. So what does that mean?"

I stared at him blankly. What was that supposed to mean? Of course I have blood... Then it dawned on me. "You... need to drink my blood... so you can get hard?"

Ricky's grin resurfaced. His eyes were shadowed with a hollow humor. "Now he gets it," he purred. 

My heart had dropped somewhere around my liver and was beating furiously. I felt cold. Not only was Ricky suggesting that I feed him my blood... It was the only way we could have sex. I felt unconsciously for my throat. "Won't that kill me?" I said, my voice cracking with fear.

Ricky shook his head slowly. "If it did, don't you think there would be far more murders in this city? There's a way we... vampires... can keep our prey healthy. I assure you that no permanent harm will come to you. I promise you that, Shay."

That did actually make me feel somewhat better. I wanted to ask what he was going to do, but the idea of Ricky drinking my blood was still occupying my mind in a terrifying way. I met his eyes again. "Will it hurt?" I whispered. 

"Yes," he said grimly. "But then again... Isn't that what you want?"

I let my mouth open for a moment, and closed it again. Yes... I had wanted sex with Yorick to hurt. I had wanted him to hurt me. That thought alone made me shudder again, this time with a heat that radiated through my hips and fizzed along my spine. And as I looked back into Yorick's eyes, I was assured of my safety. I felt warm. I was safe... I was in good hands. My breath left me in a shudder, my hands trembling. 

"Trust me, Shay."

"Okay," I said softly.

With a wide grin, Ricky got up from his seat and moved away from the couch. "Come along, then." 

I followed him, almost in a daze, upstairs to the bedroom I'd already once been in. The feelings I had this time, however, were nothing like what I'd felt the first time I'd climbed these stairs. Fear and excitement were making a whirlpool in my stomach. Each step seemed to take forever, and yet before I knew it I was already in Ricky's bedroom. This time, however, he flicked on a small lamp on his dresser, bringing us out of the darkness. He smiled and sat on the edge of his bed. "Come on," he whispered, beckoning me. 

Filling with uncertainty, I hesitated before tentatively sitting beside him, all too aware of my heart beating a violent percussion against my throat and a cold sweat drenching my shoulders. Ricky's hand traced itself along my neck up to my jaw, tilting my face to meet his. And without warning Ricky's lips were on me, Ricky's soft, cold lips which seized mine over and over again. His icy tongue brushed against mine and I shivered unconsciously; I had never realized how cold he was, but now those long, boreal fingers were running down my neck and teasing my collarbone, leaving goosebumps where they strayed. But I didn't mind. It felt so very good to be with him like this.

Ricky's mouth left mine and skimmed close to my punctured ear. "Strip down," he ordered gently. 

His words resonated in my chest and I obeyed without question, my still-trembling hands hurrying to undress me. I entangled myself in my t-shirt and found Ricky helping me from my clothes. With my shirt on the floor, he ran his hands down my abdomen to undo my jeans. I mimicked him and went to unbutton his as well... And this time, he didn't stop me. My jittery fingers clumsily unzipped him and started tugging down his waistband. Ricky wore jeans with no underwear. For some reason this made my heart beat all the faster in my ribs.

All at once I was on the bed; Ricky had pushed me into the mattress in order to better undress me, and took no time in removing my pants, shoes, and socks in one motion. These he tossed to the floor, then straddled my hips and worked on his own jeans, never taking his eyes off mine. In the muted light beneath the bed canopy, his eyes seemed to glimmer, and his darkened smile entranced me. But I was still shaking, my arms visibly trembling as they supported my upper body, my teeth nearly chattering. Fear was overtaking me again. I didn't know what was going to happen to me. Would he hurt me? Did I want him to? 

"Shay..." Ricky's soft, husky voice broke me out of my thoughts. He was naked now, still straddling me, leaning over top of me on one arm with his other gently stroking my face. "Don't be afraid. I promised I wouldn't harm you. Trust me."

I shuddered and began to relax, fear draining from me as if I had sprung a leak, and in its place was warm, overwhelming comfort. Yes... Why had I ever been afraid? I could trust this person with my life...

My eyes dizzily fell over Ricky's body leaning over me. The faint light outlined his shape, all smooth muscle rippling beneath a sheet of alabaster. Next to me, with my skin battered and stained with ink and scars, lined with silvery rings and studs, he looked like a sculpture. Positioned just so above me, his silken hair rained down close to my face and shadowed his. I had the strongest urge to touch it. I left my hand reach up slowly, and when he did not object, I ran my fingers through the raven locks. His hair felt so soft, so perfect. I sighed, my chest fluttering. 

"Are you going to bite me now?" I asked in little more than a whisper. My fear was gone, but rattled nerves remained. 

Ricky smiled, gentle and fearsome in one. "Yes."

"On my neck?"

"No," he said. "I want you to see. I'm going to take your arm."

Oh... He wanted me to watch him... 

Ricky rolled onto his side next to me, leaning on his elbows as his fingers ran the length of my right arm and wrapped around my wrist, lifting and pulling it up to him. He stroked the skin gingerly. "What beautiful tattoos," he purred. His long fingers traced the branches and roots that decorated me, lingering on the scars on my wrist... Ah... My burn marks... He smirked and pressed his lips to them. "You're a mess, aren't you?" said Ricky. "All this damage to such a lovely body." 




Hematoma Ch. 07



"I... I'm sorry," I mumbled.

Ricky chuckled throatily and shook his head, still stroking my wrist. "Let me damage you instead, Shay. I'll make it feel wonderful," he growled.

Ah, fuck...! His words lit my body on fire. I felt my heart hammering inside me as if trying to escape. It took all my energy just to whisper out to him: "Okay..."

"Good boy," Ricky hissed. He lifted my forearm and let the skin brush against his mouth. "Your heart's pounding too fast. Relax and slow your pulse."

I breathed in deep and tried to do as he asked, urging my heartbeat to let up inside me. Despite my efforts, I was still trembling. But as I cooled my throat with air, I felt my body calming, and my heart began to laze. 

"Good," said Ricky quietly. "Stay like that, and don't let yourself panic. I'm going to bite you now, Shay. Relax and be still."

I could feel my pulse picking back up at his words already. I was going to be bitten... Yorick was going to drink my blood. How could I be calm? Disquiet and wanton desire were mixing badly in my brain, and it was sending mixed signals all over my body. I was scared. I was aroused. I wanted to run, and I wanted to hold this man to me and beg for more. And it took everything in me to open my eyes and watch in horrified yearning as Ricky sank his elongated canines into the soft flesh of my arm. 

I immediately cried out as the sharp, fierce pain of his bite shot down the length of my arm. Ricky rent my skin apart with his teeth and bled me into his mouth, his nails digging into my wrist and bicep as he held me still, restricting my movement. I struggled unconsciously. My body quaked. I groaned loudly, feeling the muscles in my thighs tighten just to keep me from moving. And then I watched Ricky's mouth move... I saw his throat swell if only for a second, and simultaneously felt a cold spike run down my arteries... He was drinking me. I could only let out a pathetic mewl as Ricky steadily gulped down my blood, mouthful by mouthful in rhythm with my heartbeat. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears - did it know it was being drained? My body was calling out to me in desperation, begging me to save it from what was happening. I could do nothing but watch the man attached to my veins by his teeth. 

And then the room began to spin...

Immediately my head was caught as it fell back, my neck cradled in the crook of Ricky's elbow as he held me. I was shivering uncontrollably. I tried in vain to cry out, but nothing save for a hoarse whimper came out. 

"Be still," he said soothingly. "You did well. Open your mouth."

I obeyed him, my breath still raspy and vision blurring. I could just barely make out Yorick's shadowy form as he stuck his thumb in his mouth and bit down. He then pressed the pad of it against my tongue. 

Something metallic was in my mouth... The tiniest drop of blood. I sucked it down as Ricky removed his thumb, and within seconds my vision was clearing. I felt warm.. so very warm. Heat slowly filled my body from fingers to toes, and I sighed. Whatever it was, I was okay. I lifted my eyes and saw Ricky smiling at me again, eyes hooded. 

"There," he said. "That wasn't so bad, was it? And we're not done."

I moaned softly - Ricky was tracing a finger around my left nipple ring, plucking at it. His other hand... I trailed my eyes down his body and, with a leap in my lower stomach, saw that he was lazily stroking his hard and thickened cock. 

"Touch it," he coaxed. "You want to, don't you."

It wasn't a question, and it needed no answer. Yes... I wanted to touch him. I rolled on my side and reached for him hesitantly, my fingers taking the place of his to wrap around his substantial thickness. He was warm now... His sex was swollen with my blood, and somewhere in my mind that fact made it all the more sexual. I felt myself getting hard, too. 

I continued to play with him gently, squeezing and fondling what I could. I heard him groan quietly as he rolled over slightly, and I heard a drawer open and shut outside the bed. And then Ricky was on top of me again, pushing my knees apart and up, and bracing his hips between them. "I think you've waited long enough for this," he smirked. He popped open a tube of lubricant - Oh, that's what he was doing - and squeezed the tiniest amount on his fingers, now moving to slicken himself for what he was about to do. I felt my heart in my mouth. My abdominal muscles tensed. I whined out wantonly and gazed with overwhelming need into Ricky's eyes as he eased himself with painful slowness inside of me. 

God, but he was thick! I gritted my teeth to mute my cry, shuddering as he filled me. My insides stung. I was sure if I had touched my stomach, I would have felt him there. Without warning he started to move, holding tight to my legs as he thrust his powerful hips against my ass. This time I couldn't hold back. I moaned loudly, throwing my head back and gripping the sheets as tightly as I could. He bottomed out in me effortlessly, and the pain of him slamming against my walls was incredible. My nerves tingled with agonizing pleasure. He wasn't slowing down, rather gaining speed and force inside my body, and my moans quickly turned to high-pitched panting. Heat and tortured bliss rose in me until I was sure I'd overflow.

"Fuck...! Shay, I'm going to come," Ricky gasped.

And as if his words were an order to me, my back arched and I yelled as I peaked in orgasm, and felt Ricky's borrowed heat burst inside of me. 

And I was his.



Hematoma Ch. 08



AN: I'd like to thank any readers who have stuck around this long. In July, my hard drive crashed and took out everything I had of Hematoma up to this point, so a few chapters had to be entirely rewritten. I can only hope the new chapters are as good as they were originally. Please enjoy. 

*****

I woke, confused and sore, in a bed that was not my own for the second time that week. Again, I woke to near pitch darkness, and again it took me several seconds to realize what had happened to me. This time, however, there was a source of light, and I gravitated to it, turning over and reaching blind fingertips to the soft cloudy glow. A shadow, stunningly solid, stopped me. Its head turned. 

"You're awake," Ricky's voice said softly. "It's only three in the morning. Go back to sleep, Shay."

My eyes began to focus on the shadow that was Ricky's back. He was sitting up, still naked, with his legs over the side of the bed towards a lamp on his nightstand. I furrowed my brow and squinted against the light. 

"You're still up," I mumbled. "You're not sleeping?"

"Not at the moment," he said. "I find myself a tad preoccupied with my thoughts."

"What are you thinking about?"

"Must you be so nosy?" Ricky growled, almost amused, and his arms came down on either side of me, pinning me back to the bed with his body for ballast. "What if I said I thought about you? What would you do then? Would it keep you up as well?"

I couldn't speak. Ricky's words coupled with his weight, his chilled body on me, took my capability to breathe. When I regained it, even speaking was difficult. 

"I don't know what there is to think so much about me," I said slowly. 

Ricky lifted himself from me and ran a hand through my hair. "That's for me to consider. Try not to let it take up your mind. Go to sleep, Shay. I'm not going anywhere tonight."

"Are you going to lay down again?"

"Eventually. Sleep, Shay," repeated Ricky. 

And at last, I obeyed.

~

When I woke up again, I had no trouble remembering where I was for once. Everything was exactly as I knew it would be... Except for Ricky's absence from bed. I was alone. 

Wondering where he could have gone, I roused myself from lying down and stretched, feeling my muscles protesting their use. I didn't like the idea of being abandoned again. It made my stomach feel oddly cold. Well, I thought... It wasn't like he'd just up and leave. This was his home. He hadn't ditched me. 

Right...?

As I was worrying back and forth, my thoughts were interrupted by the padding of footsteps on stairs, and then the creak of the bedroom door as Ricky returned, clothed in nothing more than loose-fitting flannel pants. In his hand was a tiny, steaming cup. I smelled espresso. 

"Good morning," he said. "I trust you slept well?"

I gaped and regathered myself, unconsciously drawing the duvet up to hide my nudity. "Yeah, just fine," I replied. "I... Just, I woke up and -"

"And I wasn't here?" he finished. 

I hesitated, then nodded.

"Did you think I'd left you?" he said, with a perked eyebrow. 

I couldn't answer that.

"I'm not going to just leave you for no reason, Shay," Ricky told me. "I'm not that sort of person. And I wouldn't give up someone like you, a fun toy like you."

Toy! If it were anyone but him, I wasn't sure I'd want to be called anyone's toy... But as I watched the playful gleam dancing in Ricky's cool gray eyes, I could think of nothing I'd rather be. 

Apparently done with the subject at hand, Ricky strode over to the bedside table and flicked the lamp on before taking a long drink of his espresso. I watched the bridge of his nose crease, and then he looked at me. "A shower, I think," he said. "You need to bathe."

I blinked. Did I? Well, sure, I felt a little scuzzy from sleeping in the sweat and byproduct of rigorous sex all night... But did I smell? Shit, was I offending him? Was it that bad?

"Come on," said Ricky, jerking his head a bit. "I'll join you."

I clambered out of Ricky's bed through the canopy and followed him down the hallway to the middle room, hyperaware of my own naked body in the open air. The bathroom, luckily, was quite a comfortable temperature despite the cold tile under my feet. I took it all in as my eyes adjusted to the light Ricky had just turned on. 

The entire thing was definitely representative of Ricky's indulgence, just as modern and expensive-looking as the rest of the house. A double sink of cold gray stone took up one wall, with a wide mirror under a line of LED lighting. Around the basins were black glass caddies holding toothbrushes and soap and shit like that. Beside it, the toilet, obviously, which I wondered was ever used. Cut into the opposite wall was an enormous shower stall, definitely big enough to comfortably wash up next to someone else without rubbing elbows, and against the far end of the bathroom was a huge bathtub, completely rectangular with its inner shape carved deep into the tile. God, I could probably have slept in it. But Ricky was busying himself with the shower. 

The flannel pants fell easily around Ricky's ankles, and for the second time in twenty-four hours I was able to get a full view of his body. Fuck, that didn't get old. I wondered vaguely if it was just the vampire in him that made him so... beautiful. Were there ugly vampires, I thought? Then I noticed he was watching my stare. I flushed. He smirked at me.

"Come on, then," he cajoled, and he slid open the glass door of the shower and stepped in, waiting for me to follow suit. Having no clothes to discard, I didn't waste time climbing into the glass and tile box with him. Ricky's hand reached around me and barred me from the door as he closed it, and then twisted the curved steel handle on the wall behind my back. The shower overhead hissed to life, and I gasped as I was struck with a cascade of cold and steadily warming water. The spray was wide and felt like warm rain. My eyes fluttered. I could've fallen back asleep like this. Ricky knew how to live, and I could really find myself getting used to it.

"Move," Ricky ordered, and he pushed me slightly out of the way to dip his head under the water, where his sheet of black hair became liquid ink. He tossed it back behind him with a sigh, combing fingers through his soaking locks. I half expected it to stain his hands. 

"Now then," he said lightly, and without warning he reached forward and seized me by the back of my head, gripping my hair so hard I could feel my scalp stinging. I yelped and struggled unconsciously, but in another moment Ricky had pushed me roughly into the shower's stream, and I spluttered as water ran around my mouth and nose. What was he doing? The fist at my skull pulled me back again and I gasped for breath, spitting out water. I felt something cold spreading over the top of my head, and Ricky forced my head back down with both hands, roughly lathering shampoo into my hair. 

"Ricky... S... Stop!" I cried, and I tried to pull away to no avail. Soap was running into my eyes and blinding me. Then came the water again.

"You're filthy," I heard him admonish me, through the strange muting of water rushing over my ears. "Keep yourself clean if you're going to be around me."

Filthy? I'd just showered yesterday! I was soon freed and I pulled myself from the shower stream, coughing. Ricky was only laughing behind me. 

"Switch," he said, and as I blinked water and soap from my eyes, he handed me a scrubby and a bottle of body soap. "Wash up."

Ricky pushed past me and stepped into the water, leaving me steadying my breathing and holding the soap and scrubby. Without protest, I opened the bottle and worked soap into the fibers, but I was feeling distinctly put out. "Am I that dirty?" I asked. 

Ricky was now washing his own hair, combing lather through it with his fingers. "You sweat. You're human," he said. 

Human... Well, so what? But I couldn't argue. All I wanted... All that mattered was pleasing Ricky. So I scrubbed myself raw... And after all, it did make me feel better. Now clean, I joined Ricky under the water and shuddered as its warmth ran down my body, all the soap now pooling around my feet. 

"Good boy," purred Ricky, and his hands trailed up my abdomen from behind, his cheek grazing the piercings in my left ear. His teeth tugged at the bearing of my industrial bar. I trembled with its sharp pain. Oh... I liked that... The length of Ricky's body was pressed against my back... I could feel his flexing muscles, his prominent hipbones... And, resting against the furrow of my ass, his soft, thick sex. Ugh... I was really turned on. 

"That excited already?" Ricky mused. "My, but I just can't keep you satisfied, can I, Shay? Even after last night, you still want more?"

I groaned as Ricky's light touches became fingernail scratches down my chest. Yes... I wanted more... I wanted more of Ricky's rough sex... But all I could get out was: "Please...!"

He chuckled against my ear, but soon his hands dropped from me entirely, and I felt his body leaving mine. "I can't, Shay," he said. "You know why."

Can't... Oh... That's right... But... My wild desperation made me turn to him with pleading. "So drink me... Take my blood, then you can fuck me," I blurted. 

Ricky's brow lifted and his lips parted in surprise. I didn't blame him... I could hardly believe what I'd just asked of him myself, and my face heated with color. Bemused, his open mouth twisted into a smile, and before I could say any more, he took me by my biceps and pushed me against the cold shower wall. "You are a strange creature," he hissed. "So very ready to give up your body to me for the slightest promise of pleasure. Or is it pain you're after? Tell me, Shay... What should I give you?"

"Both," I groaned.

He laughed deeply and lowered his head, not taking his eyes off mine. "So be it. Let me drink from you."

And so, shaking hard, I lifted my forearm to him - but in the same instant, he pushed it away. 

"Not this time," he said gutturally. "I want to taste your neck."

I trembled harder. Oh, god... I was really going to do this, wasn't I...? It would hurt... It was going to hurt so badly... And fuck, did I ever want it to. Trying to stop my shaking, to bridle my pounding heart, I closed my eyes and tilted my head to one side, exposing the length of my neck where my veins and tendons knotted. My breath came out in a shudder as Ricky's hands settled around my body, one at my spine, one cradling the nape of my neck, and then those cold lips pressed against my proffered flesh... 

And then came the teeth...

I had to bite back my scream. Ricky's teeth bit through the thick muscle of my throat and into my very core, and the icy feeling that followed was instantaneous. Unconsciously my right hand flew up to clamp against the back of Ricky's skull, holding him there as he drained me, as he drank deeply from my wildly pounding heart. My fierce heartbeat and Ricky's swallows became one and the same, as if my heart was now only pumping blood directly into my partner's belly... And very quickly, I felt the weakness coming again. 

My legs gave out and I began to slide down the shower wall, my ears seemingly clogged with water as my senses began to fade. Too much... I'd given too much... But Ricky's strong arms wrapped around me and lowered me to the floor, and his fingers were thrust into my mouth. I tasted blood again. With difficulty I swallowed, and slowly, the scene around me cleared. God, I didn't know if I could get used to that. 

"Good boy," Ricky panted softly. "You'll learn to endure it better, with time. Now get up. I want to fuck you again."

Fuck, he didn't waste time...! I didn't mind... As soon as the aftermath of draining my blood was gone, I was ready for more. I struggled to my feet with Ricky's help and felt his hardened sex against my thigh. With his guidance, my arms and shoulders were pressed against the wall, my hips pulled back against his, with the warm water still cascading over us both. My heart was back to its pounding in my chest. And with my blood swelling him, with only water lubricating him, Ricky thrust himself inside of me once more.

My fists clenched against the wall as I gave out a strangled cry of pleasure. Fuck, it felt good...! My body stung badly inside, burning as if I were being penetrated with a branding iron. Stop... No, don't stop... More... Fuck me! I whimpered and pushed my hips back against Ricky's, pleading for his movement within me, and with a soft chuckle, he obliged me. His fingers clamped harder on my hipbones and pulled me fiercely back against him, once, twice, over and over again, matching his own thrusts in rhythm. My vision spun again. I couldn't breathe... All I could do was pant laboriously as all the muscles in my body tensed around their invader, only serving to pull him deeper inside of me... Harder... Fuck me harder... The words wouldn't come out, but their intention was understood, and in no time at all I was gasping and crying out on the edge of orgasm. 

"F... Fuh... R-Ri... C-c-co..."

"Come!" Ricky snarled.

And I could only obey him. With my forehead against the wall I shook and groaned with my peaking pleasure, the sensation of his nails digging into my back, his heat filling me, spurring me on as I unraveled around him under the water... 

Shower sex... It wasn't so bad, really.

~

Now clean once more, Ricky stepped out of the shower first, pulling a thick gray towel from the wall and over his shoulder and then handing me an identical one. I followed him, drying myself off quickly and then draping the fluffy towel over the top of my head. I found myself staring at my blurry shape in the fogged mirror, and I reached forward and wiped some of the condensation off, my hand making squeaking sounds against the glass.

"Don't do that," said Ricky. "You'll leave streaks."

"Oh - Sorry," I said, but the damage was done anyway. I examined my reflection, running fingers over my cheek. I was getting a bit stubbly in places. I made a mental note to shave when I got back home; facial hair had never worked on me. And then my eyes drifted to Ricky's reflection, where I could see him rubbing his long hair dry with the towel. 

"So you have a reflection after all..."

"Hm?" He tugged the towel down around his bare shoulders and looked at me with a quirked eyebrow. 

I opened and closed my mouth, feeling my cheeks grow hot. "Well... I thought you might not have one, since you're a vampire... They're not supposed to have reflections, right?"

Ricky pondered what I said, and then he began to laugh. "That old myth," he chuckled. "Being a vampire doesn't mean I can break the laws of physics. If I didn't have a reflection, do you think I'd look this good every day? God, but it'd be awful. I'd never be able to go get a haircut or try on clothes. Photos with friends would be awfully hard to explain..."

That did sound a bit ridiculous, I thought. "So... are all vampire myths fake? I mean, which ones are real?"

"Ahh..." Ricky brushed his hair back and leaned against the bathroom counter. "There's too many... Name some."

Name some! I considered for a moment, drying my own hair quietly. "Well... How about that one... The garlic thing, is that true?"

"The garlic thing," Ricky repeated with a laugh. "It doesn't ward me off, if that's what you mean. Though I suppose it's not entirely ineffective..."

"Yeah?"

"Well, vampires have heightened senses. My sense of smell is like a bloodhound's, and garlic, among other things, is very pungent. I don't like smelling it, but that's about it." 

Well, that made sense. I thought harder. "What about, uh... Crosses and holy water and that shit?"

"Crosses... Effective in the hands of someone of true faith," he said slickly, "as with any religion, actually. A rabbi can run at me with a star of David and I can't touch him. But it's not like a crucifix is going to burn my skin. Same with silver, for that matter."

"And holy water?"

"Water is water. Despite what the Catholics think, you can't bless everything on the planet."

I racked my brain for more. This was interesting, if surreal. "Okay, how about crossing running water?"

Ricky barked a laugh and shook his head. "Where in the world did you hear that one? How in the world would I get across town if I couldn't cross the gutters?"

"Oh, yeah," I laughed. "I dunno, that's all I can think of right now." 

"Fine with me," said Ricky, and he strolled from the bathroom with the towel around his shoulders. I followed him, blinking in the dark hallway. Oh, right... Last but not least, the sunlight thing. 

"I forgot," I said abruptly. "You said you've got that thing with sunlight... What does it do to you?"

Ricky stopped and turned towards me, raising his eyebrows. "What do you believe it does?" he asked.

I thought. "Well... In some stories you see, it makes vampires like... burst into flame, or turn to ash, or s-"

"I assure you, it's not the last thing you're thinking," said Ricky. "It's none of those, actually." 

"So what is it?"

His eyes became hooded, looking me over musingly. "They call it hematoma," he said finally. "A sun bruise. The sun's light exposes us for what we are - living corpses. It curdles the blood and bruises the skin, and then it rots the flesh. Stay out long enough, and be alive long enough, and you'll merely turn to dust."

I had no idea what to say to this. It was so unlike anything I could have imagined... And I couldn't picture what it would look like. I wasn't even sure I wanted to. The very idea of it gave me chills. 

Ricky only turned and continued on to the bedroom, and I padded along behind him. "Is your curiosity sated now?" he asked.

"Uh - yeah," I said. 

"Fair enough. You still have my number?" prompted Ricky, reaching down and tossing me my clothes from the floor. 

I caught them and nodded. "Yeah... Of course I do."

"Good. Call me soon."

Ricky turned away and opened his closet, flicking through clothes to find whatever he was looking for. I blinked, and began to separate and don my clothing. "Are we going somewhere?"

"Not together," he sighed. "I'm sorry to cut this short, Shay, but I've got to go to Inkjet today. I'm still making up for lost shifts from that girl walking out on us."

I was pulling on my pants. "Oh... Em." 

Ricky looked over his shoulder with a shirt and pants in hand. "You knew her," he said. It wasn't a question.

"Uh... well, yeah, she was my artist."

"She knew of your proclivity."

That wasn't a question either. "I... yeah, I mean... she had to, it wasn't something I could hide when she was... doing THAT to me..." My face was burning. 

"So I've noticed," he replied icily, but his face betrayed a grin. 

And that just made me blush harder. 

I pulled my shirt on, and when my face emerged from my collar, Ricky was dressed and looking contemplative. He straightened the faded gray t-shirt he wore and pursed his lips, frowning. 

"I didn't like her," he said finally. 

I didn't know what to make of that. 

Ricky and I pulled on our shoes and didn't speak again until we'd reached the front door, where he looked me up and down with a smile.

"Will we make a habit of this?" he queried.

My belly tensed up at his words. "Of... what?" I asked, knowing full well in the back of my mind what "this" was.

The words were barely off my lips before Ricky seized my upper arms and forced me hard against the door, slamming my shoulders into the wood. I gasped, shivering at the bruising sensation spreading across my back, but my noise was swallowed up in Ricky's mouth as he kissed me, harsh and deep and powerful. His tongue ensnared mine, his teeth grazed my lips, and in another moment he had released my mouth, leaving me panting breathlessly beneath his gaze. 




Hematoma Ch. 08



"Come see me again, Shay," Ricky hissed softly, his smile spreading. "Let me hurt you."

Oh, god...! I was going to melt if this kept up. Was he trying to make me hard again? Well, it worked. And Ricky only laughed when he realized it.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'," he purred with satisfaction. "Get yourself under control, now. I need to head out, and so do you."

So I stood there trying to get my blood pressure down, and trying not to let Ricky's enticing voice ring in my head as I pulled on my jacket behind him. A few clicks and the entryway was flooded with the cold city air from outside, and we both submerged ourselves in it on the steps. I gave a last look up at Ricky, who was pulling his hood over his face with a sigh. Beyond the rooftops above, the sun was climbing. 

"Call me," I said, perhaps more timid, more pleading than I intended. 

Ricky smiled and pushed his hands into his pockets, withdrawing a pair of sunglasses from the left one. "I'll consider that an invitation," he replied. 

And without another word, he turned and retreated away, boots thudding dully on the sidewalk... The opposite way of my path. 

For a minute I could only stand there, watching his back grow smaller. But at last I forced myself to turn the other way and head back home. Home... it felt like I'd been away for ages. The last twenty hours seemed like they'd lasted forever, and yet it also seemed like they were over far too soon. My mind was whirling with words, images, past sensations. Yorick was a vampire. I had allowed... no, begged him to drink my blood, not once but twice. I had bid him inside of me. I still felt it. I longed to feel it again. I craved more of the pain he brought, and craved it tenfold. And, I thought with a shudder, he would probably more than willingly give it to me...

I shook my head, feeling my blazing cheeks hot against the chilling autumn breeze. If I kept engrossing myself in my perverse thoughts, I'd never get home without jerking off. I felt my MP3 player wrapped in headphone cord in my pocket, and pulled it out to distract myself with music.

But as I reached the street corner, something seized the arm I'd just freed.

Stunned into silence, I could only barely register that the arm affixed to my wrist was ghost-white, gloved and sleeved in ivory fleece, before its owner spoke with a snarl:

"You can't keep avoiding me forever, you -"

But then our eyes met, and with a yelp, my attacker released me... and I recognized her.

The short Asian girl who had stalked Ricky and I only a few days ago was standing, frozen in shock, in front of me. While her clothing was decidedly different, every article of it was, just as before, as white as snow, from her pristine heels to the lacy parasol balanced on her shoulder, shading her from the cold sun. Her long coal-black hair was tied back with ribbons, which left the look on her face, shocked and almost horrified, clear for me to see. 

"You're not..." she said faintly, and then something dawned in her eyes. "You're that kid, aren't you? The guy following Yorick around last time..." 

I stared at her, frowning. Kid? She was younger than me, or at least she looked it. Who was she to talk? I opened my mouth to say as much, but I was interrupted by an utterance of disgust.

"No wonder I thought... ugh!" She wrinkled her nose and covered it with one hand, speaking through her fingers. "You stink of him. It's all over you..."

"Excuse me," I spat. "But who I hang out with is none of your business. I don't even know you." With that, I began to walk across the street away from her.

Little clicks on the pavement told me I wasn't going anywhere alone.

"It's my business if that person is him," she said loudly. "How do you know Yorick? What have you two been doing? You need to tell me!"

"That's REALLY none of your business," I replied bitterly. "I don't need to tell you anything. And stop following me!"

"Not until you tell me what's going on. Who are you? Why do you -" And then I heard her heel clicks stop abruptly. I turned and saw that she had halted in the middle of the sidewalk, one gloved hand clapped over her mouth. "You didn't - with him - but you did, didn't you?" And then she started towards me again, reaching out for my arm. "You need to listen to me... Yorick is -"

I didn't wait to let her finish. I pulled myself out of her reach and turned to walk away again. This crazy chick... whoever she was... Ricky had told me she was a crazy ex-girlfriend. Clearly all she wanted to do was get in the way. Why should I even give her a second thought? What I did with Ricky really was none of her business. 

I checked over my shoulder to make sure she wasn't following me anymore. She was gone. Good, I thought. I didn't have time to deal with her crap, not after such a wonderful day with Ricky. 

Despite that, what she was saying bothered me a little. Why was she so intent on finding out why I was with Ricky in the first place? What had she tried to warn me of? Maybe, I thought, she was trying to warn me that Ricky was a vampire. Maybe he'd revealed himself to her as well. Well, I thought, it was too late for that revelation. Not that I cared. But then I remembered... how she had said I smelled like Ricky. What was that about? I plucked at my jacket and sniffed at it. It did have the distinct aroma of Ricky's home. A good smell, warm and somewhat spicy, but very faint. Not noticeable. 

She was just... creepy. That's all there was for it. I wouldn't pay her any mind ever again.



Hematoma Ch. 09



I lay in bed that night unable to sleep. My memories were a blur. I had to keep reminding myself it wasn't all a dream – Ricky was a vampire, and I'd fed my blood to him. Somehow, it didn't seem as outlandish as it would have if someone had told me it was going to happen a week ago. It was as if my reality had shifted to include this new information, no different than the human race discovering a new planet. So vampires are real, and I'd had sex with one. Delicious, hard sex. The thought of it raised gooseflesh on my arms. I shivered and rolled over in my bed.

On the old coffee table I used as a nightstand by my bed, my phone was sitting face-up, trailing its charging cable like a long, kinked tail. I hadn't tried calling Ricky, and he hadn't called me. I had hoped to get a text or something... But then again, it had barely been twelve hours since leaving Ricky's place, and he did say he was going to work. Surely he was done by now. Maybe I should... I reached for the phone, then hesitated. Would I seem clingy? Creepy? Obsessive? Should I wait? How long? 

Ah, fuck it. 

I swallowed and grabbed the phone, opening up my text screen and picking Ricky's name with trembling fingers. And I began to type to him.

"Hey. You up?"

Dammit, that was lame! I regretted hitting send. Nervously I began to twist the cable around my fingers. The seconds lengthened into minutes, and I couldn't stop staring at my phone. He must be asleep. Maybe he was ignoring me. I sighed and went to put the phone down... when it buzzed in my hand. 

"Yes, I am."

That's all he said. I couldn't quite place his tone – was it annoyance? Amusement? But I charged on. 

"How late were you working today?"

"Until eleven. I only recently got home." he replied.

Oh, so he wasn't annoyed... At least it didn't seem like it. And then he spoke again:

"Can't sleep, Shay?"

I could feel my heart beating now. Just his simple words were making me feel... somewhat excited. My fingers kept slipping as I typed back.

"I dunno. I guess" I said.

"Do you have work tomorrow?"

"Yeah in the morning"

"Until what time?" 

"4" 

I watched the little dots bubbling from Ricky's side of the conversation as he typed. 

"I have work in the afternoon until 10:00 PM. At that time, I would like to come to your home. Text me your address."

So I did, with trembling hands. Ricky... coming to my place. I liked that. I really liked that. Just as quickly, Ricky texted back.

"I should arrive no later than 10:30. Go to sleep, and eat well tomorrow. I want to begin experimenting with you."

Experimenting! That sounded... really erotic. The blood was pounding in my ears as I typed out "Okay" and then, almost disdainfully, put the phone down and tossed over in bed. Get some sleep. Okay. Yes. I'd need it. Whatever Ricky was going to put me through, he thought I'd need rest...

Oh, but fuck, was I horny now!

Well, there was a solution to both problems in front of me. Satisfy my newly-grown hard-on and put me right to sleep... I pushed my hand between my legs and took myself in hand. The whole situation, all the buildup... I was rock hard. I gripped myself tightly and stroked, rhythmically and gaining speed. I couldn't even begin to anticipate what Ricky had in store for me. But it would hurt. I wanted so bad for it to hurt. Cause me pain... Make it rough... Make it sting and burn and... Ah, fffffuck!

I caught my breath and searched for something to clean my hand and belly off in the aftershock of orgasm. I ended up using the shirt I'd been wearing, which I'd cast on the floor earlier. It ended up back there again afterwards. God, even masturbating to thoughts of being with Ricky felt good. There was something about him... Something I couldn't name. But I didn't have the energy anymore to think about it. Finally spent, I drifted to sleep.

~

The following afternoon, I spent my time at work sorting packages and going through receiving lists with a guy named Don. Find a box, check the number, count it and write it down, rinse and repeat. Same shit, different day. Except on this particular day, I was a bit distracted. 

"We already counted that one," Don pointed out, when I gave him a duplicate box number for the third time that day. "Dammit, Shay, get your shit together."

"Sorry," I grumbled, wiping my forehead. 

But as I searched the side of the next stack of boxes, Don looked at me with disgruntled concern. "You okay, man?" he said gruffly. "You've been actin' kinda funny the last few days."

I looked up blankly, unsure of what to say. Don was an older, bearlike man with tree-trunk arms and salt-and-pepper mixed into his thick beard. Most of the time, you couldn't really get more than two words out of him unless it was necessary to the job. This sudden utterance of concern for my well-being, nevermind him having paid attention to my behavior, just threw me off. But what could I possibly tell him? No one in the warehouse talked about their relationships, unless it was to bitch about their own wives, and mine was none of anyone's business anyway, forget the fact that I was with a guy. 

"I'm fine," I said lamely.

He only nodded and checked the packing list again, but he paused to scratch the back of his head with his pen. "Y'know," he grumbled, not making eye contact. "I don't know you a whole lot, Shay, but I got a boy your age. You ever wanna talk, I'm around, got it?"

I just stood there, stunned. "Uh... Yeah, sure, Don," I nodded, slightly abashed. 

But fuck, I was not going to talk about that.

We were halfway through the next list together when Tom came jogging over from the locker rooms. "Hey... Shay!" he called. 

I glanced up. "What's up?"

"Your shift's about over, y'know," he said, brandishing his watch and tapping the face. 

I checked my own. It was five of. Tom never let me off early. "Oh... Okay, lemme just finish this up, man."

"I'm takin' over for you at four. Go on and clock out already, you got a visitor."

A visitor? No... Ricky? My heart was thumping out of excitement... and fear. Did I want these people knowing I was fucking a dude?

"I saw too," laughed Frank, strolling up behind Tom. He whistled. "What a cutie! Where'd you find her, Shay?"

Her? Cutie? Who the fuck were they talking about? 

"Thanks, guys," I said, and I tore off my work gloves as I ran to the locker rooms. What girl did I know who'd visit me at work? Karen? But she didn't know where I worked, and why would she visit me? My mom? God no, she was all the way back in north Jersey, and she wasn't exactly what any guy would call a "cutie"... or assume I was dating. But I couldn't think of anyone else.

Freshly changed out of my sweat-soaked work clothes, which now stunk up my duffel bag, I trotted to the front gates and saw...

No. Not her!

The Asian stalker girl from the previous day was standing with her back to the gate, her lacy little parasol folded at her side. With the clouds overhead, her clothing looked almost as gray as the sky, dull and cold. At hearing my footsteps, however, she turned and, with a wide, shocked smile, squealed at me.

"Shay!" she giggled, her heels clicking as she pranced through the open gate to meet me. "How was work? I thought I'd come surprise you today!"

"Uh-" Well, it was definitely a surprise, but fuck if it was a pleasant one. I wanted to say as much, but before I could, my coworker Bill showed up and wolf-whistled, passing by me through the gate. 

"Who's the chickie, Shay?" said Bill. "Good job, man!"

The girl made a show of blushing, though I saw no color in her cheeks. "Come on, Shay, you said we were gonna get dinner together," she said shyly. She took my arm, and before I could protest, she was steering me away. 

I struggled to keep up with her fast little footsteps, tripping over myself with my duffel bag sliding off my shoulder. I couldn't get a word out until we were halfway down the street, at which point I promptly yelled "What the fuck is wrong with you!?"

She released my arm and whirled around, glaring daggers at me. "You and I need to talk. It's extremely important that you listen, do you hear me?" 

Her attitude had completely changed. It was a shock that this was the same girl who'd waited outside of my workplace for god knows how long. That's right... She had stalked me! 

"Hold on!" I snarled. "You fucking followed me to work! How crazy are you? And how do you know my name?"

"Your coworkers told me," she replied coldly. "One of them asked who I was waiting for, and I said my friend, and gave them a short description. He said that must be a guy named Shay."

Fucking Tom! "That doesn't explain why you stalked me all the way here!" I said indignantly. "How did you even know where I work?"

She folded her arms, the parasol dangling from her wrist. "I could smell you," she said bitterly. "You still stink of Yorick."

"That doesn't mean you -" But... What did she just say? "You... can smell me?"

Her expression remained unchanged, but her head listed slightly to the side. "Well, yeah. Yorick already told you his secret, didn't he? I thought it was obvious I'm of his kind."

His kind? The gears were turning reluctantly in my head as I struggled to put two and two together. And then, with a thunderous crash, it clicked. The parasol. My scent. Sunlight... Hematoma... 

"You're a vampire?" I said weakly, my voice cracking. 

She clicked her tongue impatiently, tossing her hair to the side. "So he did tell you," she spat. "I was wondering if he'd deceived you or not. It was clear he'd already drunk from you."

My head was spinning. But the more I looked at her, the more I saw it... Her ivory skin, those deep black eyes, and, I assumed hiding behind her pouted, painted lips, her fangs. There were other vampires in Philadelphia. 

"Ricky said..." I swallowed, shifting the duffel bag on my shoulder. "He said you were his crazy ex-girlfriend. I mean... are you...?"

Immediately she made a loud noise of disgust and backed up a step. "How dare you! I would never... With that asshole? Ha!"

My immediate reaction to her words was defense. What did she know? The Ricky I knew was far from an asshole. He was gentle and considerate... and perhaps a bit rough, but I liked that. But nothing of his character that I knew demanded her attitude towards him. "So who the fuck are you?" I asked brusquely, crossing my arms.

She scowled at me, lifting her chin. "My name is Soonhee," she said indignantly.

Soon-hee? I guess that could tell me what kind of Asian she was, if I knew anything about that shit. "I didn't ask your name, I wanna know why you care so much who I hang out with!" I snapped.

She tossed her hair in annoyance. "I care because Yorick Andersen is not someone any human should be consorting with. You obviously don't know how much danger you're in, so here I am being gracious and trying to help you. But if you want to be a little shit, go right the fuck ahead and die!"

"Soonhee!"

I jumped a mile. I was so angry listening to Soonhee, I hadn't even noticed the long, sleek black car that had pulled up on the other side of the road. A Towncar? In this part of the city? The loud, male voice had come from the back window, half rolled down but so dark inside that I couldn't see its owner. Soonhee looked to the car, then to me, and with narrowed eyes she plunged her hand inside her pocket and withdrew something, which she handed to me. 

"If you decide you want to know... About Yorick, and about everything..." She trailed off and turned on her heel, dashing off to the car and climbing through the door that had seemingly been opened for her. I stared as the gleaming black Towncar pulled away and left me alone in the middle of the street. Once the sound of the engine had faded, I looked down at the thing Soonhee had placed in my hand... It was a business card, made of some thick blood-red cardstock with raised, cursive silver lettering:

The Society
of Philadelphia, PA 
(000) 001 – 0101

I turned the card over. Blank. That's all that was on it. What society? I looked down the street where the Towncar had disappeared. Was that girl seriously expecting me to believe there was an entire fucking vampire society in Philly? 

But then again, I thought, shoving the card in my jacket pocket and turning to head back home, it really didn't seem that outlandish compared to everything I'd learned in the past twenty-four hours.

~

I tried really hard that night to eat til I was full. Ricky's words in his text from the previous night were ringing soundlessly in my head... I needed the energy. But with everything that stirred in my brain, I was having a difficult time finishing the grilled cheese and ramen noodles I'd half-assedly made for dinner. I kept picking at my food, never really eating more than a bite at a time until it all went cold. This was different than going to Ricky's home... He was going to see where I lived.

Oh, right. Shit!

I got up from the kitchen table and dashed into the living room, glancing back and forth at... well, the mess. I wasn't the most tidy person in the world. Discarded socks lie in pairs and singles on the floor by my shoes. My jacket was thrown over the arm of the chewed sofa. I knew that bowl on the coffee table had been there for a few days. Ricky would think I was a pig. And then I remembered how he'd said he was sensitive to smells... Fuck, this place probably smelled like crap.

So I began to clean. I loaded my arms with laundry from every room of the place and threw it all into a mesh hamper, tossed my shoes into a heap in the bottom of my closet, and started doing dishes. There wasn't anything I could do about the stained carpet, but I managed to clean off the counters and tables and even change the sheets on my bed, which I probably hadn't done in three months. The new ones smelled a bit like my closet, but at least it was something. 

I was just putting the finishing touches on the apartment by walking around with a can of air freshener and spraying the fuck out of everything when I realized what time it was. The little display on the microwave told me it was ten-fifteen. Fuck! Ricky was going to be here soon. I tossed the air freshener into the cabinet under the sink – god, that was a fucking mess I'd have to take care of another day – and grabbed the last half of cold grilled cheese that was sitting on the table, stuffing it into my mouth. Shit, that left two more dishes to do. Fuck it. I tipped my dinner dishes into the sink unceremoniously and went back to the bedroom to clean myself up.

And no sooner had I finally picked a shirt to change into than I heard a knock at the door. 

My heart leapt up near my larynx. Ricky... I pulled my shirt on clumsily in the hallway and nearly stumbled for the door, fingers tripping over the lock. Finally, I managed to yank the door open, out of breath and trying very hard to keep my composure. "Hey... Sorry!"

Ricky stood just outside the door with a very bemused expression on his face. His leather jacket half concealed a blue-gray tee, dark jeans cuffed around his heavy boots. His long hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail at the nape of his neck, but he had left some loose in front to frame his face and trail over his shoulders... All in all, it was an incredible look for him, and I felt myself losing the air in my lungs the more I gazed. 

"Good evening, Shay," said Ricky silkily. "How are you tonight?"

I swallowed and managed a weak smile, fidgeting with the hem of my shirt. "I'm great... Uh... Do you want to come in?" I said lamely. 

The corners of his mouth perked up more. "Yes, I'd love to," he replied.

But he just stood there.

"Are... you going to come inside?" I asked, confused.

Ricky's eyes glittered. "I'm afraid you're going to have to invite me inside, Shay," he said, and then added, "Please."

I just stared at him blankly. "Uh... why?"

He laughed and shook his head, then looked back up at me. "It's a bit of a silly rule, but I can't enter your home unless you invite me."

This didn't make any sense either, but then it clicked. "Oh... oh!" I said suddenly. "You can't... Yeah, I'm sorry, please come inside!" I scrambled back to let him in.

Ricky bowed his head graciously and stepped inside, and I saw that in his left hand was a small tool bag. "Thank you," he said, and closed the door behind himself. Without another word, he moved past me and his eyes began to wander the apartment. 

I followed him nervously, anxious about his reaction to my home. Compared to his, it was still a sty, and I was absolutely sure he thought so, too. 

But he was silent, and all the while, I watched as his gaze traveled from the dingy carpet, to the flaking door of my bedroom, to the hastily-cleaned kitchen. His eyes were unreadable. Every so often, however, I saw his nostrils twitch. Did I overdo the air freshener? "Your apartment is very small. Cozy, I think you'd say."

"Uh... yeah, sorry," I mumbled. 

"There's no need to apologize." He walked slowly around the coffee table and ran his fingers over the old TV against the wall, rubbing dust from them afterwards. Shit. I hadn't cleaned this place as well as I thought I had. I tried to find something to distract him from the dirtiness of my abode. 

"Um... So what's in the bag?" I asked pointedly.

Ricky finally tore his scrutinizing gaze from my apartment and back to me again. He smiled broadly, almost malevolently. "If you want to know that, you should show me to your bedroom," he said, and I saw his eyes gleam like a cat's.

The bottom of my stomach dropped out of me. Oh... so that's where this was heading already! When my insides returned, they were swimming with butterflies. Breathless, I walked past Ricky and shouldered the door to the bedroom open. The loud noise made me wince, and I mumbled an apology. "Sorry... It sticks..."

But Ricky didn't seem to mind. He only stepped past me into the bedroom, shrugging out of his jacket and draping it over his arm. My bedroom was no less unimpressive than the rest of the apartment – just my double bed on its shitty metal bedframe alongside what I called a nightstand but what was really just a couple of milk crates and a board, full of books and stuff I never bothered to put in its proper place. He examined the dresser on the far wall, the top of which held a pair of speakers and an articulated giant robot figurine – a remnant from my days as an avid model collector in high school. Ricky picked it up with mild interest.

"Oh – don't mind that, it's stupid," I said quickly, my face turning red as I hurried over to him. 

"I don't think it's stupid," he said lightly, turning it over and testing the arm joint. "Nothing you are interested in is stupid, Shay. I'm actually very surprised by the lack of personality in your home. There is... very little of you here."

I was taken aback by his statement. "What do you mean by that?"

He repositioned the robot figure and placed it back on its little stand, looking it over thoughtfully. "This apartment is very blank. You have not gone out of your way to decorate it, or embellish it with things you enjoy. I see none of your music tastes, your hobbies, your favorite movies or television shows. You seem to simply exist in this place, never truly living here." He turned towards me and brushed a lock of hair over his ear. "Are you ashamed of the person you are, Shay?"

My mouth opened slightly, but I only ended up biting my lip. I had no idea what to say. For the past few years, I would have rather spent my money on body modification than superficial belongings like I did in high school. Even now, my figurines were all packed up in a box at my parents' house, along with the vast majority of my book collections – I just hadn't seen the point of bringing it all when I moved, and I never took the time to go back for it. But was I ashamed? I had no idea what to tell him...




Hematoma Ch. 09



"I... don't know..."

"Hm," he sounded, and he turned away from me again to look over the room. His eyes fell to the bed, and then the floor, and all of a sudden, he got down on his knees, placed the tool bag and his jacket on the mattress, and lowered himself to peer under the bed, his ponytail touching the floor. I was puzzled, and then fearful as I realized what was under there, and I moved to tell him no... But then he resurfaced, and with him came the thing I had hoped he wouldn't find.

I had nearly forgotten the night I pushed the canvas box holding my pain implements under the bed, the night that Jade ran out on me... But there it was, dragged by Yorick from its hiding place. Needles and blades, matches and lighters, and on top of it all, the striped handkerchief... wrapped around a bloodstained box cutter. 

I shuddered and lowered my eyes in shame. The last time I saw these things, I was swearing I'd never use them again. I didn't want to see them, the reminders of that night... The memories of the look on Jade's face... 

But strong, gentle hands were cradling my jaw and lifting my face, and Yorick's cold lips captured mine in a deep kiss. My eyes opened in shock. He pulled away, glowering at me with the faintest hint of a smile. 

"I will tell you again, over and over," he said softly. "You have nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing to hide from me. So stop this."

I swallowed and, shaking, nodded in his hands. His thumb graced my punctured ear and fingers ran through my hair before he released me, and turned his attention back to the canvas box. There was silence before he spoke again, picking up one thing at a time and then placing it back where it was. 

"Plenty to work with, I think," he mused. "But nothing like what I've got in mind. Come, sit with me."

Ricky tossed his jacket from my bed to the dresser and sat beside the tool bag, pulling it onto his lap. I followed suit, peering at it curiously. He glanced at me, smiling, and then opened the bag. 

For a minute I had no idea what I was looking at. There were a lot of rolled canvas sleeves, plastic boxes with lots of compartments, a small box of nitrile gloves and some opaque, white-capped bottles. But then Ricky withdrew one of the canvas sleeves and unrolled it in his hands, and the muscles in my belly tensed up as shivers went down my spine.

Piercing needles.

In the roll he'd just unpacked were at least a dozen shiny steel needles of all shapes. Long, short, wide, thin, some straight, some hooked at one end, and on the far end, one very thick one curved almost entirely like a fish hook. Each one had a tapered, hollow point, used to place piercings through the skin... And each one was giving me a very seductive look. 

"For you," said Ricky. 

"For me?" 

"Yes. I would like to pierce you again. And not just pierce." He selected one of the longer needles and rolled it between his fingers in front of me. I shivered. "These are for playing with you, Shay. I want very badly to cause you pain you've never felt before, and I want you to beg me for it. This is just the beginning. Let me experiment with you tonight."

I couldn't breathe. Every single word that had come from Ricky's mouth just now robbed me of sense and willpower, and I felt my body trembling with desire. Yes! Yes, I wanted that so fucking bad. Just take me now! But all I could croak out was "Okay."

"Good boy," he said with a smile, and his fingers traced the pulsing vein of my neck. I shuddered, my mouth opening in a silent gasp of pleasure. But then the lightly grazing fingertips wrapped around my throat, and Ricky pushed me roughly back on the bed, holding me down under him. I breathed in sharply as he released me, and lifted my head to watch as he slid himself down to my waist. 

Ricky began to push my shirt up, his mouth following the path of his hands, kissing and grazing my lower stomach with his lips. His tongue lingered on one of my hip piercings, the ones he'd placed himself, still healing... And then he kept going up, undressing me with his hands, his mouth, his loose tendrils of hair dragging over my body like waves of satin. I reached forward and entangled my shaking fingers in his ponytail, wanting to hold it tight like a leash, pull him to my most sensitive spots... But I caught his eyes, and they flashed with warning. No... Let him play with me...

"Arms up," he instructed, and with our combined efforts my shirt came off. Ricky ran his hands back down over my body and strayed over my pierced nipples, giving each little ring a painful tug, making me gasp and arch my back. 

"Please," I whimpered.

Ricky smirked broadly. "Should I? Already?" he mused. "All right then."

He reached for the tool bag and opened it again, but he didn't go for the roll of piercing needles... Instead, he withdrew a plastic sleeve from it, and inside...

"Do you know what these are, Shay?" Ricky asked gently, and he pulled from the sleeve a long plastic ribbon lined with a row of very small needles. Each one was steel, just over an inch and a half long, impossibly thin and embedded in a blue plastic hilt. I recognized them instantly.

"Yes," I shivered, feeling my heartbeat pick up. They were called cannula needles – hypodermic needles most commonly used for inserting IVs in hospitals, and often as piercing tools... But I had a very strong feeling that Ricky would not be putting jewelry in me with them. And that excited me. 

"Good," he said lightly, and he began to pluck needles from the plastic sleeving, one, then two, holding both in the fingertips of his left hand. "Then I won't need to explain what they're for. So now, I'll need you to be very still. And if you aren't, I will bind you until you are. Although," he added, smiling wryly, "that would probably only excite you more, wouldn't it? I haven't even started and you're already hard."

I swallowed, my eyes fluttering closed. Of course I was... I couldn't hide this. But the anticipation was killing me, and my erection was starting to hurt. "Please, hurry up and do it," I begged.

Ricky let out a dark laugh and leaned down over me, his thighs straddling my hips. "Just lie still," he hissed. And carefully, with the precision of a surgeon, he leaned close, squeezed a pinch of skin, and eased the first needle through the flesh of my breast. 

I gasped and tensed my body up, struggling not to arch into the needle... The pain was throbbing through my veins, sharp and then dull, over and over with my pulse. So close to my heart, my very heartbeat was making it hurt, making it vibrate in my skin. I groaned and rolled my head to the side. God! This was... Exactly what I had wanted. 

"Easy, now," Ricky purred, and bending over my torso, he probed his next target, two inches above the first. I winced... The pressure made my skin feel bruised... It felt wonderful... 

I had barely closed my eyes when the second needle came through me, and I moaned loudly with its sensation. It ripped the skin from my flesh, lifted it, pinned it in place... And now my racing heart was making both thin steel lines tremble in my breast. I wanted to claw at them... I wanted to rip them out... God, it felt so fucking good...!

"Shall I do more?" murmured Ricky in amusement.

I could not respond as eloquently. "Please!" I yowled. 

Ricky's laughter came again, and he placed more of his weight on my hips to hold me down. But now there was no hesitation with the needles... One, then two, then three were pinned through my body, quickly and precisely, Ricky's fingers pulling my skin and pushing each little steel nail into me... and I lost the power to think. I could only lay shuddering, assaulted with the agony of being punctured, each pin making static shocks in my nerves as if each was a jab with a cattle prod. It hurt... I wanted to cry, to wail with pain, but all that would come out of my mouth were shaking sobs, and without warning, all too soon, I was ready to come...

"Fuck! That was effective, wasn't it?"

I was blind. Ricky's voice was nearly drowned out by the blood pounding in my ears. Fuck... I came in my pants. That had never happened to me before. I gave a breathless laugh and winced at the feeling of the needles pulsing in my chest. But they were further down now... All over...

Ricky helped me lift my head, and I saw, with a wretched turn of my stomach, that his 'work' was finished – I was a pincushion, but a beautiful one. The cannula needles were lining my torso in a pattern... A starburst at my left breast, with a trailing spiral down my abdomen. It looked like fireworks, like a delicate yet thorny bloom... I imagined if I breathed too hard that the little blue plastics would fly away like dandelion fluff; but they were deep in me, and very secure. I trembled at the sight of it, at the dull pain still pulsing through my body.

"You took thirty needles, Shay," Ricky informed me impassively, though I could sense he was impressed. "Before you nearly passed out from your orgasm, that is."

I moaned happily and let my head fall back. The aftershocks were strong... And I thoroughly enjoyed them. "It was amazing," I whined. 

He smiled, a shadow crossing his eyes. "What do you mean, was? You think you're going to take your pleasure and send me home?"

Huh? Oh... He was pointing out my selfishness; and now I could see the glimmer of hunger in his eyes... And it made me shudder. What was going to happen now? 

Ricky pulled me off my back from the bed, and I gave a cry of pain as thirty cannula needles moved in my skin. He undressed himself rather carelessly, tossing shirt and pants to the floor, and took my place on the pillow instead. "Come," he purred deeply. "I want you to feed me."

Still reeling from the pain of the needles, I paused to catch my breath and swallowed. Feeding Yorick... The past two times we'd done this, it had been he who initiated it. This would be different – very different. While thinking of the best way to have it done, I winced and reached to remove a few of the needles from my skin – but Ricky stopped me with a brush of his hand.

"Leave them," he ordered. "I'll take them out when I want to. Leave them in."

When he wants to... I trembled, and the needles vibrated with my movement. How long would that be? Hours? I closed my eyes to banish those thoughts, and returned to the task given to me. How best to do it... Keeping my eyes half closed, I straddled Ricky's hips and drew myself close, and with the slightest hesitation, I gripped his shoulders and let out a shaking breath. Ouch... Bending over was making my skin scrunch along my belly, and the needles twisted in their places. Calmly as I could, trying to keep my heartbeat under control, I tilted back my head awkwardly and lowered my throat to his mouth. 

Ricky chuckled and lifted a hand, stroking the hair on the nape of my neck, against the little silver bearings in my skin there. "Such a good boy," he murmured against my skin. I felt my pulse beating against his lips. Carefully, he leaned up to meet my offered body and bit savagely into the flesh.

I howled with renewed pain, my nails digging hard into Ricky's shoulders as he drained me. The now familiar cold fluctuated through my veins as he emptied them, his mouth flexing with his swallows; and then all too soon, it was over, and he pulled from me with a gasp, pressing his fingers hard over the newly opened wound. 

I leaned into his hand, grimacing. "You... didn't drink as much as you did before," I said slowly.

Ricky sighed and licked his lips, shaking his head. "Don't need to," he muttered. "I don't want to heal you right now, but I don't want you passing out. This will suffice for the time being." He examined his bloody fingers and sucked at them, keeping his eyes locked on mine... My lower body gave another hard twitch. And then he lifted his hips off the bed and started to pull his jeans down... "Strip. I want you to ride me now."

I exhaled harshly at his words. His commands carried such weight inside me. In the midst of shifting to pull my jeans off, I became vaguely aware of blood dripping from me – from my neck, from pinpricks on my torso. The pattern of needles in my body were starting to connect with red lines, my breast bleeding slowly and freely. I watched flecks of blood appearing in random spots on Ricky's skin beneath me, scarlet on ivory. I let my gaze travel up, and locked eyes with him, breathless, not looking away as he, too, lifted his hips and sidled his jeans down. My breathing quickly became ragged, from the pain and the anticipation, from the sight of my blood...

Ricky pressed a hand to my chest, to the right side where I was still unpunctured. "Calm yourself," he whispered. "You'll bleed more."

I shook slightly and gave a short, breathy laugh. "Don't you like it?" I said darkly.

He returned my smile, baring teeth. 

I leaned back a bit and straddled his thighs, admiring him if only for a moment. I wrapped my fingers around his sex, once more swollen with my bodily fluid, and lightly stroked, feeling the soft skin around his blunt rigidity.

"There's lube..." I mumbled, feeling my face heat, "In the box..."

Ricky turned over soundlessly and reached into the canvas box now sitting beside the bed... And the bottle of lube came out for the first time in two weeks. The last time I'd seen it, it had been in Jade's hand. Now it was being opened by someone who didn't cringe away from my tendency... Someone who indulged it with eagerness. 

Without waiting for Ricky's order, I braced my trembling hands on his torso and positioned myself above him, on my knees. He reached up and ran a hand through my hair, thumbing my ear piercings, and I met his eyes again. His gaze locked into mine and burned into me, and in that moment, I gasped and pushed him inside me.

Fuck! I didn't know how long it would take me to get used to him. Ricky's heat tore me open once more, throttled by the strength of my hips as I lowered myself to his. The muscles in my stomach tightened with the pain rippling within me, each needle tugging with my tension. My teeth clenched, and through them I could only hiss out in agony. Under me, I heard Ricky groan with pleasure, and his hands ran the length of my thighs until they settled firmly at my backside. My fingers were shaking on his chest. I could feel sweat beginning to line my chilled skin and mix with the blood from my punctures. But inside of me, the pain began to ebb away... And craving its return, I began to move.

I had never done this before. The logistics of riding Ricky seemed quite simple – porn made it look easy. I found the reality of it very different. All the strength in my body was diverted to my thighs, and quickly I felt the tendons in my knees protesting. With Ricky's hands bracing my ass, I found my rhythm and pushed him in and out of me with rigor. My insides stung. Ricky felt wonderful in me. But this was about his pleasure... not mine. With gritted teeth, I tensed myself and started moving quicker and harder. The stinging throbbed more fiercely. The steel stitching in my belly ripped me further open. Ricky gasped and bucked upwards into me, and his nails dug into my flesh. The lactic acid in my muscles was running through me like barbed wire. All the sensations inside me, pounding Ricky against my prostate, the pain still fresh in my neck, the needles tearing holes in my breast, the weakness catching up to me... I felt like I was going to pass out. And Ricky, seeming to sense this, took control. 

The broad hands gripping me shifted beneath the joint of my hip, holding me steady while Ricky hitched his breath and got into a better position. My movement ceased where Ricky's began, and I cried out as the vigor restarted. His hips slammed upwards into my ass, fucking me from below, and I could do nothing but put my weight onto my arms, bracing my hands on either side of his shoulders, my breathing ragged as I tried to keep my composure... I couldn't last long like this... It felt so fucking good... From the ever-increasing stinging in my sphincter I could feel myself bleeding around him, but all it did was make me want more, and more, and more...

But I couldn't come... Not yet... Not until...

I struggled to hold back, to stop myself from climax until Ricky had had his fill of me, but it was far too much to bear. With strangled breath I cried as I succumbed to Ricky's assault inside me, shaking, and the heat within my lower belly peaked and burst, painting my partner's abdomen. Panting, trying to wheedle out an apology, I opened my mouth to speak – but Ricky didn't seem to care that I'd lost it. His labor only increased, and the battering of my prostate continued even as my orgasm died. My ears were ringing. I couldn't breathe. Sweat poured from my ruddy skin. Oh god... I'm going to come again...!

"Ffffffuck!" Under me, Ricky roared with triumph and bore up into me one final time, heat exploding in my belly. I croaked out a dying cry of pleasure and came apart for the third time, spurned on by the pain bursting in my muscles, my insides, my bleeding skin... 

With no energy left in me, I collapsed on Ricky's chest and lay still, with his eerily calm breath putting my ragged panting to shame. Ouch... bad idea. I tried to pull the weight off the cannula needles in my torso, but there was no strength left in my muscles. As the ringing in my ears faded, and Ricky stroked my heaving back, I began to think... 

If this was what it was like, to be a vampire's fucktoy... I could really get used to it.



Hematoma Ch. 10



I would like to note that Gilbert is not going to be involved in any sex in this book whatsoever, so there should be no concern of pedophilia popping up five chapters from now.

*****

"You're not staying? ... Ouch!"

For the last fifteen minutes, Yorick and I had been sitting on my bed, plucking needles out of my belly to the lowered sound of shuffled music from the speakers on my dresser. There was now a growing nest of cannula needles, all beaded with dried blood, on a paper towel next to us; and as I watched, Ricky added two more.

"No," he replied calmly, easing another out from near my navel with a twitch of his fingers. "I don't usually stay at others' homes. You don't really have the accommodations for an overnight visit, Shay. Not for me."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I said, affronted. "I mean, I know the bed's small... Ow!"

He added another needle to the pile. "It has nothing to do with the size of your bed. Think about all of the things that my bedroom has that yours doesn't. The drapes? The canopy?"

His reasoning dawned on me at last. "Oh... right..." He meant sunlight. I bit my lip and tried to relax as I watched Ricky slide another needle from me. "I mean... I can cover the windows... Or you can leave before morning, can't you?"

Ricky only laughed. "I think I'll pass. I'll be busy tomorrow. I want rest. Hold still," he added, and eased another needle out of me. 

I winced. Pain wasn't nearly as sexy after my hunger for it was sated. "You do sleep, right?" I asked. "Like... Do you just lay there or are you really sleeping?"

Ricky's eyebrows quirked up at me. "Of course I'm sleeping. What, you think I just lay down for eight hours and stare at my eyelids?"

I frowned, shifting on my arms. "Well, in some media, vampires don't usually sleep."

"Media," scoffed Ricky. "You mean books and movies. Forget that shit. I sleep fine."

"And you dream?"

"I do," he said. "Not so much dreams as colors. Some recent vampires have equated it to being on acid, I believe."

I had no frame of reference on what that was like. Neither did Ricky, from the way it sounded. But it was interesting, at least. 

I hissed in through my teeth as Ricky removed the last of the needles and wiped his hands clean on a towel, bundling up the pile carefully and setting it aside. "Do you have a container to throw these in?"

"Um... Yeah, don't worry," I mumbled. I was too busy examining the damage. The lines of blood that streaked my abdomen were dried and darkened, appearing to stain me where they were painted. And I was still slightly dizzy from earlier. "Ricky... Are you gonna, you know..."

"Ah, right," chuckled Ricky, and he stood up in the midst of pulling his jeans back on. I watched as he lifted a hand to his mouth and nicked his index finger on his sharpened teeth. This he held out to me, and I wrapped my mouth around him obediently. His blood didn't really taste any different than my own... Though, I reminded myself, it probably was mine after all.

"Not too much," he warned, and he pulled his hand from my lips. "It doesn't take much just to mend you."

I felt the familiar warmth blooming through my limbs and sighed, holding a hand to my chest. The cold pinpricks in my skin were fading. I hadn't seen how this fixed physical injuries before. "Won't this turn me into a vampire, too?" I asked reproachfully. 

"Who told you that?" said Ricky. "A drop or two of blood won't do a damn thing to you. Except this, obviously," he added. "You'd need mouthfuls, bellyfuls, in order to turn. And you'd have to take it from my lips. Otherwise you'd just end up very, very sick." Ricky returned to redressing himself, lacing his boots up with expert swiftness. "The act of vampire reproduction is intensely intimate. Like making love."

"Have you ever...?"

"Turned someone?" he finished. "No. I haven't seen the need to."

He'd said it so bluntly... Was he hiding something? I didn't get the feeling that he was. But then again, Ricky just seemed to be blunt about everything. 

Dressed once more, Ricky shrugged his leather jacket on and turned to leave. I scrambled up after him, tripping as I hopped in my drawers. 

"You're leaving now?" I followed him as he sauntered casually to the front door. 

"Well, yes," he said. "It's getting late. I'll see you again soon. You can always call or text."

"But... I mean, you're just gonna fuck me and leave?"

At these words, Ricky spun to face me and seized me by the nape of my neck, forcing me into his lips, lukewarm and dry. We kissed deeply, melded at the mouth, and I could do nothing but dissolve into him. My eyes fluttered and I felt myself going temporarily blind... But when my senses came back, Ricky was at the door again. 

"Don't insult me like that again," he said. "You're valuable to me now, Shay. This isn't some kind of one-night stand. So don't act like it is. Instead, remember that you can call on me and I will be there. I'll have you over after work tomorrow night."

Ricky looked to me for affirmation, and I nodded mutely. His lips perked up in a smile, and his eyes darkened.

"Good night, then, Shay," he said. And halfway through my mumbling out a return, he ushered himself out into the night air of the city... And he was gone. 

Ricky's absence left a strange feeling behind him, as if I had just left a concert and my ears were still ringing in the unfamiliar silence. I sighed and gathered myself. I still had to clean myself up. 

In the bathroom I washed the drying blood from my chest with a wet towel. Underneath it all, the needle holes had disappeared. It was as if my session with Ricky had never happened. The healing was incredibly weird. I pulled at one of my nipple rings out of curiosity; it would have normally taken at least three months for the piercing to heal, but here it was, definitely further along than it should be. It was a side effect, I thought. But I began to wonder if all of my scars, all of my modifications, would start healing just like Ricky did. Probably not. At least, I hoped not.

As I was straightening up my apartment again, and tearing off the bloody bedsheets to finally wash both sets, I noticed I'd left my jacket out on the futon couch. Damn, I hadn't even realized it when I was cleaning earlier. It was just its natural place. Sighing, I threw the bedsheets down and grabbed the jacket... 

And something fell out of the pocket.

At my feet was a little scarlet rectangle. I was confused at first, not knowing what it could be, but then I remembered. I picked it up and saw the silver lettering on the business card that Soonhee had given me. The Society of Philadelphia. 

I still had no idea who these people were. Or rather, these... vampires. Was Ricky one of them? Did he belong to the society? He'd never mentioned them... But then, why would he? And then I remembered Soonhee's words, her behavior towards Ricky.

Yorick Andersen is not someone any human should be consorting with.

You obviously don't know how much danger you're in.

Why would she say something like that? I had never felt like I was in danger. I wanted to disregard it all, to forget everything about her, but for some reason, her words still rang in my head.

If you decide you want to know... About Yorick, and about everything...

I hadn't put down the card yet. For some reason, I just... didn't. I kept turning it over and over in my hand, although it never changed, never revealed anything to me other than the name and phone number in shimmering ink. But it raised my curiosity. Anyone would want to know what calling the number did. 

Back in my bedroom, I retrieved my phone and, with hesitation, dialed the number. I instantly regretted it. It was nearly one in the morning. Who the fuck would answer the phone at this hour? But in the midst of thinking this, as I was about to hang up, the line picked up and a young man's voice answered.

"Thank you for calling the Society of Philadelphia, servicing the Delaware Bay and South Jersey district. May I ask the reason for your call this evening?"

It wasn't an answering machine. Slightly stunned, I stammered before finally getting a reply out.

"Uhm.. H-hi," I began. "Uh... Someone gave me this card and... I guess I... I dunno, I-"

"Ah," the male voice interrupted me. "I see. And are you human or other?"

Other? Why ask? But then again, for this kind of thing, it was probably normal. "Uh... Human," I said quickly. 

There was a pause on the line. "Mhmm. All right, and your name please?"

"Shay... Uh, Shay Ferguson."

"All right, Mr. Ferguson. We offer many services for humans through the Society. Are you currently calling with information regarding a member or nonmember, requesting information on a member, or seeking help or protection?"

Help or protection? The questions just kept getting weirder. "Uh... N-none of the above, or... I don't know," I said helplessly. "I was told to call this number if I wanted to know something... I spoke to a girl named Soonhee..."

"Ahh." The male voice paused again. "Yes, I see. Mr. Ferguson, we've been expecting you. The Society will send a car out to retrieve you and bring you by, preferably during an afternoon. Are you free around one PM tomorrow, Thursday?"

"Uh... I..." Well... I wasn't working. Ricky had said he'd have me over after work that day, but that would be late at night. Could I go? Was it safe? Was it a trap? "Yeah... I'm free."

"Excellent. If possible, please wait for our car at the intersection of South Nineteenth street and Pine at one PM. Miss Soonhee and our driver will pick you up."

"Um... Can I get someone else?"

The man on the line laughed. "I understand your concern, Mr. Ferguson, but I assure you, she'll do just fine. We at the Society would like you to be aware that all humans are under heavy protection and that no harm will come to you while you visit our headquarters. Are the arrangements agreeable?"

I hesitated. Was I sure I wanted to do this? Heavy protection... From what? But my weak, "human" curiosity overtook me. "Yeah... sure, that's fine."

"All right, Mr. Ferguson. Thank you for calling the Society. Have a great evening."

And he hung up.

In the stunned silence, I tried to process what had just happened. Not once during the entire conversation had they mentioned vampires. So was this a vampire society? Was I going to find werewolves and zombies too? I didn't know if I could handle that. It was way too ridiculous.

But these were, after all, the people who thought that Ricky was dangerous. At least Soonhee did. I needed to find out why.

~

At a quarter to one in the afternoon, I arrived at the intersection the man on the phone had informed me of. I knew the south of Philly pretty well, and this area was no different. It was just north of South street, not too far from my coffee shop. This part of the city was all rowhomes and apartment buildings, lots of weathered red brick and tasteful graffiti. Only one corner of the intersection was occupied by a business, a small hoagie shop that seemed pleasantly busy with the lunch crowd. I was grateful to myself for having eaten lunch before leaving my home - the shop smelled awesome. Making a mental note to myself to try them out one day, I stuck my hands in my pockets and waited. 

I couldn't pretend I wasn't nervous. I had contemplated all night whether or not to tell Ricky that I had called the society. I wanted to ask him about them, see if he even knew they existed. My mind swam with possibilities... What did the society even do? Did they capture vampires? Kill them? But no, I thought; that couldn't be it, or Soonhee wouldn't be with them. Unless she was bait, maybe. 

I didn't have a whole lot of time to think. At ten of, the sleek, black Towncar I'd seen only a day ago pulled up to the corner I was waiting at - or maybe it was another, identical car. As it slid smoothly to a stop, the back door popped open a few inches, and from the top of it bloomed a white, lacy parasol. With the parasol open, the door opened fully and Soonhee stepped out under the newly made shade. 

White heels, white stockings, white dress as usual; but her hair was pulled into two low pigtails with little white silk flowers decorating the ties. It didn't match her expression. From under the parasol, Soonhee glowered at me, and she didn't speak. After a few uncomfortable seconds, I decided to break the silence.

"Uh... Hey, there," I said.

"Good afternoon," she replied stiffly. "Now get in the car."

She folded herself and her parasol back into the Towncar as quickly as she'd gotten out. I leaned down to look in, bracing a hand on the roof. 

"My mom always told me not to get into a car with strangers," I smirked.

Soonhee glared at me. "Get in the damn car or I will leave your ass here."

"All right, all right," I said, and I clambered in beside her with a grunt. I seized the door handle and shut us both in. "Why're you such a bitch?" I muttered. 

She ignored this. "We're good to go," she told the driver, and the Towncar pulled away into the street. 

Now inside, I realized how dark it was, and I had to blink several times to get somewhat used to it. All the windows were heavily tinted, even the front. I wondered if that was legal. As for the driver, I could only tell it was a bald, dark-skinned man. What little sun got into the windows was shining off his knuckles on the steering wheel. He wasn't a vampire? God, maybe I had been right. Was he a werewolf?

"Uh... the guy driving... Is he -"

"He's human," Soonhee finished for me. "Many of the people who work for the Society are. Don't pay mind to him, I'm escorting you today."

"Man, Sunny, you harsh!" the driver laughed deeply. "C'mon now."

Soonhee pouted angrily, and I could just barely hear her mumble out "... Told you not to call me..."

"So," I plowed on, "He's not... Like... You don't have werewolves and stuff at this Society then?"

This made the driver laugh even harder. Soonhee wasn't amused. "It's the vampire society," she told me. "And werewolves don't exist. We're going to the Philadelphia district headquarters. I can't explain any more than that right now."

"And why am I going?"

"To hear us out about Yorick Andersen," she said. "And to learn the purpose of the Society. As a human who has been with a vampire in the way that you have, both are very important to you."

The way that I have? "I mean... Are you talking about the biting or the fucking?" I asked bluntly.

The driver snorted into the steering wheel. Soonhee's face was stony. "Both," she said. 

She seemed to want to leave it at that. 

"Where are we going, anyway?" I asked finally. "Where is this place?"

"North," she said. 

I waited for her to finish. She didn't.

"So... Do you just hate me or, or what?" I said.

She turned her head with a flail of pigtails and glared at me again. "I'm not very diplomatic," she said, "nor am I here to inform you on what the Society is or does. That's someone else's job. Stop asking so many damn questions!"

So, reluctantly, I did. I had no idea where I was going. North Philly wasn't exactly a place people liked to be. Unless... Were we leaving the city? I didn't think so. And then I began to think... Where were they hiding an entire building full of vampires? Was it underground? Was it in some mansion on Society Hill? You'd think this kind of thing wasn't easy to keep a secret.

My thoughts were cut short. The Towncar slowed to a stop somewhere quiet. As I tried to peer through the tinted glass to see where we were, Soonhee followed her parasol out her side of the car and slammed the door behind her. I tentatively opened my door too, and when no one stopped me, I followed her. 

I didn't exactly recognize this part of the neighborhood, but it was definitely... upper class. Northern Liberties, maybe. I whirled around to see where Soonhee was. Her taffeta skirts were flouncing up the red brick steps of a building in front of us... And I tore my eyes from her to take it in.

The building was four stories high, its face made up of innumerable stones in shades of gray surrounding narrow, curtained windows. A double set of heavy-looking wooden doors sat under a slate-roofed gable in the very center of it. It was shelved, like all of its sister dwellings, on a brown, grassy little slope that swelled up from the sidewalk along a short brick fence, and the matching steps that Soonhee was now climbing were bordered with tiny plots of flowers that were now hibernating for the winter. Piles of fallen leaves from the thin trees all around crowded the foot of the building and the brick fencing both. All in all, it looked like a very cozy little bed and breakfast, or maybe a fraternity. What it didn't look like was a vampire coven.

"Are you coming?" Soonhee said impatiently. "I have someone waiting for you."

I began to climb the brick steps after her. "Who's that?"

"You'll see him soon enough," she said, and as I finally reached her, she pushed open one of the double doors. I had just enough time to register the little pewter placard to the left of the door, reading only "Philadelphia Chapter Society", before she ushered me inside. 

I blinked. We were now in a little lobby or foyer of some sort, with a long, cool gray rug underfoot overtop of weathered hardwood. In the center of the little room was a low table with a vase of flowers - lavender, from the look and smell of it - and off to the side was a valet desk, where a man with brown hair in a t-shirt and jeans was sitting very quietly. Though I didn't look at him for long, however, I felt like I had seen him somewhere before...

Soonhee paid this man no attention, and so, following her suit, neither did I... Until she began to push open the glass doors at the far end of the foyer, and he leapt from his seat.

I must have jumped a mile. Without any warning at all, this towering, powerfully built man had closed the distance between us in seconds and was loudly snuffing the air like a hound, and as his flashing eyes settled on me, his breath came back out in a snarl: 

"Registration!"

"Bruno, no!" Soonhee warned, seizing me by the arm and pulling me away; and lucky she did, because I was frozen in terror. "He's my guest, Bruno," she said gently. "Go sit back down. You're doing a good job. I'll send Leah out soon."

The man rumbled and slowly took his place back at the valet desk, and Soonhee steered me through the foyer doors at last. When we were through and far away enough, I found my voice again, and I wanted to ask her what the hell that was all about... But now in the main room, I became slightly distracted again.

The room I was now in was less like a bed and breakfast and more like a small country club. There were small groups of people sitting around cozy tables or lounging on suede couches, and one or two sitting at a small bar tended by a slender blonde girl; though behind her, I saw no trace of bottles, just a number of white drawers. The whole room felt very serene... The walls were all painted in a muted lavender, the furniture was all in shades of white and gray, and all of the lighting was provided by understated, minimalist hanging lamps and wall sconces. But I couldn't help feeling I'd made some sort of mistake - no one here looked or seemed like a vampire. I wanted to say as much to Soonhee, but she continued to lead me further into the room without once looking at me.

"Who did you bring me here to talk to?" I said, getting annoyed. I didn't like all this secrecy, the lack of information. I was starting to regret this. 

"Just wait. He's here," she said. Still not meeting my eyes, she led me to a back corner, to a trio of sleek armchairs surrounding a gray stone fireplace, within which was flickering a low flame across white gravel. I saw a pair of feet sticking out from the front of one of the chairs... Was that who I was supposed to be talking to? And then, confirming my suspicions, Soonhee left me and walked over to lean around the head of the armchair.




Hematoma Ch. 10



"Gil," she said in barely more than a whisper, which I strained to hear, "I've brought Shay Ferguson."

"Oh...? Ah, right. Mr. Ferguson, please, come and join me. I've been waiting for you."

An unfamiliar voice, a soft and high one at that, came from the armchair. I found myself taken aback. I was expecting some gruff mafia don or something. This guy sounded... well, he sounded like a kid. Hesitantly, I followed Soonhee's direction around the armchairs and came face to face with my new acquaintance.

He was a kid.

Sitting in the white armchair was a boy who looked no older than fifteen, wearing a long-sleeved dress shirt underneath a very neat, navy cabled sweater, and nearly white khakis with the pleats ironed so sharply that they looked brand new. His deep blue eyes gleamed from beneath a tousled mess of ginger hair, and his slim, childish face bore a weak smattering of freckles that even strayed across his lips and ears. On his left wrist was a silver watch whose face was too big for its wearer, and at his right knee was a sturdy, bone-handled cane. He smiled at me as I approached. 

"Hello, Shay," he said calmly. "My name is Gilbert Kelly. I'm the director of the Society's Philadelphia chapter. I've heard much about you. It's a pleasure to finally meet you face to face."

And he leaned forward and offered me a spindly hand.

I hesitated to take it. I was still reeling over his... Well, his youth. The director of the Society was this little kid? But I caught Soonhee's glaring eye, and I returned the offered handshake, feeling how small his hand was in mine. But I couldn't stop myself: "Uh... How old are you?"

Soonhee's eyes flashed dangerously, but Gilbert only laughed. "I understand your trepidation, Shay, but I assure you, I'm many years your senior. Like Soonhee and many here at the Society, I am a vampire." 

With these words, he took hold of the bone-handled cane and stood rather uneasily, putting as much of his weight as possible on it. I noticed at that moment that his right leg was ever so slightly bent sideways at the knee. I winced. 

"Come," said Gilbert, snapping my attention away from his leg. "We have much to discuss." With Soonhee trailing behind him, he began to walk lopsidedly to the back of the main room where a narrow hallway lay. Still not sure that I was doing the right thing, I followed.

"Why did you people want to bring me here?" I asked. 

"Simply put, because you have been with Yorick Andersen," Gilbert replied, and he stopped in front of a door to our left, with a little sliding sign on it reading "Vacant". I noticed that other doors all along the hallway had similar signs. "Yes, I think this will do. Will you join me, Soonhee?"

She nodded and opened the door for him, and as he hobbled inside past her, she slid the sign out and flipped it. It now read "Occupied". Soonhee then gave me a very pointed look, and I followed Gilbert into the room. Inside were a couple of plush sofas and a low-hung glass coffee table. Gilbert immediately sank into one of the sofas with a heavy sigh. 

"Why do you guys care so much who I hang out with?" I said adamantly. "Is he... I mean, is Ricky a member of your Society thing?"

Soonhee made a strange, angry noise. Gilbert was impassive. "Interesting nickname. No, he is not a registered member of the Society," he said. "He has, however, been on the Society's radar for decades, and he's only fallen into the Philadelphia chapter's jurisdiction in the last few years."

"There's other chapters?"

"Oh, yes. We're a worldwide organization. We have to be," said Gilbert grimly. "Vampires live all over the world and thus, so too do we. The Philadelphia district is one of our more populous locations, being the fifth largest city in the United States."

I finally sat down opposite him, with my mind still reeling. "What exactly do you guys do?" I asked. "I mean... you don't hunt vampires, do you?"

Gilbert laughed again. "Nothing like that. We're an organization that provides services to both vampires and humans. It's our duty to make sure that any vampire is aware of and registered with the Society so that we can keep tabs on what they do. We then provide housing assistance, resources, all sorts of things. And of course, each chapter has a building in which registered vampires and sacrifices can stay, meet, or simply 'hang out'."

"Uh... Sorry, sacrifices?" I repeated.

"Ah, right," he said. "A sacrifice is a human who allows a vampire to drink from them. We keep these registered as well. To put it into easier terms... We consider you to be Yorick Andersen's sacrifice, and we'd like to register you today."

"Yorick doesn't keep sacrifices," Soonhee spat, still standing. 

"Yes," Gilbert murmured, apparently to himself, as he spoke only to his fingers pressed together in front of his mouth. "And yet... Shay was apparently worth more to him than the usual fare. So why is that?" 

This time, the question was directed at me. Gilbert's warm blue eyes bore into my own, full of searching curiosity. But I wasn't sure what the question even meant.

"I... Don't know what you're asking me."

"He wants to know why you aren't dead yet," said Soonhee.

"That wasn't what I asked," said Gilbert. "I would like to know what connection the two of you have. And yes, we are concerned for your safety, Shay. Getting involved with..." He paused, then sighed. "Forgive me. I'm trying to think of a way to put this delicately."

"Then let me tell him," said Soonhee darkly. "Yorick Andersen is a rapist and a murderer. He refuses to follow any laws set down by the Society for the safety of humans -"

"Soonhee," Gilbert warned.

"- And what's more, makes a habit of luring and killing humans for blood -"

"Soonhee!" he said sharply. "That's enough."

"Yorick is misleading him!" Soonhee shouted. "Isn't that the only explanation? Isn't it the only thing that makes sense?"

"Neither of us know the whole story, which is why Mr. Ferguson is here." Visibly shaken, Gilbert turned to me with his hands bracing his knees. "Forgive my companion's tongue. I will understand if you don't wish to talk to us any longer, but I must know... How exactly did you two become involved?"

I was having trouble regaining my thoughts. The information that Soonhee had just assaulted me with - no, those baseless accusations... None of it made any sense at all. "Ricky isn't a murderer," I said firmly. 

Soonhee scoffed.

"Shay," said Gilbert calmly. "I have not accused anyone. I only want to know how you got involved with him."

"Why should I tell you people anything?" I snapped. "I don't know you. I shouldn't have come here. Leave us both alone!"

I watched Gilbert's crestfallen face as I gathered myself from the sofa and moved to leave. But Soonhee was wide-eyed, looking at me as if she'd never seen me properly before.

"Piercings," she said slowly. "Gilbert, his face... his piercings."

"What about them?" he said.

"Yorick works at that tattoo parlor on South Street."

And at this, Gilbert rose suddenly and unsteadily to his feet, bracing himself back on his cane. "Shay... Shay! Your piercings, did he -"

But I had had enough. I zipped up my jacket and strode out into the main hall, where I could feel stares on me increasing in number as Gilbert staggered after me.

"Shay, slow down a moment, please," he called. "I understand your anger. But I fear that if you leave, there will be nothing we can do to help you..."

"I don't need help!" I snarled. "You people don't know anything about Ricky. I'm not in any danger! So fuck off!"

And, leaving the kid looking on helplessly, I left.

I took the brick steps two and three at a time to the sidewalk, where the black Towncar was still waiting. "Can I give you a ride home, Mr. Ferguson?" the driver offered, but I ignored him and took off down the road. I didn't want these people following me... I didn't want them finding me and Ricky.

And I didn't want them ruining my date that night.



Hematoma Ch. 11



~ AN: Thanks for the patience. I also just noticed that the submission for an illustration of Shay and Ricky got put up, so please enjoy it with the story. Yorick & Shay

*****

I put them all out of my mind. Soonhee, Gilbert, the whole damn society. They had no right to talk about Ricky and I that way... They had no idea what was really going on between us, and it wasn't their place to know. So, I decided, it wasn't their place to take up any space in my head. I took a bus home from Northern Liberties that afternoon, and the whole way home, all I did was focus on forgetting them all.

It was hard to do. Soonhee's words were ringing in my ears like white noise. Yorick Andersen is a rapist and a murderer. Before I met these people, I didn't even know what Ricky's last name was. What else did they know about him that I didn't?

But I knew one thing. Ricky wasn't any of those things they said. I shuddered, staring out the window as the Septa passed through University city, past delicious-looking Indian restaurants and flocks of college kids. They didn't know. They couldn't know... The way Ricky made me feel, the way he spoke to me... He didn't want to hurt me. Well, I admitted with a tremble of excitement, not in any way that I didn't want him to... And I really, really wanted him to. So fuck them. Fuck all of them.

I untangled my earbuds from my pocket and popped on some music. Maybe I could just... stifle them. 

And I drowned out Soonhee's echo in a sea of music.

The music continued around me even after I got home. I blasted it in my apartment from the speakers on my dresser. I was feeling... Antsy. With my mind finally clear, I could focus on what was really important - my evening with Ricky! I shivered with pleasure at the memory of my last session with him... The cannula needles... If that was his idea of an "experiment", what could he really be planning to do with me? Simultaneous arousal and fear were filling me. I didn't know which feeling I welcomed more. All I knew is I could hardly wait... Whatever he had in store for me, I wanted it - badly.

I started out feeling that I had way too much time to kill, and mostly spent it on my laptop doing nothing in particular, made a sandwich, ended up back on the laptop again. But at some point, I took note of the time and realized how late it was - I hadn't even noticed the sun going down. I shut my laptop without turning it off and sprang off the bed, my heart beating itself to tatters. And within minutes, I was out the door with my earbuds in again.

I hadn't bothered to try and dress nicely this time, just my jeans and a printed blue tee. They'd end up on the floor anyway, so what did it matter? It wasn't like Ricky was interested in me for my clothes, I thought. I jogged down the street with my weathered sneakers beating the concrete under me, crunching fallen leaves in my path. I was sweating in my wool coat. To the sound of harsh music my thoughts ran wild, imagining anything that Ricky could do to me. I began to steadily realize that there weren't a lot of times in my life anymore where I wasn't thinking of him... It was just his impact on me, wasn't it? Or was it something else? Why couldn't I get him out of my head? And a better question... Did I want to?

I checked my phone's clock as I approached the steps to Ricky's home. Ten-twenty. A little early, but I was sure that was just fine. I hopped up the steps and pressed the doorbell.

After a minute of waiting, it was clear there was no one coming. 

Confused, I raised my hand to push the button again, when I heard a voice behind me.

"You're so impatient. At least let me get back from work."

I spun on the landing and choked on my own heart in my throat. Ricky strode up to the steps behind me and quickly joined me on the landing, withdrawing a set of keys from his pocket. On his shoulder was a small canvas rucksack with a drawstring mouth. His hair was down today, windblown about the shoulders of his leather jacket. With a click in both locks, he pushed the door open and beckoned me inside.

"Eager, aren't you?" said Ricky with a sigh, sliding the rucksack off his shoulders as I stepped in behind him. "Hang up your coat."

"I didn't really have anything better to do," I admitted, laughing. I shouldered my coat off and hung it beside his. "So... Are you gonna tell me what we're doing tonight?"

He chuckled. "You'll see soon enough. Now then..." But he stopped, his smile fading, and turned to me again. I watched his eyes travel to me, then to my coat on the wall. He picked up one of the sleeves and sniffed it. 

I blinked. "What..."

But Ricky put down the sleeve of my coat and approached me swiftly, this time burying his face in my neck. I shuddered at his cold breath on my skin. What was he doing...?

"Lavender," he said finally, pulling away. "Why do you smell like lavender?"

I opened my mouth and closed it again, my brow furrowed in confusion. Lavender? Where was he getting that smell? But then it dawned on me. The Society. "Oh... I, um... I..."

Ricky's eyes softened, his face lowered, and firmly but gently, he pushed my shoulders back against the wall in the hallway. "Shay," he said softly, "Where have you been today?"

My mind went wild. Should I tell him? About Soonhee, about Gilbert, about the Society at all? His calm, cool eyes stole my gaze and entrapped it, and I felt my insides trembling, melting. I let out a shuddering breath and tried to keep myself together. This feeling washing over me... Why should I keep anything a secret from this man? He'd been inside me. He'd taken my blood. I was his... Anything inside me was his, including my thoughts. 

I laughed breathlessly. "It's... It's just so stupid," I said. 

"It's not stupid, Shay," said Ricky calmly, and he released me from the wall with a smile. "Come, sit. Tell me what happened."

With Ricky's guidance, still strangely dazed and warm, I sat down on the sectional in the living room, sinking into it beside him. Ricky kept his arm around my shoulders, lounging carelessly at my side. 

"So..." Ah, shit, where to start? I racked my brain for a beginning to this insane story. Ricky was still looking at me intently, and his gaze urged me to spill. "That girl," I said. "Y'know, the one who was stalking you... You said she was your ex-girlfriend?"

His brow quirked. "What about her?"

I opened my mouth to speak, but it came out in a laugh. "God, it's so dumb... She started following me, tracked me to where I work... She made an ass out of me in front of my coworkers," I added. "Anyway, she tells me she's a vampire too... And gives me this business card and tells me if I want to know everything, I should call her."

"Card?" he repeated. 

"Yeah... A business card," I told him. "For the Philadelphia vampire society or some crap..."

"Did you call her?"

"Yeah... Well, I called the number anyway, last night, after you left. This was all yesterday." I let out a shuddering breath. Why was this so tiring? "And then... They arranged for me to go to the Society this afternoon, so I did. This chick - Soonhee, the one who stalked me - shows up in this fancy-ass car, hardly says a damn thing to me, and she and the driver take me to this place up north, and like..." I sighed bitterly. "I don't know, the whole thing is ridiculous."

"What did they say to you, Shay?" Ricky asked silkily. 

I met his eyes again, soft, heavy-lidded and shadowed. What was it about him that always made me feel so... Tranquil? Safe? I gave another shuddering breath and plowed on. "They... They said they wanted to register me with them... They called me your 'sacrifice'... And..." I laughed nervously, running a hand through my hair. "That girl called you a murderer."

"Did she?" he said mildly.

"And a rapist," I added.

"And what do you think?"

That didn't require any thought on my part. "I don't believe her," I said.

He smiled. "So, the lavender smell?"

"Oh, that. They had lavender all over the place. In vases. I didn't know it'd stick to me."

"I see." Ricky lifted his free hand under my chin and tilted my face to meet his, and he seized my mouth in a kiss. I shivered, my eyes fluttering closed as I melted under his tongue. His strange, unplaceable flavor... All at once it was gone, and he held my chin in his fingers tightly, keeping my eyes locked on his. "Don't go near them again," he said, "Do you understand? Yes, there are other vampires in the city. No, I didn't tell you about them, because I didn't think you needed to know. But what if they had hurt you? Why did you think that was a good idea?"

I opened my mouth slightly, quailing under his stare. "I... don't know," I muttered.

Ricky shook his head, his long black hair tossing in his eyes. He brushed it back over his left ear and sighed. "Don't go near them," he repeated. "I mean it." He got up from the couch and cocked his head sharply to the side, neck cracking softly. 

I shifted in my seat, somewhat tingly all over for some strange reason. But there was still something weighing on my mind. "Why did you tell me that... that Soonhee was your ex-girlfriend?"

He turned to me with a raised eyebrow. "Would you have believed me if I'd told you the truth?"

"Well... I mean, what is the truth? Why is she after you?"

"Because they want me to join their stupid club and follow their stupid rules, that's why." He produced an elastic from his pocket and swept his hair up behind his head, restraining it in a loose ponytail. "Under their laws, everything I do is under close scrutiny. Everywhere I go, everything I do, everyone I speak to. I've lived my entire life without that surveillance, and I rather enjoy its absence. When I turned, the Society didn't exist. They're a very... recent development."

When Ricky turned... I still didn't know anything about that. "Will you tell me -"

"Do you want to sit here chewing the fat all night, or do you want me to do what I brought you here for?"

My heart leapt at his words. God, I'd almost forgotten. How could I? "Please... I... Yeah, I want that...!"

Ricky smirked. "Then let's get upstairs, shall we?"

Once again in Ricky's studio, I found the layout of the room quite different than the last time I'd seen it. The desk against the wall was still there, as was the leather doctor's table, but there was a new addition... In the middle of the room, a very strange-looking chair was waiting for me, sitting beside a spinning stool, a short standing toolchest that Ricky was apparently using as a table, and a very flexible-looking floor lamp. The chair itself had a number of angled... Seats? Cushions? Like, five or six of them. I thought for a moment that I knew where your ass and your back went on it, but then I saw another part of it that made this idea stop making sense. Finally I turned to Ricky questioningly, as he strode to the desk.

"The fuck is that thing?"

Ricky looked up with mild surprise, in the midst of collecting something from the desk. "Oh, that?" he said. "It's a repurposed massage chair. You're meant to sit backwards on it, with your back and shoulders out."

I slowly tilted my head to the left. "Oh... Yeah, no, I see it now," I said, somewhat abashed. "So... what's it for?"

"For you to sit on, with your back and shoulders out," Ricky said bluntly, and he approached me with a sheet of paper. This he shook out and held up for me to see. "So. How did it turn out, do you think?"

I took my eyes from Ricky to the piece of paper, and my breath stopped in my chest. The last time I had seen this picture, it had been more beautiful than I could imagine. I couldn't have had any idea it could become more so. The familiar image of Sleipnir rearing back across the page with its numerous limbs outstretched had grown, as if the ink had bled outward like a soundwave carrying its cry. The eight-legged mustang was now surrounded with a white noise of patterns, of bramble and tendrils of storm that flowed downward to a point beyond its four back hooves. 

"Ricky... It's incredible..."

"It's going on your back," said Ricky firmly. "Tonight, Shay."

Tonight...! I felt myself growing dizzy. The image was so vast, so intricate... The amount of ink work that would have to go into it, the amount of time under the needle... "The... whole thing?" I said weakly.

"The outline," Ricky corrected. "This will take several sessions, and I haven't seen how you deal with tattooing." As he spoke, he rolled up the paper and carried it back to his desk, this time opening a drawer on the right side of the desk and pulling out a large toolbox. "Get your shirt off and get yourself seated."

God... He wasn't wasting any time. Maybe this only felt like it was going too fast for me. Or maybe... Ricky was just as excited as I was. Trying hard to quell my pounding heart, I pulled my shirt off and, awkwardly searching for a place to put it, shoved it in a ball on the corner of Ricky's desk. I was pretty sure I knew how the chair worked, now that I could tell which way was frontways. As Ricky busied himself beside the stool, I clambered onto the seat inexpertly, with my chest against the near vertical support cushion and my bottom on the seat in what I assumed was the correct way. There was a U-shaped cushion where my arms seemed to go, and another two straight cushions behind my legs. I shifted and propped my shins up on these, and crossed my arms over the front pad. Yeah. Pretty sure that's how this works, I thought. This felt really weird. But it was absolutely perfect for a back tattoo, the bare skin there completely exposed to my artist.

Ricky had finished his set-up at last. On the tabletop of the metal toolchest were now an assortment of little implements, disinfectants, ink caps, and a smallish black box with dials and three cables coming out of it; two, red and black, coming from the front, and the thickest one coming from the back. This back one was trailing all the way to a power outlet on the wall. From the front, the black one came down onto the floor into a foot pedal that looked very much like one you'd use for a guitar amp; the red one, however, went into Ricky's tattoo gun, which I was now looking at as fondly as one would regard an old friend. That complex-looking little machine was going to be my lover for the evening. I shivered involuntarily. 

With a sigh, Ricky seated himself on the black spinning stool, clapping his hands down on the knees of his jeans. "Ah, right," he said after a moment. "One more thing." From a drawer in his toolchest he pulled a slender remote and pressed a button on it. By the time he'd put it aside and started snapping on gloves, the room was full of music, blasted from a speaker tower in the east corner. Stoner rock. God, he knew how to put me in the mood. 

"Are you going to put the transfer pic on me?" I asked. "I don't see a thermal-fax in here."

"Don't need it," said Ricky. "I've got no need to trace something I've drawn myself. Let me clean you up and we'll get started. Will that be all right?"

"Yes..." I had to trust him. I tore my eyes from Ricky's work station and propped my chin up on the chair's headrest. My eyelids lazed. I sighed, relaxing my muscles, and as I did so, Ricky wiped the skin of my back with a cold cloth. I was submerged in the distinct, stinging aroma of witch hazel. His fingers came back again, rubbing something cold gently into my skin, and then... 

"I'm going to start outlining you. You ready?"

I inhaled sharply, letting my breath out in a shudder as I closed my eyes. "Yeah..."

The buzzing started up. A short burst as Ricky loaded the needle with ink, and then the fingers of his left hand pushed the skin taut over my shoulder, and the gun sang again in earnest. The needle came down. 

Fuck...! The now unfamiliar pain, sharp as a razor's bite, sliced through my skin with the grace and slow precision of a bladed skate on ice. I gripped the cushion under my arms fiercely, gritting my teeth against the pulsing sensation of Ricky's careful, repetitive strokes, as though he were painting me with the smallest, most delicate brush. I felt as if I was being drawn on with a white-hot steel rod. God, it felt so good...! 

Ricky's music backed the fluctuating buzz of his gun as it dipped in and out of my skin, pushing ink under the surface where it would stay embedded in steadily ebbing pain. His tempo slowed, picked up over and over again, and I felt my heart matching it. I could feel my forehead breaking out in sweat as I struggled to hold myself together. I just wanted to lay writhing on the floor in all this blissful agony... I wanted to scream and cry... I wanted to come!

I began to slip as if into a trance. Ricky continued to move and pull my skin, dragging the liner needle through me over and over again. I hadn't thought my back would hurt so much... Feel so good... I bit down hard on my bottom lip to silence the coming cries of pleasure in my belly, and they came out in guttural moans. More... Don't stop... Please don't stop...! It had been so long since I'd gotten my last tattoo, the finishing of my left sleeve under Em's needle. It had hurt the most around the underbelly of my forearm, close to the inside of my elbow... But Ricky's technique and skill were so much more different. I truly felt like his agonized, crying little canvas... And I adored it.

I lost track of time before the music around me dimmed. Still breathing hard, I opened my eyes to find my face and arms cold with sweat. 

"That's it for now. Very interesting, seeing how you react," said Ricky behind me, with a clatter of instruments. "Would you like to see how it turned out?"

Holy shit, I'd been gone. "How long's it been?" I asked shakily. 

"About an hour. I noticed you slipped out on me about fifteen minutes in, but you did respond whenever I spoke to you. I assumed you were all right. Hold still." Ricky was wiping my back down with a cold cloth soaked in disinfectant. I gasped through my teeth and tightened my grip on my own arms. It stung. "That should do it. Come, I want you to see your work."

Still unsteady, I pulled myself from the seat and followed Ricky's path as he walked slowly backwards across the room. Every movement was making the fresh scars across my back spark with a burning sting. He held his hand out to me, leading me to the wall where a floor-length mirror waited. My reflection approached me, its chest and cheeks shimmering with sweat, its hand in Ricky's and its unsteady gait carrying it close. I felt tipsy. Now at close proximity, Ricky took my arm and turned me, and over my own shoulder I saw what he had done...

Sleipnir's flesh-colored silhouette was spreading across my back. Its basic bone structure, the curve of its body, the sharp line of its neck muscles and jaw, it had all been outlined. It looked simultaneously intricate and yet effortless. I gave a shaky breath.

"Two more sessions, I think," said Ricky thoughtfully. "It's an ambitious piece. We'll let it heal a bit before we go any further."

I nodded mutely, mesmerized by the beauty of my new piece. I was snapped from my trance by Ricky's hands at my throat.

"But I'm not done with you yet," he hissed playfully, and he thrust me back against the mirror, relighting the flame across my newborn scars. I choked. Fuck, he was rough! Ricky was so much more powerful than me... And I didn't know if I feared that or loved it. His left hand, replaced by his lips, pushed hard on my bare chest and suppressed the expansion of my ribs as I struggled to breathe, and in another moment, his teeth tore open my veins and bled me to him once more. Breathlessly I opened my mouth in a cry. The white-hot, cold pain flooded the branches of my arteries and left my arm feeling numb... My head spun, drunk on lack of blood, and all the while I gave my weak whimpers of pain and fear, my instinct to survive begging me to beg for life. 




Hematoma Ch. 11



Robbed of strength, I was pushed to my knees; Ricky held me up by my hair, the digits of his right hand prying my teeth apart and bleeding against my tongue. I took my cure gratefully. In another instant, his hand was gone.

"Don't tire that mouth on my fingers," growled Ricky. "I want it for myself."

Blearily I heard the sound of a zipper very close to my face as my senses returned. Ricky's fingers were forcing my mouth open again, and I obliged him more than willingly. I knew very well what I was doing... Yes... Ricky's sex, soft and slowly swelling, was in my mouth, his new and foreign taste so strangely familiar to me. I flexed my tongue against him. His flesh pulsed in response, its owner forcing it further against the back of my tongue, and I had to suppress myself from gagging. It was weird how much bigger he felt in my mouth. Before I had a chance to explore him anymore, however, Ricky had seized me by my jaw and scalp and began to move.

I quickly found that my own input in this was useless; Ricky used my mouth as if it were a lifeless hole, fucking my face with abandon, without care for my need of air. The open zipper of his jeans grazed my cheeks, my nose buried over and over again in the tousle of hair at his base, and try as I might, I couldn't breathe, his movements so hard and so fast that my throat could not find time for it between its repeat penetration. I didn't know how long I could keep this up... I was getting dizzy... And against my tongue, I tasted the heat growing in him - 

With a loud groan Ricky pulled me against him and buried himself to the hilt in my throat, shuddering as his pleasure peaked in me. I choked, struggling to swallow him, tasting his strangely metallic orgasm against the back of my tongue, and at last my mouth was clear, and I gasped, gulping cold air down like water. Too fast - I coughed and held a hand to my chest as I gained back my ability to breathe. I could still taste Ricky on my tongue, and I heard him panting softly over me as I sank to the floor. 

"Good boy," he gasped. "That's enough... You handle yourself well..."

Despite my discomfort with being used like a ragdoll, his praise warmed something in me, and I shuddered pleasurably in its wake. Yes... It felt good to please him... As my mind cleared and Ricky buttoned his pants back up, I sat back on the floor and wiped the sweat off my forehead.

"What was... What did I just swallow?" I asked, the unfamiliar aftertaste somewhat unsettling. "It's not, uh..."

"It's not blood," Ricky confirmed. Unlike me, he wasn't panting anymore; he seemed to get his wind back much faster than I did. "That'd be disgusting. No, it's all the normal components save the important one. Vampires don't reproduce that way. So curious," he added, looking at me with amusement. "Will you never run out of questions?"

"Not if you don't run out of answers," I said honestly. "Wouldn't you be curious too?"

Ricky considered this, sitting on his spinning stool with an arm across his knee. "I was, once," he said. "Like you are now. No, I suppose I can't blame you after all."

He was... It was hard for me to imagine it, but Ricky was, after all, human once... And my earlier questions resurfaced inside me. "How long ago was that?" I found myself asking aloud.

Ricky quirked an eyebrow. "Are you asking when I turned?"

"When and... How, I guess," I said. 

He paused, and for a moment, I thought I was going to hear the story. But - 

"Not tonight," said Ricky. "It's a story that will take all night to tell. But I will tell you, Shay." He rose from his seat again and smirked at me, his eyes darkening. "Now go home, and treat your ink."



Hematoma Ch. 12



As I had begun to suspect, Ricky's blood was making my healing processes faster; under the new, intricate scabbing of my tattoo, fresh skin was already surfacing around a coat of color. The top layer was flaking. In the bathroom mirror as I prepared to get into the shower the next morning, I couldn't stop myself from turning this way and that and staring at my new art from every angle. I watched it gleam on my shoulderblades like oil slick. The sight of it stirred something deep in my belly. Finally tearing myself from struggling to stare at my own spine, I stepped into the shower so I could wash up. 

But despite the accelerated healing, it was... tender, to say the least. The hot water on my back felt like a fresh round of needles puncturing me, and I leaned against the shower wall for support, breathing heavy as I bore the pain. This was... why did it feel so good? I had to stop myself from enjoying this strange new pleasure enough to wash my back, and even the soft, soapy scrubby I used felt like steel wool on my skin. With ribbons of bubbles cascading down my arms and legs, I groaned and pushed myself eagerly into my own hand. So fucking hard... Everything Ricky did to me, even the after-effects, made me so erratically aroused. I found myself leaning up against the wall of the shower, the cold tiles chilling my aching back as I satisfied myself there. Fuck! 

Trying to put my actions just then out of my mind, I stepped out of the bathroom in pajama pants with my towel over my head, rubbing my hair dry. My skin was steaming. The apartment was staring to get pretty cold. I shivered involuntarily and let the towel drape over my shoulders, and turned to go back to my bedroom. I didn't know what to do with my day off; they'd scheduled too many guys on that day, and with us only expecting half of our original shipment, they offered me some free time. Maybe I'd grab that book I'd been meaning to finish. 

Halfway to the door, I heard a sharp knocking at the front. 

I turned around in confusion and stared at the front door. No one ever visited me. Then I thought... Ricky? I definitely wouldn't mind seeing him again, even so soon after the previous night... I padded quickly to the door and peered out the peephole, and saw...

Soonhee.

The round, distorted image of Soonhee in a white dress and coat looked past me in the peephole's view, standing very carelessly on my doorstep. I felt my insides flare. What was she doing here? I'd made it very clear what I'd thought of them. But when it was obvious she wasn't leaving, I unlatched the door and threw it open, glaring at her. 

"What do you want?" I spat at her. 

Soonhee looked at me, not blinking. "To talk," she said. "May I come in?"

"How did you find my house?"

"Your scent," she said unapologetically, and then repeated: "May I come in?"

"No!" I slammed the door in her face. Why would she even ask? Then I remembered - the invitation thing. It seemed she was bound to the same laws as Ricky. Knowing this, I didn't bother locking the door, but when I turned on my heel to go back to my bedroom, there came another knock. 

"Go away!" I yelled at the door. She knocked again. Enraged, I yanked open the door and said, "What?" 

Soonhee was unfazed. She smoothed out her skirts and said patiently, "I'd like to talk to you. I feel that yesterday... didn't go well, and I feel it was my fault. I'd like to try and make it up to you... And tell you what you need to know." She paused, and then sighed. "May I please come inside?"

Yesterday didn't go well? That was an understatement. I'd been ready to stake them both, or however you kill vampires - and I wasn't sure my feelings about Soonhee had changed. But her behavior was so different; she wasn't the smug, uppity girl I'd met before. She seemed... Reasonable. Should I have let her in?

I remembered Ricky's words - Don't go near them again.

Soonhee continued to look at me. The longer I stood here, the more cold air was getting in, and my nipples were like diamonds.

"Just... Fine, come in," I said, against my better judgment. "But if you start being a nasty little cunt again, I can revoke the invitation, right?"

"You can," she said, stepping inside gratefully with her little heels clicking on the linoleum. "I see you understand the invitation law already. You've brought Yorick in here?" Soonhee gave a little snuff of the air. "Yeah, I can smell him here. It's faint. And..." She wrinkled her nose, looking slightly scared. "Ugh... May I sit down?"

I scowled at her. "Do you need an invitation to do that, too?"

"No. I am being polite."

"Well, that's a start. There's a couch right there. I'm gonna get a shirt on, do you mind?" And without waiting for her response, I strode to the bedroom for fresh clothes.

But goddamn! Why was she really here? To answer my questions, she said. More like to tell me what a horrible person Ricky is again. Fuck her! And fuck my curiosity, why did I keep doing this? 

With a clean shirt and jeans on, I walked barefoot back to the living room where Soonhee was sitting delicately on my couch with her peacoat folded in her lap. Her dress was very simply decorated with pale blue ribbons, the only time I'd ever seen color on her, and her stockings were patterned with little cats. Her hair was in a ponytail again. She watched as I sat down on the opposite end of the sofa.

"The tattoo on your back," she said contemplatively.

I stiffened. "What about it?"

"Is it new? The skin is flaking."

"Uh... Yeah..."

"Yorick did it for you?" she supplied.

I pressed my mouth in a line. "Yeah, he did. Why does it matter?"

"Gil and I had wondered," said Soonhee. "When you left, we discussed it... We had no idea how you had come to be involved with Yorick, and we'd never thought about your... Body modifications. Did Yorick do all of them?"

"Wh - no," I said quickly. "I just... I've been going to his shop for a long time. I didn't even know he was there until..."

Soonhee looked at me expectantly. "Until what?"

Until Em left, I thought. That... wasn't important. I just shook my head in response. "He's only done a couple..."

"Which ones?"

"Does it matter which ones?" I snapped. "He's just done some work for me."

"But you've slept with him."

I glared at her. "Yeah. I have. What's your point?"

Soonhee only looked at me, blinking slowly. "I am curious," she said carefully, "how you went from him doing 'work' for you, to him drinking your blood and having sex with you."

I flushed. Was I supposed to respond to that? I didn't really want to discuss my... disorder with this girl. "I thought you were supposed to be giving me answers," I said bitterly. "Not more questions."

She paused, then sighed. "You're right," she said. "What do you want to know?"

An open invitation? I was cool with that. What did I want to know? "Why do you guys think Ricky is dangerous?" And as Soonhee opened her mouth, I interrupted her. "No, first... Do you have any actual, physical evidence that Ricky has ever killed or raped anyone? Evidence you can show to me?"

She hesitated. "No," she said reluctantly.

"Then let's just throw that accusation out the window. Fucking forget it. It doesn't exist," I said. "Now tell me an actual reason you think Ricky is dangerous."

Soonhee paused to think, her hands gripping the hem of her skirt. "The Society," she said slowly, "has rules. Rules that are meant to keep humans and vampires safe. Rules that Yorick thinks he's above."

I remembered Ricky mentioning this - "Under their laws, everything I do is under close scrutiny." "Such as?" I asked.

"For starters," she said, "all vampires must be registered with the Society. This is so we can keep tabs on where a vampire goes, what he or she does, which chapter they belong to. We have attempted to register Yorick under nine different Society chapters - five in the United States, two in Europe, one in South America, one in Asia. All of them have record of his refusal and outright rebuke of the system. And that's only the chapters who have managed to note that he's in their presence at all. Inbetween it all is huge gaps where we have no idea where he's gone or what he was doing. The registration system is supposed to prevent that."

So he was right - the Society did want to scrutinize everything he did. "So if that's for starters, then what else is there?"

"Well," said Soonhee, "another law states that all human sacrifices must be registered with the Society too."

"What?"

"That means you too," she said stoutly. "If a vampire decides that he or she wants to drink the blood of a living human, that human has to be made aware of the vampire's status, and within one week of being introduced must be registered with the Society. If Yorick were a member of the Society, then the moment he told you he was a vampire, he should have started submitting your paperwork."

What the... Paperwork? "Doesn't that kind of ruin the, uh... spontaneity of it all?" I asked sardonically. "Like, not everyone wants to fill out a form when they're getting ready to bang."

Soonhee bristled. "It's no different than making sure a registered sex offender is known in their neighborhood, is it?" she said. "Any vampire can be dangerous. Any vampire can become a killer. We all know this. The form and registration is for your safety, Shay - suppose we know that you've been a vampire's sacrifice before, and you go missing or your body turns up somewhere. Well, we know where to start investigating first. Second, what if you suddenly decided to go tell the world that vampires exist?"

"Who the fuck would believe me?"

"That's not the point!"

Both of us were now ruffled like cats before a fight. Soonhee settled down, smoothing out her skirts, and cleared her throat softly. "Yorick is guilty of more than that," she continued. "The Society's rules are all for the safety of mortal and immortal. One of those..." She paused. "Do you know much of the BDSM lifestyle?"

I stared at her, taken aback. Were we dragging whips and chains into this? "Not really," I admitted, confused. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"A lot, actually," she replied. "Just like that of the relation between vampire and sacrifice, a submissive in the BDSM lifestyle can be hurt badly in the moment. To prevent this, most practitioners of BDSM follow something called S.S.C. - Safe, sane, and consensual. We at the Society adopted this as law some time ago." Soonhee's hand lifted to the side of her face, and she twisted a lock of hair around her fingers as she spoke. "Safe, meaning that we will make all precautions necessary to make sure that both parties are not in danger during the act. Sane, meaning that both are of sound mind and are aware of all risks, and that neither party is incapable of deciding what they want. Consensual, meaning that both have agreed to the act of their own will, and have not been coerced in any way." Her eyes darkened, and she pulled on the lock of hair she held. "Yorick's broken every part of this law, and he continues to do so, probably with you, too."

"He has not!" I said adamantly. "You're trying to say I'm not consenting or something? Or - what - that I'm not doing this in a safe way? I know what I'm doing."

"How do you tell him to stop when you're at your limit?" she asked patiently. 

"... What do you mean?" 

"Do you have a safe word?"

"Safe word? You go that far? This isn't bondage."

"No, it's worse, because there's always a risk of death with this," she said crisply. "I assume he numbs you, at least."

I looked at her in confusion. "Numb...?"

Her eyes widened slowly. "He does numb the pain, right?" she said. "There's no way he doesn't - Does it hurt when he bites you?"

The hair on the back of my neck prickled. I raised a hand to my throat unconsciously. "I... Well, yeah," I mumbled. "Is it... not supposed to?"

Soonhee looked exasperated, somewhat scared. "Vampires have ways to make the pain of biting near nonexistent. Someone like Yorick, I know he's able to. You're telling me he just bites you without numbing your pain at all? How do you bear it?" she said hoarsely. 

I didn't know what to say. Should I tell her that? I didn't even know that Ricky could do that... But of course, I thought, he wouldn't. Not with me. Because... With a shudder, I murmured out, "It feels good."

With my eyes fixed on my lap, I couldn't see Soonhee's expression, but her silence spoke volumes. "What?" I heard her say.

"I like it," I said shakily. "He doesn't have to numb it... I... don't really want him to."

"What do you mean, you don't want him to?" she said. "Being bitten is agony. He's ripping a hole in your muscles with his teeth! That kind of pain is near intolerable for any human, I've seen grown men pass out from it. How - "

"Will you stop?" I said loudly. God, just her description was arousing me. I clenched my fists on my knees. This was none of her business. She had no right to know about it. But even so, I told her, with a shuddering breath. "I'm a masochist, okay?"

The soundless, stagnant atmosphere in the room was choking. "You what?" said Soonhee faintly. "Shay... You're... You mistake pain for pleasure... That's what that is, right?" She ran her fingers over her lips, mouthing silently, and then shook her head. "That smell here, it's blood, isn't it? I can smell dry blood. You've spilled blood. Oh, my god. Shay, do you even realize the danger you're putting yourself in? This is... No, this is far worse than I thought." Her voice was hurried, trembling.

I didn't like her reaction. It was pissing me off. "What I do in my sex life is none of your concern," I said harshly, "and I know what my limits are, all right?"

"Yorick could kill you!" cried Soonhee. 

"A bus could kill me!" I retorted. "Yorick's not some mindless animal. He knows as well as I do where to stop."

"That doesn't mean he cares, Shay," she growled. 

"And besides that," I charged on, louder now, "There's nothing he's done to me that can't be fixed with - that thing - the thing where he lets me taste his blood..."

"Bloodsharing," Soonhee said, "has its limits. Just how far are you willing to go? What are you letting him do to you, Shay?"

"That's not - can I uninvite you?" I said angrily. "Seriously. Get the fuck out of my home!"

Soonhee immediately got to her feet, and for a moment I thought she was going to strike me; but as I recoiled from her, she instead turned on her heel and began to frog-march back to the front door with her back and legs very stiff. Bewildered, I followed her and watched as she slipped into her jacket and very calmly opened the door to usher herself out, her expression indignant and annoyed. As she stepped onto the doormat outside and seized the door handle to close it, she shot out at me, "I really wish you wouldn't do that! It's very -"

But she slammed the door before she could finish, and I barely heard a muffled word beyond it. I just stood there for a minute, weirded out. Wondering if Soonhee really had left, I peered out of the peephole again, but she was gone. So I really could revoke someone's invitation. Bizarre, I thought. I couldn't imagine Ricky goosestepping out of my home like that. 

Ricky! I wanted to tell him Soonhee had come by. I stepped back from the door and went to look for my phone, but once I found it... No... That probably wasn't a good idea. Ricky had been very clear about how he felt when it came to the Society. I had gone against his order just by letting Soonhee inside. But I still wanted to talk to him. So, after a skip, I picked up the phone anyway and threw myself on the bed. 

"Hey" I said. And then: "You working right now?"

I got up and messed with my music player while I waited for a response, and reached up to move one of my model robot's arms while the sounds of stoner rock like Ricky's came on. He'd gotten me in the mood for it. After about a minute, the phone blinged. 

"Yes." came the response. 

Short. He must have been busy. But I decided to go on. "Will you be free later?" I asked.

A pause. "Perhaps. I'm not entirely sure about that yet." His side bubbled again. "Don't make plans around me, though. Go enjoy your evening."

Enjoy my evening... Without Ricky? Lately that had been hard to do. He was all I really thought about. But I typed back "OK". 

Now I had to think about what I was going to do all day. I didn't really have any other people to hang out with. But I did want to go hang out somewhere. Do something. What, though? I laid on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Then I sat up with a smile.

I wanted to go dance.



Hematoma Ch. 13



I wasted the day away, waiting for the right time to head out to the club. Despite my excitement, I still had to be convinced – that it was okay to step back out into the real world; that if I had never seen Jade at that club before, then that single night was only a fluke and I'd probably never see him again; and that even if I did see him, I'd just ignore him, and take my well-deserved happiness. 

My desire for a semblance of normalcy drove me out the door. I wore my black boots for the first time in weeks, along with a purposefully tattered tee and the jeans I'd worn knee holes in over time. The gaping denim mouths opened and closed as I jogged lightheartedly down the road to my destination. All alone. But I would have fun. I demanded it. I would let loose and dance, and drive all the uncertainty from my cerebral mess with muscle strain.

The encounters with Soonhee and the Society had made me feel very strange inside. I didn't like questioning my relationship with Ricky. All of them seemed very adamant that I not see him anymore, and I still didn't know why. Nothing they said seemed to gel with what I had seen of Ricky – his kindness, his passion, his understanding of me. He had indulged my every desire and then some, with barely any question of why. He drew his own pleasure from my pain, and that only made me crave him more. So why, then, did they treat him like a criminal, like a villain? I wanted to understand, but they always left me with more questions than answers. 

Before I knew it, I was climbing the steps to the club entrance behind other loud, chatty newcomers. I checked my coat at the door with my cover charge – damn weekends – and stepped into the throb of music upstairs. Drink later. Dance now. 

It was somehow more crowded than I remembered it being last time, and it was much harder for me to find a spot to dance. When I finally did, there was only room for... well, pogoing, basically. Everyone else seemed fine with that. Boring. I clapped my hands over my ears to stifle the blasting technopop and waded through the dancers back to the steps. Maybe I'd have better luck downstairs. 

The nightlifers were still thronging here, but I had places to dance, and it wasn't as relaxed as it normally was. Tonight, people were going to town. There were still the bumpers and grinders off in the corners, but in the center of it all, between all the leather lounge chairs, a bunch of very loud partiers were jumping and dancing to the music. I saw purple hair and felt my heart stop – but it was long and bouncing over the shoulder of a chubby girl in fishnets. I was safe. So, feeling invigorated and beyond friendly, I joined the fray.

There was a slight dimming of the noise in the circle as I threw myself between the strangers, into the center where a couple of girls were giving it their all. Before I had arrived, their legs and feet were thunder on the floor, their bodies gyrating with their repetitive dance. They, like everyone else in their group, eyed me somewhat curiously; but then, with my heart in my mouth, I swallowed my pride and moved, and the whole flock started up in appreciative hollering again. I tried to match what one of the girls, an hourglass figure in a wave of blue hair, had just been doing, though my stiff, straight body was completely incapable of moving the way she did. She burst out in laughter, her companion in red dreadlocks shaking with mirth – but somehow I knew they weren't laughing at me. The two eyed each other and then me, grinning, and their dancing restarted with me among them all. 

It felt so... normal.

This mess continued, with each of us trying to outdo the other in our craziness, until the song ended and bled into the next. Most of the remaining onlookers were laughing now, others whooping gleefully. The pair of girls looked me up and down appreciatively, and as the new song dimmed in volume, they each said their hellos.

"Hey," said the blue-haired girl. 

"Hey," said the red.

"Hey there," I panted breathlessly, and they laughed.

"Who taught you to dance?" asked the red, a purple-nailed hand up to her mouth. 

I raised my eyebrows. "What... am I that good?" I said, stunned. 

"No, hon, I'm saying you should fire them," she replied, and the two of them, among others, lapsed into giggles. I looked at them sheepishly. But the intention was clear. I was being ribbed, and I didn't really mind. 

"I'm Harley," said the girl in blue, and she pointed to her friend with a gloved hand; on the knit fabric, a glowing green bone structure was printed. "This is Candy." 

"Hi," said red-haired Candy with a giggle.

"And this is -" Harley stopped, looked around her, and then huffed with frustration. Her hand shot out into the little throng of dancers, and she pulled with her a very slender, pear-shaped blonde girl. This one squealed, her bicep trapped in Harley's strong grip. "This is Leah," she finished with a flourish.

Leah blushed and murmured something – her lips said "Hello," but whatever sound she made was drowned out by the talking and the music. As plain as she looked between blue-haired Harley and red-haired Candy, Leah somehow stood out to me, perhaps because she offered such a strange contrast to her fellows. Harley and Candy were dressed from head to toe in black, raunchy goth chic, with tight shorts overtop stressed and damaged tights and fishnets, their cleavage exposed in low-cut tanks, with Harley sporting a rather impressive rack and Candy showing no signs of any supportive garments. 

Leah was... There was no other word for it; she was pretty. Fair-skinned and freckled, she was small in the chest and noticeably wider in the hips. Her thick and wavy blonde hair was restrained as best as it could be into a ponytail, but her messy bangs threatened to obscure her watery blue eyes. The short black dress she wore accentuated her slight figure, the tight hem printed with skulls, and her dark, transparent nylons were free of runs and holes, whereas her friends' seemed to show off these imperfections. On her feet, though I never knew how she could possibly dance in them, were strappy, open-toed heels. 

"Hey," I greeted her cheerfully. Her freckled cheeks broke out into a deeper flush and she looked down at her silver-ringed fingers, twisting them together nervously.

"You didn't tell us your name," chimed Candy in her twittery voice.

"Oh! Uh... Shay," I said, and the pair of them giggled again. 

"Come dance with us," begged Harley, and she seized my arm to pull me. "Or whatever it is you were doing!"

So I did whatever it was I did with the three of them, off in a corner where Harley had dragged me. Harley's and Candy's ample breasts were distractedly bouncing as they put their moves on, and Leah, between them, only gyrated her hips with her arms bent up and her gemmed earrings flouncing back and forth. At least she looked like she was having fun, shy as she was. They were all really cute. I'd never had a group of girls on me like this, and goddamn, was it exciting. My hips were flanked with heated bodies, though Leah stood giggling awkwardly off in front of me, watching her friends entrap me between them. 

The night went on pretty normally, more normally than I'd ever had a night with girls like this. We broke off and shared drinks at the bar, bonding fast, Harley becoming more and more flirty as her cheeks reddened with liquor. It wasn't an awkward flirting, not like with Jade. I felt very comfortable around these three, loud Candy, outgoing Harley, quiet and smiling Leah sipping her cranberry cocktail. 

"Are you alone?" Harley said suddenly, as I downed my third shot. 

I blinked, throat burning. "Uh – yeah," I admitted. 

"I just don't usually see guys come here by themselves," she said, exchanging a look of surprise with Leah. "Why?"

I shrugged. "I dunno... I like dancing."

Candy giggled. She was really giggly, and the cocktails weren't helping.

"Well, come dancing with us next time," said Harley with a smirk. "Oh, and other places, too. You a mallrat?" she quipped. "We were talking about going down to King of Prussia next weekend."

Mallrats. I hadn't been to the King of Prussia mall in years. For Jersey and city people, hardly anyone our age really went to malls with the intention of shopping. You went to hang out, people-watch, and stare at goods you either didn't want or couldn't afford. Probably sounded boring to the rest of the world, but it was the norm here. "Sounds awesome," I said truthfully. "I'm down."

Harley gave a cheer and laughed, echoed by her girlfriends. Leah always tucked herself into her shoulders when she laughed, as if she didn't want anyone to see her broad smile. 

Her laughter fading, Harley shook back her ocean of hair and fluttered at me. "So..." she said. "Are you... Seeing any-"

"Omigod, this is my FAVORITE song!" screeched Candy, and she leapt off her barstool, dragging Leah and Harley with her by their hands. Startled, I followed.

The girls made their way upstairs for this one, making sure I was following them every step. Waves of hard bass crashed over us all as we dove into the pit. Harley's sentiments from downstairs were lost, but she didn't seem to mind. She flashed smiles and burning eyes at me as she danced, with more passion in her movement than before, and we were all soon lost in our enjoyment. But in the heat of the moment, I looked up to take in the crowd... And from the sea of faces, I saw a pair of eyes glowering at me from beneath a rain of black hair. 

It was Ricky.

Though the girls still danced beside me, I stopped dead, Ricky's eyes the headlights that caught the deer. He moved fluidly between people as if they were only a calm river flowing around his ankles. His smile was cunning, his eyes knowingly gleaming, and I could do nothing but stand still as he approached me.

"Shay?" Harley looked up at me with concern furrowing her brow. "What -"

"Shay, there you are," Ricky called over the din as he finally wormed close to us. "I've been looking for you."

I wanted to ask what he was doing here, how he knew where I was... But before I could, Ricky threw a hand out and seized me by the nape of my neck, pulling me hard into him. In another second he kidnapped my mouth in a deep, locking kiss, and I shuddered in his arms as he held my neck and face. When we broke apart, I was gasping. Why did I feel so... guilty?

"Who are your friends, Shay?" asked Ricky loudly. "Aren't you going to introduce them?"

I didn't know why I was so thunderstruck. It wasn't as if I didn't want Ricky there... But when I turned to look at the girls, all three were in different states of shock. Bubbly Candy stood blushing with her mouth hanging open. Wide-eyed Leah had her hands up to her mouth. Harley looked like she'd just been slapped, the same surprise and horror etched on her face.

My voice returned and, dazed, I spoke. "Uh... Yeah," I said in raised voice to make myself heard in the dance hall. "Ricky, this is Harley, Candy, and Leah," I said slowly, gesturing to each girl in turn, each of whom stared at me.

"Nice to meet you girls," said Ricky, a cool smile across his placid features. "I'm Ricky. Shay's boyfriend."

The phrase came so suddenly that I had no time to think about it, rolled across Ricky's tongue so strongly. Boyfriend? It seemed a word so foreign in his mouth. But he'd said it, and Harley... Poor Harley... I had suddenly understood her intentions, her feelings, when her expression changed from surprise to dismay. Candy turned to her immediately, but Leah was still frozen, her eyes locked on Ricky. 

"If you girls don't mind," said Ricky, snaking a hand around my waist, "I think I'm going to take Shay home for the night. Have a good evening, will you?"

Before I could protest, I found myself being steered across the dance floor, Ricky weaving me through the crowd with him without missing a step. I was still out of it. What had just happened? Where was I going? Home? Whose home? Why was Ricky here? Most of all... Was I in trouble?

"Ricky... what's going on?" I asked breathlessly, as he pulled me down the stairs to the lobby. 

"Where's your coat?" he asked.

"I checked it – I have a ticket for it -"

"Give me the ticket," he ordered, holding his hand out expectantly. I fished in both my pockets, withdrew the little paper slip, and handed it to him shakily. "Stay," he said, and he disappeared, leaving me at the front door. 

In his absence my mind was whirling. For some reason, I felt as if I had just been caught doing something bad. But I had done nothing wrong. I was dancing with friends – all girls, at that. I mean, sure, they were hot to varying degrees, and I dug anyone, really. But I had not considered Ricky and I to be an item for whatever reason, more just fuckbuddies – until he'd uttered the word "boyfriend". 

In half a minute, Ricky returned and slung my wool coat over my sweating shoulders, the inside liner soaking immediately. "Let's go," he said abruptly, and he seized my upper arm, pulling me with him past the bouncer and newcomers and out the door.

"Ricky, what are you doing here?" I gasped, stumbling down the steps as we descended to the sidewalk and took a sharp left. "I... I didn't tell you -"

"I'd decided to visit your home, since you apparently weren't doing anything," he interrupted, shaking his hair back over his shoulders. "When I realized you weren't there, I tracked you. You left an easy trail the whole way here by foot. And I find you flirting with those girls."

"Fl – I wasn't flirting," I said quickly. "I was just hanging out with some new friends... Ricky, seriously, I mean that." I was stammering now, trying to keep my voice steady as he pulled me along. "Where are we going?"

"I'm driving you home."

"You drive? What – You have a car?"

"I don't use it often. This city's traffic is monstrous. Yes, I drive, thank you, I've had since the Ford Model T to learn."

I didn't get that, if it was a joke. After about a block, Ricky steered me to one side, in front of a sleek, black, American musclecar. Not a classic, not fancy or ostentatious, but something definitely new. Ricky popped the passenger door open and held it. 

"Get in," he said. 

"Ricky -"

"Get in," he repeated sharply. "I won't ask again."

Hesitantly, keeping my eyes locked in his darkened, burning gaze, I folded myself into the car without much difficulty. A two-seater. He must not have liked company much. The door slammed at my side, and I sat in uncomfortable silence before the driver's door opened in its stead, and Ricky slipped in beside me. 

"When you say home," I said, "Is... Is that my home, or yours?"

"Mine," he said. With a soft metallic jingling, he shoved the key into the ignition and started it up, the musclecar's engine snarling to life. The radio came on, loud, and I nearly had to stuff my fingers in my ears before Ricky reached over and brought the stoner metal album down to a low, thudding hum.

I trembled. "Are you... angry at me?" I whispered. 

"In a way," he replied frigidly. "In another... Hold on." He paused as he threw his head to one side and twisted about in his seat, looking back with one hand on the steering wheel. He muttered irritably to himself the entire time. "God damned parallel parking. Damned parking meters. Fuck city driving. Fuck these morons – learned at Helen Keller's school for driving, you fucking cunt..."

I sat there stunned at the stream of obscenities flowing off Ricky's icy tongue. It would have been comical if the situation hadn't been so terse. After a moment, we were out of the parking spot and on the tight road. I waited for Ricky to finish his sentiment.

"Where was I... I'm protecting you," he said clippingly. 

I stared at him. "From... From what?" I asked. "I'm not in danger... I was just spending time with some new friends, I had just met those girls -"

"And how long do you think it would be before they found out about you?" said Ricky. "That thing that you don't want people to know. The thing you hate about yourself."

I sat there putting pieces together. It all clicked so unpleasantly. "My... My being a masochist?" I whimpered. "They... don't need to know about that, do they?"

"And what if they did know, Shay?" said Ricky calmly. He turned the car smoothly down a side street, keeping his eyes forward. "What expression would be in their eyes? What sort of disgust, of fear, would they regard you with? Would they abandon you, or do you think they would still pretend, painstakingly, that they thought you were a normal human being just like them? And how long would that last?"

His words cut deeper than knives. In the near silence hushed by quieted music, I could do nothing but be absorbed in those nightmares. My insides felt cold, hollow, my lungs struggling to fill with air. I felt Jade's horrified gaze on me again. I imagined Harley's eyes stricken with the same kind of terror, the same hatred. I shuddered almost violently and clenched my fists, closing my eyes.

"I meant it when I called myself your boyfriend," Ricky continued silkily. "Allow it, Shay, and I'll love you the way you want. I have never judged you. I will never. We're here," he added, and I was snapped from my daze. 

How could I move now? What he'd just said... Ricky had never used the word love. I had never considered that love was a factor, that this thing between us was any more than physical, built on lust alone. But as I turned to look at him, at his deep, stormy eyes that had caught mine as he turned off the car's engine... I felt my desire for it all swell and burst within me. I wanted it... His love. 

Ricky broke his eyes from mine first, sliding from the car seat onto the pavement. I didn't recognize where we were at first, but as I followed him, clambering out of the musclecar's seat, I realized we were across the street from his apartment. I'd never noticed the car parked here. 

"Come," said Ricky, and he started across the road up to his door. I scampered after him, still dizzy from his revelation, and by the time the two of us had gotten up the steps, he'd unlocked the door and let us both inside. 

I was ready to start asking questions, but I didn't get to. The moment the door closed and locked behind us, throwing us both into darkness, Ricky seized me by the arms and slammed me against the wall. He swallowed my gasps, his lips taking mine, kissing me deeply, fiercely. I shook, groaning into his mouth, melting down the wall. I found his knee pushed hard between my legs, keeping me up and putting pressure where the heat in me grew. His mouth broke from mine and I laid against the wall panting.

"You're mine," he said in an undertone. "Tell me what you want from me."

I trembled hard in his arms, feeling the heat billowing up through my veins as his scent and terrible aura washed over me in passionate waves. "Hurt me," I heard my voice shake out, and then, in pleading, hoarse voice: "Love me..."

He said nothing, only recapturing my breath in his throat as we kissed harder and deeper. After what felt an eternity, he ripped himself from me and very roughly brought me to the floor beneath him. I threw out a loud noise as my back thudded on the hardwood, knocking the wind out of me. Ricky tangled his fingers in the holes of my tattered shirt, pulling it up as he kissed the dry sweat from the length of my chest.

"Ricky," I breathed tremulously. "I... w-we're doing this here...? The d-doorway..."

"It's my home," he growled pleasantly. "I do what I want, where I want, with you. Do you object?"

"But here...?"

"Fine then," he said, and before I knew it, I was being lifted and pulled over Ricky's shoulder. My shirt lay abandoned behind us. I cried out as his strong, blunt shoulder pushed into my stomach abruptly, my legs caught in his arm, and after only a few steps, I landed on my back on the modular couch in the living room. I barely had time to regather myself before Ricky caged my body with his own, pinning my limbs between his arms and knees. My heart was imprinting itself on my ribs with its pounding. Ricky reached up and ran his fingers through my sweat-soaked hair. 




Hematoma Ch. 13



"Where should I bleed you, Shay?" he mused, lids lowered over dark eyes, and my breath strangled itself in my lungs. "Should I bite your arm, like the first time? Bite your neck and taste the blood flowing to your brain?" His searching hand glided over the knots of my neck muscle, and then down, down over my chest, to my left pectoral... "Or should I open you here... And drink the blood from within your beating heart?"

I shook violently under him, my chest flexing beneath his teasing fingers as I sucked in air with a struggle. Above me, Ricky gave a guttural laugh. His hand skated down and gripped the straining denim holding back my painfully hard sex. I howled.

"Or should I draw the blood from where it concentrates in you?" whispered Ricky, keeping his eyes on mine as his hand rubbed hard, back and forth, over my cock through my jeans. I bucked my hips up into his hand with a groan. "Tell me, Shay... Where do you want to be bitten?"

His words, yet so fierce and harsh, were like birdsong. My vision spun with his heady atmosphere. "My chest," I begged. "Bite me... Please!"

Ricky laughed deeply in my face, and the hand that had held my needy sex so strongly released and streamed back up my body, clasping my chin in a vice. "I adore your pleading, Shay," he whispered lovingly. "Your desperate little voice crying for your own agony... Your beautiful brand of music..." His dry lips followed the path his hand had taken, down my pulsing neck straining with breath, across my collarbone, stroking the skin of my breast where my heartbeat was strongest, making visible tremors in my body, and his mouth opened over this tight tangle of activity, hovering just north of the nipple he'd pierced himself... 

Ricky buried his teeth in my tense flesh, and I jolted with the pain of his bite as it ripped through me like lightning. My arms shot out to grip the cushion of the couch under me. My chest shot upwards against his mouth as if I'd been under a defibrillator. I didn't know how my rapid breathing didn't loosen him from my skin. He moved his arms to my shoulders and forced me back against the couch, pinning me down with the weight of his body, and as soon as he'd gotten me secure underneath him, he began to drink. Though the banding of my ribs gated him from the heart he threatened to suck dry, its branching veins drained into my lover's hungry and waiting mouth, filling him with my blood, and my heart beat madly with fear for its life. I clamped a spasmodic hand to the nape of Ricky's neck. It hurt... It hurt so badly... And if I wouldn't die from it, I would never have asked him to stop... 

I felt myself falling back, though my inked back never left the couch. I was ready to faint again. Ricky released me from his clamping jaw and, breathing uncharacteristically hard, lifted me a bit from the cushion so I could see him. My gaze instead fell to my chest, where I saw the mark he'd made. I had never looked before, but I had always expected the stereotypical dual pinpoints of a vampire's fangs to be left behind every time Ricky bit me. Instead, I saw an elongated, scarlet-bruised circle of teethmarks with breaks across the median where Ricky's teeth ended, and deep, torn holes like knife wounds where his canines broke my skin. These were still bleeding. I gave a shuddering breath as I examined the mark, tracing it with my fingers and feeling the bruise sting pleasurably at my touch. 

Ricky was undressing. His newly colored skin exposed itself in the near darkness that still stained the living room, illuminated from behind by the street light that escaped in ribbons from the venetian blinds. With his jeans freshly unbuttoned, he set to work on mine without a word, unzipping and fervently tugging down the denim around my legs. Even drained of blood, I was still swollen with pleasure. I slipped down the couch as he pulled me free of my jeans, and when I tried to sit back up, head still spinning, Ricky kept me down. 

"Save your strength," he threatened. "I'm not healing you yet. I want to fuck you first."

My weak heart beat itself to its limit at his words. Sex... Ricky's rough, hard sex... I moaned and dug my fingers into the couch again as he lifted my hips around his own. A hesitation, the snapping noise of something plastic, and Ricky pushed himself at my ass, burying his newborn heat in one thrust. I cried out in pain. Even cold-soaked and lubricated, he tore through me with such ferocity and abandon. His fingers dug into the bones of my hip, holding me steady as he started up, slow and quickly accelerating his thrusts inside me. I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood. I groaned through my teeth the entire time, unable to speak, to plead for mercy... to beg for more...

The angle at which Ricky held me made what little blood there was in me rush to my head. It was already so hard to think, to concentrate on keeping myself steady through his attack inside me, and... Without any warning, his body arched over mine and his hands slid down my body, from my hips to my punctured, bleeding chest, to my neck – and he seized me by the throat.

With the muscle of Ricky's stretching fingers wrapping around my trachea, I choked out and strained for air. My vision still blurred further, my chest heaving as I struggled to breathe, Ricky slamming deeper inside of me with each movement, so hard that I could feel the pain shooting up to my navel in the strangest way... I was going to pass out... I couldn't voice it, the words wouldn't come out, my larynx was caught between his strong hands and robbed of motion... And despite it all, my body still took its pleasure, racked in orgasm as the ringing in my ears blared and I began to lose consciousness...

The moment Ricky released his grip on my neck, my chest swelled with the effort of recapturing the air around me. I wheezed and coughed violently, holding my neck where his hands had left me. Still dizzy... Still anemic... I groaned, shaking hard.

"Stay still," he demanded, and when I obeyed as best I could with my body still shaking, he opened my mouth and let a bead of blood drip onto my tongue. I gulped it down. Anything... Anything to make this feeling go away, this clamping pain... Within short minutes, all the icy cold had left my veins. But it still took me time to recuperate. I couldn't repair my body fast enough. Beside me, Ricky laughed softly, breathily.

"An interesting experiment," he purred as my head finally began to clear. "You tighten up rather intensely when you're being asphyxiated, Shay. You were practically milking me near the end."

"I don't -" I coughed a little, clearing my throat. "I don't want to do that again, Ricky..."

"Don't want to do what?" he said, turning sharply to look at me so that his long hair whirled over his left shoulder. 

I closed my eyes hesitantly, pulling myself to a sitting position very uneasily with my hand still massaging my neck. "I don't like being choked," I confessed, almost in shame. "It's... Not sexy. It doesn't feel good."

"You came," said Ricky. Slickly he reached over and traced his fingers through the splatter of my orgasm that still stained my chest, and my cheeks flared. "Does this body lie to me, Shay?"

"It's – A lot was going on," I said shakily. "Everything felt good... But I don't like being choked out. It's just kind of a limit for me, I don't want to do it."

"Was it not painful?"

"Not the kind of pain I want," I muttered, still wincing. "It's completely different... And terrifying." I paused, looking for something to mop up my chest. Normally I'd have grabbed my shirt, but I still had to wear it home. Shit. "Look... Maybe we should, uh... Like, talk about limits or something."

"Your limits?" said Ricky, raising an eyebrow. "This clearly isn't for my benefit."

"No, I guess not," I admitted, still searching for a way to wipe myself off. "But I'm still... There's shit I can't handle. And I think -"

"Let me clean that for you."

I opened my mouth, taken aback, but I didn't stop Ricky as he pushed me gently back against the arm of the couch and lowered his face to my chest for the second time that night. Instead of biting me, his tongue ran up along the muscle of my breast and cleaned the mess from my skin. I shook with an upheaval of arousal. God, this was... No... Fuck, he was going to distract me. 

"Ricky," I gasped, holding the couch, "I think we should have a safe word..."

"Meaning?" said Ricky uninterestedly, as he moved down for another lap. 

I groaned under his tongue. My eyes fluttered. "I... I need a way to signal you that I need you to stop or slow down... You're powerful, and what we're doing is... I mean, let's face it, it's risky. Not that I don't fffffffffucking love it," I gasped. God, his tongue felt good!

Ricky considered this, finished with his catlike cleaning of my body and leaving me a panting mess again. "Very well. So what word do you want to use, Shay? What part of the human language is an accurate signal for you to make me stop hurting you, hm?"

As he lounged back against the opposite arm of the sofa, he wearing undone jeans and I completely naked, I thought. What was a good word? I had never been in this situation. I had never needed a safe word because no one had ever indulged my pleasures this way. I decided I wanted something that meant the same danger to the both of us. A signal that he, the immortal Ricky, would understand.

"Hematoma," I said quietly.

Ricky's smooth brow furrowed. "Unusual choice. May I ask your motivation?"

"Because it means pain to both of us," I said calmly. "A hematoma's a bruise to humans too. Sun bruising's one of the only things that can hurt you."

"So is decapitation," chuckled Ricky. "Shall I make you cry out 'Marie Antoinette'?"

"Just humor me," I mumbled sheepishly. 

Ricky's laughter flattened into a tidy smile. "All right, then, Shay. When the pain I give you pushes you past your limits, and you can no longer bear the exquisite, intolerable pleasure I give you... You'll cry out the word 'hematoma', and I'll give you your mercy. Is that suitable to you?"

He was being far more amiable than I first expected. That made me feel pretty lighthearted. I laughed weakly. "Yeah... Sure, okay," I agreed.

Ricky's smile widened. "Will you stay the night here? It's a bit late."

"Yeah... Okay."

~

I didn't know what time it was when I woke up. There, in Ricky's bedroom, there was no indication between dusk or dawn as far as the light was concerned. I was also quite confused as to what exactly had woken me up, because Ricky was still sound asleep beside me, with his arm over my ribs. But then the sound started up again – a weird, repetitive bell pattern overtop of a strange buzzing.

I realized drowsily that it was my phone. It was sitting on Ricky's nightstand next to his own, ringing and vibrating. But I was still confused, because the ringtone wasn't my usual one. Sometimes I gave certain numbers different ringtones, just a normal thing, but this one? Well, fuck, who did I put this ring to? Groaning like a sleepy bear, which I felt very much like, I slung an arm over to the nightstand and seized my phone. Whoever it was, it must be important for them to call twice.

"H'lo?" I said blearily into the phone.

"Hi Shay, sweetie! Did I wake you? It's almost noon, sleepyhead!"

The ensuing aneurysm almost made me fall out of bed as I recognized the voice – and the ringtone.

"Mom!?"



Hematoma Ch. 14



I was pacing the floor with one hand holding the phone to my ear, the other pulling me into my underwear. From the canopied bed, Ricky sat glaring at me in slight annoyance. He looked plenty well-rested, but apparently, he didn't appreciate being woken up by my outburst when I'd realized my mother had called me.

"I haven't heard from you in ages," she was gushing. "You don't call, you don't write... You know, your grandmother left you a very nice birthday picture on your Facebook, I can't tell you what a hassle that was to teach her... Funny story, though, remind me to tell you about it. Where was I?"

"Mom, I'm twenty-six," I said exasperatedly. "It's not like I'm away at college waiting for care packages. I've just been busy."

"Oh, Shay sweetie, we just want to hear from you more often is all," said Mom. "Anyway, Arden's graduation is next June, are you coming up for that? I think it would mean a lot to her!"

Arden, my little sister, was a senior at her high school now. The last time I'd seen her had been in her junior prom photos, and she was growing up in a way that made me feel pretty old. "Of course I'm going to be there," I said honestly, running a hand through my hair as I tried to finally wake up. "Ards would kill me if I didn't show up."

Mom laughed. "I don't doubt that, she's been a terror. Why didn't you teach her your secrets? You were never a troublemaker at her age. Remember that time the police took you in for doodling on the back of a stop sign in middle school, and you cried the whole time because you thought you were going to state prison? You kept saying you used your one phone call to call me. Oh, you were precious, it was so hard not to laugh at you."

"Mom," I said loudly, flushing, "You're rambling again."

"Oh darn, you're right! Sorry, baby!" My mother had a habit of going into reminiscences at the weirdest times. One minute you're asking what's for dinner, the next she starts pulling out baby photos. 

"Is that all you wanted to talk about? Ards' graduation?"

"Well yes, and to hear from you. Oh! No, I forgot. Thanksgiving is in a week and a half, are you coming up to see us? I'm making roasted asparagus again, it's your favorite!"

Thanksgiving? Fuck, I'd completely forgotten about it. I had a terrible memory with dates and holidays. A past girlfriend of mine had broken up with me because I'd forgotten our anniversary and her birthday. Days were days, it just didn't matter to me. "I... I dunno, Mom," I said, racking my brain to see what I was doing.

"Oh, come on! You're not telling me the warehouse has you scheduled on Thanksgiving day. That would be just awful. Are you still working at the warehouse? You are, right?"

"Yes, mom," I said. "I just don't know because I'm usually... making plans with a friend on my off days," I said slowly, and I looked over my shoulder to see Ricky still staring at me. But his face had softened, and he was chinning himself on his hand. "Hold on," I told Mom.

"What's up?" said Ricky.

"My mom wants me back home for Thanksgiving," I told him, putting my hand over the speaker. 

"So go," he said. "Actually... Why don't we both go?"

"What?" I blurted. "Ricky - you don't even eat -"

"I can't meet your family?" he said, quirking an eyebrow.

"I - w - wait a sec, hold on!" I put the phone back up to my ear. "Hey - Mom, sorry, who all's gonna be there, exactly?"

"Oh, me, your dad, Arden, Arden's boyfriend -"

"Wait, hold up, when did Arden get a boyfriend?"

"Oh, they started going out over the summer. You wouldn't have seen them in her prom pictures. He's a nice young man, so we invited him. Do you have someone you'd like to bring?"

God, sometimes she could just say the most convenient shit. I looked nervously at Ricky, who was still smiling at me with satisfaction. Did I really want to go there? "Uh - Lemme check with a friend of mine, and I'll call you back about it. Anyway, I'll come up for the holiday, don't worry about that. I'll take a Greyhound up."

"All right, sweetie. Do you want money for the bus?"

"No, I got it, Mom. Thanks."

"Okay. Love you, Shay sweetie!"

"Love you too, Mom. Bye."

I hung up and whirled around to stare at Ricky. "Do you have any idea what you're suggesting?" I said hoarsely.

"I'm suggesting that I visit your family," he said simply. "It sounds quite interesting, in my opinion. I've never attended a Thanksgiving dinner."

"Ricky," I said, "You're a guy. You're a guy who fucks me and gets me off by hurting me. Your idea of a fun date night was sticking thirty cannula needles in my chest. And did I forget to mention - you're a vampire!"

"All true, I won't deny it. I seem to remember you loved the needles. Your point?"

"You really think it's a good idea for you to meet my mother?"

"Well, it's not as if they need to know every detail," said Ricky dismissively. "Why can't I simply attend as your boyfriend?"

"You definitely can't do that," I said sharply.

Ricky looked at me with renewed curiosity. "Are your parents unaware that you're gay?"

"I'm not gay!" I said. "I mean - not exactly. I like anyone, guys, girls, whatever. But - no, I've never brought home a guy before. In fact, you're the only one I've ever dated - if that's what we're doing. And no, my parents don't know I fuck guys. I didn't think it was any of their business."

"Ignoring the superfluous rant you just went on, what you're saying is you think your parents are going to be disappointed or even angry that you're dating a man."

I bit my lip. "Maybe?" I said lamely. 

"Hmm," said Ricky. "Are they devout at all?"

"What?"

"Religious? Christian, Catholic?"

"I - Oh. I mean, my mom's family is Catholic, but they're just kind of passively Christian, I guess."

"I'm not sure what you're worried about, then," said Ricky. "But in any case, perhaps you could just be bringing a friend along. It's not exactly a lie."

I stared at him in confusion. "Are you that dead-set on going all the way to North Jersey just to find out what a suburban Thanksgiving is like? You're not even going to eat."

Ricky chuckled. "I'll eat, thank you. Just because I can't taste food doesn't mean I can't eat it."

"What a waste of good turkey," I said bitterly. "I'll think about it, all right? We've got some time before I need to give my plus-one."

"Sounds fair," said Ricky.

I sighed, still exhausted. It had been a long night, and I wasn't altogether rested yet. But before I put my phone away, I checked the time. Mom had been right. It was past noon now. "I've got work in an hour and a half," I said suddenly. 

As I scurried around the room, gathering up my clothes, Ricky merely sat there watching me with his chin in his hand again. "You know," he said, "you wouldn't have to work if you didn't want to."

"What?" I said distractedly, pulling my shirt on. 

"Look where I'm living, Shay," said Ricky, and he tossed a hand casually around the room. "This apartment doesn't even cost a minute fraction of the fortune I've amassed in my lifetime. If you lived here, with me, you could stop working just to rent that shithouse you call home."

"You work, too," I said, stung.

"I work at a tattoo parlor doing something that interested me for this lifetime," he replied. He stretched, groaning, and slid out of bed. "Get ready to go, and I'll walk you to work. We'll get you some breakfast on the way."

"I don't have my work clothes," I said helplessly. "I can't go to work in dance gear."

"So we'll stop at your house," said Ricky simply. "You'll have to anyway. We've got time."

He convinced me. Once the two of us were dressed, Ricky donning his hooded jacket and aviators, we headed out onto the street under the autumn sun. Ricky disappeared under his self-inflicted shade.

"What did you mean by fortune?" I asked, stuffing my hands into my pockets away from the cold air. 

"Hm?"

"You said something about the 'fortune you'd amassed'."

"Oh, that," said Ricky casually. "I've lived for hundreds of years, Shay. I exist in one... Let's call it 'lifetime', for about fifteen to twenty years. After that, I pick myself up and move to another part of the world, away from people who might recognize that I've ceased aging. I restart my life there, as a young man of only twenty years, and rebuild a new life with a new career."

"You what?" I said incredulously. I looked almost nervously at people we passed by on the street, worried they might overhear Ricky's unbelievable claim - but then again, it was unbelievable. "Doesn't that get... Inconvenient?"

"Not really," he shrugged. "I've never truly forged any attachments I couldn't let go of before. Acquaintances come and go, as do jobs, and hobbies. One day I'll have to say goodbye to Karen as well, to tell her that I want to go find myself or something. And I'll disappear from Philadelphia for the second time. Let's go there, I'll buy you a sandwich," added Ricky, nodding towards a Wawa to our left. 

I warmed up as we stepped inside, the air thick with the smell of coffee and lunch, and followed Ricky to the sandwich counter, where with his encouragement, I ordered a meatball sub. Provolone and spinach, just the way I like it. "The second time?" I repeated him a minute after the fact while we waited for the sub. 

Ricky chuckled. "I was a student of mortuary science in the 1920s," he explained. "A very interesting path, but ultimately, more for fun than for profit. But I liked this city. It's changed a lot. Anyway, I've been involved in a lot of career paths that made me far more money than I ever needed. Stockbroker, politician, architect, even the short-lived CEO for a large company. Thank you," he said to the lady who handed us my sandwich, all wrapped and ready to go. The little bundle was still warm in my hands when we paid and bagged it.

"The point is," Ricky continued outside, "I don't spend money much, even though it looks like I do. If I wanted to, I could have a condominium on the Delaware river - though why anyone would want to is beyond me. I rent sensibly-priced apartments and make them feel luxurious. I don't need to eat, so I don't spend money on feeding myself. I take care of the clothing that I have and very rarely supplement my wardrobe. And that's all so that I can spend lifetimes where I don't make much money at all, still living comfortably. And," he smirked at me, "spoiling people that I'd like to waste money on."

We reached my apartment and I changed my clothes, and discovered I had enough time now to eat my sub before I headed out. While I chewed, questions still soared through my mind. "What did you do before you turned?" I asked.

"Ah, I told you that's a story for another time."

"This is another time, isn't it?"

Ricky smiled. "Believe me when I say we don't have enough time. If I told you that one little snippet of my life, you'd have to hear the whole thing." He checked his phone, frowning. "Hm. And you're not the only one who needs to be at work," he muttered.

I made a noise of curiosity with my mouth full of meatball.

"Karen's texted me," he said. "Looks like I'm on desk duty today, poor girl's going home with stomach flu. I'm afraid we'll be going our separate ways when you're finished eating."

I swallowed my bite of sandwich. All I could think to say was "Oh..."

Ricky reached over and ruffled my hair with a gloved hand. "You can survive without me," he said. "Finish up and let's go. We both have places to be."

I polished off my sub somewhat reluctantly, savoring my time with Ricky more than my food. I was hesitant about leaving him again. And for the first time after so many distractions, I began to actually think about his offer.

"Did you mean that?" I asked quietly as we descended onto the pavement outside.

Ricky looked at me with raised eyebrows. "Mean what?" he said.

I looked down at my work boots. "That... That I could go stay with you and stop working."

Beside me, Ricky laughed gently. "The offer is open, but let's talk about it. It'd be a big decision for you. Lots of moving, lots of goodbyes."

I nodded. Ricky had gotten me far too excited. Was I really prepared to give up my job, the home I'd scrimped to rent, even if it was a shitty one? Ricky reached over to me and drew me close, leaving a chaste kiss on my lips.

"We'll part ways here," he said. "Have a good day at work, Shay."

"You too," I replied with half a smile.

With a smirk of his own, Ricky turned and walked in the opposite direction. 

~

Shipment was slow that day, and I was getting distracted again. Don was at my side, moving things onto a large wooden pallet while I tried to help. We kept conversation to a light minimum for the most part, just to keep our minds busy over the mindless work. Don told me how his youngest daughter was doing in her track meets, and how she'd broken her school's record for the long jump.

"How're you doing anyway?" he asked gruffly, shifting a box next to its fellows.

I hefted a box up beside his, pausing to think. I didn't know what to say. But for some reason, I had been feeling more comfortable around Don lately - and maybe he was the only person I could talk to, to get some real advice on my troubles. "I guess I'm all right," I said. "But... Hey, Don..."

"Yeah?"

"If you were really good friends with someone, but people kept telling you your friend was a bad person... What would you do?"

Don walked over to the stack we were moving and stopped, frowning under his whiskers. "Well, how well do you know this friend of yours?" he asked.

I thought. "A little bit, I guess. Not as well as I'd like to," I admitted. "But he's never done anything bad that I've seen. He's... a good friend."

"There's two sides to every story," said Don. "My girl Tamara's a straight-A student, never done anything wrong that I've seen, and I pay attention to my kids. But last year, she started hanging out with this group - oh, they were good students too, all honor students, track 'n field, just like her. But she goes out with 'em one weekend, and what do they do?" He grabbed another box with a grunt and shunted it over onto our pallet. "Fuckin' drinkin'. All of 'em get nailed for underage drinkin', and drivin' after curfew on top of it. Poor Tamara told me she didn't want any part of it, but y'know those kinda kids. Fuckin' pressured her. I grounded her for three months." He wiped the sweat off his brow. "What was I saying... Anyway, people you think are good can be shitheads, and people you think are bad can be great people. You just need to find out for yourself. See who you trust more, Shay. You got a good head on your shoulders. And don't let anyone inside it."

Don was a veritable fountain of fatherly advice. I probably couldn't have asked a better person. My workload became much easier for the rest of the day, and I moved shipment with renewed vigor.

~

I showered that night to get rid of all the day's working sweat and stink, and tossed my work clothes into the washing machine in the kitchen. Now relaxing on my bed, I had time to think. Don was definitely right. But I began to think he had a point about more than just Ricky... He had a point about the guys at the Society too. Right now, I considered them bad people... But why? There were two sides to both of their stories, and I wanted all of them. Who should I really trust? Couldn't I trust both of them? After all, both they and Ricky wanted my safety... Right? 

I deliberated over my phone for what seemed like forever, and finally flicked through my recent calls to the Society's number. I decided it was probably time to give them a third and final chance.

After two rings, a silvery, female voice answered. "Thank you for calling the Society of Philadelphia, servicing the Delaware Bay and South Jersey district... May I ask the reason for your call this evening?" the voice said in a very practiced way. 

"Yeah, hi, this is Shay Ferguson... I'm calling to talk to Soonhee or Gilbert, or set up a meeting or something," I said.

The line went silent for a moment. "I-I'm sorry... Hold on a moment," said the voice. I couldn't help but think whoever it was had suddenly become very worried... And even more so, how strangely familiar they sounded. My thoughts were interrupted by hold music. Bizarre elevator tunes. Good god, couldn't they have gotten something better than this?

The elevator music stopped. "Thank you for waiting. This is Gilbert Kelly speaking," said Gilbert's soft voice.

"Hey, Gilbert. It's Shay... Shay Ferguson," I said stiffly.

I heard Gilbert laugh quietly. "I thought so," he said. "It's wonderful to hear from you, Mr. Ferguson. I was beginning to worry Soonhee had scared you off for good."

"Yeah, well... Can you just call me Shay? Mr. Ferguson is really weird to hear."

"Shay, then. I do feel the need to apologize. I told her not to follow you," said Gilbert with a sigh. "But... I have heard things about you since then, and I was becoming concerned. I have to say I'm very happy you've decided to contact us again." He paused. "Or is this a call to tell us to leave you alone?"

"No," I said. "I think I should come visit again. And I think... Well, I'm thinking of letting you guys register me after all."

"That's wonderful news. Are you busy tomorrow morning?"

"I work until three in the afternoon."

"Very well. If it's acceptable, please allow us to pick you up at your place of work or thereabouts. I will be coming to escort you myself," he said reassuringly. "I think it's safest that way."

Safest because I wouldn't blow up on Soonhee again, I thought. "Do you need the address of the place, or did Soonhee already tell you after tracking me down?" I said sardonically. 

Gilbert gave a guilty huff of laughter. "We do have it on our files. Forgive me. I'll be there at roughly three-fifteen. Is that reasonable?"

"Yeah. See you then, Gilbert."

"Have a good evening, Shay."

In the silence following the call, I worried that I had made the wrong decision again. But... At the very least, I wanted to make sure they wouldn't hunt Ricky. I didn't want any of them to hurt us, hurt what we had. And just as Don had said, there were two sides to every story. How could I be sure they weren't the good guys? What if both sides were good? I was very certain that Ricky meant me no harm. But there had to be a reason for their tribulation concerning him... This seemed to go beyond mere rule-breaking.

I put myself to fitful sleep with this internal argument. Maybe I would never have an answer.

~

"See you later, Don!"

"Later, man."

"Tell your girlfriend I said hi, Shay!"

Ugh. I still hadn't gotten out of the rumor Soonhee planted in my coworker's heads. As I walked out to the street with the sounds of their laughter still fresh, I wished she'd never shown up here. It was almost worse than them knowing about Ricky.

The near-winter sky was clear blue. The edges of my coat kept getting picked up by the stirrings of brisk wind, which bit into my fingertips until I was forced to pocket my hands. Gilbert said he'd be here. I shifted my duffel on my shoulder and waited, only a block away from my work.

The sound of the breeze was broken by the growing purr of an engine, and the familiar sleek, black Towncar slid up beside me. With the engine idling, the driver's side door opened and the driver from last time stepped out. He smiled at me over the roof of the car and walked over to my side.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Ferguson," he said in his deep, almost booming voice. "You all ready to go?"

"I guess... Where's Gilbert?" I asked. I peered into the dark back window. 

"He's in there," the driver chortled. "Lemme get that for ya."

He opened the back door for me and, sure enough, Gilbert, in a light gray sweater today, was sitting on the far seat. I climbed in beside him and let the driver shut me in. In another moment, we pulled away from the curb.




Hematoma Ch. 14



"Hello, Shay," he smiled. "It's nice to see you again."

"Yeah," I said. "Well... I figured if you were more reasonable than Soonhee, maybe the rest of the Society is too."

Gilbert laughed softly and lowered his eyes. "Soonhee is not one of our... social members," he said carefully. "She has a good heart, but she's quite abrasive. In truth, she only got involved with you by circumstance - I had put her on Yorick's tail, and instead she found you."

I wanted to tell Gilbert exactly what I thought about Soonhee's "good heart", but I thought better of it. I was going to try to avoid confrontation. "So we're going back to the Society building today?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied. "It's the best place for the two of us to talk and open up, I think." Gilbert sighed softly, and when I looked over at him, I saw him rubbing his right knee - the weird one - with his cane by his hand. 

I hesitated, then finally asked what I'd been meaning to. "D'you mind telling me what happened to your leg?" I said. "It's not an injury, is it? I thought being a vampire meant you healed from everything."

Gilbert gave me a very searching look, as if he was wondering whether or not to answer me. After a moment, he smiled weakly. "I'm afraid I am healed, Shay," he said. "Being turned saw to that. But I was in such a state before it, there was only so much that could be put right. It's a long story."

"Seems like every vampire's story is. We've got time, right?"

He pondered, then nodded, sighing deeply. "Where to start." For a minute all he did was stare out the darkened window at passing traffic, but then he turned to me again. "I contracted paralytic polio as a small child, at the height of the epidemic. My legs went first. The atrophy took this one's joint," he said, tapping his knee, "and then they both stopped functioning. With no cure and a vaccine years from development, all I could do was try to live until the disease claimed me. And so, like many other children, I wound up in an iron lung when my body gave up on me."

I stared at him. I had to search my mind to even picture an iron lung, and all I came up with were images from history textbooks. "If you were stuck in one of those, how'd you get turned?" I asked, brow furrowed. 

Gilbert gave me a knowing grin. "The nurse in charge of the ward," he said. "One night, with I among rows of other children in iron lungs, she came to us and told us what she was - and what she was going to do in order to try and save us. We all agreed, even the most frightened of us - after all, we were more than likely going to die anyway. So this vampire, whom I barely knew, used all of her strength and attempted to turn every single child, twelve of us in all... And though I won't extrapolate on what happened..." Gilbert sighed, looking back out the window. "Well... Only I survived."

"What... Did she -?"

"Yes. She passed as well, though it may very well have been intentional."

"Intentional?" I repeated in confusion.

Gilbert met my eyes again and opened his mouth, but then the Towncar slowed to yet another stop, and the driver spoke. "Here we are, Mr. Kelly."

"Thank you, Johnathan," Gilbert said politely, but even as I opened my door, he didn't move. It wasn't until the driver - Johnathan, I guess - got out and walked to the back door with a black umbrella that Gilbert so much as moved. I waited on the sidewalk as Gilbert was escorted to meet me under his shade, leaning on his cane while Johnathan held the umbrella at arm's length over him. Feeling I should treat this as if it were normal, I followed them both to the front door, and when we were safe inside, Johnathan bowed, folded his umbrella, and let the heavy door shut behind us.

There was a different person in the lobby this time, a stocky woman with black hair who greeted us both, and to whom Gilbert paid little more than a smile. I wondered where the scary guy from before had gone. 

"You said last night that you'd heard things about me that made you concerned," I said as we walked through the main hall. "What did you mean by that?"

"I heard things worth noting in the last few days," he said, "from Soonhee's visit, obviously, and from another source. I was actually quite surprised about the second. What were the chances? You seem to have some very strong luck, Shay... You run into a lot of people who want to look after you."

I felt my brows knitting. "What does that mean? Who else did you talk to about me?"

"Oh, I could tell you. But I think the two of you would be happier just meeting again." Without truly answering me, Gilbert took a turn and limped towards the bar I'd seen the first time I visited, where the blonde bartender was looking through one of the numerous drawers on the wall with her back to us, her wavy hair tied back in an unruly ponytail. "Leah, dear," Gilbert said over the bar. "Would you mind taking a break? I'd like you to come talk with us."

Leah... I felt like I was hearing that name a lot lately. I remembered now - Soonhee had mentioned a Leah last time I was here. It was a weird coincidence, I thought, that I'd run into two Leahs in one week. But then the girl at the bar turned around towards Gilbert's voice, and her watery blue eyes caught sight of me...

And I realized that they were one and the same.



Hematoma Ch. 15



AN: Thanks for reading this far. The chapters are coming out pretty fast lately, and so I apologize if they seem rushed. You'll notice for the first time, this chapter is not in the Gay Male category. Due to the ever-changing nature of this story, some chapters from here on out may be different. Thanks again.

*****

I didn't think I would ever see Leah again after our last meeting, and yet here she was... At a vampire society clubhouse. Apparently, she was in as much shock as I was. Her unblinking gaze was wide and full of... Was it terror? Surprise? I couldn't tell if she was happy to see me... Or just scared of me. It was the same way she'd looked at Ricky.

I couldn't help noticing that she was just as pretty as I remembered her. Her pink-blushed lips were glossy and parted slightly, her slender body clad in a short-sleeved black dress, with a low-cut neckline that exposed the freckles across her collarbone. Around her neck she wore a choker with a cameo brooch showing a delicate skull. And in her hands... What was that?

Out of the drawers behind her she'd taken some sort of vinyl bag filled to the brim with a dark liquid. It looked very much like an IV bag, except that it had a strange little plug on the top. Was that... blood?

"Leah?" Gilbert repeated, and both of us were snapped to his attention. "Will you join us, please?"

Leah looked helplessly from Gilbert to me and back again, and fidgeted with the bag in her hands. "I... I need to..."

"It's okay, Leah," said one of the guys at the bar, giving her a soothing smile. "Go on ahead. I'll call Carrie to take over for you."

"Oh... Are you sure? Well, all right," she said, but the expression of worry never left her face. She placed the vinyl bag back in the drawer and bustled out from behind the bar, straightening the short hem of her skirt that swirled around her thighs. Without looking at me, she strode to Gilbert's side and took his free arm, letting him put some of his weight on her as he led us both away. 

"One of the parlors should be suitable," Gilbert was saying rather cheerfully. "I apologize for pulling you away from your duties, Leah, dear."

"No," Leah replied, a fretful note in her voice, "It's all right, Gil... I understand. And besides, Carrie's been looking for something better to do all day. She said she's tired of making beds." 

"Truly? She's so good at it, though."

"I know... I can't do the corners like she can."

I couldn't find the voice in me to speak. I was so confused. What was she doing here? 

We settled into a room very much like the one Gilbert and I had shared with Soonhee on my previous visit, this one with two short, white loveseats facing each other across a glass-topped coffee table. Leah helped Gilbert seat himself on one of these, then held her skirt behind her legs to join him. She was wearing black stockings and those open-toed heels again. Finally, I recovered my speech.

"What are you doing here?" I demanded of her, my voice cracking slightly. "Are you – Are you a vampire?"

Leah's face flushed and she shook her head vigorously. "Oh – No, nothing like that!" she said quickly. "I-I'm human, like you... I..." Her voice trailed off and she wrung her hands together, mumbling something. 

"Leah is one of the many humans who assist here at the Society," Gilbert explained calmly. "Among other things, she is a communal sacrifice."

This just made her blush harder. 

"I know what a sacrifice is," I said slowly. "Well... I do now. But what do you mean, communal?"

Gilbert smiled and looked at Leah. When she realized he was waiting for her to answer me, she gave a little jump and stammered. "I-I... It means, well..." Leah knitted her fingers and blushed, something she seemed to be very prone to. "It means that... That any vampire registered with the Society is allowed to drink from me, with my consent."

"What... really?" I said. 

"It's one of the many services that Leah graciously offers here," Gilbert took over, to allow Leah room to breathe as she buried her reddened face in her hands. "We strongly discourage hunting, and those without registered sacrifices have a hard time feeding themselves otherwise. At our headquarters, any member can ask to feed from Leah or another communal, or they can get blood packs from the bar, which Leah also tends. For some, it's easier to drink from a source that cannot be hurt if they lose themselves."

I listened intently. It was weird seeing how far the Society had gone to serve a community of vampires I didn't even know existed. And Leah – sweet, pretty Leah whom I had only ever seen dancing at a club – was a part of it. She let strange vampires drink from her. I wondered with suppressed curiosity if Gilbert had used her... services.

"So," said Gilbert, suddenly businesslike, his smile lingering as he laid his cane across his lap. "I understand you two met at a nightclub downtown?"

I bit my lip. "Yeah," I said. "Kinda surprised to see her here..."

"Understandable," nodded Gilbert. "Leah was quite surprised, too... When Yorick came to pick you up."

Leah looked at me apologetically, worry narrowing her eyes.

"I'm surprised you even recognized him," I said to her, crossing my arms. "What, do you have a 'wanted' poster hanging up somewhere with his picture?"

"It wasn't that," she said quietly. "I didn't know who he was... I told Gilbert that I'd run into a vampire with long, black hair... A powerful one." She shuddered and looked down at her lap.

But I could only stare at her. "Wait – if you didn't know Ricky, then how did you know he was a vampire? It's not like you can tell just by looking at him..."

Leah shook her head, her messy bangs fluttering into her eyes. "I felt it," she whispered. "His aura... I've never felt anything like it before. I knew what it was because I'm used to feeling that kind of power now... But no one has ever had that kind of hold on me... It was as if his mere presence was turning my bones to liquid, as if he were melting me inside." She shivered involuntarily and wrapped her arms around herself. "I'm sure if he were really trying, I would have followed him anywhere, whether I wanted to or not... It was terrifying. When I saw him kiss you, saw you liquefy in his arms... I was so scared of him, Shay."

"What – What are you talking about?" I demanded, leaning forward in my seat. 

When Leah refused to volunteer any further, Gilbert shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. "Many vampires have a sort of aura or pheromone ability they can control around themselves," he began. "It's used to make their prey more... agreeable. With its help, most people who've been bitten don't know it's been done, or are more than happy to let it occur. But it's something only older, stronger vampires can use effectively – and the Society forbids it entirely. We consider it akin to removing a human's ability to voice opposition to consent. Some refer to it as 'drugging'."

"What does this have to do with me?"

"As Leah said, she witnessed Yorick drugging you at the nightclub. She told me what she had seen and said it was quite apparent you were under his influence." 

I glared at them both, Gilbert entirely unapologetic, Leah still holding her arms about her thin body. "I already talked to Soonhee about this," I said harshly. "I'm not being controlled by anyone."

"Perhaps not knowingly," said Gilbert. "But I wonder... Has there ever been a time when you were with Yorick, and you suddenly felt... strange? Where you felt more inclined to make a decision you weren't sure of before, or even felt warmer, more comfortable or dizzy around him in a way you couldn't explain?"

"I -" My response delayed. Yes... I had noticed the strange way Ricky made me feel, the wonderful dizziness and warmth he instilled in me with mere words and the glimmer of his silver eyes. But that was only because I was so enthralled with him to begin with... And whatever he made me feel, it wasn't against my will. Of that I felt sure. 

"Why did you say you'd never felt anything like that?" I asked Leah pointedly, trying to move the conversation away from me. "His aura. You make it sound like you hang around vampires all the time."

"No one as strong as him," she said, shaking her head. "No one with his power..."

"Yorick is admittedly one of the strongest vampires we have ever had on record," Gilbert added. "And without rival, he is the oldest living vampire ever known."

"What – Are you serious?" I said aporetically. "Just how old are we talking?"

Gilbert deliberated for a moment. "We're not entirely sure," he said carefully. "But we are certain he's lived for at least a millennium – much longer than any other on file. His case is highly unusual."

"But vampires are immortal... They live forever, don't they? His case can't be that strange."

He smiled at me weakly. "Yes, if we choose to. But many find that eternity is just... too long. While there are a number of those who are executed or lose themselves to bloodlust, the vast majority decide that they've lived long enough... And take their own lives."

My eyes widened at Gilbert's words. "They commit suicide?" I said hoarsely. 

"Another service we offer here at the Society," Gilbert shrugged guiltily. "Can you blame the immortal for desiring a semblance of a normal lifespan?"

I sat immersed in my own thoughts. If I were immortal, how would I feel? Did I want to live forever? Well, probably not... But Ricky did, apparently. I remembered him speaking about his "lifetimes", about his movement all over the world. 

"What's the point of telling me all this?" I asked rudely. 

To my surprise, it was Leah, not Gilbert, who answered. "I don't think there will be any convincing you to stop seeing Yorick... Ricky," she said softly. This shocked me more – no one at the Society had given in to using his nickname. "But like any drug, it's important that you understand the risks involved... And understand why the Society has such an obsession over him."

Gilbert smiled and gave her a short nod, and Leah lowered her head somewhat apologetically. "So," said Gilbert lightly, "You mentioned on the phone you'd be interested in registering with the Society. I think that's a wonderful idea, so I'll have someone pull up the paperwork and issue you -"

But he didn't get to tell me what I was going to get issued, because at that moment, there was a rapid knock at the door. Gilbert eyed it curiously and said, "Enter."

The door swung open partway and a girl with short red hair stuck her head in. Behind her, I heard the sounds of people scurrying down the hallway and speaking in panicked voices. "Gilbert – I'm sorry – we need Leah right away," she said hurriedly. 

Gilbert shifted himself and braced his cane on the ground in order to push himself to his feet. Leah had leapt up already and was straightening her skirt as she trotted around the coffee table. "Carrie, what's going on?" she asked, her voice already full of worry. 

"It's Bruno... He's starved himself again, and he won't listen to anyone. We're already evacuating sacrifices to the back rooms, but at this rate, he's going to seriously hurt himself -"

"I'm coming... Go warm a blood pack, please."

The two of them were gone in an instant, leaving me with Gilbert as he straightened himself on his cane. He sighed. "I suppose it's time you learn another thing that the Society does," he said. "Come... Stay close to me."

Confused, I followed Gilbert's slow and unsteady gait to the main hall. Bruno... Where had I heard that name before? But then we rounded the corner from the hallway, and I saw something at the center of a very wide circle of people... Someone. 

The normal demeanor in the main hall had completely vanished. No one was sitting at the bar, or in the armchairs and couches that lined the walls; instead, the remaining onlookers were gathered in a sparse orbit. At its core, a brunette man was hunched on his hands and knees, his arched back rising and falling sporadically. His messy hair was scattered over his drawn, pale face, contorted into a hard grimace with his teeth bared. His eyes were wide and manic, and he was snarling like a rabid dog. 

I recognized him now... Bruno – Soonhee had called him that, the man who had sniffed me so ferociously on my first visit to the Society. But his face and name were familiar to me beyond that, and I suddenly, unexplainedly remembered why. 

"That man," I muttered to Gilbert. "I've seen him on the news..."

"I'm sure you have," Gilbert said sagely.

I stared at him beside me. "That's that boxer, Bruno Shepard... He's a convicted murderer. He was imprisoned for cannibalizing his family. He pled guilty!"

Gilbert nodded, sighing. "True and false," he said. "Bruno Shepard did not cannibalize anyone. He was promised immeasurable strength – strength that won him his championship belt last year. Unfortunately, that strength came at the price of his mortal life, and he has never been... proficient at controlling his bloodlust. Yes, he was convicted of killing his own family, in order to feed on their blood. That detail was left out of the press, but we recognized it for what it was, and immediately sent out our team to help him. According to the state, he's in a cell serving a life sentence."

"And he's actually here."

"Yes. He's here. So is Leah," he noted, and I looked up at once, the two of us viewing the scene from the side now.

Leah was the only one who had broken the circle and was now approaching Bruno slowly. Her heels made no noise on the carpet, her body bent so that she was closer to the ground. Bruno's eyes were locked on her beneath furrowed brow. As she drew closer, he let out a loud snarl.

"Bruno," she breathed. "It's me. Look at me."

Bruno's teeth clenched tighter over a guttural growl that ran the length of his spine. On the carpet, his knuckles were strained and white. I could almost see the muscles of his arms breaking loose from his skin. In front of Leah, whose slender limbs were graceful and delicate, he was nothing short of monstrous. What were any of these people expecting Leah to do? She was human, a mere cute sack of blood for him to rip to shreds. But despite her shyness earlier, despite her stammering that I'd witnessed... I saw no fear in her.

Leah suddenly lifted her left hand outwards to the side and beckoned for something; in a flash, the redheaded girl very carefully approached her side and handed her a vinyl bag before backing away as fast as she could. It was one of the blood packs I'd seen Leah holding at the bar. Never taking her eyes off Bruno, Leah leaned down further and drew ever closer to him, with her right hand fidgeting with the plug on top of the bag.

"You know you can't do this," she whispered. "You know you need to feed yourself. Your body needs it. Look. Here."

But as she closed the distance, Bruno's entire body bristled and he heaved back on his haunches. I heard carpet popping under his flexing fingers. He howled at the floor.

Leah didn't react. She only knelt down a scant two feet away from him, and finally dislodged the plug from her blood pack. I saw Bruno's nostrils flare as he caught its scent. Cautiously, she held the pack in front of her, just out of reach of his teeth. "It will only get worse if you don't drink," she said softly. 

Bruno's breathing became more labored, and for the first time, I heard voice from him. "I'll... hurt you!" he bayed, his throat tight. 

"It's you who's hurting," Leah chided him, her head shaking slowly. "If you can't control it... If you fear losing control... Then hand control to me. Hand me your reins. Now, Bruno."

I felt my eyes at their widest, unable to tear them from either. Bruno, whose body was still racked with the clear pain of his hunger; Leah, steadfast and unshaken as she very nearly dangled her beating heart before him with all the bravado of a lion tamer. What was she expecting him to do? But even as I watched, his breathing slowed and he unclenched his fingers from the grateful carpet. 

"Good boy," crooned Leah. Without so much as blinking, she edged closer to him and held out both hands... Her right graced its outstretched fingers against Bruno's scruffy, unshaven cheek, making him stiffen and close his eyes tight; her left lifted the uncapped blood pack to his mouth. "Open your eyes. Look at me. I control you." Her words, so harsh behind their softness, made him shudder and he obeyed, however reluctantly. With their eyes locked, Leah pushed the proffered pack against his trembling lips, and he needed no order to begin drinking. 

It was worlds apart from Ricky. Bruno's body convulsed as he drank, his limbs going rigid and his face burying itself in Leah's hand. It took him mere moments to drain the pack, and when it gurgled emptily at his mouth, Leah removed it and cast it carelessly aside. She drew back her hands and was now busying herself with something at her breast. Bruno seemed no better than he was before... On the contrary, his eyes were now bloodshot and his breathing hardened again. But Leah paid no attention to this. I didn't have to wonder what she was doing for long – she had just pulled a long, thin knife out of the low collar of her dress. From between her tits. 

"Come on, now," she whispered urgently.

Bruno shook and hawked back from her... And in a split second, I knew what he was afraid of. Without any warning at all, Leah took the thin blade of her knife and drew it swiftly across her wrist without even flinching. As Bruno recoiled even further into himself, Leah's right hand shot out and cradled the back of his neck, guiding him close to her again, and she held out her newly cut wrist. The cut, no thicker than thread, bloomed with a single bead of blood that slowly grew, burst, and trickled down her arm.

"You will not hurt me, Bruno," Leah breathed out. "I forbid it. You've given your control to me. Drink."

I had stopped breathing. I didn't know how Gilbert – how anyone in this room could just calmly watch what was going on. Leah was bleeding in front of all these vampires, and yet not a single muscle twitched outside of the pair of them, locked in this standoff... And then Bruno cautiously, restrictedly gave in, and his mouth engulfed Leah's wound. 

Her free hand remained at the nape of his neck, entangled in Bruno's short hair as a lead, but she didn't dare move her wrist from him. I watched his throat flexing as he drank from her. His eyes fluttered, his skin flushing as if his veins were being filled straight from her. Leah's expression never changed. I saw no fear in her, no pain – was Bruno numbing her? - and yet, the muscles in her arm seemed so very tense and taut, though they never deigned to shiver... And after what felt like eons, she cried out a word: "Pegasus!"

Although he struggled, Bruno tore away from her at once, gasping as his mouth cleared of her blood. He shuddered and slumped back on his ass, all tension gone from him – no white knuckles, no throbbing veins in his arms. Along with him, the atmosphere in the room calmed. 

"Good boy," Leah said breathlessly. She squeezed her freely bleeding wrist with her other hand and shifted herself to her feet – but immediately she staggered sideways and looked ready to faint. Instinctively I felt my body lurch forward to go and catch her, however far away I was, but someone beat me to it. A brunette vampire girl had suddenly appeared at Leah's side, holding her steady as she wavered. Leah mumbled something to the brunette, and – wow. They were kissing. 

"Another crisis averted," sighed Gilbert. He turned and began to hobble back to the hallway behind us. "I haven't seen her need her safe word for quite some time. Come. Let's go wait for her while she recovers."




Hematoma Ch. 15



I tore my eyes reluctantly away from the two girls and followed after him. "You're just going to leave her there after all that? Why did you guys make her go deal with him? Did you see him? He was out of his mind!"

"Did you see her, Shay?" Gilbert countered lightly. "Appearances are almost always misleading. Leah may seem an innocent damsel, but she is far from that. She's powerful in her own right. She needed Bruno to feed himself, needed to get blood in him without causing harm to him or anyone else. And she did exactly that."

I stared at him helplessly as we reached our meeting room again and Gilbert retook his seat. "If he needed blood, couldn't he just drink pig blood or something? Animals – that wouldn't hurt anyone."

"Actually, we discourage animal feeding at the Society," he said. "The phrase 'you are what you eat' absolutely rings true for vampires. We tend to become exactly those things that we devour. Rats, bears, deer, they all change our behavior and turn us into mindless beasts. Drinking from humans is the only way to retain our humanity. Poor Bruno favored stray dogs, thinking it would save his family from him. You see who he's become. Leah has taken great strides in order to restore his humanity, as it were."

"But you still haven't explained why you all think Leah is the right person for that job. Why not another vampire? He's much less a danger to one of you," I said, almost accusing.

Gilbert chuckled quietly. "Well, for one, Bruno is madly in love with her, if it wasn't apparent." 

"What – for real?"

"I thought their chemistry was quite obvious."

"I figured her and that chick she was making out with..."

"Violet? Ah, no, they were just bloodsharing. Violet bites her lip and administers it orally. Strange girl."

I flushed, embarrassed. I'd completely mistaken the situation. Good thing I didn't get to mention it to Leah.

"Second," said Gilbert, "Leah is a fascinating person, and her skills are actually in domination."

"What?" I thought for a moment I had misheard Gilbert. "Are – You're talking like, dominatrix shit?"

"Something like that," Gilbert said complacently. "I'll never truly understand how she does it, but Leah somehow uses domination tactics to bring even the most savage beasts to heel. Among other things."

Speak of the devil. Leah had just joined us, sidling in through the door with her face beet red as if she'd heard everything we'd said about her. She seemed to be pretending none of it all had ever happened, and the expression she wore when we locked eyes begged me to do the same. She was back to her shyness. 

"Now then," said Gilbert, clapping his hands together and rubbing them. "About your paperwork..."

~

I sat at home that evening looking over the sheaf of paper Gilbert had given me. I felt like I was being asked to do my taxes three months early. The forms were all covered from back to front in tiny boxes with numbers and letters, ready for me to fill them out:

1a. Birth Name (Last, First, Middle)

1b. Other names/Aliases

2a. Birth date

2b. Location of birth

2c. Name of Birth Parents (Father's full name, Mother's maiden name)

And it just kept going. Social Security number, list of attended schools, five emergency contact entries, blood type, vaccinations – Christ! They wanted my entire life story in ink. After reading over page five with my eyes spinning, I gave up, grunted in exhaustion, and flopped onto my bed with the packet. I closed my eyes. It had been a long fucking day. Thank god for my day off tomorrow. I sighed and let my mind drift. Something... Had made me very happy to see Leah again. But maybe, just maybe, I had learned a little too much about her today. I thought about her, all slender and silky-limbed, with her skin like peach chiffon and hair like tousled flax. Waxing poetic; way to go, Shay. But now all I could do was imagine her in the light that the Society had painted her with... The images of her spilling her blood, rooted to the vampire Bruno by her slim and delicate wrist... 

I had to go get Leah. She was just down that corridor, after all. All I had to do was run, and yet it seemed an impossible task – the soft gray carpets were sucking the soles of my shoes down. The hallway never seemed to end, no matter how many doors I passed. Occupied. Vacant. Occupied. Their little placards alternated back and forth – why was I reading? Leah needed me! 

"Shay."

I turned in my tracks reluctantly, fearing that looking behind me would only put me back where I started... Ricky was standing there, just inches from me, his inky locks caught in a nonexistant breeze. He'd followed me to the Society. No... I tried to apologize, to explain why I was here, but strange noises came out of my mouth, none of them words. Ricky laughed heartily at me and reached out a hand. "I'm taking you home," he hissed. "Let's go. Where's your coat?"

My coat! Leah had it! I just had to go and push the button on the wall to call her. But Ricky took my hand first, his fingers wrapped tightly around my wrist. I could get the coat later. Later... When the hallway stopped melting... When Ricky could stop laughing so loudly...

The paper was coming off the wall in peels like shaved chocolate. The sconces blazed. Everything was scarlet now. Where had Ricky gotten that red leather jacket? Ow... Why was he holding my arm so tightly? I tried to get free of him. His fingers bore into my arm... I gushed blood from their points. A scream broke loose from me, deep inside... He wouldn't stop laughing, his beautiful eyes glimmering like clouded diamonds...

And then a voice like a peal of bells sounded. "Leave him alone!"

I twisted around with Ricky still holding tight to my arm, my fingers digging between his as I tried to pry him off of me. Leah was walking down the hallway towards the two of us, no fear in her stride. Her slender body was wrapped in latex, her legs encased in thigh-high, shimmering black boots that matched the gloves on her arms. In her hands was a whip. 

I yelled at her. I needed to warn her about the floor – it was sucking Ricky and I into it, though Ricky seemed to be oblivious to this – but those tall heels were carrying her as if across stepstones, and though I could tell the carpet wanted to devour her as well, it could only trembled under her feet. 

"Leave him alone," she repeated threateningly. "Let him go. He isn't yours."

She was talking to Ricky. I watched the smile fade from his face, but he only held my arm tighter until I was yowling with pain that I couldn't feel... And Leah knelt down in front of me, eye-level with me as I continued to sink into the ground... She held her arm to me, an arm that was gushing blood like mine... I heard her heartbeat inside me... Her blood poured over my mouth and I drank her, and the walls pounded louder and louder and – 

I woke up with a violent jolt. The clothes that I had accidentally slept in were soaked with cold sweat. I'd left all the lights on all night. A dream... It was just a dream. I gave a shuddering breath and clutched at my chest. But I jumped a mile again – the pounding noise had been real. Someone was knocking at the door. 

I rolled out of bed and checked myself. It was obvious I'd been sweating – the front and back of my shirt were drenched. "Coming!" I yelled at the door, and I threw open a drawer in my dresser to find a shirt. Any would do. This one. Okay. I struggled out of my sweaty shirt and threw it on the floor, then wormed my way into the new one as I tripped towards the door and, with a fumbling of locks, opened it.

Ricky smiled at me. "Good morning, Shay. Rough night?"



Hematoma Ch. 16



AN: Due to the lack of gay sex in the last chapter, Chapter 15 of Hematoma is located in the Nonhuman category. If you haven't seen it yet, please visit it here: https://www.literotica.com/s/hematoma-ch-15

******

"Ricky... What're you doing here?"

The words almost wouldn't come out before I spoke them. Ricky stood there in the doorway as if I'd been expecting him for hours, his black hair callous around the shoulders of his leather jacket and his expression nonchalantly pleasant. Without waiting for my invitation, he stepped in past me and began to shrug off his jacket. At his feet he dropped a paper shopping bag.

"I can't visit you for no reason?" he said coolly. "If you must know, I bought you a gift." 

He reached into the shopping bag and pulled out a good-sized box, which he tossed to me. I fumbled it in the midst of trying to close the door behind him and almost didn't catch it before it hit the floor. 

"What is -"

"It's a gift," Ricky reiterated clearly.

I looked at him, surprised, and then at the box. No one had bought me gifts like this out of the blue before. The box was white and covered in cartoon characters with a large, clear plastic panel on the front, and inside was a weird figurine from some Japanese cartoon I had never seen. 

"But what is it?" I laughed.

Ricky raised his eyebrows at me, somewhat nonplussed. "It is a giant robot," he said, "Or so the clerk said. I thought it looked a lot like the one you have in your room. Do you not like it?"

"No -- I like it," I said honestly, more amused than anything. I had literally no idea what the character was from, but it was pretty cool -- bright red with racing stripes, boxy-limbed and holding a sword almost as tall as itself. "Mind if I open it?"

"Be my guest, it's yours."

I plopped down on the couch and slit the tape on the box with my thumbnail while Ricky made himself at home. I didn't watch what he was doing; I was more excited about my gift, even if I didn't have the faintest clue what Japanimation thing this robot had come from. God, I was really out of the loop. 

With the robot figurine free of its plastic prison, I wasted no time posing it. Its joints were round and pretty high-quality... Arm up here, leg over here, point the sword skyward, and we're good. I got up and carried it carefully to place it next to its brother.

Ricky was already in my room, standing beside the bed with his back to the door. I didn't pay close attention to him until I'd put the robot down... But then I saw what he had in his hands.

He was reading my Society packet.

I felt my blood run cold down my body. Helplessly I reached out to to stop him, but I knew it was in vain. "Uh... Ricky..."

Ricky ignored me. After a moment of very awkward silence on my part, he very slowly turned the third page and continued to scan over the packet. Finally, halfway through the fourth page, he turned to me with a benign smile. "What is this, Shay?"

I gaped, trying to dig up my voice from below my stomach. "I, uh... It's just... It's -"

His expression never changing, Ricky seized the top of the packet with both hands and swiftly ripped it in half. I flinched. "What did I tell you about the Society, Shay?" Ricky said quietly, still smiling coldly.

"I -- Y-you -"

"I told you not to go near them again." He restacked the torn paper and ripped it in half again, the packet now quartered. "Was there something you misunderstood about that, Shay?"

"I..."

"Did you think I warned you about them for my own amusement?" He ripped the papers again. "Do you think I don't care what happens to you?"

"No!" I said breathlessly. 

"Then why do you feel the need to disobey me? No, disobey isn't the word," he said sharply. The confetti that was my Society paperwork fluttered down to the ground. "You endanger yourself. You do these things behind my back. When you do that, I cannot protect you from what they could do to you."

For the first time, I was defensive. "Ricky -- they've had me alone more than once, and no one there has hurt me -"

"Because it's me they want, and they're using you to get to me. Do you know that?" Ricky said darkly. "Do you realize that these people wouldn't give you a second thought if it weren't I who drinks your blood?"

I stared at him, breathing hard in suppressed fear. No... That wasn't true. That couldn't be true. My searching eyes found Ricky's, glowering at me from beneath his shadowed lids. I felt the floor give way beneath my feet. My insides swelled with warmth. Ricky wasn't lying. Ricky would never, ever lie to me. The air escaped from my lungs in a shudder. 

"I'm sorry," I whimpered.

Ricky smiled and ran his fingers delicately under my jaw, leaning forward to kiss me. His cold lips pressed, gently and deliberately, against my own, and I felt as if I were falling into his mouth once more. That soft, unending black hair was brushing my cheek, and Ricky's free hand burrowed under my shirt, sliding upwards until his seeking fingers found my left nipple ring... And he pulled hard. 

I howled and buckled under Ricky's hand, the cold pain sparking off through me like untrained static. The muscles in my stomach hardened with a shiver, and instinctively my hands fell over his through my shirt. Ricky's eyes were still boring into mine like dying embers. 

"I love you, Shay," he told me, every syllable carefully dropped from his cold tongue so that they ran down my spine like melting ice cubes. I shuddered and felt my knees buckling. "But if you continue to do this to me, you'll have to make a decision... It will be them, or me. Do you really want it to come to that?"

He pulled on my piercing harder. My fingers clenched over his knuckles through the cotton; it felt as if a thread was being yanked from within my belly, and for a moment, all I could do was gasp in awe of the horrid pleasure he gave with only this tiny gesture...

"No," I groaned. 

Ricky smiled and released my nipple piercing, letting his frigid fingers grace back down my abdomen as he escaped my clothes. "I think you've made the right choice, Shay," he said quietly, reaching up and stroking my cheek again. "Come. I'd hate to waste this visit."

With a smirk, he backed up and sat himself on the edge of my bed, moving to remove his shirt with the sun from the window gleaming on his white skin -- but he immediately stopped, seizing his left arm instead. "Damn! The -- Shay, shut the blinds, will you?" he hissed.

I stared at him in confusion. "What...?"

"Shut the blinds!"

My eyes fell to the skin on Ricky's arm and hand even as he got up from the bed in a panic and moved away from the window, and I suddenly realized what was happening -- the pearly skin that sheeted his muscles and the straining tendons of his hand was turning a nasty, blotchy shade of purple, then black as iron... Breaking myself from watching the spectacle in horror, I ran to the window and pulled the string on the blinds so that they reluctantly crashed down in their lopsided way. The sunlight was gone.

"Damn it all," Ricky swore angrily. He withdrew his hand and examined the damage in an almost complacent way. "I haven't been that careless in some time. I'd forgotten how much it hurts."

My breath shaking in my chest, I followed Ricky to the side of the bed to see for myself what his brief seconds in the sun had done. By the time I got to see, the injury was already healing, but it was taking far longer than the mere knife wounds I'd seen Ricky recover from when I'd first found out he was a vampire. The smooth skin on his hand was badly bruised and even blackened like charcoal in some places, and beyond that it had started being eaten away completely, so that I could see the rotting, discolored meat inside of him...

I had to stop myself from retching. Ricky frowned at me and resumed undressing, distracting me with his polished, unbruised chest. "Hey," he said wryly, "Don't look at that. Shit happens. Come on."

Ricky's afflicted hand wove behind my head into my hair and held me by the roots as he retook my lips in his own, drowning me in kisses until I was struggling for breath with my arms clutching at his back. He made me so lightheaded... His cold skin felt so good under my heated fingers, flushed with the blood that beat through my body with the ferocity my heart spurred.

With Ricky's guidance, I was pushed back against my bed in the safety of the shade the blinds had brought, and like a familiar scene, he helped me out of my clothes. His hair kept running over my chest and stomach as he dipped his face low and planted kiss after soft kiss along the muscles of my body, rising and falling with my quickening breath. I lifted myself against his mouth, begging for more. He chuckled deeply. 

"Where are you going to bite me?" I asked drowsily.

Ricky clicked his tongue and shook his head, unsheathing my hips from my jeans. "Oh, not today, I think," he smirked. "How long has it been since you've been inside someone yourself, Shay?"

Inside... A stinging shock ran down my spine as I realized what he was suggesting, my heartbeat corresponding to it. And, in turn, my arousal swelled along with it all. "Y-you want me to fuck you?"

He barked a laugh. "Fat chance. I'm going to ride you, Shay. Consider this a treat." Ricky's silver eyes gleamed and he leaned over me as he unbuttoned and kicked off his jeans. I looked down at his hands grazing over my body, the fingers catching on my piercings with their chipping black nail polish, bare along the cuticles. Once reaching my hips, Ricky's hands made another circuit back up, and when his fingers wrapped gently and yet threateningly around my throat, I groaned with pleasure. Every movement he made on me was like being stroked with a branding iron... And I wouldn't have cared if every touch left his mark on me, if every inch of my body were visibly claimed as his. 

"You always respond so well to me," Ricky said with praise, tracing down to my hardened sex, twitching with reined stimulation. "I'd bet you that you'd get hard the moment I told you to. So obedient," he said fondly, and he laughed under his breath. 

I didn't doubt it was true. Ricky's silk-spun voice pulled at the most sensitive parts of me as he spoke. I barely noticed him reaching into the toybox, which now held a proud spot beside my bed. This time, the cold lube was being dribbled onto my cock. I twitched at the unfamiliar, icy feeling that dampened the heat in me... But not for long.

I was trapped with Ricky's knees on either side of my waist. He smirked down at me and leaned over my supine body, pushing his hands onto my chest for support and further stealing my breath. I could only keep my eyes locked on his as his left hand trailed back down me in a line and guided my pulsing sex...

Cold! I inhaled sharply as Ricky lowered his hips, pushing me inside of him without any hesitation in his movement. He was impossibly tight, of course he would be... But I hadn't thought about how cold he would be inside. It was as if my eager sex was suddenly encased in ice -- ice without any of its bluntness, only soft and supple and so accommodating to me... I groaned and bucked my hips upward, and Ricky responded in kind, pushing me deeper inside his arctic body until our hips were all but melded.

"Too much?" Ricky offered quietly, and as I looked up at him with my chest heaving, I saw he was smirking at me. His shadowed eyes were shimmering. 

"No," I gasped. "You're just -"

"Tight? I'd imagine I am. Shall I move now?"

I couldn't speak. I nodded weakly, blowing out a shaking breath. 

With a soft laugh that welled up from his throat, Ricky moved his hands back to my chest and shifted his hips behind him, lifting and then pushing back onto me... I groaned loudly, turning my face to half muffle the noise into the pillow under me. Had his mouth been this cold? This had none of the precision, the skill of his tongue, but it felt so incredible to be inside of him... Ricky flexed his hips back and forth on top of me, firm and powerful, and I was so close to losing it... 

But it seemed the slow movements he made with me were merely experimental. Ricky moved his hands from my chest to my biceps, his arms pinning mine by my sides, and with a lopsided grin that flashed his razor canine teeth, he picked up the pace. Within moments he was all but slamming his hips down on mine, threatening to break me, and yet the pleasure inside me went uninterrupted -- he was only increasing it. My head went back and I howled with agonized ecstasy. I wanted to touch him... Wanted to make him feel as good as I did... I wondered if my heat felt good to him... My arms strained under his, and without my blood to swell him, I had no visual indication of his pleasure... But he made it clear: mine was all that mattered. And very quickly, I tipped over the edge.

Alerted to my orgasm, Ricky slowed his pace with a satisfied chuckle, slowly pushing back on me a final time before withdrawing me from him. As my vision cleared and the hot pulse in my stomach quelled, I saw him leaning back on his heels with his head over his shoulder, his hand suddenly at his backside. 

"I'd forgotten what that felt like," Ricky said mildly. "You're very warm. I like that." He made a noise and examined his hand with passive interest. I saw, with slight abashment, the threads of my spill clinging to the distance between his fingers. "I don't suppose I could use your shower."

"Wh -- No, that's fine, go ahead," I said, tucking my face down as I shoved myself upright on the bed.

Ricky smiled, his eyes glittering again. "Will you join me?"

I probably needed it after that... Though I doubted being inside Ricky made me as dirty as with anyone else. I nodded, rolling out of bed. "If you can find room," I added with a bitter laugh.

~

Although Ricky might have found it a joke, the size of my shower wasn't much of a punchline. Unlike Ricky's magnificent bathroom, mine was small, and there was no tub, and you probably couldn't fuck in the shower at all, let alone comfortably. It was a glass stall, shoved tightly beside the bathroom sink. The whole room was a game of four-square. Standing room, toilet, sink, shower. I'd never had anyone with me in the bathroom before, and we were already pretty cramped. Muttering apologies that Ricky ignored, I wedged the wavy glass door of the stall open and climbed inside, turning the water on before Ricky got in so I could take the brunt of the cold water. Ricky laughed at my gasp of surprise as I was doused with icy water... For the second time between us. 

"Move it," he said, and he stepped in behind me, shutting the glass door with a clatter. There wasn't much room to stand -- there wasn't even room for a shower caddy, so all of my toiletries stood on the floor: shower gel, shampoo, heavy-duty conditioner.  

Ricky was examining the conditioner while I scrubbed my hair with shampoo. "So you do splurge on luxuries from time to time," he mused, checking the back of the label with interest. "Odd that this would be the one thing you'd indulge in."

"I have to," I snapped, seizing the bottle from him and squirting a liberal amount into my hand, which I furiously worked through my hair. "The bleach wrecks it. If I don't use this stuff, it just starts sticking up everywhere and falling out."

Ricky lent a hand to my ministrations, pressing his fingers against my scalp. "Which reminds me," he chuckled lightly, "Your roots are coming in." He paused and checked me more closely, eyebrows raised. "You're a brunette?"

"Yeah -- is it that weird?"

"I have a hard time imagining it." He raised a hand delicately to my face and stroked it one finger at a time, as if easing notes from a piano's keys. "White suits your skin."

There was silence, as much as there could be with the spitting rain from the shower running over us and the tiles... And then Ricky was on me again. My gasping mouth was bound in kiss and tongue, my hands forced up over me with Ricky's holding them to the wall. My fingers struggled between his and scratched weakly over his knuckles. And yet... If he hadn't been holding me up, I would have sunk to the floor under him in a puddle and disappeared down the drain with the water that curtained us... 

"You taste incredible, Shay," he breathed against my lips, his breath mixing with mine as I panted laboriously into his words. "Your blood... Your skin... I want to devour you."

"Please," I gasped.

He laughed throatily and nipped teasingly at my jawline. "But you're no use to me dead," he lamented. "Perhaps, just for a moment... Before the heat drains from your body..."

My eyes widened in sudden, inexplicably aroused fear, and Ricky laughed louder before reaching and turning off the water. I was still held to the wall, my newly hardened sex pushed against Ricky's lower belly. "Save it for later, Shay," he said lightly, and he pecked me on the lips before releasing me to step out of the steamy stall.

Still trying to remember how to breathe properly, I followed him out, reaching for my towel to discover he'd taken the one that was hanging on the wall. "Are you leaving?" I asked in a daze.

"Yes," he replied. He examined his blurry reflection in the medicine cabinet's mirror and began to rub his hair dry. "I have things to prepare for tonight. So do you."

"Tonight?"

"Your tattoo," he smiled with a glance to me. "Don't you want me to keep working on it? I think the linework has healed enough."

My heart leapt up into my larynx, interrupting my breathing. I swallowed it back down and grinned. "Yeah -- of course I want it done!"

"Good. Then you'll come over to my apartment this evening so I can continue my work."

I lingered in the shower stall, drip-drying while Ricky monopolized the only towel. "What do you need to get ready, though?" I asked.

"My inks, mainly," he said coolly. "I have specific shades of pigment I need mixed. Diluted grays, and a new batch of black. I only work with fresh material."

"You make your own ink?"

"Plenty of artists do," Ricky replied nonchalantly. 

I was curious about it, wondering what went into the making of tattoo ink, but I was really more concerned at the moment with getting dry. Once Ricky was finished with the towel, he handed it to me. I threw it over my head and rubbed furiously.

"Anyway, enjoy your day off and relax," he told me, letting himself out of the bathroom so that the cold air from the apartment rushed in to freeze me. "I'll be busy preparing my station most of the day. You can come over at, let's say eight o'clock this evening."

I nodded mutely and wrapped my towel around my waist, following him back to my bedroom so he could regather his clothes. I searched for something clean to wear in my drawers while he dressed. 

"Oh, and... Shay," added Ricky as he reappeared from the collar of his shirt.

I was shimmying into fresh underwear. "Yeah?"

I met his eyes and watched them darken, a smile spreading across his face. "This will be a long session tonight. I think I may have time to tell you my story."

If I weren't already excited enough for the continuation of my tattoo, now I could barely contain myself. The history of Ricky that I'd been dying to hear, the story that had made the man I revered. Of course I wanted to hear it. "Yeah -- that sounds amazing!" I said truthfully.

Ricky chuckled to himself and finished doing up the button fly on his jeans before moving to his boots. "It's a date, then," he agreed. "I'll let you have your lunch, and I'll see you tonight."

"Tonight. Okay."

I found myself following Ricky to the door half-dressed, tailing after him as he shrugged his jacket on. He looked over his shoulder, saw me shadowing him and, with a grin, turned to kiss me. I mumbled against his lips, feeling my knees weaken as I sank into him. He laughed softly and stroked my jaw.




Hematoma Ch. 16



"I'll see you later, Shay," he whispered.

And with a rush of winter air, he left me.

I felt like I stood in his absence forever. Ricky always seemed to leave a void where he walked once he was gone. At some point, however, I realized I was hungry. 

I sat at the kitchen table waiting for the water kettle to boil so I could make yet another cup of noodles -- but hey, at least it was the good stuff today. The kind with all the extras in it. I'd mostly just been staring at the ceiling and trying to clear my head when I heard the faint buzz of my phone back in my bedroom.

I ran to go get it. Was Ricky calling me already? He'd only left ten minutes ago. But I didn't recognize the number on the display. It wasn't the Society, either...

"Hello?" I answered.

"Hi, Shay," said a familiar, timid voice.

My insides chilled. "... Leah?"

"Yeah," she giggled. "Sorry to call you like this... I asked Gil for your number on file, I hope you don't mind. I wanted to see if you'd like me to come over and help you with that registration paperwork. We hadn't heard from you, and I know that stuff's a pain... All those forms! It's like, augh. Right?"

I didn't say anything. My mouth was open, and I was ready to speak... But I couldn't. At my feet, the scraps of my paperwork still littered the floor where Ricky had thrown them. I wanted to be happy that Leah had called me. But over and over, Ricky's words rang in my head. 

They're using you to get to me.

Do you realize that these people wouldn't give you a second thought if it weren't I who drinks your blood?

"Shay?" Leah said tentatively.

I was suddenly incensed. "What, so you're just checking up on me now?"

"I... Well, like I said, I thought -"

"You guys can forget your paperwork. I don't want anything to do with you, or anyone else there."

"What? Shay, wait -"

But I hung up on her before she could say any more. My heart was beating so hard I could hear it in the back of my skull, could feel it under my lungs. My hands were quaking with... Anger? Fear? I was angry with the Society for tracking me, tailing me in everything I did; angry that I thought I had a friend in Leah, and the reality was that she was a pawn to make me more compliant with the Society, there to check up and make sure I was filling out my invasive forms like a good little boy. And I was afraid... 

Afraid of breaking Ricky's trust again. 

~

At eight at night, I was at Ricky's place. I barely had to wait for him to come and get me at the door -- not fifteen seconds passed before he unlatched it and let me in. 

"Hello again, Shay," he said with a smile. 

"Hey," I said, in what I thought was a casual way. In truth, I was overly excited about that evening. As I stepped inside and hung up my coat, I noticed the air was thick with a heavy, sterile smell. Ricky's white muscle shirt, so poorly veiling the rippling thew of his chest, was stained with black and gray smudges, as if he'd been wiping his hands on it. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail again. "What are you doing?" I asked. "Is this the preparation you had to do?"

"Yes. I just finished blending, actually," he smiled, and he turned to retreat into the kitchen. "Come on in. I still need to bottle the excess."

The sterile smell was strongest here. This was probably the most activity I'd ever seen in Ricky's kitchen, although there still wasn't any sign of food. There were two large glass blenders on the counter, both carrying differing volumes of gray and black liquid, respectively. Two hinged glass jars were beside them: one full of wavy black sticks, another full of what looked like pressed black tablets, and between them both stood a tall, frosted glass bottle of top-shelf vodka. 

"I didn't know you drank," I said with mild interest, examining the vodka, and then in turn picking up each of the jars carefully.

"I don't," said Ricky. He pulled a couple of plastic bottles out of the cabinet over the sink. "I can't get drunk... Well, not off drinking it myself. The vodka's for my ink. But by all means, you're welcome to a shot."

I laughed and set the jar of sticks back down. "Maybe later. I'm still surprised you make your own shit, that's dedication."

"It's part of the artistry of it, I think."

I took a whiff of the vodka. No burn, just silk. I might've had to take him up on that offer later. "What do you use in yours?" I asked.

"That depends," replied Ricky. He dislodged the glass from one of the blenders and very carefully began to pour the thin, transparent gray liquid into one of his plastic bottles. "For gray pigment, it's a heavily diluted blend of vodka, witch hazel, and willow charcoal. Which is what this one is," he added, and then set down the glass so he could cap off the container. 

So that's what the sticks were, I thought, eyeing the jar of them again. 

Ricky moved on to the second blender, this one half-full of an entirely black liquid. He poured this into another bottle, its stream shimmering like melted obsidian. "The pure black, I use vodka and bone char. The finished product gives the tattoo an almost bluish tint."

"Bone char?" I repeated.

Ricky smiled over his bottle of black ink as he checked the level inside it. "Burnt and carbonized animal bone," he explained. "It's insanely difficult to produce, but worth it. I use mainly deer antler, and the ribs and leg bones if I can manage it."

"From deer?"

"Carcasses," he told me. "I don't fancy having to strip the meat off my own kill just for the bones. The antler's fairly easy to find shed in the woods. Deer carcass is rare, but you can still find it picked clean for you in some Jersey forests. Then you burn the bone in a deoxidized chamber, reduce it to ash, and press it into those tablets."

I stared at the second jar. Those little pills had once been a deer. I was definitely more fascinated than sickened. It was entropy at its finest. I had to admire Ricky. 

Once the bottles were capped off, Ricky moved past me and put those, along with the vodka, into his freezer. I assumed the vodka would keep it liquefied. "Now then," he said matter-of-factly, "I'm pretty sure you didn't come here to talk about the finer points of ink production."

"No," I said a little too quickly. My heart had resumed its palpitating. 

Ricky only smiled knowingly. "Let's get you upstairs. I'm eager to entertain you."

Entertain... The word had so many connotations behind it. I followed Ricky up the spiral stairs for what felt like the hundredth time. 

The weird massage chair was still where I'd last seen it in Ricky's work room, and I pulled my shirt off so I could sit on it. I saw the outline of Sleipnir on my back in the mirror over my shoulder, and felt my insides swell with excitement. I wanted to see its progress bloom.

Ricky was already sitting down and prepping his work station. I watched him fussing with his needles as I sat down myself, shifting my ass on the unusual seat. Ricky's fingertips were equally as stained as his shirt, blackened as if with frostbite. He didn't seem to mind. 

"So," said Ricky calmly, in the midst of adjusting the needle in his gun. "I said I'd tell you my story."

I felt my chest thumping and grinned at him with my arms folded around the chair. "Supposedly it's a long one."

"That it is," he chuckled. "But you're only going to hear the important part -- the first fraction of it all." He reached out and ran his stained fingers over the lines of Sleipnir's limbs on my shoulders. It felt so good... "I don't think you realize how much of me I poured into this artwork... Into your skin, Shay. Mythology like this shaped my existence."

"What... Norse mythology?" I said.

"Something like that. Though it didn't involve a whole lot of praying to Odin everyday and whatnot. What most people know of the Norsemen came from the period during the English raids, and I was born long, long before that."

"What...? When -- Aagh...!"

My body jolted and my fingernails dug into the cushions under my arms. Ricky had started filling in my tattoo. The stinging pain throbbed under the surface of my skin as he checked his needle a final time.

"Just a test," he said silkily. "I'm going to ask that you do not interrupt me whatsoever, Shay. You wanted to hear this. Let me tell it my way."

I swallowed with a soft, nervous laugh and nodded. 

"Where to begin," Ricky mused, and he braced his hands against my skin to begin detailing his work. The hum of the tattoo gun gave background to his words.

"I lived in Norway twelve-hundred years ago, on the shores of the North sea."



Hematoma Ch. 17



"I was born the son of a thrall, and thus was born a thrall myself."

"Sorry – what's a thrall?" I asked, and immediately regretted it. Ricky seized the hair at the nape of my neck and yanked hard. I yelled.

"I told you not to interrupt me," he said calmly. 

"Sorry!" I whined, half-laughing.

Ricky released me and I rubbed the back of my head soothingly before he brought his gun back to my skin. The burn of the needle incited my pleasure and, with a sigh, I lapsed into silence for him again. 

"A thrall," he continued, "is what you would call a slave. I was something of an indentured servant, marked with iron collar and short-cut hair but permitted to purchase my freedom.

"Except that I was never given the opportunity to purchase my freedom. You see, I strongly believed that I was born to be something far greater than a thrall, and that I owed nothing to the men I served. So I was belligerent. I fought regularly. I spat at the feet of my masters. Punishment seemed to do nothing to quell my temper, for I flung insults and curses at even the men who flogged me. I was bought and sold by seven families before the last one gave up trying to tame me.

"And it was with that family that my story began. By the time the head of the household I served was through with my fighting, I was covered from head to toe in welts and scars, even marking my face, and still I would not listen to anyone. When the Viking longships came in for their trading that summer, he dragged me to them and sold me for whatever he could get, and just to add further insult to the entire thing, he asked for a mere three silvers for me. It was half of half the price of my freedom, a quarter my buying price.

"On the docks where I was being lined up with all the other thralls, my master told me that if I regretted my actions, he would take me back home and give me another chance. He knew that I couldn't know who I was being sold to, or for what purpose. But I regretted nothing, and so I spat between his eyes. I remember his face, contorted with rage, as he told the Viking slavers that I would only ever be good for pig feed.

"I was chained to the others and led onto the longship, all of us crammed together between the shipsmen, and I was quietly penitent as we sailed. It was one of the first times that I was able to think clearly, with the waves lapping at the hull and the birds so oblivious to our plight overhead. There were noises in the ship that bothered me – the weeping of a maiden, the sailors barking to each other around us as they fussed with oar and sail – and I blocked all of them out. 

"I had lived this life for twenty-one years. For twenty-one years I was property, and I was being shunted across the sea like property, and I would be sold like property. And as strongly as I believed I was not property, I could not escape the chains on my neck, with other thralls for ballast. I could pray and beg for the strength to escape them, but even if it would help me... I did not want to owe my life to anyone, whether god or man. 

"And this I pondered as the sky above us stained black and the pinpricks of stars broke through the clouds."

I listened quietly, digging my nails into the cushions under me to bite back my moans of pleasure and concentrate on Ricky's story through the agony of his needle... Not an easy task. "How did you escape?" I asked, not knowing if it was an appropriate time to interrupt.

"I didn't," said Ricky grimly. "We were attacked.

"The other thralls had already fallen asleep around me. The woman to my left used my knotted shoulder as her pillow, and since I had nowhere else to move, I didn't exactly mind. I was the only one who remained awake besides the men who steered us across the sea. I didn't know where we were going – Only that it seemed to be in a western direction. But I began to lull at some point, and before I could catch sleep, one of the men began to scream out to the others.

"'Draugar!' he cried. Over and over again, 'Draugar!'

"The Draugar were legendary, in more ways than one. In my service I had heard tales of them but never met them, for they rarely came to shore at our settlements. They were a band of Icelandic Vikings whose longship was blackened with pitch, whose sails were dyed with indigo and whose figurehead was carved into Sleipnir's shape. Yes," said Ricky, when I made a noise under my breath, "the same thing I'm printing into your skin. But these descriptors were all anyone truly knew about the Draugar, for none who got closer than that survived them. 

"The tales, however, went wilder. It was said that the Draugar were monsters who fed on the blood of innocent maidens and left their drained bodies at sea until they washed ashore. It was said that they had a kingdom on a far island, a castle that was made of the hulls of conquered longships. It was said that they were impossibly beautiful and they could easily seduce man and woman alike, but that their stone-bright skin could not bear the sun. Sailing at night was almost an invitation for the Draugar to attack, for it was not a story but truth that they made a living off of stolen cargo. 

"And I, being the cargo, felt fear for the first time in my life.

"The others were woken and thrown into a frenzy by the hurried activity of our crew, putting oar to starboard in order to drive us out of the path of the oncoming Draugr ship. Through the oarholes I saw the oncoming ship with its dark blue sails rippling against the black sky, and the figurehead of Sleipnir charging across the water with its forelimbs tearing at the cold air – it seemed to be coming for me alone. I remember it drawing closer and closer, until I was sure I could see the flash of its eyes, and the crew around us was screaming in vain as they realized we could not escape it...

"And then the Draugr ship rammed us sideways, and Sleipnir broke through our hull.

"The longship, which had seemed such a fortress to me when I boarded it, began to break apart at the seams. Its beams and ribs groaned as they popped asunder, and the air was full of the cacophony of screaming, of splitting wood, of the cries of the captain as he tried to keep his men together... He was the first to fall.

"The Draugar boarded us with sword drawn, the moon-bright steel lighting the scene in splinters, and I saw the shards of light disappearing inside the bodies of captain and crew. The others I was chained to seemed to forget they in turn were chained to me – I was choked as they dragged me in whichever way they thought they could escape, though we were far to sea and the only way out was into the icy water. The hull of our longship continued to buckle beneath its rapist and further rent the air with its screaming. I at some point realized that the cargo was not being taken prisoner... The Draugar did not want slaves for prize. They were slaughtering us. The woman to my right was beheaded. The boy to my left had his belly slashed open. And then it was my turn."

Ricky paused and the hum of the tattoo gun silenced. I wondered if he was having trouble conveying this story – I was definitely horrified by it all – but when I glanced at him, I saw he was just changing the needle. He laid the old one aside and replaced it, now loading it up with his diluted gray ink. "You died there?" I asked hoarsely.

"No," said Ricky. "Though I was certainly sure I had. I remember my chest being penetrated with the worst pain imaginable, deeper than any whip could have done, but so blunt that I could not be sure it was a blade that had done it. I still breathed, but it was difficult; still my heart beat, but it was being crushed. When I realized that I was still living, that the screaming and crying around me had quieted but not stopped, I opened my eyes to see what had become of me.

"My attacker had left his axe behind. The short, stout blade had been thrown hard into my breastbone and split it, but it was stuck inside me now, wedged firmly between my lungs and threatening my heart with its edge. I wanted to scream when I saw it – something that proved impossible. Hardly any air could escape from me at all, and hardly any could be drawn back inside. I seized the axe's handle and tugged in vain, but my bones would not release its blade. Around me the crew were feeding like vultures on both living and dead. As I laid there on the sinking, tilting floor of the longship's back end with the corpses of thralls threatening to drag me by my collar into the sea, and the cries and death rattles finally began to wane around me, someone realized I was still alive, and came to find me.

"My ragged, labored breathing must have been a horrid noise, or perhaps my heart thundering against my chest alerted my attackers. I was only aware that someone was approaching my dying form, with their calm, steady footsteps ignoring the sinking of the halves of ship that we both remained on. And then the moon caught him, and it wouldn't have mattered if I had been axed in the chest or not – I couldn't breathe.

"He was, as the legends said, beyond beautiful, though in the darkness this was all I saw of his face. Everything around him seemed to move in slow motion... The fluttering of his dark blond hair in the salted wind, the waves lapping at his weathered boots as he strode towards me with such graceful confidence, as if the boards under us were not listing into the water so fiercely. His blunt jawline was shaggy with braided beard, his broad body muscled beneath his leather and silver armor, and his dark eyes focused on me as if I were treasure. He could only be the lord of the Draugar. 

"I was sure he was there to correct the mistakes of his crew, to make sure that I was dead, but the longsword at his hip remained sheathed. It was dead silent behind the hooting and celebratory crows of his crewmen, to which he paid no mind. I found myself trying to get away from him, but where could I go? I was still tethered to the bodies of my fellows, though the woman to my left had slipped free of her collar with no head to hold her there. These the man stepped over, and he knelt over me and held my chin up so that he could speak to me.

"'You preserved yourself for me,' he whispered to me. 'I will be sure to thank you for your gift, child.'

"I could not make sense of what he had said, but I had no time to think about it, for he seized the axe embedded in my breast and broke it free of my bone as if it were but paper. The wound, unstoppered, gushed blood over me with my dying pulse, and quickly this same man lowered his face to my breast and drank me.

"I remember wanting to scream, and yet my heart and lungs wouldn't allow it. The lord of the Draugar held my body up to himself, bracing my spine with his arms, his shoulders rising and falling heavily as he drained me of my blood. The cold spread over me as if a venom was working its way through my limbs, and I continued to try and breathe, and my heart continued to try beating, but there was nothing left for it to pump through me... I was dying, I knew it well, knew that I was going to die a thrall the same way I was born... But at the very least, it could be at the hand of this beautiful, mythical creature that I fed.

"As the sky above me began to slip out of view, and I made peace with my sorry death, that same man held me close to him in his arms and cradled the back of my head, and he kissed me... My first and final kiss, I thought – until I realized my mouth was filling with blood. My blood. 

"He clamped his jaws over mine and forced my blood back into my mouth, and I choked and allowed it to gush out my nostrils before I realized I must drink it... Struggling with what little strength remained in me, I swallowed mouthful after mouthful of my own blood from him, coppery and steeled with his own. My strength began to return, though only in fragments. I found myself seizing him around the shoulders to hold him more tightly to me, and I felt our bodies solidify in each other, felt both of our hearts working to refill me with our now shared blood...

"And I stopped."

Ricky had said this final line with such casual fact, as if this were such a simple thing to say. This time, I didn't ask what he meant. He was changing his needle again, this time loading black. The gun hummed again, and he pressed the needle into a spot just under my shoulderblade, evicting a whine of pain from me. "What did it feel like?" I asked him hoarsely. "Dying."

Ricky chuckled lowly, shaking his head. "Who knows?" he said calmly. "Is it the same thing that humans go through? Somehow I doubt it. I dreamed, but I don't remember the dream itself. I only remember waking.

"For I did not wake up on the ship, nor in the water. I awoke in a soft glow, surrounded in warmth. The colors came back first, all gold and copper and silver. When my sight returned completely, I found myself naked, nestled in a vast bed of various furs, both on top and blanketed in pelts of every color. My head and shoulders were propped up on silk embroidered pillows, musty and yet so very comforting in their scent – for I found I could smell everything so very clearly even without pressing my nose to it. I could smell every animal that had given those pelts. I could identify what wood the walls and beams were made of around me. And I could hear, very faintly, the sounds of merrymaking beyond the door at the front of the room.

"I knew for sure that I was dead. I could not possibly have survived what fate the lord of the Draugar had given me. I could not feel my heart beating. I was cold, so frigid that I felt I'd been dipped in the sea, yet I did not want for warmth. I could not breathe, yet did not want for air. So where was I? Where had my death brought me? There were only two possibilities for a thrall's death: Hel, the land of the dead, or Niffleheim if I was unlucky. But I felt that this place was neither. I listened to the noise outside of my room, to the clinking of glass goblets and the roars of laughter out there. Surely I hadn't been brought to Valhalla; I did not belong there, had not died a warrior's death. But I clambered out of the fur bed and, clutching one of the gray wolf pelts around my naked body, went to go find out where I was.

"And it was there that I realized I was not dead after all, for beyond the door were the Draugar. They were crowded around a long wooden table, all of them handsome from captain to oarsman, all with armor and arms abandoned and dressed only in vividly dyed tunics and leather leggings. Between each of the men I saw women and girls I did not recognize, some whose shoulders were quaking with fear and others who looked upon the Draugar as if they were gods, all while the men beat the table with their glass goblets and spilled the ale this way and that way. Though they themselves never drank a drop, I saw that they were encouraging and sometimes forcing the girls to drink from their cups instead. 

"It was a short time before one of the Draugar noticed that I was there, and he crowed with mirth at the sight of me. 'He's awake!' he kept hollering. 'Lord Áslaug, he's awake!'

"I did not know who Lord Áslaug was, but I could guess, and I appeared to be right... At his call, the man seated in the wooden throne at the head of the table got to his feet, and every man looked to him with excitement and reverence... Reverence that I could not but share with them. It was the man who had killed me, the only man at the table who had not shed his silver armor. The once noisy hall was quieted now save for the hushed sobbing of a single woman. 

"And that man raised a hand and beckoned me forward.

"I could only hesitate for a moment. Where else would I go? I was still trying to make sense of what was happening to me. Silently, slowly, I approached him, feeling the hot gaze of the others on me and increasingly aware of my own nakedness under my borrowed wolfskin.

"As soon as I was close enough, the man called Lord Áslaug pulled me close and took his seat again with me in his lap, and most of the party resumed. Apparently this was quite normal to them. I took him in with his features lit now: his high-carved cheekbones, his gleaming green eyes, his blunt, strong browline and the crooked bridge of his nose that seemed to be purposeful, all framed by his blond hair braided with glass beads... Despite feeling that this contact would drive my heart mad, it remained silent and unmoving, even as this godlike man solemnly caressed my face and neck with his cold hands, hands that now matched my body temperature.

"He asked my name, and reluctantly I gave it. 'Yorick,' he repeated, in a voice so deep and warm that it could be a bear's growl. He continued to touch my face and chest, smirking at me. 'So there was some beauty under those scars. To think that this is a thrall's face. I pity he who was unable to purchase you.' And he laughed so loudly that those nearest to him could only join in.

"I didn't know what he was talking about. But for the first time, I examined my own body and saw that he was right... My scars were all gone. Scars I'd had since I could use my foul tongue, scars that had remained even after my back was rent to tatters... Every inch of my skin was smooth as fine silk and all of an even color, for the first time in my life since I'd been born. Even the raw skin of my neck where my iron collar had once been was soft and perfect. This part of me he leaned and kissed, tasting me with lips and tongue.

"And so I finally asked him if I was dead. 'You killed me,' I told him. 'You drank my blood. I must be dead. So why am I here with you now?'

"'Yes, you died,' he replied. 'And you are reborn by my blood. I returned your life to you tenfold. Where is my gratitude?'

"He laughed again. But I still didn't know what he meant. So I asked him, and he told me what had happened... What I had become. The Draugar truly were creatures of legend, blood-drinkers. They were, of course, what western society would come to know as vampires.

"I became aware, during Áslaug's explanation of my new nature, of the other Draugar demonstrating. Apparently they had grown tired of waiting for Áslaug to bid them to supper. On either side of the table, both willing and unwilling girls were being taken. Each Draugr seized or shared one and, whether they were oblivious to their screaming or spurned on by it, each bit into their chosen maiden by neck or breast or arm. Áslaug bellowed at a crewman to our left, and I thought he was angry for their actions... But instead, he ordered them to bring him the girl they were about to attack. 

"She was a struggling, frightened thing, though I cannot remember what she looked like. I remember fearing for her, being terrified of what Áslaug would do to her... But he didn't take her for himself. Instead he shifted me to his side and pulled her close by her hair, only laughing as she begged for her life. 'See her, Yorick,' he said. 'Taste her scent. Can you feel how her pulse goes wild looking at you? Does it not stir something in you?'

"That it did, though I could not name the feeling she gave me... My tongue felt dry, and in my belly I felt a gnawing, as if the mouth of my stomach had grown jaws lined with teeth that nibbled impatiently at my throat. It was a moment before I realized I was hungry, but it was not a hunger I recognized. The maiden's aroma, filling the air each time she struggled against Áslaug's grip, was sweet and tempting as a ripened fruit out of reach. I wanted her more dearly than I had ever wanted anything, and yet it was not lust for the body that strained from her tattered garment, nor love for the pretty face contorted with fear and misery.

"She must have taken my hesitation to mean that I was not one of them, or perhaps it was another reason, but she seemed to think that she might be saved if she begged me for her life. I remember her now... 'Please, sir! Please don't let them eat me! Let them have mercy on me, save me, sir, please!' 




Hematoma Ch. 17



"This only made Áslaug laugh that much harder, and he thrust the girl bodily onto the table in front of us. He barked at her, saying 'Silly girl! You beg your devourer to be spared? He is whom your blood will feed.'

"She now looked at me with such horror frozen in her. I wanted to assure her that I would not do what he said... How could I? But the jaws of my stomach gnashed within me, and I no longer saw a maiden lying on the table in front of me. I saw the beat of her blood awaiting me just under her skin. I saw a meal.

"Áslaug, surely sensing the change in me, released my shoulder and gave me a small push towards her. I heaved myself onto the table before her. The wolfskin fell from me, and I ignored the air on my skin, ignored the hoots and hollers at the sight of my body. The maiden's breath trembled hideously inside her as I crawled with her underneath me until she was completely entrapped under my limbs. It was then she began to sob, and yet I only knew so because I could taste the salt of her tears on her face. I was blind to her existence, deaf to her cries and pleading. My fresh instinct took me over, and I buried my mouth in the depths of her jugular vein.

"How could I describe the feeling her lifeblood gave me? I felt as if I had never tasted water, had never properly been full since my birth. I felt as if my body had been starving to death until the moment her blood touched my tongue, and then very suddenly, I was satiated for the first time in my short life. Her warmth flooded every corner of my body with a heat so fierce and loving. She was making love to me from within my belly. 

"I do not know how or when I stopped drinking from her. I remember returning to my senses only when her blood ran cold in my mouth, and yet she was still screaming with what little breath she had... and then that stopped as well. Her blood stained a river down my body from my lips. My onlookers were cheering and howling with laughter. Áslaug's own laughs boomed from behind me, and he slung his cloak over my shoulders. 

"Such was my initiation into the Draugar. I became one of them, a crew member on their invincible longship, a blood-drinker like the rest who quickly forgot his human sympathies... And shortly, I became Lord Áslaug's right hand man as well."

"You were second in command of the Draugar?" I said incredulously, my voice hoarse – I'd been biting back my moans for the last half hour under Ricky's needle so that I could listen to his story. I was completely riveted. "Sorry... You have no idea how hard it is not to interrupt."

Ricky chuckled to himself, cleaning and changing his needles yet again. "No worries. It's quite long. You've been a good audience." He paused, checking his inks and loading up again. "Yes... Second in command would probably be accurate, in a way. But truly, it was only in name. You see, I was Áslaug's... favorite."

"What does that mean?"

"Oh, he was a greedy and possessive man. He did not indulge much in fineries of gold and silver, nor of drink – for I found out quickly that the Draugar could indeed imbibe, as long as they got their prey drunk first. Quite an interesting process. No, Áslaug indulged in sex, and whenever he turned a new Draugr, that man became his favorite for a time until something new came along."

"So you -"

"We fucked. Regularly, yes. Or, he fucked me. He did not like to give control up to anyone. I would have been all right with this for the short time that I was his favorite... But it became apparent that I was different, for no matter how many new favorites he gained, he would always return to me. Such was not true for any other man. I slept in Áslaug's bed at his insistence. I accompanied him even during his private meals, which were always followed by sex. He paraded me like a prized dog, and I never left his side during our ventures out at sea.

"And I began to hate him for it all.

"Oh, yes, Shay," said Ricky, catching my eye. "I hated him viciously. I hated him because he used my body the same as he used the men and women he drank from. I hated him because he did not hide his lust for me no matter where we were – if he was given the opportunity, he fucked me on board the ship, in public taverns, it didn't matter to him. And most of all, I hated him because I owed my life to him.

"Should I have been grateful for my rebirth? Perhaps, but that was simply not the way I saw things. You see, I knew that I had been destined for something greater than the life of a thrall, and here I was, given a new life entirely, a life of unending power and immortality, near invincibility. And yet a thrall I was still, a thrall to Áslaug. I was his slave for as long as I lived. He made sure of that. And I did not want to serve him for an eternity. I hated being indebted to him. I hated him, his very existence. 

"So of course, I planned my escape from him.

"And how could I possibly do that? Áslaug craved me so. He knew my scent, for he got himself drunk off of it nightly. He would chase me to the ends of the earth if I ran from him, and I did not want to run in the first place. I did not want to give him my cowardice. 

"It was years before I got my opportunity – fifty years of service to Lord Áslaug and his Draugar. During one of our midnight raids, I took my time ashore to find a pair of maidens. Oh, the fear in their eyes... It was so simple to convince them that I wished to save them from my men. I was the most beautiful among them, had the kindest eyes among them. What damsel wouldn't take the chance of escape with me, compared to the brutes I led? Even Áslaug didn't have my allure. 

"I brought them to the bedroom that Áslaug would be using at the inn that night, and while captain and crew celebrated their victory over this tiny, inconsequential village, I helped the girls through bottle after bottle of our best acquisitions. They were pliant, cooperative with me. I did not bite them. They were not mine to drink. 

"When Lord Áslaug broke himself from the partying in the hall to come and have his way with me, he was surprised to find that I was not alone. Each of the girls laid warming my sides, tousling my hair and tracing over my chest to please me. When I saw Áslaug at the doorway, I told the girls they must turn their attentions to him. They complained teasingly at first, but soon acquiesced. 'He's nearly as handsome as you,' one giggled, and their sweet, drunken little laughs sounded as Áslaug joined us.

"I didn't distract him. Áslaug took my prepared gifts eagerly. I didn't doubt that I'd need both of them to get him drunk... One maiden would barely get him tipsy. He took turns with them, and I didn't dare stop him from returning to me between the girls... And I didn't dare imbibe them myself. 

"Their corpses I had to clear off the bed when he was finally too drunk to move. He kept singing my praises. 'How well you spoil me, my Yorick,' he kept saying. 'What gifts you bestow me.' 

"'But am I not your most favorite gift?' I asked him. 'Have I not saved the best for you to enjoy now?'

"He loved that, the pompous beast. I let him enjoy my body as much as he liked, and when he was too wasted to even lift his own arms to touch me, I mounted him... Yes, the same way I did you, Shay. 

"I made sure he would thoroughly enjoy being within me. It was the least that I owed him, my dear Lord Áslaug. He groaned his pleasures to me, felled his head back, exposed his blood-swelled throat. How could I refuse his last gift to me? I allowed him spill his climax inside my body in final reverence of him... All while I raised his own waraxe from his discarded armor.

"The Draugar were still hollering merrily over their feast when I threw Áslaug's head onto the dinner table. 

"It seemed to be ages before all of them realized what empty gaze beheld them from between their spilt mead goblets, and even longer before they realized what I had done. Two dozen sets of eyes were on me, with Áslaug's leather cloaking me and his waraxe still at my side. 

"'I have slaughtered your Lord and Master,' I said into the silence. 'I have yet to be wronged by one of you, and so I beg no quarrel with any other here. Be that as it may, I will not hesitate to cut down any who who would stand in the way of the freedom I've won. If any of you wishes to avenge your leader, then step forward now, or let me leave in peace.'

"I waited, sure that at least one man among them all would confront me. I awaited drawn blades, a shout, something. But none came. I have always wondered why no one stopped me leaving – did they fear me? Did they simply not care? Was their worship of Áslaug as superficial as my own? No matter the reason, I left the Draugar behind, and not a one interfered with me. I believe we're all finished."

It was a moment before I realized Ricky's last sentiment wasn't part of the story, and that his needle had stopped humming. The lines in my back stung badly as he wiped me clean of ink and blood, and then again as he rubbed a warm-smelling paste onto my painted wound. 

"That's the ending?" I asked. "I mean... It just ends there?"

"That's the end of the beginning," Ricky told me. "I took my freedom and I traveled the world. I learned languages, I met humans all over the world, as well as those around the planet who were like me – each going by a different name and never truly fitting with the mythos they were given. I built lives with my freedom. And the story ends with you, Shay."

I felt my stomach squeeze... Half in happiness, and half in the realization of what Ricky's story now meant. "You've killed people," I said slowly. "Like... A lot of people, haven't you?"

Ricky waved dismissively. "It was a different time, Shay. Bloodsharing wasn't a common practice until at least the mid-eighteen-hundreds. We all had to live in secrecy, and dealing with witnesses was... Unfortunate. Certainly we've moved on from that, but it was simply a fact of life. People die."

My stomach felt full of ice. "I... But you... I'm safe, right?"

Ricky chuckled under his breath and held out an arm, helping me up from the massage chair. Pain sparked like static across my shoulders as they moved. He helped me to the mirror, and I saw my completed work. 

It was as if Sleipnir had been carved of stormclouds. Strands of ink split his body in every direction along the lines of his muscle. It was an exact replica of Ricky's ink painting... But somehow more beautiful than I ever thought possible. I gave a shaky sigh in admiration.

And then Ricky touched beneath my chin and guided my face to meet his. "Shay," he said quietly, "You know that I would never, ever hurt you."

As the fierce flame in my lower belly reached up inside me and clambered over each organ in its way, I realized I couldn't possibly not trust this man. My life was his. I was safe, so safe. I nodded weakly.

"Good," he said with a smirk, and he released me. I stood there in a daze while he gathered his tools. "I'll give you bloodshare before you go. I hate wrapping that shit in clingwrap."

I scrunched my nose. "That stuff makes me all sweaty."

His materials tucked away, Ricky came back to me and bit the heel of his left hand, offering the newly made wound to me – but this time, it was not red that spilled over his skin. His blood was nearly black.

"Go on and take it before it heals up," he told me. "I apologize in advance."

Hesitantly, I took Ricky's hand in mind and tentatively licked the blood that ran over his palm – it was like drinking cold rust. I made a face. "Eugh."

He laughed. "That's what it tastes like without your blood in it. Horrid, isn't it?"

I had to agree. though my back tingled itchily as its surface mended. "I definitely like you better after you – well..."

Ricky smiled knowingly at me beneath his shadowed lids. He leaned forward and planted a swift kiss on my cheek. "I think you've had near enough excitement for one day, Shay. I want to get you back home."

I nodded. I had just seen my watch... Had seen how long I'd been here. God, it had been hours. I was tired.

Ricky walked me to the front door, holding my jacket out for me to slip my arms in. Once I was redressed, he turned me by my shoulders and recaptured my mouth in a kiss. I could only reciprocate to him... Even cold, his mouth felt so good on me. When we broke apart, he was smiling again. 

"I love you, Shay," he said lowly. "Be safe going home, all right?"

I nodded and, smiling my own, opened the door to leave.

"Oh, and... Shay," he added as I was about to broach the landing.

"Yeah?"

Ricky's smirk widened. "Give your mother the plus-one already. I'll be joining you and your family for dinner this week."