Chapter 12

Chapter 12

David sat in his car looking at his phone.

It was Monday night. He had spent the day driving. Dana had called immediately after getting his message on Saturday morning, before she even got out of bed. He had found that he didn’t know what to say to her. He couldn’t tell her the truth, but he had no idea how to pare the story down to details that he could tell her while getting across enough information for her to be able to help him.

He’d just sat quietly on the bed as she asked him what was going on, was he okay, did he need help, was he sick, was he injured, what? Finally, he’d said he was fine, and he’d call her later.

It wasn’t fair to her, and for the rest of Saturday, he had that guilt to deal with in addition to the confusion and anguish caused by the previous twenty-four hours. At one point in the afternoon, his empty stomach had to not-so-gently remind him he hadn’t eaten in at least a day, so he’d forced himself to get out of bed to make the bare minimum. A bowl of cereal and some coffee. Fortunately, he’d already gone through the effort of cold brewing a batch of Sumatran blend, so he just had to add water and heat a mug in the microwave.

David made it to the couch and turned on the TV but couldn’t pay attention to anything. Dana called twice and left messages to check on him, but he didn’t call back. Another bowl of cereal and a bag of popcorn later, he recognized the most dominant emotion he was feeling was loss. Thinking about Joseph, his heart ached. It was incredible to think all of this had happened in just this week. Every day had been an experience of working out a complex series of events in his head, and he was mentally exhausted.

As daylight gave way to dusk, David suddenly realized that the apartment was dark except for the light given off by the flat-screen TV. He panicked and dashed to each room, flipping on light switches. Only when the apartment was flooded with illumination and every closet was checked for potential intruders (vampires!) did he relax. His heart was pounding, so he closed his eyes and willed his breathing to slow.

Strangely, of all the people David wished were with him to hold and comfort him, the one he realized he was wishing for most was Joseph. Yet still he couldn’t call him. It was all too fantastic, in the worst way.

Instead, he finally called Dana back, who threatened to call the police or his parents if he didn’t prove he was okay. It was an empty threat. She didn’t know his parents, and contacting the police was too extreme for her. He did invite his best friend over, though. David didn’t want to be alone. He told Dana in advance that he might not feel like sharing, but at least they could watch a movie and order takeout, which is exactly what they did.

They ordered Thai food, both getting the orange chicken with fried rice, and watched action movies on Netflix until they fell asleep on the comfy couch, heads on each end and legs intertwined.

Sunday morning, Dana had refused the suggestion that she had better things to do than hang around with David all day but did insist they leave the apartment. They took turns showering, Dana borrowed a fresh T-shirt, and they went to get brunch at Grub. Grub was one of those little places on a side street in LA that used to be a house but was now a restaurant serving comfort food. Every table got a bowl of Trix cereal with their free tap water when they sat down, and menu items included croissant French toast, pumpkin pancakes, and their famous crack bacon (glazed with cayenne pepper and maple syrup). They had to wait a bit due to it being brunch time on a Sunday, but being outside in the daylight with a familiar face made David feel better than he had since Friday night. They had sat together on a bench along the sidewalk in the shade of a young tree.

During the breakfast, David didn’t talk much. Dana towed the line of conversation, noting his discomfort, and kept topics superficial and lighthearted. Her natural humor raised his spirits, but it was obvious he was bothered by something important. When they got back into her car, she turned to him.

“Okay, spill it, D,” she ordered.

He didn’t bother asking what she was talking about. Not only did she know him about as well as anyone else in the world, but he wanted to tell her, and he had pretty much figured out what he was going to say.

“I was attacked Friday night in WeHo on my way to meet Joseph for dancing,” he said.

“Holy shitballs, are you serious? Like in West Hollywood?” When David nodded, she asked, “Are you okay? Were you hurt?”

“Just a little, that’s what the Band-Aid is for.” He pointed at the large bandage on his neck, which he’d put on to replace the larger dressing Joseph had supplied. He took a deep breath, exhaled, and went on. “It would have been worse, but Joseph saved me.”

Dana’s eyes went wide. “Oh. My. God. Like, literally fought them off saved you?” She had begun gesticulating with her hands; the information was too much to contain.

“Yeah,” David said simply, looking forward and staring at the back of the car in front of them. It was decorated with the COEXIST bumper sticker. Each letter was a different religious symbol.

“David, that is fucking incredible! Did the police do anything?”

“I didn’t go to the police.” This is where the fibbing began. “It was dark, and I didn’t see much. There’s not much I’d be able to tell them.” He paused. The next part was the trickiest bit. “I was out of it, so Joseph took me to his place…”

“Did he do something to you? David, did he … force himself on you?” She had been about to say rape, he realized. This was not a line of thought he’d predicted, and he wasn’t quite prepared for it. He automatically jumped to Joseph’s defense.

“No! No no no, he took care of me! He… he was a complete gentleman. Made me soup and ginger ale.” David averted his gaze from the outside world and looked down at the interior of the car, lost in thought.

Dana took a second to process. “Oh. That’s a lot of horrible and wonderful all in the same story.” She reached out to run her fingers through the hair on the back of his head, something she had started doing in college when they watched Simpsons in the common room. She knew he loved it. “David, are you okay?”

“Not really,” he admitted. He drew in a longer, slower breath and let it out. This was the person he told everything to. This was the moment to say what he needed to say and get the friendly counsel he required. “The thing is, Joseph and I said we love each other. Well, we texted it. I mean, we basically texted it. Never mind. We said it. I do. He does.”

“Okay, I get it.” Dana put a stop to the rambling. “That’s great, right? It’s really fast, but it’s good?”

“Yeah,” David said with some reticence. “I don’t really get it, but I’d kind of resigned myself to experiencing it. The thing is… the really hard thing I don’t know how I’m going to handle…” He turned to look at Dana and concentrated on picking his words. “Joseph showed a side of himself Friday night that really scared me. A violent side. A dangerous one.”

“Ahh,” Dana said and grabbed his hands comfortingly. “I think I get it. But, like, he was violent protecting you, right?”

“Yeah.” He waited for her point.

Dana spoke carefully, thoughtfully, “In the short time you’ve known him, has he given any indication that he would act that way towards you? I mean, really think about it. Has he ever yelled at a waiter, said something mean about someone driving another car, raised his voice to you, anything like that?”

David thought the metaphor was wearing a bit thin. He wasn’t talking about abusive spouse violence. He was talking about a goddamned vampire. But he realized that Joseph had never indicated any kind of behavior that could be construed as meaning him harm.

“No.”

“Okay.” Dana concluded her point, though she seemed cognizant of the possibility that she was giving an opinion contrary to what David was wrestling with. “So, it seems to me like he is kind of a catch. He defended you physically by putting himself in harm’s way. He sounds romantic as fuck.” David had to chuckle every time he heard this pixie of a girl drop the f-bomb, and it broke him out of his downward spiral. “And he said he loved you. Or whatever you two weirdos said or texted each other. Yeah?”

David absolutely saw her point. “Yeah, but there are some things about him I found out, stuff he can’t really help, I guess, but they worry me.”

“Like what?”

“I can’t tell you,” he told her. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, I can’t help you with any of that, then.” She put a hand on his leg. “But I will stay with you all day and all night until I have to go to work, and then I’ll cover for you for as long as you need. Okay?”

He smiled genuinely for the first time in what felt like weeks. “Thank you. How do I deserve you?”

“You don’t. I’m insane for spending so much time with a man who will never please me physically.” She leaned forward. “Come. Give us hugs.”

The rest of Sunday was spent binge-watching TV shows and eating a shocking amount of junk food. Between each episode, she would ask him, “Need to talk?” to which he would decline. By midnight, they were both passed out on the couch again. This time they’d had the foresight to grab a blue queen-size fleece blanket beforehand.

Monday morning Dana had checked in with him before leaving for work to see if he was going to be okay alone. He told her yes and was pretty sure it was the truth. He had made them both coffees, giving her his favorite Zojirushi insulated mug to take with her to work, and she promised to return it ASAP under penalty of death.

David sat on the couch sipping his coffee and had a sudden urge to go driving. He didn’t have a destination, he just wanted to go. The only thing that dictated the direction was the traffic. Los Angeles traffic breathed like a living thing. In the morning, cars streamed towards the city center, and at the end of the workday, downtown exhaled, sending them back out to the suburbs from whence they came. Thus, in the morning, traffic was light heading north, so that’s where David went.

He took the 101 freeway north, but as it veered west, he kept heading north on the 170, until it merged with the 5, which took him through the San Fernando Valley and past the LA Aqueduct Cascades, a man-made river of stairs that always caught David’s eye. It was flowing heavily this close to the end of spring as winter runoff fed into the thirsty city.

From there, he passed by Valencia and Six Flags Magic Mountain. David loved theme parks, but only went to Magic Mountain on their yearly gay night in the fall. The tickets were cheaper, and the lines were nonexistent, so you could go on everything twice in just a few hours.

Some unknown guide told him to take the exit for Highway 126 a few minutes later. The smaller highway meandered into the southern foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains, until he reached a small town called Fillmore. The name rang a bell, but David had never been there, so he pulled off the highway to wander for a while.

Fillmore was a town out of place. It seemed like it came straight out of Iowa from the 1980s and transplanted itself to Southern California to chase its dreams. There was a railway station with brightly painted steam engines, and the quaint town square area was several decades behind the rest of the world. It even had a bandstand shaped like a large gazebo. David suspected the town was built or at least maintained by the movie studios; it was so perfectly out of time. Regardless, it was a cooling balm on his soul. He felt like if he walked into the drugstore, they might offer him a drink from the soda fountain, and would have no idea what a smartphone was.

He ate lunch at a local cafe, and the meal of homemade pot roast and broiled veggies was perfect midwestern: comforting, delicious, and reasonably priced. Afterwards, he wandered the rustic town for an hour before getting back into his car and continuing westward.

Soon, he reached the end of the smaller highway and rejoined the 101 freeway. He turned his little Honda onto the 101 south (which in reality headed almost due east), but when he saw the sign for the 1 freeway, the Pacific Coast Highway, he took it.

After a few minutes, the PCH passed the Point Magu Naval Air Station, and David saw the Pacific Ocean ahead and to the right. No matter how many times he saw it, the sight of the endless blue expanse always took his breath away. He frequently tried to imagine what it would have been like to be an explorer or native, hundreds of years ago, seeing the land fall away into the infinite field of water. The feeling must’ve been overwhelming, considering how powerful it was for him, when he’d seen it a hundred times before.

The PCH followed closely along the coastal cliff, sometimes so close the shoulder was nonexistent, just a ledge falling straight into the placid sea. When he approached beachy areas, David realized what he wanted. After the long weekend, after all the introspection and wandering and talking with Dana, the endless ocean somehow made everything clear.

At the turnoff for El Matador Beach, he pulled into the parking lot and found a spot pointed straight into the ocean. The parking lot was on a bluff above a long wooden staircase that led down to the beach, so from up here, in the car, it almost looked like he was flying over the water. He pulled his phone off the car mount and pulled up Joseph’s number.

He sat there, looking at the small screen for five minutes.

Finally, he tapped the number. He expected to leave a message since the sun had not yet dipped into the waves, but the call connected, and he heard Joseph’s voice.

“David? Are you okay?” For a moment David’s breath caught in his throat, and his chest tightened.

“Hi, Joseph, yeah,” he said finally. “I didn’t expect you to be … up. You know, since it’s still daytime.”

Joseph’s voice softened. “I can be awake in the daytime. My house blocks all the sunlight.” It was the first time he hadn’t hesitated when discussing an aspect of his vampire nature.

“Oh.” David wasn’t sure exactly how he wanted to say what he wanted to say, but he knew he didn’t want to do it over the phone. “I’d like to talk. Can I see you?”

“Of course,” Joseph said, the surprise apparent in his voice. “Do you want to meet somewhere, or…?” He left the question open-ended so David wouldn’t feel pressured in any way.

“I’ll come to your place. I’m out on the PCH right now; I’m not sure how long it’ll take. It’s getting to be rush hour,” David said. His voice didn’t betray his intention.

“Okay,” Joseph said cautiously. “I’ll text you the address.”

“Thanks. See you soon.” David ended the call and waited for the text. Joseph’s message with the address came through moments later, and David noted that he had followed the texting etiquette of not typing anything other than the address itself. He opened Waze and shared his trip with Joseph so he could see the estimated time of arrival.

David looked out at the ocean one more time as the sun ignited the horizon with oranges and reds, then pulled back out of the parking lot and onto the PCH.

The sun set before David arrived at Joseph’s house. He pulled into the driveway and for the first time really saw the impressive edifice. The house wasn’t lit up like its neighbors with intricately-designed landscape illumination, but there were simple security lights, the moon was half-full, and it never really got all the way dark at night in LA. Joseph’s home looked like a modern castle. Built from large stone blocks, with slim slits for windows that weren’t even wide enough to fit through. David thought it might be able to withstand a nuclear blast, it looked so much like an aboveground bomb shelter. Then he saw Joseph waiting in the entryway just outside the front door.

David parked, turned off the ignition, and took a measured breath. He unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car, using every moment to internally confirm his decision. Looking at Joseph, standing patiently on the front step. Making eye contact, seeing his soft smile. Knowing the pointed weapons that smile hid, the dangers they entailed.

“Hi,” he said, taking a few steps from the safety of the car. For a moment, David felt physically vulnerable out in the open, but when Joseph closed the gap between them, stopping only an arm’s length away, the fear subsided rather than grew worse. It was the last piece of confirmation David needed.

“I love you,” David said simply. “I don’t know how I know that so surely already, but I do.”

Joseph waited in case there was a but, but there wasn’t one. He reached out with both hands to David, who took them. “I love you, too, David. And I feel the same way.” The pair stood in the driveway, touching but not embracing, yet. They each had things they needed to say before they could move forward.

Joseph started. “Uh, so I rehearsed what I was going to say while I waited for you to get here, but I forgot how it was going to go.”

The admission elicited a smile from David. Some five centuries old and this guy standing in front of him was still just a guy who got flustered sometimes. It was good to know.

“I’ll just say, I promise that you know the worst thing about me. I can’t help what I am. I can’t change it. But I think the more you know, the … better you’ll like me? That sounded stupid.” Joseph shook his head at his lack of vocabulary, which made David laugh.

“I get what you’re trying to say,” David said. “I really want to get to know you better. I can’t say it’s not weird, knowing what you are—”

“You’re going to have to say it at some point,” Joseph needled amiably.

“Vampire.” David stressed the word.

“There you go.”

“I thought about it a lot this weekend, and I realized I don’t care. I love you, for whatever reason. I think I did pretty much right away, and everything you’ve done and said has only made me love you more. What kind of asshole would I be to hold something against you that you can’t control?” The irony of what David was saying wasn’t lost on either of them. David had experienced prejudice for being gay and had felt the pain of it. The understanding had helped shape his thinking about Joseph.

Joseph inched slowly closer to David. “I am really glad to hear you say that. I have missed you these last few days. I wanted so badly to call you to see if you were okay. I want you to be comfortable with this. So, as slow as you need me to be, I’m fine with th―”

David abruptly leaned forward and kissed Joseph hard on the lips, eliciting a surprised “mmph.” They wrapped their arms together and made out in the driveway for five long minutes that felt like forever. When they finally parted to catch their breath, Joseph said, “Do you want to come in?”

“Desperately,” David said, a sense of relief washing over his body.

As they got to the door and Joseph entered the code, he heard David’s stomach rumble. “Are you hungry? I still have soup. And I recently found out I’m still pretty good at grilled cheese.”

They moved into the house, the heavy oaken door closing heavily behind them, and David pushed Joseph up against the wall next to it. “Maybe after.”

Joseph took half a second to figure out what after meant. “Oh! Okay—” he barely got out before his lips were covered by David’s again.

They tore at each other’s clothing as they moved clumsily to the stairs and down to the bedroom. A trail of shoes, shirts, pants, underwear, and socks recorded their path as they collapsed on the bed, writhing and grinding against each other.

They made love for the second time since they’d met, but this time there were more words. Each of them felt as if they were the lucky one to be here with the perfect man, and they no longer had to be coy about it. I love you’s were breathlessly uttered as they assumed a variety of positions for over an hour. Each topped and bottomed for the other, and each was mildly amazed they had no clear preference for who got penetrated.

Afterwards, as they laid together, bodies curled together in a perfect fit, David was the little spoon, looking past the bed at a piece of art that hung on the wall, barely visible in the gloom created by the light from the bathroom. He was content to be wrapped in Joseph’s arms and feel his breath on the back of his neck. It was warmer than normal breath. Finally, he said softly, “I have questions.”

“I assumed you might,” Joseph said, his voice gentle in David’s ear. “I promise I will be completely honest with you if you promise to tell me how you genuinely feel along the way.”

“I can do that,” David said thoughtfully. He asked questions about Joseph’s nature, and Joseph was honest and forthright, as guaranteed.

Joseph talked about his life before being turned, living in Bavaria under the rule of the Holy Roman Empire and the experience of being turned and mentored by a vampire who was born a thousand years before that. He assured David again that he hadn’t fed on a human since he accidentally turned Alexander in the mid–seventeen hundreds. Joseph briefly described his diet of animals for many centuries until the practice of blood transfusion, and by extension blood donations, was created. Joseph got in early in the blood business, and thus Tetractys was born, and the vampire with a distaste for killing humans had a steady human blood supply.

David turned so he was face to face with Joseph. “What about all the stuff in movies? Garlic, crosses, that kind of thing. Oh my God, can you turn into a b—”

“No, I can’t turn into a bat. Or a wolf or mist or anything other than what you see right now,” Joseph snickered.

“Oh,” David feigned disappointment. “So just a sexy guy with a body like a Greek statue, then. Fiiiine.”

Joseph couldn’t resist the urge to lean forward and give David a smooch. “As for the rest, yeah, I have an intense aversion to garlic…”

“Aww.”

“…and I never understood the deal with crosses. It’s just a thing, and religion is made up, so how they could possibly be harmful has always baffled me.”

David clutched imaginary pearls. “Do not let my mom hear you say that.”

“Oh, am I meeting your mother, then?” Joseph asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Ah, that might take awhile. I’ve only introduced one boyfriend to my parents, and it did not go well.”

“Hmm,” Joseph interjected. “So we’re boyfriends, then? Officially?”

“What are you, in middle school?” David joked, then became earnest. “Look, I am not currently madly in love with anyone else, so I can say with some confidence that I want to be with you and only you for the foreseeable future.”

The newly anointed couple stared into each other’s eyes for a moment before coming together for another kiss, though neither of them could had said who initiated it.

Joseph squealed when they parted, doing his best imitation of a teenage girl, “Oh my God, I have a boyfriend!”

This made David hoot with laughter, and he had to turn his head away. When the giggling subsided, he said, “Okay, what else? Can you fly?”

Joseph sighed. It was actually a bit of a release to talk about this side of himself in a positive way. “No, I’m basically human. Think of vampires as a close cousin of homo sapiens. Like Neanderthals, we’ve lived side by side on Earth for hundreds of thousands of years. We just happen to still be around.”

“So literally you just subsist on blood and hate the sun and garlic? That’s it?” David said, unable to hide his disillusionment.

“Well, no,” Joseph admitted. “There’s also immortality. And we are generally stronger than humans and get stronger the older we get.”

“Huh.” David absorbed this.

“We also have heightened senses. Like, all of them.” Joseph felt like he was bragging if he said anything more.

“Like what?”

“Well, like I can hear your stomach growling like a lawnmower,” the vampire replied, poking David in the abs.

“Come on, really?”

Joseph grinned. “I can hear the blood flowing through your veins if I try.”

“Well. Okay, that’s a little creepy.”

“Oh! No, I didn’t mean it like that. I was just trying to say that something really quiet is something I can hear.”

David grinned. “You are adorable when you’re flustered, you know that?” Joseph slapped him playfully on the chest. “But now that you mention it, it’s been a while since I ate, and my boyfriend gave me kind of a workout, so…”

With another kiss, Joseph slipped out of the bed, pulled on a pair of lounge pants, and grabbed a robe for David. As they made their way to the kitchen, decisions were made about what soup to heat up (creamy tomato bisque) and whether to make grilled cheese (hell, yes). David slid onto a kitchen stool where he could watch Joseph cook and they could keep talking.

“It should be said, you look fucking hot, Mr. Shirtless Chef.”

“Why thank you, my dear,” Joseph replied, bowing slightly for his robed audience.

David folded his hands while he watched Joseph move smoothly from the stove to the cupboard and back. There was something nagging at him that felt more awkward than the other vampire topics they’d already broached.

“So…” he started tentatively, “I think I experienced another one of your skills Friday night.” Joseph set the soup on low and turned to give David his attention. He didn’t speak, just waited, one eyebrow raised slightly. “When… what’s his name, Alexander?” Joseph nodded. “He did something to me where I couldn’t move. Like, I forgot how. My body felt like it was encased in carbonite or something.”

Joseph nodded knowingly. “Yeah. First, I love that you know that reference, and we’re going to come back to that. But yes, we have an ability to hypnotize prey, in a way. To project our will on them, kind of?”

“It helps with the hunting?” David offered.

“Yeah.”

“I have to ask. Have you ever—?”

“No,” Joseph assured. “Never with you, I swear.”

“Okay. I believe you,” David smiled.

Joseph shrugged slightly. “That being said, there are uses for that particular skill that aren’t related to hunting…”

“Oh?” David said, intrigued.

“Mmhmm.” Joseph took a few steps and leaned over, his elbows on the counter opposite David. “Uses that greatly enhance lovemaking.”

“I am officially intrigued, but let’s take baby steps, okay?”

Joseph placed his hand on David’s. “Absolutely. Never without your permission, my love.”

David shook his shoulders. “Oooh, my love… I like that.”

Joseph straightened and returned to the soup preparation. “Anything else?” he asked, inviting more questions about his vampire disposition.

David was aware of the challenge Joseph was dealing with, being so open about himself and wanted to help by asking questions. “Do you have a reflection?”

Joseph chuckled wryly. “The history of that particular vampire myth is interesting, but yes. We don’t actually do anything that defies physics.”

David nodded. Then something occurred to him. “Are you going to eat with me?”

Joseph paused stirring the creamy red soup but didn’t turn around. He just looked at the pot, which was starting to steam. “You mean…?”

“You must be hungry, too.”

“Are you sure?” He turned his head to the side and spoke over his shoulder. “I mean, that you want to see that?”

“I’ve thought it through, babe,” David spoke assuredly. “I mean, we’ve exchanged bodily fluids. Aaaaand I’ve eaten a rare steak before. It’s not that big of a leap when it really comes down to it.”

Joseph shook his shoulders the way David had. “Oooh, babe… I like that.” He smirked at the man he was finding it so easy to love. Their banter was so effortless and natural. Every moment he felt he was falling more and more for this gorgeous hunk sitting there in his robe. “Yeah, okay, I’ll eat with you.”

While Joseph finished making the grilled cheese and soup, he answered questions about his long past. More detail about his life before being turned and about his travels around the world after. He gave David the broad strokes about his long relationship with Connor, which took enough time for the food to be ready. He set down the crispy browned sandwich and the bowl of soup in front of David. He went to the fridge and removed one of Rafaél’s ginger ales, which he gave to David, and a bag of blood, which he put in the microwave to warm.

David watched curiously and then asked, “Um, I don’t know if this is impolite, but—” he gestured around, indicating the house, everything in it, and its location “—just how rich are you?”

Joseph leaned on the counter in front of the microwave. “Well, I don’t want to be coy, but I’m going to be. For now. A little.” He smiled and David smiled back, accepting this limit to the sharing. “Let me just say, we’ll be able to go on some amazing dates, and you’ll never have to pay for a thing. Okay?”

“I can live with that, I guess,” David said, basking in what he felt was his good fortune.

“Good,” Joseph nodded. “I’ve lived a fairly isolated life. I don’t tend to open myself up all that often. But I do love to share what I have with those I love.” He pointed a finger at David and waggled it around playfully.

The microwave beeped, and Joseph grabbed the approximately body temperature blood. He pulled a stool around to the opposite side of the counter so that he and David could look at each other. David had already eaten some of the tomato soup but had waited to start the sandwich. Now that they were both seated, David lifted half of the grilled cheese (sliced diagonally, perfect, he thought) and Joseph raised the plastic bag of red fluid. David went first, biting off a corner while maintaining eye contact with Joseph. Then Joseph, hesitantly, extended his fangs and bit into the bag, drinking his dinner.

Joseph was expecting David to be repulsed and disgusted, throw down his sandwich and dash to the bedroom, grab his clothes and race out into the night. Instead, he smiled around his mouthful of cheese and bread, and without swallowing, took another, bigger bite. Just to be equally as awkward.

Joseph pinched off the holes made by his fangs and looked adoringly at David. “I love you.”

David chewed his extra-large mouthful of food. “I know.” He winked.

“Oh, we are definitely going to get along,” Joseph said, returning to his dinner.

Joseph finished his liquid dinner before David was done with his meal and took the opportunity to ask his own questions about his new beau. David told him of his parents, who were still married in Colorado, but as staunch Republicans, he had drifted apart from them in recent years. David had a brother who was two years younger. Kyle worked as an architect in Denver and tried to bridge the growing gap between David and his parents. They spoke politely on the phone to their eldest son but knew better than to ask him about the details of his life, which they generally disapproved of.

David was a dog person. Joseph was indifferent but generally enjoyed canine company.

They glossed over their pop culture likes and dislikes, though it was clear Joseph’s tastes veered more to classical forms of entertainment—opera, concerts, live theater—while David was enamored with film and television and had little experience with classical music. Joseph casually mentioned that he’d met Johann Sebastian Bach, and David countered by saying he worked on a show with Lucy Hale. Joseph said he’d never heard of him and David sprayed chunks of grilled cheese over half the countertop.

Joseph was getting a supply of paper towels when David finally voiced a question he’d wanted to ask. “Okay… I have a serious one.”

“Yeah?” Joseph wetted the paper towels and began wiping the counter.

“Let’s say we still love each other next week…”

“Lofty goals, Romeo.”

“Who’s that?” David joked, unable to resist the callback.

Joseph picked up a tiny bit of half-chewed bread and threw it at David. “Ha ha.”

“Okay, seriously. Let’s say we still love each other next month, and next year…”

“Mmhmm?” Joseph had an idea where this was going but didn’t want to lead him, just in case.

“…and ten years from now. Just hypothetically,” David stressed the purely theoretical nature of the question.

Joseph played. “Wow, planning our future already?”

“That’s just it. You won’t die, right? You don’t get old?” David put his spoon down in the mostly eaten bowl of soup and pushed it away gently.

Joseph seemed intent on the counter, focused on cleaning. After a moment, he confirmed, “No.”

“But I would just … grow old and die.”

“Like a normal human,” Joseph pointed out.

“Would you ever consider turning me? I mean, assuming we loved each other enough? So we could be together forever?”

Joseph looked up at David, a mix of adoration and sorrow on his face. He set the soiled paper towel aside and sat back down across the counter. “I can’t,” he said.

“But you said you made a vampire before.”

“Yeah.” Joseph finally made eye contact again and took a slow breath. “Okay, first of all, it’s not that I wouldn’t want to. The fact is, we can’t change people at will.” David looked puzzled but curious and said nothing to interrupt. Joseph went on, “We call it Decimus. It’s thought of as something of a curse among my kind. When we try to turn a human, it’s only successful about one out of ten times. It works kind of like it does in the movies; a drained human must drink vampire blood. But ninety percent of the time … they just die.”

David saw something behind Joseph’s eyes. “How many times have you been in love?” he asked.

Sadness swept across Joseph’s features like a thin cloud. “Three. Which is how I know what I feel for you is real.”

David smiled softy but got to the point of the topic. “Have you tried to turn someone you loved?”

Joseph regained his composure. This was something he had dealt with centuries ago. “Yes. My first. His name was Marcus. He was a soldier who fought in the Thirty Years’ War. Do you know it?” David shook his head, and Joseph continued. “It was… well, it was pretty horrible. Over half of Germany died as a result of fighting or starvation. Wars were sort of a common occurrence in Europe in those days.”

Joseph shook himself out of his slight reverie. “Anyway, Marcus and I met and fell in love, and I tried to live as normal a life as I could. It seems surprising how long I was able to hide it from him; eventually he found out, but wasn’t frightened of me.”

David was unconsciously touching his lips as he listened. “That’s surprising because you’re really quite terrifying,” he commented dryly. Joseph stopped his story and looked at David, who had a deadpan expression on his face. Until it broke with a smirk as he waggled a finger at Joseph’s head. “Like in the face area especially. Super scary.”

Joseph smiled. “Quiet, you. Want another ginger ale?”

David shook his head slightly. “Keep going. I’m sorry I interrupted.”

Joseph found he hadn’t minded a bit. “Okay, so, after about six years together, enjoying the new European peace, he asked me to turn him.”

“Did you know about the odds?” David asked.

“The vampire who made me told me, but I didn’t believe him, I guess. I thought love was more powerful than nature. Marcus died in my arms.”

“I’m so sorry,” David sympathized, and reached out a hand, which Joseph took.

“It was centuries ago, but thank you.” Joseph brought David’s fingers to his lips and kissed them.

“That’s why you were with Connor so long?”

“Good memory. Yeah.” Joseph softly caressed David’s hand with his thumb. He could see David was working it out in his head. Problem-solving.

“You said you were in love three times. There’s Marcus, six years, and Connor, a lifetime…”

Joseph sighed. This was the last of it. Their secret spill completed after less than a week. “The third was Robert. We were together for seven years, and he died tragically in 1982.”

“Wow,” David said simply. It was a lot to process on top of everything else.

Joseph didn’t elaborate on Robert’s death. How he had been the victim of a hate crime and beaten to within an inch of his life in the middle of Pan Pacific Park. How, in the middle of a torrential rainstorm, Joseph had been desperate to try to save him and did the only thing he could think of; he tried to turn him. He drank the blood of the man he loved while Robert lay in agony in the cold rain, and then he bit his own wrist to feed him his lifeblood. It hadn’t worked and Joseph had been lonely ever since.

Until a week ago when he walked into a club and ran smack into the man whose beautifully light brown eyes he was staring into right now.

Joseph squeezed David’s hands, and they both said, “I love you,” simultaneously, before cracking up.

The couple made love twice more before David finally fell asleep. He made no move to leave or indicate that he needed to go home, so Joseph lay with him until he was sound asleep, then got up, took a look at emails that had piled up over the weekend, and looked into a couple of potential surprises for David.

Before the sun came up, he crawled back into bed and snuggled up behind his man, who was on his side hugging a pillow. The house was designed to not let any direct sunlight in. All the windows were narrow, the walls were thick, and the glass was heavily UV fortified. But the bedroom was actually built into the hill. It had no windows at all, so there was no cue of daylight to wake David up. The weekend had been so taxing emotionally that he slept until noon.

When he roused, Joseph woke with him. On explaining again that he could indeed be awake in the daytime, as long as he was out of the sun, the new couple showered together, where they had sex again, and then set about planning for the day. Joseph had had groceries delivered in unnecessary quantities, wanting to make sure there was something David would like to eat. They shared a breakfast: blood for one and blueberry oatmeal with coffee for the other.

David checked in with Dana at work and told her everything was as good as it could be, recapped the highlights, and told her he was going to be out of work for a couple of days. She assured him she’d cover, and since production wasn’t ramping up for another week, it was no problem.

The boys retired to the bedroom at 2:00 PM, naked and frisky. They tried a position they hadn’t done yet, starting with a sixty-nine and transitioning to a mutual rimming, then back to simultaneous blowjobs. After they’d cum in each other’s mouths, they snuggled on the bed, David cradling another cup of coffee and Joseph with herbal tea.

“Want to watch a movie?” Joseph asked.

“Sure,” David replied contentedly. “Do we have to go upstairs, or do you have a screening room in this place somewhere?”

Joseph chuckled and grabbed his iPhone from the bedside charger. “Close your eyes.”

David did as he was told, and Joseph opened the app on his phone to control the six-foot television that was embedded into the wall opposite the bed. It was so big that it looked by all appearances like a huge tapestry. The blacks were so black and the pixels so dense, unless David got up right next to it, he wouldn’t be able to tell the surface wasn’t real.

Joseph pulled up a comprehensive library of movies and started one. He skipped the iconic studio logo and said, “Okay. Open sesame.”

David grinned as he opened his eyes, just as STAR WARS appeared on the screen. The accompanying John Williams fanfare filled the room in surround sound. He laughed and clapped his hands in appreciation of the choice. “Jesus, that’s big!”

“That’s what he said,” Joseph quipped. “Want popcorn?”

“Nah, I’m good. This is perfect,” David said, and snuggled up to watch the rebels take on the Empire.

After Luke blew up the Death Star, David rolled onto his stomach. “Can you scratch my back for me? Not like I have an itch, but like long and slow?”

Joseph knew exactly what he was asking for. He had trained with practitioners of Eastern medicine some time ago and was familiar with the relaxing pleasure that could be derived from therapeutic touch. He reached over with one hand and as Luke and Han got their medals (not Chewie, though, those rebel racists) lightly ran his fingers up and down David’s back. Joseph knew the optimum speed for stroking human skin was three centimeters per second, and he was very good at it. Sometimes, he used all his fingers, or just a couple, sometimes with his nails, sometimes with the fingertips.

David moaned softly. “Mmm, that feels so good. I was worried you wouldn’t know how to do this…”

“If there is anything I do that you don’t like, or something you want me to do that I’m not, I want you to tell me, okay?” Joseph whispered.

David turned his head to look up at his new boyfriend. “Okay. You, too.”

“I will.” The movie ended, and they let the brilliant score play while Joseph found a handful of freckles scattered across David’s back. He traced them like a connect-the-dots puzzle. They made no particular shape, but David noticed the change.

“Draw a message and see if I can guess it,” he suggested.

“Mmkay.” Joseph went with the first thing that popped into his head.

David said the letters as they were traced on his back. “I … L … O … V …” He laughed. “I know what this is.” He rolled over and sat up to kiss Joseph. “I love you, too.”

Joseph stroked David’s arms as he settled in next to him. He let his fingers barely trace the hairs on David’s arms, tickling him from his knuckles up to his shoulders.

“Here’s a question,” Joseph began casually. “If you could, would you rather go on a road trip to Santa Fe in an RV or visit Paris?”

“Ooh, boy, those both sound fun for different reasons. I’m an adventurer, so road trips are always fun. But I have always wanted to see Paris. Have you ever been?”

Joseph chuckled lightly. “I used to live there. I’ve been most places in the world. I also love exploring,” he shared.

“We should go someday,” David said dreamily, snuggling up against Joseph’s toned, warm body.

“I was hoping you’d say that. We have reservations for dinner tomorrow night at the Eiffel Tower.”

David blinked a couple of times, then sat up. “What?”

“Dinner. Tomorrow.” Joseph said it as if it were the most regular thing in the world.

David was confused. “At a French restaurant?”

“Oh, yes. Very French.” Joseph enjoyed watching David take this mental journey.

“… Called the Eiffel Tower?”

“Actually, the restaurant is called the Jules Verne,” he corrected. “It’s just in the Eiffel Tower.”

David looked away from Joseph as he reviewed the last several sentences of the conversation, then made quizzical eye contact again. “I’m sorry, what?”

Joseph didn’t want to torture the boy. He gently placed his hands on both sides of David’s face and spoke slowly. “We are flying to Paris tomorrow for dinner. I made us reservations at Le Jules Verne, which is a restaurant in the Eiffel Tower.” He couldn’t help but smirk. This was romantic as hell.

“There’s a restaurant in the Eiffel Tower?”

“Two of them,” said Joseph. “Plus a champagne bar on the third floor.”

David squinted his eyes, scrutinizing the other man. “Are you showing off to me?”

Joseph’s smirk turned into a full grin. “A little. You like it?”

David returned the grin. “A little.” Then the realization of the news hit him and he squealed. “Oh my God, we’re going to Paris!” He bounced a little on the bed and straddled Joseph’s legs, kissing him passionately.

“I’m glad you’re excited,” Joseph smiled when they parted. “Do you have a passport?”

After ordering delivery for dinner and then fucking, showering, and fucking again, they arrived at the Burbank airport after midnight. Their Lyft swung by David’s apartment so he could pick up essentials, including his passport and some nice clothes. Joseph had offered to take him shopping on the Champs-Elysées, but David demurred while promising that they could do that on the next trip when Joseph asked.

The plane was a private Gulfstream G450, and as they boarded, David could barely contain his amazement. The main cabin split into three separate living areas with a dozen seats, including a full-size couch. There was a credenza, two bathrooms, and a shower. Several of the chairs reclined flat, and the couch pulled out into a bed. Panoramic windows featured UV-blocking materials and blackout shades.

Joseph explained that the plane technically belonged to the company. He wrestled with the ostentatiousness of it over the years, but it had been Rafaél who insisted on purchasing it about fifteen years ago since Joseph couldn’t very well fly commercial with his special environmental and dietary needs.

David had barely flown anywhere in his life, and when he had, it had been the cheapest ticket possible. He had never traveled pre-9/11, so the idea of just driving up to the plane right on the tarmac and getting in without having to go through the indignity of a TSA screening, or throw away his coffee or a shampoo bottle that was bigger than three ounces…

“This is incredible. Thank you,” he said as they cuddled on two plush seats, and the jet took off into the dark sky.

“This is just the plane ride,” Joseph said, gazing lovingly into David’s eyes. “You’re going to love Paris.”

“You know, I already said I love you. You don’t need to impress me,” David teased.

“Eh, we’ll see,” Joseph replied. The jet leveled off after a steep initial climb. It was still rising at a shallow angle and would until they reached their cruising altitude of forty-one thousand feet.

The couple were lost in each other’s eyes when Joseph absently said, “You know, in Hebrew, David means beloved.”

David got a bemused look on his face. “I did … not know that.”

“Mmhmm. It’s a good name,” Joseph continued. “David was the second and greatest of the kings of Israel, ruling in the tenth century BCE.”

“You’re going to tell me you met him, right?” David teased.

“I’m not that old!” Joseph said, giving David a playful poke. “Several stories about him are told in the Old Testament, including his defeat of Goliath. According to the New Testament, Jesus was descended from King David.”

“I did know about Goliath, actually,” David said, laying his head on Joseph’s shoulder. “I went to Sunday school for a hot second before I rebelled.”

“A wise man I once knew once said, ‘Give your children religion because it will give them something to rebel against other than their parents.’ What’s funny is that he was a minister.” Joseph chuckled at the memory.

“Well, joke’s on my parents, I rebelled against them, too.”

Joseph turned his head towards David’s. “You know, I really respect that about you. It’s hard for children to grow past their parents’ beliefs sometimes.”

“Eh,” David muttered as his only explanation. After a moment, he asked, “What does Joseph mean?”

“Oh, it’s dumb,” he replied. “Another bible name, but this was just a guy with a colorful jacket.”

David poked him in the ribs. “But he got a musical written about his life.”

“Actually, so did King David, written by Alan Menkin and Tim Rice of all people,” Joseph pointed out.

“The Lion King guys?” David said, surprised he’d never heard of it.

“Well, Rice was Lion King, Menken was Little Mermaid.” Joseph tilted his head up, thinking. “I think they might have worked together onAladdin?”

“Crazy,” David said. “I have to see it now.”

Joseph laughed. “No, you really don’t. King David, the musical lasted something like nine performances.”

“Oh.”

“The cast album isn’t bad, if I remember. They cut a lot of the boring stuff.”

David didn’t bother to reply. He felt no need to fill quiet moments with chatter, and was perfectly content to just be here, flying across the country, and soon the Atlantic Ocean with this man, this vampire, with whom he’d impossibly fallen in love. One thing did cross his mind, however. “Are there flight attendants on the plane?”

Joseph shook his head. “No, you can grab anything you want, the galley is pretty well stocked.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Besides, there’s things I want to do to you on this aircraft that I don’t want anyone to see…”

They made love and slept on the flight, alternatingly. Upon their arrival at Charles De Gaul airport in Paris, the pair was reasonably well-rested and had made use of the shower and bathroom facilities to freshen up for dinner. The jet taxied for several minutes into a hanger since it was still daylight. They transferred into a private SUV fitted with darkly tinted windows which appeared almost black looking in, but David found he was able to see out through them. He observed a bit of the French countryside which gave way to the populated outskirts of Paris.

David was struck by something almost immediately. “Hey, we’re driving on the right side.”

“Yeah?” Joseph replied. The So? was implied.

“I thought they all drove on the other side of the road in Europe,” David said quizzically.

“Oh, that’s just England, and the countries they colonized. India, Australia, parts of Africa…” He furrowed his brow. “And Japan, oddly enough, but I can’t explain that one.”

“Huh. Well, that’s cool,” David enthused. “Points for France!”

By the time they arrived at the Eiffel Tower, the sun had set, and the edifice was lit up like a glittering Christmas tree, twinkling in the middle of the city. David opted for the romance of climbing the wrought iron stairs to the second floor and the fancier of the two restaurants. Joseph warned David that it meant a six-hundred-step climb, but he insisted, saying no one told stories of taking an elevator to the top of anything. Unlike American buildings where the first floor was at ground level, the first floor of the Eiffel Tower was itself a climb of three hundred stairs and one hundred eighty-seven feet, with the second floor being twice as high.

When they reached the second level, they were shown to their table overlooking Le Champ du Mars, a huge green park space spreading out before them, the whole of Paris laid out beyond. David downed his complimentary water immediately, having exerted himself more than his extra-human companion.

Dinner was exquisite. The lovers were served a seven-course meal with different wine pairings for each menu item. Joseph sipped on the wines and poked around his plate so it would at least appear that he ate. He would smell a forkful of lamb or of lobster to experience each ingredient as much as he could, but then set it back down. After the dessert of warm chocolate soufflé and espresso, the men decided to go to the top of the tower, as long as they were there. They laughed together when they were told that they had to take the elevator, much to the confusion of the ma?tre d’.

After a spectacular ride in the glass-walled elevator, they emerged on the third level to see Paris laid out below them. The noise of the city barely reached up here, and Joseph could hear David’s heart racing.

“Are you scared of heights?” he asked, wrapping David in his arms as they looked across the Seine River at the Arc de Triomphe a mile away.

“I have a healthy fear of falling to my death from a great height,” David replied jovially, though he could not tear his eyes from the view.

Joseph noticed and felt a welling of affection for this man. Fear didn’t dissuade him from experiencing something new. “When it was built, the tower was the highest thing in the world,” he said absently. He wasn’t showing off his knowledge or anything, just sharing a thing. If he’d been showing off, he would have said he helped finance the building that would replace it, the Chrysler Building in New York.

“We are two hundred and seventy-six meters up in the sky.” David turned his head and gave Joseph a kiss. “That kiss was two hundred and seventy-eight meters high,” he grinned.

“You’re a nerd, and I love you for it,” Joseph sighed. He initiated his own kiss, which lasted longer than the first, and they turned and wrapped their arms around each other.

The kiss lasted several moments, until they heard an old woman say, “Ah, le jeune amour!” Young love!

If she only knew how not young one of us is, thought Joseph, but replied in French, “J’espère seulement que nous sommes si amoureux quand nous avons votre age, ma chérie.” I only hope we are so in love when we are your age, my darling.

The old woman giggled, waved a gloved hand at them, and walked away blushing. David pulled Joseph’s chin toward him. Looking into his eyes with a charmed smile, he only shook his head with amazement.

“Well, I told you I lived in France,” Joseph said. “Say, there’s a champagne bar up here. We could share a toast as we look over the city, if you think you have room for a glass.”

“I will make room, yes, please,” David replied enthusiastically. He’d already had more food and alcohol this evening than any time since college, but the wine was giving him the perfect buzz and made him especially susceptible to romantic suggestions.

They made their way to the opposite side of the platform where large red letters announced the champagne bar. “Would you like white or rosé, boyfriend?” Joseph inquired with a wink.

“Uh, pink champagne on top of the Eiffel Tower? Yeah, I think I am exactly that much gay,” David laughed, and Joseph went to retrieve a glass for each of them. When he returned, David was looking out over downtown Paris, lost in the wonder that they were even here and together. The champagne flutes were illuminated so that the bubbles glowed and danced in the liquid. They clinked glasses and looked into each other’s eyes as they sipped. The effervescence tickled David’s nose and made him giggle. They turned back to the city view and stood arm in arm as the rest of the world momentarily fell away. The cool night breeze ruffled their hair and made David pull Joseph closer into a sideways embrace. They leaned their heads together. “This is amazing,” David said quietly. “Thank you.”

“Thank you for sharing it with me,” Joseph replied. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been this happy. I hope it’s the first of many amazing dates.”

David replied simply by giving his new love a squeeze. Joseph gave two squeezes in response.

The flight home was similar to the flight to France, though it involved more sleeping. Both men were exhausted from the trip, the food, the stair climbing. Before they retired, David had insisted on seeing if all those stairs had made Joseph’s ass look any different. Once pants and underwear had been removed, he had determined a closer inspection was warranted: first by tongue, then by finger, and finally by his hard tool.

After, Joseph ate dinner from a supply of blood he’d brought aboard while David looked on. David wanted to show that he was comfortable with it, even if he wasn’t totally and completely comfortable with it. Joseph could tell he was making an effort and was grateful for it.

They flew with the direction of the sun on the way home, so it was dark the entire way. The flight to France had taken nearly twenty-one hours including the time zone change, but they arrived in LA only three hours after they left Paris. They were back in their plush chairs as they touched down. They each took their phones off airplane mode and waited for them to connect to the cell networks.

“I’m not at all ashamed to say I don’t even know what day it is,” David said, laughing. “Time zones mess me up.” His phone buzzed with a text from Dana, checking in. He tapped into the messaging app to reply.

Joseph’s phone began a steady series of buzzes as dozens of missed texts, calls, and emails came flooding in.

“Babe, do you get messed up by time zones?” David asked, still typing his reply to Dana. “Like, do you have some sort of innate sense of where the sun is, or do you just travel enough to—”

“Oh, fuck,” Joseph said.

David looked over. Joseph was poring through messages on his phone. On any other person, David might have described his expression as vexed, but he knew Joseph well enough to know it was downright panic.

Joseph unbuckled his seatbelt and rose as the jet taxied to a stop near a waiting SUV. David followed suit, unsure if physical closeness was appropriate for the moment. “Joseph? What’s wrong?”

Joseph was pacing like a trapped tiger, waiting for the plane to stop. He paused suddenly and looked at David. It was as if he’d completely forgotten he was on the airplane. He went to him and took his face gently in his hands to reassure him. “David, I’m so sorry. I have to go. It’s an emergency. I’ll have the pilot call you another ride to take you to the house so you can get your car.”

David grew instantly concerned. “You’re not going home? It’ll be morning in a couple of hours.” He held up his phone, showing the current time.

“I’ll be okay,” Joseph assured him as the jet slowed to a stop. Joseph stooped to look out the window and make sure they were near the car. Then, without even a kiss goodbye, he went to the door and opened it himself, leaping down the steps to the runway and sprinting to the SUV, circling his finger in the air to signify that they needed to leave immediately.

He didn’t see David looking after him as the vehicle sped away. Joseph’s attention was on his phone as he took in the information that was sent to him from a dozen different sources.

Those sources were telling him that approximately eight hours ago, just after sunset, the Tetractys Medical Research building had been destroyed. Initial reports suggested a bomb. A handful of people were inside the building after hours.

One of them was Rafaél.