"Every angel is terrifying." Rainer Maria Rilke Part One Coming. A rush. Sudden. It wasn't the mind-blowing orgasm Brian Kinney was hoping for when he'd dragged the trick from the dance floor to the back room, fingers hooked in the waistband of the man's pants, a confident grin on his face. Now, head thrown back against the wall, his groan was almost more agonized than anything else as he felt his heart flail wildly, the cold sweat breaking out on his face feeling almost warm as it misted his even colder skin. Ten minutes, he'd promised Michael, tops. It hadn't been two minutes, but he wasn't waiting any longer. He was starving, almost faint. He reached for the man kneeling in front of him, hands curled around a head of soft brown hair, and dragged him to his feet, turning so the trick was pinned between the wall and his body, facing Brian and sufficiently shielded from view in the dark cavern of the back room. The man panted as Brian pried open the fly of his chinos and shoved a hand inside. Brian wrapped his fingers around the swollen cock and licked at a trace of his own come, caught in the corner of the trick's mouth. He curved one hand around the back of the man's neck while his other started a stroking motion that elicited desperate moans from the trick as Brian pressed even more tightly against his pulsing heat. Brian waited until the trick was close, distracted, not caring about anything besides his impending climax, then he put his lips to the man's ear. "You won't remember any of this," he whispered. "Oh fuck—" the man gasped as Brian closed in, sharp incisors finding the vein throbbing under the sweaty skin of the trick's neck quickly as his hand grasped the man's hair, holding him captive as he punctured just slightly, feeling the twin beads of warm blood become rivulets that ran over his probing tongue. The trick jerked against him as he quickly swallowed mouthfuls of the coppery liquid. His hand on the man's cock kept up its rhythmic motion until the body crushed against the wall under his shuddered and he felt come spilling over his fingers, warm and then curiously cool against his quickly-heating skin. The man sagged against him, moaning softly, and his hand slid limply off Brian's shoulder. Enough. Brian withdrew, feeling a dizzying rush of exhilaration and vitality that made the orgasm a few minutes before pale in comparison. He pressed his lips to the man's juglar, closing the tiny punctures under his mouth, halting the flow of blood, and felt the man teeter on the brink of conciousness. He leaned back to look into the trick's face, lightly slapping his cheek. "Hey," he whispered and the man's eyelids fluttered in response. Brian waited patiently until the eyes focused on his face, full of dazed confusion. "You'll be fine," Brian said. "You'll go back out. You won't remember any of this, and you won't remember me. Do you understand me?" The trick blinked, nodding, looking blank and almost narcotized when Brian stepped back carefully, ready to catch him should he fall over. The man stayed upright. Good. Practice made perfect, Brian thought as he gave the man's shoulder an almost affectionate slap before he turned and walked back. Back toward the throbbing bass of the music, the living pulse of Babylon, beckoning him from behind the curtain of link chains. Several hundred years of practice. Amazing – it still felt new every time.
*******
"Well that was quick," Michael said when he caught sight of Brian rushing out the front door of Babylon and down the steps to join the small group assembled on the sidewalk. "Not when you've had as much practice as he's had," Ted cut in, not realizing the snide comment echoed Brian's own thoughts, but in ways Ted never imagined or suspected. "I got bored," Brian said curtly. Emmett chirped some remark about the tedium of getting ones' dick sucked, but Brian was only half listening as he tossed his jacket into the open window of the jeep and reached for the keys. Michael said something about the trick looking pretty hot to him. "Well anybody'd look hot to you," Brian shot back. If Michael knew, he thought. If any of them knew. Tedious – never, not anticipating the reward. An almost grueling delay – often. Sex was never the main event for Brian, never the thing he actually sought out and ultimately got every time, the hot metallic gush of reviving blood taken from some nameless individual. It was what Brian lived and subsisted on. Sex was the quickest and easiest way, a means to get what he actually needed that raised no suspicions and was pleasurable besides. Nobody questioned his motives or realized what he was in fact doing when his hands and mouth caused the recipient of their ministrations to buck against him, moaning and gasping, their hands clutching desperately until their eyes rolled shut, even when he did it in full view of the entire back room. And sometimes that was necessary, when he was weakened, or too ravenous to bother taking them back to the seclusion of the loft. He'd learned long ago that it was better not to drain them, to keep them alive and not frighten the populace of entire cities with a litter of young male bodies void of blood, raising suspicions and increasingly uncomfortable questions that ultimately forced him to flee to another place, leaving everything behind. But that also meant feeding more frequently, relying on smaller quantities to sustain him, provided by an endless procession of men. Always young men, always healthy and strong enough to survive an attack they never remembered afterwards. It meant learning to exist for an incredible length of time with a permanent sense of never enough, always slightly hungry, even now. The vague feeling of emptiness kept his senses acutely sharp though, always poised for alarm even when he was distracted, like those of a sleeping cat. It was behind him – something. Like a flash of warm sunlight in the small of his back, drawing closer, a vital pulse almost like being touched there by a living being, yet not. Startled, his eyes swerved to Michael's face, saw the expression it wore, and he turned to follow his friend's gaze to its source, there, standing under the yellow glow of the streetlight. Brian stared, his attention completely focused on the young blond man, taking in everything at once; the luminous glow of pale skin, the clear and exuberant vitality that seemed to emanate from the body hidden under shapeless clothing. The kid seemed to feel his riveted stare; blue eyes slid to Brian's face, fixed there and gazed back, seemingly calm. Brian smiled, nostrils flaring slightly, knowing better; even from this distance his acute sense of smell pulled in the kid's clean scent and he felt the taste of inexperience and hopeful apprehension settle on his tongue. His smile widened slightly as he began to make his way over to the young man, everything else forgotten. Brian felt the quick charge of current he realized came from the kid's heart skipping a beat when he realized Brian was closing in on him and that, yes, this was really happening and yes, it was really he who had captured the beautiful and enigmatic stranger's interest. He tensed, drawing himself up slightly as Brian stepped up close enough to touch. "How's it going?" Brian said. "Had a busy night?"