The trouble with hairy, p.30
The Trouble With Hairy, page 30
part #2 of West Hollywood Vampires Series
“Spare us the poetry, please,” Ty said with good nature. “Do I get the details?”
“My dear,” Becky said, “I’m not sure I’ve got the details!” She rolled over and buried her face in the couch. “But he’s wonderful. Wonderful!” she mumbled.
Sensing that the coroner would be good for absolutely nothing for most of the rest of the day, Ty tactfully withdrew and headed directly for Sara’s desk, eager to share the juicy gossip that their boss had finally found herself a beau.
Becky lay, sunken in reverie, until the telephone rang, jarring her out of anticipating what tonight would bring!
“O’Brien,” she practically purred into the phone.
“Driscoll,” Chris mimicked in reply. “My! Don’t we sound like the cat that ate the whipped cream.”
Suddenly uncomfortable about sharing Grant with Chris, Becky made the snap decision to remain quiet about her new boyfriend. After all, if it continued along the lines it was going, there would be plenty of opportunity later. Better not to jinx it by saying anything now. By the same token, Grant would eventually have to meet her friends — something which Becky was anxious to delay for as long as possible or at least until she could assure herself that the relationship was secure enough to withstand the onslaught of both Burman and Troy. And as for how she would explain Louis to Grant…
Something started to gnaw at the back of her mind. Louis… Something about Louis and Grant. What was it? Something weird, but familiar… Before she could fully focus on the train of thought and follow it through, Chris interrupted and the small frisson of discomfort vanished.
“You’ll be here at seven, right?” Chris asked.
“Huh?”
“Tonight,” Chris said. “The movers are coming.”
“Oh damn,” Becky said.
“You forgot?” A slight hint of petulance had crept into Chris’ voice. Of late, he could be almost as irritable as Pamela. Although he’d grown kinder and warmer than usual toward Becky after her talk with Troy, he seemed to be quick to show pique with almost everyone else. Troy was usually the one to suffer the brunt of Chris’ swiftly changing moods, Becky had noticed; she seemed to be the only one who was truly immune. She quickly weighed the thought of missing a date with Grant against having to live with Chris being piqued for the next several weeks and took the course of least resistance.
“No,” she told him, reluctantly. “Just something else on my mind.”
“Good,” he said, all sweetness and light once again, “I’m going to crawl into bed, close the lid and hope it blocks Troy’s shenanigans so I can get some sleep.”
“Ever think about having it soundproofed?”
“It’s an idea,” Chris chuckled. “See you at seven,” he added and rang off.
Becky slapped herself in the head, chastising herself for forgetting, in the throes of her budding romance, that she’d promised to help her two friends move. Troy had kept her up to date on the details during his last exam. Impatient as always, Chris had impulsively showed up at the new apartment, waving another check and insisting that the prior resident move out a week and a half early. The manager had protested, but with a flurry of combined check writing and the forcefulness of his personality, Chris had cowed both the manager and the current occupant. Becky could only guess what it had cost him, as Troy had no concept of money, but the old lady had quickly found new lodgings and the manager was prevailed upon to cease his protestations. And tonight, unfortunately, was moving day.
With a sigh of disappointment, she picked up the telephone and dialed Grant’s number.
Oh well, she thought, rallying all her defense mechanisms. He probably got everything he wanted from me last night anyway. Probably never wants to see me again. Probably thinks I’m some cheap, fat hussy…
“Becky?” Grant answered the telephone, eagerly.
“Hi,” she said shyly.
“Last night…” he began, “Last night was just…well… Wow!”
Becky felt a little shiver of pleasure starting at the base of her spine and moving up to the top of her head.
“Yeah,” she sighed with heartfelt contentment.
“Maybe we could skip dinner tonight?” he suggested tentatively. “But not dessert,” he hastened to add.
“Grant,” she began, having no idea of how she was going to get out of seeing him tonight without hurting his feelings.
“Here it comes,” he said. Becky could hear the sorrow in his voice and could picture his face, sunken in dejection. “We went too fast. You don’t want to see me again.”
“Are you crazy?” she demanded. “Last night was one of the most fabulous nights I’ve ever spent!”
“Really?” He was like a puppy dog, she thought, or like a little boy on Christmas day.
“Really,” she said frankly. “But tonight,” she interrupted herself to sigh with disappointment. “Tonight I promised to help a friend move. I’m sorry. I completely forgot.”
“Can’t you call her and tell her you’re sick?” Grant begged.
“No,” Becky said, without thinking. “He’d kill me.”
The line was silent for a second. “He?”
Oh, shit, O’Brien, she thought. Now you’ve done it!
“He’s my oldest friend from med school. Chris.”
“Chris,” Grant repeated, without any emotion coloring his voice. “A boyfriend, huh?”
Becky started to giggle. “No way,” she said. “He’s gay.”
“Gay?” Becky was so amused by Grant’s reaction, and so pleased by it, that she completely missed the viciousness with which Grant spat out the word.
“What’s he like?” he asked, studiously casual.
“You’ll meet him eventually, I hope,” Becky told him, mistaking his quickening of interest as slight jealously. “He’s really nice. Kinda strange, but nice.”
“That’s a description?” Guy asked, trying to hide his hunger for information with playful banter.
“Oh don’t worry,” Becky cooed into the telephone. “He’s good looking but not as good looking as someone else I know. Besides,” she added, “I never liked men with pigtails.”
“Bingo,” Guy breathed.
“Huh?” Becky asked. “What’d you say?”
“Uh, I said I gotta go,” Guy covered nicely. “Can we have lunch today?” he asked.
“Sure,” Becky said. “Acapulco at one?”
“Great,” Grant sounded pleased as punch. “I wanna hear more about this Chris guy.” His voice changed to a seductive purr. “Who knows what I’ll do if you make me jealous.”
“In that case,” Becky purred back, “I’ll do my best.”
“See you at one,” Guy said and hung up.
A moment later, the other residents of the Holloway Motel shivered as they heard a long, drawn out howl of triumph.
Becky showed up at the Harper Avenue apartment with five stalwart young studs in shorts and tank tops arriving almost on her heels and claiming to be the movers Troy had engaged. Chris had taken one look at the toned and tanned, fashion-model-pretty young men, and rolled his eyes heavenward. He then announced to all assembled his doubt that anyone who looked like he had just stepped off the cover of an International Male catalogue would know the first thing about how to move furniture.
“Just look at the arms on that blond one,” Troy had said, his eyes slightly glazed. “And the chest on the one in blue shorts!” Troy was like a kid in a candy store, hardly knowing which way to turn, amazed that, with one telephone call, he could supply himself with so much ripe male flesh, ready to do his bidding.
“Put your tongue back in your mouth,” Becky had told him.
“It’s not their strength I’m worried about,” Chris had added archly. “It’s the lawsuits from their agents if God forbid one of them gets a bruise.”
“Yeah,” said Troy dreamily, “it’d be a pity if all that lovely skin got marred.” He turned to flirt with one of the movers, a lean, muscular reddish-haired lad with green eyes and a dark tan which nicely set off the alluring spray of freckles which peeped out of the top of his tank top and spread across his upper back and shoulders.
The freckled boy smiled back, showing brilliantly white teeth and Troy started to swoon dramatically, sagging heavily against Becky’s shoulder.
“My God! Did you see that smile!”
“Caps, Troy,” Becky said brusquely. “The tan’s from a machine. The body’s by Nautilus. The skin’s from a bottle. And he’s been lifted. No wonder he looks so good. Nothing’s real.” The last thing she needed was to hear Troy getting all sexually aroused at a time when she should be experiencing her own sexual arousal with Grant. She shoved him upright. “Jesus Christ! Will you stand up? You’re gonna knock me over!”
“Sorry,” Chris called in apology to the red-haired lad. “He can’t help himself. His life’s goal is to be a sexual E-Ticket Ride.”
The red-haired youth grinned in response and hoisted a rolled oriental carpet onto his broad shoulders with, Chris felt, an unnecessary flexing of muscles.
The moving proceeded apace. With terse suggestions from Chris and dubious encouragement from Troy, who seemed to think the movers would be spellbound by his detailed accounts of the contents of every single box, the van was quickly loaded and, by ten that night, the Harper apartment was deserted. The unloading, however, took slightly longer as Troy had suddenly developed an overwhelming urge to help.
The movers were constantly grabbing him and stopping him from trying to yank a box from the bottom of a pile, totally ignoring the stack above it. The red-haired youth, whose name turned out to be Drew, fortunately, had incredibly swift reflexes and saved Troy from being crushed by falling boxes at least twice.
The first time, Troy seemed dazzled at the attention being lavished on him by the attractive mover. By the second almost-catastrophe, however, the blond boy was back in good form and took the opportunity to swoon into his rescuer’s arms, in his best southern belle manner. Becky shook her head in mild disgust as, under the concerned ministrations of Drew, Troy “came to” with coyly admiring comments about the physique, bravery and, undoubtedly, exceptional carnal skills of his Knight in Shining Tank Top.
“Jesus,” Becky said, “Doesn’t he know that attacks of The Vapors went out with high button shoes?”
“You see the box marked SHOES?” Chris asked, pointing.
“You’re kidding.”
“Live long enough,” the vampire told her with a sigh of resignation, “and almost everything comes back into style.”
It was just before two in the morning by the time the van had been unloaded and the Crescent Heights apartment was brimming full of boxes, cartons and crates. It resembled, Chris told Becky, nothing so much as a Nineteenth Century Boston dockyard.
Troy had courteously invited the five movers to spend the rest of the night and graciously offered to share his bed if any of them had the least objection to sleeping on the couch. All but Drew had declined with equivalent grace, one pleading fatigue, one with the excuse of a lover waiting at home and two having made plans to check out the after hours parade of hopefuls, who had not managed to score prior to last call, in front of the Rage. Even so, Troy managed to get two telephone numbers and a promise to hook up at some point in the future.
Becky couldn’t help commenting on Chris’ tolerance, especially considering how bitchy he’d been, on and off, throughout the evening.
“Doesn’t bother me,” he’d told her, offhandedly. “After all, he does it for my benefit.” Then his expression darkened. “But, heaven help him if he’s had them put any of the kitchen boxes in the bedroom!” He looked at her critically. “You, on the other hand,” he added, “are not your usual jolly self.”
“There are things I’d rather be doing at two o’clock in the morning,” Becky snapped back. “I do have a life, you know!”
She stalked off to the bathroom while Chris, surprised at her outburst, stroked his chin thoughtfully.
By the time she finished in the bathroom, the four movers had left and Becky was able to watch, amazed, as Troy’s consummate seduction of Drew continued. The young man seemed captivated by the little blond boy and, quite frankly, in the back of her mind, Becky was hoping to pick up some pointers.
Drew was prevailed upon to remain in the kitchen of the Crescent Heights apartment, ostensibly for coffee. While Troy was rushing from the master bedroom — he had indeed packed the coffee maker in with some of Chris’ underwear — toward the kitchen, Becky stopped him.
“What about Chris?” she whispered, sternly. “Doesn’t this guy know the two of you are lovers?”
“I told him we had an open relationship,” Troy whispered back.
“And he believed you?” Becky asked, outraged.
“My dear!” Troy said, with a defiantly flippant toss of his curls. “What’d you expect? This is West Hollywood!” He trotted off into the kitchen with the coffee maker.
Chris and Becky then started to unpack in the living room. Despite Chris’ assertions that he was undisturbed by the ongoing seduction in the kitchen, Becky couldn’t help notice the occasional glances he shot toward the closed kitchen door.
Within half an hour, Troy and Drew, now both shirtless, meandered out of the kitchen toward the bedroom. Drew grinned uncertainly at Chris as they passed and Chris responded with a smile and one of his courtly little bows. As the red head vanished into the bedroom, Troy stopped in the doorway and motioned for Chris to come closer.
“Give me fifteen minutes,” Becky overheard Troy whisper and then, he too, vanished and Chris came back over to resume unpacking. Becky’s puzzlement grew when, exactly a quarter of an hour later, Troy reappeared in the doorway, wearing only a pair of red briefs with small blue polka dots.
“All yours, hon,” he said as he came out into the living room.
Chris politely excused himself and, kissed Troy once, lingeringly on the lips before walking off toward the bedroom.
“What the hell is going on with you two?” Becky demanded, as soon as Chris had vanished.
Troy shrugged. “It’s almost three in the morning. Burger King is out of the question.”
“You mean…?” Becky’s eyes widened. It had never occurred to her that, in the flurry of the move, Chris must have forgotten to eat — again. She had certainly never realized that the beautiful red head was to be the main course.
“You can’t just…” she began and stopped, realizing that, of course, the two reprobates just had. She marched toward the bedroom door.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Troy asked her, suspiciously.
“To watch,” Becky told him.
“You’re kidding,” Troy said, feigning shock. “I never took you for a voyeur.”
“Look, Troy,” said Becky, “I’m a doctor, remember? I’m curious as hell as to how he does it. If you two can pull people in off the street, I can sure as hell watch what he does with them.”
“It’s your neck,” Troy told her with a shrug and a wicked grin.
Becky dismissed him with a brief gesture and quietly opened the bedroom door and slid inside.
She stood in the doorway, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of the bedroom.
“Just stand there and keep quiet,” Chris murmured from the dimness.
Becky looked over in the direction of Chris’ voice and gasped. A comforter had been thrown across the top of the crate housing the guest bed. Drew, magnificently nude, lay stretched across the top, his body gleaming with sweat like alabaster in the pale moonlight. Slowly, as Becky watched, Chris lowered his mouth to the hollow of the mesmerized youth’s throat. With a sigh of pleasure, Drew arched his back slightly, pushing the taut flesh of his throat against Chris’ closed mouth.
Becky watched in fascination as Chris slowly licked at the boy’s throat, savoring the effect he was producing in Drew’s prostrate body. She found the scene to be incredibly sensuous and felt a rise of heat flush her own chest and throat and briefly wondered whether Chris could sense her arousal. I can’t believe I’m watching this, she thought, guiltily. First, I’m a Peeping Tom. Next, it’ll be a black raincoat and a matinee at the Pink Pussycat Theater!
Firmly, forcefully, she thrust all puerile thoughts aside, calling on her medical training to allow her to watch the progression of events with professional detachment. It wasn’t easy.
Her attention was caught and held as Chris shifted his position slightly and, with a sigh, slowly sank his teeth into the side of Drew’s neck. His aim, Becky thought, with as much clinical detachment as she could muster, was remarkably true; he’d been able to hit the jugular with the first try. It must be instinct, she considered. God forbid he pierced the carotid artery by mistake; there would be one hell of a mess to clean up.
She craned her neck forward to get a better view, mindful of Chris’ command not to move. She had to keep reminding herself that it was the mechanics of the situation that fascinated her and not the eroticism of the act itself. But, the look of pure bliss on Drew’s face and his accompanying sighs of pleasure and the long, slow thrusts of his hips made her concentration difficult. The intimacy of the scene made her feel vaguely dirty, as if she were a sexual voyeur which, she supposed after a moment’s thought, was exactly what she was.
How does he do it? she forced herself to wonder. Unless the fangs are hollow, like a snake’s, there’s no way he can take much. But as she watched Chris’ throat moving as he swallowed Drew’s blood, she was forced to reconsider; obviously the hollow fang theory was out of the question.
Five minutes passed while the coroner watched in spellbound silence. Finally, with no warning, Drew’s hips bucked violently and, to Becky’s amazement, he gasped loudly and shot a stream of semen into the air. Chris removed his mouth from where it was buried in the boy’s throat and smiled a lazy, satisfied smile.
“That was very good,” he said contentedly.
“For both of you, I’m sure,” came Becky’s dry riposte.
Chris chuckled as he rose and straightened his clothing. He checked Drew’s throat when he’d been bitten and, with a small grunt of satisfaction, left the unconscious youth lying on top of the casket and moved to Becky’s side.
