Immortality Is the Suck (15 page)

muscles flexing from biceps to shoulder and across his back.
God, he's

beautiful.

I couldn't stand it anymore and I went into the kitchen and got myself a

beer. In the refrigerator, the remaining container of blood peeked out from

beneath the romaine, and I started thinking about it. About blood, and a

distributor named Ozone, and Freeway.

About the manner of Freeway's death. And mine.

According to the clock on Peter's microwave, it was two p.m. The sun

directly overhead in a cloudless sky intense enough to heat up Peter's shaded

and air-conditioned apartment. The same bright sky would hang over the Los

Immortality is the Suck

97

Angeles morgue, of course. I sat down on the kitchen chair and racked my

memory for the layout of the morgue and what a reanimated corpse might do if

he found himself trapped there during daylight hours.

Assuming, of course, that I wasn't dreaming all of this. I nursed my beer

and set that very real possibility aside for the moment and considered all of the

facts that had been presented.

It was a lot like when I was seventeen and I sat on the roof of my father's

trailer and contemplated a series of facts leading to an obvious conclusion.

1) Every time Jackie Spence, the quarterback on our team, leaned over in

the locker room I popped a boner.

2) Despite being first string on that team, I hadn't done anything with a

girl but get blown.

3) I didn't WANT to do anything with a girl, though I wouldn't have minded

getting blown by Jackie Spence.

4) And need we even mention what I fantasized about while jerking off?

Truthfully, the current series of facts was easier for me to swallow.

1) I'd bled to death in a warehouse. Peter had seen me bleed to death.

2) I'd woken in a morgue.

3) I craved blood.

4) I seemed able to perform athletically far beyond my previous

capabilities.

5) I caught on fire in the sunlight and then I
healed
at breathtaking speed.

98

A. M. Riley

We'd laughed about it, Peter and I, but what else do you do when your

friend's a vampire? It was a fucking cliché, is what it was.
Jeeves, bring me my

cape
. Shit.

Now, I don't want you to think I'm saying that figuring out I'm queer was

like discovering I'm the Evil Dead. Damn, I can imagine the letters already.

From the politically correct
and
the religious right. Of course, if you're the

religious right and you're reading this story, I have to wonder.

But I digress, as they say.

So, assuming I'm dead, but not dead. Assuming Freeway was dead, but

not dead, same as me. He and I had some unfinished business to discuss and

he might be, for all I know, naked and confused and running amok in a

building full of Los Angeles PD officials.

Fuck and fuck. If Freeway was still up and moving, I needed to talk to him

before the LAPD got their hands on him. There were
things
that Freeway and I

shared. Things he might believe were official and on the books but which

weren't, exactly.

And then there was the blood. I seemed to be able to cruise for about

twenty-four hours on one quart. Of course, if it were anything like food, I

should factor in unusual activity, or excessive strain.

That gave me about a day to track down a source.

I went out to the dining area and perused the files Stan had left. Noting

every address and location on every sheet. Even the dead, because that seemed

not a given of late. Then I used the prepaid cell again and called another

number from memory.

“Yeah?” The connection was choppy and full of wind. He was probably on

his bike.

“It's Adam.”

“
El Demonio
!” Albert cried cheerily.
The Fiend
was Albert's pet name for

me. Fuck knew why.

Immortality is the Suck

99

“Albert, I need a ride.”

A curse. Albert had a distinctive accent. A little Swiss, a lot Portuguese.

His curses were almost sexy. “You've got shit timing, 'mano.”

Sunset was around six p.m. of late. “At seven p.m. In front of the fish

place at the pier.”

Another curse. Then, “Got it.” He disconnected.

I spent the next couple of hours taking notes from the murder book in tiny

writing in my own little code that I kept on a folded-up paper in my wallet.

By the time Peter woke up, it was late afternoon and I had a plan.

* * * * *

This could have had something to do with the fact that I had my face in

his crotch, where I was nuzzling and snorting like a big pig after truffles. His

cock had been waking up for about five minutes and then I knew his head had

woken because he muttered and shifted, spreading his legs wider, his hand

landing on the back of my head, heavy and demanding.

I was happy to oblige.

I don't give head, generally, when I'm out cruising random tricks. Mostly

because I don't
have
to and I'm a selfish prick. But Peter's cock was made for

my mouth. Thick and warm and somehow singularly Peter. Its length pulsed

against my tongue. I swallowed convulsively around the head and he made a

helpless noise. God, I loved making him do that.

I could feel the muscles in his thighs tighten against my ears, his fingers

burying themselves in my hair. I sucked and swallowed and moved my head up

and down, letting the head bump against the soft palate at the back of my

throat a few times until he said my name. High-pitched, anxious. “Adam?” His

balls tight when I touched them and then thick, salty cum at the back of my

throat. I swallowed and swallowed while he shivered and shook, muscles

clenching.

100

A. M. Riley

I let him slide from my lips and rested my chin on his pelvis lightly, so he

still had the warmth of my throat covering him. He smelled good. Spunky and

familiar. I suppose the smell of Peter waking in the morning after sex was the

closest thing to home I could imagine. The fact that, now, I could smell his

blood, slightly tinny and bright and good, I ignored for the moment.

He sighed and his hand softened in my hair, stroking. “God,” he said to

the ceiling.

“Not really,” I said. “But I'll take that as a compliment.”

He petted me and I watched his chest rising and falling. Then his hand

stilled. “I've been thinking,” he said.

“Me too.”

He didn't look down at me, but I felt the mood shift as if someone had

actually tilted the room. I pretended I didn't notice, though, and raised myself

onto my elbows, crawling up his body until my hard prick was nudging his

belly. He raised himself on his elbows, the crucifix tumbling against his golden

chest hair and the muscles over his belly tightening as he lifted his chin and

kissed me.

“Knock knock,” I whispered. The blood in the veins of his neck smelled

different than near his cock. Cleaner, lighter. Maybe because there was more

oxygen in it. Christ, now I was smelling the chemical components of Peter's

blood. I kissed him and said into his ear. “Got wood?”

A dimple appeared in his cheek when he grinned. “You took care of that.”

I kissed the dimple, buried my head in his neck, and said, “Give me a

minute here.”

Poke poke. Slide. I was leaking like a son of a bitch. The little pool I'd

made on Peter's belly was good enough for a comfortable friction and I basically

started a rhythm of frottage that he barely participated in until the end when I

was losing it and he wrapped his arms around me while I gasped into his ear,

and he started saying things. Low and against my hair.

Immortality is the Suck

101

I was too far gone to understand everything he whispered, but I heard him

say “It's okay,” and then I came in long, painfully sweet shudders.

His warmth under me. And even as his breathing slowed, I still held him.

Listening to his breath, feeling his heat. Rubbing my cheek against the back of

his neck, feeling how silky his hair was between my fingers.

“Adam, can't breathe,” he said, before I realized I was clutching him

tightly.

I pushed myself away. “Sorry.”

He rolled over and his expression held caution and concern. “What's

wrong?”

Peter is extremely schooled in the language of Adam body-speak.

“Nothing.”

“Adam…”

“Just leave it.” I stood and grabbed my shorts from where they were flung

over a chair.

When I turned back his gaze was on me, eyes deep blue and serious. “It'll

be dark soon,” he said.

I nodded. I didn't think it was the time to tell him that I could
feel
the sun

setting.

“I need to go in to work,” said Peter.

“I know.” I'm not the clinging sort. Truth is, there's been a few times I've

been aware of Peter holding on a bit longer than necessary, but I've never been

like that. Why? I told you already. I'm a prick. “I'll put on the coffee while you

shower,” I said, turning my back so I didn't have to see him roll off the

mattress and walk out of the room.

I made coffee and sat at the table watching him eat. I followed him back

into the bedroom and sat on the bed, watching him dress. He stood in the light

coming through the bedroom window as he fastened on his clip-on tie, and I

found myself eating up the sight of him. His muscled hands moving over the

102

A. M. Riley

silk. The way his chin tilted up, his eyelashes lowered. The way he flicked at

the corner of his mouth with his thumb as he remembered what to stuff into

his pockets. Clipped the phone onto his belt. The gun into its shoulder holster.

He picked up his shield.

“Thanks, Peter,” I said.

He stilled. The setting sunlight came across the shutters in the windows

and painted a thick golden band of yellowish orange across the golden hairs of

his head, down the tanned line of cheek. His eyelashes were golden, edged with

black, in the light. “I won't be long,” he said. “Just have to sort out a few things

and then I'll come back and we'll deal with everything.”

“Yeah.”

His shirt was crisp and starched and white. If I looked in his closet I'd see

a row of those shirts, all with the cardboard collar holders still in place from

the cleaners. If I walked up to him now and smelled him he'd be starch and

fresh cotton, Irish Spring and Peter. Of course, since he was standing in light

cast through the windows, I'd burst into flames and for some reason that made

him seem distant. Unreal.

So, as soon as he stepped into the shadows I grabbed him and kissed him.

His skin was warm.

He pulled back from my embrace and his eyes were full of questions.

“You smell good,” I explained.

This was not helpful. He watched me warily as he finished getting ready.

“I'll be back in time for Sports Center,” he said. “So, don't tell me the score

when I come in.” It was a command and a question.

“I'll have the beer chilled and the shrimp on the barbie,” I said.

Now he was seriously worried. He smoothed his tie, lips turned down in a

pensive frown, and before he left he stopped in the doorway and stood there

just looking at me. Like he was taking a photograph. Like he didn't want to

forget.

Immortality is the Suck

103

This was all a little too much drama for me. “So, I'll see you,” I said.

“Later.”

He looked like he might say something but then, as always, he kept his

thoughts to himself. “Later,” he said, and closed the door behind himself.

I waited until I heard the Mustang leave the garage. Then I went into the

bedroom and found a small, old duffel on the top shelf. I stuffed the bits of

clothing that were either mine or so old and beat I didn't think Peter would

miss them, into the duffel. Wrapping a couple of T-shirts around the last

carton of blood. Peter had put the Smith & Wesson back exactly where he

always kept it. When I found the extra box of bullets and the wad of money in

the box, though, I stopped and almost reconsidered my plan.

The son of a bitch had left over five hundred dollars rolled up in a rubber

band. It wasn't there the other day so he'd put it there sometime between

tracking me down in Venice and Stan's visit. I can't explain, exactly, why this

pissed me off so badly, but in the end reason prevailed. My plastic had all been

frozen, on account of my death, so I took the money.

I always end up taking the money.

As soon as the sun set, I slung the duffel over my shoulder, locked the

condo door behind myself, and trotted outside. I had plenty of time to get to the