The Obscurati (2 page)

“F
ATHER
J
OHANNES
, is it wrong to wish for the death of another vampire?”

“Hamlet again?” he asked.

“Ja, Vater. Maybe I could just cause some pain.”

“Don’t forget to pray, Mårten.”

I
AM
over a hundred years old, but I lived only twenty years as a human. I was made vampire in 1920.

My constant companion for most of those years has been Oberon. He is everything I’m not. In person, he is the reserved one, and drop-dead gorgeous with long, black hair.

I’m a short, scrappy blond who was born poor and would just as soon fight you as kiss you. No offense. It is just the way I was put together.

Oberon is friendly and quiet. He is so reserved that it makes him seem more mysterious.

People are drawn to him, especially the ladies. They think it is such a waste that he is gay. When he smiles, it stops me dead in my tracks. I’m already dead, being a vampire and all, but Oberon’s smile makes my knees wobble. If I were jealous, I’d be in trouble. Most people who meet Oberon want to rip his clothes off and have his babies, both women and gay men. I try to explain that if there are any babies made, the babies will be mine. I just get ignored.

It’s just a good thing I don’t get jealous. In fact, I like it that we are so open. Oberon needs more sex than I do. He can feed his needs with other men, and it leaves me more time to train as a wicked vampire fighter.

I didn’t grow up to be so permissive, and it sometimes makes me worry. Somehow our arrangement works. Oberon needs so much sex that my ass would always feel like ground hamburger.

Vampires can be territorial, but Oberon and I make an open relationship defy the odds. He knows where home is, and his love has never wandered as much as a millimeter.

“Don’t worry about Hamlet,” Oberon said. “You could take almost any vamp or human on the planet. You just have some kind of blockage when it comes to Hamlet.”

“You’re saying I’m mental, then?” I asked him, brushing grass and dirt off my pants.

“I’m saying you’ve learned a lot about fighting.”

“Oooo rah,” I whispered.

“I love you, even if you can’t beat the sissy queen.”

“Whatever.”

We live in Bavaria, the southern part of Germany. We are on a huge estate owned by a vampire who is over a thousand years old but looks like he is in his twenties.

Menz was my mentor a hundred years ago. He rescued me after my Maker abandoned me in a cave, and he taught me how to survive as a vampire without harming humans or getting noticed by the authorities.

We take care of our own. If you are a vampire anywhere around Menz’s estate and you start killing people or scaring children, we will make sure you stop your offensive behavior. Vampire justice is quick and permanent, and it usually involves fire. Burn a vampire or cut off its head—heads won’t grow back, and a fire doesn’t just leave marks, it leaves ashes. Snap and crackle and
poof
.

If we don’t take care of our part of Germany, the European vampire council or the vampire queen will take care of us. One way or another, rogue vampires don’t last. We police our part of the world.

M
ENZ
keeps between forty and fifty humans around. They are mostly gay men in their twenties. He pays their tuition at college, and all he expects in return is blood. Sometimes he gets sex too, but it is completely optional. The main reason for the humans is blood. We even have a few straight donors, and their blood is just as tasty.

Human blood donors are always volunteers. If one doesn’t want to be a donor on a particular day, no more questions. We respect their wishes. All five vampires at the estate keep blood donor diaries to make sure we rotate through the staff.

No single human is a donor more than once or twice a week. That means it takes seven humans per vampire. Round up to eight to account for illness and vacation. I know all this because I was a math major in college. We need forty humans to keep five vampires fed, and we always have that many at a minimum. There are usually more.

It isn’t as easy as it looks to be a vampire.

Our blood diary used to be on paper, and it took almost forever to wade through the lists and diaries. Five vampires go through a lot of blood. Nowadays, thanks to one of the donors, we have everyone on a spreadsheet. I get from “I’m hungry” to the name of a donor in just a matter of seconds, thanks to the computer. And to think we used to write everything with fountain pens. Menz is so old that he used a quill in his first diary.

If any of us messes up on the donor rotation, we have to answer to Menz. Answering to Menz is not in my top ten favorite things. He usually screams and throws things.

Menz and his lover, Paco, are both vampires. Oberon and I are lovers, and we’re vampires. Then there’s Hamlet.

The humans stay as long as they are in college, and then they move on to live regular human lives. As part of the deal, they agree to have their memory “adjusted” by Menz before they leave. It keeps the presence of vampires a closely guarded secret. We don’t like publicity or notoriety.

So far as I know, all the human donors have been okay with this vampire mind trick. If they tell Menz they want to remember… well, let’s just say I don’t want to know what happens. Whatever it is, Menz takes care of things quietly and quickly.

I’ve seen some of our former human donors out on the streets, and they didn’t recognize me. Oberon and I had sex with two of those former donors when they were living in the mansion, but they acted like they didn’t know me. Of all the nerve. You’d think a studly Scandinavian vampire like me would be a memorable fuck. Menz’s mind adjustment is complete, or that’s what I keep telling myself.

O
BERON
is friendly and quiet with long, black hair and blue eyes. His hair often has blue, chartreuse, or maroon locks, and he started wearing guy-liner even before the term was used. He looks like the kind of man who would be compliant in bed. He gives off vibes that he is versatile, but you’d be making a mistake to think so. Oberon is a top. He knows what he likes, and he knows how to get it. When we have sex, there is no question as to who is doing what and to whom.

He taught me some German, and I taught him some English. He brought in an official teacher to teach English to everyone at the estate. Oberon picks up languages better than I do. That’s okay. I don’t have to be the best at everything, and I am better with math and fighting.

Wait. Oberon brought in a teacher. In effect, he was saying it would be easier to teach English to fifty humans and vampires than it would be to teach me German. I think I ought to be insulted.

Oberon would have sex four or more times every night if he got a vote. It is one reason I never complain that he picks blood donors who also want to have sex. There is something special about Oberon’s bite when he does it at the same time his dick explodes with cum in your ass.

I get weak-kneed just thinking about it. It is really hard to write a book when I keep thinking about Oberon and what he might be doing to me. No offense, but I think I usually want to be with him.

Oberon is my top and the man I want to spend a thousand years with. He isn’t always “top,” exactly.

“Want to fly?” he asked.

“Horny?”

“Come on, it’s cloudy,” he said with a grin.

In a flash we were nude and floating just above the clouds. We kissed and rolled. His tongue found my fangs, which always pop out when my dick gets hard. With Oberon naked, that happens quite a bit. He held me tight, and we gently floated down to the tops of the clouds. I never feel hot or cold, but I do feel damp. Clouds are always like being in a steam room.

Within a few minutes, Oberon’s cock had found my hole. He is uncut, like most Europeans, so his pre-cum is the only lube we really need. His cock moves inside his foreskin and doesn’t really rub my sphincter raw. It is so much nicer than circumcision, the awful genital mutilation performed by actual doctors on so many American boys. Europe is much more civilized about sex. I douche when I bathe, even though a vampire’s digestive track isn’t used for passing food. I usually put a dollop of lotion or lube just inside my hole after drying just to keep everything moisturized. It is all part of my daily ritual. Oberon wants to use my hole every night, and I want to do everything I can to be ready. He got me a lotion that has a slight patchouli scent from MysticWays.com. It is musky, earthy, and it drives Oberon nuts with desire. The Internet makes it simple for those of us who are “daylight challenged.”

Oberon entered me slowly as we levitated way above the clouds. His first thrust (if you could call it that) was tender and gentle. He took almost a minute to impale me completely. Once I felt his pubes touch my butt, he grinned. He knew what was coming, and he loved it. Me too.

He pulled out slowly. His tip fell out of my butt. That rarely happens, but he got it back in almost instantly. His speed built slowly as I moaned from pleasure. I felt his dick moving in and out while most of his outer skin stayed still in my hole. He didn’t have much pre-cum tonight, so I could tighten my muscles and hold his skin tight. He loves it. We both do. I laughed with total abandon, and I could see that he was grinning. Even after a hundred years with this man, I still get tingles when he is inside me, especially when it is up in the sky over the clouds.

Gravity? We don’t need no stinkin’ gravity.

Oberon pulled away from my chest and grabbed my legs. When you are having sex up in the sky, the rules all change. His dick is up my butt, and that makes him the “top,” but we have sex in three-dimensional space. Positions you can’t even imagine become ordinary. He pulled himself in using my legs as he stayed locked about a half turn, like two letter Ys connected at their branch. Within a few minutes, Oberon was pounding my ass, and I was holding his legs so I could pull him with every one of his thrusts.

Just then I heard a distant sound.
Friggin’ jet is coming.

When you are above the clouds, you have a whole new set of things to worry about. I don’t mind who sees us fuck, but Oberon says they should be voluntary voyeurs. A jet flying by will have passengers who aren’t expecting to see two men fucking on the top of a cloud, even if it is at night.

Most of the time, humans don’t notice vampires floating. There’s something about a levitating vamp that doesn’t get processed in the human mind. Children see us because they don’t know people can’t levitate. Oberon wants privacy when there’s any chance children are around. I understand, but it interrupts the mood.

Our first visitors were sparrows. I remember how funny it was, and the birds didn’t seem to mind. Oberon and I laughed so hard that we almost forgot why we were levitating. Almost forgot, but somehow we managed. It was a hundred years ago, and those particular birds are probably dead or they’ve flown on.

The first time an airplane came by, I was shocked. Humans don’t see vampires flying because they don’t expect to see us in the air. Well, vampires don’t expect humans to be up there. There was a time humans couldn’t
get
up there, and sharing cloud-space took some adjustment. The first airplane was a two-winged thing, and those old planes moved so slowly. Oberon and I gave quite a performance. I remember the look on one of the passengers’ face: drop-jawed, cross-eyed. He probably swore off whisky for months. Most human adults don’t see us, but this one got an eyeful.

Two guys above the clouds over Germany: we’ve been fucking like that for a hundred years, and it still gives me goose bumps to think about it. I’ve been head over heels (literally) in love with Oberon for a century. We’ve held up pretty well for our age.

We’re used to planes now. Jets pass quickly, but we usually let ourselves float into the cloud a little. One time we floated too far into the cloud and almost got sliced into small pieces by the jet’s wings.

Technology is such a bother. Fucking up above the clouds used to be easier. Oh, the simple times of yesteryear.

V
AMPIRES
can’t catch most human diseases. We don’t get HIV or the clap or herpes. Some human blood donors want to use condoms anyway, and all the vampires respect that. In fact, if Oberon and I have more than one human in bed, condoms are mandatory. We don’t want to risk the humans giving each other something.

We can catch hepatitis. I think it is hepatitis C that we catch, but it is more like having a human cold or influenza. In a week or two, everything is back to normal. Hepatitis is really annoying, though. I was glad when Menz began monthly health screening for all the human donors. They get tested for everything from lice to lymphoma. If there is a problem, Menz makes sure they get the best care possible, even if they will never be healthy enough to be a blood donor again. Menz is Vampire Do-Right, and he demands the same from all the vampires who sleep under his roof.

I
HAVE
a daily agenda. As soon as the sun goes down, my eyes pop open. Okay, that’s a lie. Oberon is up quickly. My lover can go from dead-as-a-friggin’-doornail to full-tilt-boogie in a flash. I’m groggy when I come to life at sunset.

Oberon almost always sends one of the blood donors to our room so I can get my daily fix of human blood. It doesn’t help to drink the blood of another vampire. It has to be human blood, although animal blood will do in an emergency. As soon as my fangs find their mark, I drink for about twenty or thirty seconds. If I hit a vein or artery, it goes more quickly, but I try not to do that. It is hard to get the vein closed when you’re groggy.

Breakfast in bed. It isn’t that Oberon is trying to be a thoughtful husband (which he is), but he wants me to be fully awake while I am still in bed. He has an agenda, too, and it usually involves my butt. After a hundred years, I know his schedule.

As soon as I’ve fed after one particular sunset, Oberon was back on the bed and nibbling my balls. Oberon did not just want a quickie! Nice.