The Trouble With Hairy, page 9
part #2 of West Hollywood Vampires Series
Chris knew from his earliest years that he was attracted to men. His first sexual experience was a rough and tumble grope with a neighbor boy at the age of eleven. Their affair continued until Chris discovered the sensual pleasures available in nearby Boston. At the time, Boston Harbor was the gateway to commerce in the Colonies. The young adult sons of wealthy European merchants frequently accompanied their fathers and other older relations on business trips, ostensibly to broaden their horizons. Chris grinned salaciously at the thought that, at least with regard to the few he remembered with particular fondness, horizons had not been the only things he had been instrumental in broadening!
Several years followed during which he interspersed helping Martha at home with quick weekend trips into the city. Luckily, his two older brothers had taken his father’s place at the bank so Chris was, theoretically at least, free to continue his fleshly pursuits unencumbered. But both were killed during the War for Independence and Chris, as the eldest son, suddenly and uncomfortably, found he was expected to take charge at the bank himself.
Banking simply did not agree with him. Balance sheets and commodity prices confused him. Mortgages and interest rates were both baffling and distasteful. Mystified at his difficulty with figures, it wasn’t until the 1970s when the term “math deficiency” finally came into common usage that Chris finally discovered the reason.
Even now his financial accounting was more haphazard than not; he simply made sure he had more money in the bank than even Troy could possibly spend. Since he’d come to California, he’d been surprised at how attentively waiters would treat him upon repeat visits to restaurants. The answer, however, was simple: he ordered quickly, usually by simply opening the menu and asking for the first thing that caught his eye, never complained about the food since he actually ate nothing and, when paying, merely threw bills on the table generously, hoping that someone would let him know if he owed more.
Chris was too softhearted for the banking practices of the Eighteenth Century; they rubbed him the wrong way. He watched aghast as his Uncle Charles, who ostensibly “owned” the bank, gleefully foreclosed on mortgages and tossed entire families out into the street. Charles was a bully, using his wealth and position to gain advantage over those less fortunate; Chris had hated him. But his hatred had not proved so great that, when the opportunity presented itself, he wasn’t quick to sell off his inherited interest in the bank to Charles at what seemed at the time to be a huge sum of money. And so Chris, the young and good looking heir to a fortune, had taken Boston by storm.
He had numerous affairs, none lasting very long. Chris preferred the freedom lent by being single. That is, until Sebastian Grahame showed up.
Mr. Grahame was a youth of mystery and rakish charm who appeared on the Boston social scene in the late fall of 1780. Chris was entranced by his effortless ability to captivate the other young Bostonians with brilliant, witty conversation — not to mention his dashing, handsome appearance. Chris first saw him from across the room at a party given by a wealthy widow in her mid-thirties, known for surrounding herself with handsome young men who had little use for her quite substantial feminine charms and even less use for her even more substantial bosoms.
It took Chris a week of scurrying around town, quizzing everyone he knew, to discover all of what little was known about the elusive Mr. Grahame. Grahame had been born in England, the only son of the wealthy owner of a shipping company. Traveling to Boston in order to make certain investments on his father’s behalf, he was single, made no secret of his distaste for female companions and, fortunately for Chris, had several times been seen in the company of a series of chestnut-haired young men.
Hearing a rumor that Sebastian was to be the guest of honor at a banquet given by one of the bank’s directors, Chris wangled an invitation. Through careful planning and a small doucement paid to one of the servants, Chris managed to ensure that he and Sebastian were seated almost directly opposite each other at supper.
Sebastian arrived, to Chris’ delight, unescorted. Chris first caught his eye while the soup was being ladled. By the time the pheasant was served, Chris had ceased to notice both the succulent dishes being placed before him and the conversations on either side. When the gentlemen retired to the parlor for port and politics, Chris followed in a daze. Sebastian’s wheat-blond hair and dazzling smile had captivated him entirely.
When the evening ended and Sebastian left, Chris was right behind, trying to remain unobtrusive. But he was unsuccessful. The coach was pulled ’round and Sebastian paused before getting in. He turned to Chris, amusement in his voice, and asked, “Well, come on then. Are you going to stay skulking in the bushes all night? Or would you like a ride?”
Scarcely able to believe his good fortune, Chris immediately acquiesced.
There followed a whirlwind romance, the likes of which Chris had never imagined. For six months, the only chestnut-haired lad on Grahame’s arm had been the young Master Driscoll. But through the foggy haze of young love, even Chris couldn’t help noticing that life with Sebastian was…odd.
Aside from business banquets and socially mandated dinners, at which he ate little if anything, Sebastian always refused to accompany Chris to supper. Either he’d already eaten or he would claim an indisposition. Nor was he ever available during the daylight hours. Business, he claimed, occupied all of his time. He also refused to allow Chris to come to his home; their trysts were always held in rooms specifically rented for the purpose. Last, but by no means least, their lovemaking was rather peculiar.
Although Sebastian could bring Chris’ body to heights of ecstatic sensitivity, he seemed unable or unwilling to culminate the act of intercourse. When Chris would finally slip, exhausted, into sleep, Sebastian always remained awake. Further, although Chris would be panting for breath and drenched with sweat after an intimate exchange, Sebastian was always dry as a bone. And he never breathed heavily. Even after the most strenuous of sexual gymnastics, Sebastian was calm and unruffled. In fact, Chris noticed with shock, when it came right down to it, Sebastian Grahame seemed rarely to breathe at all!
Chris watched his lover closely after making this alarming discovery. He discovered that when Sebastian was drawn into a conversation that he found particularly intellectually stimulating, his chest never moved. He drew breath for speech, of course, but while listening to the other party talk, it was as if Sebastian forgot his own need for air. By the winter of 1781, when ordinary people’s mouths were emitting great clouds of mist in the bitter cold, Chris had confirmed his theory.
Chris confronted his lover with his suspicions one evening after a brisk horseback ride through snow-covered fields just outside of Boston. Sebastian tried, at first, to laugh the conversation away as nothing more than the fantasies of a fertile imagination. But Chris was not dissuaded. Pressing the issue, he slowly ticked off on his fingers each unusual trait he had noticed Sebastian exhibit.
Cornered by Chris’ implacable logic, Sebastian had done what Chris, in retrospect, supposed was the only thing he could have done: he started a fight. He was insulting and cruel until Chris’s own considerable temper was triggered. Bitter words, aimed to pierce the heart were exchanged. Finally Sebastian rode off in a convincing display of pique, shouting that he expected never to see Chris again.
But Christopher had always been Martha Driscoll’s most stubborn child. Digging his heels into his horse’s sides, he’d followed Sebastian, careful to keep his distance, back toward Boston proper. Later Sebastian confessed that he’d been so thrown off balance by the confrontation that he’d not thought to take a circuitous route home. He rode directly to a seemingly abandoned house on the outskirts of the city and stormed inside, slamming the door behind him.
Chris followed. Hitching his horse, he waited until after dawn before entering the old house himself. He crept through the cold musty rooms, one after another, searching in vain for signs of his lover. Finally he spied a small wooden hatch, almost hidden, in the corner of an upper bedroom ceiling. Opening it revealed a large wooden box lying in the center of the crawlspace between the eaves and the roof, faintly illuminated by the early post-dawn sun. Closing the door behind him with a feeling of satisfaction that his suspicions had been all but confirmed, he rode home to make preparations for the coming night.
Sebastian awoke that evening, surprised to find Chris present, shivering from the cold and weak from loss of blood as he handed him a pewter goblet brimming with contents he’d obtained by slashing his left wrist. While he continued to sluggishly bleed, Chris dizzily recited a carefully prepared poetic speech, full of adolescent romantic ideals involving the two of them spending eternity together in each other’s arms. Then he ruined the romantic mood completely by collapsing from blood loss.
Later Sebastian confessed that the thought of simply killing his troublesome young lover had, indeed, crossed his mind. But he had been so touched by the gesture and so moved by the sincerity of Chris’ little monologue — even though, as Sebastian later told him, he’d recognized the parts that Chris had lifted directly from a recently popular romance novel — that he’d refrained. Instead, he hoisted the unconscious, nearly frozen youth in his arms and took him to a nearby inn to get warm. Evidently, the proprietress was accustomed to providing a haven for half senseless drunken young men, so she spared Chris just enough of a glance to ascertain whether or not he was still alive — her business was respectable and not to be used as a dumping ground for victims of foul play — and then ignored them and went about her business.
By the time Chris regained his senses, Sebastian had already ordered up a large rare slab of beef and plenty of red wine, which he insisted be consumed to the last morsel before another word was spoken. Then, they began to talk.
Chris had left him little choice. So Sebastian freely admitted his other-than-human nature. He balked, however, at Chris’ impassioned pleas to be allowed to come into his life, sharing it with him for eternity. Sebastian insisted the limitations and risks inherent in a vampire’s existence were too much for any person to voluntarily accept. He followed argument with argument, each of them deftly sidestepped by Chris.
Finally, after many tears had been shed, all on Chris’ part, Sebastian was moved to comply, partly because he was flattered and touched that this young, handsome human should be so obviously smitten with him despite knowing his nature. Sebastian granted Chris’ request, albeit conditionally. He’d set a date, four months in the future, shortly before he was due to return to England. On that day, once Chris had taken sufficient time to fully understand the risks involved and prepare himself for them, and if he were still willing, they would undertake the exchange of blood.
Chris was deliriously happy. Now that Sebastian’s secret was revealed, they could dispense with subterfuge. Their relationship took on new meaning and depth. Their lovemaking, even Sebastian was forced to admit, became nothing less than truly incredible. Several times, he was surprised to feel what he would almost swear was a sexual climax, but upon later examining the sheets, the physical evidence remained absent.
Chris used the time wisely, liquefying the rest of his assets and replacing them with hard currency so as to avoid the problem of inheriting money from his own estate. He’d also, under the guise of preparing to relocate permanently to France, consulted with his uncle and invested a portion of his wealth so that Martha Driscoll need never want for physical comfort as long as she should live. Finally, he’d taken Martha into his confidence. Sebastian had told him he would have to kill himself almost immediately after they had exchanged blood for the change to occur. With this, Sebastian had refused to help. Chris must prove that he truly wanted to spend eternity with his lover by committing suicide without Sebastian’s aid. Otherwise, he would continue to grow older, his own mortal blood fighting against the vampiric blood, to eventually triumph. There was another option, Sebastian told him, involving a series of blood transfers but lacking the necessity of dying. Chris might emerge from the process with a life that, while more than human, was less than vampiric. But the process took time and was far from perfect; it might fail.
In truth, Sebastian rather hoped, when it came down to the fear and pain of the final suicide, Chris would change his mind. The ability to enter into a committed relationship was not one of Graham’s attributes. He had avoided monogamy for centuries, and despite his emotional involvement with his lover, Sebastian had seen what eternity could do to even the closest relationships. He had no desire to be saddled with a mate who he would probably grow bored with in a hundred years or so.
Sebastian hadn’t reckoned on Martha Driscoll’s stoic determination that at least one of her children would survive to carry on the Driscoll line. All of her other offspring were dead from war, illness or accident; none had lived long enough to bear children of their own. As for Charles, he was nearing sixty and still without male heirs. Chris, despite his “affectation” as Martha termed it, was still her best hope at seeing the continuance of her husband’s family name.
At first, Martha thought her son had gone mad. Suicide was a sin, she’d told him, and had refused to listen further. Chris eventually convinced her he had no intention of actually dying, but only to move on to a different plane of existence — one with severe limitations that he would need her help surmounting. Even so, he had never really been sure whether, before the time of his change, Martha really believed him. He had a faint suspicion she had merely acquiesced in the wishes of her adored child to assist him when, for some unexplained reason, he had found continued life too difficult to bear.
Frightened of the responsibility, Sebastian delayed in his promise, putting it off until the last possible moment despite Chris’ continued pleas. Finally, in the early dawn hours of the evening before he was due to return to England, the lovers traded blood. Sebastian immediately rushed off to spend the day in the packing crate in which he would travel home. They’d planned for Chris to remain in the colonies for a few months to finish settling his affairs and to follow in the early fall.
Weak and dizzy from blood loss, Chris managed to ride home, literally falling off of his horse when he reached the stable. His mother was waiting in the parlor, holding a sword that had belonged to her late husband. She’d demanded to see the fang marks in his neck before handing it over. His last words, as the tip of the sword pierced his breast, were filled with love and gratitude.
“Thank you, Mother.” And he took his final breath.
Christopher awoke at sundown in his darkened bedroom. Cursing himself at his lack of consideration in forcing his mother to drag him up the stairs, he descended to the parlor. He found Martha Driscoll, eyes closed, clutching her Bible to her breast and praying silently.
He cleared his throat gently. The Bible dropped to the floor and her eyes flew open in fear, quickly replaced with relief that her beloved son had returned to her from the grave. Their reunion was joyous, Martha cried freely, and Chris, overcome with emotion himself, made the first of many discoveries about his new nature. His own tears were a thing of the past.
Life returned to a semblance of normality after that. Although Chris was drowsy during the day, he was freely able to walk in the sun. The need to avoid sunlight entirely, Sebastian had told him, would only occur with great age. And, as Boston teemed with masses of humanity, Chris was always well fed. Spring moved into summer, and Chris’ letters to Sebastian went unanswered.
Chris wrote to Sebastian twice and received no response. Heartbroken, his third letter was filled with fear and sorrow that Sebastian had abandoned him. In September, he finally received a reply — from Italy of all places.
It seemed Sebastian had planned to spend the summer at Sylvia Gabrelli’s villa in Florence. By July she had not heard from him. Concerned, Sylvia journeyed to his London home to find a black wreath on the door and the house draped in mourning. The servants, paid yearly in advance, had stayed on, hoping that one of Sebastian’s numerous friends or “relatives” would show up with instructions. Stacks of letters awaited, unopened and unread, Chris’ among them, and Sylvia answered them. She was writing to express her deepest sympathies on his loss. Sebastian’s ship had gone down in a storm over the Atlantic; he had never reached England.
She went on to inform Chris that she’d purchased Sebastian’s home and deeded it to him. He would at least have a place to stay were he to proceed with his plans to come to England. Alternatively, she had invited him to spend the winter in Florence so that she could help him get acquainted with his new nature and with others of their kind.
Chris was devastated. He’d retired to his room stricken with grief, emerging only sporadically to hunt for food. Martha was deeply concerned. She tried everything to ease her child’s pain, even going so far as to laboriously write to Sylvia for advice. But nothing she did seemed to work.
She sat distraught by his bedside late one afternoon, gazing at the unmoving form of her oldest surviving child. Assuming he could not hear her, she began, slowly at first, and later accompanied by great wracking sobs, to speak of how she herself had felt upon receiving the news of her husband’s death and upon the deaths of her other children. For the first time in her life, she abandoned her stoic fortitude in favor of indulging her grief. Chris had been awake and cradling her in his arms for some time by the time her weeping had finally ceased.
After that, things improved as Chris returned to living what substituted for life with renewed vigor. The years passed, and Chris and Martha both kept up a steady stream of correspondence with Sylvia. He’d been greatly pleased when she informed him that, as Sebastian’s sole fledgling, she’d arranged for Grahame’s accumulated wealth to be added to Chris’ own not insubstantial holdings. She’d even taken care of having the death duties paid.
