The Vampire

(Hey Guys,

I know i should, but i can't stop! This is just a one-off.)

“A vampire?”

“A vampire.”

“Oh, come on! There’s no such thing! Vampires are just things in stories – made-up stories – they’re not real.”

“This one is. I saw it.”

“Yeah, right! Sure you did. In the Park, in the dark, all dressed in black and with long black hair. How could you see it then? X-ray vision?”

“No. With my plain old eyes. It’s not completely dark in there you know. There’s street lights all around the outside, and there was a nearly-full moon. There’s plenty of light in there.”

“Nope, still not buying it. If it was all black, how could you see it in the dark?”

“I didn’t say that it was all black. It was dressed in black and it had black hair, but its skin was white, really white. Almost like it was glowing in the dark.”

“Oh? It was glowing now was it? It must’ve been a ghost vampire then. Next you’ll be telling me that there were ghosts and goblins in there as well. Playing football, were they?”

“No they weren’t! Damm. Now you’re getting me all confused. There were no ghosts and goblins; don’t be a dork! There was just a vampire, one vampire, and it was there in the park just after midnight, last night.”

“And the night before that?”

“Yes. I told you. Maybe it’s there every night, I dunno. Maybe it’s been there forever. All I know is that I’ve seen it there the last couple of nights.”

“Sure you have! Vampires are a European thing. I’ve never heard of one here in New Zealand. We just have legends of Taniwhas and stuff, not vampires.”

“Well, maybe it just moved here. They’re not tied to any one place are they? People came here from other places too.”

“Okay, so it’s a vampire but it’s a ghost, it’s been here forever but it just moved here?”

“Shut up! I didn’t say any of that stuff; I said maybe.”

“Maybe it’s a vampire?”

“No, maybe everything else. It’s a vampire, I saw her. Why don’t you go and look for yourself?”

“In the park?”

“Yes.”

“After midnight?”

“After midnight.”

“You said ‘her’. It’s a girl-vampire then? Maybe I will go and have a look. What was she doing again?”

“She was just running around the track. Yes, it’s a girl – a really good-looking girl, she’s beautiful. Go and see for yourself.”

"I will then. I’ll go and check it out. Are you coming with me?”

“No, I can’t. We’re going to Christchurch today; I’ve already told you that. You never listen to me.”

“Right! Yeah. So, I’ll go by myself then. Should I wear garlic around my neck or something?”

“I don’t know. I’m not an expert. Look it up on Wikipaedia or something.”

“I will. So, I’ll see you when you get back next week.”

“Yeah, see you then.”

“You’d better watch your neck, I might be looking to bite it.”

“Bite it? What would you want to do that for?”

“Well I might be a vampire by then, mightn’t I?”

“A vampire?”

“A vampire.”

They parted for the day – or, for the week actually. Brian went home to get ready for his family trip. Darren went home to get on-line to find out what he could about vampires – which was not a lot.

There was far too much information out there and a hundred conflicting stories, theories and legends. Even the main Wikipaedia article went on and on until his eyes glazed. He gave up and went over to play a favourite game for a while.

He couldn’t believe how many references he’d found. For something that wasn’t even real, there was an awful lot written about vampires. Way too much! He’d wait until midnight and then he’d go and find out, first-hand, all that he needed to know about vampires.

He spent the evening at home, doing nothing much. He watched TV for a while, with the family, and then went and watched a favourite movie in his room, alone. He microwaved a meat pie and made himself a sandwich while he was waiting. He ate them back in his room and washed it down with an OJ – because it’s healthy.

Was it close to midnight yet? No, it was just after 10 o’clock.

“Damm. Time drags when you’re waiting.’

He went back to the lounge and got another DVD movie, but got sidetracked and played around on the computer for a while. The next time he thought to look at the time he got a shock.

‘Whoah! Ten minutes to twelve. Bugger! Where’d the last two hours go?’

Now he was going to have to hurry if he was going to be at the Park by midnight. He almost made it, but not quite. The town clock read 12.07 as he went in through the kids’ playground. He wasn’t too late, was he? Not that he believed that there would be a vampire anyway.

But there was!

Someone, or something, was there, running around the track outside the football field. A vampire? Running? No, that was a lot of nonsense. Who the hell was this then?

He flopped down in the dark shadow cast by the light above a clump of trees. Yes, there were shadows and light patches in there. Brian was right, it wasn’t completely dark in there – just mostly.

He sat dead still and tried not to breathe too loudly as the running figure approached him. He wasn’t scared – not really. Not much. But, what the hell was he doing here anyway? He should have, at least, brought a couple of friends with him – a couple of big friends. And he hadn’t remembered to bring any garlic.

The figure ran on past him and – Damm! It was a vampire, just like Brian had said.

The vampire had pale white, glowing white, skin, enormous dark eyes and long, bouncing and streaming, black hair. It was medium-tall and the figure was slight, he thought. It was hard to tell. Instead of normal clothes, it seemed to be clad in a cloud of streaming black ribbons, or strips of cloth. Its arms, legs and feet were bare, white, skin.

Darren didn’t believe in vampires, did he? What the hell was this then? A vampire? Or just some nut-case running in black ribbons?

The figure ran on around the circuit. Darren sat and waited for it to come back around. But then, roughly opposite him across the field, it stopped, turned around and came running back towards him, in an anti-clockwise direction now.

He sat silently, watching intently, as it approached him again. This time the light was shining directly into its face and, yes, it was beautiful all right. Delicate features, perfectly proportioned, flawless skin and altogether gorgeous!

He realised with a shock that it was not a girl at all – this was a boy; a long-haired, white-skinned, teenage boy and he was beautiful. He was – Wow!

Boys had no right to look that good. And yet – how he looked was exactly how the boy that Darren had always dreamed of meeting would look. Gorgeous.

Yes, Darren was gay. Well, mostly gay. There were some girls that he was attracted to, but he’d rather be with a boy. Not that he ever had, but in his dreams he always was. He’d rather be with this boy – vampire or not. It’d be worth it!

The running boy arrived back where he’d changed direction last time, paused, and then started again, still in the same anticlockwise direction but really fast this time – almost at twice the speed that he’d run the last circuit. The look of sheer determination on his face as he ran past was priceless. What was he doing? Was this some weird ritual that he was involved in?

He couldn’t really be a vampire could he? No! There were no such things as vampires; that was all a lot of nonsense. Anyway, Wikipaedia said nothing about vampires running in the night, did it? No. This was just a boy, a really beautiful boy, doing strange things by the light of the moon.

He didn’t stop at the turning point this time. He just slowed right down and carried on running, slowly, back toward Darren.

Okay, this was it – make or break time. For once, Darren was not going to timidly sneak away and miss the opportunity of a lifetime. This was too good to miss.

As the boy approached, Darren stood up, took a deep breath and stepped out of the shadows, into the light where he could be seen. Whatever happened now would happen. The boy stopped, about 50 meters away, stood still and stared at him. They both stood quietly and looked at each other.

Darren was SO nervous. He was very tempted to flee, to run away home to safety as fast as he could go. But, he didn’t, he just stood there, staring. He doubted whether his legs would work anyway if he tried.

The boy walked up to him and stood quietly smiling. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? Vampires don’t smile at you before they suck your blood, do they? Or, maybe they do – evilly, but this wasn’t that sort of smile. This was a friendly, a happy, a beautiful smile. Darren smiled back at him. Why? He didn’t know, he just felt like it.

Now that he’d stopped running and was standing still, it wasn’t a cloud of black ribbons, or streamers, or whatever, that the boy was wearing. It was a cloak; one of those lightweight, black capes that university graduates wear on their biggest day, but without the coloured sash thing.

It was far too big on him and hung, shapelessly, from his shoulders down to the ground. It was cut, slashed, into long, wide, ribbons right up the length of it, but when he stood still, as now, it hung limply in its original cape shape. The long, black hair hung lower than his shoulders and framing the pale, smiling face.

As if he could tell what Darren was thinking, the boy’s hands went up to his own neck, he undid some sort of fastener and the cloak split open down the front, exposing the slender, white, body within.

Oh yes! He was a boy all right. No doubt about that! That was a respectable-sized, well-developed, package of boy bits that he had there, all nicely set-off by a neat triangle of dark pubic hair. ‘Gorgeous.’

“Thank you, Kuia!” The boy sighed, throatily.

The hands came forward and rested on Darren’s shoulders. Darren didn’t move, he couldn’t move, he could barely breathe.

One hand slid up and cupped behind his head, the other slid down and around behind his back. The boy drew them together.

‘Oh, Fuck!’

He wasn’t going to bite his neck and suck his life-blood, was he? No, it wasn’t the neck that the mouth was heading for. It was his lips!

He kissed him gently on the lips, and then he backed off, smiled at him and kissed him again. This time, Darren responded hungrily. He wrapped his arms around the slender, naked, body under the cloak and he kissed him back.

He still couldn’t quite believe that this was happening, but it was and he was not about to complain. This was better than he’d ever dreamed of. Eventually they had to break apart and they did. They stood closely entwined, heads over each other’s shoulders and breathing like they’d just run a marathon together.

This was no cold, dead, vampire here in his arms. This was a boy, a beautiful boy, warm and deliciously alive! He could feel his heartbeat. He could also feel the rising boner between them – two boners.

He pulled back and looked into his eyes. “I’m Darren,” he said. “Who is Kuia and why thank you?”

“Kuia is my grandmother, my mother’s mother. She’s a Wiccan, a witch, or so she says. She told me that, when we came to our new town, if I ran, naked, around the park closest to the town centre, after midnight on the three nights leading up to the first full moon – three times clockwise and three times anti-clockwise, before I finished I would find my one True Love.”

“She did? Really?? But you’re not naked.”

“Inside this thing, I am. I’m not running around with nothing on at all!”

“Fair enough, I guess. You don’t really believe all that stuff, do you?”

The boy looked up, they both looked up, at the full moon.

“I do now,” he grinned.

“Yeah. I think maybe I do too. I thought that you were a vampire.”

“A vampire?” he laughed.

“A vampire. Shut up.”

He shut up his laughing in the best way that he knew – he kissed him.

Westpoint Tales - Afterword.

Toddy and Jinks moved in together as soon as they finished school. Life was good until the day Toddy did not come home. Jinks was worried almost to death. No phone call no nothing and no one had seen him. Then a couple of days later he showed up with a girl. Jinks was devastated. His worst fears had come true. He had become another notch on Toddy’s bed post. The boy he loved had moved on and Jinks lost not only a lover but a friend. There was quite a scene. Toddy said that he didn’t need this, grabbed his things and left.

Jinks waited, hoping against hope that Toddy would return, but could he forgive him? A day later Grant came by asking what happened. He told Jinks that after staying the night at his old home, he packed his bag, and left saying goodbye, that he was leaving Westpoint and never coming back.

Jinks resigned himself to living without the love that he wanted just as he had been doing much of his life. He threw himself into his work and for a while that helped. He became a very successful horse trainer and did very well. However, he kept to himself. He avoided contact with his friends even though they tried to help. He just didn’t want to be reminded of Toddy. One day Christian Squires came by looking for a job. Christian did not know it, but he was related to Jinks. Each had a mother who was a Carver. However, Jinks’ mother did better with her choice of husbands than Christian. He wanted to help Christian but the only job he could offer was mucking out the stables. Not much of a job and it did not pay much, but Christian was grateful for it. Jinks was surprised when Roman Dallas came by looking for Christian. It did not seem like they would have anything in common. He was even more surprised when he learned how they felt for each other. Roman would come by and help Christian all the time. You had to really care about someone to help him shovel shit. They were both very interested in horses and Jinks taught them what they wanted to know.

When they finished school, they came to him and told him of their plan to refurbish/restore the farm where they were living in to a resort ranch, Carver’s Ranch. Would he help them acquire a stable of houses? He was glad to do it but seeing the love that Christian and Roman had for each other was a very painful reminder of what he lost. He decided that he could not stay in Westpoint any longer. George had stayed forty years waiting for Jeremy but Jeremy returned in a coffin. Stuff that. Besides, George did not know his Jeremy all his life like he knew Toddy. Everything and everyone in Westpoint reminded him of Toddy. He had to get away. When he was finding horses for Christian and Roman he learned of a trainer’s job in Britain. He decided to take it. Sixteen years after Toddy left, Jinks left for England.

He was successful in England and developed quite a reputation as a horse trainer there. As Disney keeps telling us in song, it’s a small world, and one day after the races concluded at Newmarket, Jinks was walking from the grandstand to the stables across the lawn where corporations set up hospitality tents, he saw him. He stopped in his tracks and stared at the still blond man who was packing up after entertaining clients. Toddy sensed that someone was there and looked up. They stared at each other for what seemed like hours.

Toddy said, “Is it too late to ask for forgiveness?”

Jinks replied, “Forgiveness? I waited sixteen years for you to return. You never did. Every day I hurt because I still love you. I left Wespoint because I every place and every person reminded me of you and I couldn’t stand it anymore.”

“Jinks, I am all alone. I have been alone every since I left you. I could never get up the courage to ask you to take be back after what I did. I have no right to ask you for forgiveness but you should know that I still love you as well. I guess I always will and I guess I will always be alone because there can be no one but you.”

The conversation went on. Slowly the hurt began to heal. They got together on a trial basis that became permanent. Finally, after years of mutual hurt, life became good again. They pursued their careers and never thought about going back to Westpoint.

When the king died, they were reminded of their own mortality. They confessed that they would like to be buried in Westpoint and promised each other that which ever of them survived, the other would take them back to Westpoint for burial. Then they began to think, why wait? They were wealthy enough to retire and they had sufficient income to live on without working. Why not move back now?

They sold the flat, tided up their business affairs, and booked flights back to Westpoint.

They landed in Wellington in the evening and were booked on the morning flight to Westpoint. As they approached the caught their first glimpse out of the window of the eighteen passenger jet of the place they left more than fifty years before. The town looked the same. The racecourse and Britannia Square were clearly visible. But they could not believe the development in North Beach or Carver Beach. There was huge building on North Beach. They couldn’t imagine what it was.
After they landed they asked about getting into the town. There was still no real taxi company but Duncan Motors did provide car and drivers when requested. One had just brought some people to the airport and was about to return to the village. The driver, Alex Duncan, introduced himself and offered to take them to town.

“Where do you want to go?” asked Alex.

They were not sure as they had not given any thought to where they would stay until they found a permanent place. They asked him to take them to the Adelphi, hoping that it was still there.

“Be glad to,” said Alex.

“Are you one of the Duncan’s of Duncan Motors?” Jinks asked.

“Sort of,” said Alex. “The company was started by my father’s uncle. I am named after his brother, my grandfather. My family owns a restaurant and gallery on Cape Foulwind.”

The car arrived at the new Adelphi, the huge building they had seen from the plane.

“What’s this?” asked Toddy.

“This is the new Adelphi, where you wanted to go,” responded Alex.

They walked into the lobby and approached the desk. To the right was a huge ball room being decorated for some sort of event.

“Do your have a room for us?” asked Jinks. “We do not have a reservation.”

“I am sure that we can find something. How long will you be staying/”

“We are not sure, until we find a permanent place to live.”

Toddy commented, “Looks like you are getting ready for some sort of celebration.”

“Yes sir. Today is the owners seventy-fifth birthday and there is a big party tonight.”

“Who are the owners?”

“The Reynolds brothers.”

“Superboy and Iceman own this place!?” Toddy said to Jinks.

The desk clerk overhead the comment and said, “Excuse me a moment while I check on our room availability.” He stepped into the office adjacent to the front desk and dialed the number of the owner’s quarters. Billy answered the phone.

“Mr. Mathesion, this is David at the front desk. There are two gentlemen just checking in who I suspect might know the Reynolds brothers.”

“What are their names?”

“They signed the register as Kevin Jenkins and Barney Todd.”

“Is the Carl Douglas Suite available?”

“Yes sir.”

“Put them in it and make sure they come to the party tonight. And David, ask the decorating crew to put up another banner, ‘Welcome Home, Toddy and Jinks’.”

David returned to the front desk with two key cards. He gave them to Jinks and Toddy and told them they were invited to the party that evening.

Jinks said, “I do not think we can do that, we would not want to impose.”

David responded, “The owners will be very upset and upset with me if you do not come. These cards are the key to your room. The lifts are to your left. Insert one of the cards into the slot in the lift marked ‘Suites” and that will take you to your floor. You are in the Carl Douglas Suite which is to your right as you exit the lift.”

“Thank you,” said Jinks looking as the clerk’s brass name tag, “David, is it?”

“Yes sir, David Mathews. I was named after my grandfather.”

***********