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I was updating my diary when Armand rapped his knuckles against the frame of my open door. I was pleased by his presence. He had been withdrawn and moody since the events of the fateful evening on which Lestat had returned to us in both body and spirit. I had missed his attention.
Before the events of that night, I had thought him disinterested in me—a harsh blow as I had been fascinated by this deadly cherub since I had been a novice agent of the Talamasca and had first seen him depicted in glossy egg-tempera with black wings. He had managed to take little heed of me in the past though we were drawn together by our mutual love and concern for Lestat. I hoped that his feelings were different now, changed by the intimacy of recounting his life story for me in this very room, but Armand could be difficult to read. If he was here now, perhaps I was not wrong to hope.
I schooled my expression into a neutral mask before I turned in my chair and looked up at him, sulking against my doorframe. I was unashamed of my fantasies. I knew a number of respectable gentlemen who acted on such fantasies, but in life I had not been one of them. I was unprepared for the accuracy with which they were being invoked.
Armand had a mundane trick where, when he endeavored to look like part of the human world, he could appear as anything from a child on the cusp of puberty to a mostly grown young man. I had only seen the latter at a distance; I had been continually abreast of updates made to his file in the Talamasca archive. He had rarely appeared much younger than Daniel Molloy when they were photographed together. Even near the end, the two of them blended seamlessly with a crowd of young professionals or graduate students.
Now, lurking near the entrance to my room, he looked very young in a manner I was not accustomed to. He had cropped the loose curls of his auburn hair, artfully artless, at a blunt chin length. He dressed in a loose approximation of the school uniforms of my childhood—dark blazer, collared shirt and tie, dark slacks, oxfords. The outfit was put together in a rumpled, haphazard way that was decidedly boyish. Even his shoes were scuffed as if he had run about in them carelessly. It was exactly as I had rarely allowed myself to contemplate. It filled me with a curious, muted sense of dread. But then Armand looked at me through his long lashes. This was Armand, and I wanted him.
As he stepped further into the room and closed the door behind him, feeling no need to wait for an explicit invitation, I noticed he was sockless. This is Marius's proclivity, not mine, but it would be impossible to deny that Armand has lovely ankles.
He studied me for a moment with pursed lips.
"You want me," he said, tone and expression completely opaque. Something about his posture seemed ill at ease, but I do not believe I frightened him. We were both gifted extraordinary powers by our makers, and I had challenged him before he had agreed to recount his history for me, but that had been poorly informed hubris. Armand has five centuries in the Blood on me. If I could compel him, it was through wit and wit alone.
I thought to deny it. In my mortal life, I would not have taken advantage of the child he appeared to be, as much as it tempted me, as much as the child deliberately taunted me. Perhaps even my short stint of vampirism had degraded my moral fortitude. Perhaps this situation was beyond the scope of human morality. My want of Armand went beyond his youthful appearance, though I could not lie that it was a contributing factor. Either way, I did not.
I pushed my chair away from the desk and said: “Come and sit.”
The desk, the bed, and—dare I even consider it—my lap were Armand’s only choices for seating in the sparse but comfortable room I inhabited. The last time he had been here, he had paced restlessly the entire time he spoke, so I had no insight into which option he would prefer. He chose the desk, settling easily on top of the diary I had been updating even though there was plenty of clear space. His oxford-clad feet dangled freely, knocking against my shins. The careless action was at odds with his watchful expression.
“You’ve smudged the ink.”
“You should have used a modern pen.”
“You're deliberately provoking me,” I said, finding myself wanting to be provoked.
“Will you punish me for it?” he replied.
“Is that what you want?” I asked, though the answer was obvious.
“Is it not what I deserve? I’ve behaved appallingly these last few days.” His eyes were downcast now, as if he meant it. I reached out and wrapped my hand around one of his sockless ankles, tracing my thumb over the soft hair of his calf. His skin was warm; he had hunted already this evening.
Armand shivered at my touch, mouth parting slightly. His free foot kicked softly.
"You mocked my interest in you, as if you resented it. Do I disgust you?"
"Disgust and desire are two sides of the same coin, I find."
"You wound me. That's horribly unflattering," I kept my voice light, although I spoke truth.
"It's not my intention," Armand's voice was whisper-soft and flat. He looked down at me with vacant, doll-like eyes.
I stood. Even sitting on the desk, I towered over him in the body I inhabited. My true body, though imposing in its own right, was not nearly so tall. Armand met my eyes as I crowded him back on the desk.
Armand laughed, an unsettling sound. "This body is young. You—David—are still so very young in the Blood, yet you make me feel like a child."
I touched the inside of Armand's knee and he spread his legs, allowing me closer still. I leaned forward into his space and he gave ground until his head thumped against the wall. I bracketed him in with my hands and loomed over him.
"Is that what you want?" I asked. I wanted him to admit it, to ease my conscience, but I knew it was too late for me to pull away from his magnetic charm.
Armand stared in challenging silence.
I threaded my fingers through his silky auburn curls, caressing gently. Armand shivered again and leaned helplessly into my touch. The tip of his tongue flicked out to wet his lips.
"Shall I put you over my knee and spank you?"
Armand raised his chin in further defiance. I could smell the blood rushing through his body as his heart rate spiked. This centuries old coven master, this otherworldly creature I had fantasized about since I first saw Marius's portrait of him when I was still a young man, might let me spank him.
I was not sure exactly what it was that I felt, but surely it was not simple bloodlust. I decided I would take my chances and demand what I wanted. Armand was vulnerable and uncertain, he would give it to me.
“I can’t punish you.”
Armand’s annoyance was palpable, but he said nothing. I smoothed my thumb over his furrowed brow. “You are not mine to discipline. If you truly believed you deserved to be punished you would have gone to Marius. Let’s not pretend you’re anything but what you are just now.”
I stepped back when Armand moved to stand. He stared at me, expression blank as he smoothed out his blazer and neatened the knot of his tie, now the practiced catamite rather than the perfect facsimile of a school boy.
“What am I, David?” The question had an air of flirtation, but I was sure it was sincere. I would have answered it with words if I could. Instead, I divested Armand of his blazer. It was cheap polyester, surely purchased or stolen with this encounter in mind. I hung the garment neatly on the back of the chair. The shirt, however, must have been purchased with care by either Marius or Sybelle. It was a simple, unornamented collared shirt, but it fit Armand beautifully and was made of a lovely, nearly translucent cotton.
I took hold of the knot of Armand’s tie, pulling him towards the center of the room. He went, wide-eyed, as if he were powerless to resist. He stared up at me as I cupped his shoulders and then his elbows though the fine fabric of his shirt, feeling his unnatural solidity and stolen warmth. His eyes fluttered shut when I tipped his chin up with a crooked finger so I could loosen his tie and undo the top button of his shirt. I looked my fill, my fingers lingering at the dip of his collarbones, him trembling ever so slightly at the attention.
This was not how Armand had intended the evening to progress when he arrived in my doorway, the perfect facsimile of a school boy, but he had indulged me. I had no desire to pretend he was anything but what he was: a creature, powerful even by vampiric standards, brought low and slavish by directionless yearning. It thrilled me to have control over him, to know even though he could incapacitate me in a heartbeat, I could still bend him to my will.
I stepped away and sat on the narrow bed, watching in fascination at the way Armand’s lower lip caught between his teeth.
“Drop your trousers and come here.”
Armand stepped out of his shoes. Perhaps those were stolen as well, perhaps he had feasted on a schoolboy and stolen most of his clothing. I imagined Armand would treat his own shoes with more care. He removed his belt and trousers next, draping them over the back of the chair.
He stood in arms reach before me. His face was arranged in a coy pout, but I could feel his uncertainty without the pretext of a character to hide behind. I took the opportunity to study him. Armand was beautiful. I knew this already, but it bears repeating: dark eyes in a well-proportioned pale face, delicate hands and feet, shapely muscular calves, the place where his member slightly tented his shirt. The tails fell to mid thigh and he wore nothing beneath them. Was it an affectation of 15th century dress or a concession to his plans for the evening? I couldn’t say.
I held out my hand in a gentlemanly gesture. Armand took it, letting me draw him in and arrange him over my lap. I cupped the swell of his buttock through the fine fabric of his shirt, relishing in the sensation. I lifted the tails of the shirt, unwrapping my present. He squirmed and then settled his weight more firmly over my legs.
Yes, good. Shy and uncertain, but he wanted this nearly as badly as I did.
I allowed a few long moments for suspense to build before smacking Armand sharply. The soft sob he made surprised me, I had not expected my hand connecting with his buttock would feel like much of anything. Perhaps it was more of an emotional reaction than anything else.
“It’s like the cold. It can’t damage a vampire and one could ignore it completely with sufficient will or distraction, but if one allows oneself to feel it, it is more intense than a human could imagine,” Armand murmured, his face pressed into the duvet. His hands fluttered fitfully at his sides.
“Give me your hands and be still,” I warned, ignoring his explanation. Obediently, Armand crossed his wrists at the small of his back and I held them in place with my free hand.
I hit Armand’s few more times, not as hard as I had the first time. He pulled at the hand I had wrapped around his delicate wrists. He was baiting me. He must be.
“Am I boring you?”
“Yes,” Armand said, simply. “Harder.”
I brought my hand down in a carefully restrained tap and Armand growled, pulling fitfully.
“You’ll take what I give you,” I said firmly even though I was terribly unsure how far Armand would play along. He let out a decidedly childish huff and went limp.
I hit him properly as a reward.
“Good boy.”
“Shut up.”
I gave him a series of gentle taps until he squirmed in restless anticipation. Then I hit him squarely, shaking loose a lovely pained moan. It was a sound I desperately wanted to hear again, so I settled into a steady rhythm of jarring blows, holding Armand in place, pressing his wrists into the small of his back. Armand shifted his hips and whimpered at the continued assault but made no move to pull away, keeping his hands obediently still.
I made meaningless soothing noises as Armand’s breathing became ragged and his skin went pink and hot beneath my hand. He took it so beautifully. It was arresting enough that it took me some time to notice that Armand was not just flushed where I hit him, but all the way from the back of his neck, down his exposed thighs, to his toes.
I stopped what I was doing and squeezed Armand's hip, eliciting a gasp. I took hold of his ankle, gently bending his knee. The joint felt stiff as if the immutable body in my lap was swollen with excess blood. I had never seen or heard of anything like it.
"Armand," I said, wiggling his leg. "What is this?"
Armand buried his face deeper into the comforter, and then, breathing audibly with every move, twisted awkwardly to look at me over his shoulder. His face was flushed a soft pink with red splotches at the cheeks.
"Does this happen often?"
"When I let it."
"When you let it."
"It is easy for a vampire of my age not to feel things."
"And is this a vanishingly rare gift like seeing ghosts, or..."
Armand squirmed against me, no less aroused for the pause in our play. I pet his spine through his shirt, unsure if this would comfort or further inflame him. He shuddered helplessly at the touch.
"I don't know. Most are too clouded by blood lust, but the elder among us… I imagine most would see it as an indignity if they could. It’s not as if I’ve made a study of it. I am not an agent of the Talamasca," Armand said with obvious annoyance.
It was impossible to imagine Marius or Maharet like this. Their quiet, inhuman dignity would not allow it. Jesse, however, perhaps. Myself? I tucked the thought away to examine later. If it were possible, it would be no good for both Armand and I to be so overwhelmed.
"And how does this progress? Last question, I promise. I ask purely as a matter of practicality."
"It doesn't."
"No?" I asked, unable to keep the surprise from my voice that Armand would want this experience if it led only to more of the same.
"You, of all people, are aware that neither of the parties in my formative sexual experiences were capable of ejaculation. Sex doesn’t have to reach a definitive climax to be worthwhile." Armand had gathered himself enough to sound condescending. I suppose he had been exposed to enough counter-cultures with Daniel in the 1970s to think me narrow-minded.
I squeezed Armand's buttocks as I pondered this, drawing forth another desperate noise and full body shudder. The potential for a climactic moment seemed obvious to me, Armand's blood pounding against his skin, practically begging to be drawn out of him.
But this was a revelation that could be addressed later.
"Let me look at you," I said. Armand bit his lip shyly, but nodded, curls mussed against the bedsheets.
I helped Armand to rise from my lap and lie on his back. Every touch of my hands elicited a hitched breath, the pleasure of being handled in his aroused state intense enough to edge into pain. He was an unearthly beauty, gasping for air his body did not need, every inch of skin, even visible through the fine fabric of his shirt—the long tails of which had ridden up to his waist—flushed an alluring pink, cropped amber curls mussed against the pillows. I—still fully clothed—knelt between his wantonly spread legs.
"There you are, nicely done."
Armand groaned, for a moment seeming as a modern teenager rather than the catamite of a bygone era. "That was offensively unsexy. I will never understand Lestat and Pandora's anglophilia."
It was a simple matter to massage the flesh of Armand's hips until he writhed.
"Must you be so difficult?" I asked him.
Armand turned to hide his face amongst the pillows without pulling away from my grasp. It put an elegant twist in his spine and displayed the tantalizing line of his neck. I am certain he knew exactly how he looked.
"I can't help it," he replied, voice soft with sincerity, muffled by the bedding.
I ignored this and unbuttoned and spread apart his shirt, cruelly allowing my knuckles to brush against his heated skin at every opportunity. He keened and squirmed when I engineered an excuse to ghost my fingers over his nipples. They did not seem any more pert and swollen than the rest of him, but the effect was undeniable. I pinched and Armand wailed, face contorting and limbs flailing in an unprecedented moment of artlessness. It stirred something in me, but I did not wish to cause him any true distress. Not yet.
He lay flat on his back, panting and shivering as I spread my fingers across his exposed chest and belly. He had not been lying; he was not the waif Lestat made him out to be. His body was pleasingly curved. The swell of his chest and thighs were that of an athletic, rambunctious, and well-fed young man. It was a pleasing contrast with the feminine delicacy of his hands and neck.
I took up one of his hands and cradled it in my own. The bones of his wrist felt fragile though I knew this to be an illusion of some sort. Nothing about this centuries-old vampire could be truly fragile.
He threw his other arm across his eyes, nose pressing into the crook of his elbow, as if he wished to hide from me. His preternaturally sharp teeth dented his lower lip as he struggled for some semblance of composure, drawing forth a single bead of rich and fragrant blood. I gathered the precious drop with my thumb and carefully sucked it clean.
Armand raised his arm just enough to peer out from under it, wide brown eyes taking on a reddish glow in the dim light. His whole being was held taut in suspense, unable to confess to what I knew he desired. I nearly gave it to him then—the instinctive pull of the blood rushing through his neck was so strong—but he was so delightful like this. I was not ready to draw this encounter to its climax just yet.
Instead, I cupped my hand between his legs and rubbed firmly with the heel of my hand. Armand thrashed helplessly, a high keen and a thin trickle of blood escaping his mouth where his teeth were still pressed into his lip. He pulled himself together enough to gather the blood up with his own finger and lick it away, denying me another taste. This stirred and angered some primal, vampiric part of me, but I quickly pushed it away and refocused on my more human exploration. Armand was coal-hot but did not throb beneath my hand—his arousal was completely unnatural. I slowed but did not stop my movements. He continued to whimper and squirm.
"Hush," I soothed. "Good boy, I have you. Let me enjoy you."
Armand's body went slack as if on command, but he forced out an irritated little "Shut up!"
I smiled knowingly, but did as he asked, limiting myself to soft shushes when he made cut-off hiccuping noises under my ministrations. He trembled and writhed constantly, shying away from and seeking out my touch in turns. I pressed him still against the mattress with one hand low on his belly and explored further between his legs with the other. I rubbed my thumb lightly over the tight pucker of muscle I found there. Armand's knees knocked helplessly against my sides at the intensity of sensation.
I pressed more firmly and Armand's mouth dropped open on a soundless scream. He bucked and struggled against my hand on his stomach, but the muscle under my thumb relaxed easily. I had not, based on his recounting of his history with Marius, expected him to be so practiced at this. Perhaps it was a more recent development, something he had learned for Daniel. I could picture it easily—Armand coaxing his human lover to take him. And Armand taking Daniel as well. He was certainly erect enough for the task, though it would be a trial with how oversensitive the rest of his body became—every movement, even the smallest thrust, a pleasure beyond human endurance.
"Stop it!" Armand whispered harshly. A reminder that he could read my mind as easily as I his. Armand's feelings about Daniel were fraught, even if he feigned disinterest. I was being unconscionably discourteous.
I refocused my full attention on Armand, here in the flesh, begging to be ravished with body and words: “Please, please.”
“Tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you,” I told him, leaning forward to run the palm of my hand over his chest. He pressed his arm more firmly over his eyes and shook his head no.
“Then you will take what I give you.”
Armand melted into the mattress with a desperate whine. He gave in so instinctively and sincerely, but I knew his surrender was not complete. I did not own his heart and soul as Marius had.
I continued to touch him, mesmerized by the way his unnatural body seemed to flood with blood. I could feel a dangerous heat spreading from my own chest under the rising blood lust, but I pushed the sensation away. If this was the opening sensation of my own vampire arousal, now was not the time to explore it. I did not wish to be distracted from Armand.
"Please," he finally said again. I meant to stand my ground, force him to admit to what he wanted, but I could not restrain myself any longer.
On instinct, I crawled up Armand’s body and ghosted my lips over the pulse point under his jaw.
“No.” Armand's voice was that of a virginal maiden, though he was far from either.
I pulled away from his neck. Our faces were mere inches apart though he refused to raise his downcast eyes to meet mine. I allowed the length of my body to press into his. His small, solid body was almost unbearably hot even through my clothes.
"No? Is this not the intimacy you sought when you came to my room? Don't let us both leave here unsatisfied." I forced his chin up and Armand allowed his gaze to meet mine. He looked lost and uncertain, as if, despite all his centuries of life, he was out of his depth. I soothed him with kisses across his brow and cheeks and finally the perfect bow of his mouth. I pulled a hairs breadth away and pressed my thigh more firmly between his legs. His face contorted in a heady combination of pleasure and pain.
"Let me," I whispered against the shell of Armand's ear. He writhed helplessly and bared his neck to me. I bit him with no further hesitation and was immediately overwhelmed as I drew his blood into me. It was so hot. It was as if drawing it into me was scorching my veins. How had he endured this agony for any length of time? If I had the capacity to experience this unnatural arousal, would I even want to?
But I could feel pleasure as well, more intense than any sexual experience of my mortal life. It twined through the hurt in an endlessly morphing swirl of red and gold. An enthralling and awful experience in equal parts. I was ill equipped to experience Armand’s masochism first hand. I made to pull away, but Armand's deceptively strong grip held my head in place.
"More, I don't want it, take it," he insisted, a reckless edge to his voice.
Perhaps I could have broken his grasp with a greater force of will, but I did not make much of an attempt. I am not sure that was truly what I wanted. There was an addictive quality to the onslaught of sensation. I could do little but swallow the blood that flooded my mouth.
I thought I must be close to draining him when his fingers finally slackened and I pulled away. I expected Armand to sprawl, spent, against the pillows, but he flipped us over and crouched above me. He stared at me, eyes alight, lips pale, skin the color of marble. A fallen angel, beautiful and dangerous even weak with blood-loss. I was completely helpless. Every molecule of my body burned and swelled with his stolen pleasure. It was a struggle to lift my hand to rest on his hip. He pressed his sharp teeth into my neck with such skill that I felt no pain, but the sensation of Armand drawing his overheated blood back out of me was agony. Agony exchanged for more agony. But there was peace in the totality of the sensation.
An eternity later, Armand pulled away from me, fixing me with blank, glass-doll eyes. Before he stood, he absently smoothed the tie I had never removed against my chest. The silk was so crumpled the gesture was entirely ineffective, but perhaps the tie was not beyond salvaging. We had both been neat, not a drop of blood spilled in our exchange. He dressed briskly and unselfconsciously, but lingered with downcast eyes in my doorway.
"Thank you," he said softly before darting away.
I was utterly spent. It was a long time before I made to rise from the bed. When I did, I was struck by a spell of dizziness and had to clutch at the wall.
Armand had taken far more than his fair share of blood back from me; I would have to hunt again before sunrise.
A small price to pay, but I made a mental note to berate Armand at the next discreet opportunity.