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Livor mortis, also known as post-mortem hypostasis or post-mortem lividity, is the second stage of death, defined by a passive process of blood accumulating within the blood vessels in the dependent parts of the body as a result of gravity, causing a discoloration of the skin that varies from pink to dark purplish.
***
Sunday, 6:00AM.
The scent of coffee in the percolator; the sound that indicates two perfectly browned slices of bread popping out of the toaster; the sunlight of the dawning day sneaking into the room through the gaps in the window curtains; the sticky wetness of drool spilt onto the thin linen of a pillowcase; the cozy, heavy feeling of the blanket against one’s body─ those were all things Daniel liked about early mornings, when he’d slept well enough to rise before the sun’s up and got to luxuriate in them.
Watching Armand hunched over the kitchen counter as he cuts open a cockroach on Daniel’s one good wooden cutting board (that’d been relatively expensive, mind you) while poring over an entomology textbook was, unsurprisingly, not, although the sight of Armand in nitrile gloves and wearing his Neu! t-shirt was a tillitating one.
Daniel sighed, wiping the sleep off his eyes, still only in his sleep shirt and boxers. The sweat from the night before felt tacky on the boy’s skin as he reclined against a cleaner spot of the countertop, folding his arms, staying pointedly away from the tools Armand had scattered over it: thumbtacks, scalpels, a small forceps, a pair of scissors. “So… Are you going to explain what you woke me up for?”
Daniel’s mouth fell shut as Armand shushed him, the vampire’s eyes set intently on the animal, which was pinned to the countertop with thumbtacks, coming away beneath him. He watched as Armand decapitated the insect with scissors and then separated the bug’s head with the forceps, struggling minutely.
Once he was done, the vampire picked up the specimen’s mouthpiece, holding it between thumb and forefinger─ whispered, perhaps to himself, Labrum, mandibles, Maxillae, Labium. He spared the boy beside him a glance as he beckoned, “Daniel, look.”
Armand held up a tiny piece of flesh, a lobe, for the boy to gaze at. “It’s the roach’s hypopharynx.”
Daniel nodded, although he wasn't fully understanding of what Armand just showed and told him. “Cool… What’s that?”
“It’s a sort of tongue-like structure for the insect. Much like one, it secretes saliva and helps in moving food, although instead of in a mouth, as would occur in yours, the movement happens in the pre-oral cavity.” Armand turned to Daniel, grabbed his forearm with the hand that hadn’t been busy with the roach. “Here, hold it.”
Daniel cringed away, starting to protest, “Oh, I’d rather not…”
It was too late. Armand placed the fragment of the creature’s oral apparatus on Daniel’s hand. A shiver went through the boy’s body, a pure reflex of shock and disgust, but even still, he analyzed what lay in his hand.
He looked at the chunk of flesh, grimly fascinated, imagining how it’d operate inside a cockroach’s mouth as it fed. “And this stays inside the cockroach’s mouth?” Daniel asked, despite himself.
“Not exactly. It hangs down, between the Maxillae,” Armand points to a chunk of the bug’s mouthpiece with the forceps in his hand─ two identical segmented structures, both ending in a sharp point. Daniel put down the hypopharynx on the cutting board, poked at the remains. “They operate as pincers,” Armand continues, “They hold food, manipulate it, so it can be sliced by the mandibles.”
As Daniel curiously prodded at the Maxillae, Armand’s focus drifted back to the cockroach’s now headless body, dropping the forceps in favor of one of the scalpels placed on the countertop.
Swiftly, Armand carved down the middle of the animal’s up-turned abdomen: the scalpel slid through the relatively softer tissue of the roach’s mesothorax, metathorax, and then down the seven horizontally displayed sternums. The flesh came away with no amount of difficulty, split under the stainless steel blade.
Making use of the forceps, the vampire picked up one of the flaps of the incision. He gracefully lifted it, pulling it to the side.
Daniel pulled his eyes away from the Maxillae and watched as Armand turned the insect inside out. The thing’s innards were pulled out, starkly fleshy against balmy pale residue, the insect's fat body. A specifically large section of the roach guts interested Daniel, and he pointed at it as Armand separated it from the rest of the animal with the pair of scissors, and raised it with the forceps.
“What's that?” The fixture the boy pointed at was yellow, and somewhat reminded him of a human stomach, the shape similar to what he'd seen in anatomical diagrams of the G.I tract when he was a highschooler.
Armand brought the forceps closer to Daniel so he could take a look. “This is the crop,” he explained, turning the tool so that the organ could be seen from all angles. “It stores food, which will then be grinded up by the gizzard.” He gestured to a piece of flesh that looked more like a thick, knotted ribbon.
Daniel raised his hand shily, taking the crop between thumb and forefinger when Armand nodded his permission. He watched Armand watch him as he lifted the sac to his eyes, peeked upon its slimy surface with an air of curiosity.
“Daniel…” Armand started, his voice velvety. The scalpel was in his hands again.
The boy's gaze flitted back and forth between the organ and his lover’s face, his hand where the scalpel lay. “Yeah?”
“Eat it.”
Daniel jerked back at the suggestion, his face turning pale, his stomach churning. He dropped the crop on the cutting board.
“What the hell, Armand?! Why would I do that?” His voice was high as he stepped away from the counter. “I've done a lot of weird shit for you, but I'm not doing tha…”
Daniel fell silent as he noticed the smile on Armand's face as the vampire broke out into peels of uncontained, hearty laughter.
Oh. He flushed with embarrassment as he realized Armand had only told him to do something so outrageous as a joke, just to watch him freak out.
The boy looked down. “Really funny, Armand…”
Armand laughed for a few moments more, and then caught his breath. He grinned at Daniel. “I'm sorry, my love,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “I couldn't resist. I love those faces you make, when you're…”
“Disgusted?”
“In awe.”
Daniel snorted and shook his head, and despite himself, got closer to Armand again. He rested his chin on the crook of his undead darling’s neck, kept his hands up so as to not get Armand dirty with roach remains. “Are we done here? I kind of want breakfast.”
Daniel listened as Armand snipped off the roach’s legs, which were pinned to the board with the thumbtacks, one by one, scissors crunching down on the chitin. He turned his head just in time to see the last one separate from the eviscerated mass.
Armand was done, finally. He took out the thumbtacks and set the legs aside on the cutting board. He turned his head, nuzzling Daniel's jaw. “Yes, I'm done here. You can go back to bed,” he laid a gentle kiss on Daniel's cheek, still hot to the touch from his nervous blushing. “I'll go run some errands, and make you something to eat. Your fridge is empty again, I'll have to go to the market.”
Daniel pressed closer to Armand, letting out a content sigh. “Thank you,” Daniel pulled away, facing Armand to lovingly peck his lips. “I'll go wash my hands and get some more sleep.”
As he left the kitchen after washing his hands, Daniel turned his head to look back at Armand standing over the sink, scrubbing the dissection tools clean.
The scalpel, dirty from use, shone in his hand in the early morning light. Its blade glinted like wet teeth.
Daniel wondered what it'd feel like to have it bite into his skin.
***
Wednesday, 7:00PM.
The two-week holiday in Greece had been pretty fun. Daniel could now attest that the country's traditional cuisine was great, and so was the sun on his skin, and the sand between his toes, and being able to show a pretty decent amount of skin without being stared at while floating in the water and letting himself be rocked by the waves. Collecting seashells and sea glass was fun, and getting the opportunity to visit monuments he'd only seen in books and brochures had made Daniel so excited he thought he'd have a fit.
There was also the matter of the summer home Armand had rented for their trip: it was spacious, and had a pool, and an en-suite bathroom, and Daniel hadn't been informed of its existence until Armand let himself into his apartment at 2AM on a Wednesday with tickets for a transfer flight to Greece that boarded at 4AM.
Having a place to call his own, even if for a little while, and to share with Armand had made it so that they were unable to spend even a second apart: Daniel would sit on Armand's lap as he wrote down the day’s outings on his travel journal, swim in the pool in the backyard as Armand watched him from underneath the shade, hug Armand from behind as he made dinner in the little kitchen, spend the whole day in his arms in bed, receiving soft affectionate kisses in-between sessions of really intense (and, frankly, mildly disgusting) sex.
(They'd had to lay down a plastic over the bedsheets to try and prevent blood from soaking the linens. The first night, Daniel had sweat so much the expiration date that'd been printed on the wrap transferred onto his skin. Some of the bedclothes hadn't been fully covered by the plastic, so some blood stained them anyway.)
All in all, Armand had been playing the part of doting boyfriend (benevolent captor) well enough, so Daniel felt like he needed to indulge him. It was only fair.
That's how he found himself sitting next to Armand in the summer home’s dining room, watching as a square of plastic wrap was dutifully taped to the tabletop.
Daniel pulled up a chair so he could sit at the dinner table as Armand placed a small plastic box with thumbtacks inside, two scalpels, a small forceps and scissors over the tabletop, leaving them close to the plastic. His tools.
He gazed with interest as Armand slipped on a pair of blue medical grade gloves, eyes fixating on how the nitrile clung to the vampire’s knuckles and wrist bones. Deathly pretty, he thought, which earned him a glance accompanied by a small smile from Armand.
“Get out of my head,” Daniel says, although he can't keep down the audible smile in his voice. “It freaks me out when you do that.”
“It doesn't seem like you want me to very much, boy.” Armand replies. “Your head's wide open for me to ‘get into’, as you put it.”
Daniel snorted at that, but his smile fell as Armand picked something up and placed it over the square of plastic on the dinner table.
Oh, right. That.
Nothing had informed Daniel of just how often he'd come to find scorpions while in Greece. He hadn't expected to come across the little beasts as much as he already had, but on the second day of the trip, he'd already stepped on about ten of them, and fled from the vicinity of about twenty.
It was worse knowing the creatures could show up in the house, and they did, sometimes. Although he knew Armand would be there to spray them with vinegar or crush them with a shoe for him, the thought of being stung by a scorpion freaked Daniel out so much he wouldn't dare to walk around barefoot.
Maybe dissecting a scorpion in front of Daniel was Armand's way of expressing to him that there was no need to be afraid; or at least that's how Daniel rationalized it, as he watched Armand lay a dead scorpion on its back on top of the plastic wrap. Only then did the wrap’s function really click in Daniel's head. “Are you using that to make the splash zone smaller?” He asked.
“I'm laying out this protective wrap to make clean-up easier, yes.” Armand beckoned Daniel closer, holding his gloved hand out. “Put on some gloves as well. You will assist me this time by giving me the instruments when I ask.”
Daniel nodded, and dragged his chair closer, the sound of wood scraping against wood making him grit his teeth for a mere second. He looked up at Armand from where he sat as he made quick work of putting on a pair of gloves, albeit a bit clumsily. All of the vampire's focus was on the insect as he opened the box of thumbtacks and began to pin the animal's body down.
“Was it already dead?” Daniel asked, despite not expecting an answer. “Or is it freshly killed?”
Armand didn't answer, just punctured the insect’s two pincers right down the middle with the thumbtacks, and then the tips of the rest of its appendages.
Under the incandescent lamplight, Armand looked like some kind of clandestine surgeon, a back-alley doctor, the paisley neckerchief, dagger collar and rolled-up sleeves of his navy blue satin shirt and the curve of his hip-hugging denim bell-bottoms making him appear to be some sort of medical fetishist hippie’s fever dream darling when juxtaposed with his sterilized gloves and stern demeanor.
“Scalpel.”
Daniel handed Armand the instrument, and watched as he cut off the scorpion’s tail and set it aside with a push of the scalpel’s blade.
The boy tilted his head, a bit like a puppy. “What'd you do that for?”
Armand turned his attention to Daniel. “Despite what you may believe, the muscles that administer a sting can actually fire despite the specimen's death, similar to a bee.” He pointed at the stinger on the tip of the scorpion’s tail before setting down the scalpel. “I don't want you to touch it. You might hurt yourself. Forceps. Come here.”
Daniel stood up from where he sat and sidled closer to Armand, handing him the small forceps. With the forceps, Armand jabbed at the insect's anterior abdomen, pointing out small evenly spaced twin slits on each of the abdominal plates, spreading one open by lifting one of its flaps and pulling.
“These are called spiracles. They're openings for the scorpion’s book lungs. Many arachnids have them. Their name comes from the fact that their structure looks similar to a folded book, seeing as it's composed of alternating air pockets and tissue which is filled with hemolymph.”
“I don't know what hemolymph is.”
“It's a fluid analogous to blood. And these,” Armand used the forceps to lift a small, comb-shaped limb located behind the insect's walking legs, “are the pectines. They're chemo-sensory appendages. They're what would be antennae for a mandibulate arthropod.”
Daniel hummed in agreement, a bit dumbly, before choosing to chime in. “So they'd help with things like mating, and stuff? Because of pheromones?”
Armand nodded, a small grin on his face. “Yes. And food-finding, too.”
The vampire picked up the scalpel once more. “I'm going to make a vertical incision now. The structures in the scorpion’s body are too small to be seen without a microscope, but I'll indicate to you where each would be.”
The moment the scalpel cut through the muscle of the first abdominal plate, Daniel's mind was, inexplicably, gone. He watched and listened on as Armand proceeded to point out the location of the scorpion’s genitals, explain to him the operation of the digestive gland, even delve into the organization of the insect’s nervous system: how it’s simple, consisting of a brain, nerves, ganglia and a ventral nerve cord, which is the equivalent of a spinal cord in vertebrates.
Armand's voice was soothing, digging into his skull like a trepanation tool, making itself a home in the folds of Daniel’s cortex, disassembling his synapses until he lost coherence, like a brain-eating parasite.
It struck Daniel at that moment that he wished he was the creature being cut into, and looked at under a clinical gaze, and explained in impartial, stiff scientific terms.
The moment his thought process reached that point, Daniel choked on air, desire simmering in his stomach. He was white-knuckling the edge of the table top as Armand pulled a thumbtack from one of the scorpion’s large claws.
“Scissors.”
Daniel nodded, handing his partner the scissors dutifully, although his hands shook. He knew Armand was almost done, seeing as he'd already made the scorpion’s insides outsides, but his brain was going too fast for his body.
He matched his breathing to Armand’s snipping off of the scorpion’s limbs, made a noncommittal noise in response to the vampire's explanation that the pedipalps, commonly known as pincers, were used to immobilize and subdue the insect’s prey, played with one of the pedipalps between the fingers of his dominant hand.
“The scorpions here aren't that dangerous, actually,” Armand said, his voice light, gesturing towards the pincer Daniel held in his hand. “The larger the pedipalps, the less life-threatening the sting. The opposite logic can be applied for the tail.”
Daniel turned the claw so he could look at it from a different angel. “The bigger the tail, the more life-threatening the sting?”
“Yes.” Armand replied, cutting off the last of the creature’s limbs.
“Did you learn all of that from those entomology textbooks of yours?”
Armand nodded, lifting his gaze to meet Daniel’s. “I'm done here. You needn't linger. The clean-up process is a bit tedious.”
Daniel put down the claw next to the rest of the eviscerated scorpion as Armand continued, “I was thinking you could clean yourself up while I put everything away. I'd like to take you out to dinner tonight, if you're amenable.”
Daniel took off one glove, the one on his right hand, glancing at his partner. “Is this you giving me an option for once?”
Armand smiled at him in a way that told him, quite clearly, No.
“Don't overextend yourself while showering, Daniel. I booked us a reservation at a sea-side restaurant which I've heard has spectacular grilled octopus. You haven't had that before, have you? I'd like for you to try it, and I'd hate for us to be late.”
Daniel huffed. “Sure, okay.” He cradled Armand’s jaw with his ungloved hand and kissed the vampire’s cool cheek, lingering slightly, before turning to leave.
Armand projected psychically to Daniel, as he left the dining room: Wear those black leather Oxfords I bought you, they flatter you.
Alright, boss, Daniel projected back.
As a dissected scorpion’s remains were swept from the tabletop and discarded in one side of the house, Daniel touched himself underneath the shower spray in another.
As he roughly jerked himself with a gloved hand, he thought of what it'd be like if it was Armand doing this to him, fingers tracing his labia and cupping his pubic mound, teasing his dick with the smooth feeling of the medical grade latex.
He leaned his weight against the wall, water hitting his back, and came thinking about scalpels, and forceps, and neatly made vertical incisions being pulled open to reveal the flesh that lay beneath.
(The orgasm made him so dizzy he stumbled out of the shower box and tripped over the pile of clothes he'd left on the bathroom floor.)
***
Friday, 9:00PM.
If there was one thing Armand excelled at, it was showering his beautiful boy in affection through gifts. Daniel’s brain had a pleasure center so stunted that, when necessary, all it took Armand was some nagging and a couple of expensive treats to have the boy back in his thrall after nasty arguments that'd ended in ultimatums or threats of violence (if not worse, although more often than not, Daniel wasn't able to recall those episodes).
Some would call it emotional manipulation, but the way Armand saw it, he was only indulging Daniel’s innermost wishes, the ones he wouldn't vocalize. Because truth be told, Daniel liked being spoiled. Armand had learned as much when he rifled through the boy's brain during one of their outings, feeling an inkling of pride in his chest over how happy Daniel truly felt at being lovingly smothered with gifts.
All a hedonist ever wants is someone who will bank their excesses. Daniel had met his perfect match, surely.
“I know I haven't been eating well, but you didn't have to…” Daniel started to say as he put down his wine glass. He was interrupted mid-sentence by Armand, who sat beside him.
The vampire scoffed. “Daniel, please. Coffee, heroin, white bread and cigarettes barely constitute a diet. I'm doing you a favor.” Armand's voice was stern, but it softened as he rested a hand on the boy's knee under the table. “Let me pour you another drink? You seem to be enjoying the red wine.”
Armand had had the idea of taking Daniel on a dinner date at a cozy seafood bar on the Irish west coast. Before being whisked away from his regular day-to-day life by the vampire, as he'd become used to, Daniel had been treating himself quite poorly the weeks before, barely eating so that he'd have more time to meet his article’s deadlines. Armand thought it unseemly, incorrect that his boy was being deprived of what's finest in life, so he endeavored to right that wrong.
“And furthermore, I found the stash you'd been keeping hidden from me in your apartment,” Armand continued as he pulled his hand away from his boy's knee, grabbing the wine bottle in front of them and refilling Daniel’s glass. “I really ought to do something about your dealer. I thought we agreed you'd stay clean, didn't we, Daniel?”
“Well, technically, we didn't agree on much,” Daniel replied flippantly as he grabbed the glass. He took a sip, and continued, “You just showed up at my flat one day, flushed all of my smack and coke down the toilet and yelled at me to quit…”
Daniel's words died on the tip of his tongue as the once affectionate gaze set on him turned cold. He cleared his throat, putting down the wine glass. “...Sorry.”
“That's alright,” was Armand’s response, his voice, now tinged with a certain amount of scorn, sending a chill down Daniel's spine. “My apologies for not finding your habit of wasting away with a needle in your arm or powder up your nose very becoming.”
Daniel winced. “Come on, babe, you know I didn't mean it like that…”
“Perhaps I am the one in the wrong,” Armand ignored Daniel's attempt to placate. “Would you prefer if I left you to self-destruct, so that the only time your name ever comes up in a news headline is when it’s accompanied by ‘up-and-coming journalist found dead in apartment following drug overdose’?”
“No, I'm sorry,” Daniel placed his hand over Armand's own where it came to rest on his table, bare skin on black lambskin.
“Don't touch me.” Armand pulled away, scowling. The vampire's brow furrowed slightly, and his gaze strayed from Daniel's face. The boy got the sinking feeling he was about to get up and leave.
Daniel pouted, but he didn't try to chase after the contact. “I like it when you look out for me when I don't look out for myself,” he pleaded. “I know it doesn't seem like it, but I do.”
“Then why, Daniel, why are you so difficult? Why do you keep pushing me away?”
Daniel looked down at his hands. “I don't know. I guess I'm bad at accepting good things.”
Armand nodded. “Yes. Yes, you are.”
“But I'm grateful you brought me here, and I'd really like it if you could stay,” Daniel said, with some difficulty, perhaps from embarrassment. “...You wanted me to try something new tonight, right?”
The boy successfully managed to change the subject, catching Armand's attention. He sipped some more wine, even if only to hide the way he smiled when the vampire's eyes were on him again.
“Oh, yes. Have you ever had a raw oyster, Daniel?”
Daniel shook his head, and slung an arm over the back of his chair as he moved it in Armand’s direction so that their knees were close enough to touch. “Never got the chance to try one.”
Armand smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes. “I'd like to watch you try them with the side dishes… I was unsure which you'd like, so I ordered all of them. I've read it's widely agreed by connoisseurs that the west coast of Ireland grows some of the best oysters.”
The wine flowed freely as Daniel listened to Armand talk about oysters, how their fossilized forms have been found on every major landmass on Earth, how the oldest evidence of their consumption dates back to the genesis of mankind.
“Let me get that for you,” Armand said, when Daniel finally got an oyster in his hands. The boy gave him the closed oyster, and watched as he used a knife to open it, inserting the blade where top and bottom shell met and twisting it at 90 degrees, severing the abductor muscle that connected them with a pop.
“Cool,” Daniel said with an awed grin, as he watched Armand put down the knife so he could use a small ‘oyster fork’ to loosen the meat from the shell. He wiggled in his seat, brain lingering on the visual of Armand popping the oyster open with a knife for a couple of seconds. “You ever done that before?”
“I read the steps to it in a brochure.” As he handed the oyster back to Daniel, Armand warned, “Don’t drain the liquid, Daniel, that’s the oyster liquor. It compliments the flavor of its meat.” He took off one of his gloves and held up half of an open lemon on his now bare hand. “Would you like some lemon juice?”
Daniel nodded, and Armand squeezed some drops of lemon juice on his oyster. As he watched the vampire clean his hand with a napkin before slipping it back into his glove, Daniel raised the wide end of the oyster’s shell to his lips.
“Don't spill, and remember to chew.”
Aware of his partner’s eyes on him, Daniel slurped down the oyster, chewing on the soft, slightly slimy tissue. It tasted nice and briny and reminded Daniel of the sea, with the lemon juice only giving it a more special tang. Once he was done eating the first, Daniel put the shell down on his plate.
“Turn the shell over, Daniel.” The vampire instructed, his pupils dilated. If Daniel bothered to take a good look, he'd notice Armand was trying to keep his fangs from dropping. “It's polite.”
Armand grabbed the knife again and another oyster. He gestured towards the mignonette sauce he'd ordered. “Now you'll try it with some of this.”
***
Monday, 6:00PM.
Daniel's radio was badly broken. It lay on the floor, a couple inches away from the table it'd just been violently shoved off of, with its top half mixing, and speaker dented in, playing a feedback loop of static and crunched-up audio clips as it witnessed one of Daniel and Armand’s tri-monthly nasty arguments; as usual, the argument had started over something small, and evolved into a screaming match between the man and the vampire.
“I don't get it, man!” Daniel yelled, angry tears already beginning to form in his eyes. “You think you can do whatever you want to me. You flush my drugs down the toilet, drag me along with you to wherever you want, play me like a fucking violin, but you won't do this one thing for me!”
“I've told you before, Daniel, I do these things to keep you well. I covet your health and happiness,” Armand cut in, trying to keep himself composed, although his jaw was tense. “What you're asking of me is unreasonable.”
“Why? Why is it unreasonable?” The boy’s voice shook. “You don't want me, is that it? You don't like me enough to turn me so I can always be with you, so we…”
“Your grip on reality is tenuous enough as it is,” Armand replied. “You can't go a day without indulging in some vice of yours. You'd be rendered a slave to the blood.”
“Isn't that what you've made me already? I think you're making me sick.” Daniel’s voice was low.
Armand locked eyes with Daniel, who quickly looked away. “What was that?”
“You're making me fucking sick, Armand,” the boy said, twitching where he sat at the dinner table, whether it was from withdrawals or nerves, he couldn't tell. “I don't know how, but I can barely function anymore.”
Daniel stood up from the chair, unable to meet Armand’s eyes. He stared down at the broken radio. “Damn it, man, all I can think about every day is you, and with that, when the other shoe is going to drop. Are you doing this to me on purpose? So that I'll take it easier when you decide to kill me because I'm not a good enough emotional proxy for him anymore?”
Daniel peered up and, upon noticing the angry set of Armand’s jaw, laughed mirthlessly. He rode out the high of getting a reaction from him, pressing further. “What? Don't try to pretend, I know that whenever you're tired of messing with my life, you go back to Loui—”
Armand raised his voice. “Quiet.”
Daniel fell silent immediately, his stomach dropping. The vampire stared at him blankly, all previous signs of anger dissolving into placidity. It made some ugly, visceral emotion well up inside Daniel, causing his heart to start racing, hammering against his ribcage.
“Don't ever say that again, Daniel.” Armand said, quietly, as he stepped around the table, getting close to the boy. “Everything I do is for your benefit. You are truly very ungrateful, behaving as if my ‘messing with your life’ hasn't extended your longevity, stopping you from suffering the consequences of your bad habits. And yet, you still think yourself worthy of my blood?”
Daniel felt gutted. He struggled for a response. “I'm sorry, I just—”
“You're always sorry, Daniel. It's always ‘I’m sorry’ with you. It doesn't matter, really, how sorry you are in the end. You are stuck in a cycle of repeating your mistakes and crying out your grievances,” Armand stepped into Daniel's personal space, so close their noses would've been touching if Daniel's head hadn't been bowed in fear and shame. “What is wrong with you?”
That question was asked so gently, Armand's voice hushed as he placed his hand on the back of Daniel's neck. The tenderness of the gesture made the boy start to cry, quiet sobs making his entire body curve inwards, as if he intended to fold into himself and disappear from the world. The tears spilled until Daniel’s palate tasted like salt.
“I don't know,” Daniel whispered. “I don't know what's wrong with me, Armand. I just want to be like you, like L…” he trailed off. He wouldn't dare speak.
A beat of silence. Armand caressing Daniel’s nape, and the curly hairs that grew close to it. “Sit down.”
Daniel did. He stood limply as the vampire pulled out one of the chairs at the dining table for him, and then he sat. He watched as Armand walked out of the small dining room, heard the sound of the door slamming shut as the vampire left the flat. Waited for him to come back for ten, fifteen minutes, a half hour, an hour. He started wondering if Armand had abandoned him again as he usually did, or if they were done for real. Just the thought made him start shaking. Before he knew it, Daniel was crying with his head bowed, tears wetting the denim of his jeans.
Daniel's head jerked up as he heard the sound of the apartment door being unlocked, and then the light footfalls of his vampire lover. He breathed out a sigh of relief.
He smiled weakly when Armand walked into the room, hoping that the vampire was in a better mood now, but noticed he was holding… something.
A dove?
Armand cradled a white dove in his arms as he walked towards where Daniel sat. His steps were slow and had a gentle sway to them. It made Daniel sweat.
“Armand, what…” Daniel wasn't even sure what to ask as the vampire stopped in front of him. He listened to the bird’s soft cooing, unsure of why the vampire had brought it to him.
“You told me you wish to be like me,” was Armand's non-answer. He looked down at Daniel as he held the dove close to his chest. “Is that true?”
Daniel wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and sighed. “I don't know…”
“Do you envy my condition?”
“Armand,” Daniel sniffled. “I don't know! I don't know, I just wish…” The boy was at a loss for words. He shrugged his shoulders and rested his face against the front of Armand’s shirt.
“Daniel, if you wish to be like me, you must learn discipline. You know this, yes?”
“I know.” Daniel brought a hand up to Armand's clothed waist. “No excesses…”
Armand nodded. “And you know you must learn how to handle violence, yes? And suppress your reactions of horror and disgust?”
“Yes...”
Armand's voice was like snake venom slowly working its way through the boy's veins. “Eyes up here, Daniel.”
Daniel pulled away from Armand's front and gazed up at him. He watched as the vampire stroked the head of the dove, affectionately rubbing the space between its eyes with his forefinger. Something ached inside the boy's body at that, from his toes to the tips of his fingers.
Daniel shifted in his seat, readying himself to get up. “Wait, what are you—”
“Rest.”
In the stillness of the apartment, the sound of the dove’s vertebrae snapping as Armand dislocated the bird’s neck was as loud and clear as a gunshot.
Daniel let out a noise like he'd been punched in the gut. Bile rose to his throat, and he was unable to hold it in. He turned his head to the side and vomited, releasing the contents of his empty stomach on the linoleum.
“Daniel, the floor,” Armand said as Daniel caught his breath through ragged, pained gasps. “You’ll wipe it clean later.”
The boy was crying freely again, now. His head ached as he licked his lips, cringing at the acrid taste. His voice was weak as he asked, “Why…” A sharp intake of breath, disrupted by a weak cough. “Why not now?”
Armand placed the dead dove on the tabletop. “You have to help me with the bird first, of course.”
Upon hearing that, and understanding what it implied, Daniel buried his face in his hands and wept, shoulders shaking from the force of his sobs. He vaguely registered as Armand turned on his heels to leave the room again and said, “I'd tell you not to leave, but I know you won't. I'm going to fetch my tools.” but it didn't matter. For a split second, the entirety of the world was reduced to his cowering form, the wooden chair he sat upon, and the dead bird that rested a couple inches away from him.
Daniel’s hands shook as he dutifully put on a pair of blue nitrile gloves. His face was still tacky with tears as he watched Armand line up the tools he'd already become familiar with: scalpels, scissors, forceps, and then place another one on the tabletop. A small bolt cutter.
Despite his mood, Daniel couldn't stop himself from pointing it out. “That… doesn't look too medical to me.”
Armand grinned. “It'll be easier to cut off the dove's wings with it than any other tool at my disposal. Thumbtacks.”
Daniel handed Armand the thumbtacks. He watched as the vampire pinned the bird down by driving three tacks through each wing, and then one tack on each of its legs. He winced as he heard the noise made by metal piercing the bone.
With gloved hands, Armand parted the feathers of the dove’s thorax and located a bony ridge on the midline of the specimen’s torso. “This is the keel,” Armand explained as he ran a finger up and down the shape of the structure. “It’s the bone that anchors the large flight muscles of the bird. Scalpel.”
Daniel handed Armand the scalpel, and watched as a shallow incision was made along the keel, and then up to the bird’s beak. Handing his partner the forceps when asked, he watched as the skin was freed from the underlying muscular tissue. Daniel heard the dove’s cooing. He heard its neck snap.
Armand cut the muscles of the bird open to get at the insides, and as he gently explained the functions to each of the organs he pointed out: crop, ileum, bursa Fabricii, cloaca, the distress that lingered in the back of Daniel's skull seemed to fade, but the moment he let himself be lulled into a more quiet emotional state, the visual and sound of Armand snapping the dove’s neck would replay in his brain, and he would have to restrain himself from gagging.
“Compared to body size, the avian liver is larger than that of mammals.” Armand pointed to two fleshy lobes inside the dove. “It's split into right and left lobes, and the right lobe is larger. The liver’s left lobe is divided into a dorsal and ventral segment in turkeys and domestic fowl.”
Daniel nodded, getting closer so he could take a look and see how the lumps of dark brown flesh met at the midline of the dove’s body, get his fingers inside the cavity and feel their texture. The boy lingered, but the blood rushed to his head as he noticed that, after a couple moments, he'd stopped paying attention to the specimen in front of him, and had begun to focus instead on the blood-stained blue nitrile of Armand’s gloves and how they contrasted with the bird’s white feathers.
“Incorrigible,” Armand chastised, although he sounded fond. “Your desire shows itself at the most inappropriate times.”
“I'm sorry.” Daniel replied on impulse, grimacing as the words fell out of his mouth.
“It's alright.” Armand didn't point out Daniel’s compulsion to apologize this time. “But I do want you to focus. Forceps.”
With the forceps, Armand perused through the bird’s insides until he found what he wanted. “Here's the heart.” With a gentle tug, he pulled it away from the rest of the organism. Daniel involuntarily imagined his own heart being ripped away from inside his body, too. “Would you like to hold it?”
Daniel nodded, holding one of his hands out. His own heart raced as Armand placed the organ in his palm, thinking of how it'd feel like to have one of his organs held just like this, and for just one grim moment, how it'd feel like having his neck snapped just like a bird’s, weak vertebrae succumbing to an outside force. “It's… It's pretty big, for a bird, isn't it?”
Armand nodded, “The heart is a large organ relative to an avian’s size, yes. And, compared to a mammal’s heart, its stroke volume and beat rate is higher.” He grabbed the bolt cutters.
Daniel squirmed at the crunching sound made by the bolt cutters as they severed the bird’s wings, and then its legs. Armand turned to Daniel, noticing he still held the dove’s heart in his hands.
“Are you upset by what I did, dear?” The affectionate nickname sounded like an insult, the way Armand said it.
Daniel swallowed his spit, not sure what was the right thing to say. He put down the heart with the rest of the bird’s remains, trying to not stare it in its unseeing eyes. “No…?” he looked down at his gloves, sticky with blood. “Just shocked, I guess.”
Armand nodded silently in response and continued the process of cleaning up. He'd made more of a mess than usual, since he hadn't laid out anything to prevent it before he started the dissection this time.
“I love you,” Daniel said, weakly.
“I know,” was what Armand said in reply. “You should wipe your vomit off the floor.”
***
Wednesday, 3:00AM.
“‘Despairing of love and of chastity, I at last bethought myself of debauchery, a substitute for love, which quiets the laughter, restores silence, and above all, confers immortality. At a certain degree of lucid intoxication, lying late at night between two prostitutes and drained of all desire, hope ceases to be a torture, you see; the mind dominates the whole past, and the pain of living is over forever.’ Not sure what Camus is going on about. Lying late at night between two prostitutes sounds pretty great to me.” Daniel joked, closing his copy of The Fall and turning off the lamp on the bedside table. He turned to Armand, admiring the vampire’s amber eyes, how they shone in the dark. He rested his head on his pillow and made himself comfortable underneath the covers, yawning. “I don't understand why you make me read books to you when you can pick them up yourself.”
“Your voice is a very simple pleasure I have at my reach, which I can choose to indulge in when I please,” Armand said simply in response. “And you like reading to me. You like Camus, despite not agreeing with his philosophy.” He moved closer to Daniel until they were chest to chest, the motel room’s bed springs awfully loud under their combined weight. He kissed Daniel's lips in the dark, and then his cheek, his temple.
“Fine, you got me, I do.” Daniel laughed, helpless to the onslaught of affectionate pecks on his skin. “But I still prefer The Stranger to The Fall, despite you thinking it's over-rated.”
Armand stopped his kisses for one second to wittily reply, “It is quite literally over-rated, Daniel. It's Camus’ most famed work.”
Daniel laughed, and let himself be held and kissed. “Armand, I was thinking…” he started, and then was briefly interrupted by Armand's hands sliding underneath his sleep shirt and up his sides as the vampire kissed his jawline and neck. “I keep thinking about your, uh, obsession with… taking things apart.”
Armand ceased his motions for a second, pulling away to face Daniel, despite them both being bathed in shadow. “My obsession?”
Daniel immediately rushed to make himself clear, so as to not irritate his lover. “Not in a bad way, it's not a bad thing, Armand.” He found the curve of the vampire’s cheek in the dark, caressed it with his thumb. “I just mean…”
Daniel sighed, squirmed in place over the bedsheets, a part of his body still trapped under Armand’s weight. “I guess I keep thinking about you dissecting those animals. And, uh, how'd you explain their parts to me.”
The vampire nuzzled the side of Daniel’s face so affectionately it made the boy struggle with words, his face already hot from what was in his mind. “And I… I just kept thinking…”
“Yes?” Armand gently coerced Daniel into continuing by using the mind gift to pick through his memories and thoughts. The intrusion was noticeable enough to give Daniel a heightened sense of urgency to speak.
The boy said all of the words he needed to in a rushed whisper before he could let them get away from him, before Armand could force them out. “Do you mind if I ask you something weird? I mean, we do weird things all of the time. Is the dissection… Is it a sexual thing for you, Armand? A turn-on? Some kind of fucked up fetish?”
That gave the vampire pause. “Daniel…”
“Because when I was watching you cut into the roach, and the scorpion, and the dove, I… Honestly, I wanted you to be cutting into me. That's when I knew.”
“...It’s complex,” Armand replied. “That's all I'll say on it.”
Daniel nodded, although the non-answer made him turn his eyes away from Armand’s, made him press his cheek against the pillow.
Armand gently placed his finger underneath Daniel’s chin and tilted it so the boy was looking up at him again. “Would you like for me to arrange that? For me to cut into you? I can make it happen.” Armand asked. The moonlight shone through the room’s window curtains for a moment, framing the vampire’s body in a halo.
Daniel smiled, already dizzy from just the thought of it. “I would. I'd like that a lot, actually.”
Armand kissed the boy's nose. “As you wish.”
***
Sunday, 2:00AM.
Daniel came to completely unaware of his surroundings, feeling like he was swimming in his sweat. All he could register at first was that wherever he was, it was cold. After that, he noticed he was laying on a cool surface, and after that, the fact that he was completely nude. He stared up and was met with the sight of a white ceiling with fluorescent overhead lights; he tried to call out, but couldn't, because there was a piece of fabric stuffed in his mouth; he couldn't feel his forearms or hands, because they were tied behind his back, and the weight of the rest of his body was starting to cut off the blood flow to his upper limbs. He felt as if his entire organism was one large gelatinous mass, like something out of that one Harlan Ellison short story Armand had made him read once.
Daniel tried to remember the night before, but a large part of it was a blur, except for… Armand. Armand buying him round after round of drinks at the bar. Armand looking after Daniel's cocktail while he went to the bathroom. Armand forcing him to finish his drinks, even after they started tasting strange…
Must've been some really strong shit he dosed me with , Daniel thought, barely coherent still, exhaling forcefully through his nose. He squirmed, trying to bring some blood back to his shoulders. He wiggled his toes, and felt something small and made of cardboard tied to his big toe. Motherfucker…
Daniel tried to tune his ears to his surroundings, but his brain felt entirely too scrambled to. His body went warm all over the moment he heard heels clicking on the floor of the hallway outside. He heard the whine of a large metal door open, and then the sound of the heels was louder, and closer.
Daniel saw Armand in his foggy peripheral vision and that immediately made his heart start racing, but he wasn't sure if, in this little scenario of theirs, he was supposed to acknowledge his presence at all. He opted against it— although he didn't really have much of a choice on that, seeing as he was too out of it to do anything— deciding only to peer at him silently.
Armand wore, unsurprisingly, all of the typical garb of a forensic pathologist: lab coat, medical grade nitrile gloves and thick goggles. He was so committed to the fantasy, he even wore his hair tied back neatly with a plain blue ribbon. Daniel thought, in the midst of his drug haze, that he looked gorgeous. He wished he wasn't tied up so he could jump Armand's bones.
Daniel swallowed his own saliva as he heard the metallic clatter of a platter and surgical instruments, and then the familiar sound of a cassette tape being placed inside a recorder, followed by a button being pressed. Hitting record.
The boy’s whole body shivered when Armand’s gloved hand made first contact with the sole of his foot, thumb probing firmly at the flesh. He let out a quiet sigh as Armand held up the piece of cardboard, realizing right then that it was a toe tag.
Armand’s voice was loud and clear, with airs of professional impersonality. “Deceased’s name is Daniel Molloy. Male, Born October 10th, 1953. Height, 6 feet. Weight, 168 lbs. Race, Caucasian. Hair color, brown. Reported cause of death… Drug overdose.” Armand dropped the tag, moving along the length of what Daniel had come to belatedly realize was the autopsy table.
“The deceased’s body doesn't display any bruising upon first analysis. No signs of fissures, pustules or excoriation.” Armand said, as he slowly ran a gloved hand up Daniel's calf, and then his thigh. Daniel tried not to squirm as Armand touched his legs, checking for injuries on both of them, running his fingers along the scars he'd carved onto the boy’s skin some time ago. He was letting out his breath in desperate huffs already. It was too easy for Armand to get him worked up, it felt almost cruel.
Armand’s eyes and hands roamed up Daniel’s hairy pubic mound, although they didn't linger, and then his soft abdomen. The vampire gazed clinically at the soft hair of his subject’s happy trail and the small amount of it which dusted the soft, round swell of the figurative corpse on the autopsy table’s chest. He took a look at Daniel’s shoulders, too, and sat the boy up on the table for a couple moments so that he could massage his forearms and bound wrists as well. Armand pulled Daniel’s arms back from his body for a second, so that he could take a look at his hands. “There is some small scarring on the tops of the thighs, and erosion on the subject’s palms, and, of course, signals of drug use on his forearms: bruises from burst blood vessels pierced through with a hypodermic needle.”
Despite the vampire's seemingly strictly medical observation and touch, Daniel could feel it, so viscerally it was almost something tangible to him: a thin veil of desire enveloping his body like cellophane would a real corpse, the sentence I need you, I'll have you repeating in his head until he couldn't think of anything but, until his mind couldn't stray from it: IneedyouI’llhaveyouIneedyouI’llhaveyouIneedyouI’llhaveyou.
After laying the boy’s body back on the table, Armand cupped Daniel’s jaw, and turned his head from left to right, feeling some amount of awe over how truly out of it the drugs had made him: the boy moved fluidly, like a marionette on strings, upon manipulation. He stroked the boy's cheek tenderly before letting go. “Yes, good. Everything is in its right place. The deceased will now be examined internally.”
To Daniel's surprise, Armand leaned down and laid a gentle kiss on his cheek before walking back to the platter with surgical implements.
Armand picked up a small syringe and a glass vial from the platter. Daniel couldn't quite see the label on the vial as a liquid was drawn from it into the syringe, but he was pretty sure he wouldn't have been able to make sense of it anyway. Armand tapped the syringe to get the air out, and then walked towards Daniel’s prone body again.
Armand held, in the hand unoccupied by the syringe, a square of wet gauze. He scrubbed Daniel's sternum and stomach with it before pushing the needle of the syringe into the skin right above his diaphragm and depressing the plunger.
Daniel sighed, the small amount of pain from the needle in his skin making his dick twitch with interest. He whined low in his throat, the noise muffled by the fabric gag in his mouth, when Armand pulled the needle out and walked away.
After a couple minutes of reorganizing the implements on it, Armand finally picked up a scalpel from the platter. The way its stainless steel blade glinted under the overhead lights made it look as if it were inherently vile. Daniel's stomach did backflips at just the thought of it sinking into his skin, he wanted it so bad.
Armand walked back to Daniel, the sound of his heels (which although Daniel couldn't see, he could tell belonged to Armand’s most beloved pair of brown leather boots) echoing in the room.
One of Armand's gloved hands came down on Daniel’s collarbones, holding him still. Daniel shifted imperceptibly, trying to rub his thighs together minutely. His breathing picked up as Armand raised the blade, and then…
Daniel released a noisy pained sigh that was once again muffled by the gag in his mouth, that already began to darken with drool. The Y-shaped incision was made, from the points closest to his shoulder, right above Daniel’s sternum, down to his navel, and as soon as Armand lifted the scalpel, it began to bleed, pools of red welling up at the seams of the cut.
Armand's pupils dilated immediately behind the goggles upon smelling the boy's blood, and Daniel watched as his fangs dropped, as a drop of drool slipped past the vampire's lips.
Holy shit , Daniel thought, as black spots filled his vision for a couple seconds. If he wanted to, he could rip me open right now and drink his fill from my insides. That's so hot!!!
Making use of both his hands, Armand tugged on opposite seams of the wound on the boy's stomach, spreading it open, causing Daniel to make another pained, desperate sound as skin and muscle separated. The blue nitrile of the vampire’s gloves was wet with his dark red blood, the white fabric of the lab coat stained with it as well— it felt like Daniel was leaving his mark on Armand. He liked it.
“The deceased's organs…” Armand took a second to catch his breath, tucked his fangs behind his upper lip. With a finger, Armand traced the contour of what lay inside the cavity in Daniel’s chest. “The deceased’s organs lack any abnormalities, or deformation, upon first analysis, but I'd like to see…” Armand trailed off, struggling to maintain his composure, his hands stroking the ragged skin surrounding the leaking wound, almost teasingly, for a second, before he decided to plunge one of his fists into it.
Daniel squirmed and thrashed, moaned through the gag, his breathing erratic, his heart beating so fast he thought it'd give out. He felt weak as Armand penetrated him, inch by creeping inch, deeper than anybody ever had or ever would. Drool soaked through the fabric in his mouth and dripped down onto the autopsy table as he threw his head to the side, the hot skin of his cheek against cool metal. It felt like forever before Armand’s entire forearm was inside.
Armand’s pupils were blown wide as he buried his arm in the boy's guts, and it fascinated him how, the longer he played around inside them, causing Daniel more pain, made him feel more delicious vertigo, the wetter he became. He was so aroused Armand could smell it, now.
Armand removed his hand from inside Daniel, trying to wipe the blood off of his gloves onto his lab coat to no avail. There was no part of him that was not wet with Daniel's blood, not even the lenses of his goggles, except for…
Armand grabbed Daniel's hips and pulled him down the autopsy table a few inches, so that his legs hung over the edge. The boy watched as he fumbled with the buttons of his lab coat, and then the buckle of his belt, before finally being able to pull his pants down enough to reveal his hard dick, already throbbing, with a drop of bloody pre-ejaculate lubricating the tip— just the sight of it already made Daniel’s nostrils flare in a desperate sigh. He watched as the vampire collected some of his warm blood on his hand, and used it to stroke himself.
Before doing anything, though, Armand bent over the boy's body and loosened Daniel’s gag, pulling it down his chin. Daniel sobbed, dizzy from pain, blood loss and desire. “You like it, man?” Daniel managed, his voice shaky. “Is it… Is it better than cutting bugs open? You are kind of bleeding me dry here.” He tried a dry laugh, but it came out as more of a choked out moan.
Armand nodded silently, bowing his head to clamp his teeth down on one of Daniel’s breasts, forcing surprised, pleasured moans out of the boy's mouth as he licked at the sensitive nipples, already hardened from a mix of sensations: cold from the morgue air, arousal from being cut open and fucked. As he showered Daniel's chest with some much needed affection, Armand sloppily fucked into his hand, which was sticky and wet with blood. His pre dripped down on Daniel’s stomach in viscous ropes, mixing with what spilled from the open wound.
“Babe, come on,” Daniel pleaded, his words slurring together, making him unsure if they even made sense. He really felt like playing the part of the victim, really felt like saying no. “You’ve already hurt me enough. Just let me go, okay? Please.”
Armand lifted his head from Daniel's chest and caressed his cheek, leaving a bloody handprint. He then pulled away so that he could properly grip his dick and slip inside.
Daniel was an awful liar: he was wet, and he was open, despite his obvious attempts to clench down to make it seem like the entrance was more forced than it really was. His mouth fell open on a shameless, loud moan as Armand buried himself to the hilt completely.
“No, no, please…” Daniel rambled, even as his legs locked around Armand’s waist. The vampire busied himself with sucking bruises onto the boy’s neck, on kissing Daniel's jaw, cheek, temple, letting out gentle sounds of his own, little hushed moans and grunts, with every rock of their bodies in synchronicity, listening intently to every noise Daniel made as the speed and intensity of his thrusts, purposefully shallow at first, picked up.
With each thrust of Armand's hips, the open wound spilled over some, bathing Daniel’s body in a new coat of fresh blood. He looked like something out of a horror film: bloody, half-dead and sexy. The cut ached something awful, and Daniel’s fucked out whines as Armand traced it with his fingers were pretty enough to make the vampire salivate.
“Look at you…” Armand found himself saying, low in Daniel's ear, fangs teasing the lobe. One of his hands gripped the edge of the metal autopsy table so that he could have more leverage, so that he could thrust harder, and deeper, movements of his hips that shook the boy’s body wholly. After a second of deliberation, the vampire bent over Daniel's body and licked a stripe up the boy’s chest, tongue flirting with the open wound but just missing it barely. His breath now tasting of the boy’s blood as he raised his face, Armand hissed out, “There's not much stopping me from properly ending your life now, Daniel. Would you like that? If I smashed your cranium against this autopsy table until it caved in? If I pierced your heart with the blade of my scalpel? Do you believe anybody would bother to come looking for you if you went missing?”
“Yeah, yeah, please, you should kill me, bash my head in, skullfuck me,” Daniel moaned and pleaded, the victim role flipped on a dime as Armand fucked his brains out, the vampire’s words combining with the punishing rhythm of his hips making Daniel feel like he was being flayed alive. “Keep my corpse in a bathtub with ice, yeah, babe, nobody will miss me or come looking, I swear,”
Armand pulled away from Daniel’s ear, making contact as he cocked an eyebrow. “...You'd like me to keep your corpse, Daniel?”
“Yeah, anything,” Daniel gasped, writhing in pain and pleasure as more blood dripped up his chest, down his stomach and his thighs. “You don't even have to kill me, boss. You could just…” He whined on one particularly rough snap of their hips together. “Fuck me up so badly I'm half-dead, and then feed from me little by little, yeah?” Daniel rubbed the tip of his nose against Armand's, dizzyingly affectionate, too real, too entirely himself, for the fantasy. “Until I'm dead for real,”
Armand was so shocked and aroused by the juxtaposition of the boy’s words and his loving gesture he kissed Daniel to shut him up, with little coordination or finesse, just pure, distilled need, one of his gloved hands coming up to grip the boy's jaw. He shoved his tongue down Daniel’s throat, tasting his palate, and felt his desperate moans reverberate when one of his hands found Daniel’s aching dick trapped between their bodies.
Daniel came first with the help of Armand’s glove-clad hand, wet nitrile jerking the sensitive bud of his t-dick, cunt clenching down on the vampire's dick as he was told all the different, brutal ways Armand could bring an end to his life. Despite the boy's legs spreading so that he could pull out, Armand decided not to, opting to use Daniel's hole to get off, even as he moaned cute little ‘no, please stop’s and tried to squirm away from him.
“Please don't get me pregnant,” Daniel cried out, his eyes shut in his overstimulated daze, somehow still managing to form full sentences. “You can cut me up if you want, and scatter the pieces along a highway, but please don't get me pregnant…”
Armand stored his now extensive knowledge of Daniel's extremely detailed murder-related fantasies for a later date, focusing on grinding out his release, his thrusts becoming messier as he got closer. Unable to contain himself any longer, he sank his teeth on the flesh of Daniel’s neck and sucked greedily, coming with a choked out grunt while buried in the boy beneath him, bearing down all of his weight as he focused on tasting his blood. Daniel let out a weak pained wail when he felt Armand spill inside him as he sank his teeth in his neck: he imagined what it'd be like if the vampire bit down with such force he burst his carotid, and came again, untouched this time, just like that.
As his breathing slowed, Armand dislodged his teeth from the boy's neck and pulled out, finally. He tucked himself back into his underwear, zipped up his pants and redid his belt.
Daniel's eyes met his, half-lidded. “Soooo,” he started, feeling a bit winded, the drugs still circulating through himself, the gash running down his body still weeping, throbbing. “...What'd you think?”
Armand stroked his cheek fondly. “This was… satisfactory.” He licked the points of his fangs, attempting to prolong the taste of Daniel’s blood in his mouth. His pupils were still blown wide as he took off the goggles. He licked the palm of one his gloves, the sight of that action sending a thrill up Daniel's post-orgasmic sweating body. He looks so good all of the time. “Did you purge all of your desires, Daniel?”
Daniel yawned, feeling a bit dazed. “I'm not sure. I think you may have awakened more desires in me, honestly.”
Armand smiled. “We'll talk about it tomorrow morning, then.”
Daniel blinked dumbly. His shoulders ached from having been forced behind his back for so long, but he knew his beloved would take care of that for him. “... We will?”
“Yes,” was Armand's reply. “Rest.”
***
Daniel watched as Armand severed off his right hand with a jeweler’s saw. He felt no pain, no fear, only love and levity. Losing his hand was one of his worst paranoias as a writer, but he couldn't sense even an inkling of that emotion now.
Armand cut off his ring finger, and then sectioned it into three smaller pieces. Daniel watched as Armand picked up the last section between thumb and forefinger, hands clad in blue nitrile as usual.
“This, here, is the distal phalanx,” Armand explained, pointing out the bone that constituted the innermost layer of the piece. “It's named appropriately, I'd say, since it's the phalanx with the most distance from the palm.”
Armand lifted the piece of the finger to Daniel's lips. Daniel opened his mouth and stuck his tongue out.
“Eat it.” Armand says. He places the piece on the tip of Daniel's tongue. “Don't spill, and remember to chew.”
Daniel tipped his head back and closed his eyes, doing as Armand said.
***
Monday, 10:00AM.
Daniel woke up to the smell of breakfast cooking, with his chest and abdomen wrapped in gauze and a bandage strip on his neck. He was aching all over, sharp bursts of pain irradiating through his body.
Turning his head with some difficulty, he looked at the empty space on the bed beside him. He breathed in, and breathed out.
Daniel struggled to keep his eyes open. He thought of many things: a skull being crushed against a hard surface until it came apart with a disgusting crack, a still-beating heart being squeezed by a fist until it was reduced to dark red pulp, an insect’s exoskeleton being ground to nothing underneath the sole of a boot, the chitin making a crunching sound as it surrendered to the weight. Scalpels, bolt cutters, oyster forks, party drugs dissolved in alcohol.
The boy had read somewhere once that sleep was a sort of flirtation with death. Death in its emptiness, death in its liquid warmth, death in its all-encompassing comfort.
Daniel avoided sleep like the plague. He'd do drugs, stay up with strangers, busy himself with articles upon articles so that he wouldn't have time to rest. But when it came down to it, Daniel liked sleeping. Liked laying on a soft bed, surrounded by soft sheets, being weighed down by something he could not control.
Daniel let his eyes fall shut.
If resting was flirting with death, that was fine. Daniel had become used to doing as much, anyway.
He let himself slip down that gaping maw with too many teeth and sharp, gleaming fangs. He turned on his side, although the motion was a bit difficult, and let himself rest.