Barrack, Jeanne - The Sweet Flag Read online

  “Kazvan laughed, a sound laced with irony. ‘They didn’t think it would be the lure of the flesh. The nobleman’s daughter had already become a blood drinker. When she saw me, she wanted me, and -- God help me, I wanted her, too. She seduced me first before she introduced me to the intense pleasure of making love to her while she fed from me. Her father knew what she was, but he didn’t care. She was his daughter, and he loved her. As week after week passed, excuses were conveyed to my family regarding my delay in returning. Under her influence, I signed a note that I had joined his household to tutor his daughter and would remain with them. I found out later that without knowing what I had become, my family and friends mourned for me. They imagined me eating non-kosher food, drinking wine served by Gentiles, forgetting my daily prayers, and walking with my head uncovered.’ Kazvan bowed his head and gripped his hair, rocking back and forth as he squatted on his heels, his grief softening my fear and anger.

  “He raised his face, and there were no tears. ‘I cannot weep. No tears remain,’ he said. ‘Only despair and loneliness…and hunger, never ending hunger.’ When he spoke, his eyes glowed red, and the fear came rushing back to me.

  “Kazvan shrugged. ‘There is little more to tell. As the weeks wore on, I begged her to either kill me or turn me. She considered seriously, thinking it an interesting experiment to see if she could turn one of my kind into a blood drinker.’

  “With a grandiose gesture, Kazvan spread his arms wide and then pointed to his chest. ‘It worked. How could I know that bringing me to the heights of sexual ecstasy while draining almost all my blood and infusing hers with mine would make me even more of a prisoner? I couldn’t be away from her presence for more than a few hours at a time or physically distant for more than several hundred feet. I became her lap dog and helped her seduce both men and women to her bed. I gave up my studies and my prayers, for how could I profane the holy words? I stayed with her for over thirty years while we never aged, and her father died, leaving her everything he possessed.’

  “‘Then her greed knew no bounds until finally, one brave soul struck her head from her body to avenge his daughter’s death. I wasn’t with her when he executed her, thank whatever powers that be, but I felt it.’ Kazvan shook his head, still holding me enthralled with his history, feelings of pity, fear, and anger fighting within me. ‘I screamed when the blow fell. Then it felt as though a heavy, iron chain was unlocked, and I knew I could walk away a free man.’

  “Kazvan’s laughter rose, growing more and more crazed. “‘A free man! A free man! A creature that drank blood, could not walk in the sunlight, and that had lost his God. I fled before the revenging parent remembered the woman’s accomplice and sought after me.’ Kazvan’s eyes darted left and right as though he feared he might still be found. ‘He became a hero, you know. A legend. I read about the battle he fought with her hellish minions of which, he said, there were at least a hundred.’

  “‘I fled but took with me the ingredients of the alukah. With experimentation, I learned that the more blood in the potion, the greater my endurance to the sun and the longer I lived and the stronger.’ Kazvan offered this information as though giving a lecture and then added a footnote. ‘Of course, human blood is more efficacious than animal blood, and when taken directly from one’s target, offers the greatest enjoyment.’

  “I gazed at the glorious looking male who sat at my feet and felt no desire, no fear, and no anger. Only a deep well of pity for him and a desperate need to escape. Was it too late?

  “‘What do you want from me?’ I asked. “‘You and your lover. Bring the one you love to me. Think, you’ll live forever, always young, always beautiful, always…vigorous.’ Kazvan drew closer to me and cradled me in his arms, showering my face with kisses, using his strength to keep me from turning away. ‘I saw you fall when you fought that soldier, and I could not let such beauty die. I would even share you with another if you would stay with me. I am so alone.’

  “And then I thought of Matthew. I’d escape, find Matthew, turn him, and we’d live forever. And so I kissed Kazvan and whispered, ‘Give me the tonic.’”

  * * * * *

  I pulled out of Ron’s arms, staring at his pale face, at the lines of grief etched around his eyes. “You believed this madman?”

  Ron smiled. “You believe me, do you not?” And I realized that I did -- completely. All my years of researching paranormal activity, of debunking claims after exhaustive investigations, had prepared me for the truth. Too many details of Ron’s story could be corroborated through records of the time. The fabric of his life was too tightly woven to be torn apart by any doubts.

  “Do you have any physical record of what you’ve told me? Diaries, letters, anything?” Ron nodded. “I didn’t lie when I told you that I have Matthew’s journals and mine. I kept everything I could pack and cart away from our Brooklyn home.” He smiled. “I have clippings of my concert performances before Matthew and I met.” His smile faltered. “I kept poems Matthew wrote to me.” And then his tantalizing smile returned. “I even have a copy of the agreement from Whitman to refrain from mentioning Matthew by name.” He paused again. “And I have the most powerful proof -- the alukah potion. You can’t deny the effect it’s had on you. I figured the only way to keep you here was to keep you in bed. What better use for the tonic?” He drew me back into his arms, his voice teasing. “Or do you always fuck like you’ve just escaped from solitary confinement on Devil’s Island?”

  I shook my head. “It may have kept me horny, but it didn’t make me want you.” I turned my head and looked at him. “And you haven’t added any blood, have you?” “Not yet. I had planned to tonight, but I found that I couldn’t do it. I am not Kazvan. I realized I couldn’t turn you into a blood drinker and take your freedom from you. Not even to ensure your staying with me.”

  An uneasy silence fell between us.

  “Matthew died before you could turn him,” I blurted out.

  It wasn’t a question. If Matthew had been alive when Ron got away from Kazvan, they would still be together. Ron nodded. “But of course, I didn’t know that then when I made my decision to stay. Kazvan kissed me, but refrained from making love to me. He treated me as if I were his betrothed. Coddling me, taking care of all my needs, shaving me and cleansing my body as if he were my servant. He found clean, ill-fitting clothes for me, from where I hesitated to ask. And I waited for the right moment to escape. Though my wounds healed quickly, I feigned weakness, causing him to feed me even more of the noxious brew. Each day he’d prepare a fresh batch to ensure its potency, and I watched him carefully, noting the measurements, casually asking what this or that ingredient was. And as I fed, both my need for blood and my desire for sexual release increased.”

  Shifting me from his arms, Ron stood and paced back and forth, his hands shoved in his pockets. “I wanted to fuck that beautiful bastard and drink his blood. I knew I had to escape before I succumbed to his plans. Perhaps two weeks after he told me his story, he announced that that evening would be our wedding night! It would be my last chance to flee and find Matthew. That night, I lay on the blankets naked, waiting for him to join me like a maiden awaits her bridegroom. He stripped, his body eliciting the reaction he craved from me. My cock rose, and he smiled at my eagerness. He filled an ornately carved, heavy pewter goblet with the alukah, knelt, and offered it to me, drinking from one side and then presenting it for my lips. I knew he would become suspicious if I didn’t drain it, and after I did, I laid it nearby and opened my arms for him.”

  “He embraced me, fondled my cock, and moaned that he had never made love to a male before without his maker in bed with him. He vowed that he had never turned anyone through biting, though he had fed from both men and women. He had left his food sources alive, leaving a trail of weakened, confused victims behind him until he fled Europe and journeyed to America. The casualties of the War became his fodder. He followed behind the battles drinking the blood from isolated soldiers until the day he
saw me fall and fell love with me.”

  Ron sighed. “I kissed him, rolled him beneath me, and whispered to him to prepare to receive the greatest fucking he had ever known. Pauvre con, he never knew what hit him. I took the mug and struck the back of his head over and over until I knew that, though he still lived, it would take time for him to heal, time enough for me to take the ingredients for the alukah, find Matthew, and make him immortal. I dressed quickly, gathering what I could of clothing and supplies he had taken from those fallen soldiers from whom he had drank, and stuffing it into the knapsack I’d used as a pillow.

  “In the dead of night, I found my way to Front Royal and the Union camp, fortunately coming upon a guard from our unit who recognized me. He brought me to the commanding officer who questioned me. I told him of losing my memory while a kindly farmer and his wife took care of me until I regained my strength and recalled who I was. I told him I had fled during the night until I stumbled upon the encampment. He didn’t believe a word of the fantastic tale. Luckily for me, the remaining men from the unit vouched for me, and I was ushered to the makeshift tent-hospital for my imaginary wounds to be seen.

  “No one had the heart to tell me of Matthew’s death, but as it turned out, it didn’t matter. Almost immediately upon entering the tent, I encountered the last person in the world I would have expected. The male nurse to whom I was directed had his back to me as he dressed the wounds of one of the men. I cleared my throat to gain his attention, and he asked me to wait while he finished tending the fellow lying so still on the cot. If I could walk, my need wasn’t as great, he told me.

  “He turned, and we gaped at each other. I stared into Walt Whitman’s face, and he cried out and hauled me into his embrace, tears gushing from his eyes as he cried over and over, ‘He’s dead. He’s dead.’

  “I knew at once whom he meant. Perhaps I knew all along that Matthew was gone. I hadn’t known that Whitman had traveled to the front lines and remained to nurse the wounded men, but I thanked God he had when he told me what happened after Matthew and I became separated that day of the battle. When Matthew couldn’t find me, he went to pieces, rushing from one part of the scattered action to another, seeking me until he fell from a shot to the gut. When they found him and carted him to the hospital tent, he was barely conscious. Whitman recognized him at once and cared for him himself, listening to him cry out to me even as he grew weaker and weaker. Despite Whitman’s best efforts, the wound quickly became infected, and at the last, Whitman held him in his arms as Matthew died calling my name.”

  Ron’s last words were wrenched from him, and he fell to his knees by the couch. He gripped my hand as he continued. “It was due to Whitman’s intervention that Matthew’s body was embalmed by one of the surgeons and placed in a zinc-lined coffin standing by to be transferred to a Northern cemetery rather than waiting among those to be buried with a numbered headboard behind the hospital tent.

  “Whitman said, ‘I know Matthew was from the South, but I believed he would wish to be buried in the North, would you agree?’ “Of course I did, and I knew that for me, the war was over. With Matthew dead, I no longer had any fervent need to fight. I wanted time to mourn him. So I took a chance and asked if Whitman had the power to intervene with the authorities and grant me permission to accompany Matthew’s body North. I was unaware that Whitman was so admired for his nursing that his words carried enough weight to accomplish this miracle. I was assigned to the Quartermaster’s Corps and, taking care to sup generously each day of the alukah, remained in the wagon that held Matthew’s coffin and those of others destined for Northern burial.”

  Ron leaned against the couch, and I rested my hand on his shoulder while he glossed over the difficulty of controlling his thirst for blood and his growing sensitivity to daylight on the long journey North.

  “When we reached Garrickstown, near Gettysburg, I knew I had to leave the men or I would wind up feeding from them. I played upon their sympathy for a fallen hero and asked if I could take Matthew to be buried in the nearby Thorndale Cemetery, since I said I knew that his family came from the area. When they saw how emotional I was, not realizing that it was hunger that made me weep, they allowed me to take Matthew’s body away. My next feat was importuning the caretaker of the cemetery to allow this brave soldier of the North to be buried there. Of course, it helped that I greased his pockets with almost all the money I had, but within three days of leaving the Corps, Matthew was buried and a temporary marker placed on his grave.”

  Ron took my hand and pressed his stubbled jaw against my palm as if to imprint it on my skin. He gripped my fingers and held them as if he feared I’d jump up and leave him. Idiot. “I went on a feeding frenzy. I found a boarding house, and while I waited for Matthew’s burial, I availed myself of a nearby butcher’s supply of blood kept for those cooks who made blood puddings and sausage. I bought whatever he had to sell and mixed it with the alukah until my strength returned. Then I found a male prostitute, a gal-boy as they were called, at a local tavern. I took that poor lad to my room and fucked him senseless, feeding from him until he ached, and I awoke with him in my bed, the life barely left in him.”

  I felt Ron shudder as he forced himself to continue. “Eventually, I learned how to control my hunger and feeding. I learned as Kazvan did not to stay in one place for too long, though not until after I settled Matthew’s affairs. I went back to Brooklyn and closed up the house. I went to Matthew’s banker and learned that he had made me his heir, and so I sold the house and stored our furnishings until I purchased this townhouse with the money he’d left me and transferred everything here. I informed his family of his death in action, and when Matthew received the Medal of Honor, his sister accepted it as his only known survivor. She had no wish to meet me and wouldn’t accept anything of Matthew’s other than that fucking medal.”

  Ron took a deep breath. “Until I met you, I also did as Kazvan, not turning anyone through either biting them or the alukah. But unlike him, I foundGod. Witnessing the depths of his despair at being cut off from his community and having so much time on my hands, I decided to learn about his heritage and mine, and I took to heart the admonition of our sages. We are given a choice between life and death, therefore choose life, and so I did. I’d lived through the greatest moments in history, and I’d grown content and reconciled to my loneliness…until I met you.

  “I learned how to change my features and my identity. I kept to myself and never bothered anyone. Over the years, I visited Matthew’s grave less frequently, though never moving from this house. After a while, I decided that the safest action was to visit his grave only so often and only at night, away from prying eyes. How could I know that a legend would spring around those visits? I never approached anyone, male or female, who stopped there. I presumed the legend would die, as it did to an extent. My lovers… Well, shall we say I trolled far from home?

  “I kept apprised of any interest into Matthew’s grave and, thanks to the Internet, occasionally checked to see if anyone delved into the few facts around our lives. I, too, have contacts at the University in Florida and as for Umberto…” I felt Ron’s smothered laughter. “Umberto was the nearest lover I had here. He told me that someone was interested in the headstone, and since he thinks I am a descendent of the artist, asked for permission to show you the sketch. For some reason, I also told him to use his judgment and give it to you if you asked for it. After your visit to Ciavoli’s, I followed your progress and realized that eventually you’d have to visit the grave.

  “Of course I knew what night that would be and watched and waited while you set up your equipment. I’m not sure if I would have approached you if the storm hadn’t broken -Non, I must be truthful. You know the expression, coup de foudre-- to be thunderstruck? I saw you, and that is how it was. I couldn’t help myself. I saved you and brought you home -- the first one who’s ever been here in my bed -- and the rest… You know the rest. And now, if you wish to leave, you may.”

  He fell
silent then, waiting for what I would say or do.

  And there was only one thing that I could do.

  I got up from the couch and went into the kitchen and returned, in one hand a glass of the alukah, and in the other, a knife.

  And I watched as he took the knife, slit his palm, and drop by drop, turned the liquid crimson with his blood.

  Epilogue

  I took my fingers from the keyboard, looked at the last few words in the file, and spoke to Aaron.

  “There. It’s finished. Do you think anyone will believe me?” He spun the desk chair around so that I faced him and rested his hands on the chair arms, leaning down so that our faces were inches apart. He smiled that smile that made me draw my breath in wonder.

  “Does it matter?” He moved the few inches closer that brought our mouths together and kissed me, our tongues thrusting with each other. I moaned into his mouth and groped for his zipper, ripping it down and releasing his prick, running my thumb over the soft crown, pressing down. He gasped and broke the kiss.

  “ Ne jouepas avec moi! Don’t play around when I have your tongue in my mouth! You almost became a mute!” Then he looked down at his cock, still nudging my fingers, and laughed. “Put that back where you found it. How can you expect me to think clearly when you’re holding my dick in your hand?”

  I smiled. “Didn’t realize you were such a dickhead,” I joked but after one more squeeze, zippered him back up. I shut down the laptop, and we moved over to the couch, the months we’d now spent together cementing our comfortable relationship and giving us the patience to relax before we rushed to make love. I still remember the first time I experienced the incredible sensation of his fangs piercing my neck while his cock rammed my ass, the rush of desire while he drained me. My heart stuttered as I swallowed his blood and the alukah down my throat and the fucking began all over again until my fangs punctured his skin, and we could feed on each other for hours.