Page 10 of Vampire Claus
“Please don’t try. But it’s a date, man. First we converse like mature adults, not horned-up bros gettin’ off together.”
“Very well. What shall we talk about?”
“So, tell me about you.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I’ll take ‘I’m a freaking vampire’ for a thousand, Alex. Go!”
“Who is Alex?” When Paul rolled his eyes again, Taviano murmured, “Never mind.” Instead he talked for a little while, about how it felt to host a demon, what it was like to drink blood (“Horrifying. Delicious.”), which myths were correct (“Sunlight.”) and which were silly (“Of course I can see myself in a mirror.”).
Paul was quiet at first, taking in Taviano’s words. He grew restless though, and eventually interrupted. “That’s all really wild, but you’re talking about this demon like it’s something different than you.”
“Because it is. It has its own awareness. All the magic comes from it and the older it gets, the more power it has. When I was first turned, it felt like this small, hungry thing. Now it’s big, but…I don’t know how to explain it. It feelslargerthan my body sometimes, but there’s always a core of it I can sense deep inside my gut.” He shook his head at the failure of his explanation. “I have my own memories, my own mind. We fight sometimes for control of the body.”
Paul pondered for a few moments. “If the vampire-thingy is different than you, I’d rather hear about, well,you.”
“What do you want to know?”
“You must have a gazillion stories. Wait, I know. Tell me what it was like in Naples back when you were actually my age. Did you have a big family?”
“I had a typical family, I suppose. Three sisters and two younger brothers. My grandfather lived with us too. We had to crowd in to a small house but so did everyone I knew.”
“Did you ever have, you know, a guy? Did people do that?”
“I suppose there have always been homosexuals. Otherwise there wouldn’t be ancient prohibitions against it.”
“Yeah, but I mean, what about you?”
Taviano hesitated for a long moment. He’d never spoken to anyone of what Calogero had meant to him, what it had cost him and what he’d lost. Part of him worried that baring his desires would end as badly as when his father discovered him with Gero. Paul’s words about not living in fear played in his head. He drew strength from that credo but asked, “Are you sure you want to hear the story? It’s a bit depressing.”
Paul said, “You are the sexiest motherfucker I’ve ever made out with, and you seem like a great guy. Or whatever.” He blushed. “I just…I’m interested inyoumore than in your, uh, demon.”
“Very well.” Taviano rested his elbow to the side of Paul’s head and propped his chin on his fist. “I had a friend in Naples, yes. We didn’t talk about it in those days, but I was in love with him. We experimented, as I guess people say now. We experimented alot, but we got careless. My father caught us and beat me. He told the boy’s family. My friend denied everything, said it was one time, that I led him into it…”
He sighed at the memory and the pain of Gero denying what they meant to each other. Paul murmured supportively. Taviano added, “Anyway, my family said I had to go into seminary and become a priest.”
Paul raised his head again. “You weren’t kidding about the monastic cell.”
“Well, not entirely. No ninja training though.” He covered his anguish with the tease, but leaned down to steal a kiss, claiming with it more of Paul’s strength. “It broke my heart of course, but being a priest wasn’t a terrible choice for me. I always loved going to church and I started helping the parish priest serve Mass as soon as I could. I made my peace with it and studied and prayed. I was a few months away from taking holy orders when I received word that my friend was going to marry.”
“That bastard,” Paul muttered.
“No, there wasn’t any other real choice.” Bemused, Taviano realized he still leapt to Gero’s defense. “Everyonemarried, so the news shouldn’t have surprised me.”
He broke off his story and remembered days of torment. He’d refused to leave his cell or speak to the other seminarians. And then Calogero’s face, that last night when he’d slipped out of the seminary. Desperate, burning, he’d gone to Gero’s window and begged him to run away. He saw again tear-stained cheeks, and heard excuses.I can’t. This is my family. You knew we’d have to do this one day.
The refusal still made him ache, more than one hundred seventy-two years later. His wild fantasies of traveling until they foundsomewherethey could live united seemed childish in hindsight. Would things have turned out differently for him if they had left together, that night? Calogero hadn’t even been willing to try.
“You didn’t, like, have to perform the wedding, did you?” Paul’s question startled Taviano.
“What? Oh. No.” He stroked Paul’s hair. “No, I got drunk instead. I bought a bottle of wine and wandered around the streets of Naples like every lovesick boy does. That was when the vampire found me.”
Paul gasped. “No shit?”
“No shit. One minute I looked into the harbor and choked on my misery. The next it grabbed my coat and dragged me to a rooftop.” He closed his eyes; he could still recall the terror as the creature threw him to his back and loomed over him.
Through matted brown hair and an unkempt beard and mustache, a hideously white face with burning eyes and sharp, sharp teeth glared down at him. The huge beast, much larger than Taviano, crouched low and plunged his fangs into Taviano’s neck. He held on effortlessly with just one of his arms as he lapped up blood with a rough tongue.