Enter, Night

Jeremy handed him the water. Elliot took a sip, then handed the glass back to Jeremy, his mouth puckering in distaste. “Guess I didn’t need water,” he said. “How did I… do you know how I got here? How did you get here?”

Jeremy sat down next to him on the bed and put his hand lightly on Elliot’s shoulder. “Hey, are you all right, Elliot? This is where you live. This is your house. I assume you came home last night and went to bed, and that’s how you got here. How else would you have gotten here?”

“Dunno,” Elliot muttered. “I don’t remember. I was… I was… I think I was at work, then I drove…”

“You drove home,” Jeremy said soothingly. “Here. Were you drinking last night?” Jeremy looked around for empty bottles or glasses, but there were none around Elliot’s bed, or anywhere in the room, for that matter. Nor had he smelled alcohol when he entered the house.

“Bad dreams,” Elliot said again. “Donna…”

“Donna?”

“From the bar, Donna. That Donna. The… the… girl. Woman. Donna. From the bar. That one.”

“Were you at O’Toole’s, Elliot? Were you drinking at O’Toole’s, maybe? Did you pass out last night?”

“I told you,” Elliot said irritably. “No, I didn’t drink.” He lay back on the bed and put his hands over his face. When turned his face away from the light of the bedside lamp, Jeremy saw that there were bruises on the side of his neck, along the jugular.

Jeremy looked closer. Elliot had obviously cut himself shaving, more than a week ago, judging by appearance. The abrasions looked almost healed, the pink skin gleaming through the aureole of surrounding bruises. While the contusions themselves were dark purple, with no sign yet of the yellowing that came with healing, the cuts-which now looked more like punctures to Jeremy’s untrained eye than scratches-seemed to have already closed up. Not possible. Not bruises that dark. The skin underneath should look like roadkill.

“Elliot,” Jeremy said. “What did you do to yourself? What are these marks?”

Elliot grinned. His eyes were still covered with his hands. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. “What marks?”

“There, under your jaw. Did you hurt yourself? Did you cut yourself?”

“Feels like…” Elliot touched his neck. “Feels like love. Some chick, maybe? Some hungry chick?” His voice, though tired, was mocking. “Chicks dig me, and I dig chicks.”

Jeremy drew back from Elliot’s words as though scalded. “Fine,” he stiffly. “I got it. I was just curious. I wanted to see if you were all right. You’re obviously all right. I’ll go now and let you get ready for work.”

Elliot took his hands away from his face and smiled again, different this time. All the malice had vanished and, for a moment, Jeremy doubted he’d even seen it. “Don’t be like that, Jem,” he said. “Stay awhile. You wanted to talk. Let’s talk.” He ran his index finger along Jeremy’s upper arm, caressing it. “Stay for a while.”

“Elliot, what are you doing?”

“Stay for a while.” He voice was warm and insinuating. He reached over with his other hand and switched off the bedside lamp, bringing the room to near-darkness. “Isn’t this better? It’s better in the dark, right? Remember? In my room?”

“Elliot, I don’t think this is a good idea. I think we should stop. You were right, it was a long time ago.” Even as he said it, Jeremy knew he was lying.

Elliot propped himself up on one arm and kissed Jeremy full on the mouth. With the weight of his body, he pressed Jeremy down on the bed and swung his leg effortlessly over Jeremy’s midsection, pinning him to the mattress between his thighs. Jeremy felt Elliot’s erection through the boxer shorts pressing against his own groin. His body responded immediately. Jeremy’s erection grew until he felt it straining against the fabric of his jeans.

Elliot leaned down and kissed him on the mouth, full and insistent. Elliot’s mouth was surprisingly soft-no, not surprisingly. Everything was familiar, and becoming more so by the minute. All he had to do was close his eyes and let the encumbrance of years break away from him like clouds after a violent storm. Elliot was right. Jeremy did remember.

He reached around behind Elliot and pulled the waistband of his boxer shorts off his ass, feeling the smooth, cleft halves of hard muscle covered flesh under his hand. This time it was Jeremy’s turn to groan. He leaned up to kiss Elliot again. The feeling of Elliot’s teeth beneath his lips was shockingly erotic. Elliot pressed himself against Jeremy’s body in an aspect of unquestioned dominance, and Jeremy felt himself yield to it naturally.

“Take off your shirt,” Elliot whispered. “Come on. No one needs to know about this. This is just you and me here now-come on. You still dig my body, right? You want me, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Jeremy breathed. “Yes, I… I still want you.”

“You can have me. I’ve always been yours. Take off your clothes.”

Without moving from underneath Elliot’s weight, Jeremy unfastened the buttons of his 501s and shrugged them down to his knees. He pulled his briefs down as well, then kicked them both off his legs. Elliot kissed him again, on the lips, on the side of his face.

In the darkness of the bedroom, Elliot was a looming, bulky shape grinding on top of him. Jeremy saw Elliot’s face only blindly, ridges and bone and hair under his fingers. Elliot’s breathing came more quickly now, in torturous, jagged hitches that, to Jeremy, could only signal passion. His kisses grew even more insistent, moving from the side of Jeremy’s face, along the side of his neck, across his throat, and back again.

“Elliot, hold up,” Jeremy gasped. “Let me take off this turtleneck. Hold on. Slow down.”

He leaned back to let Jeremy slip the turtleneck off, which he then tossed to the floor. Their bodies were pressed against each other. Jeremy scissored his legs around Elliot’s waist, pulling him close, giving himself joyfully up to what now seemed an inevitable, blissful conclusion.

Elliot reached out with both his arms and grasped both of Jeremy’s wrists in a crushing grip, kissing him brutally on the mouth. Jeremy screamed as the pain from Elliot’s grip shot up his arms. On top of him in the darkness Elliot’s body temperature suddenly rose, spiking to feverish levels of heat. Jeremy felt the heat from Elliot’s body bake into his own skin, warming it uncomfortably. Then it plunged hypothermically, as though some internal thermometer in Elliot’s body had gone haywire. It rose again sharply, and this time the heat of Elliot’s body felt as though it could actually burn Jeremy.

“Elliot, get off me! Elliot! What’s wrong with you?”

In the darkness, Elliot’s voice sounded as though it was coming through a mouth full of sharp nails. His breath was suddenly foul in Jeremy’s face, and Jeremy gagged.

“Kiss me,” Elliot said hungrily. “Kiss me, Jeremy.”

“Jesus, Elliot, get off me! What’s wrong with you?”

Jeremy flailed wildly for the switch to the bedside lamp, terrified of what he would see straddling him when he turned on the light, but even more terrified by what was hidden by the dark. He felt Elliot’s lips on his throat, and something else-he felt Elliot’s teeth. Elliot’s mouth opened and Jeremy felt his tongue tasting the flesh of the jugular area, and now there was no question of seduction or desire. Jeremy felt like an animal being scented as prey. Elliot’s grip was implacable.

“Elliot, for God’s sake, get off me!” Jeremy gave one mighty shove with his knees into Elliot’s abdomen. He felt Elliot’s body react with stunned surprise, recoiling just enough for Jeremy to roll over on his side. As he thrashed his head back and forward trying to dislodge himself from Elliot’s grip, he felt something thin and cold slither across his throat from where it had been tucked away behind his head, felt it lodge itself between his chest and Elliot’s shoulder. An unengaged part of his brain dully wondered what it could be, then realized. Jeremy never thought of it, mostly because he hadn’t taken it off since his confirmation years ago, however many times he thought he ought to, all things considered. The St. Christopher’s medal his mother had given him, telling him not that it would protect him, but rather that terrible things would happen to him if he ever dared remove it.

There was a sudden dazzling flash of blue light in the bedroom, and a popping sound, like a sparking electrical plug.

Elliot screamed and leaped off the bed with supernormal agility, clutching his shoulder and crouching against the wall like an injured animal.

Jeremy scrambled off the bed and turned on the bedside lamp. In the nanoseconds between the act of switching on the lamp and his eyes growing accustomed to the sudden brightness after the darkness before, what he saw seemed to shimmer and transform as he watched. A naked monster squatted in front of the wall, a monster with a bloodless white face, a mouth full of sharp white teeth, and an expression of terrible, thwarted hunger and