PRESCIENT(Part 3)

Today, we go to the third part of “The Prescient,” a short story originally published in a Bold Strokes anthology called Erotica/Exotica, Tales of Sex, Magic, and the Supernatural, edited by Richard Labonte. In our last post, Tancready made contact through the boy’s interest in chess. They’ve agreed to a phto-trip during daylight hours—a difficult time for Tancready. Here we go.

NOTE: Because this is a 7,700-word short story, I will post every two weeks until it is finished. After that, I will resume my regular blogging on the first of each month.

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Courtesy of Stock.Free.org

THE PRESCIENT (Part 3)

     I roused myself the following morning with difficulty. Despite the excitement of my coming time with Boris, I was reluctant to expose myself to the dreadful sunburn and excruciating headaches an all-day excursion necessarily entailed. Nonetheless, it was necessary. The prospect depressed me so deeply that I was only able to function by concentrating on my approaching proximity to the delectable Boris. Briefly, I wondered why I did not simply overwhelm the boy and take what I wanted, as with the Hispanic and the towhead and countless others, but something within me cautioned against rashness. This prize was unique in both physical sensuality and an innate sensitivity to the unusual.

     And that brought me face-to-face with a potential problem I had sought unsuccessfully to ignore. As I gathered the equipment and awaited the boy’s arrival, I considered the unease that was twin to my pleasure in his exciting presence. The youth was extraordinarily aware of me. For all the studied casualness of one of his age, his halo betrayed his true, perhaps unconscious feelings. There were, of course, individuals who were quite perceptive when it came to Eternals, although they would be rare in this part of the Western Hemisphere, given its lack of such lore. Dhampires, sons of Vampires, existed, of course, and were attuned to our rhythms. That would present no particular problem, but there was a sensitive of another sort, presenting another problem.

     Was it possible Boris was a Prescient? Mortals with an uncanny sensitivity to Eternals, Prescients are sometimes dangerous since many are Betrayers, or worse, Slayers. Over the ages, I have known many Prescients, some of whom, the ignorant, fled in terror. Others, more enlightened, provided many hours of pleasant company. One, a delightful woman of lush body and bright mind was a constant companion in a long-ago lifetime. She occupied my mind and body as few have done over the centuries…a role I envisioned for Boris in this one. Those were my blood days, and Sara willingly presented her veins to me when my hunger became truly demanding … without ill effect, I might add. Even today, I speculate on her given name, Sara, the Gypsy version of the black goddess Kali.

     A few Prescients have betrayed me into the hands of enraged, terrified mortals, who are the deadliest and most bloodthirsty of all creatures, and a small number have sought my doom. These I dealt with as brutally as Vlad dispatched his enemies.

     Boris’s bloodlines allowed for this possibility, but his family had been in the New World for generations with no exposure to my kind. Yet, his aura clearly showed he was unusually receptive to my mere presence. That did not necessarily mean he knew the why or the what of his apprehension. Shrugging away my usual caution, I completed preparations for our outing, thereby laying bare the depth of my need. My hunger for the boy was both natural and unnatural; natural in craving his pranic energy, his semen, and unnatural in a lust that was overwhelmingly sensual, a different thing altogether.

     At the appointed hour, his white Jeep appeared before my closed gate, and I threw the lever to admit him. Carefully placing our equipment atop an old tent he carried in the back, I was pleased to note he drove an enclosed vehicle, which would ease my exposure to the sun. I had agreed to allow him to provide the conveyance, suspecting this would satisfy his masculine code of etiquette.

     We elected to explore the Bosque, a unique hundred-mile swath of cottonwoods lining both sides of the Rio Grande, an ecological treasure sentenced to a slow death once a system of dams put an end to the annual flooding of the river that was required to nurture seedlings. The once mighty Rio Grande now trickled through a narrow channel that wandered willy-nilly in its wide, sandy bed.

     Boris took to the Leica Minilux like a born photographer. It fit his hand and eye perfectly. He shot images of driftwood on white sand, river birds in flight, an ancient turtle sunning on a semi-submerged log, and even a reclusive red fox. He rolled up his pant legs to reveal strong calves lightly brushed with fine brown hair and waded the river, cavorting like a boy. His aura ran wild with joy and budding friendship. He grew so comfortable that he dared tease me about the abundance of clothing covering me from head to foot on this warm, autumn day. I explained it for what it was, the protection of sensitive skin against the brutal sun. He had no such constraints. He tore off his shirt, baring his broad, muscled chest to my famished gaze. I briefly lost control and sopped up his radiations, but recovered before any damage occurred. 

     My desirable young companion had a commitment that night, so we made arrangements to meet the following morning for a quick trip to the mountains before developing our film in my darkroom. Once he was gone, I applied ointments and unguents to my poor flesh and retired.

     In the dark of night, I rose and prowled the alleyways behind the bars on East Central, locating a man whose aura showed no trace of disease. I took his cum while he swore and sang drunkenly until the shock of his extraordinary climax silenced him.

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     The lush conifer forest on the east side of Sandia Mountain, a ten-thousand foot peak directly east of Albuquerque that the local Indians called Sleeping Turtle, was less harsh on my system, and the boy’s growing amity made the effort worthwhile. He was an odd combination of venturesome youth, childish juvenile, and mature man. His company delighted me even as it aggravated my lust. It was not merely his physical presence that kindled me, but his mind and spirit, as well. We discussed the great photographers. He was much taken with Ansel Adams and Ernest Haas, but agreed that Dmitri Kessel’s powerful plates of the ornate Benedictine church at Zwiefalten, Germany placed him among the elite. With difficulty, I stopped short of boasting that I had served as a seminarian at that magnificent structure in another lifetime.

     We stood for long intervals and listened to the forest speak while I fought a raging battle to control my impatience for him. Boris blundered upon a black bear rooting for acorns, disturbed grazing mule deer, and photographed a magnificent golden eagle. We ascended Sandia Crest, named for the watermelon pink hhue the autumn sun gave its western face at sunset, to cast our eyes west over the broad Rio Grande Valley to Mt. Taylor, one of the Navajo’s four sacred peaks. At a turnout lower on the mountainside we gazed north to Santa Fe hidden in the foothills of the towering Sangre de Cristos…a beautiful name, Blood of Christ! With that thought, I hungrily observed the vein pulsing in the boy’s neck as he snapped a picture. I wanted him so badly that I achieved an erection, something I rarely do until it is required. Sexual energy escaped my control, lapping against him in mauve waves of desire.

     He dropped the camera from his eye and faced me. From the sudden flare of warning red, I saw he was alarmed. His mood changed dramatically; Boris was more thoughtful and less gregarious on our return trip despite my attempt to keep a conversation going.

     The boy was quite skilled in the darkroom. Devoting our attention to this task, we labored into the night. Prolonged proximity to his sculpted body taxed my control to the limit. Waiting for our prints to dry, I hovered near him and carelessly sent a wave of desire up his back, retreating when his aura flared. But the damage was done. Boris turned to me, his color heightened by the crimson of the developing lamp. He licked his lips nervously.

     “Y…you’re a homosexual, aren’t you?” The tone was wary.

     “I have lain with men,” I answered rather pompously.

     “That’s what you want with me, isn’t it?” he rasped; his energy flaring alarmingly. “You want in my pants!”

     “That is crude, Boris.”

     “Oh, hell! You do! You want to…do things to me. No way, Tancready! I don’t go for that stuff. I like my girl. We make love. Oh, man, I knew something wasn’t right about this. Shit!” he cursed, tearing off the protective apron I had given him for working with the darkroom chemicals. Without another word, he slammed out of the room. I caught up with him in the hallway.

     “I gotta go now. Early class tomorrow,” he babbled.

     “Your prints, Boris! Your photographs?”

     “I don’t know,” he waved a hand in the air. “Maybe I’ll come get them later.”

     The boy fled into the night. I sadly opened the gate by remote control as his vehicle raced down the long drive. The house was lonely and oppressive once he was gone. My black mood turned into rage. They made love, did they? He and that…that girl! A bottomless jealousy tinted the room an iridescent green, overpowering even my anger. Straightening things in the darkroom and pulling prints from the dryer, I considered removing my competition. It would be easy enough. I could sate my newly awakened blood lust, turning it into a deadly feast. By a narrow margin, reason prevailed over impetuosity. The female creature’s demise, especially in such a manner, would excite unwelcome attention, not only from Boris, but also from the authorities. Such a disastrous end to a magnificent, albeit a taxing day! Abruptly, I abandoned the house.

     Using that other dimension, I easily reached the campus ahead of Boris. From a place of concealment, I observed him pull into a parking spot and crawl out of the Jeep. Slowly, as if totally exhausted, he trudged toward the buildings, passing his dormitory and making for the Duck Pond to claim the bench where we had played chess. He sat down heavily.

     Cautiously, I drew near, but his psychic energy flared. He glanced around warily as I eased back into the shadows. Even from afar, I observed the erection trapped between his leg and the denim of his trousers. He sat with his chin on his chest while his blood subsided and the goose bumps that puckered his flesh faded away. He was as frightened as he had ever been in his short lifetime, but he had not yet divined his true fear. He perceived his present agitation as merely a challenge to his manhood by a pervert. I wondered when he would truly understand. Finally, he rose and walked directly to his dorm.

     Craving Boris more desperately than ever, I found a rowdy bar and fed my ravenous appetite by absorbing the frantic energy flooding the place. When the tavern closed, I roamed the night until I chanced upon a youth hurrying through an alley. My dark psychic energy brought him to a halt. He was an Indian in his late teens, good-looking, innocent. I sucked the seed from his long, pulsing cock while he stood frozen against an adobe wall in the darkness. Then, ignoring his terrified, soulful eyes, I threw him to the ground and shoved my swollen prick between his buns, penetrating him the way I so ardently desired to ravish Boris. Still not sated, I licked the smooth, pulsing neck and drew blood for the first time in a century. I left him lying half-naked and weakened, but alive in that silent alleyway. His body would heal; I closed my mind to any other damage that may have been inflicted.

*****

Tancready has had a successful trip or two, but has he exposed himself and frightened Boris away? We’ll learn a little more in the post scheduled for March 15.

I’m interested in your reaction to this story. Please feel free to contact me at markwildyr@aol.com.

Thanks for being a reader.

Next blog to be posted at 6:00 a.m. on March 1.