Evil Is a Man

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

If you like what you're reading, let me know: SellarDhor@gmail.com. And let me know where you want the story to go and who you want Jake to end up with. And if you have any ideas for the future, let me know, I might include them.

JANUARY 9th

"Another prolific conference, Mr. Groves," Cornelius said as we finished up our routine meeting.

It had been a particularly brutal morning. Cornelius had made me go over my "many great ideas" concerning decorating themes for the ceremony. He asked me what colors I was planning on using. All I could think of at the time was brown, orange, and purple. His eyes opened wide with apprehension as he wrote them down, telling me that at least the colors would be very, very original.

"Oh, I've been asked to pass along a summons from the Governor. He is inviting you to dinner in the Logan family dining room tonight at five."

I cringed. This was totally out of left field, and it obviously couldn't be good if it was coming from Jericho. "Please tell him I'm declining," I said.

"I'm afraid you can't decline," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"When the Governor requests an official family dinner, the whole family is required to attend by Logan jurisdiction."

I groaned. "Am I required to be polite?" I asked.

"Actually, no," Cornelius said. "He can't control what you say while you are present. Being part of the family gives you certain protections. A normal vampire, for instance, would never think to disrespect the Governor for fear of serious repercussions. As a family member, however, the Governor is not permitted to punish you for any amount of insolence you show to him."

"But I still have to show up to dinner?" I asked. "Even when I don't feel at all familial towards him?"

"You have to show up on time, you have to sit in your spot, and you have to wait until he dismisses you."

"So, he could potentially never dismiss me?"

"No, he cannot refuse to dismiss you beyond a couple hours."

I sighed. "Alright, I guess I'll be there."

"Wonderful. Please pass the invitation along to your other half."

"What other half?" I asked, not understanding what he could possibly be referring to.

"Why, Syd, of course."

"Ah yes, well, he's not exactly my other half quite yet, is he?" I asked, trying to think of a quick way to cover up my error.

"You're soon to be other half, then. I will work on nailing down the other Logans in the mansion."

"Do you have any idea why he wants to have dinner with us all of the sudden?"

"I have no idea," he said. "With Jericho, it keeps me a lot more balanced when I restrict my imagination in these matters as much as vampirically possible."

It was late morning when I left Cornelius's office, and even though I had cancelled my riding lesson with Parker, I didn't offer that information to Cornelius, not wanting to spend any extra time in his meetings than absolutely possible. So, since it was still a ways before lunch and my meeting with Boyd, I went back to Syd's room to deliver him the bad news about Jericho's dinner. He was sitting in his bath when I came in.

"Oh yippee, another fuckin' dinner party," Syd said happily.

"He's made you go to these before?" I asked.

"Only rarely, but yes."

"Is this something I'll have to dress up for?" I asked.

"Don't you dare, Jakey," he said. "Don't show anymore more respect to that old fool than he rightly deserves. `Sides, he ain't never dressed up for no occasion. He got married in his cowboy hat, for Christsakes."

"Good point," I said.

I decided to spend the rest of the morning at the gym, trying hard to relieve some of the stress I had been facing through my muscles. There wasn't anyone in the Great Room when I checked it out, no new slave had been put in the cage at that point. I knew that Jericho didn't get murderous until late evening. That probably meant he wouldn't be eating his prey until after our little dinner. I'd wait until then to go bear witness to the next senseless life snuffed out by that monster.

The gym was totally empty, as usual, and my workout was solid. I was on my last exercise when I heard the door open and saw Parker holding the door for Annie to enter, then come in himself. She smiled pleasantly when she saw me, but his countenance brightened completely; clearly he was more than happy to see me.

"Hey, Jake," he said. "I thought you were too busy for a workout today?" he asked without the slightest bit of anger.

I tried to think of some plausible excuse I could use besides telling him that I had recently walked in on him screwing his own sister. "I was, but then with Jericho's dinner, I changed my mind. Wanted to burn off some calories in preparation." That seemed plausible enough.

"Well, do you mind if we join you now?" Parker asked.

"Uh, no," I said. "But I'm actually done now. So, it's all yours."

"Alright, nice to see you, Jake," Parker said.

I left the room and shut the door, not wanting to know what kind of nonsense those two twisted siblings would be doing in a gym they had to themselves.

I made a beeline for the mess hall and got some lunch, then headed happily outside, looking forward to seeing Boyd's face again.

Boyd was waiting for me by the stables, and he was riding Patches already, who visibly got excited as soon as he saw me. "Hop on up," Boyd said with a smile, pulling me into the saddle behind him.

"Are we going to be practicing the Calf Roping event again?" I asked hopefully, liking the nudity that was involved with that one.

"Nope," he said. "Seems to me you got that one down pat. Time to move on to the next event."

"Which is?"

"You'll see soon enough."

Instead of riding us to the enclosure that held the calves, he took us to the one that had bulls in it. "We're not going to practice the Heading and Heeling event again, are we?"

"Nope," he said. "Otherwise we'd need different horses. This event is called Bull Wrestling."

"My goodness."

He laughed. "Anytime one steps into the bull pen, the danger of the event goes up significantly."

He stopped against the fence and got off the horse, then helped me do the same, again placing his hands on my butt as he did. "Why are we getting down?"

"Because this is another event where Jericho requires us to be naked." He took off his hat and started to pull off his shirt. "Same clothing rule we had going in yesterday applies."

I removed my shirt as well.

Once Boyd was down to his beautiful bare self, he ended up putting on his hat, gloves, boots, belt, and chaps, nothing more. Just like the previous day, he looked absolutely amazing.

I stripped down to just my shoes and gloves. "Where's my rope?" I asked.

"In this event, you won't be doing any roping."

"Please tell me that doesn't mean I'll be doing the bull wrestling."

"Nope, just the ridin.' Though this event is one of the hardest to ride that you'll have."

"Great."

"Let me help ya into the captain's seat."

I climbed up onto the horse, and Boyd's hands once again grabbed my bare butt to give me a boost all the way up the huge horse. "Luckily, you already taught me how to ride one of these."

Boyd opened up the fence gate, pulled the horse through, and then locked up the gate again. He easily climbed up into the saddle behind me. "This is a whole different beast, I'm afraid."

I looked around. Luckily, there weren't any bulls in the immediate vicinity that came rushing toward us as soon as we entered their space. "I'm already used to riding around bulls, and this time, I'll be on a much bigger horse."

"When you were Headin' n' Heelin,' you told me you basically kept your horse back out of the action until Syd headed the bull, as you should, keeps ya safe. There's no such luxury here. You'll need to ride straight for the bulls, chase them down when they run, and get outta the way when they charge ya. If they gore the side of the horse, you could lose a leg. And even worse, if they knock the horse over or get the horse to buck, you could get knocked off onto the ground, and you'll be trampled or gored to death there."

"Sounds like another pleasant afternoon at Mareshead."

He laughed. "So, I need ya to keep close to these bulls, but by no means do I want you to let yer horse get hit by any of `em. You always have to be watching. And whatever happens, keep as firm a grip on yer horse as you possibly can, do not let him unseat you."

"Got it."

"You ready? There's a bull over yonder." He pointed.

"Yeah, let's go."

I squeezed my legs, and Patches started to walk towards the bull.

"You need to go faster," he said. "This is a race, after all."

"Okay."

I had Patches trot towards the bull, and felt Boyd grab on behind me. I noticed that unlike when I was in his shoes yesterday, there was no hesitation from Boyd about physical closeness. He had his hands around my chest; I could feel his ripped abs against my spine, and his nipples rubbing my upper back.

He was so close, his soft phallus was pressed into my crack, and it felt so, so good there.

I could feel his face press against the back of my head, and I heard him take a deep inhale through his nose. As he did, I seemed to feel a pulse of blood go through his unit.

The bull Boyd had selected was on the small side of the continuum, and as I approached the bull on the left, it started to run to the right. I made a quick change of direction using the quick turning techniques Boyd had drilled into my head when I learned how to Pole Bend, then sped up the horse to match the bull's velocity, keeping the bull on my left.

"Good, get in as close as you can beside it, but don't spook it."

I pulled the horse close to the bull, until I was just two yards away.

"That's it, hold him steady."

Behind me, I felt Boyd getting up into a crouching position with his boots in the saddle, using his hands on my shoulders to balance. What was he up to?

Then, he absolutely shocked me by leaping off of our horse and towards the bull, out to the left.

Boyd's large mass suddenly leaving the horse, as well as him pushing the horse off as he leapt to the left, caused the horse to stumble, and I almost lost my balance and fell off the horse before I recovered my control.

Boyd hit the back of the surprised bull, his dick flying up and slapping his sternum as he landed. I absolutely could not believe he landed that, or what he did next. I saw him grab the bull's horns with his hands, straddle the horse with his strong legs, and then he threw his mass to the left, causing the bull to stumble off balance and fall to the ground.

Once both of them were in the dirt, the bull tried to furiously kick Boyd away, which I couldn't blame him for, and Boyd literally wrestled him, finally pinning it down on its back. He held it down in submission for a second, and then let it go.

"That would be our first point!" he said, letting the animal go.

"Uh, nice one," I said, still shocked. "I'm sure glad I'm not the one who has to do that part."

"We don't have time to celebrate, as soon as I get the bull down on its back, you need to be riding to pick me up and be ready to go to the next one."

"Okay."

"If you take the horse by me, I can get up without you needing to slow down," he said. "Try it."

I trotted the horse close to Boyd, and as I passed, he leapt up onto the back of the horse and climbed into the saddle. Again, the sudden shift in mass almost made me lose my balance, but Boyd grabbed onto me and steadied me by pulling my body flush against his. Once again, I could feel the massive weigh of his unit slide all over my buttcrack.

I rode us towards the next bull, and noticed how much larger it was than the last one. That time, when the bull started to run, I pursued it right away.

"TURN!" I heard Boyd say, and then I felt him reach around from behind me, grab the reins, and pull us violently to the left, away from the animal. It was only then that I realized I had missed noticing that the bull was about to sideswipe us, which could have had deadly results. Boyd's turn had meant the bull narrowly missed. "You need to watch!" he scolded me.

"Sorry, I'll pay better attention," I said, willing my body to forget for a moment this hot stud that was absolutely plastered to my body. I needed my full concentration on the bull.

I brought the horse in again towards the bull, trying to match its velocity. I noticed the bull raise its horns aggressively towards the horse.

"Turn!" Boyd yelled, but even before he said it, I was already pulling the horse away from the bull, dodging it. "Good, you've learned."

With that, Boyd leapt from the horse again to the bull, and started taking it to the ground. That time, the animal put up way more of a fight, and it wasn't so easy for Boyd to wrestle it onto its back, but he came through victorious. It was incredible seeing Boyd's naked muscles in action as he used every limb to ensnare the huge beast, his soft dick flying around all over the place.

This time, as soon as he was finished, I had already picked out our next target. I rode past Boyd, and he leapt up onto the horse, and then I made the horse gallop towards the nearest bull.

"Good, you're a fast learner as always, Jake," he said, sticking his lips against my ear ostensibly because the sound of the horse running was so noisy, but probably just because he wanted to.

We practiced until we had taken done a great many bulls and absolutely perfected our technique. It was well after four by the time we got dressed again and put our horse back in the stables.

"Hit the showers?" he asked me as we passed the outside bathroom again.

"Sure," I said.

In the locker room, both of us stripped out of our dirty clothes. Boyd was absolutely covered with dusty dirt. I looked at him and laughed.

"What are you laughing at?"

"You've got a layer of dust so thick I can't even tell what color your skin is underneath. Only, your feet are clean, there's a circular line all the way around your head, and above it is clean skin. Your hands are clean, and I can make out the exact outline of your belt and belt buckle, as well as the line of your chaps."

"You think this is dirty you should have seen the state of the bulls."

He slapped me on the shoulder and went into his shower stall. I selected the stall to his right, the one with the peep hole. I could see the steam rising from his stall and hear the water going.

This time, after I started the water and getting myself good and rinsed, I crept towards the peephole, got on my knees, and carefully looked. He wasn't looking at the hole; instead, he was looking down at his body as he scrubbed away the dirt with the white bar of rustic-smelling soap.

The view of him soaping down his gorgeous, studly dick and balls, washing off all the dirt, would have never gotten old, but I had to keep showering.

I went back to my shower and used the soap to wash myself really, really well. When I finished rinsing off, my ears caught a subtle change. I thought I had noticed something a bit ago, but was washing my face, so my hearing was a bit impaired. But as soon as I finished, I knew I heard something different than just scrubbing coming from Boyd's shower, a sort of odd rhythmic sound.

I walked back over to the peephole, dropped to my knees, and took a look. There was Boyd just like before, only his face had an expression of pleasure on it, and I could see that down south, he was clearly hard, though he was standing in such a way so that I couldn't actually see his unit.

I instantly got super excited myself, and wanted nothing more than to join him in the job.

I noticed that he was actually smelling the steam that was coming out of my stall and into his, and this smell seemed to make him more and more excited. That's when I realized he wasn't just beating off, he was beating off to my blood's smell, fantasying about me.

I so, so wanted to keep watching, sure that he would drift into a spot where I could get a better view, but I could tell by the fading light that it was approaching five o' clock, and I didn't want to be late for Jericho's party, I certainly didn't need him with any excuse to punish me.

I had to rip my eyes away from Boyd and turn off my shower. I dried off and got dressed in clean clothes quickly. I went back into the mansion.

I found my way to the Logan family dining room on the first story, and went inside. It was a very large, beautiful space, with ceilings that rose three stories above the ground, and walls supported by stained wooden logs. The space was much longer than it was wide, and a long, wooden dining table was the centerpiece of the room.

Several servant slaves were flitting about between the far end of the table and the couple doors on the walls nearby, finishing setting the table. There was a single, throne-like chair encompassing the entire short edge of the far side of the table that was clearly Jericho's seat. The other chairs were all smaller in stature and were lined up on the long sides of the table. There were seats for dozens of people, but the servants were only setting the spots immediately surrounding the head of the table.

I noticed Parker and Annie sitting next to each other in two vacant seats near me, laughing and carrying on with each other until they saw me and waved. I felt sick as I had to walk over to where they were sitting, and I wished anyone else had been present at that time so I wouldn't be forced to make idle conversation with them.

"Shouldn't we be over in the set spots?" I asked them.

"We thought we'd sit over here until they finish setting up," Annie told me.

"I'll go check it out."

I walked across the long room down to the other end of the table. The last servants were just finishing the silverware settings and exiting through the doors. It looked like there were nametags on the settings.

I turned around and walked back over to where Parker and Annie were sitting. They must not have heard me come back, because as I approached, they were laughing quietly and Parker was touching her in a very romantic way. Or rather, Parker was all sunshine towards her while she seemed more conservative towards him. Still, it was enough to make me want to puke up my lunch. Did they really think they were being secretive when they knew I was just across the room?

I cleared my throat and stomped loudly as I continued walking towards them to make sure they heard me approaching. Immediately, their hands went back to where they belonged.

"Looks like we have assigned spots down there," I said.

"And here we were hoping we could get away with sitting as far away from Jericho as possible," Parker said.

Annie touched Parker's arm in a way that could have been sisterly, I suppose, but knowing their secret relationship, seemed all too intimate in my eyes. It annoyed me to no end.

"I'm going to go down and sit where I'm supposed to," I said.

"We'll be right there," Annie said.

I turned around and walked back down towards the set end of the table. As I walked, I swore that I could hear kissing noises behind me. I glimpsed back subtly and saw their lips locked, clearly under the impression that no one was looking. It made me even queasier.

I heard the sound of clanking high-heels behind me, and I turned to see Glaucia enter the room holding Lewis's hand. She obviously surprised Annie and Parker, who stopped kissing when they saw her coming, but not soon enough for her to miss the scene. She gasped and put her hand to her mouth in surprise.

"I caught you two kissing!" she said.

"Sorry, it was most tasteless of us," Parker said.

"Oh, I don't care," she said. "You two lovebirds carry-on. Isn't love beautiful, Lewis?"

"Yes Mom," he said, though his face looked grossed out.

I could not believe that Glaucia was permitting this incestuous behavior. I quickly lost all sorts of respect for her.

"It's well past five," Annie said. "I suppose we should get this show on the road."

Annie and Parker stood up and followed Glaucia and Lewis down towards where I was by the far side of the table.

"Hi Jake, where's your fiancé?" Glaucia asked me.

"We came separately," I said.

"Knowing Syd, he'll be fashionable late," Annie said.

"Or, in his case, unfashionably," Parker said.

"Oh, could all of you meet me in the mess hall tomorrow morning for an early breakfast, Syd included?" Annie asked. "Since our dinner plans were pretty much ruined with this, I wanted to have a Pariah Club breakfast celebration."

"Sure, we'll be there," Glaucia said.

"I'll tell Syd," I said, already trying to think of a reason to get out of having to spend another awful meal with the incest lovers.

Aside from the large chair at the head of the table, there were seven spots set on the two sides. Glaucia inspected a couple nametags. "These aren't names here," she said. "They're cryptic descriptions of people." She picked up the nametag on the setting directly to Jericho's right. "This one says, `My True Heir.'"

"Must be Syd's spot," Annie said.

I picked up the nearest nametag and read it out loud: "`Greatest Regret In My Life.' That's not exactly pleasant."

"That must be my spot," Parker said, shaking his head sadly. He sat down in that seat.

Glaucia picked up another. "`The So Not Good Enough to Marry Into This Family Waste Of Space.'"

"How pleasant," Annie said.

"That must be for me," I said, taking the seat. "You know, my mother always does something like this when we have holiday meals together. Only her placards are slightly more cheerful than Jericho's. Well, most of the time, anyway."

"Mom, where am I supposed to sit?" Lewis asked.

"I'm still looking, honey," she said.

Annie picked up another nametag. "Oh, this one is even more touching than the last one," she said. "`Lord I Wished I Had Killed You When I Had the Chance.'"

I stood up. "Okay, that MUST be me," I said, moving into that vacant chair.

"Okay, Lewis, I bet he would put you close to him," said Glaucia as she walked over to the chair directly to Jericho's left. "This one says, `If You Only Had A Dick.' I don't think that's you, Lewis."

"Oh, that's me," Parker said, getting up from his seat while rolling his eyes. "Ever since the accident, Jericho's always been berating me about my inability to procreate." He sat down at this seat.

Glaucia picked up another one. "`Useless Intellectual Pussy.'"

"That's you, honey," Parker said, and I tried not to let my jaw drop that he had just referred to his sister as "honey."

"Lovely," said Annie, and she sat down.

"That leaves the far setting," Glaucia said. She picked up the card there and read it. "`The Soon- to-Be Deceased Imposter.'"

I stood up from my chair and walked towards that one. "Okay, clearly that's supposed to be me," I said, sitting down in this new chair.

I heard someone come in the main entrance, and I assumed it had to be Syd or Jericho. I turned around to look, and saw that child-like vampire woman they called Giggles pulling her large, ruffled blue Moulin Rouge-ish dress through the door.

"Well, greetings to all!" she squeaked excitedly as she waved, her childlike voice sounding like she was doing an impersonation of Glenda the witch from Wizard of Oz. She smiled through the thick layer of colorful makeup on her face.

"Hello Giggles," said Glaucia, Annie, and Parker less than enthusiastically as she approached where we were sitting.

"So, so sorry I'm late!" she said, practically singing the words.

"I thought this was only for family?" I asked.

"Yes, precisely," Giggles said with a giggle.

"I'm sorry, how are you related?" I asked.

Giggles came to my chair, and beamed down at me. "My apologies, I don't believe we have met," she said. "People call me Giggles. Giggles Logan." She actually did a curtsy.

I nodded. "Jake Groves," I said.

"How fabulously pleased to meet you!" she sang, and then she ended the sentence with a light giggle.

"Yes," I said. "I'm sorry though, how are you related to Jericho?"

"Why, dear me. I'm the Governor's eldest child," she said.

"Oh, I'm sorry," I said. "I thought he only had one daughter."

"He does," she replied. "That would be yours truly."

I was shocked. I looked over to Parker and Annie, who were sitting together, looking into each other's eyes. Parker kissed her, clearly totally in love with the woman.

It all hit me. If Giggles was Jericho's only daughter, it meant Annie Logan wasn't this woman's maiden name, it was her married name. Annie was Parker's wife!

I wanted to hit myself for being so idiotic. I should have realized as soon as I was told she was a chemist just like he was.

I had completely been judging and avoiding those two for no reason. Syd had led me to believe Parker was flirting with me, which must have been another one of his many lies. Parker had been married the whole time, and his interest in me was purely as a close friend. And lately, I had coldly blown him off. I vowed to invite him to go fishing again as soon as possible, and tell him I would love to resume our riding lessons. I still felt a little sad that the man was taken, but I wasn't going to let that stop me from being good friends with the guy. After all the two of us got along so well.

No wonder Giggles had been so physically strong, she was Parker and Syd's older sister. "I see Daddy's given us clever name tags to sort through," she said as she read mine. "Ah, I see you chose correctly, Jake! Very well done! Daddy's really been incorrect when he's called you a witless idiot," she said. It was interesting that the rude things she said seemed to come out just as perky and cheerful as everything else.

"Uh, thanks, I guess."

She smiled and then flitted around the other seats like a fairy, and I realized she was actually wearing ballet slippers. "Ah, my dear, dear little brother," she said cheerfully to Parker as she came to the seat to Jericho's left that he was in. "Thank you so very much for keeping my seat warm," she said to him, without the slightest hint of sarcasm. This girl was beyond bizarre.

"I believe this is supposed to be my card," Parker said.

She suddenly took on an exaggerated puppy-dog, sad face, like she was about to have to tell a three year old that he couldn't go out and play because it started to rain. "I'm afraid you are incorrect," she said sadly. "Father always tells me, `Giggles, do you know why I hate you? It's because you had to the gall to be born without a dick.' I'm sure that's me."

Parker got out of his seat, and let Giggles sit in it. "I must be his greatest disappointment, then," he said, retaking his first seat.

Syd walked in noisily from the hall, his cowboy boots clicking the ground as he walked. "Oh look, it's all my favorite people. And Giggles too."

"Hello, sweet, dear brother," Giggles said joyfully, seemingly missing Syd's subtle insult to her, or not caring.

"You're late," I said to him, still angry about him lying to me about Parker.

"I better not have missed dessert," he said, and then he started looking at all the name cards on the table. "I see Jericho has provided us with a swell icebreaker activity, how considerate of him. I'm just lovin' these nametags." He picked up the one next to me. "`Lord I Wished I Had killed You When I Had the Chance.' Now this one is beyond precious, don't ya all think?"

"I'm glad you can find the humor in them," I said.

"My father is nothing but a barrel of laughs when you think about it. That's why I was so delighted that he was hosting another one of his famous dinner parties. I needed a little more comedy in my life." He walked around the table, reading all the cards and laughing at all of them in turn.

"We figure you're supposed to be in the one labeled `True Heir,'" said Glaucia.

"Nope," Syd said. "I'm supposed to be in the one Parker's skinny ass is sitting in "

"Parker does not have a skinny ass," I defended.

"I'm for sure his greatest regret," Syd said.

"He's correct!" Giggles squealed.

"Then who is supposed to be the true heir?" asked Parker as he got out of his chair.

"Lewis, of course," Syd said. "He always puts Lewis to his direct right these days."

"Honey, go ahead and take that one," Glaucia said.

Lewis nodded and sat down there, though clearly he didn't like having to give up his mother's hand.

"So, where am I supposed to sit, then?" Parker asked. "Am I supposed to be the one that he wishes he had killed when he had the chance? I didn't marry into this family, so the other one wouldn't work for me."

"Jericho never had the chance to kill you, Parker," Syd said. "If he had considered that, he would have never, ever admit it. He would be dethroned and killed for committing that crime against his own offspring."

"So, which one is mine?" he asked.

"Think with a little humorous imagination, Parker. You're the useless intellectual pussy, clearly."

"Ah," Parker said. "I knew he would fit in a jab at my lack of male genitalia somewhere in there. Honey, I believe you are in my seat."

Annie got up as Parker sat down in her chair. Then there were only two unaccounted for, Glaucia and Annie. "Which one of us is the one he wishes he killed while he had the chance?" Annie asked.

"While I certainly wish all three of the sweet little wives here had been long deceased," came Jericho's hauntingly cold voice, and I turned to see him walking into the room from one of the close entrances the servants had been using, holding a glass of wine in his hand, "I regrettably never had the opportunity with you, you worthless piece of shit." He scowled down at Annie, and her visage turned darkly angry. "If I had had the chance to legally destroy your life, I would have surely taken it and spared my son from marrying a low-class, nothing little wretch. After the spine-less imbecile went and got himself crippled, his only value to me as a son would have been to win one of the high Logan families' loyalty by marrying him off. Your unwelcome intrusion into this family has stripped my pathetic eunuch son of any last use he had. So, clearly you belong at this seat," he said, pointing to the one that had been for the one who was not good enough to marry into the family. "Sit!" he commanded, and she sat down with an angry huff.

"You lay off my wife, Jericho," Parker said angrily, getting to his feet. "If you have something to say, say it to me."

"Sit your cripple ass down!" Jericho yelled. "I keep praying for the day when you'll come to your senses Parker. You're a broken, wasted little nothing of a man. No wait, you're not a man at all. If you were, you'd be able to impregnate your wife. No, yer a castrated little pansy who no one is capable of lovin.' The most you'll ever get from anyone is their pity. Any sensible man with any decency in yer shoes would have takin' his own life by now and spared your wife the misery of having to pretend to love a busted little nothing, but still I gotta wake up to see yer useless broken face round here every day."

It was the meanest thing anyone had said to Parker, and I certainly had heard him take a lot of scathing verbal abuse. With my respect for Parker returning to its previously lofty position after learning he had never compromised the wonderful morals I knew he held, I actually hurt from Jericho's words, as if I had been the one they had been directed towards.

Syd burst into laughter. "Well, old papa here's just too damn funny, ain't he Parker?" I couldn't believe he was laughing about all this.

"Just as long as he browbeats me instead of taking cheap shots at Annie, I'm fine," Parker said, taking his seat again.

Jericho turned towards Glaucia. "Hey shitbrains, how come yer still standing around while everyone else is sitting? Did you expect to serve us? That does seem far more appropriate than having you share a table with me."

Glaucia looked down, not making eye contact with him, trying to be demure. "I didn't know which seat was mine, Mr. Governor," she said.

"Did you think it was the big one at the head of the table? Are you really that daft? Obviously yer the one I wished I killed when I had the chance. How you convinced me to keep you around as a fuck- object instead of killing you outright the first time I screwed you I will never know. Now that I made the mistake of marrying your idiotic ass, I legally can no longer hurt you. My only plus side to any of it is that unlike the rest of these assholes, you will age. I can't wait to watch your pretty little face crack and wither into old age, and when you die all alone, I will make your death an official Logan Blood holiday. Please, wifey, take yer fuckin' seat already!"

He shouted so loudly that Glaucia actually jumped. I thought perhaps she would cry, but she didn't. She just looked down sadly at the ground as she quickly sat down.

"Ha ha, this is the funniest roast I've ever witnessed," Syd said. "Please, Jericho, please do me next!" he said, waving his hand excitedly.

"Oh, once I start in with you, sonny, we'd be here all night. You have failed me too many times to possibly recount in one sitting. No, we came here to feast," he said, finally sitting down in his chair. I noticed that the chair was so large he looked down at all of us from the head of the table. How symbolic. "I invited y'all here this evening to test out a new family chef in the mansion. Brenda, send in the food."

I saw one of the nearby doors open, and a large-statured woman with pretty dark curls and a long dress appeared in the doorway, sticking her head in the room. "They're ready," said this woman, who I presumed to be Brenda.

A number of servants came into the room past Brenda holding plates of fragrant, warm entrees. They delivered one to each of us, all save for Jericho. "I wanted to try the food myself, but as you know, I haven't eaten food for decades, and I no longer have any appetite for it. I get everything I need from the amount of blood I drink. Lewis, that's a good lesson to you to get plenty of blood."

"Yes, father," Lewis said, clearly terrified of being addressed by this man.

"So, I'm relying on y'all to tell me how Brenda did with the food. If you like it, we'll keep her `round."

Brenda looked on anxiously at our faces from the doorway, and I knew, even if I wasn't a fan of the food, I wasn't going to say anything negative.

The plate put in front of me was presented with artistic touch, modern and classy. There was some kind of vegetable and cheese pastry, baby asparagus in a fancy looking blue sauce, a bit of roast beef in a current sauce, and a fancy sort of scalloped potatoes. It all looked and smelled scrumptious.

Giggles clapped excitedly at her plate and laughed. "Should we go ahead and eat, Daddy?"

"I'm not waiting for his permission," said Syd, starting to shovel in the one thing with fatty cheese, the potatoes, into his mouth. "Mmm, good, in a snobby city-folk way, but good."

"Dig in," Jericho said, and everyone did.

I put my napkin on my lap and picked up my silverware, and began politely cutting into my food. Even though I certainly didn't like our host, I was hungry, and the food smelled enticing. I started with the asparagus, and they were truly excellent.

"Wow, Brenda has done us well!" Giggles said, clapping enthusiastically.

"I second that," said Parker.

We all sat there in silence and ate our dinner; it wasn't like the air was full of any good cheer that would merit conversation.

Giggles was the first to finish dinner. "Bring on dessert!" she said.

Jericho had just sat there looking bored while we ate, sipping his wine. When Lewis finished his meal, which had been reduced to a child's proportions in his case, Jericho waved his wine glass in front of the boy's nose. "Do you want some?" he asked.

"Yes please," Lewis said.

"Brenda, bring another wineglass, please!"

Brenda came through the servants' door, walking over with a cane in one hand and an empty wineglass in another.

I scowled at Jericho. "Please tell me you're not really going to give a five year old wine," I said.

"I'm not really giving wine to a five year old," Jericho said, though clearly he was lying to me. "I haven't touched the stuff for years. Here, you take my glass," he said to Lewis as he gave his own full glass to the boy. Lewis drank the stuff down eagerly.

Brenda approached the table in between Jericho and Lewis, and Jericho took the empty wine glass in his hand. "Brenda here dreams of being a world-class chef, isn't that right, sweetheart?"

"Yes," she said, her voice trembling.

"We have a little game going on. A little wager."

At those words, my heart skipped a beat. Of course, Brenda must have been a slave.

"If all of you enjoyed her cooking, she'll go back and prepare dessert as well as become our head chef at the Mansion. If any of you did not like the cooking, however..." He pulled out his revolver from his waist holster, cocked it, and pointed it at the back of her head. "Then she pays the price for her failure." Suddenly Brenda's anxiety level soared, as well as my own.

Glaucia and Annie gasped. Everyone stopped eating and gave this their full, anxious attention.

"You can't do that do her!" Parker said, angrily.

"If you liked the food, now's the time to say it," Jericho said. "This delicate little life is on the line."

"It was excellent," Parker said.

Everyone else started nodding or verbally agreeing with Parker.

Jericho snarled. "Now, I hate to say it, but Brenda wasn't the most compliant to the rules of our little game this morning, and I'm afraid she's suffered the consequences. Brenda, take off the dress, sweetheart. Slaves like you weren't meant to wear clothing anyway."

Brenda nodded, and pulled the dress over her head, leaving her naked as she tossed it aside. Her face flushed, and at first I thought it was her nudity making her embarrassed, but then I looked down at her lower half. I gasped when I saw what had been under the dress. Or rather, what hadn't been under the dress.

She was missing one of her legs. Her left leg ended a couple inches above her knee, and the rest of her leg was gone. Only, unlike Parker, she didn't have any sort of prosthetic on. That was why she had to use a cane to walk out to us. It was all very disturbing.

"Let's see if there is enough on tap still here," Jericho said.

He reached up into the stump of her severed leg, and I noticed there was a rubber band type of thing holding the skin of her leg closed. Clearly this wasn't an old wound. He pulled this off, and loosened the skin until blood started to trickle into the wineglass. I could see Brenda was looking away and trying hard not to cry out. I too had to look away, feeling dizzy. When he got enough, he tied her up again.

As soon as I realized he had been drinking blood instead of what I had assumed to be red wine this whole time, I looked at Lewis. He had finished his glass of blood, and his fangs were out, though his face looked highly disturbed by this turn of events.

"Brenda made the mistake of refusing to cook this afternoon, so we had to remove her leg as a suitable punishment, didn't we, sweetheart?"

Brenda nodded sadly, far-off.

Jericho smiled. "But don't worry. Nothin' was wasted here. I just had Brenda here strip the meat off the leg and prepare it with the rest of the food she was rustlin' up. Yup, y'all each just all feasted on a little bit of Brenda herself."

All of us looked down at our plates with horror.

"You have to be joking," Annie said.

"Do I look like I joke, my dear?" Jericho said, his face looking extremely serious.

I had no doubt that he was completely serious. "You're an evil, evil man, Jericho," I said.

"You've stooped to a new level of depravity with this one, Jericho," Parker said, his voice trembling with anger.

"Woo-hee!" Syd said giddily. "Just when the whole grouchy routine was startin' to bore me, ya completely knock it the hell out of the ballpark, Daddio."

Jericho took another sip of his blood and then raised the gun to Brenda's back again. "So, how `bout it, my sweet kin. Didya approve of Brenda's cookin,' or ain't ya? Her lovely life is on the line, here. Giggles, we'll start with you."

Giggles smiled. "I LOVED the cooking, Brenda. I ate every itty bitty littlest tiniest morsel, see?" She held up her clean plate for inspection. "I give Brenda a 10!" She giggled happily, showing no reaction to the fact that she had just consumed someone's leg meat.

"Okay, you have one vote, but it needs to be unanimous," Jericho said. "Lewis?"

"Yes, yes, I finished, it was wonderful," said Lewis, clearly understanding what was at stake.

He looked at the next one in line. "Parker?" he asked. "Did it manage to satisfy yer sophisticated, worldly palate?" His words were dripping with sarcasm.

"Yes, it was excellent," he said.

"And yet, I see you left some on yer plate," Jericho said, pointing the bit of meat left. "That shows me that maybe yer not being completely upfront about yer feelings and all. The only way I'd feel better is if ya finished yer plate good and clean, then tell me again that ya approved."

"You can't be serious," Parker said.

"Should I take that as a no?" Jericho said, cocking the gun again at Brenda's back, as she gasped in terror.

"No, I'll do it," Parker said. He looked down at the bite of steak left with serious distaste. After a few moments, he summoned his courage, stabbed the meat with his fork, raised it to his mouth, and stuffed it in. "Ugh," he said as he chewed it.

"What's that, Parker? Did you not enjoy it?"

"No, it was goddamn excellent," Parker said angrily after he swallowed.

Jericho looked next down the line. "Annie?" he asked. "Did you like it?"

"Yes," she said, her voice rattling.

"Then prove it by finishing your plate."

"Oh, come on," Parker said. "Enough already. Us fanged vamps can't throw-up our food, but she's totally capable of it."

"So, should I tell Brenda that's a no, Annie?" asked Jericho.

"No, thank goodness I only have vegetables left on my plate, but they were soaking in the meat's sauce." Annie looked down at the asparagus on the plate and wrinkled her nose. "I don't even like asparagus."

"Well, you'd better start liking them real quick, sweetheart, or Brenda's out of a job," Jericho threatened.

"Should I do it slow or all at once?" Annie asked.

"All at once," Parker said. "Get it over with."

Annie grabbed her fork, stuck it in the asparagus, and stuffed all of them into her mouth. She chewed, and then she stopped chewing.

"Why, it looks like yer about to gag, sweetheart," Jericho told her. "That will be the end of Brenda."

Annie shook her head vehemently, and tears came to her eyes. She stopped herself from gagging, and continued to chew. When she finished, she swallowed, which looked like it took all her willpower. She opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue to prove it.

"How was it?" Jericho asked.

"Perfect," she said, her face completely pale with sickness.

"Alright, that's four votes yes out of seven. Glaucia, sweet wifey, it's yer turn."

Glaucia looked down at her plate. She had two or three bites of meat left. "I don't suppose I can just give her the go-ahead without finishing this?"

"I'm sorry, Brenda, that one's a bit mentally challenged. No, my dear, you have to finish it just like everyone else did."

Glaucia gulped. "Alright, I can do this. It's just beef, it's just beef, it's just beef." Her mind tricks worked. She was able to quickly eat the rest of her meat without even threatening to gag. "It was great, Brenda," she said when she had finished.

Jericho looked the next down the line, right at me. "Imposter? Looks like ya got plenty of meat there to finish."

Everyone looked anxiously at my plate. My heart was pounding in my chest. Could I really do this? Even if I did, would it matter? Jericho never let his victims win his cruel games.

But everyone was staring at me with hopeful anticipation, Brenda most of all. I couldn't let myself be the excuse Jericho used to kill her. I had to act.

"I'll eat his portion for him," Parker said. He was such a good friend.

"Nope," Jericho answered, which was not surprising. "Don't be greedy, eunuch. You already had yer share. It's his turn."

I grabbed my silverware and cut myself my first bite. "Okay, here I go." I told myself it was beef, just like Glaucia had done, and I stuck it in my mouth and started to chew.

As I swallowed my first bite, I realized now how odd the flavor was in the meat, how tough it was. This was definitely not beef, and clearly the heavy sauce it had been cooked in was an attempt to conceal its strange flavor. The illusion shattered, and I knew it would be so much harder to eat the rest.

I stuck the second bite into my mouth, but could not chew it. I was sure I was going to gag, but I looked at everyone looking at me, and I was somehow able to chew and swallow it quickly.

When I got to the last bite, my stomach started feeling really, really sick. As I chewed it, I was sure I was about to puke.

Parker must have seen how sweaty I was, sitting beside me, because he squeezed my hand. That was all I needed. I concentrated on his strong hand holding me, and it gave me just enough strength to swallow the last of it down.

"Woo-hoo, you did it!" Giggles cheered happily. "You're a superstar!"

"So, was it up to snuff?" Jericho asked me.

"Yes," I said.

Jericho turned to Syd. "Well, like usual, looks like yer last, Syd. And you have just as much of Brenda to finish as Jake did."

Everyone's eyes moved to Syd's plate, where he did indeed have a bunch of steak left unsliced and uneaten.

"Think ya can hack it?" Jericho said.

"Are you shittin' me?" Syd said. "I've been starvin' over here, waitin' forever for my turn while everyone else takes eons to finish. I love this stuff. Can't get enough."

"Let's see ya put yer meat where yer big mouth is, if ya don't mind."

Syd didn't even pick up his knife and fork. He grabbed the huge chunk of steak with his hand and brought it up straight to his mouth, all the while staring his father in the eyes. He then ripped a large section off and started to chew it with his mouth open, sucking and licking and making a huge show. It was disgusting to watch.

"Mmm-mmm, fingerlickin' good!" he said as he swallowed his first bite, then actually started to lick all the juices straight off the meat obscenely as his dipped it in and out of his mouth. "I love this dinner!"

When he was chewing his last bite, he opened his mouth wide and showed everyone the disgusting blob of flesh he was enjoying.

Suddenly, Annie grabbed her mouth, turned away from the table, and vomited onto the floor. It was disgusting to see, and I tried very hard to hold down my own meal.

"Oh, look at that, Brenda. Looks like Annie just gave you a `no' vote," Jericho said, faking sadness.

"But she already voted yes," Brenda said, shaking her head.

"But she couldn't have meant it if your cooking made her puke all over the floor, could she?"

"Come on!" Parker yelled.

"Nope, it's decided," Jericho said. "Brenda loses the game." He stuck his gun right into Brenda's back.

I looked at Lewis, and motioned for him to cover his ears and shut his eyes again, which the terrified boy quickly did.

BOOM.

The bullet blasted out of Jericho's revolver with a whiff of smoke and lodged in Brenda's back. He fired a second shot, then a third.

Brenda's face turned from surprise to absolute, terrible pain. Jericho kicked her face down, sprawled on the table. Her horrified, dying head landed right in front of me, staring at me.

"Dessert is served," Jericho said.

Syd made a face. "Once again, dear father, your meals look a whole lot more attractive before you litter them with holes or slice their limbs off," Syd said.

"You're a sick, heinous little man, Jericho," Parker said. "And one day your crimes will be answered for."

"I may be sick and heinous, but I ain't little,"

A tear came to Parker's eye as he stared angrily into the face of the dead woman, and his voice started to crack. "How many poor, innocent souls have you killed in the name of satisfying your perversions, Jericho? A thousand? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand, perhaps?" Once again, his emotions mirrored my own exactly. He turned invisible for a few moments, and then turned visible again, obviously being affected emotionally.

"Aww, is poor Peg-leg going to weep again?" Jericho mocked evilly. "I guess I shouldn't expect anything less than crying like a little girl since we all know he ain't exactly got any balls left." Jericho started to bite into the body's lower extremities and drain it of blood. "Go ahead and eat, my kin. See? Can't complain now that your dear ol' dad never provided for you."

"I am not feeding off this poor woman," Parker said. "Syd, I'm ashamed of you!" he said as Syd started to lap up the blood from the woman's chest wounds that were right in front of him.

"What?" Syd asked, his fangs out. "If I don't enjoy it, it's just gonna go to waste. It's perfectly good blood here."

I started to feel light headed, and looked away from the blood.

"All non-fanged folk are excused," Jericho said between licks.

Glaucia, Annie, and I quickly got up. Glaucia picked up Lewis.

"What are you doin,' you fuckin' retard? Lewis is as fanged as the rest of us."

"But he's already had your whole glass of blood, which is probably three times as much as he's used to getting," Glaucia argued. Funny how she wasn't willing to stick up for herself with Jericho, but she was always sticking up for Lewis. "There's no way he could possibly drink anymore."

"Fine, take him," Jericho said.

Lewis climbed into his mother's arms, and she carried him out of the room. Annie and I followed them.

"I can't believe I threw up," Annie was saying to us. "This is all my fault. How could I have lost control like that?"

"Annie, it wasn't your fault," I said. "I've been watching Jericho make his kills. He sets up little games with them, wagering their lives. But it doesn't matter if they win their bets or not. Either way he still kills them."

"He's right, babe," Glaucia said. "No one is to blame here except Jericho."

"Momma, I hate it here," cried Lewis. "I want to go home."

"I know, baby, I know," Glaucia said. "I'll take you upstairs."

We all went our separate ways, and I headed back up to Syd's apartment. The first thing I did when I got there was to run into the bathroom, stick my finger down my throat, and throw up my dinner. I couldn't stand the idea of having human meat in my system. I brushed my teeth forever and rinsed with mouthwash until all of that flavor was gone.

My stomach felt painfully empty again, but I knew I was done with everything for the night. I had already bathed that day, but I just had to get in the tub once more. I scrubbed and scrubbed, wanting to get off any blood that might have splattered on me off. I felt like that water was tainted with ick, so I emptied it out and filled it back up a second time.

I lay there in the clean water forever, trying to make the odd, post-adrenaline chills and shakes end. I wished I could just turn off my bad emotions, the ones I had never been meant to have, the ones my father was responsible for. I was scared out of my mind of Jericho, and equal parts furious. It was all making me depressed as well.

I couldn't keep doing this. My negative emotions would start to rule me. They'd drive me insane. I knew I vowed to bear witness to those poor victims of Jericho's, but I just couldn't follow through. The only way I would be able to get through this ordeal would be to turn a blind eye to Jericho, just as the others did. But I vowed that one day, the man would end up paying, and no more lives would be burned.

JANUARY 10th

Even though we agreed to go to an early breakfast, Syd was slow getting out of bed in the morning. If I had one iota of concern for that man, I might have forced him out of bed and drag him down to the mess hall, but because I didn't care if he made it or not, I just left a couple minutes early. On my way there, I passed Parker and Annie holding hands like the sweet married couple I now knew they were. I said hello to them, then I remembered needing to ask Parker about whatever he knew about my father's death, which I did, not worrying if Annie overheard me.

"Annie, why don't you go along ahead and we'll be right there?" Parker asked, his pleasant demeanor turning serious.

"Alright," she said, leaving the two of us alone to talk.

"Do you recall when I told you I earned a favor from Jericho when he asked me to do another reconnaissance mission after he had sworn I'd never have to again?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, knowing the favor had been what would allow him to save my life. "It had to do with my father, didn't it?"

"Specifically it had to so with a deceased Mr. Ring, a Tennessee man who had the gene but never passed it on to any male successors. I was tasked with using my ability to infiltrate the home of his twin sisters, who he was very close with, and confirm he had never had any children. It took a few days to uncover, but I learned from Mr. Ring's sisters' conversations that he had a long affair with a married woman in Chattanooga, and they wondered if her only child was his."

"You're talking about my grandmother, aren't you?" I asked. My grandparents on my father's side had been estranged since my father died. His mother had been as cruel and racist as her son, and his father had been a henpecked depressive. "You're saying her husband wasn't my father's real dad."

"That's what Jericho sent Syd to figure out," he said.

"How come you weren't sent?" I asked.

He laughed. "Jericho needed to ascertain if your father had bisexual leanings or not," he said. "I'm sure it wouldn't have been great strategy sending in someone who had nothing in common with your father, someone with zero sexual charisma and a missing leg."

I almost argued against his point about not having sexual charisma, but now that I knew he was married, I didn't want to cross the line.

"But Syd failed," I said. "He never discovered what must have been a seriously suppressed bisexual side to my father."

"That's only because someone killed your father before Syd could finish his job. No one was more upset about this than Syd, who had devoted something like a year or more to this mission."

"Do you know who killed him, Parker?" I asked.

"It must have been someone who was in the know amongst the Logans. Tucker, Rose, Giggles, Cornelius."

I wouldn't have been surprised if Rose had been responsible. "Who else knew about my father?" I asked.

"Jericho, Syd. Glaucia wasn't here yet. And there was one more. Giggles's husband."

"Is he still here?" I asked.

"No, he disappeared. Not long before your father died, come to think of it. Maybe he had something to do with it."

"Anything else you can think of?"

"Not at the moment," he said. "I'll think about it though, and if I come up with any revolutionary new theories, you'll be the first to know."

"Thanks, Parker." I nodded, figuring I needed to have a discussion with Giggles about her husband. But Giggles got me thinking about another topic. "Hey, while I have you alone, I have something really embarrassing I have to confess."

"Yes, what's that?"

My face felt hot suddenly, but I felt like I owed it to Parker to come clean to him. "It's kind of funny when you think about it. Actually, it really isn't funny at all. Well, I hate to say this, but when Annie showed up a couple days ago and was introduced to as `Annie Logan,' I incorrectly assumed she was your sister."

"Sister?" Parker asked, wrinkling his nose. "Didn't you know Giggles was my only sister?"

"Syd never bothered telling me that Giggles was related to you two."

"Oh God, you didn't think Giggles was my wife, did you?" he asked in disgust.

"No, I had no idea you were married."

"Didn't Syd tell you?"

"No, Syd seems to take some special pride in neglecting to inform me of matters of significance. Life would be much easier if Syd had thought to tell me a lot of things. Anyway, I only realized the truth last night."

"Well, it's an easy mistake to make," Parker brushed it off.

"But wait, there's more. Look, a couple of days ago I was looking for you, so I went up to your chemistry lab."

"My lab?" he said, his voice starting to sound worried.

"I didn't think to knock since it seemed to me a lab was sort of a public space, which was completely wrong of me. Anyway, and this is the really embarrassing part, I walked in on you and Annie, um, engaged in the lab."

"Oh my," Parker said, his face going totally red.

"I left as soon as I realized I was interrupting something, and I really didn't see any nudity or anything from the angle I had. Anyway, I'm really, really sorry I barged in on you two like that, I feel awful."

He smiled and put a hand on my shoulder. "Hey, it's totally okay," he said. "You were absolutely right, the lab should be a public space, and we should have locked the door. It's just that we never, ever get people coming in there, but now we'll know better. The funny part of this is, we almost never carry on like that in the lab, or anywhere else. Ever since Annie came home from Fools Gold, it's like she's a new person, completely romantic with me, and I'm loving every bit of it. But thanks for letting me know, I don't want to make that mistake again."

"Yes, sure. But as you can see, I thought at the time Annie was your sister."

He lowered his eyebrow. "Please tell me seeing me engaged in intercourse with her made you realize otherwise."

My face went hot again. "Actually, it didn't. Like I said, I only realized she wasn't your sister last night."

"Jake, don't you know me well enough to know I would never, ever sleep with a family member?"

"Well, I thought I did, I thought I knew you as intimately as a best friend," I said.

"And that's exactly how I feel I know you, Jake," he said to me. "And I'd hope you'd feel the same openness from me. And I would never, ever believe you were capable of sleeping with your brother. You are a far too good a person."

"I did feel that way about you too, Parker, until I was convinced you were sleeping with your sister. Then you went from the one person here who I truly trust and admire and respect fully to the person that I figured must have twisted morals and disturbing seedy secrets. It was quite a trauma for me, as your friendship lifted me up high. Annie too went from this sweet, interesting woman to someone immoral and secretive in my eyes."

"Why didn't you just come forward and talk to me about this, friend to friend?" he asked.

"Because I was afraid of how you would react to me knowing this deep, dark secret. But in retrospect, of course I should have. Instead, I stupidly shut you and Annie out. I knew I wouldn't be able to be around you and not tell you what I had seen, so I figured I had to avoid you as much as possible. I cancelled our rodeo sessions, turned down fishing and workout offers from you, and generally avoided being around you as much as I could."

"That's why you've been so oddly distant these past couple days," he said. "I was worried I had done or said something to offend you, or if not, just figured you had gotten tired of me, and didn't want me as a friend nearly as much as I wanted you, which I was fine with, of course. Most people don't want to befriend someone like me, and I don't blame them for that."

"No, that's not the case at all," I said. "See? I'm so glad I got this off my chest. And now that we both know the truth, I want to make amends."

He pulled me into a friendly hug and patted me on the back. "We have rodeo trainings to catch up on, as well as fishing trips to take. I'll take a break from the chemistry lab so we have more time with each other."

"That would be great."

"Just promise me, Jake, no more secrets from me. If for whatever reason you think I'm harboring some deep, dark skeletons, I can assure you, I don't have anything hidden from you, so just ask me, and you will know."

"I promise," I said, pulling away from his hug and facing the direction of the mess hall. "I hope you won't tell Annie about this."

"I don't keep anything from Annie, she's my wife. I hope you know that. But if she doesn't bring this up to me, there's no reason for me to bring it up."

"Alright, thanks," I said.

"What kind of fucked up person must your wife be to demand all of her supposed loved ones join her for breakfast in the middle of the night?" Syd joked, appearing from behind.

"Syd, the sun's up," Parker said. "It's clearly morning."

"Not in my bed, it ain't."

The three of us headed into the mess hall and met Annie, Lewis, and Glaucia. Everyone was amazingly chipper again. I guessed in order to survive in a place like this, you had to have a short memory. Parker was the only one besides me who seemed still traumatized by the night before.

"Honey, you haven't touched your breakfast," Parker said to Annie.

Syd yawned, and gave Annie an accusing look. "Tell me again why I had to wake up before the roosters this morning?" Syd asked. "I never wake up this early unless I'm on the receiving end of some good ol' fashioned morning lovin,' ya get my drift?"

"We get it, Syd," I said.

"At least you get your stack of pancakes this way," Glaucia said, pointing at the huge amount of morning sugar carbs on his plate.

"These pancakes would taste a lot better if they came with a side of a class act blowjob."

"Syd, not in front of Lewis!" I said.

"What? He's playin' with his friends and totally out of earshot."

"Well then, not in front of all the rest of us, please!" Parker urged.

Annie stood up. "Sorry Syd for depriving you of your morning sex, but I have something to say that is possibly more important than your blue balls."

"What is it, honey?" Parker asked, concerned.

A huge smile covered her face. "Parker and I are pregnant!"

All four of our jaws hit the floor, Parker's most of all. Then he went invisible.

Glaucia immediately started jumping up and down and shrieking at the top of her lungs.

"Honey, this can't be right," Parker said. "You know I'm incapable. It's probably not what it seems, I'm afraid."

"Excuse me Mrs. Logan," said one of the vampire guards to Glaucia, clearly looking perturbed. "What's the matter? Are you in pain?"

"No, I'm happy, can't you tell these are happy screams?" Glaucia said, and the relieved guard left us alone.

"Parker, honey, you're invisible again," Annie said.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't realize," he said, turning visible again.

"When my period was weeks late, I figured I couldn't be pregnant at first," she said. "I didn't want to tell anyone and be wrong. That's why I left to go to Fools Gold. I wasn't going to see my cousin, that was just a little white lie. I went to see Della. She confirmed that I am pregnant, one hundred percent, for sure. I'm a couple months along now."

Glaucia started yelling again, and Parker finally accepted it. He started to cry, and he immediately moved in to embrace his wife. It was all very moving.

"This is so wonderful. So perfect. My God," he said, his invisibility still flicking on and off.

"I knew you would like that news," Annie said.

He kissed her. "Della told me that it would be a miracle if I could get anyone pregnant." He put his hand on her belly. "That little baby inside you is our miracle."

"I know," she said.

"That must mean you and I were meant to be."

"We were meant to be," she said. "I love you."

"So that's why you've been suddenly so sick to your stomach all the time," Parker said.

"Morning sickness," she said. "Though with me it doesn't always happen in the morning."

His face looked suddenly worried. "You shouldn't have let me make love to you recently, for the baby's sake," he said, looking guilty.

"Della said sex won't hurt the baby," she said.

"You'd better be ready to get one helluva congratulatory hug from your big bro," Syd said, pulling Parker away from Annie and embracing him, patting him on the back. "I guess you had some real bullets left in ya instead of just shootin' those blanks, ya old dog. Here's to the end of Jericho's eunuch japes."

"The last thing I want to think about today is Jericho," he said. "This is the happiest day of my life."

Glaucia ran up to and hugged Annie. "I'm so proud of you, girl! You're going to have a lot of questions about the pregnancy and about the baby, and I'll be here to help in any way I can."

As Glaucia hugged Parker and Syd congratulated Annie, I hung back a bit, overwhelmed with happiness for both of them, but feeling a little like perhaps I was too new in these people's lives for me to physically congratulate them. But as soon as Parker pulled away from Glaucia, he looked at me and grabbed my hand, pulling me towards him. "You're not getting away without a hug, Jake," Parker said. He pulled me into a friendly embrace, and I hugged him back.

"You deserve this," I said, trying not to get choked up. Of course, that only made Parker cry more, and turn invisible again.

"Parker, you've gone all ghostey again," Syd said. "One second I'm looking at Parker's face, the next I'm seeing Glaucia's boobs through him. Though, in my book, that's definitely an improvement."

"Sorry, sometimes I don't even know it's happening," he said, turning visible again.

After Annie gave me a quick hug too, she turned to Parker. "I told Della I'd be returning today on the stagecoach to Fools Gold," she said. "I wanted to test the sex of the baby."

"I don't care one slightest bit about the sex," Parker said.

"But I do," she said. "I'm a planner, I need to know."

"Don't think you're leaving again without me," Parker said. "I'll be right there by your side."

"Thanks, honey," she said. "We'd better pack then quickly before the morning stagecoach leaves." She turned to us. "We'll see you all in a couple days."

"But wait," Parker said, looking towards me. "I just remembered the commitments I just made with you this morning, Jake. I don't want to leave you high and dry for those rodeo lessons."

"Parker, you can't think about your commitments to me. I have Boyd still to train me, I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

"Okay, then I'll go."

"You take good care of her, lil brother," Syd said, which was a ridiculous thing for someone as selfish as Syd was to say.

"Anything she could possibly need or want, I'll provide it," he said. He was absolutely just glowing. I felt so, so happy for them.

With final goodbyes, Annie and Parker left the room, and all of our spirits were in the clouds as we finished our breakfast.

When I hopped on over to Cornelius's office for my morning session, he was waiting with a guest for me.

"Jake, I'd like you to meet Meredith, our clothing designer," he said, and I shook hands with the tall, bone-thin woman in her forties. "We need to go over your wedding dress today."

Meredith had brought with her particularly egregious white gown displayed on a dummy. "Do you like it?" she asked.

"Do you mind me being blunt?" I asked.

"Not at all. I don't like this one myself," she said.

"Neither do I," I said. "It's a bizarre mixture of old-fashioned and revealing. If I have to wear a dress, I want just the simplest design there is."

"But you said this would be the final choice," Meredith said angrily to Cornelius. "I don't have time to make another one. You chose this horrible pattern, and now you either have to wear it, or you get another designer."

"We don't have another designer," Cornelius said, clearly starting to get stressed. "Mr. Groves, this is the very specific dress Syd chose for you. His choice was final. I'm sorry if it's not to your liking."

My face burned hot. "Wait a minute, you're saying I don't get to pick out my own dress? Syd does?"

"It's like the wedding ring in your culture," Cornelius said. "The groom traditionally picks out the bride's dress as a present to the bride. Meredith isn't here to negotiate with us. She's here to get the dress tailored to fit you."

Man, I hated Syd. Thank goodness this wedding would never actually see the light of day. It was humiliating enough just to try on this stuff. "Alright, I'll put it on."

"Go ahead and strip for me, Jake," Meredith said.

I carefully removed and folded my clothes down to my briefs.

"I'm going to need you to take those off too. This dress wasn't meant to be worn with anything underneath."

I groaned, then took off my underwear, but used my hands to cover myself.

"Now, just hold still while I get the dress put on you."

It took what seemed like a half hour of stitching and corrections before she told me to look in the mirror. I walked over to the huge one on the wall, took one look, and said, "Oh my goodness Syd, really?"

No matter what part of the dress I looked at, it was bad. Right away, my eyes drifted down to my cleavage. The dress was low cut, showing off my neck and upper chest completely, with a bustier type of front. "Whoa, where did these breasts come from?" I asked, because instead of my chest being totally flat, the bustier gave me what looked like d-cup, pointy cleavage.

"When I told him that this type of dress was normally favored by women of a certain endowment, Mr. Logan asked that the chest be fitted with prosthetic breasts so as not to cause you any embarrassment," Meredith said.

"Oh, how thoughtful of him. Nevertheless, I'd like to remove them."

"They're permanently glued in now, I'm afraid."

I rolled my eyes, and my gaze went down. Beneath the fake breasted bustier, it almost looked like someone cut out a very revealing diamond that completely left my belly bare and even revealed the top part of my black pubes.

"On the wedding day, you'll have to shave your pubic hair," Meredith told me.

I shook my head. "Only three kinds of men shave their pubes. Swimmers, bodybuilders, and porn stars. I am none of the above."

"Syd promised me you would shave your pubic hair as well as your armpits for the wedding," Meredith said.

I only decided to drop it because I knew there would never be any real wedding day. My eyes went down. The gown was so short, you could easily see my penis hanging out. "I think we should lower this skirt, don't you?"

"No, it's meant to fit that way," Meredith said.

I turned around so I could see the back. Just like the front, there was a huge diamond hole in the back that revealed the skin of my lower back as well as about half of my upper butt crack.

"Can we take it off now?" I asked.

"No, wait, there's more," she said. She ran over to a closed trunk on the other side of the office, opened it up, and started to pull out huge amounts of white, ruffled fabric. "He told me he wanted you to have a magnificent train, one that was twice as long as the longest one I had ever made," she said. She pulled the thing all the way across the room and snapped it into my butt. It was so long, a good portion of the end of it was still in the trunk.

"There's no way I'm not tripping over that," I said.

"We'll do practices in the whole getup a few times before the actual date," Cornelius was saying.

"Let me show you the shoes he picked out for you," she said.

"Oh, I can't wait."

She grabbed a pair of huge, bright red stilettos. "Try these on."

She had me put on the shoes, which I had a hard time just standing up straight in, let alone walking.

"Are they supposed to be that color red?" I asked.

"He told me the red was symbolic of your scarlet sexual nature. And they were designed to match the shade of lipstick he picked out for you. Shall I put that on you now?"

"No no, let's save it for the special day."

"There's one more thing, your hat."

She pulled a white hat that was large with all sorts of ostentatious design on it. Something Lady Gaga might have worn to the races. It was hideous.

When she put it on me, I said, "I'm sorry, I think there's something stuck to the bottom of it."

"Oh no, that's just the blonde wig he instructed me to glue onto the hat," she said. She set the whole thing down on my head, and then adjusted the blonde curls around my face.

"So tell me what you're thinking." Meredith said.

"I'm thinking, wow, I wish I was allowed to pick out Syd's outfit."

"Usually the bride has that option," Meredith said.

"Wait, are you serious?" I asked.

"Yes, that's correct," Cornelius said. "But when you failed to approach me to tell me you wanted to select his suit, I assumed that he would be selecting his own."

"So, does that mean it's too late to pick it out?" I asked.

"It's up to Meredith," Cornelius said.

"I need to put in the final pattern orders today. Look, I was astonished and ashamed when Syd picked out the dresses for you and your bridesmaids," she said. "I think I could pick out an outfit on your behalf that is equally as grotesque for Syd to wear, if you'll give me your approval ahead of time."

"I absolutely and totally approve," I said.

"Perfect," she said, a wicked grin meeting her thin lips.

As I finished a very early lunch alone in the mess hall, I noticed an older human woman drinking alone at the bar and getting clearly way too drunk. I immediately thought of Tucker, and remembered the promise I had made to tell Jericho that he wanted them to let him die in peace. Of all the unpleasant ways I could think of spending my afternoon, willingly initiating contact with Jericho sounded the worst by far.

But Jake Groves always kept his promises. I figured he might be in the Great Room and started to walk in that direction, cursing myself for forgetting to mention this during the previous night's dinner affair.

I found the Great Room in the same state it was when I first stepped into Mareshead Mansion, with a Cabinet meeting taking place. Once again, Jericho was seated at his throne, Lewis was sitting quietly beside him, and current issues were being discussed by all the cabinet members sitting below, including Cornelius and Giggles.

I thought about waiting for them to finish before discussing this with Jericho privately, but wasn't too sure I wanted to do anything with Jericho in private, and figured that if anyone had earned to be treated rudely, it was Jericho. So, I forgot my normal tact and I just marched up in the middle of a discussion about arms trade, and said, "Tucker wanted me to tell you he wants you to let him die."

"He does, does he?" Jericho asked, his anger at my intrusion quickly fading as soon as he knew Tucker was being discussed.

"He does. He's only barely alive anyhow," I said.

Jericho looked at Giggles, the only real colorful person in the room. "Giggles, Tucker's always held a flame for you." I tried to imagine someone having a crush on Giggles, but I just could not wrap my head around it. "Why don't you take care of this?" he asked her

"Yes, daddy," Giggles chimed, clapping her hands as if Jericho had just suggested attending a circus. She got up out of her seat and hopped on her ballet slippers towards the stairs.

"Do you mind if I tag along with you?" I asked, feeling a need to ascertain that the right thing happened to this poor, sick man.

"Oooooo! I would just absolutely LOOOVE if you were to be my gentle escort, Jake Groves." She giggled and kissed me on the cheek.

"Uh, okay," was all I could say. This girl was by far the weirdest person I had ever met.

I had to run to keep up with her as we made our way up to Tucker's room. "Flit flit flit, fly fly fly, dance dance dance, die die die." She sang a note for each step she took, and clearly this was some odd schoolyard chant that I had never heard before, probably from the 1800's.

When we got to Tucker's room, Giggles let us in.

"Intruder! Intruder!" The familiar nurse came running at us from the other side of the room by the bed.

Giggles's clownish face took on an over the top, exaggerated sad look. "Awww, that's no way to greet your old friend, Nurse," she said.

"Sorry, Ms. Giggles. I didn't know it was you."

I questioned how anyone could possibly confuse Giggles for anyone else unless they were half blind and miles away, but figured I'd keep those thoughts to myself.

"Oooh, I so very forgive you. You are excused from this post, now, Nurse. Once again, you've done the Logans proud."

"Well, thanks, Ms. Giggles." The nurse left the room, but not before giving me a suspicious look as she passed. I tried not to let the fact that she had way more respect for a woman that seemed barely to have any grip left on sanity than she did with me bother me.

We approached Tucker, who was sleeping frailly in bed, and Giggles looked around at the IVs, monitors, and other devices he was hooked into. "Oh no, these won't do at all," she said, pulling all of them off of him. She pulled off his hospital gown until he was just lying there in the nude, which almost made me turn away in embarrassment, but my eyes were riveted to his body, which was so frail it looked like someone who had died of severe famine.

Giggles reached over and touched his ribs with her gentle hands. "I can feel the hurt inside you," she said, doing her exaggerated frown. "What a big meaney this cancer is." She touched his face. "Wake up, sweet prince."

He didn't respond. "Perhaps he's comatose?" I asked.

"If so, I'm sure I'll be able to wake him with a kiss," she said. "Oh, yes, yes, yes!"

As she bent down to put her lips on his, I cringed with disgust, though I wasn't sure if I was disgusted for Giggles that she had to kiss this sick man, or for Tucker, who was already getting huge amounts of red lipstick on his lips.

Amazingly, the kiss seemed to work. He opened his milky eyes and smiled. "Giggles! Did you come to heal my cancer like you healed me that time I broke my arm after I tried to drink and ride a horse?" he asked hopefully, his voice raspy and sick.

She looked at him with exacerbated pity. "Oooh, I wish I could," she said. "Remember what I told you when you first got sick, my snicker doodle? I told you my power only works to heal injuries due to outside influences. I cannot heal people from cancer or tumors or old-age, because those are all conditions the body creates on its own."

"Oh yeah, I remember now," he said. "Things have been gettin' pretty foggy for me lately. So, if you can't heal me, then I bet you came to do the next best thing. You came to see me off."

"That's right, dearie," she said. "Jake, you may want to leave now, for your own sake."

"I think I'm okay," I said, knowing that considering I had recently seen all sort of grisly deaths, this peaceful one should be no problem.

"I'm going to make this as pleasant as possible for you," she said to Tucker. I assumed she was going to smother him with a pillow.

"Thanks, sweet Giggles," he said.

She pressed her lips back to his and kissed him, this time with tongue. He seemed to appreciate that, and he was clearly kissing her back, running his frail hands over her body. Not surprisingly since he was on death's door, he showed no sign of getting hard as she touched him.

I was surprised to see Giggle's fangs appear past those bright red lips. She bit into his throat, and he moaned pleasurably. I realized she was going to kill him by draining him of blood instead of just letting nature take its course. As she said, it was the most pleasant way to meet your end. The sex was just a required condition of the feeding, I realized, not the main event.

Her lips locked onto his neck while she drank and drank, never spilling a single drop. Almost as soon as she bit into him, his dick went from sickly flaccid to rock hard. It was shocking until I remembered that the same thing had always happened to me when I was bit, whether I was the least bit aroused naturally by my circumstance or not. But I had always been healthy and capable of an erection, while Tucker really wasn't. It was like a vampire bite pushed blood into that body part regardless of how healthy they were.

It seemed to me that this might be a clever way of ensuring heterosexual female gifted vampires (or even male homosexual bottom vampires) would be able to force themselves onto their victims sexually just as efficiently as their male/top counterparts were able to do. It was quite disturbing to think about, really.

She climbed on top of him on the bed, never breaking the kiss. She pulled her dress up and around her, and I realized she must have not had any underwear on under that thing, because it became quite clear that she was riding him with actual intercourse taking place. I was shocked at all of this, but I guess that's what she had in mind when she told him the end would be as pleasant as possible for him. Personally, I would not want the last moment of my life spent having sex, especially not with Giggles, but Tucker must have been of a different mindset.

Tucker started to moan excitedly as Giggles bounced up and down on him, and she too started making sexual noises, though hers were almost comically high pitched and childlike. This went on for several minutes, until his eyes flicked shut and his body went limp, obviously almost totally drained of blood, and one glance at his almost blue-tinted skin confirmed this. Still, she rode him, and I realized that the fangs in his throat were making all the blood he had left stay in his dick for her pleasure.

He went totally still and his mouth opened, letting out a last breath.

Her mouth pulled off of him and she sat upright while riding him, the blood on her lips almost matching her lipstick perfectly. "Blood in," she said.

"Is he gone?" I asked.

"Almost, yes. He is just barely alive now."

From her dress pocket she pulled out a long knife. She held it with both hands down in front of her over Tucker's face. Clearly she meant to finish him off with by slitting his throat, which I could not understand the reason for at all, and all I could do was pray that the man was beyond the point where he could feel it.

The knife in her hands suddenly jabbed, plunging into throat flesh.

Only, instead of jabbing downwards into his flesh, she jabbed upward, stabbing into her own throat. Blood poured out around the edges of the inserted blade. It was disgusting to watch, and I started to feel faint.

"Blood out," she gasped as she pulled the knife out of her flesh and lowered the wound right onto Tucker's mouth, pouring the crimson liquid straight down his throat. I didn't have the slightest idea what purpose this could possibly serve, except to make me all wobbly at the knees.

I jumped when Tucker's body twitched under Giggles. Were those postmortem contractions?

Then, shockingly, his eyes opened again. He saw Giggles's face above him, and he pulled off of her throat and looked into her eyes. "I accept, my princess," he said. "I'd be delighted."

She smiled at him as he put his lips back over her throat wound and kept on sucking. I was so confused as to what was taking place. As moments passed, Tucker grew stronger and fed more ferociously, while Giggles looked limp and wilted. Soon he was bucking his hips up and down to keep the intercourse going while clearly she stopped her attempt to do so.

Then events moved from the bizarre to the truly supernatural. I could see Tucker's wan, crinkled skin turn smooth and healthy, right before my eyes. His spots and wrinkles all disappeared, leaving the skin of a man around the age of thirty. His body started to fill out with muscle and sinew, totally reversing the emaciation that the illness had created. He looked suddenly strong and able, young and healthy. Had Giggles found a way to heal him with her power after all?

Giggles shut her eyes and her body fell back to the bed while Tucker jumped on top of her and continued to feed and hump her. He looked like he was killing her.

"Stop, you're hurting her!" I yelled.

"She's out of blood," Tucker said, trying to get the last bit of out of her throat wound before giving up. "More," he said as he tossed her corpse down.

He turned to face me and sniffed the air. He jumped off of the bed with a newfound limberness and locked eyes with me. He looked incredible; it was as if someone had turned him back to thirty years of age, took away all his illness, and made his body as fit as it ever was, all at once. His body was as muscular as all the other vampires.

He took a step towards me, an odd yearning in his countenance; an expression that I had never seen on him before. As he took a second step towards me, I noticed his eyes were a bright color green. Had they always been that way? No, I would have surely noticed those odd eyes mixed with the rest of his traditionally Asian appearances.

And there was something else different as well. It wasn't just that the clock was turned back and his illness removed. He had subtle changes to his face. It was as if the best plastic surgeon that ever lived performed some surgeries to slightly improve his features. None of the features that made him uniquely Tucker were removed, but instead, only his imperfections were changed, making him all the more attractive.

He took another step towards me.

"Tucker, what are you doing?" I asked him cautiously.

He didn't respond, but he took another step towards me. He opened his mouth and sharp, pointed white fangs flashed dangerously. The realization hit me that Giggles had not healed his sickness with her power, she had done it by turning him into a vampire. She killed herself in the process of turning him, was his continued existence really worth the price?

His dick was the same size as before, just a bit above average, throwing my theory that becoming a male vampire would increase that part of the anatomy to the wind. I wondered if it was just born vampires who were blessed in that way, not changed ones.

Tucker threw his arms around me, his big fangs out and threatening, his hard unit pushing against me. I shoved him back with all my weight. Thank goodness he was young and comparatively weak, as I was actually able to throw him off me. I knew trying to overpower him would be ultimately futile, so I ran towards the door instead. Just when I reached my right hand and grabbed the doorknob and started to pull the door towards me, Tucker body slammed me from behind and totally crushed me against the door, slamming it shut. Pain exploded through my body from the impact, and I couldn't budge as he continued to push himself against my back.

I tried to turn my head to face him, but he grabbed it in his hands and slammed my face into the door. Moments later, I felt the pain of his fangs ripping into my throat, followed by that odd sexual pleasure. I felt him sucking and swallowing my blood out of me at a powerful pace.

I starting going black, and I knew it wasn't from seeing the blood this time, it was from losing it. "Tucker, please stop," I said with my last gasp of energy before the final complacency set in. At least dying of a vampire bite seemed like the most pleasurable way to die.

"Tucker control yourself!" boomed Giggles's voice from the bed.

I felt him balk on top of me for a moment before resuming his feeding.

"Tucker, off now!" Giggles yelled, her voice sounding pleasant and chipper even as she barked orders.

Finally, he forced himself off of me, and I crumpled to the ground. "I'm so sorry, my dear, I lost control."

"Here, bring him to me," she said, and soon I felt Tucker lift me up and carry me towards the bed. I opened my eyes to see Giggles's newly pale face looking down at me. "You've boobood, you silly boy," she said to Tucker. "You've taken too much blood for him to survive, the poor little sugarpuff will die," she squeaked.

"Ain't there anything we can do?"

"To start with, you can lick away the love bite you left," she said. "But please, oh please, don't feed off of him again."

Tucker stuck his tongue out and lapped at my throat wounds until they closed up with a tickle.

"Now, let me see what I can do about the blood loss," Giggles said. She put her hands on me, and I slowly felt the life returning to my body. My vision and sensation were no longer fuzzy, and I was able to stand again on my own. That's when I knew she had used her power to return my blood to me.

"Oh, Mr. Broken, I'm afraid I'm too weak right now to do anything about your nose or your finger. If I wasn't suffering from severe blood loss I'd be able to heal those too."

I looked down at my right hand and realized the pinky was bent in a grotesque, unnatural sort of way. I noticed how badly it hurt, and realized I must have broken it when Tucker pushed me against the door. I felt my nose to see it was puffy and bleeding.

"I'll need some of those instant blood meals from down in the kitchen if I'm to finish heal you, sir," she said. "But I'm too weak to walk on my own, I'm afraid."

"I'll go get some," Tucker said.

"Aww, how sweet of my wonderful little prince! But you should stay here until we're sure you can control yourself around all those humans," she said. "Jake can help me down, can't you, Jakey-poo?"

I almost told her only if she promised never to call me Jakey-poo again, but finally settled on the mush more diplomatic, "Sure." I assessed her tiny form. "I should just be able to carry you down."

"Oooh, like a piggy-back ride?" she asked excitedly.

"Sure, that will work," I said. Still amazed at how well Giggle's touch had healed my bloodloss, I lifted her up onto my back and she held on tight.

"Giddy-up, Piggy!" she yelled as I started to carry her through the halls.

If this had been Della's daughter, I might have played along, but given that this woman was really more than a century older than I was, I completely refused. I tried to get her mind focused on more sensible matters. "Giggles, was this the first vampire you've made?" I asked.

She hollered. "Oh no, silly-willy-boy. Only the strongest vampires can create other vampires, see."

"You mean the way you just did to Tucker, or through traditional procreation?" I asked.

"Either or, Jakey-poo. Vampires usually aren't powerful enough to do it until they are about a hundred years old."

I thought about that. "Seems like all the vampires I know are over that age," I said. "Jericho, Big Horn, Cornelius, you, Syd, Parker, Della--"

"Della is not a special, Mr. Broken. She can't make fanged vampires like the rest of us."

"Right."

"Anyway, I know it seems to you like most of the vampires are over a hundred, but in fact, the vast majority around here are under that age. That means that the responsibility of creating new ones falls on the shoulders of a relative few."

"Like yourself," I said.

"Precisely, Mr. Genius. And Daddy asks me to make new ones all the time because he doesn't trust anyone else to do it."

"Why doesn't he do it himself?" I asked.

"He does sometimes," she answered. "But making a new vampire is a very intimate procedure, as you just witnessed. It requires the person being turned to be at least thoroughly attracted to the vampire turning them. It's only unusually that someone would be smitten enough with my Daddy for him to pull it off. Most people are repulsed by him."

I tried to imagine what type of person would fall for someone as evil as Jericho. It seemed to me they would have to be either as psychopathic as he was or so far in denial that they might be certifiable. I imagined anyone Jericho offered to turn into vampires would have been extremely relieved to discover that Giggles was available to turn them as well as Jericho.

We came to the Mansion's enormous kitchen, which was conveniently right next to the mess hall. "Blood, she needs blood," I told the kitchen workers as I set her down on a counter. It turned out they had a whole refrigerator just devoted to blood, which I found disturbing. Soon, Giggles was sucking down the blood packets like a marathon runner downs Gatorade. And, more importantly, she said, she hooked herself up to the blood via needles that gave her a transfusion.

"Sorry, I lost most of my blood doing that," she said.

"Couldn't you have stopped him from taking so much?" I asked.

"It's very specific the way a vampire is made. Blood in, when the vampire needs to drink the human's blood to the very brink of death. And then, blood out, when the human needs to be fed all the available blood from the vampire."

"What would have happened if Tucker had refused to keep drinking from you?" I asked.

"He would have died." She put down the blood. "Now that I'm back to my sparkly self again, let me make sure I get you all fixed up."

She put her hand over my nose, making me jump from the pain before I buckled down and forced myself to stay put. Her touch was as gentle as it could be as she pressed her hand over my bloody, messed up nose. It suddenly felt all tickle-y and itchy as I knew she was rebuilding the material back to normal. It only took a few seconds before all the pain went away, and it was clearly as good as new.

Then she took my broken finger in her hand, closed her fingers around it, and when she opened her hand a few moments later, the finger was totally repaired.

"Wow, unbelievable," I said.

"Well, gosh-golly-gee, thanks a lot, mister."

"Are you the only vampire who can do this?" I asked.

"Yup," she said. "There are a handful of special vampires out there, but it seems like none of them have the exact same ability."

"You must come in extremely handy around here," I said.

"That's what my daddy always tells me," she said.

I looked around to make sure no one was listening to us. "Giggles, does it ever bother you that you are the oldest, yet everyone knows Syd will be the next Governor?" I asked.

She giggled. "Boy, does it ever, mister. Syd and Parker are assumed to be the next in line for the Governorship, even though I spent my whole life dedicated to the workings of this Blood, first as a part of my grandfather's cabinet, and now my father's. My brothers, meanwhile, refuse to learn anything about the way this Blood works on account of Syd's lazy arrogance and Parker's self-righteousness. I'm physically just as strong as they are and a master combatant. My father always tells me it should have been me that was born a male so that I could rule this Blood after his time came to an end. It just boggles my sweet little mind, mister."

"I don't understand it either," I said. "It seems totally sexist to me."

"But my plan all along has been to wait until Daddy's last day comes, and plead my case to the Cabinet. No woman has ever ruled the Logan Blood, but no woman daughter has ever been a special. They created those male-leaning laws in order to ensure that the Logan line would continue, as a normal female daughter would be able to pass on the Logan genes but not the Logan vampire traits. Since I can pass on both of those, those old laws seem not to apply to me. So, we'll see what happens."

"Is that why you wouldn't heal Parker's infertility?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I figured, when Daddy goes, the Cabinet's choice will partly be made on who has the greatest potential to pass on the Logan line. Everyone knows I will have children in order to do so. Syd refuses to, even if it means the end of the Logans, so he's a terrible choice. But most people would assume he wouldn't be Governor long. The next one would be Parker, who before his accident seemed likely to become a father. I healed him in every other way I could, but not helping him in that one respect could have been a game changer for me."

"I guess I understand that," I said. "But what about Lewis?"

"Ah yes, sweet little boy. He's become the wildcard in my plan. But everyone knows it'll be a century before he is strong enough to procreate."

"And now that Annie is pregnant?" I asked.

"The whole Mansion is all abuzz. Everyone is viewing this as a miracle that won't likely be repeated. This will probably be Parker's only child. If it's a girl, I'm safe. If it's a boy, my plans will probably be ruined. We'll see."

"I'm wishing you well," I said.

"Thanks Mr. All-Fixed-Up." She clapped a couple times, and then she scooped up a few more packets of blood into her arms. "Now you can give me a piggyback ride back upstairs to Tucker's room."

"I thought you were all better?" I asked her.

"Oh, I am. But piggyback rides are just too fun, aren't they?"

When we got back to Tucker's room, he was in the bathroom, pouring all of his alcohol down the sink.

"What are you doing, you silly boy?" Giggles asked.

"I'm free of the drink at last, Miss Giggles. Isn't it true that vampires can't be no addicts?"

"Can't have chemical addictions, no," she said.

"Then I not only beat my cancer today, I beat my withdrawal too," Tucker said. "I'll never need this stuff again."

"Good for you, Tucker," I said.

"I've got something better for you in any event," Giggles said, handing him one of the blood packets.

He took a sip, then made a sour face. "This is hideous. Tastes like death. Can't we heat it up or something?"

"It won't make much difference, let me tell ya," she said, giggling. "You'll just have to get used to it."

"There's a lot I'll have to get used to now, I reckon," he said.

After spending some time on the phone with my mother, brother, and Ahmad, patching up the mess Syd's fake texts to them had caused, I went out into the east fields to find Boyd. He wasn't waiting like usual outside the stables, but I heard voices coming from the inside, so I figured I'd check for him in there. Instead of Boyd, I found Jericho and Lewis, who seemingly were just finishing up a riding lesson. Jericho had just put his horse away, and Lewis had his horse by the reins and was pulling it towards one of the stalls.

"You're learning fast. Soon you'll be as good a rider as your old man."

"Yes, father."

Lewis's horse started to pull back and fight the poor boy, not wanting to go back in the stable, it seemed. Lewis tried to pull harder, and looked fearfully back at Jericho, who so far hadn't noticed his son's weakness. Lewis tried to get the horse under control quietly and pull it in, but Jericho finished with his horse and turned around to see what was going on.

"Lewis, what did I teach you about how to make a horse mind you?"

"Um, I forgot," he said.

"Ya just gotta give it a little reason to care."

I saw Jericho's right hand turn to steel, and then he reached back and punched the horse in the nose. The first time, the shocked horse responded just like I would have; trying to bite and kick and get away. Okay, so maybe I wouldn't have responded by trying to bite Jericho, but the kicking and attempts at escape would have most certainly been done by me. Poor Lewis looked like he was trying to subdue his look of total disgust. Clearly, he had been trying not to do anything to incite his father. I was just as disgusted.

"When they fight ya, that means you need to break their spirit," he said, hitting the sad animal over and over until it fearfully submitted to him.

"Enough!" I said. "You made your point!"

Jericho glared at me. "Lewis, put your horse away. Seeing and smelling my son-in-law has made me hungry for some blood and death. If you need me, I'll be ripping out a slave's heart with my teeth." He walked off towards the mansion.

That's when I noticed Polly had been in the back of the stable, her face absolutely furious. She ran over and soothed the horse with her hands, touching the blood of the wound the horse had sustained. "Let's get yous patched up," she said.

"Sorry," Lewis said.

"Look, boy," she said. "I want yous to ignore everything your father teaches you `bout horses. He a idiot Governor with nothin' but hay for brains. I see you growing up treatin' these fine animals like his example, I'll give ya a good whippin,' you hear me?"

"Yes."

"Now, if you come early in the mornings, when Jericho ain't up yet, I'll teach you how to really ride."

"I will," Lewis said. "I'd better go find my mommy now." He ran out of the stable.

Boyd walked in. "Hey, ya ready?" he asked me.

"Yeah, I'm ready."

When I went to the back of the stable, I looked back, and noticed for the first time that Donnie was up in the hay loft, being unusually quiet, busy with organizing hay.

I saddled Patches and went outside, finding handsome Boyd walking up, smiling.

"We only got two more days before your first rodeo competition," he said.

"Really? Is it coming up that quickly?" I asked, already feeling nervous about it.

He must a hand on my back. "We got one more event to teach ya, and it ain't that hard. Figured we'd get that done today. Tomorrow, we can review. I think yer ready. I been watching yer competitors practicing out here. They're really, really rusty. They should've been practicing five times as much as they done, and now it's too late."

"Well, that's good to hear."

"Not much else I can do for you after I teach you this last event. We can review tomorrow, but the most important thing ya should be doin' is practicing with your, um, with Syd. I wish so bad it was me out there with you, competing as yer partner. The two of us got all the events on the same page, ya know? But I'll be on the sidelines in two days and you'll have to do all the partnering with Syd." He seemed upset.

"So, I really, really need to have him practice with me as much as possible in the next two days," I said.

"And I recommend ya don't practice the day of the rodeo. It can make ya too tired, lower yer performance."

"I'll keep that in mind, thanks. So, what was this last, easy event you were going to teach me today?"

"It's called Flag Pullin,' and it's the only event that Jericho plain made up, without any roots in any classic rodeos."

"Uh-oh, it can't be good then," I said.

"Well, it's a little twisted," he said. "Let me take ya over to the practice flag course."

He helped me up into the saddle, got up in front of me, and then rode us quite a ways to the east, past the cattle pens, to an area where a large number of tall wooden poles had been erected. At first, I wondered if we'd be doing something similar to pole bending, until I noticed that these poles had rope strung between them, high up in the air. At various places in these horizontal ropes, strings were tied to them and hung down towards the ground, and at the end of those strings were bright red, triangle shaped flags, about as large as someone's hand. All the flags seemed to be hanging at the same height.

Boyd got off the horse and helped me get down as well. "In this event, I'll be doing the riding this time, while your job is to collect them purdy flags up there. This is once again a race, so we'll need to go real fast-like."

"Where's the twist?" I asked. "Are the flags going to explode on me?"

"No."

"There's going to be killer bulls running around, ready to gore me if I fall off, isn't there?"

"Nope, no livestock of any kind."

"Nothing to rope?"

"Nope, nothing. But once again, we'll have to be at the same level of undress." He started pulling off his shirt.

I started unbuttoning my shirt as well. "I should have guessed."

I got down to just my shoes, and Boyd only had his hat, boots, belt, and chaps on.

"Lemme help ya up," he said, and then he grabbed my bare butt and pushed me up into the saddle, but he was actually helping me into the saddle backwards.

"Whoa, got me going the wrong way, cowboy."

"Nope. In this event, that's the way you start."

I noticed he untied the horse's reins, and then started getting up in front of me, in the back position of the saddle. "Shouldn't you be in the front of the saddle, since you'll be doing the steering?"

"Afraid it ain't allowed for this event."

He climbed up and got in the saddle right in front of me, so we were face to face. "Just to let ya know, in this event, we'll be getting real friendly."

"I'm starting to realize," I said. "Are you really supposed to steer from back there?"

"Sure am," he said. "Part of the challenge is that with you sitting there, it'll be hard for me to see."

"And the other part of the challenge?"

"Well, one difference we would have if this was the real deal would be that I'd have my hands tied behind my back. I'll just hold them behind me to simulate that." He did as he said, sticking his hands behind his back as if they were handcuffed.

"How in the heck are you supposed to ride that way?" I asked.

"We're not allowed to use reins on this one, so I'll be communicating to your horse with my legs."

"What am I supposed to be doing?" I asked.

"Before you do anything, you got your form all wrong," he said. "You're sitting too far back. Here, let me correct you."

He brought his hands up in front of him, grabbed my legs, and moved them towards him. He put one leg on either side of him, so I was effectively sitting on his lap.

"The point of this exercise is that you're supposed to be holding onto me, not the horse or the saddle. Hold onto me, and try not to move. It therefore can be dangerous, as it'll be much easier for you to fall off."

I wrapped my hands around his bare back, locking our bodies together, and he again put his hands behind his back. This position brought all sorts of new contact, with his sixpack pushing against my torso, our chests touching, my dick laying limp against his abs, my scrotum hitting his pubes, and his soft cock pressed into my crack. It took all of my focus not to let myself get firm.

"That's it, exactly," he said. "As we move around, you just have to hold onto me. You'll need to reach up and grab the flags with your hand, that's it."

"Okay."

"Now, I'm going to move forward."

The horse started moving and I jumped in surprise, grabbing harder onto Boyd in order to keep from falling off.

"Ah! I didn't know you were going to make the horse go."

"I just told you!"

"I thought you meant you would scoot forward in the saddle, not that you would take the horse forward. My fault. Okay, I can do this."

"Can you move your head to the left or right so I can see where we're going?" he asked.

"Yes, sorry." I leaned a bit to the right.

"Okay, get ready to turn."

He made a sharp turn to the right, and I felt like I was going to lose control.

"Wait, wait, wait," I said. "You'll have to go slower than that when you turn. It's hard to hold on like this, Boyd."

"Okay, I'll slow it down. I'm taking you past a flag to your left," he said. "Try to grab it as we go by."

I reached up with my left hand and pulled the flag down.

"Perfect! Once you pull it down, you can just drop it. Now, five more flags to collect."

Some of them were lower than the others, so we headed towards those first. When we had pulled the four easy ones off, it left us with the ones that were a just a little bit out of my reach.

"If you stop the horse, I'll stand up on the saddle and get the last one," I said.

He did stop the horse under the flag, but then he said, "Nope. Yer not allowed to stand up on the horse, only I am. You just reach as far as you can."

As I reached up towards the flag, Boyd moved his legs from around the horse up, putting his knees and shins in the saddle, and using his thighs to move his butt off the saddle, up towards me. This resulted in me being lifted up several inches, but also in me feeling his unit being rammed into my crack. I grabbed the flag with no problem..

"We're done!"

"Not yet," he said. "Now that we've pulled six, we move to the final phase in the event. Here, let me put my legs down."

He moved his legs back so they were once against straddling the horse.

"Now comes the hardest part for you. You'll need to turn around without me helping you, so you're facing front. Think you can do that?"

"I think so."

"If you fall, obviously I'll catch you. But if this was the real deal, my hands would be tied."

I grabbed onto his body, moved my feet up onto the saddle, and then carefully turned myself around in a clockwise pivot. "Okay, I'm facing forward, now what?"

"You need to sit back on me, in my lap," he said.

"Okay," I said, pushing back against him.

"But you're not allowed to use your legs to straddle the horse. Only I'm allowed to. Instead, you have to put your feet up on the head of the saddle, up by the horn."

I moved my feet to that position. "This gives me almost no balance at all," I said.

"That's the point," he said. "So, I don't want you to do anything that could knock you over. When we move the horse to the next flag, we'll go really, really slow."

I reached back and grabbed onto him. "Okay, I'm ready."

"Actually, you're not allowed to hold onto me with your hands at any point."

"What can I hold onto?"

"Nothing. Ya just gotta balance on the horse, and use the support my body gives you against your back to stay on."

"I am so going to fall."

"No, you won't. Ready to move?"

"Um, I guess so."

Boyd moved the horse forward very slowly, and I panicked a bit, but stayed on. "Okay, if you don't go any faster, I can do this."

"I need to turn."

"Yes, do it."

The horse moved very gently to the left towards a new flag. When he reached it, he stopped too suddenly.

"Whoa, tell me when you're going to stop."

"Okay, sorry."

I reached up to try to get the flag, but I could not. "It's too high again."

"Let me boost you."

Boyd moved his knees up until he was kneeling on the saddle, and he thrust his hips up to push my butt upwards. This gave me enough leeway to grab the flag.

"Yes! How many flags do we collect like this?"

"First team to twelve overall flags wins."

After we collected five more, with me getting more and more used to the balance, we decided to call it quits. After that, I had him run through the whole process again with me one more time, wanting to get it down much more quickly that we did it the first time.

We dressed, put our horse back in the stable, and Boyd raised an eyebrow and pointed towards the outdoor bathroom.

"I don't know about you, but I'm real filthy from today. Nothin' beats a warm shower after a hard riding session."

"Yeah, I'll join you," I said.

His face lit up, and I knew what he really wanted was for me to shower next to him so my scent would permeate steam coming into his stall, and I was happy to consent.

After he stripped, he went into the same shower he always did, and I undressed and went to the stall beside his with the peephole. I noticed we were the only ones there.

I turned on the shower and washed myself really well with soap. After I was good and clean, I noticed that I was hearing that telltale sound again which signaled he was beating off. I walked over to the peephole, kneeled down, and looked through.

I could see the same view I had seen the day before, him from the chest up, but with both his hands down below, clearly pleasuring himself. I could see from his upper arms and shoulders that he was moving his hands up and down over quite a long surface, which seemed to show that he was as extremely well endowed excited as he was soft. Once again, his head was up and his eyes were closed, and he was smelling the steam that was floating from my stall to his. His face looked quite pleasured, and he even had his fangs sticking out.

He turned around suddenly, which meant I just had a view of his upper back, which was far less exciting to me. But soon enough, he walked a bit away from me, until his beautiful, chocolate butt came into view, and his thick thighs below. He spread his legs, and I could see his huge bulls hanging down between them, moving rhythmically.

He stopped using his hands to jerk off, and instead started thrusting himself through his hands, bucking his hips back and forth, making his butt flex taut and release rhythmically. It was mind-numbingly hot.

Then he turned around all of the sudden, and I gasped as I got a perfect view of his hard unit for the first time. Holy crap, was it ever huge, sticking straight up into the air up to his chest. Dark veins ran up and down ridiculously thick shaft. His cut head, brownish pink in color, was so much more swollen than when I had scene it soft. As he jerked this huge member, his enormous balls bounced up and down. Darn, how much did I want to taste him.

I heard someone else come into the shower area, and then the door open to the stall across from Boyd's. Boyd stopped his activities immediately, and looked towards that huge broken plank that let those two stalls see each other's occupants. "Howdy," he said.

"Hi, Mr. Slade."

I could just barely make out the form of an older gentleman through the broken plank, and then saw steam start to come out of that guy's stall. Boyd went back into his shower head, looking down at his angry dick with a sad, defeated look on his face, and I knew the show was over. He seemed to want it to go back down.

I didn't want my scent to be the reason his dick stayed erect, so I dried off, left the shower, got dressed, and headed back to the mansion.

For dinner, Syd insisted we needed to be seen again as a happy, blissful couple by the Mareshead public again, and the best way to do that was in the mess hall. Glaucia and Lewis were nowhere to be found, so we sat at a cozy two seat table, with Syd gentlemanly pulling my chair out for me as I sat down, which made me feel a bit emasculated; clearly his intention. While I expected he would take the seat across from me, he ended up in the seat to my left, making the two of us look like an intimate pair of lovebirds. At least it meant I didn't have to stare at his arrogant face all night.

"Looks like it's another boring evening in Mareshead," he said, looking around the mess hall. "None of these people have any of the modern entertainment sources like western movies or web cam sex, so they all just come here every evening and watch us."

I looked around. Sure enough, many of the diners were watching us, subtly and not so subtly.

"You'd think that they'd have something more entertaining to do than to watch us stuff our mouths," I scoffed.

"Speak for yourself, sweetheart," he said. "Even most non-Territory women out there would kill for the chance to watch me do anything at all, even if it was as mundane as me brushing my pearlies." He lifted his champagne glass. "Just them seeing me do something as simple as drinkin' this bubbly is enough to make the whole lot of them all wet and squishy."

I frowned. "Thanks for always dragging the conversation to the gutter, Syd."

"That's what ol' Syd does best." He smiled. "Uh-oh. Is that a trademark Jake scowl I see on yer purdy face? We are here to sell ourselves as a loving couple, remember?"

I forced myself to smile. "You should have no problem selling that, Syd. You sell your principals to the highest bidder all the time."

"At least I'm not the one of us who is currently selling his body, sweetheart," Syd said.

I got angry. "Which you forced me into, and I don't really think you'd have any problem selling your body if the need arose."

"Probably not. Uh-oh, you just totally frowned again. Better keep the smile going, sunshine," he reached over and pinched my cheek, which I felt was so demeaning.

I forced myself to smile pleasantly at this man I so hated. He raised the glass of champagne he had asked the wait staff for into the air, and clearly meant for me to do the same. I mirrored him as best as I could.

"Here's to you, punkin,'" he said. "May your days as the top-class Mansion whore be long and profitable. It's been a rocky road, darlin,' but you finally found your calling."

I seethed. "And here's to you," I said, smiling wider as I noticed more people looking at us now that it was clear we were making romantic toasts. "Who has been tirelessly selling me on the lie that Parker was single and into me for many, many days, causing me to see him in a romantic light and almost profess my feelings for him. But, as malicious as that deception was, it amazingly pales in comparison to some of your other manipulations. So, I suppose I should be thankful for that." I took a sip of champagne and then set it back down.

He took a sip as well, his smile turning from artificially sweet to genuinely cocky in a split second. "Well, when you're the prince of lies, it gets harder and harder to outdo yourself. Still, I sure have a hellava time tryin.'" He laughed. "But let's give credit where credit's due here. Where would my brilliant lies be without someone as sadly gullible as yerself to believe in `em?"

He leaned over and kissed me. Again, I could see more eyes on us, waiting to see what my reaction would be. I did what had to be done: I smiled and kissed him back before pulling away.

"You are such a supreme dick, Syd," I said.

"You mean, I have such a supreme dick, sweetheart."

"No, that is not what I mean. I don't care one iota about your dick. You can cut it off, for all I care."

"That's not what your little brother was saying when I fucked the hell out of him," his smile turning more mischievous than ever.

I gasped. "You'd better not have had sex with Jerry! He's a minor!"

"Hey, hey, ya lost that smile again, sweetheart. And no, I did not fuck Jerry, that's disgusting. He's way too young, a minor, and he's fucking annoying. It's a common condition of the younger brothers, I say. But see how gullible you are? You believed me."

"See? You're a dick. I can't believe I let myself believe anything you said about Parker."

"And honestly, it would be another lie to say it took any real thought or planning. It was clear you wanted his cock from the moment you laid eyes on him. All I had to do was gently prod you in the right direction."

"Which served no purpose at all except to have my embarrassment and pain amuse you. You're almost as sick and twisted as Jericho. Your father likes to eat his lovers, and you like to have your lovers feed your ego."

"You better not make me pay for this head shrinkin' later. Anyway, for Parker, he always had a clear inklin' towards women. So, sending you after him was never a threat to his marriage. But ya wanna know what is a real threat to their marriage?"

"Not really," I said.

"I'll tell ya. Me. Ya wanna know why?"

"Because you're so amazingly hot, you even managed to seduce your own brother?" I mocked.

"That's gross Jakey," he said. "No, it's because Parker is fuckin' jealous with me. Always has been."

"Oh yeah, because you're such an upstanding, respectable guy," I said. "What's not to be jealous of?"

"I'll tell you what. Women may not call me upstanding or respectable, but they shout out all sorts of other compliments when I fuck their brains out. Just ask Annie. She was begging for my dick for months."

I couldn't help it, my smile disintegrated completely. Right then, the waiters brought out our food. "Thanks," I said, smiling at them.

"Look, darlin,' you know I'm going to be feeding at least some of your meal to you, just like always," Syd said, making sure the waiter heard us.

"Great, darling," I said. Then once the waiter was out of earshot, I said, "Please tell me you didn't cheat with Annie."

He scoffed. "Once again, all that fancy education has done you no good, Jakey. When Annie got here, do you think she would chose the older, smoking hot brother, or the younger, crippled, sensitive brother? She was after my dick the second she got here. I gave her all the fuckin' I could stand for months, and all she did was beg for more of my cock."

"Ha ha, I'm not THAT gullible, Syd," I said. "It's obvious to me how much she loves Parker, and I can see why."

He grabbed an apple slice off of my plate and stuck it in my mouth, his fingers lingering on my lips after. "Well, it was me she loved first," he said. "When we started out, I told her I would never be monogamous with her, and she said that was fine. But then, months later, she starts to get all pissy with me. Wanting me to commit. Telling me she loves me. Well, I told her I ain't never lovin' nobody but myself. So what did she do? Soon after that I found needle holes in the condom wrappers. Crazy bitch had been sabotaging the birth control, trying to impregnate herself with my ample seed. I threw her to the curb like a used Marlboro."

"Why should I believe that?" I asked.

"Why not believe this?" he said in his seductive voice, and leaned in to kiss me again. I willingly touched his lips to mine, but this time he grabbed my butt with his hands and starting rubbing it suggestively while at the same time sticking his tongue in my mouth. I almost felt like gagging, but when he pulled away, I managed to put on a smile.

"No need for all that tongue, Syd," I said.

"Oh, I need it," he said. "And guess what Annie did as soon as I knocked her off my Texas dick? If you can't have perfect Syd Logan, better settle for the next best thing. Suddenly she was totally in love with Parker, the one man she could get who looked like my fuckin' clone. I warned Parker that she was trash, but he never would listen. It was the first time since he went and got crippled that anyone showed any serious interest in him, so he was too vulnerable. Goddamn, you saw the way he got all weepy on us yesterday during our lovely dinner. Born in the 1800's, you'd think he would grow some stones by now."

"Did you ever stop to consider someone might honestly choose Parker over you? I did."

He guffawed. "We both know you only pursued Parker because deep down you're feigning for the real thing, his big brother, only you can't admit it to anyone `cause that would betray all yer high falutin' morals."

"Oh, please."

"'Sides, what has Parker got that I ain't?" he asked.

"How about enough education to know `ain't' isn't even a word?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah, Parker's got his fancypants education," Syd said. "He's a chemist. Whoopdee- fuckin'-doo. Let me tell you, his chemistry contributions to this Logan Blood have come in loads handy over the years, that's for damn sure. Why, he's pretty much fucking indispensable, I'd say. Come on. Everyone here knows he only got educated so he could feel superior to me. I was better at everything but schoolin' when we were growing up, including with the ladies. Not my fault, but that's the honest truth."

"Oh, I'm sure it's not your fault in the slightest, Syd."

"I need another kiss," he said, moving in.

"If you stick your tongue inside me again I'm going to bite it," I said, laughing sweetly.

"I don't believe you."

"Try me. Syd, we have a rodeo competition in two days, and we seriously need to practice together tomorrow."

"Oh, how sweet, I know how much ya love our quality alone time together."

"So, will you practice with me tomorrow afternoon? Do I need to remind you how important this rodeo is, just what's at stake?"

"Uh, if memory serves me correct-like, I was the one who made the rodeo bet, not you. I think I can remember that I didn't make that bet just for braggin' rights."

"So, that's a yes, you will practice with me, as much as it takes?"

"If you give me a sloppy kiss to show me how much you love me, then yes, I promise." He looked so, so cocky.

"Ugh! Fine, here it comes, but it's the last time tonight!"

I leaned in to kiss him, and his tongue absolutely invaded not just my mouth but my throat as well, making a huge display. It made me sick, and I almost wished I had thrown up at that moment, all over his intrusive, sexual tongue.

JANUARY 11th

"Y'all tryin' to get mine Free Mark taken away, ain't ya?" asked Polly furiously, her accusing finger swinging wildly between Meredith, Glaucia, and myself.

When I had arrived at Cornelius's office that morning, he sent me straight off to Meredith's clothing store in the mansion, where he told me I would be spending our session time. Meredith had closed the store down for the day and shut the front curtains, affording the space some privacy. As soon as I had stepped into the room, Glaucia was all over me, gushing with her appreciation at being named my bridesmaid. However, as soon as Polly was escorted in by a vampire guard in from the stable, looking around Meredith's clothing store like she had just walked into the Norman Bates house, she started to push me as soon as she saw me, and had to be restrained.

"I ain't never step foot in this house of crazy before, and that's the way I liked it. But yous be jealous of my Free Mark, and so yous hatched a plot to make them imprison me. First by tryin' ta make me all religious, and now this."

"Sweetie, that's not what he's done," Glaucia said.

"You shuttup, and you too," she said to Meredith. "Y'all in on it together. None of yous have the Free Mark."

"I have the Free Mark," Glaucia said, pulling her hair back and turning around, showing us the "L" tattoo on her neck."

"As do I," Meredith said, doing the same.

"But why?" Polly asked. "Why would any Free Man ever, ever come to this place of death?"

"I've been here for twenty years, and I've managed to carve out a niche for myself," Meredith said. "Anyone with a little smarts and talents can do the same."

I quickly considered all the smarts and talents all the slaves who had been killed had possessed, and thought otherwise.

"Now, both of you ladies need to try on your dresses," Meredith said. "You'll find them hanging in the dressing rooms."

Polly and Glaucia each went in a different dressing room, and started to change in privacy.

"Oh my," said Polly as soon as she had walked into her room. "Are you sure this is for me?"

"Yes, positive," Meredith said. "Syd Logan picked them out himself. Just put it on, please."

After a couple of minutes, Polly's exasperated voice came through again. "I ain't got a lick of know-how about what to do with this part," she said. "You should know I dropped outta class well before they got to calculator."

"Calculus," I corrected.

"Right, so there's no way I can put this on without any Calculus."

"I'll see if I can help," Meredith said, walking into her dressing room. "No, no, no, that's supposed to go on your head."

"Then what's supposed to cover my body?"

"This part," she said.

"That tiny thing? I thought that was just a scarf!"

Meredith came out of the dressing room. "Alright, ladies, are you ready to show us?"

"Ready," said Glaucia.

"As ready as I'll ever be," Polly said. She appeared, looking absolutely hideous, using her arms and hands to cover as much of the tasteless holes as possible to try and maintain some shred of dignity.

Glaucia came strutting out of her dressing room, flaunting the dress. "Oooh, I love this gown. It's so sensual. It's so alive. It embodies Syd's spirit exactly. Please tell him I absolutely adore it."

Meredith looked like she was about to fall over dead when she heard that. "Well, it's something."

"You know what this reminds me of?" Glaucia asked.

"Yes," said Meredith. "Your wedding dress you made me design for you."

"Precisely. Only that was a little bolder than this. But I understand the need to play it safe for a bridesmaid dress."

I figured my head would explode if I tried to imagine a dress that could be bolder than the one she was wearing right then, so I didn't even try.

"Now, I'll need both of you to walk back and forth through the room in those high heels," Meredith said. "Keep in mind there will be a whole lot of walking during the wedding day, and it's uncouth to remove your shoes at any time."

"No problem for me," Glaucia said, sashaying across the floor like a born runway model. "These heels aren't as high as I'm used to."

"Polly?" asked Meredith.

Polly took one tentative, painful looking step, and then stopped. "Do I hafta walk?" she asked. "Maybe I could ride a horse."

"It'll be inside, dear."

"Yeah, so?" she asked. "These ceilings and doors are big enough to ride through, I reckon.'"

"No, you can't," Meredith said. "Please walk towards me now."

Polly awkwardly took a couple steps, trying to keep her balance. "Hey, maybe this ain't so hard," she said, and then right as she said it, she stumbled and fell to the ground. I rushed over help her get up.

"This is going to be one long morning," Meredith said.

Thank goodness Cornelius called a hard stop in the late morning, meaning we were finally free to leave. On our way out, while Polly literally ran for the nearest mansion exit towards the stables, Glaucia told me she was heading to the training hall, where Lewis was supposed to be receiving some training lesson with Giggles, and I decided to tag along, wanting to speak with the Logan sister.

Glaucia led me into a room I didn't even know existed in the mansion, one that was nearly as big as the mess hall and just as busy, with ceilings that seemed three stories high. The room was mostly empty of furniture, leaving plenty of room for the people to train physically. Most of the occupants in the room were male vampires, but there were some women training as well, and even the occasional male human.

The room was divided into functions. Straight ahead of us, rugs had been laid down over the hardwood floors, making makeshift floor mats. People in that area were either boxing with each other or wrestling. To the left, against the wall, there was a section filled with non-firearm weapons, like machetes, axes, and clubs. People were practicing and even sparring with these weapons in that section.

Glaucia turned towards the right section, where they had a great number of sheets of slate, about two feet by five feet in dimension, hanging from chains from the ceiling so that they were a couple feet off the ground.

Giggles, dressed in her bright, fairy-like dress, was standing near these sheets, smiling brightly at Tucker and Lewis, who were clearly the subjects of her teachings.

"It's as easy as crème pie," she was saying, dancing around on her ballet slippers. "I just concentrate on my hand turning to metal, and it does," she said, waving her hand around as it turned into that hard, grey matter. "Then, I'm able to punch through this rock like its cotton candy," she said, and she took a very effeminately nuanced swing at once of the slates. Her fist went right through the thing, and she pulled it out again. "See? Easy peasey. Now you try, Tucker."

Glaucia and I walked into view of the others and sat in nearby chairs to watch. Lewis waved to his mother happily, as if this occasion was as normal as a mother watching her son play his first game of soccer.

"Yes, I can do this, I can do this," Tucker rattled off, his voice so much clearer than I had been used to, now that he was no longer on alcohol or pain killers. He raised his right hand up and stared at it. "Go on now, buddy. Change. Change."

But nothing happened, except Tucker got noticeably dismayed.

"Change, change, change. You know ya wanna be all steel-like. Come on! Do it!"

He opened and closed his fist, shook and swung his hand, but nothing happened.

"You'll get it one day, Sweet Prince, I know you will," Giggles said enthusiastically.

"Wait, maybe `cause of the fact that I ain't right handed at all, I was left handed." He switched, and raised up his left hand. "Right now, go, go, do it, change! Change, damnit!"

But nothing happened.

"It's crazy to think little Lewis is actually stronger now than Tucker, isn't he?" I asked Glaucia.

"Actually, no," she said. "Even though Tucker doesn't know his own abilities yet, when a human is turned, they end up having the strength of a vampire their age. So Tucker is many times stronger already that my five-year-old boy."

"Huh, so if someone turned a man that was a hundred years old, technically he'd be strong enough to procreate right from the start."

"Technically, yes, if the sex involved in the process of turning a vampire wouldn't kill the poor old man."

"Let's give the sweet, adorable little boy Lewis a shot," Giggles said, motioning for Tucker to stop.

"I write with my right hand," Lewis said, and he lifted up his right fist. He stared at it with intensity and hummed, but nothing happened. "I can't do it either," he said.

"Daughter, I'll take it from here." All of us turned to see Jericho come into the room, followed by his entourage of guards. My stomach knotted as soon as I saw that evil face. "You're relieved."

"Yes, Daddy," Giggles said, dancing towards the door. "Good luck to both of you!" she sang.

I had been meaning to ask Giggles about her ex-husband, so I intercepted her as she was leaving. "Hi Giggles, can I ask you a personal question?"

"Well, hello, Mr. All-Fixed-Up," she said excitedly, stopping to talk to me, her back facing the others. "No question is too personal when I'm talking to my soon-to-be-baby-brother!"

"Great," I said, still feeling a bit bizarre trying to carry on a conversation with this person who seemed more like a bizarre comedic fictional character than anything approaching a real human being. "Umm, I was hoping you could tell me about your ex-husband."

"Why, of course!" she said.

Meanwhile, I could see Jericho take command of the lesson Giggles had departed as he stood in front of his pupils. "It could take y'all years to pick up this handy trick if all y'all is doin' is wishin' and hopin' that yer hands will change. You'll learn so much faster if there's a little pain involved. Tucker, I want you to approach this rack o' stone here."

"Yes, Mr. Governor," said Tucker, coming up to one of the unbroken sheets of slate.

"Now, I want you to concentrate on summoning a whole shitload of strength, then when yer ready, unleash a punch on the stone. If you make yer fist steel, it'll break through with no pain. Fail, and you'll break your hand."

It seemed like Jericho was up to his old cruel tricks, even towards this man who he apparently had a great deal of respect for.

"Yes, Mr. Governor," Tucker said, his voice trying to mask a newfound fear he had, and I didn't blame him. He started to focus.

"This all took place quite recently. His name was Vivek Shankar, a noble prince of the Shankar Blood in India," Giggles chirped. "In the history of the Logan Blood, we've had major wars with the Petrov Blood and the Valmor Blood, as well as minor disagreements with the Asian Blood over who controlled various pacific islands. We were always hoping to find a way to form an alliance with one of the other two Bloods in order to strengthen our power, but never had an opportunity to until Vivek came to us, offering his hand in marriage. Daddy asked me to marry him, and I agreed. Now, when two vampires marry, the one with the lesser surname takes the name of their spouse, but in this case, we both were at each other's level. My father got Vivek to agree to take my last name, and move in with the Logans."

I made a face. "Did you ever love the man, Giggles?"

"No, can't say that I did," she said. "But I understood the political necessity of our pairing."

Behind us, Tucker finally shut his eyes, made a yell of fury, and launched his fist into the slate sheet. Only, his fist never turned into anything besides flesh, and his hand ended up crumbling into the rock with painful snaps, not even leaving a dent in the rock. He yelled from horrible pain as he pulled away his hand and looked and the mangled bones.

"You've disappointed me, Tucker," Jericho said.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Governor, I don't know what is wrong with me." He shook his head shamefully. "Ya know, I DO know what's wrong with me. Excuse me."

He quickly walked towards his bag, and was searching through it.

"Of course, we soon found out that Mr. Shankar was being less than honest, the poopy-head," Giggles said.

"In what way?"

"Well, Daddy expected we'd be procreating, but on the wedding night, Vivek told me he was a nowhere near a century in age. He'd have many decades to go before he was strong enough to follow through with that expectation. In the meantime, he never once made whoopee with me without wearing a rubber. It was because we were both fanged-vampires that required outside blood sources, since both of us feeding off each other would have been pointless. That meant both of us were sleeping with other people. Though everyone I was sleeping with had made it through the rigorous Territory quarantine, he still wanted to be safe."

I really couldn't blame him for wanting to be extra protected from STDs.

Tucker reappeared then, a bottle of whiskey in his hand. He took an enormous swig of the thing, and something told me by the amount of alcohol that was missing from the bottle that it hadn't been his first sip. "There, Mr. Governor, now I'm ready."

"Tucker, what are you doing?!" I shouted over to him. "You're supposed to be clean."

"Well, it's not my fault," he said in a defensive tone of voice, his words already slurring. "I needed it to clear my head. I couldn't think straight without it, I swear."

"Okay Tucker, let's see you break that rock," Jericho said.

Once again, Tucker closed his hand into a fist, though this time he used his non-broken hand, and shut his eyes. Only this time, he took a deep, relaxing breath.

"Sorry, Giggles," I said. "So, how else was your arranged husband not what he seemed?"

"Well, as soon as Daddy asked him to connect him with his family in India, it seemed he always had a gaggle of excuses handy why the current time was the wrong time. When Daddy finally confronted him, he admitted that perhaps he had been outcast out of his family for some crime or another."

"So, the marriage wasn't of any political value after all?" I asked.

"No, it wasn't," she said. "But vampire law required me to stay with him. It was very frustrating. You can't imagine what it's like to have to share a bed with someone you loathe."

"Uh, no, I can't, but I'll try to imagine." If only she knew how much I could relate to her.

At that point, Tucker let out a grunt and he launched his fist at the stone in front of him.

I was hoping he would break his other hand, and prove to himself that alcohol wouldn't help him. Instead, he punched right through the rock. He must have changed his fist over a split second before the punch hit, because I didn't see the odd grey color of the fist until after he pulled it back out. "Well, hell be damned, I did it!"

"Very good Tucker," Jericho said, the only enthusiasm that he was capable of mustering. " Now git. Rest up until that hand's better."

"Yes, Mr. Governor," he said, and left the room.

"So, what happened to him?" I asked Giggles.

She shook her head. "It only lasted a few months. Syd never even met him, he was undercover when all of this happened. And then one day, he just disappeared out of thin air. Boop! Pop! Gone."

"Where did he go, do you think?"

"Alright, my son," Jericho said behind us to Lewis. "It's your turn to break the stone." He pointed at the rock slate, and I was completely horrified.

"No, Governor, you cannot have him do that!" Glaucia said, standing up. "He's too young! He'll learn it on his own in his own way."

"That's not good enough," Jericho said.

"Well, perhaps Vivek was discovered by his family, and his betrayal was matched with an end to his life," said Giggles. She was facing me with her back to the others, and didn't seem to be aware at all at what was going on back there.

"I've been told that most vampire children don't pick this skill up until their preteens," Glaucia argued. "Some never are able to master it."

"This is not most children, wifey. This is my son. My son will always be the first, the best. Lewis, punch the stone as hard as you can!"

"No, he can't, you can't make him, no, no!"

"Guards, restrain and gag her," Jericho ordered, and I knew that was an order they were used to hearing.

In a mere moment, the guards were upon Glaucia, holding her down and clasping her mouth shut.

"Or, maybe his family forgave him and he abandoned us for home," Giggles went on. "If he did, that poop-monster would have taken all of our secrets with him, including any information about you and your father's identities."

"Now, Lewis, hit the stone."

"But I don't want to, father," frightened little Lewis said.

"Come on and prove you're a man."

"But I'm not a man! I'm just a kid!"

"Or maybe he sold that information to one of our enemy Bloods, and he's still living with one of them," Giggles said.

"Yer makin' me angry, boy," Jericho fumed. "Do it or I'll hurt you good and worse than any lil' broken hand."

Lewis approached the stone slab and hit it with his unchanged fist.

"Harder!" Jericho barked.

Lewis bit his lip and hit again, this time harder than before, yet not enough to break his hand.

Giggles laughed. "At least his disappearance annulled our marriage vows. Got any other questions for Ms. Giggles?"

"Uh, no, that covers it, thanks."

"Ta-ta," she said, and then walked out the door.

"Harder!"

He hit it again, this time as hard as humanly possible, and when the fist did not go through the stone, Lewis cried out in pain, tears stinging his eyes.

"Again!" barked Jericho, still furious, while Glaucia tried unsuccessfully to fight off her guards. "Harder!"

"No, Lewis, don't do it!" I yelled, running towards them, determined to intervene.

"DO IT!!" yelled Jericho.

Lewis furiously slammed his fist into the rock with what was then superhuman strength and speed, clearly the absolute power he was capable of.

Yet still, the stone remained unscathed, and this time when his hand met the rock, I could hear all the bones crack. He held up his mangled hand painfully as he started to howl in pain.

"Enough! Enough!" I yelled, running over to Lewis and pulling him away.

"Fine, take the failure away," Jericho said. "But I promise you, he will learn it eventually, or it won't be pretty."

Lewis jumped into my arms, and I carried him out of the room while he cried. As soon as we were safely in the hall, I set him down. "Let me see your hand," I said.

He shook his head, holding his hand protectively against his body.

"Maybe we can find Giggles to heal it," I said.

"That won't be necessary," said Glaucia, running into the hallway.

As soon as he saw her, Lewis ran to her and she lifted him up. "Mom, it hurts," he said.

"I know, baby. Try to concentrate on the hand healing itself, and it won't take long. Mommy will bring you back to our apartment." She nodded to me. "Thanks as always, Jake," she said, then carried Lewis down the hall.

"Do you need help carrying him?" I asked.

"No, I'll be fine. I'm stronger than I look," she said.

The afternoon was particularly brutal. Boyd was waiting for me by the stables after lunch, just like he always was. We waited for a half hour for Syd to join us, as he promised numerous times the night before that he would. After that, I felt so embarrassed, having Boyd just stand there with me, wasting time. He clearly was trying to make amusing conversation with me to lighten my mood, but it wasn't helping me be any less angry at Syd.

I wasn't going to make Boyd waste anymore time, so we started our training, with me telling Boyd that Syd would just have to catch up with us when he showed up.

Boyd was a great teacher, going over all the events again with me, staying all afternoon. Of course, Syd never did show up, which was infuriating. But with Boyd's help, I felt pretty prepared on my end.

At the end of the afternoon, once again, Boyd asked if I'd hit the showers with him, and of course I said yes.

Once again, I took the shower to the right of Boyd's. After I washed myself, I once again was hearing that rhythmic sound that I knew now meant he was beating off. I got excited, and looked through my peephole.

This time, he was standing far back enough so that I could see everything from his knees up, and he was facing me directly. Oh my goodness, was it ever a sight to behold. Once again, he had his eyes shut, his nose in the air smelling my steam, and his long fangs as erect as his huge manhood.

He was stroking his wet dick with both his huge fists, once again making me wish so badly that I was free to touch him. I loved watching the two round balls of his testicles surrounded by his coarse scrotum move up and down as he pumped himself.

I was rock hard watching him, and I started to stroke as well, trying my hardest to do so as silently as I could. This time, blessedly, no one else came into the shower across from me to interrupt his deeds.

I could tell something was changing in him when he started to jerk faster, his breathing coming fast and rough. Suddenly, he stuck his head back and groaned in pleasure, as he flexed every huge muscle in his body, standing up and his tip toes, everything tense. He stepped forward, coming so that he was just a couple feet away from me, which cut off my view to everything from the chest up, but I could still see his whole dick.

I looked at his pink-brown dickhead, which swelled up to huge proportions as he beat his shaft furiously. His dickslit opened, and a huge surge of white, creamy cum came erupting out, flying straight up into the air, out of my sight.

Something wet landed right between my eyes, and at first I figured it must have been an errant splash of water from my shower, but as the hot ooze dripped down my face, I took a taste, and I was in Heaven as I tasted a familiar, salty substance that made my mouth water.

I looked up just in time to see two more shots go over the wall from Boyd's stall, and land right on my face. Then another one did the same. I could not believe he was capable of shooting that far. Did he know what he had done? He couldn't have, with his eyes shut.

I looked through the hole again. Although he had clearly shot his strongest surges, even if I had discounted his first four shots, he still would have shot a large load, as I was watching more and more white cum splash all over his sexy chest and abs, then dripping like glazed icing all over his huge phallus, covering his mocha balls in white as well.

Meanwhile, as I started at all that deliciousness through the hole, more and more of the white cream that covered my face was dripping into my mouth, setting off my taste buds. That's what finally pushed me over the edge: I felt my orgasm hit hard, my cum landing around my bare feet.

Even after I had come, I still felt myself being locked to that hole, watching as his erection slowly waned, leaving his meat soft but swollen. I watched him wash all the semen off his body and dick, squeezing the last bit out of his unit, and then I returned to my own shower when I heard him turn off his and leave. I was sure to clean up carefully all remnants of my semen, not wanting anyone to have to come in and see a dirty shower.

I dried off, got dressed, and headed back into the mansion, making my way back to Syd's apartment. I knocked on the door just to make sure I wasn't walking in on anything else I couldn't un-see.

"Come in," I heard Syd say.

I stepped inside the room, my nose wrinkling with the smell of cigarette smoke. Syd's bathtub was just finishing being drained, and I could see he was wet and naked, standing in his bathroom with the door open. He was leaning over his sink, shaving his chin with an old fashioned razor while he smoked his cigarette. He had his dick sprawled over the edge of the sink. I rolled my eyes when I saw him start to wash his dick off in the sink after some of the shaving cream dripped from his chin to his huge penis.

"Goodness, is there anything you won't do with a cigarette hanging out of your lips?" I asked.

"Not really," he said. "Well, shit, I mean to say anything I'll do, I'll do it better with a cig in my mouth. Smoking will not make me do somethin' I never would do, like ballet dancing, sewing, or vowing celibacy."

I turned my head towards the bed. Pillows were scattered everywhere, and sheets had been carelessly ripped off the mattress. Just another afternoon of fun for Syd Logan.

"So, what kept you from keeping your promise about practicing with me?"

"I have a good excuse," he said.

"Unless you were spending your time arranging for world peace or permanently saving the rainforests, I don't want to hear it."

"Listen, I couldn't make it, something just came up."

"Yeah, your dick came up."

"It sure did," he said. "You know firsthand just how high it stands, too. If it makes you feel any better, she was smoking hot."

"Oh, well then, that makes all the difference in the world to me, thanks."

"Sure thing, I knew you'd understand."

"I was being sarcastic just then!"

That's when I noticed the used condom tossed casually on the floor, and I almost gagged.

"What happened to you managing to throw your used contraceptives one foot over into the trashcan, Syd?" I asked angrily.

"I missed," he said.

"Well, you'd better come out here and un-miss right away. Oh my gosh, is that goo I see oozing out all over the floor?"

"You'd better believe it. Go ahead and eat some, if yer feelin' hungry, Jakey. `Course, might taste fresher straight from the tap, if that's what you prefer."

That's when I noticed the ooze all over the walls. "Syd, why are the walls soaked? Actually, I don't want to know."

"Ya see, she wanted to double her pleasure with two rounds of Syd. The first time, she wanted me to shoot all over her face. Only I missed some, and got it on the wall."

"Oh, sick. Sick, sick, sick."

"Stop pretending it doesn't turn you on." He rinsed off his face, walked into the closet, and started to get dressed.

"You'd better be cleaning that up, Syd," I said.

"The maid will get it."

"The maid already came today," I said.

"I meant she could get it tomorrow."

"I am not sleeping in here tonight unless it's cleaned up!"

"Well then, ya better start cleanin,' Jakey." He came out dressed in his cowboy shirt and jeans. "I've worked up an appetite. I'm headin' downstairs to eat dinner. Glaucia was expecting to join us. You ready?"

"Oh my goodness, I guess I don't have a choice."

"Not if you want to keep up appearances, nope."

"Fine. Let me just wash my face, I'll meet you there."

He started to walk out towards the door. "Try and wash off all that bitter acid yer always drippin' in and maybe show me some sweet stuff at supper."

"Don't count on it," I said. "And I'm not cleaning up your mess!"

He shut the door, leaving me alone, as annoyed as ever.

Dinner in the mess hall was more of the same old game, with Syd putting his hands all over me, and Glaucia doing nothing but encouraging his shenanigans. Worst of all, she spent most of the dinner listing her many reasons why she totally loved the dress Syd had designed, with him joking that he should start designing all her clothes.

After dinner, Syd got swept into a pool match with some of the ladies there, while I just wanted nothing more than to go to bed early. I said goodnight and went up to Syd's room, rolled my eyes as soon as I saw again the mess Syd had left from the earlier sexual escapades, and got set for bed, changing into just my sleeping shorts. I read for an hour or so, then knelt down like usual with my knees on the floor and my elbows on the settee. I clasped my hands together around my cross and brought them to my mouth, shut my eyes, and started to pray.

As soon as I started to worry that the things I was grateful for in my prayers were becoming too thin and the things I was asking for too great, I heard the door open. I knew it must have been Syd coming in, so I didn't bother opening my eyes.

"We just need room service again because Jakey was insisting on a little afternoon lovin,'" came his voice. "The mess is right over by the bed."

"Okay, sir," said a woman.

I opened my eyes just in time to see Syd lead one of the maids into our room. The older woman's eyes quickly found me, and as soon as she did, she actually started to scream.

"Ahh! He's praying! He's praying!" She jumped up and waved her arms up and down as if I had bomb strapped to my chest. "I have to tell the Governor! He will have him punished!"

"No, no, no, he's not praying," Syd said. "Don't be silly. He's as much an atheist as any vampire. Right, Jakey?"

"Uh, right," I said, hoping God wouldn't hold the words against me.

"Then WHAT is he doing exactly?" asked the maid, doubtfully.

Syd looked at me, but I really couldn't think of anything. "I was, um..."

"It's how he waits for me every night," Syd said. "Begging me for my beef stick to suck on. Right, Jakey?"

My face went hot, and I said nothing.

"Right, Jakey?" Syd asked again, this time more forcefully.

I saw the woman, who clearly still wasn't sold. "Yes, that's right, Syd. I was embarrassed to come clean about it, that's why I didn't say anything before."

"I always tell him not to be ashamed of our rampant lovemakin,' but he still gets embarrassed."

"I guess I'm just old fashioned," I said.

"Oh, okay," the woman said. "Phew. Was worried it was something else."

"No, it was most definitely NOT something else," Syd said.

"I'll just clean up then," said the woman, pulling in her cleaning supplies. "You two carry on like I'm not here."

"You hear that, Jakey?" Syd asked. "If she wasn't here, you'd be begging for my unit right now. Go ahead, then." He stepped up to the settee, thrusting his crotch in my face as he ripped open his cowboy shirt.

"Uh, give me your unit. Pretty please," I said, hoping that would suffice.

"Uh yeah, darlin, ya know I can't resist you when you talk dirty like that." He pulled off his belt, and threw open his fly. His huge, soft dick was pointed upwards, the huge head sticking up and to the right. "Yeah, suck on that baby."

He slapped his huge dick against my face, and I looked up at him angrily, not doing anything. I was absolutely mortified and humiliated.

"I'd better feel those sweet lips around my dick," he said. "Unless that's your signal to me that you'd rather take my horsecock up yer hole."

I would have refused, but I noticed the maid was watching us closely, clearly still suspicious. Angrily, I opened my lips, and Syd ran his soft dick all over my face, sticking it into my mouth. I refused to suck it, but I let him move it around in my mouth.

"Yeah, that's it, that's how you treat yer man. Tastes good, ain't it?"

I said nothing.

"I said, tastes good, ain't it?" he asked, loudly, as if I missed it the first time.

"Yes!" I said angrily through my full mouth.

"Alright, I've teased ya with this giant Texas cock long enough now. I give ya permission to suck on it like ya love to now."

I didn't do anything.

"You want that cock? You want that goddamn cock, darlin?" He rolled his huge mushroom tip, still soft, around my mouth. "I said you can suck it now." He looked over at the maid. "He's never been the brightest chipmunk, I'm `fraid."

I bristled with anger at having my intelligence insulted, but there was nothing I could do.

Syd reached down and used his fingers on my jaw to clamp it shut. "That's it, baby."

As soon as my mouth shut, I could feel his dick start to harden and elongate, first just turning firmer, then beginning to straighten. He lifted my hands and placed them on his denim covered bubble- butt, and he started to move his dick in and out of my mouth, groaning in pleasure.

Soon, his dick was fully hard, and it was so monstrously large and unbending, I felt like it would choke me. I wanted so badly for the maid to leave so I could spit it out. Instead, I was forced to lick every bulging vein on that solid shaft.

"Yeah, devour that cock!"

He reached down and pulled his huge balls out of the crotch of his jeans, so they were hanging down . "Yeah, you love those ostrich egg balls, ain't ya?" he asked, slapping them against my chin.

Syd kicked his cowboy boots off, and pulled his jeans down to his ankles, kicking them off his bare feet and way across the floor.

"Oh, that's right, darlin.' I almost forgot, you love swallowin' my meat best when I got my boots on. Alright, I'll put `em on."

Without ever giving my mouth a break, he stuck his feet back into his cowboy boots easily. Then he was wearing nothing but the boots from the waist down. By this time, I could taste and feel the oodles of Syd's salty precum covering my mouth and throat.

He grabbed my hands and placed them on the smooth skin of his bare, hot and sweaty bubble – butt. As he plowed his huge tool in and out of my mouth, I could feel his butt muscles flex and relax with each thrust. He stuck his palms on the back of my head, forcing me more and more down on his dick with each of his huge thrusts. It was making his dick start to slide into my throat, and I had to concentrate on not gagging.

"You like my horsecock choking you, dontcha, darlin? Yeah, I knew if you were able to talk, you'd be begging for my huge load right now. I want yer soft hand on my balls now, sweetheart."

He left my right hand clamped onto his ramming buttocks, but he moved my left hand down to play with his huge balls. Even without me doing anything, Syd was able to roll his balls around my hand easily on his own.

As he slammed more and more into me, I could smell his sweaty dark-blonde bush, filling my nostrils with his wild, manly scent.

"I'm almost done here," the maid said, and I thanked fate for that.

Syd glanced back at her, clearly hearing her, but not saying anything. "Yeah, yer about to get yer sweet reward for all the work you've done on my cock, sweetheart."

Syd's breathing turned short, I could feel his butt tremble as he thrust himself as far in as I could get him. Then, he froze, his whole body moving into violent spasms.

"Here it comes, darlin!'"

He howled in ecstasy as torrents of warm semen poured into my esophagus.

"Oh yeah, oh yeah!"

He was still humping my face with his massive member down my throat, and it was so thick in girth, it prevented me from swallowing the semen. This blockage meant my whole throat and mouth started flooding with his cum. I was worried I would choke to death just as Jericho's poor victim Jim had, and I tried to pull my head back, panicking, but his hands were pushing me onto his dick, preventing me from moving my head back.

The result of this was that his ample semen broke free of my lips and totally splattered my nose, forehead, cheeks, chin, neck, and chest. The tangy smell of the stuff poured into my nostrils as tons of goo found its way up my nose, and I instinctively tried to breathe out of my mouth in response to my nose being clogged. This just cause me to choke more, and I switched back to breathing out of my nose, being forced to snort up Syd's strong-smelling semen.

Syd moans turned quieter as his body started to go limp. Finally, finally, he started to pull out of me. When he just had his semen-covered head in my mouth, I gasped in air through my mouth.

Syd reached down and milked his last drop onto my tongue. "Yeah, baby, I know you won't stop until you've gotten down to the very last drop, and that's what I love about you."

I glared angrily at him as he wiped the gob of semen onto me.

"Oh now, you're not done yet, sweetheart. Ya still have ta lick my spent cock completely clean of my man-juice."

He made me lick up ever last drop of semen from his huge, softening cock. There was so much of it, it took me a couple minutes to clean him up.

"Uh-oh, sweetheart, looks like you spilled some of my hot load on yer face. I know how much you hate to miss even the tiniest ounce of my cum. Don't worry, darlin,' I'll fix that."

He pulled his dick out of my mouth, and I stood there, dazed, as he began wiping his softening dick all over my face and neck, the semen sticking to his man-meat, then depositing all of the cum carefully back into my mouth.

"Alright, I'm done here, I'm leaving, sir."

"Thank you!" Syd said.

The maid left, and as soon as she did, I got up, pushed Syd out of the way, and tore off into the bathroom. "You disgusting bastard!" I complained.

"What did I do, Jakey?" he asked me. "I just saved your goddamn life, that's what. If I hadn't intervened just then, you'd a been a goner."

"Well, you could have come up with an excuse for me being on my knees besides a sexual one," I said after I gargled and spit tons of mouthwash, trying to get his cum out of me.

"Hey, I can't help if my mind always goes into the gutter, Jakey, that's just how I'm wired. `Sides, I didn't see you coming up with anything brilliant. Yer supposed to be the brainy one, remember?"

"Well, you didn't have to actually cum in my mouth! That was putrid!"

"Hey, I tried to hold out longer, but she was here for longer than I expected, and yer pretty mouth sure did feel as hot as fuck, I couldn't help myself."

"Don't lie to me, Syd. When we were riding to Big Horn's camp, when you were pretending that you needed me to blow you in order for your fangs to work, that blowjob lasted forever, and you didn't cum. You saw that she was almost on her way out, and you pushed yourself to orgasm."

"Maybe, maybe not. Will you feel less sore at me if I told you you give me the best blowjobs ever?"

"No, that only makes me more pissed, Syd," I said, sticking my toothbrush into my mouth and scrubbing like hell.

Syd yawned. "Now I'm beat," he said, throwing his clothes off and climbing into bed. "Night, Jakey."

After I had brushed forever, I spit out and started again with a fresh load of toothpaste. Then I washed my face thoroughly before I felt ready for bed.

I went to bed absolutely fuming at the man I was forced to share quarters with.

I couldn't believe when I saw Syd got out his guitar after he put on his clothes. "What on Earth are you getting that torture device out for?"

"Some ladies downstairs are asking for a show."

"You should be sleeping, Syd. We have a very important competition in the morning."

"Who in their right mind goes to bed at five in the evening?"

"That's so not what time it is."

"Maybe you mistook Mareshead for some retirement home, Jakey. You can go to bed when you fuckin' feel like it, but don't get all pissy when the rest of us want to live it up in the evenings like normal people."

I woke up sometime in the night as Syd's bedroom door opened, and someone flipped the light switch on.

"Ladies, my abode awaits," Syd mumbled, clearly being all sorts of intoxicated.

I looked to see Syd stumbling drunk through the door, a giggling, drunk cowgirl around each arm.

"What is going on?" I asked angrily.

"Jakey, we have houseguests!"

The women cheered.

I looked at the time. "Syd, it's three thirty in the morning. Visiting hours are way, way, way over."

"Don't listen to him, he's such a kidder. Jakey, these ladies are in sweet need of a refill." He pointed at their drinks.

"Wow, as much as I'd love to play bartender right now, we have a rodeo to be at in a couple hours."

"Rodeo stars are SO hot!" one of the women said.

"Yeah, who wants to learn how to ride a genuine bucking bronco?!" asked Syd.

"I do!" said one of them.

"I do more!"

"How `bout we have ourselves a nice little threesome?"

"We should warn you, we're not bisexual," one of them said. "So, don't expect us to have sex with each other, to be attracted to each other. Sorry, we both just want to have sex with you, Syd."

"You don't have to apologize," I said. "Being the center of two women's desires at once? That'll be his dream come true. He doesn't want to compete with anyone."

"Jakey's got the truth of it," Syd said.

I groaned, trying to shut my eyes and make it all go away so I could go back to sleep.

Next thing I knew, they were naked on the bed, totally going at it, making all sorts of noise.

"Can you bite me, please?" one of the women said.

"She's addicted to vampire bites."

"It's true."

"She can't get off unless you bite her, repeatedly, all over."

"I'd be more than happy to, darling. Yer wish is my command."

That's when I got up, opened up Syd's walk in closet, threw his junk on the floor outside the room, pushed my settee into the closet, and shut the door.