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.

FEBRUARY 18th

For the last two nights, Vasos hadn't kept the fire on all night. He had admitted that he only had done that the first night to try and make me pull off the covers so I wouldn't be able to hide my cellphone under them and make texts without him seeing. But the past two nights had been so cold that I had completely pulled the covers over my head, and even then snuggled against Vasos to keep my body heat up.

Sometime in the early morning, I was vaguely aware of Vasos pulling away from me and leaving the bed, going into the bathroom. I fell back asleep.

A bit later, I was hazily aware as Vasos came back to bed behind me. Feeling cold, I rolled around under the covers and clutched onto him, pushing my face into his chest, feeling his arms embrace me.

I had the oddest sensation that instead of the firm pecs of his chest, that my head was pushing against something soft and giving. I figured this must have just been the sleepiness confusing me, but just to make sure, I shook myself out of my sleep entirely and put my hand into his pecs.

When I grabbed a large, fleshy mound covered by a nipple, I thought I'd gone crazy. More movement confirmed that yes, these were two large breasts I was rubbing against.

My first rational explanation was that perhaps Vasos was a special with the ability to grow breasts. I kept one hand on the breasts, and then used the other to quickly run over his body. Why did it feel so much slighter than before, with smoother skin? Why did he smell like some fancy perfume all of the sudden? As my free hand drifted down to his penis, all I would was s sickening absence there, and instead my fingers clutched what was definitely a vagina.

"Mmm, yes, you sure know how to treat a weary woman," said Vasos, only I knew it wasn't Vasos at all, and then I started to scream.

She ripped the covers off me, took one look at the man fondling her, and started to scream as well, kicking me off of her. I knew she was a vampire just by looking at her eyes.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" I asked, feeling highly disturbed.

"Who am I? Who do you think I am? I'm Lady Delphine Spiros. Vasos's wife! This is my bed! Who the hell are you?!"

I felt sick to my stomach and my heart started to pound with anxiety. And then the anger came, turning my whole body hot and quivering. How dare he not tell me that he was married! How dare he make me the other party in his ploy to cheat on his wife!

"Fine, don't answer me," Delphine shouted. "I know exactly what is going on here, oh yes."

"You do?"

"Precisely. Vasos told you I'd be gone the whole winter like I always am at our county estate, didn't he? That I wouldn't be here and couldn't see what evils you were up to in my absence? Well, he was right, except our estate got snowed out and I had to ride all through the night back here, and here I am, getting naked and jumping in bed, thinking it is my husband when really it is a stranger."

Vasos had certainly failed to tell me all of those very important things.

"I know exactly what you've done in this bed without me, oh yes," she went on, covering herself with her sheet. "You're one of the new servants here, aren't you? Vasos told you I was away, and then he left for the night, for whatever reason. And then you assume this is the kind of house where if the masters are away, the servants can get away with murder. Like, sleeping naked in their luxury bed. Admit that I'm right!"

I couldn't believe she had convinced herself this ridiculous conclusion about the situation that had nothing to do with her husband cheating on her.

"I said, admit it!" She reached over, grabbed my shoulders, and shook me furiously as hard as she could.

"Yes," I said meekly, not sure at all what to do, but letting her bully me into agreeing.

"I knew it! And so my husband is gone?"

Where had Vasos gone? Had he heard his wife was coming back and slipped away? "Yes."

"Well, I'm relieving you of duty immediately. You can pack your things and go, is that clear?"

"Yes, I'll go."

I got startled as the bathroom door opened, and Vasos came walking out of it naked and totally erect, drying off his face with a towel, his vision obscured. I cleared my throat to get him to take the towel off and look at who was in the room, but he didn't get the hint.

"Glad you're awake," he said. "As you can see, my penis has waited for way too long to love you. I hope you planned to spend the morning getting seriously screwed by it, because that's exactly what we're going to do." My face went hot with embarrassment as I realized my attempt to lie had gone to waste.

"Vasos, please!" said Delphine angrily. "That can wait. I've missed you too, but right now, we have more important matters on our hands than sex!"

Vasos stopped in his tracked and slowly pulled the towel off his face, for the first time seeing the horrible sight of his wife and his lover in the same bed, looking very angry. "Oh, I, um, I see."

"Vasos, your wife was just reprimanding me, a new servant, for trying to sleep in your bed when I thought you two would be away," I said.

"Yes, and I took the liberty of firing him for the slight," she said. "Many people would seek punishment for the lad, but I don't want that. But I cannot stand the idea of him continuing to work here after he felt me like he did, I just can't."

"So, I'll get dressed and leave, then," I said, giving Vasos an angry look when his wife wasn't looking at me.

"Wait, no, please, Jake, don't go," said Vasos. He looked at his wife. "Delphine, he's not being honest with you, I'm afraid."

"What do you mean?"

"You see, he's not a new servant here. He's my live in lover."

"Your what? Are, are you serious?"

"Yes, terribly serious."

Her fierce face turned to me, looked my naked body up and down with new penetration, appraising her rival, perhaps. "Why, why would you lie to me?" she asked, dumbfounded.

"I'm sorry, I was just confused," I said.

"Let us make amends," she said.

Before I could process that, she threw off her covers, embraced my naked body in bed, and kissed me.

"I picked him out especially for you, honey," Vasos said to Delphine, jumping into bed with us. "Do you like him as much as I do?"

"Oh yes, he's delightfully handsome. I can't wait to get that cock of his inside me." She reached down and grabbed my flaccid penis, and I backed up.

"I think that can be arranged," said Vasos. "Jake promised me last night that I could top him this morning, didn't you?"

"That's not exactly--"

"Don't worry, you're going to love this," she said to me. "We have this particular position we absolutely adore to perform whenever we're doing a threesome with another guy, don't we, honey?"

"That position is the best way I can think to celebrate our new live in lover, here," said Vasos, deliriously happy. Jake, you'll love it. I screw the heck out of your butt, and at the same time, my wife will ride your dick."

"What I love about the position is, I can feel every one of Vasos's huge strokes through your body," she said. "It's wild."

Vasos went up and kissed her on the forehead. "Honey, I love you so much. I'm so glad you came back early."

"Me too. Alright Jake, do you want me to mount you first or Vasos?"

"Uh, neither," I said. "I'm sorry, um, Delphine, you seem like a really, um, fun lady. But I'm afraid I'm a bit taken aback here. You see, I never knew Vasos was married when I agreed to move in here."

"What, how could you not know that?" asked Vasos.

"Yes, all of the members of the Ministerstvo are to be married," said Delphine. "It should be obvious."

"Maxim isn't married!"

"Because he's not officially a member of the Ministerstvo," said Delphine. "And the first thing his father did when he did get involved with them was get him betrothed."

"And Dr. Herzog?"

"The Tsar himself has given his marital status an exception considering his unique situation," said Vasos.

"Well, how come you never talked about your wife?" I asked.

"Because I've only spent a couple hours with you after I was sure you weren't working as a spy, trying to get information about me. Discussing personal details about my true love would have only endangered her safety. And again, I assumed you knew I was married."

"Wait a second," I said. "Is Delphine a special?"

"No, I'm not," she said.

"Well then, should she not be allowed to have sex with anyone but you, including me?" I asked. "Isn't that part of the marriage law?"

"What kind of sexist madness is that?" she asked me. "Everyone is this Blood has the same rules in marriage. Although divorce is very hard to come by, any party can sleep with whoever they want, whenever they want, as many times as they want. There's nothing the least bit illegal about me having sex with you."

"I assumed when I asked you to live with me, you understood you'd be doing so as our long-term lover, Jake," Vasos said, putting his arm around his wife and looking at me. "Now, I'm asking you to please make good on that promise and stay with us, let us both teach you love the way you deserve to learn."

"I'm not the first person you've done this with, am I?" I asked.

"Of course not," said Vasos.

"I already asked a girlfriend of mine to live with us," she said. "The three of us sleep together all the time, but I bargained with the two of them that I get to take her with me for the winters. She's kept me warm at night, believe me. And she's here too, just taking care of some things downstairs. I can bring her in and we can do a foursome!"

"Ooo, I love those!" Vasos said.

"Me too! Wait, let me get her, she'll be so pleased."

"No, please, don't go get her," I said. "Look, the sad truth is, I'm just not attracted to women at all. Call it a discrimination if you must, but that's the reality. I'm just not suited to be a part of this couple, um, I mean, team of yours."

"Oh, how disappointing," said Delphine. "Please don't worry about offending me. People can't help who they are attracted to, can they?"

"No, so I'll just be going," I said.

"Perhaps that is best," said Vasos.

"Wait, no, don't be ridiculous," she said. "Vasos asked you to move in here, and we'll make good on the promise. I can sleep in a guest bedroom with my girlfriend to keep me company, and you and my husband can share a bed for as long as you want."

"No, honey," said Vasos. "That's too kind of you, but I got him with all three of us in mind. I don't want to hurt your feelings."

"Oh, madness," she said. "I've had lovers that didn't like sharing me with other men before, do you remember?"

"Like the tall one from across town? You sure did enjoy him."

"Yes, I did. See? I've done it. Now it's your turn, husband. Jake, I insist you stay. I'll leave so you two can have that morning screw you two promised each other."

"Yes, this sounds like a swell solution," Vasos said, his dick getting hard again. "It'll take me at least an hour before I'm done screwing that butt of his, but then we'd love to meet the two of you for breakfast downstairs."

"You know what?" I cut in. "I'm sorry, but I have to decline."

"On the breakfast?" she asked.

"No, on this whole deal. You see, when I agreed to move in here, it was under the presumption that Vasos and I had the potential to marry years down the road if we fell in love. That's no longer an option here for me."

"No, of course not," Vasos said. "I'm already married, and that marriage couldn't be better."

"Well, then I can't continue here, I'm sorry."

"I'm insulted that you'd back out of your agreement like this," said Vasos. "Don't think that you can still stay in this house."

"Oh, Vasos, there's no point in being angry at him," she said.

"I'm not going to apologize, because I've done nothing wrong," I said. "I'll leave the house right away. Please don't tell me you're going to sabotage my important efforts here in the Petrov Blood."

"No, of course not. I'm not going to sabotage you. But I have no reason to risk my reputation to help you, either. I rescind my offer just as you have your promise to me. I'm through with you. I'll have my driver take you back to the Sneg Dvorec. You'd better change into your bartender clothes, of course."

I had spent the whole ride to the Sneg Dvorec staring down the wrinkles in my food server suit, and I knew it just wasn't an option to show my face at work again with my clothes in that condition. I quickly changed into my modern, winter clothes.

Dima was back behind the security desk, and she almost seemed happy to see me. I told her I had been hired by Maxim as a bartender there, and she looked down at my clothes.

"I'm sorry, but I can't let you in dressed like that," she said.

"No, I actually have an appropriate suit, I just need to get it pressed before I put it on, do you know where I can get that done?"

She told me most Proletariat just pressed their own clothes. There didn't seem to be any equivalent here to modern dry cleaning, but it seemed like most people's homes would have irons in them. And so, I marched back off to Alik's gym.

"He just walked out," Alik Khorkov said from behind the desk. "Hurry and you can catch him."

I left my backpack there and then ran out on the street to find him. Somehow I had expected him to be in just his boxing shorts, but of course it wouldn't be that easy to find him. Luckily, even though he turned out to be dressed in a simple period suit and paperboy hat, he was still much larger than pretty much all the other people around him, and in fact, other people would stop walking and just stare at him as he passed them on the street. As soon as I picked him out, I ran after him down the busy street.

"Alik, wait!" I said as I caught up to him, grabbing his thick arm.

"Oh, it's you again. I had hoped I had seen the last of you."

"Well, too bad," I said. "You told me before the payment I made to you would cover bunking with you if I needed it. Well, it looks like I need it. And more importantly, I need you to help me get my suit ironed."

Just then, there came an odd, annoying siren from down the street. Alik turned to look in the direction of the noise, and all the people there seemed just as interested.

Nearby me, a little girl picked up a toddler and pulled him inside a nearby apartment. "Men of three, let them be," she chanted. "Men of three, let them be."

"I think you mean `leaves of three, leave them be,'" I said to her, but she ignored me and slammed the door shut.

Their panic seemed contagious, as other people quickly ran out of the street and into their dwellings. Shop doors were quickly bolted shut.

The source of the siren came into sight suddenly as the stagecoach made a left onto the street we were on and was heading in our direction, quickly. It was painted red, looking very official, with "Decency Police," written on the side of the stagecoach. Ah, the police, that made sense. The noise was obviously some turn of the century idea of a police siren.

As soon as the stagecoach turned towards us, the behavior on the street changed dramatically, presumable because they could see it was only the police. Instead of running in panic, everyone walked normally, the police clearly not seeing any sign at the state of panic that the street had just had.

"Sorry, my ears aren't so good. Too many hits to them, I guess. Didn't hear the fireman siren until it was too late."

"And your eyes must have gotten hit one too many times as well, because that isn't the firemen, it's the police."

"Decency police, firemen, that's one and the same," he said. He looked down at me. "Aw, shit man. Why'd you have to dress like that?"

"Like what?"

Alik grabbed me and turned us around, walking away from the police. "You're breaking about four Decency Codes just from looking at you."

"I am? How many rules are there?"

"A hundred, of course. Just pray they don't end up passing us."

In fact, the police stopped their stagecoach almost immediately. Two uniformed men, no, two uniformed vampires I could see, dressed in very handsome period police uniforms, popped out of the vehicle and moved towards a street hobo type nearby, an old man who seemed to be senile and delirious, spewing a mixture of indeterminable English and Russian. He was dressed in ripped, tattered clothes, probably something he had down to himself. If I was breaking rules by not being dressed properly, clearly this guy was even more at fault, but could they really fine or arrest a poor, senile man like that?

The answer was yes, they grabbed the man pulled him behind the police stagecoach. One of the policemen got back in the vehicle, leaving just the one holding the man.

"Do tell me they are giving that man the care he clearly needs," I said.

"That's one way to look at it," Alik said.

And then the next thing I saw actually made me cry out: a beam of hot orange fire came from the police officer standing by the truck, a blast that was directed straight at the poor man. The policeman must have grabbed some flamethrower device from the back of the stagecoach, I couldn't see what because he was blocked from my vision. But the old man was totally in view, and I watched as the fire set him ablaze and quickly consumed him in evil light as he cried in agony.

He tried to run, but his feet gave way, and he fell to the ground, rolling around futilely as the constant flames ripped through his body, killing him.

I held my hand to my face and tried to hold back my tears. "Please tell me he was a mass murderer or something who deserved that kind of punishment," I said.

"His only crime was that he wasn't dressed up to code," said Alik. "Now you see why we call them firemen."

I looked around. "Oh my goodness," I said. "This whole city is made of stone, metal, and glass. Almost no permanent wooden structures anywhere. So that the fires they start won't spread."

"Kirrill's monsters. They'll burn you too if they see you dressed like that. We need to get you away from here."

He turned me around, and we started to walk down, away from them. And I understood why everyone had run off in a panic as soon as they heard the sirens. The few remaining people on the street with us were trying to act like seeing the old man getting burned to death was just nothing to them, trying to act normal. Although I wanted to run, I knew it would only call attention to me.

"Is there anything I can do to fix my clothing so it would be suitable?"

"Nope," he said. "Look, I'm tempted to be a nice guy and give you my clothes to wear. But you don't understand. I can't die here today. That's not an option I have available to me. And I'm especially not willing to die for someone who was too stupid not to read the Hundred Codes of Decency before coming into this Carstvo."

"I'm not asking you to die for me," I said.

"Oh no," Alik said a after a few seconds. "They got back in their coach and they are moving in our direction."

"Have they spotted me?" I asked.

"I can't tell. Just keep walking and don't look back, don't make eye contact. I'll try to keep you blocked from their view."

Alik used his big body to stand between me and them as we walked together. And then the stagecoach came closer, I could hear the horses approaching, the siren getting louder.

As they moved right beside us, Alik turned his body, keeping me amazingly out of sight the whole time. There were some other scared looking people on the other side of me who could see me still, but we were all in this together, weren't we? And then the stagecoach had passed us by completely, and I knew we had eluded them.

"I can't believe that worked!" I said excitedly.

"HEY, Officers!"

One look behind me and I saw a young man against the building, not far from us, wave the stagecoach to a halt.

"This man over here isn't dressed to code! He's trying to hide!"

The policeman jumped out onto the street and looked me over before I had a chance to do anything. "Thank you, here's your reward," he said, tossing the horrible man a wad of cash, which he took greedily and ran off.

"What now?" I asked Alik as the policeman came towards us. I could see that it wasn't the one who had burned the old man but the other one.

"Now you run, and don't ever stop!" he urged me.

It took one second for me to turn my heels and run down the street the other way, past the burning corpse of the old man.

"Wait, stop right there!" yelled the police officer as he engaged me.

"Hold on a second, Officer," said Alik, approaching the policeman. "That one is a small timer, and sure, his face may look attractive, but under these clothes his body is covered with disgusting burn scars, I seen them. I have something the Tsar will love. Just before you fellas turned the corner, there was a hot young blonde, dressed in nothing but her shoes, running through getting all sorts of applause. I can show you where she went."

"Uh-uh, you can't sucker me." said the policeman, obviously not being fooled, and I knew there'd be no way I could outrun him. "I'm not paying you until you show her to me."

"Deal, right this way."

Alik and him turned and started to walk away from me, while I just kept on running away.

"No need for both of us to go after the hot lady," I heard the other policeman say, the one who had burned the man. "You get her, I'll get this one."

And then I could hear the police officer's footsteps moving in my direction, and once again I knew I was screwed.

I obviously couldn't just outrun a vampire running down the street, so I turned to the left down a side street, moving out of sight of my pursuer.

Too bad the side turned out not to be a street at all, but an alley instead. I ran down it anyway until I reached an abrupt dead end, with several story walls all around me making climbing impossible. It was too late to try to run back to the main street now, I knew. There were a number of stone doors leading into buildings, and I tried their knobs, but they were all locked. Pounding on them and yelling didn't help matters either, and there was no sign of a window I could break through.

The alley was stacked with wooden crates stuffed with junk, many of which were open. Normally I would have been wary of trying to hide among anything made of wood, but I looked behind me and saw that there was no way the stagecoach would ever be able to fit down this narrow alley, so they wouldn't be able to bring along the flame thrower that was attached to it.

I got into one of the crates, concealing myself completely. There were a hundred or more crates here, would one vampire really have the patience to search through them all in order to find me? I had to hope not.

From my hiding spot, I could see the vampire policeman turn the corner and start to move down the alley towards me. Thankfully, the flamethrower was nowhere in sight.

The vampire looked at the crates everywhere, and then shook his head with an evil look of satisfaction. "Stupid, stupid."

He took a deep breath and then started to blow air towards the crates, as if he was the big bad wolf himself. But I realized quickly, where there should have been invisible air, instead a lick of bright yellow flames came out of his mouth and spread all over the ground in front of him. He was breathing fire, completely on his own.

I realized he was clearly a special. That's how he had incinerated the old man, not with anything attached to the stagecoach, but with his sickening ability.

His breath of flames seemed to go on for an eternity, and the orange licked over his chin, down his body, and exploded all over the ground around him, igniting dozens of crates all at once.

If I hadn't been hiding on the opposite side of the alley, I would have ended up toasted.

I knew as long as he was alive and pursuing me, I'd end up burnt sooner or later. I couldn't let that happen.

I grabbed a nearby broken toilet seat, one made of stone but thrown out because it was cracked and broken. Yes, this would do. I grabbed it in my hands, walked out of the crate, thankful that the noise his fire was making kept my movements covert. He was facing away from me, and I took advantage of that, sneaking up behind him and slamming him as hard as I could in the head.

His fire breath stopped as he just stood there with his mouth ajar, stunned. So I kept on hitting him, over and over again. When he stumbled around to face me, I kept on smashing him in the face.

Finally, he fell to the ground, rolling around in confused pain.

I knew this incapacitation was only temporary, so I grabbed the pistol he had holstered to him, and although the gun was a lot more modern than anything I had used (similar to the one Vasos had pulled on me), I was able to figure it out quickly. I fired twice into his temple, looking away as I did. And then I pocketed the pistol and ran back out of the alley, leaving the crates ablaze as the fire overtook his dead body.

I could see the police stagecoach right where they had left it, and I ran down the street away from it.

"Oh no you don't!" yelled a stern voice, and I looked behind me to see that the special firebreather's partner was coming after me, far away but moving too fast. He must have given up on Alik's wild goose chase and was set on killing me instead.

The only option I had was to run into the nearest alley and hope that there would be some sort of escape there.

Only once again, I discovered the alley had a dead end. This one ended at a decrepit wooden shack. I kicked open the door, hoping inside there would be something useful, but there was nothing but empty barrels.

I left the shack and climbed up its wooden wall until I was mounted on the ceiling. I had hoped there would be some other wall to climb up there, but no such luck.

The policeman came running around the corner, so all I could do was lie down on the roof of the shack and hide. He came towards me, took a few sniffs of my blood, and clearly knew I was hiding somewhere close. But instead of looking around for me, as I expected, he took a disturbingly familiar deep breath, and next thing I knew, he was blowing fire all over the shack, which was quickly igniting.

I knew the chances of two specials having the same power was much too coincidental, so it dawned on me: this was another Petrov Blood unique power, just like the telescopic vision was. Every fanged Petrov vampire would be able to breathe fire like this, and that made them all extremely dangerous.

Luckily, the vampire thought I was inside the shack, as he kicked open the door and flooded all of the interior with his flame. I could feel the boards get hot beneath me real fast, and I knew the whole thing would come crashing down sooner or later.

But the vampire hadn't even realized I might be hiding above him, and I leaned over the edge of the roof and saw him right beneath me, looking only into the door.

I grabbed my gun, reached down, and shot him in the top of his head.

The fire breath ceased as he stumbled to the ground, shaking his head in agony.

I jumped down from the roof, and used this short bit of surprise to tackle him, put the gun to his head, and unload the rest of my bullets into his temple, killing my second evil policeman, of course turning away so as not to see the blood. I threw the empty gun into the fire and walked out of the alley.

The street, once so busy and full of life, was utterly devoid of any trace of humanity, save for my presence. I was tempted to walk away from the red stagecoach, but that would be going down a road that I didn't know, and I wanted to get back to the gym on the other side to try to retrieve my bag and put my suit on before anymore firemen could see me dressed inadequately. So, I headed towards the stagecoach.

First, I passed the charred old man in the street and tried not to look at the disgusting state of his body. Then I started to move past the neighing horses of the still stagecoach, and then right past the red metal of the craft itself.

I jumped, terrified, as the door to the stagecoach slammed open right when I passed it. Suddenly, another man in red was flying towards me, getting the upper hand on me out of my pure shock at finding out the stagecoach had been all too occupied the entire time.

There had been three firemen from the get go, I knew. I repeated in my head that rhyme the little girl had said, `Men of three, leave them be.' Even the children here knew these firemen always travelled in threes.

I had nothing but my bare hands to fight him with. I tried to gauge his eyes, but he knocked my hands away. I tried to run away, but he grabbed me and subdued me. He used his long arms to hold me by the throat, hold me at arm's length away from him, and kicking him did nothing, all I could do was try to pull his hands away.

Looking down at my clothes disapprovingly, he took a deep breath. And then, just like the others, he started to breathe fire, blowing out flames that quickly consumed my lower half.

As I watched my clothes catch fire, I used everything I had to fight, everything I had to try and flee, but he held me like a vise. I tried to kick my flaming legs onto him, thinking if I set him on fire, he would let me go. But the flames did nothing to his red fire suit, clearly it was meant to withstand fire. And even when his flames engulfed his bare skin, there was no damage. I knew that all of the fanged members of this whole Blood must be impervious to fire. Of course they would be, or else they would melt their own faces off every time they blew fire.

Just as the truly awful realization that I was going to burn to death right here sank in, the firebreath stopped. The fireman looked faintly impotent for a moment as his breath ended before he had finished me off. He took another deep breath, and started to blow fire at me again, this time right at my face.

But the firebreath only extended a few inches out of his lips before being snuffed out prematurely. He looked severely annoyed this time at his inadequacy, and then tried another breath.

The third time wasn't a charm for this vampire, as that time, the fire didn't even come out of his mouth completely. He tried again and again, never succeeding.

"How are you doing this?!" he demanded of me.

"I'm not!"

"I am!" said a third voice, and Maxim Petrov appeared from behind the fire stagecoach, dressed in his fancy suit. He had on a Russian-style fur hat the looked very high-class, a turn of the century jacket with an upturned collar that showed off the muscled in his neck, and trousers tight enough for me to see a hefty bulge. Neither one of us had seen him appear, as we had apparently been too engrossed in our fight. He had his hand raised up towards the man.

"But how?"

"But how, my lordship," corrected Maxim. "Truth be told, I'm a special," he said. "With complete and total control over fire." He turned his hand towards me, and the fires lighting up my clothes all went out.

"I can still kill him with my Borchardt," said the fireman, pulling out his pistol and pointing it at me. "He's violated several codes of the Proletariat Decency Codes, and resisted arrest. He'll die for it, my lordship."

"He didn't want to break any codes or resist arrest, but I ordered him to do so. You can't penalize him for following orders that he's not permitted to break, can he?"

The vampire put down his pistol. "Fine, I'll let him off just this once. But if he breaks any laws again, no matter what excuses you have for him, I'll execute him on the spot and let you sort it out with your father."

"He won't break anymore, I'll see to that personally."

I grabbed Maxim's muscled arm through his jacket and pulled him quickly away. "I hope you don't mistake my hastiness for a lack of gratitude, but I want to get away from here before that guy realizes I killed two of his partners."

"Killed two of the Decency Police? I'd say that calls for a celebration."

I gave him an annoyed look.

"Right, I understand completely. Let me lead you." Maxim quickly guided me down the street, making a left turn and then a right. "Ah, here we are," he said, letting me into a parked stagecoach that was even larger and grander than Vasos's.

As soon as we were alone in his stagecoach and had privacy to speak freely, I said, "My clothes are completely destroyed."

"You should take them off," Maxim suggested.

"You don't mind?"

"Of course not."

I started to pull off the charred, ashy mess that had once been my winter clothes, thankful his stagecoach was heated. The only salvageable items were my shoes, socks, and underwear.

"You can take those off too," Maxim said, pointing at my underwear.

"No need."

"I fear I got to you too late," he said. "There's burns all over your body, can you feel them?"

"Of course," I said. "I should probably go to the hospital." I had unpleasant visions of Günter treating me.

"I know burns better than anyone, and they may hurt, but they're thankfully minor. I can take care of them with my mouth."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Are you flirting with me, Maxim? Because sometimes it's hard to tell if you're being flirtatious or just being conscientious."

"Can't a man be both at the same time, Jake?"

I frowned. "Not when said man is engaged to be married."

"I question your knowledge of the way Petrov marriages work," he said.

"Oh, I know all too well," I said. "They are totally open marriages for both parties."

"Quite right," he said. "Therefore my flirtations with you are in no way immoral, just as my fiancé is free to flirt with whomever she pleases."

"That kind of arrangement may work splendidly for you in the Carstvo, but I wasn't raised that way. I require monogamy in my relationships."

"Monogamy, huh?" he asked. "Are you shocked that I know the meaning of the word? A very small portion of couples here agree to some kind of monogamy promise. Sometimes it occurs when a fanged vampire marries a human. When the human ages and their looks go, they can't be expected to land conquests of their own anymore, so the vampire sometimes will promise monogamy at that point so as not to unbalance the relationship. But in a relationship in which both parties are ageless, why bother?"

"What if your beautiful fiancé wanted you to make that promise? Would you?"

"I'm not sure. I barely know the woman, and certainly don't love her yet."

"Anyway, my point about monogamy is that you shouldn't see me as some sort of possible conquest."

"Conquest makes me sound so bestial," he said. "I prefer possible paramour, how about that?"

"No, I cannot possibly be your paramour. You can flirt me up and down, but as long as you aren't single, I will never let myself see you as anything but a friend."

Hey raised a sexy eyebrow. "You might find me harder to resist than you anticipate."

"Oh, I won't," I said. "I've had plenty of experience keeping flirtatious vampires at bay."

"Alright, your point has been made painfully clearly, Jake," he said. "I know that none of my advances will ever merit me anything. And so, when I flirt with you, you can be convinced that I do so just out of my nature and not because I actually intend to seduce you and make you ruin your own convictions. Now that that's been settled, should I get to the very grueling work ahead of me of orally removing your absolutely delightful naked body free of burns?"

"Just promise me you won't get too aroused in the process."

"I promise," he said. "And just so you can be absolutely sure of my promise, you may want me to take down my trousers so you can keep an eye on me." He had a flirty glint in his eye.

"Nope, it's bad enough that my trousers are gone. You will keep your trousers on, thank you very much."

"Ah, I see. You need more than to keep an eye on me to prove my honesty. I may even consent to let you hold onto me intimately if that's the length I'll have to go to in order to prove myself to you. And I used `length' in that phrase quite purposefully."

"Wow, what a gentlemanly, generous offer of you! That's quite alright."

"Let's get started, shall we?"

He opened his mouth, and a stream of fire filled the open air above us, making me jump out of surprise.

"Oh my goodness, stop!" I said.

"Why?" he asked through the fire breathing.

"Enough with the fire! That's why I'm in this mess. When you said you would orally take care of my burns, I didn't think you meant that you'd ingeniously solve the problem by burning my skin off entirely."

"The fire's not to heal your skin, you simpleton. It's to soothe you, of course."

"I just saw someone burn to death, and nearly did so myself as well. Powerful fire isn't the most soothing sight right now, but thanks for trying."

"Just wait," he said.

He closed his mouth, an act that would have stopped the fire cold for any other Petrov Blood vampire, but amazingly, the fire still burned in the air. In a few moments, the fire broke into a hundred or more tiny little lights, which proceeded to float through the air all around us. "Wow, it's like fireflies invaded our carriage!"

"Only my fireflies are lit up all the time. You think of my fire as being dangerous, and that can be true. But do you see as well what beauty I'm capable of? I'm the only artist with fire as my medium."

"Yes, they're lovely, but are you sure you can keep control over every single one of those fire blobs in order to make sure they don't hit and burn me or hit anything else?"

"I have total control over their shape and trajectory, yes. That is, as long as you don't unexpectedly knock me unconscious."

"I'll try to resist shooting you in the head."

"That's more than the last undressed person I had in this stagecoach could promise," he joked. "But I actually have more control over the fire than you think. I can make the fire so cool, it's safe to touch. Here, try."

I opened my palm, and one of the little blobs of fire floated down to it. Amazingly, it was certainly hot, but not enough to burn me. "Okay, count me as officially impressed, Maxim."

He took my arm, placed my hand over his shoulder, and then started to lick at the burns on my arm. His work quickly paid off, the burns healing and the pain leaving as well. Luckily, my burns weren't so bad that they were oozing puss or blood, so Maxim was able to heal them remarkably fast. He healed my other arm similarly, and then told me to sit down on the bench.

He knelt down and put my right foot over his left shoulder and started to lick upwards from my ankle towards my thigh. There was something very seductive about the way he was doing it. It reminded me of the way Parker used to kiss my body.

"Stop touching me like that," I said.

"Like what?"

"Like we're lovers. Like you're seducing me."

"I'm just being myself, Jake. Would you rather I treat you roughly, insensitively? I'm not made that way."

"I'd rather you healed me clinically without turning this into some form of foreplay. It was only just seconds ago I thought I was going to die, do you remember? My heart is still pounding."

"My heart is racing just as fast, although whether it's due to the danger we just faced down or something else entirely I'll never say." After he finished healing my thigh, he took my briefs in his teeth and pulled at them. "Should we take these off? Let me heal any burns that may have inflicted your most special parts of all?"

"No, my underwear protected me just fine there, thankfully. No need."

"Perhaps that's the truth, or perhaps you're afraid to take them off so that I can see for myself just how tempted you are to betray your values." He had a wide smile.

"It wouldn't matter," I said. "And I don't care how attractive you are, I won't betray my values."

He smiled with even more pride than ever. "I do believe I just got you to admit that you find me attractive."

"Of course I do, you knew that from the moment we first met. But that's beside the point because I cannot be seduced into your lifestyle."

He finished with my legs and then licked away all the burns on my chest.

"Is that it?"

"Wait, there's more on your back."

He sat down on the bench and pulled me down into his lap. I felt him start to lick his way down my back while his arms caressed me.

"There's even some scrapes here, let me get those."

"Scrapes? Like the kind that have blood?"

I felt him lick a different kind of wound, and knew the answer to my own question. As soon as he tasted my blood for the first time, I felt a shudder go through his body. His fangs popped out for the first time, and I could feel a definite hardness in his lap. He let out a surprised string in Russian, which sounded an awful lot like swear words. "What, my friend, was that? How is it that blood could taste so good?"

"How is it that I feel a very firm erection under me? You promised!" His erection had been so powerful, it actually lifted my whole body up.

"I'm sorry, you didn't warn me ahead of time that your blood would taste like pure sex. But it's all gone now, and I promise I'll get myself under control again. But you need to tell me what you are, because clearly you are no man."

"The truth is, and this is something that Günter and Vasos know and can verify, I've got this odd gene that seems to make me special."

"You're the One?"

"Yes, I'm afraid. That's why my blood tastes like that. And I can't get sick or get old, either."

"Splendid," he said, still licking my burns away. "Why did you come to our Blood? Something tells me it wasn't just to appease your lifelong ambition of becoming a word class bartender."

"Jericho, the leader of the Logan Blood, wants to kill me just because of this gene I have. I stopped him only by claiming the right to having the Vampire Council vote on the issue."

"But the Council is defunct."

"I have almost two years to restore it by telling personally every Blood Patriarch that they are required to come and vote on my fate. Until then, no one can kill me."

"So that's why you seemed disappointed that I was only the Tsar's son when I met you. You need to tell my father about him needing to go to the Council. If you fail, Jericho will be free to kill you."

"Precisely."

"Jake, thanks for opening up to me about this. I feel like I really know you now, that I can really call you a friend."

"Of course."

"As your friend, I'll do whatever I can to help you see my father, but you have to understand something first."

"If you're about to tell me you'll only agree to help me if I have sex with you, I'm going to revoke my friendship card."

"That sounds like a delightful arrangement, but I would never accept sex or romance as a payment for anything. The only thing sex and love should be traded for is sex and love."

"Yes, that's exactly what I believe!" How refreshing that he turned out to be so different from Syd.

"Now listen, I don't want you so much as running out of the stagecoach even to take a quick leak on the street without being dressed to code. Do you have anything suitable with you?"

"I left my backpack in a nearby gym, I could go grab it."

"Not dressed like that you won't." He started to pull off his jacket. As soon as he did, I could see just how muscular his upper body really was. "I want you to put on my suit."

"No, I don't want you to get in trouble for breaking dress codes either."

"The six ruling families of the Petrov Blood are exempt from those codes, thankfully."

"Still, I don't want to be responsible for leaving you undressed."

He raised an eyebrow. "Do you worry that seeing me in just my underwear would create a temptation that you would be unable to resist? Is that the truth of it?"

"Not at all. If you are going to get undressed, I'm going to look away, over here."

"Oh wait, what am I thinking? It slipped my mind, but I keep a spare suit in the stagecoach, for all those times I'm about to go to a social event and then I realize I'm stark naked." He laughed his big-bellied laugh and pulled a folded set of clothes out of a nearby wooden drawer. "Here you are."

I started to get dressed. "Wait a second, are these fur hats of your real?"

"We do allow hunting here, but it's something only the upper classes can afford. And yet, I found out long ago I have a sweet spot for animals. I take no pleasure in killing. It's the same sweet spot that led me to save you just now, I suppose. My father always despised me for it. But it makes all my fur artificial. If you're disappointed, I could show you some very real fur on my chest, if you'll let me take my shirt off. And I swear that there's nothing the least bit articificial about any of my body's other bits and pieces."

"I wouldn't wear real furs unless I absolutely had to."

"Well then, add that to the long list of way in which we are well matched. Now, what I was about to say was, you should know that being my friend isn't at all helpful. I rather despise my father, and the feeling is all too mutual. He's an awful leader. My grandfather and great grandmother were much, much better Tsars."

"Wait a second, your great grandmother was Tsar?"

"Tsarista, yes," he said.

"Women can lead here?"

"Why, of course."

"Was it because she was special?"

"Nope, she wasn't fanged, Jake. She was just the oldest sibling, that's all that matters."

"I'm liking this Blood more and more. And you guys outlaw slavery here. There's no way your father can be a worse leader than Jericho."

"Don't be so sure. He's not given as much autonomy here as Jericho has in the Logan Blood, or I wouldn't be surprised if he brought slavery here."

"But he doesn't have a hunger for killing like Jericho does."

"My father has fought that hunger his whole life, actually. But because Petrov's have such serious laws against killing innocents, even for the Aristocracy like me. That's why he developed his Decency Codes. He's allowed to kill anyone who breaks a law, you see. There's Decency Codes for the Proletariat, Bourgeoisie, and even the Aristocracy."

"So, he's responsible for those monsters out there, prowling the streets for victims they can char to death?"

"He instituted the Decency Police, all under the guise of keeping his people more in line, but I know better. He uses it as an excuse to kill his victims by draining them, so he can get off sexually and gain the power they hold in their blood at the same time. In fact, I'm surprised the firemen were burning you like they were. Usually the good looking ones are always taken captive for my father or his people to kill."

"But if he set up the Decency Police as an excuse to feed his bloodlust without breaking any laws, why would they also burn people in the streets like that? What purpose does it serve?"

"It keeps people afraid of him, for starters. But if you watch the pattern of who the police chose to burn, they target the elderly, the disabled, the weak, the mentally slow, and the insane. He's trimming the fat in his society, keeping the stock strong."

"I already hate him," I said. "Maybe I should let the police take me then, turn myself in. If I could convince them I was attractive enough to be brought to the Tsar, I could tell him about the Council, preventing him from killing me."

"No, that's too risky," he said. "I say, walk in there on your own terms and tell him what you need to tell him."

"They'll let me have an audience with him?"

"They ban all proletariat from speaking with him as a rule."

"But if I was with you?"

"Then you would never succeed, because he would instantly be suspicious of you. No, you need to go in there on your own, but you need to have the status of someone who can legitimately ask for the Tsar's audience. Which means you need to become Bourgeoisie."

"Are you offering to sponsor me?"

"Of course, but there's prerequisite before that sponsorship can happen. And speaking of that, now that you look more ravishing than even in those fancy clothes..."

"They're too loose on me."

"...I have a proposal for you for a much better way to spend the rest of your day than bartending."

"Especially since the bartender isn't likely calling in sick again today. What did you have in mind?"

"Well, truth be told, what's on my mind is taking you to my bed and showing you such passion, you'll never be able to leave it again. But that's just me being honest and open, like usual. In fact, my proposal is for you to join me in a public outing of the sporting, spectator variety."

"Sounds like my favorite kind of event, then," I said. "But this sounds an awful like a proper date. Shouldn't you be taking your fiancé instead of me?"

"That's just it," Maxim said. "I was indeed supposed to take her there today, but Edmund cancelled on her behalf today. Not the first time he's done that, either. And anyway, our particular date venue today has much more importance to your goals than it does to hers."

"But don't forget, with me in her place, it won't be a date. It'll just be two friends in an outing."

"Whatever you say," he said.

I popped into Alik's gym before we left. Alik hadn't returned there after our encounter with the police, but I retrieved my belongings.

"THIS is where you wanted to take me?" I asked Maxim as he helped me, gentlemanly, out of the stagecoach.

I looked up at our destination. A gorgeous Gothic cathedral in the middle of the city, with its layout in the shape of a cross.

"This is it."

"I don't know whether to hate you for considering church service a spectator sport, or to fall in love with you for being the first religious vampire I've ever met."

"Religious? What? No, I think you misunderstand what we're doing here."

He led me into the cathedral proper, and the interior carved, arched ceilings took my breath away, they were so wonderfully tall. But I could hear right away sounds that were a long way from what was expected in this religious wonderment. Boisterous crowd noise, and even more bizarre, the sound of steel clanking steel.

As we walked towards the nave of the cathedral, I could see that in front of the rows of pews was a large platform that ran from the left and right. On that platform were two fencing partners, engaged in a duel. Around them, each of the four sides of them had rows of pews facing us, and the pews were occupied with spectators who were all looking up at the fight at hand.

My first reaction was horror and debauchery as I figured they had taken what was obviously meant to be a holy structure, gutted it, and turned it into an amusement. But further inspection of the building made me take a sigh of relief. The back and side sections of the building were much too short to be in the shape of a cross. I realized it was shaped instead like a sword. This was never a religious space: it was sword fighting that was being worshipped here, and all the beautiful stone carvings showed a history of Petrov Blood sword fighters, both male and female. Just like everyone else, Maxim had no idea what this building mirrored in the outside world, and I kept it to myself.

"Welcome to the Sword Gardens. It's all very ridiculous, but the sad truth is, you need to win an initiation fencing duel housed here first."

He led me towards the other side of the building, where he had a front row pew cordoned off just for him. The two dueling people were fanged vampires, I could see that from the speed at which they moved. Instead of the protective fencing gear I had imagined they would don, the pair were decked up in fancy clothes, looking like they had just stepped out of a fancy ball. There was a man and a large statured woman. No, I took that back. The second fighter was a man as well, dressed in a fancy gown, with long brown hair, but he most certainly had chest hair where his neckline plummeted. He didn't seem to be wearing the dress as some ironic form of comedy, that seemed to be his normal attire, and no one seemed the least bit miffed here.

"Your regular section is available, sir," said one of the servants to Maxim. "Please let us know if we can be getting any food or drinks for you today."

"We'll have two glasses of Cabernet to start with," he said.

"Funny, I get the strange feeling you come here regularly."

"I must admit, you are not the first date I've brought here." He took off my coat for me and laid it over my seat.

"This is not a date!" I snapped as I sat down beside him.

"Well, if this was a date, how would I be doing?"

"You'd get high marks for lending me your suit and being so cordial with me, but that's about it."

"I thought you said spectator sports were the way to your heart, among your other unmentioned places."

"I'm pretty sure that's not the precise wording I used, although I do usually love sporting events. But this falls into a sub-genre of sports that I absolutely detest: sporting events in which blood is likely to be spilt." Right when I said it, one the man in the dress cut his blade into the other man's calf, which happened to be just a few yards from me, right at eye level. I winced and turned away. "So, if this was a date, which it clearly is not, I'm afraid this blunder would have just ruined any chances you may have had at taking me to bed tonight. Why on earth would you consider this a date place at all?"

"What's not to love about this? Look around. Almost everyone here is on a date."

It was true: the crowd was filled with couples, same sex and otherwise, and they were acting very amorous of one another, holding each other and flirting up a storm. This was a very different crowd than the streets, in which a lot of the men were dressed in the simple lower class suits and paper-boy hat combo, with women in drab, long dresses. These people were all dressed in high fashion of the era, and I remembered that fencing was prohibited among the Proletariat class here, so this had to be all the upper two classes only.

"You see? Before the night is through, I'll have you associating swordplay with romance like never before."

"You know, Vasos took me to a symphony as a date before I knew he was married, which I found very romantic. So much so that I was compelled to do something unmentionable in the heat of the moment in our private box."

"It would take all sorts of unmentionable actions from you just to summon me back to consciousness if I took you to the orchestra. Last time one of my dates dragged me there, I got kicked out for snoring too loudly. This is much more satisfying."

"Wait a second, open your mouth," I ordered Maxim.

"Whatever for?" he asked, playing dumb.

"You know why!"

He smiled wide, and I knew I had him. "Alright, so you caught me with my fangs down."

"That's why you find this bloodletting romantic. The smell of the blood turns you on, doesn't it?"

"I don't know, I never analyzed myself in that manner. Look, that man's leg wound is already healing. Only the fanged vampires here go for blood, and they heal quickly. No need to worry about anyone's life here. And it's absolutely against the rules to inflict any wound that can't fully heal."

The platform they stood on, which was about four feet high, was only three feet wide, and in some areas narrower. Through it went on for yards. "What happens if someone falls off the edge?"

As soon as I asked the question, the one with the bleeding calf got pushed sideways from a series of sword blows, and fell off the side of the platform. The crowd started to clap.

"Then they lose the match," Maxim said.

The man in the dress curtsied to the crowd. "Anyone else want to have a try?" he asked boisterously, his voice womanly.

"That will have to wait," said a woman in a suit and top hat who took to the platform, more evidence that cross dressing was totally fine here. "For those of you who want to see if our reigning champ will win in her fifth straight duel tonight, you'll have to stick right now through a Qualifying Match for a pair of Proletariat challengers. Please give them a warm welcome as they come to the stage."

"Oh, perfect timing," said Maxim.

A young woman and an older man climbed the stairs on the opposite sides of the platform and fastened their masks. "These two are wearing full protective fencing gear, unlike the last pair."

"Is that shock in your voice I detect, that this sport is so civilized? Yes, those protective suits are required for all non-fanged fighters. So, you see, this isn't nearly as dangerous as you've made it out to be."

The two combatants bowed and then, after the woman in the top hat motioned for them to begin, they started to clang swords with one another. "They seem much less proficient then the last two fighters."

"Well, of course," he said. "They aren't vampires, after all, and these people don't really care one bit about fencing, they just want into the upper class. I shouldn't have a problem getting you to this level, at least."

"It sounds like you don't really know what you're doing. What happens if I lose this match?"

"Whoever loses their Qualifying Match won't be able to compete again for five years."

"And how did they match these two up?"

"It's totally random, and there's no way of knowing ahead of time who your opponent will be. But don't let that worry you. I've been attending these matches for decades, and I've never seen anyone compete who looked much better than these two. Fencing is really meant for fanged vampires to pursue, with our speed, strength, and healing powers. Why this society forces the sport on so many others here who aren't really qualified, I have no idea."

Though her work was sloppy, the female combatant managed to land the rounded tip of her sword against his left chest.

"One point," said the woman with the top hat.

"First to three wins," said Maxim.

The servants brought us our wine, and Maxim toasted me as we took our first sip. They brought us menus as well, and I looked over the thing carefully.

"What will you be having, I'll put in our orders"

"This Ukha soup sounds good."

He shook his head. "That's not their best dish here. Trust me, if there's one thing I know as well as I know romance, it's fine cuisine."

"Oh, a foodie, just like me. I love it."

"If you're a man of discriminating tastes and you enjoy the finer cuisines, don't get the Ukha here. Unless you like your broth to taste like it was taken fresh out of a filthy fish tank."

"No thanks. What should I get instead?"

"In the soup category? I'd get the Lapsha."

"Alright, that's fine."

When our food came, we both received large bowls of soup in gorgeous china set on trays in front of us.

"I thought you were getting steak?" I asked.

"I changed my mind," he said. "I wanted to have what you were having, so that our first meal together would be a shared experience. Come on, Jake, let's take our first spoonfuls simultaneously."

He looked at me while we both took our first bites of the noodle soup, a smile escaping from my lips as soon as I did.

"See what I mean?" he asked me, his own face pleased with the soup as well. "How can you beat this?"

"It tastes amazing, you steered me right, Maxim."

"Let it be known: Jake finally admits that I might know better that he does how to please him," he said, soaking in my praises.

"Perhaps that's true," I said.

"If you think this soup is pleasurable, I can show you pleasure that's a hundred times greater, if you'll let me lead you there."

"Somehow I think you stopped talking about culinary pleasure."

"I guess that depends on your definition of culinary," he said as he took another big spoonful of soup.

"That's three points! We have a winner, ladies and gentlemen!"

The girl in the top hat jumped onto the platform to signal victory to the female combatant, while the older, completely inept man angrily left the platform. Maxim and I clapped along with the crowd, but the applause was merely polite, without anyone showing true investment.

"Without further ado, let's invite our incredible reigning champion back on stage. We have another challenger, folks, who hopes to knock our champion off her feet. Can this one succeed where so many others have failed? We shall see."

As soon as the vampires were back on the platform fighting, the crowd went from only politely alert to totally enrapt, but I actually had a hard time keeping my focus on anything but my soup or Maxim's handsome, laughing face as I was constantly worried about seeing blood. That's probably the reason most of the others were watching, with the men only wearing their normal turn of the century suits and not a trace of protective gear, blood was being spilt often, and that excited everyone. Not to mention seeing the emotions of the combatants right there instead of having their faces hidden behind masks.

That's why I couldn't believe my ears when the woman was announcing the end of the duel. It seemed like the match had only just begun and then it was over, with the losing vampire leaving the platform.

"AAAAAAND our champion remains untouchable!" announced the woman in a suit. "Who will challenge her next, folks?" There came a long pause of silence. "All I hear is crickets. Come on, there must be someone in the audience with the balls to take her on."

"Ugh, that's my weakness," whispered Maxim to me. "It hooks me every time someone challenges the size of my man parts." And then, insanely, Maxim put his hand in the air. "I volunteer," he said, standing up. He gave me his wallet and watch to hold onto for him.

"Alright, Lord Petrov, what makes you put your fencing reputation on the line here?" asked the woman, waving him up.

"My very fine date, right there," said Maxim, pointing his finger at me. "The gentleman has promised me a passionate kiss if I come out victorious." Maxim smiled at me.

"Did you hear that, ladies and gentlemen? Our challenger has been spurred by the promise of love from his date tonight to weigh his strength against our skilled champion. Please give him a round of applause for his courage."

Everyone clapped happily, to me as much as him, and my face turned hot with embarrassment. I tried to shake my head at him and muttered that I had agreed to no such thing and he was being foolish, but no one heard through the audience noise. Well, if he had falsely put a kiss on the line, at least I was nearly positive he could not win the fight, and I reminded myself what Maxim had assured me, that no one ever died fencing or suffered any permanent injuries.

"Yes, I agree to that wager," I said to the entire crowd when the noise finally died down. "But if he loses, Maxim has agreed to let me have all the money in his wallet." Looking at the huge stack of bills inside, if I could send it home to my family, it would make their month a whole lot easier.

"Ah, a lot at stake," said the woman. Once she had placed a sword into Maxim's hand, she got off the platform. "Duelers, please show due respect to your opponents by shaking their hand."

Maxim smiled and shook the hand of the man in the dress.

"Ooo, a firm handgrip for by far the most handsome gentleman caller you've provided for me tonight," said the champion, his face all flirty, and Maxim returned the affection.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it seems Maxim's endearing date may have a romantic rival in Maxim's dueling opponent. Duelers, begin!"

At that, Maxim and the man in the dress began to swing their swords against each other's. Not surprisingly, Maxim clearly was at a disadvantage. "It's a good thing you're sexy, because your speed is seriously lacking," said the champion.

"Perhaps that's because I learned how to fence in the nude, and just never mastered it with all these clothes encumbering me."

"What a lovely image. Let's put that theory to the test." With a swish of his sword, Maxim's left sleeve was sliced off at the shoulder, leaving him to shake it off his wrist. For the first time, I could see the man's big, manly arm uncovered, and it took my breath away, so perfectly muscled it was. The skin on his body wasn't as pale as one would expect fro someone who spent all his time bundled up outside; he had a healthy tan to his skin. His muscled formed large clefts between his shoulder and his arm muscles. His bis were covered in veins, and his forearms were impressively large. Dark brown hair covered his outer arm.

Maxim moved into a thrust towards his opponent's heart.

"I don't think so." With a smile, the man in the dress shoved his sword into Maxim's sword arm, putting Maxim's thrust to a sudden end, and cutting off that sleeve as well. "Ah, there's first blood." His fangs appeared out of his lipsticked mouth.

It took me a moment to see what he was talking about: a tiny slash on the outside of his shoulder that was quickly healing. "You may have cut me, but you have yet to score a point," Maxim said good naturedly.

"Let's end that now." The man in the dress made a series of offensive movements that were hard for me to follow, and the result was, he stabbed him in the chest, over his heart. Blood gushed out of the wound, and I had to look away.

"One point for the champion!"

"You got your point. You can pull out now."

"But this is so much more fun." The man in the dress continued to twist into Maxim's chest. "Does that tickle?"

I was only able to look through my peripheral vision in order to keep from fainting, but I saw Maxim daringly grabbing the man's blade with his left hand, cutting deep into his fingers, as he pulled the blade down away from his chest. The move ended his physical assault, but cut his shirt completely from his body.

The man in a dress whistled at Maxim's sudden upper-body nudity as they pulled away from each other, and even my blood-sensitive eyes were drawn back to check him out. Aside from the wound on his left pec, his upper body was a remarkable sight, a bundle of knotted, veiny muscle that turned my cheeks hot to look at. Thick neck muscles met hefty pecs, each one capped with large, pink nipples. His abs and obliques were something else, endlessly cut and veiny. As promised, his pecs were lightly covered in brown hair, as were his abs.

"Even half naked, you're still as slow as a Proletariat man. Let's see if you're still as slow without anything at all." A few more swishes of his sword, this time directed a bit more downwards, and Maxim's pants were also turned to ribbons, falling off his body, leaving him in just his white boxers. His taut, muscled calves were covered with brown fur, and his thighs were huge and knotted. Goodness, what a delicious sight he was in those boxers, his weighty package again proving that there weren't any small endowed vampires all too well. All the pity he was taken.

"Give him a round of applause, ladies and gentlemen! He may not be blessed with swordwork, but clearly the man is blessed in other, much more pleasant ways. We haven't had this much eye candy up here in ages."

Everyone clapped for Maxim, and many of the women especially shouted happily.

"So, I see my manhood's reputation is intact, both figuratively and literally. But the charge is that my sword, as large as it may be, is clumsy in my hands. And I hate for this entire crowd to come away with the misconception that my hands or any other part of my body are clumsy. So, let's turn the tables, shall we?"

With that, Maxim started to move at a speed he had never before displayed in the duel. For the first time, instead of always looking at the mercy of the man in the dress's blade, he became an equal participant of the fight.

The man in the dress was taken aback by this sudden change, so much so that Maxim was able to take advantage of the situation and poke the tip of his sword into his opponent's left breast, blood staining his dress.

"And the challenger has his first point. We're tied now, what a turn of events, folks!"

But that made Maxim's opponent angry, and the surprise that had momentarily bested him left as he reassessed Maxim as an opponent. That's really when the duel proper started, with both men swinging their swords left and right, evading and blocking, evading and blocking.

"Two points for the challenger!" the woman announced excitedly as Maxim got his second stab.

Infuriated, the man in the dress used everything he had to take the duel back.

But none of it mattered.

"Third point, Lord Maxim Petrov becomes our new champion!" screamed the woman in the top hat, jumping on the platform, grabbing Maxim's sword hand, and raising his sword to the ceiling. "Give him due applause, folks!"

The crowd went wild as Maxim went over and gave the angry man in the dress a big, friendly hug, cooling down the man's anger, before he left the platform.

"I do believe my date owes me a kiss," said Maxim to the whole room, jumping off the platform and coming over to me with a huge grin, the woman following him.

"I never said--"

"How about it folks, how many of you want to see them kiss?"

There came applause, and the crowd started to chant, "Kiss, kiss, kiss."

"Oh, fine."

Maxim moved in to embrace me, smiling.

"Do you really have to hug me now? You're all bloody. You'll ruin this perfectly good suit."

"I have about a hundred more where that came from," he said. "I ruin good suits all the time."

He took me in his arms, and I must admit, having this nearly naked stud hold me felt terrific. I could smell the sweat he had just worked up, which was intoxicating.. "To think, earlier today you refused to look at me when I said I was undressing down to my underwear," he whispered in my ear. "And here I am, in my underwear, and you still haven't had a heart attack or anything."

I pecked him very quickly on the lips. "There, I kissed him."

"That's not a kiss!" said the woman. "We want to see a real kiss, right folks?"

The crowd obviously agreed with her, and I wondered if they'd let me out alive if I didn't go through with my "promise." I leaned in and let my lips linger on his, shutting my eyes. He cradled me in his arms, pulling me against his nearly naked body. His lips tasted sweet, his tongue slipped into my mouth, and that made my dick turn hard, as even with the applause around me, I could sink into my own fantasies as if it was just the two of us in the world for that wonderful moment. His beard tickled my face, which delighted me even more somehow, and I could feel his weighty package against my legs actually pulse to life.

And then the reality of the situation returned to me. I opened my eyes and pulled away, and the crowd applause was pleased with me now, very much so.

"Will you be taking on any new challengers in a duel, Lord Petrov?" asked the woman.

"Given my current outfit is seriously lacking some fashion fundamentals, I think it wise to call it a day, sadly," he said to her.

"Alright folks, give the champion and round of applause, and let's get two new challengers who want a chance at glory to volunteer."

"Were you ever really at risk for losing that match?" I asked him as we walked towards the exit.

"No, in fact. I've indulged in fencing my whole, very long life. This competitor wasn't even close to my level. Besides, they really save their best fighters for the nighttime fights."

"If you were so much better, how come it's you that's standing there in just your boxers, with the rest of your suit ripped off?"

"So you really have to ask that, Jake?" His sly smile spoke wonders.

"You bated him into removing your suit just for my sake?" I asked.

"I won't admit to any such foul play. But now that you've seen and felt me in my underwear, how do I measure up to your fantasies?"

"I couldn't say, since those are non-existent. I can say that you may be visually pleasing to the eye, but so is every other vampire."

"I think, if you give me a chance, I can prove to you that I am in no way an ordinary vampire."

We stepped outside into the beautiful snowfall of the street and walked towards his parked stagecoach. He moved behind me and hugged me from behind as we walked.

"Don't think that the fact that you hustled me into kissing you in there means that we are anything more than friends. And right now, your cradling me from behind is feeling somewhere north of friendly."

"I'm in my undergarments and it's freezing out here. I'm holding onto you for much needed heat."

"If that's all it is, how come I feel a large mound pressing against my butt?"

"I can't help the size of my mounds, friend."

"But you can help by keeping the blood in your brain instead of in said mound."

"There's no extra blood there, friend. In this cold, it's as shriveled as it ever gets. I'm afraid you're confusing my normal endowment for hardness."

We reached the heated stagecoach, and the argument ended as I pulled away from him and sat down. "Where to now?"

"I dearly need to return home, to get into another suit. And you, my friend, might as well come with me. You don't even have a place to stay, do you? As your sponsor, it falls on my shoulders to save you from freezing on the street overnight. Stay at my place, I insist. For as long as you need to. I actually live in the Korolevskij Zamok, the royal palace that my father long ago left to me when his paranoid mind convinced him that staying there would lead to his assassination. It's just me and my servants there now. My bed is specially designed to be large enough for three, in fact, so there will be plenty of room for you."

"Wow, and here I thought you were doing something gentlemanly for me. If I stay at your place, it will not be in your bed."

"Fine, if you'd prefer, you can sleep on my couch."

"The one if your living room?"

"Of course not, the one in my bedroom."

"Nope. I'm sure you must have at least one guest room in what is sure to be the grandest mansion in the city."

"I suppose there might be something that fits your description."

"Welcome to my modest city apartment," said Maxim facetiously as I stood craning my neck in awe at the building, right on the lake, that Maxim called home. "The Korolevskij Zamok is one of the oldest pieces of Krasnyj Sneg."

It looked like Saint Basil's Cathedral, only much larger, and with colors a bit more muted than that. Onion dome capped towers, all very Russo-Byzantine, were everywhere I looked. Again, it looked like a building that gorgeous would be intended as a religious experience, and I could not believe that anyone actually lived inside this piece of art.

"You've stopped walking," Maxim said.

"I can't move, I`m awestruck."

"You may be figuratively frozen in awe, but I'm concerned in this weather you will literally freeze you if I don't get you inside quickly. Come on." His concern for my safety reminded me of Parker.

As soon as we got inside the building, I had to stop and look again and the glittering gold, red, and yellow grandly ornamented grand room I was in. "Oh my goodness."

"Your body has frozen again. Tell me; is this a reoccurring condition of yours?"

"Now that we're inside in the heat, you have no cause to complain."

There were a number of well-dressed servants around who greeted us in Russian, but there seemed to be one clear leader of the serving staff here, and aged white man with neatly combed white hair, tall and lean in what looked like a very fancy serving suit.

"Hello, Master," said the man in the Queen's English accent, looking the two of us over. He tsk- tsked Maxim. "I see you've managed to lose your clothes again. I shall inform the Valet."

"The poor Valet is ready to either slit my throat, or slit his own, one of the two."

"If he accomplished either I can guarantee we will have him thrown out. And who is your guest, Master?"

"Michael, meet Jake Groves."

"Nice to meet you," I said, shaking the old man's hand.

"Likewise," he said sincerely. "Shall I have the footman take Mr. Grove's bag up to the Master's bedroom?" It was interesting that he assumed I was his lover.

"No, I'll be staying in a guest room, if that's alright."

"I wanted to put him in the west tower," said Maxim.

"Of course, I'll show him there myself."

"No, I can take him," said Maxim.

"Of course, Master."

Maxim started to lead me through the palace. As soon as we were alone in a hallway, I said, "You have your very own Alfred, I see."

"Who, the butler? His name's Michael, not Alfred. My, you have the memory of a goldfish, don't you? Impressive as all of this Korolevskij Zamok is, he's by far my favorite thing here. A true gentleman and my one true friend among the servants here. The others all are passive aggressive ass kissers, but not Michael. When I'm high and mighty, just one snide comment from his mouth always brings me back to earth. You'll love him."

"I love him already. He sure isn't Russian."

"No, I found him in England and brought him here. I'm paying him five times as much as he used to get there, because he's damn special."

We climbed a circular staircase, and came out into a huge bedroom. Again I took an awestruck inhale as I realized by the large, spherical shape of the room that we were inside one of the onion dome towers. There was a door leading to a private bathroom behind me, and in front of me stood many giant windows looking out onto the beautiful lake beyond.

"I hope you like a lakeview. Of course, if you'd rather be in the room with the best views in the house, you could always change your mind. I'm in that impressive tower right there," he said, pointing out the window to the central, highest tower of the building.

"This room will do wonderfully, thanks," I said, putting down my bag on the king Victorian bed.

"If you like to sleep in the nude with the curtains open, as I do, I should warn you that even though the windows in my tower seem small from here, keep in mind that us Petrov Blood vampires all have telescopic vision, and I may not be able to prevent myself from using it tonight if temptation strikes."

"Duly noted. I'll be sure to keep my nudity contained to the bathroom. Of course, the other implied problem is accidentally seeing you naked through the window. Though the One does not have any special vision of any sort, so my virtue should be intact."

"And let me assure you, you won't need telescopic vision to see certain unnamed parts of me."

"Luckily, there's a lovely invention called curtains. They should keep my eyes safe. So now that I've officially moved in, how about giving me my first fencing lesson? Clearly you know what you're doing in that regard."

"Agreed. I've turned the portrait hall into a makeshift fencing room for my guests. Meet me down there in five."

Because no one else seemed to speak English besides Michael, I found him and had him lead me to the portrait hall, an extremely long, Versailles Hall of Mirrors-esque room with more gorgeous lake views on the first floor, filled with both recent and ancient portraits. There was a long platform here, the same size and shape as the one in the Sword Gardens, clearly meant to be used as a fencing stage. I had my sword and fencing gear I had purchased from Alik in my arms.

"The master asked me to be your fencing partner today," said Michael, showing me to another protective fencing suit on the ground.

"He asked you to? Are you sure you're up to this?"

"Sir, I may not look it, but I was quite the fencer in my youth."

"I don't want you to over-exert yourself, Michael."

"No, no. It would delight me to get my sword out one more time. I'll change into my gear and be right back."

"Should I put on my own suit, or use the one that's already here?"

"The one down here for now."

Michael left, and I felt slightly annoyed that Maxim had pawned off his teacher duties on his elderly butler. I guessed training was just too dull for the guy.

I stripped down to my briefs and started to put on my suit, starting with my mask. The rest was a one-piece bodysuit that zipped up in back, but when I put my legs and arms into it, I frowned.

"Why does this seem like it's made for the most obese person ever to walk the earth?" I asked myself out loud. "There's no way it'll fit."

"Because it's a specially designed suit I use to teach those who are new to the art," said Maxim, coming into the room, still in his boxers. "It's not meant just for one."

"What are you talking about?"

He came up behind me. "Just stand still and let me finish with this."

He stuck his bare feet into the pant leg holes behind my feet, stuck his arms into the sleeves, and then started to zip up the back of the outfit behind him.

"Oh my goodness, this is like one of those tandem sky-diving suits, isn't it?" The fencing suit was built for two, but instead of having two separate suits zipped together, this was just one large suit meant to be worn together. In essence, it was doing to us exactly what that scotch tape had down to Parker and I when we had wandered around using his invisibility, locking each of our limbs together, as well as his pecs and abs pressed against my bare back. "Whoa, this is gluing our bodies together, isn't it? Is that really necessary?"

"The only way to teach you effectively is if we, in essence, share one body. Don't worry, I've done this before."

"The other times you did it, were you and your mentee only in your underwear?"

"No, we weren't. We were nude, in fact. Let me know if you'd like to follow the same path."

"Oh, I would, but too bad, we're all zipped up already."

"You know, I bet I could use my instrument to rip both our underwear off without ever unzipping us, if you'd like me to try."

"Nope, nope, having the underwear on will be fine."

Even with both of us in our underwear, I could certainly feel his large package pressing into me as we reached down and retrieved our sword. "My first question to you is, would you like this lesson to be with or without every swordplay sexual pun that inevitably goes through my mind as I bask in warmth of this intimate position?"

"Without, please."

"Alright, I'll see if I can control myself. I can't make any promises I'll be able to contain my wit when we reach teaching you to thrust, however. Now, unlike any other sort of fencing you may have seen performed, vampire fencing essentially has no rules, except, as I said, we're not allowed to do any permanent damage to our opponent. For humans who wear these protective suits, that rule becomes easy. The only other things that aren't permitted are all pretty easy to remember. You can't kick your opponent, though using your legs to trip an advancing foe is permitted. You can use your free arm to block, but you can't use it offensively, no punching your opponent at all. When moving toward your opponent, you must always have your sword in front of you, leading with the blade. You aren't permitted, therefore, to hold the sword at your side and then body slam your opponent, or try to initiate any wrestling move with them. Also, losing your sword or falling off the platform results in an instant loss, so don't do it."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Michael reentered the room in his fencing gear, putting his mask on. "Should I get on the platform, Master?"

"No, we'll start on the ground. First of all, let me show you the en garde position, like so," he said, lifting our sword out in front of us, as well tilting our bodies so our right feet were in front. "But you're holding the foil too tightly. Loosen your grip."

"Like this?"

"Yes. Now, since I want you to start defensively, it's important that you keep your distance from Michael. If he tries to move at you with a lunge, you should be standing so he's out of your reach. There's a lot of north and south space on that platform, so this shouldn't be an issue."

"What's a lunge?" I asked.

"Only the most common offensive attack in fencing. Here, I'll show you."

I let Maxim take over, following his lead as he scooted us towards our opponent, sword raised, using his back legs as a spring.

"Now, you take over and do it."

I attempted to do another lunge.

"No, you're raising your front foot too much, wasting time. You can just as effectively move forward without that, like so."

I tried on my own. "Like this?"

"Yes, and make sure you really extend that lunge and as far as you can. Now that you've learned the most basic attack, it's time to learn the most basic defense. Michael, come at us, but keep the attack slow."

"Yes, Master."

"I'm demonstrating a simple parry," said Maxim, making me deflect Michael's blade with my own, pushing it aside harmlessly. When it was my turn, it took a few times before I got the move down.

He next showed me how to do an easy beat, a quick blow to the opponent's sword, meant to either provoke them into attack or let me into an opening. That was easy. He taught me how to thrust next, an attack made with the tip of the foil, one that he said would be important in getting my three points to win. And he showed me how to move from a successful parry to a riposte, switching from a defensive move to an offensive one.

By the time he showed me how to do a feint, which was basically to fake an offensive move in order to draw a opponent into a poor planned attack that I could use against them, I had to laugh. "It's a good thing I have a good memory, because I never would have guessed that learning how to fence would be just as much about learning the vocabulary as knowing the moves."

"And the sad truth is, I've spared you from dozens of terms I know, just because I think they are sort of obvious. I've already seen you perform a flick, for instance, without me teaching you that one. Now, Michael, stand over there. I want the two of you to engage in your first duel without me intervening. Jake, take the lead."

"Yes," I said, eager to finally get a chance to show all the moves it had taken so long for Maxim to teach me.

Michael and I began a proper match, and though I thought I was doing reasonably well, Maxim chided me immediately. "No, no, no, Jake, you look like you're made of wood out there. Unless you want your opponent to break you like a stick, you need to loosen up. Are you always this tense?"

"Sorry, it's a common problem I have, and having you pressed against my body in the most intimate manner imaginable is only making it worse."

"I, for one, can imagine far more intimate manners in which I could be entangled with you at this moment, and this is nothing in comparison."

"Well, perhaps if a certain area of yours that is pressing against a certain area of mine could be a little less wooden, it would aid my body's chances of doing the same."

"If this little contact keeps you from fencing correctly, you'll never be able to handle a room full of strangers watching your every move."

"Fine, give me a second and let me focus on relaxing myself." We stopped the match, and I closed my eyes and took deep breaths. "I'm picturing in my head my happy, soothing place."

"You're replaying when you kissed me in my underwear over and over again in your head, aren't you? Mr. Groves, you've made me blush."

"You keep quiet!" I took a few more deep breaths. "There, I think that should help."

We resumed fencing. "Yes, much looser now, good!" said Maxim. "But you're making too many exaggerated, large, time consuming movements. This is not a game of charades, it's fencing, and it's all about subtlety."

"Is this better?"

"Yes, that's it."

After a couple minutes, I performed what I thought was a brilliant parry-riposte combo which scored me my first point. "How'd you like that one?" I asked, laughing.

"It was a nice move, until you consider that you just walked completely off the imagined four foot wide platform. You're thoughtlessness would have lost you the match, and any shot of ever meeting my father."

"Sorry, I won't make that mistake again."

What I learned as we continued to practice was that Maxim as a tutor was a far cry from Parker, who had always been totally supportive of me, even if I made a bad error. Maxim was like a crotchety old coach: if you performed poorly, he was the first to give you a tongue lashing. It stung my ego, but I knew it was only motivating me to be better. And as I did get better, his witty put-downs transformed into strong praises, and that I knew his praises were hard earned made them feel all the better.

After a couple hours on the ground, he deemed me skilled enough to get onto the platform, and the three of us moved up onto the platform and started to practice there, which threw a whole new curve into the game. Maxim's platform had safety foam around the floor of the platform, but luckily, none of us fell off that evening.

"It's eight thirty, and still we haven't been able to stop for dinner. I'm so hungry, it's all I can do not to rip into your AB negative throat right now."

"Well, you'd better remove yourself from that tandem suit and get as far away from me as possible."

"I was only kidding, Jake. For vampires, blood hunger and food hunger feel different and aren't confused. But if it will finally get you to stop this never-ending fencing match, it'll be worth it."

"I just want to make sure I'm prepared before we call it a night."

"Are you kidding me? You saw the kind of quality the two humans who fought today had. They knew nothing about fencing. Now that I've taught you everything, you could handily beat both of them, even taking them on at the same time. And those sad sacks were a lot more skilled than the average Bourgeoisie contestants I see, who's only fencing experience involves wooden planks and manual labor. You may not be a fencing extraordinaire, but any further training you might spend from here on out is just a waste of your time. Now, let's eat."

"Shall I let the chef know that you will be having a late dinner, Master?"

"Yes, Michael, please."

Michael set his sword down, left the platform, and walked out of the room.

"What are the chances that you'd agree to staying in this particularly pleasant outfit through dinner? Everyone in this city knows my taste in menswear is par none, and I can assure you, this suit fits you far better than any other suit I've seen. That is, as long as you have my body here to support you. So?"

"About the same chances that you were only kidding when you told me before you were engaged to be married."

"Right, let's get dressed for dinner then."

A half hour later, I was dressed in my own, modern clothes as I made my way into Maxim's grand and gorgeous formal dining room. The long, ancient table could have seated fifty or more, surely, but Maxim was sitting on the far left side, with my set place directly across from him, managing intimacy in this huge room. He had dressed in one of his fine suits, putting my simple clothes to shame.

He got out of his seat and pulled my chair out for me as I approached. "If I had known you'd be so dressy even after being so tired out from that hard work today, I'd have at least put a tie on."

"One fun little fact I'm sure you'll learn as we get to know each other better is that I like to be well-dressed or not dressed at all, one of the two. Not one to do anything halfway."

"That may have been too much information to start dinner with a friend with," I said as I sat down and he pushed in the chair for me.

"Forgive me," he said as he sat back down. "I seem to be compelled to tell you every little detail about myself. Did you know you had this effect on me? Have you cast some One spell over me to divulge all of my secrets? Is that why I feel so charmed by you today, I am downright sultry?"

"Nobody ever taught me anything about any sort of spells. I had heard there might be people out there who might have something to teach me, but until one comes along, I'm spell-less, I assure you."

"Yet not without your very own, natural weapons out in full force, which the painful swelling I'm experiencing in a certain part of my clothing currently can attest to." He lifted his glass of wine. "A toast."

I noticed I had a glass as well, and lifted it up.

"To all the numerous and varied effects you have on me."

"I'm not drinking to that. How about, here's to me becoming Bourgeoisie without any unforeseen problems."

"Very nice." He took a big swig of wine, as I took a more measured sip. "Do you love the burgundy? I had Michael get one of my best ones out from the wine cellar downstairs."

"Oh yes, it's very nice, thank you."

"And my chef is already hard at work at what is sure to be a high caliber meal. I am very lucky to have found the finest chef in Krasnyj Sneg. If it wasn't for her, I'd be eating every dinner out."

"You sound very lucky to have her."

"You don't know the half of it. The truth is, I almost lost her. Edmund Woodville, my soon to be father-in-law, nearly snatched her away from under my nose. You see, even though the Petrovs rule the Carstvo, we aren't the wealthiest family here. That honor would belongs to the Woodvilles. I always have the men of the Ministerstvo over to my place for social occasions, and once Edmund heard me boasting about having the finest home chef in the city, he came to me and apologized in advance for taking her away from me. It was only fitting, in his mind, that the wealthiest family employs the finest chef. Even though the whole city knows I'm the leading trendsetter in anything here connected to fine living. And I knew how attractive his offer would be to her, giving a salary that I couldn't afford to match, not to mention, I knew she must have been bored in what amounts to the world's largest bachelor pad here, with only one person living here who isn't being paid to do so, as opposed to the Woodville home, where loads of family and friends live full time."

"How did you keep her, then?"

"Backed into a corner, I'm afraid I resorted to an uncharacteristic bout of lies and deception, considering I'm such an open book. I preyed on the fact that often Edmund's tastes are second rate, and he is overly reliant on me to keep him hip and current. So, I found another chef, decent but not the best, and praised him as the new finest chef in the city, telling him I was making to hire him. Edmund ended up hiring the man, abandoning the idea of hiring the true best chef. And therefore, she still delights me each and every evening."

"Very clever."

"It turned out my cleverness was all for naught, however, as my chef later told me she was much too loyal to ever take a job offer from the Woodvilles. Of course, you're absolutely forbidden to tell Edmund anything about that. Like I said, something about you has made me feel eager to confide my whole life history to you. I hope you feel the same way."

I did feel the same way. All throughout dinner, I started to bare my history to him, starting with my childhood and moving forward. And he riveted me with stories of ancient Tsars and Tsaristas, telling me which ones he respected the most. The food, when it came, was excellent. We had three courses of Russian cuisine, and just like at lunch, Maxim was all about eating the foods together and having them be a shared, positive experience.

But even after dinner was long over, we found ourselves glued to the table, nursing the end of our wine and involved in conversation. He and I had great chemistry, and his sense of humor kept me smiling even through some of the darkest parts of my history.

After dinner, it was quite late when Michael asked us if we'd be moving to the lounge for drinks and pipe smoking. I declined, telling Maxim the wine was plenty and I didn't smoke, but telling him he should go ahead without me.

"No, I just smoke and drink socially," he said. "It's depressing doing them by myself. If you don't want to partake, we don't have to."

Though he offered to take me out into town or amuse me in the house, I admitted I was beyond tired and sore from all the fencing, and just wanted to go to bed. He agreed, though there was masked disappointment in his handsome face.

"Before I can declare this evening completely over, however, I must be honest about my feelings. After tonight, after all that was said, I feel like I've known you forever. I can't remember the last time I've had such a pleasant time with anyone. You and I, we have such a good rapport. Don't you feel it, my friend? Our wit fits together like two puzzle pieces. Never have I had someone so thoroughly keep me on my toes."

"See the marvelous things that can develop when two people stay at the friend level? If this was a date, you wouldn't let us mutually open up about us, would you?"

He gave his big laugh. "If this was a date, these dishes would have been pushed aside an hour ago and we'd be using the tabletop for something far more delightfully devious than eating."

After I had gotten ready for bed, I was just at the end of my nightly prayers when there came a loud knock on the door. "Come in."

Maxim opened the door, dressed in slippers and a fetching, turn-of-century gentlemen's bathrobe, almost looking like a smoking jacket, his muscles making it look sexy. "I brought you some light reading before bed," he said, coming into my room and shutting the door behind him. He was carrying items in his arms, and he sat down on the bed and handed me a printed pamphlet.

"'Hundred Decency Codes for the Proletariat,'" I read off the cover. "Lovely."

"Did I tell you in order to become Bourgeoisie, you have to take a test proving you know all the Decency Codes?"

"You failed to mention that little important fact."

"Well, consider my oversight rectified."

"I have to memorize all hundred of these? Are you serious?"

"Not in the actual order they are in, but yes," he said.

"But these hundred are for the Proletariat. Shouldn't I get the ones for the Bourgeoisie?"

"Oh, good point." He handed me a second pamphlet.

"'Fifty Decency Codes for the Upper Class,'" I read. "Oh, just half the number, that's a relief."

"No, you misunderstand. The numbers are cumulative. When you get tested for admission into the Bourgeoisie, they test you on the fifty codes for that class as well as the hundred rules for Proletariat, which still hold. The class you are moving into is required to obey all hundred and fifty at all times."

"Sounds like a cakewalk."

"At least you're not a vampire. Vampires get an additional fifty codes to learn. Of course, lucky for me, I'm exempt from all of this nonsense."

"I'm surprised you even own copies of these things."

"Are you kidding? They're a permanent mainstay on my nightstand. I read them almost every night."

"To help you fall asleep, I'm sure."

He gave one of his deep bellied laughs. "How did you guess I'm a terrible insomniac? No, I must confess, I use them as masturbatory materials."

"What? You do not."

"Sure I do."

"There aren't even any pictures in here."

"Are you accusing me of illiteracy?"

"No, but these are so boring." I flipped through one of them. "'Rule number eighty-seven: when outside in public, all members of society must wear a hat. That hat must not have any visible scuffs or holes in it.'"

"No, you've totally botched the reading, you didn't sell it at all. Let me show you." He flipped through the other booklet. "Rule one hundred and thirty: spitting isn't allowed in public spaces.'"

I laughed as soon as he started to speak. He had adopted such a deep, sexy voice, it sounded like he was narrating a porn movie. The way he intoned `spitting' was especially hilarious, as if it was a dirty word.

"'Spitting is only permitted in public restrooms.'" Again, the way he said restrooms made me erupt into laughter. "Do you see how sexy this is now? Sorry if any of the pamphlet's pages are stuck together."

"If the whole Tsar thing never works out for you, I think you could make an excellent living narrating erotic fiction on tape. Just please never let me hear you try to read a picture book to a bunch of innocent kids." I shook my head, flipping through the pages. "Thanks a lot, Maxim. I was just about to got some much needed rest, when you came in with hours and hours worth of study material." I laughed.

"Well, here's a novel idea for you: put all of this aside until morning and get some rest. Your test won't be for another few days."

"You now know me well enough to know that's a novel idea, but you still don't know me well enough to realize that I'd never be able to sleep until I've at least assessed the situation and planned out a work/study strategy."

"I can stay here and help you study, as late as you need to."

"Really? Do you have these things memorized, then?"

"God no. But I can provide moral support. And, given you spent all afternoon fencing for the first time, I'm betting your body could use a good rub down. Let me take care of your body while you take care of your brain."

"That sounds way too sexy for someone who I consider nothing more than a friend," I said. "No, it's okay, go on to bed, Maxim."

"Alright, it's your bedroom, you make the rules here," he said, patting me on the back and getting off the bed. "But if you change your mind, you know where to find me."

"In the biggest tower in the house," I said.

"Right. And no, I'm not compensating for anything, get that out of your mind. Goodnight, my favorite new person to meander into my world in god knows how long."

"Goodnight, Maxim. And thanks. For all you've done."

Maxim smiled and left me alone in my bed, me studying in my underwear. It was odd to me how the codes went from reasonable to absurd at the drop of a hat, which actually was itself against code.

A bit later, I looked away from the pamphlets when something outside the window caught my attention. In the central tower's window, I could see Maxim, as he was standing close to the windows. My eyes went wide as he pulled off that very fetching robe and put it aside, leaving him naked. Though he was far away, I could see how beautiful his body was, his back rippled with muscle, his legs powerful, and his butt heavy and taut like a wide receivers. I was almost positive I could see something large hanging between his legs.

But then he reached down and picked that large thing up with his hands. I realized he hadn't been totally kidding before. He may not have used the Decency Codes as porn, but he did jack off every night, which wasn't surprising since he was a vampire and vampires had a lot of extra steam to let loose.

He still had his back to me as he started to stroke his unit seriously. Given that he was using two hands and from the large distance his strokes were covering, he seemed to be very endowed. His whole body tensed and released athletically, making me see what power those muscles contained.

And then he started to move, spinning around as he moved towards his bed, and I knew his dick was about to come into view.

I got up from my bed and shut the curtains before I could see anything. I was so attracted to Maxim, but I knew he was taken. It was similar to how I had lusted after Parker, even though I knew he was married, though I would have never had acted on that lust. But the fact that Maxim was clearly bisexual and also wanted me as much as I wanted him, well that made it so much harder to stay strong, but I had to, not for Maxim's fiancé's sake, but for my own.

I used the dryness of the codes to alleviate my horniness, and I fell asleep only after I had read them all.