"I'm very sorry, beloved." The words swam up at Neil out of a black sea of unconsciousness, a deep void of dark water that lapped away at the shores of his mind as he passed in and out of awareness. On the other side of oblivion he remembered his boyfriend making him a romantic dinner as a gesture of apology for worrying him--Neil understood that dating an investigative journalist sometimes meant mysterious absences and troubling silences, but Forrest had never been gone for five straight days without even a text before, and Neil couldn't help being upset when he came back as if nothing had happened. The dinner was supposed to be a way of making it up to him.

But the flavors... the balance was all wrong, the spices overwhelming and the marinade heavy on vinegar to the point of drowning out the underlying taste of the meat. And Forrest didn't even taste his portion, he just sat there watching Neil try to choke it down with a wide, unnervingly devoted smile on his face. Neil knew something was wrong, but he didn't figure out what it was until he started getting woozy. And by then it was too late to do anything more than stumble a half-step out of his chair and collapse onto the kitchen floor. "I'm so, so sorry," Forrest's voice came back, shaking Neil out of a doze he didn't even realize he'd lapsed back into, "but I swear you'll understand soon."

Neil tried to open his eyes, but his muscles still felt loose and lazy and he couldn't muster up the energy to move just yet. He wondered what Forrest had dosed him with--it felt like a tranquilizer of some sort, maybe something in the benzodiazepine family, but the deep and total lack of consciousness and the speed with which it worked suggested ketamine. Neil didn't know where his boyfriend could have gotten any of that stuff, but it might have had something to do with those five missing days he was so evasive about. Or the big Mob story he thought he was doing such a good job of keeping from Neil. Not that Neil snooped, but they'd been living together for two years now and it was hard not to notice the little details that gave away at least the general thrust of his boyfriend's latest investigations.

Neil only realized he was drifting off into another bout of woolgathering when he felt Forrest's hands tug him into a loosely slumping seated position on the mattress and he tuned in midway through his lover's sentence. "...wanted to know what you know, but I--I told him there was only one way to be sure. I, I'm very sorry. I don't know why I said that to him. It's just, it feels so good to be owned like this." Neil heard a strangely beatific quality in his boyfriend's voice, an adoring tone that sounded somehow sinister in its intensity. "It feels so good to enfold yourself in him and know that you're wanted, to sink into those wine-dark seas and feel his power towering over you. You, you'll see. You'll see what it's like, I promise, I...."

Forrest broke off abruptly. "Did, did I do the right thing?" he asked, the eerie devotion trickling out of his voice to be replaced by childlike confusion. "I. I'm sorry, it's just... my thoughts have been all muzzy, sweetheart. It's so easy to sink back into the memory of his eyes. H-here, let me, let me make you more comfortable." Neil felt Forrest's fingers fumbling at his wrists, untying the ropes that Neil only just now noticed digging into his flesh. His hands swung limply to his sides the second he was loose; he still couldn't even make himself sit all the way up without support, let alone make a break for it.

"I--I shouldn't have done that. He--he's coming soon, and he'll want you to be ready for him, I shouldn't have untied you." God, was Forrest drugged too? Was he on something? He kept wavering back and forth between the creepy cultist voice and his own personality, almost as if he was at war with himself. He mentioned something about eyes--did someone hypnotize him or something? Was he fighting some kind of post-hypnotic suggestion that made him drug his own boyfriend? That seemed impossible, the stuff of 70s paranoid conspiracy thrillers, but Neil didn't know much about psychology. He was a nurse practitioner, not a psychiatrist.

A distant thud made Neil finally flutter his eyes open, and he recognized his own bedroom; he was naked, his alabaster skin practically glowing in the moonlight, and his blond hair hung down in front of his face. He didn't dare try to move it out of the way, not with his body still so unsteady; moving felt like a one-way ticket to falling over onto the mattress and possibly from there to the floor. Forrest stood by the side of the bed, nude as well and with his slender penis fully erect; there was a tiny moment when Neil thought this might just be some kind of bizarre sex game, but he knew that Forrest respected Neil's pharmaceutical knowledge far too much to drug him without permission just for kinky funsies.

Forrest looked over at the door. "He's coming," he said, his voice hushed and urgent. "He'll be here any second. Please, just--please, don't try to fight it. I drugged you so it would be easier for you, you're still weak and groggy and he'll have an easier time taking your... your will, oh, f-fuck...." Neil watched in bewildered astonishment as his lover's cock visibly twitched, dumping a slick torrent of precum onto the rug by the side of the bed. What the absolute hell was going on with Neil's boyfriend?

And then the door opened, revealing a tall man wearing a charcoal gray suit that practically reeked of money. He had wavy dark hair and russet brown eyes set into a delicate, almost androgynous face. "Sorry I'm a little late," he said, his casually apologetic tone so incongruous that Neil very nearly laughed despite the bizarre and terrifying circumstances. "The Lincoln Tunnel was fucking murder, and then there was a goddamn fender bender in the Garment District backing up traffic for--"

The stranger stopped. "What are we all naked for, exactly? You told me you wanted me to give him the look and see what he knows. This is a little, uh...." He scratched his head. "I mean, don't get me wrong, kid, I've been around the block a few times and I'm not shy or nothing, but I dropped by on a business trip, you know what I mean?"

Forrest looked momentarily caught, as though he'd only just now realized the consequences of what he'd done and he didn't know how to back himself out of the trap he'd laid for them. "I--I know, Master, but... but once you, once we're yours, I thought you'd want... I mean, I just thought that you'd like to, to see for yourself how devoted we are. How, how owned and controlled you've made us." His dick bobbed and twitched and drooled precum with every word, as though just the thought of the man in the doorway turned him on so much that he could barely stop himself from ejaculating all over the floor. Neil tried not to be too hurt.

A tiny smile quirked at one corner of the stranger's mouth. "Eh, what the hell," he growled. "In for a penny, right?" And with that he... disappeared. Neil blinked hard, wondering if perhaps he hadn't tumbled down another K-hole for a few moments, but he wasn't that fucked up. Not anymore. Whoever the stranger was, he'd simply vanished in the blink of an eye--no. Not even. Neil was staring right at him and he still flickered out of view faster than human vision could follow. It was impossible, but no more impossible than the thought of a hypnotist turning his boyfriend into some sort of weird sex cultist. Neil broke into a cold sweat as the terror of the whole inexplicable situation began to get to him.

It only got worse when he looked over at Forrest to see the stranger standing behind him, already nude, his hand smearing precum up and down Forrest's achingly hard cock. "Was this what you wanted, little kroshka?" he asked, tugging the slender shaft with firm, precise strokes. "Did you want Antony to make your big tree grow up all straight and proud for me?" Forrest's eyes had rolled back in his head until only the whites showed, and his jaw hung slack and drooling with pleasure. The little spark of jealousy in Neil's heart bloomed into a flame of hatred.

Even though he knew this other man, this Antony, had done something to his boyfriend to turn him into this blank-eyed stranger, it didn't stop Neil from seething with anger as he watched Forrest moan out, "Y-yes, Master." He never thought of himself as possessive before, but watching someone else tweak and pinch his lover's nipples until they gathered into tight buds made him want to stand up and punch one or both of them right on the jaw. It was an impulse that instantly melted into teetering vertigo the second he tried to move, but that had more to do with the drugs still coursing through his bloodstream than anything else.

Still, it drew Antony's attention. "Right, sorry. Business before pleasure." He pushed Forrest down onto his knees and shoved his crotch directly into the mesmerized slave's face, and Neil couldn't help staring as his lover eagerly licked and nuzzled the massively engorged clitoris that had to be almost seven inches long before burying his face in the folds below. Neil prided himself on being a body-positive and queer-friendly NP, and he'd treated a number of trans men and intersex patients without so much as a second glance at their genitals--but then again, none of them had been fucking his goddamn boyfriend.

But then Antony took Neil's chin in his lean, slender fingers and tilted his head up and away from the erotic display with a potent strength that belied the dark-haired man's appearance. "Your boyfriend here is pretty sure this is going to work," he said, a trace of a New York accent in his rough voice. "Me, I don't know whether the drugs'll make you a pushover or make your brain melt right out of your earholes. But he wants you down there with him, and I'm a pretty nice guy when you ask politely. So open those pretty eyes nice and wide and look at me." And with that, his gaze narrowed. And everything in the world went red.

It was a deep red, the color of sunset through a glass of pinot noir, and it colored Neil's whole field of vision. He could still see, peripherally, where Forrest was spiking his tongue deep into Antony's soaking folds even as that massive erection rubbed all over his face, but it all came to Neil tinged with the hue of an ancient vintage. He felt as though he was drowning in it, as though simply viewing the world through  a haze of alcohol intoxicated him with pleasure, and his cock instantly stiffened to full mast under the force of it all. He felt power flowing into him, through him, the powerful will of a presence older than he could imagine, but the ketamine kept him passive and pacified and unable to struggle.

"Oh, that's nice," Antony growled, reaching down and guiding Forrest's head onto his cock. "That, that's so sweet. God, kiddo, your mind is just like butter." Neil didn't really know if he was being complimented, but he knew that the hypnotic power that poured into him in a torrent of bliss felt better than anything he could ever imagine and that was all he cared about now. The tiny, whimpering voice of independence inside him smothered and drowned almost unnoticed, so absolutely consumed was he with pleasure. He felt his erection begin to trickle and drool precum onto the sheets, and he realized that Forrest was absolutely right--he did understand why Forrest lured him into the vampire's clutches. He understood perfectly. It was all he could ever imagine wanting now.

Neil distantly noticed Antony manhandling Forrest into a new position, bending him over the side of the bed with his legs planted in a wide stance and his face just inches away from Neil's throbbing cock. But even though the vampire--the real vampire, Neil thought in astonishment, all his doubts and questions burned away like dew in the morning sun--removed his hand from Neil's chin, he kept his gaze locked firmly on Neil's cloudy blue eyes and that in turn kept Neil pinned in rapturous bliss. Watching Antony penetrate his boyfriend from behind no longer made him jealous; he couldn't be happier for his lover. He couldn't want anything better for him. It all looked so absolutely perfect.

Forrest's mouth slid down onto Neil's cock, bobbing back and forth with every one of Antony's hard thrusts... but somehow, it didn't seem to matter. The mere physical stimulation couldn't compare to the utter euphoric bliss of having his will emptied out by those wine-red eyes. When he came--and oh god did he cum, spurting the biggest load of his life down his boyfriend's throat with a strangled grunt of sheer ecstasy--it wasn't because he was having his dick sucked. It was because he was a slave now, and he loved it so much that he couldn't control himself any longer.

Neil heard his lover moan and whimper as the slick cock pounded his ass. He felt Forrest shudder against his body as the relentless prostate stimulation finally became too much and the curly-haired young man squirted semen all over the bedroom floor. He inhaled the thick, heady scent of sex that filled the room and made his cock twitch again in a drowsy effort to get hard. But it was the deep, red hue of Antony's eyes that finally overwhelmed him and made his mind simply shut down with helpless bliss. Neil toppled over, falling into a slumber no less drugged than the one that claimed him earlier.

*    *    *    *    *

"There we go," Antony said, as Neil slumped backwards onto the mattress. "Now we can talk." He hauled Forrest upright, gently patting the shuddering young man's cheeks until his green eyes refocused on the vampire's features. "You there, kiddo? You back with me again?" Forrest nodded, his breath still coming in great heaving gasps. Antony gently set him down on the bed, waiting patiently until the journalist recovered his composure.

"So let's talk about those ropes," he said at last. "Because, y'know, I'm not mad, it all worked out and everything, but I couldn't help but notice that you didn't exactly leave him tied up for me the way you said you would." His voice was gentle, almost paternal, but Forrest could hear the terrifying hint of steel behind the silken tones. "So what happened? Did he get out of it himself, or did you maybe have a little change of heart at the last second?"

Forrest looked down shyly, unable to meet even the ordinary gaze of his Master. "I... I had a moment where everything seemed strange. F-fuzzy. I couldn't understand why I was doing any of it, and I... I worried that you were going to--to hurt him?" He frowned. It seemed absurd when he said it out loud like that. Of course Antony wasn't going to hurt him. They were his slaves, his adoring and obedient thralls. Why would Antony do anything like that to either one of them, just because... just because....

Because he was a vampire. Because the vampire's stare was a tool, meant to stun humans like an electric eel's current stunned fish. Because at the end of the night, he needed to feed and Neil wasn't anything more than prey. The fog in Forrest's head returned, but on the other side of it he found a lucid certainty that he and his lover were both in grave danger.

But then the wine-red haze floated up out of Antony's eyes, and the blissful joy of submission to the vampire's will enfolded him like a warm blanket once more. "You, kid, you're... you're really something, you know? I could see it even now, there's still a little fight left in you. Not enough to matter, but you're one of those boys I can't let out of my sight." Antony let out a resigned chuckle, shaking his head just a little in quiet amazement. Forrest relaxed, certain he was about to die and yet unable to do anything other than welcome whatever fate his immortal Master had planned for him.

"So let's make sure I don't," Antony said, abruptly reaching up to carve a slit into his chest just below his nipple with his sharpened fingernail. He gathered Forrest up against his body, pressing the young journalist's lips against the flow of salty blood and easily forcing him to drink. "I'll see through your eyes, now. I'll hear through your ears. I will always be with you, waking and sleeping, bound by blood unbreakable. No more fighting, kroshka. No more resistance. You're mine." Forrest's whole body throbbed in sleepy pleasure as he drank deep from his Master's breast.

When Antony finally pulled him away, Forrest was gasping with arousal despite their earlier bout of sex. He glanced down, still licking the blood off his lips, to see that the vampire was no less turned on by the intimacy of the moment. Forrest couldn't stop himself from reaching out to stroke the other man's engorged erection. "T-thank you, Master," he said hesitantly, unable to believe the pure joy coursing through his veins.

"Eh, call me Afanasiy, kid," the older man replied. "It's my name from the old country, y'know? I kind of like hearing it from the people who know me like you do. Means 'immortal'." He chuckled. "Guess I lived up to that, huh?" Forrest didn't have a chance to answer. Before he could speak, Afanasiy's fingers knotted into his slave's curly brown hair and pulled him back down to worship with his mouth once more.

THE END