Embracing a new life

Chapter 8: Open

River pushed his older lover onto his bed, immediately climbing on top of him with an anticipatory gleam in his eyes and a wicked smirk. An expression that was mirrored on Andreji’s face. He loved those rare moments when Andreji let go and was the relaxed, teasing, and passionate person as which he had initially gotten to know him.

His right knee slipped between the taller man’s long, athletic legs and massaged his crotch. While he enjoyed the feel of the hardening flesh and the warmth of Andreji’s thighs against his own, he looked down on his lover’s chest which he bared button for button and contemplated what he wanted to do with the enticing body underneath his own. After a moment of kneading the soft muscles, he lowered his face and started half kissing, half biting Andreji’s belly and chest. River took his time, fondling the spot on Andreji’s chest where a small colony of white hair was spreading while he massaged the firm flesh with his teeth. Somehow, although he had never found it attractive on other men, River liked the growth of hair there. It gave a special feeling to Andreji, made him more real, more authentic. Andreji wasn’t one of those mindless beaus, no Ken at whose side you immediately itched to place a Barbie. Andreji was a man. More perceptive than some others River had had the misfortune to come across, but still with rough edges and a mind of his own. And a hot crotch that he ground against River.

River looked airily up at his lover. “Problem?”

Andreji looked back at him with seeming indifference. “None at all,” he purred.

“Well, then…,” River shrugged and turned back to his task, grinning against Andreji’s warm skin. Enjoying its feel, he rubbed his cheek against it, feeling Andreji’s chest rise and fall beneath him, and slid up towards his lover’s neck. With the faintest of touches, he moved his lips from the crook of the neck upwards, hearing Andreji’s breath grow slower and deeper. The white haired one moved his head back to grant River better access, and River sucked, licked, and bit gently along collarbone, neck, and throat, while he felt Andreji’s hands brush against his belly and his erection as the taller man prised open his own trousers.

River chuckled. “Anxious?”

“It is getting a bit tight…”

River’s chuckle slowly grew and turned into a soft laughter. Andreji’s arms enclosed him and gently pulled him closer. The blond’s giggling turned into a moan when their members met.

River embraced Andreji and sank slowly down, melting into Andreji’s body, dwelling in the warmth. Fingers flew tenderly over his skin. He floated in the heat that circulated through his body, inhaling Andreji’s scent. The fingers grazed along his sides where River was ticklish. He chuckled again and tried to push Andreji’s hands away, yet Andreji was not so easily fended off. After two minutes of bickering, River pleaded for mercy before all his air was gone amongst all the giggling.

Andreji pointed to his ear in silent demand of repayment for stopping the torment.

“That’s blackmail!” River protested, but yielded willingly anyway. He had long since discovered that Andreji’s ear, and even more the place right behind it, was one of the most sensitive areas of the man’s body. While he busied himself with caressing Andreji’s right ear conch and softly massaging the other man’s scalp (he loved that even more), the fingers took up their flight once more.

This time, they seized River’s legs and moved them apart. His skin slid against the other man’s hot body. The slightest shift worked River up even more. This wouldn’t take long. Andreji’s fingers moved along the inner sides of his upper thighs and the curves of his behind. River shuddered under the sensation and felt his desire grow even needier. Fortunately, Andreji’s hands now coaxed him to start moving. They ground their bodies slowly against each other, hips rolling, arousals touching. River’s lips found Andreji’s mouth and devoured him.

God, he loved this position on top of the other man, legs spread, maximal friction. He moaned into their kiss, his hand buried in the white mass of hair that surrounded them, his loins moving ever more enthusiastically. When Andreji’s fingers ‘accidentally’ slipped into the cleft between his bottom cheeks, lust drove through his body. He shifted slightly, so that his glans was trapped between their bodies. The pressure pushed him over the edge. He broke free of the kiss, and with a high pitched moan, he shuddered in prickling satisfaction that was additionally heightened by Andreji’s lips on his throat.

He sacked down and remained motionless for a while.

“You know what?” he murmured eventually. “You could do me a favour next time – climax before I do. It’s uncomfortable having your prick stick in my stomach.”

Andreji chuckled. “Be a little more polite, please. ‘Prick’? -Honestly…!” He prompted River to shift to the side. “In any case, you could just learn to control your primal needs a little better.”

River listened up. “My primal needs? Well, if you’re so void of any animalistic drives, I’m free to take a shower, now, right?” The blond rose, still a little shaky from all that exhaustive grinding, and slowly made for the curtain behind which lay the opening to the other room.

“As you wish,” Andreji commented calmly. “I am to meet one of my donors today anyway. I am certain she will gladly help me out.”

River turned on the spot. Something cold settled in his stomach. He seized the nearest cushion and smashed it violently into Andreji’s face who barely managed to duck away. “You won’t dare…”, River threatened playfully, but with a vehemence that betrayed how much that thought appalled him. He followed Andreji and hit him several times more – the amusement of the other man audible under the pillow – before Andreji got hold of him.

He pressed him down onto the mattress and ran his sharp fingernails over River’s whole body, almost painfully grazing his right nipple and missing his soft parts by an inch. His weight heavy on his young lover, Andreji bent down. “You have no idea how primal I can be,” he rasped in a dark voice that sent cold shivers down River’s spine.

Andreji turned his attentions to his fledgling’s neck. One or two simple kisses, then River suddenly felt something sharp and pointy grazing his skin. A lightning bolt of anxiety, almost panic, went through him.

The moment, however, was gone as quickly and unexpectedly as it had come. Andreji merely chuckled once more as he slid down, plastering a kiss or two on River’s tense body through which the adrenaline of the previous moment’s shock pumped. A wet tongue caressed River’s inner thighs and licked his testicles tentatively. The previous shock had dispelled the postorgasmic chill, and so his body was in a ‘why not?’ mood in the face of the obvious offer.

Andreji took his time kissing, licking, and sucking River’s testes. Slowly, River’s privates came back to life. After granting his arousal some careless licks, Andreji bent over his fledgling’s whole body again. “So, what do I get in return for my services?”

River shrugged. He reached for Andreji’s member and bent up to caress his neck.

Andreji fended him off. “That is too simple…” There was something mischievous in his voice. River’s master rose and pulled the young man up as well.

“What are you up to, now?” River was led to the opposite side of the room. In the dark, he only reluctantly followed Andreji, who had far better night sight than he did.

“Sit down and lean against the wall,” Andreji prompted him.

River followed suit, uncertain where this was supposed to lead.

“Spread your legs.” Andreji had retreated back to the bed as the young man could hear from the distance of his voice.

River was puzzled, but again did as he was asked. The fact that he could not see his lover’s reaction, but Andreji could see him was slightly unsettling, however.

“Touch yourself.”

River snorted, half amused, half embarrassed.

Suddenly, a low, enticing “Please” sounded an inch from his ear, the warm breath that had left Andreji’s mouth with it engulfing the nape of River’s neck and hardening the part of his body that Andreji wanted him to touch. On a whim, River did.

He enveloped the sensitive head of his prick – damn Andreji’s elaborate wording; sex was primal and vulgar, so why should his language not be? – and started rubbing his shaft. Soon, it was filled with life and need again, even though it was not as pressing as it had been the time before. His technique was simple, but effective. How did Andreji do it when he masturbated? God, did he touch himself, now? That idea thrilled River.

“Hold out your hand,” Andreji suddenly demanded.

Befuddled, River let go of his member and stretched out his hand. A cool fluid ran down on it.

“Prepare yourself.”

“Pardon?”

“You heard me,” Andreji said warmly.

“But how…”

“Try it out,” River was encouraged.

“You’re mad.”

“Indulge me,” Andreji purred seductively.

River had half a mind to give in. Yet the idea did not appeal to him at all. He rose and stepped forward until he could feel Andreji’s warm body in the dark. He grasped Andreji’s wrist and handed the lube back to him – as well as one could hand back something sticky as that.

Before he could say anything, Andreji already kissed him in silent acceptance. He felt a hand knead his firm bottom.

Two minutes later, the tall man was slowly penetrating him. He brushed over River’s back and caressed the nape of his neck.

“Move for me.”

“You like ordering me around, don’t you?” River mocked his lover.

“Move,” Andreji insisted.

River slowly danced up and down Andreji’s shaft.

“Faster,” the man in him demanded. “Harder.”

River adjusted his thrusts, and Andreji joined in.

He could not fathom how long they kept on. Andreji’s hardness moved in and out of him, teasing his entrance, stroking his insides in a steady rhythm. The older man seemed to have a taste for this simple sensation. Every now and again, he paused and granted some attention to River’s arousal, before he took up the motion again, his hips colliding with River’s butt, accompanied by a low flapping.

After some time, he pushed River a little further down and shifted position. River’s heart pounded a little more fiercely. He knew what was coming, now. His white hair flowing over his lover’s back, the taller man’s hips took up speed, and in his urgent thrive for completion, his penis brushed over River’s pleasure spot. River whimpered in delight, his whole body sprawled out in perfect relaxation, ready for whatever Andreji wanted to do with it, prick at the ready. God, how he loved those violent collisions of their bodies and the way Andreji pushed deeper and deeper into him that made him feel so wanted. From the fierceness of Andreji’s thrusts, River could tell that his master was close. He reached down to help himself over the edge for a second time and felt an all consuming satisfaction as he spilled the warm fluid over his hand.

Andreji let his body gently collapse on River’s, still deeply buried inside of him, leaving hardly an inch of his young lover uncovered.

“I want to have more of your primal side in our life,” River announced after the first wave of afterglow had ebbed away and he was able to form a coherent sentence again.

“If you are up to it…,” Andreji murmured ambiguously.

“Definitely.”

“Be careful with such statements. I distinctly remember you asking me to accept you as apprentice, but when I accepted, you weren’t quite as enthusiastic…”

River snorted. “Yeah; ‘cause you hadn’t mentioned that you were a leech and an application for apprenticeship equalled an application to be turned into a bloodsucker as well. Not to mention the killing of my friends. That can unsettle a person, you know?”

“-That is what I mean…”


River snuggled into Andreji’s arms when they had settled down on the bed. He felt the impulse to voice what had troubled him for some time already. The moment seemed made for it. Yet he was also unsure if he wanted to disrupt the afterglow with something that could easily turn into ‘the talk’. The big conversation that questioned everything in their life that everyone in a relationship dreaded.

He mentally smacked himself and sat up. “You know,” he started reluctantly, “I mean that.”

Andreji looked up at him in mild surprise – a look River could not see in the dark –, obviously not understanding what ‘that’ referred to.

Sensing what Andreji’s silence might cause, River explained, “That whole ‘I want more of your wild side’-thing. I guess I’ve been waiting for you to come out into the open ever since you attacked the former leader of the clan and decided to leave the place. I thought that we were going to have time for my training far away from your people, but you didn’t make a move.

“I know,” he fended off any objection, “you said it wasn’t time yet, that I needed to proceed further in my transformation, but…” River looked down and brushed a strand of his hair behind his ear before he lifted his face again towards the vague outlines of Andreji’s head. “I don’t mean to offend you or anything, but I can’t help feeling that it’s only a pretext. There’s so much you could already teach me. I don’t see what it’s got to do with me turning into a vampire. I don’t see much of a difference so far. Apart from a different diet and a bad headache in the sun, I’m still the person I used to be a few years ago. How long is this supposed to take? D’you want me to wait another twenty years?”

River paused to keep his calm and give Andreji a chance to reply. He did not want to be the nagging nuisance. Peering into the dark, he could not make out anything. Annoyed because he wanted to see the reaction on his lover’s face, he fumbled for the switch of the table lamp that he had placed on the floor next to the bed.

Andreji blinked a few times, blinded by the light. Then he gazed up at River, definitely sobered, but River could not see any hints of annoyance or upset.

“What does your training have to do with my ‘wild side’?” Andreji asked back instead of giving an answer.

“Well, it just feels as if…” River searched for the right words, “…as if you weren’t really in it. I mean, tonight was amazing, but why are there so few ‘tonights’? You often seem to be so far away with your thoughts instead of with me.” The blond delved into his mind to seek an illustration for what he wanted to get across. “Remember back in France, our first night there?”

“Of course.”

“You dove into the sea, and when you came back, you dropped next to me, pretty exhausted, and said you so wanted to share that with me, those sensual experiences I guess, when I’m a vampire like you. Why don’t you? Why don’t you show me more of what you love? We so seldom really share things…”

Andreji averted his gaze and nodded minutely. He let his hand brush absent-mindedly over River’s chest. “You’re right,” he murmured.

River waited. “And…?” he prompted his lover.

Andreji only gazed up at him expressionless.

River chuckled. “I asked ‘why’…”

Andreji merely shrugged. “I guess it is one thing to want something and another to break your habits and actually make it happen. After four hundred years…”

River frowned. “I don’t understand. I’ve gotten to know you as the open, easy-going type of person, and you’ve just now proven that that is still in you…”

Andreji smiled mildly. “Of course it is. Nevertheless, no man has only one trait of character. I had no idea you were interested in art either until recently.” He looked smugly at his young lover. “I was used to lead a pretty solitary life. I spent huge amounts of time alone, going my own ways without having to consider someone else. Interacting with other people was merely a welcome diversion. I could let go because they meant nothing and I felt superior to them. I could let go with you in the beginning because you were only a nice, harmless boy to me.”

“Thanks a bunch,” River grumbled.

Andreji shrugged apologetically. He reached out with his left hand and caressed River’s cheek.

“And what changed?” the blond prompted the older man to go on. There was a quirky feeling in his guts, a fear of what he was going to learn, now. However, he knew they needed to put the facts on the table.

“Well, you came closer. You were suddenly thrown into my life, and I think you know by now that I have never been really close to anyone before, not even with Demyan. You know how much it takes me to build up trust, or at least I have told you so. Perhaps you are right, and I am not only postponing your training for your own safety but also to buy me time to assess you, subconsciously. I am going to give a lot away by confiding all my knowledge, and I needed to make sure you are trustworthy, reliable.”

River leaned against the wall, half cuddling it. He felt dizzy. “Do I pass the test?”

A raised eyebrow. “Would we have this conversation, now, if you did not?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard for me to comprehend the ways of your thoughts sometimes.”

Andreji reached out for River’s arm and gently pulled him against his chest. The blond yielded, diving for a while into his thoughts, letting himself be comforted by the physical proximity of his lover. Then he started to speak again.

“I know, I’ve been relying too much on this whole master-fledgling relationship, expecting you to tell me what to do. I think that whole ‘how a fledgling has to behave’-crap at the beginning – that I have to obey you unquestioningly and all that - intimidated me more than I let on to or wanted to admit to myself. So it wasn’t just you.

“If you needed this time, that’s fine with me, but what’re we going to do, now? How’re we going to change things permanently and not just for a night here and there?” River gently caressed Andreji’s chest and looked up at him.

The man smiled. “Do we have to decide that, now?”

“Which century would you prefer?” River bit back.

“I just do not like making rushed decisions,” Andreji explained soothingly. “If our path was clear, I would have trodden it earlier.”

River nodded, his mind in thoughts.

“Suggestions are welcome, of course,” Andreji nudged him to speak his mind.

“I want to move out of here,” River said immediately. “I feel a little hemmed in, down here.”

Andreji sighed wearily.

“D’you mind?” He paused. “Did you decide we should move back in here because of Demyan?” After all, the two men had not seen each other for fifty years; Andreji had even believed his maker to be dead. That he had contrived a plan that put Demyan in the position of the leader that had belonged to Demyan’s maker before clearly said what Andreji still felt for the other man. No matter that Andreji was not the man to admit to feeling anything.

“That as well,” Andreji conceded, “but I mainly thought it would be good for you to socialise, find friends beside me amongst your new kind. It will keep you grounded when you can no longer keep up contact with your old friends and family.”

“Perhaps, but I needn’t live here to do that. I mean, what’s Griet’s place for if not to stay in contact with the others?” River reasoned. “We could just move into a flat in town, two rooms, teeny kitchen” – Andreji smiled amusedly – “…and we could block the windows. Perhaps we even find a flat where one room has none…”

A warm, low chuckle was the answer to his little rant. “You seem to have put some thought into that…”

“Might have crossed my mind before,” River admitted sheepishly. “It’s just… our time when we can go out each day is limited enough already. I don’t want to waste it with the way from and to the caves.”

“Point taken. I will think about it,” Andreji promised.

“One more thing,” River went on, taking heart in Andreji’s cooperative mood.

“Yes?”

“We need to do more together. I mean more than just sharing living space and sometimes the bed. You know, some people just regularly come home saying they’ve seen this add of a concert they would like to go to…”

“-And neither you nor me did that so far, no.”

“-That’s why I’m for starting to go out at least once a week from now on. We decide what we will do in turns and the other one has to go along with it.”

Andreji looked a little exasperated.

“What?” River enquired, a bit agitated that Andreji seemed to disagree.

“Rules… -I am not a big lover of giving myself such a strict corset of what to do.” He paused. “But I guess you are right,” he gave in, then, “if we do not manage to do it spontaneously, we need to pressure ourselves a little.”

Content that he had convinced Andreji, River pressed his lips on his lover’s.