Danny had a new hoodie.
He came back to school with it after winter break, wearing it like a trophy. Even the popular kids had to admit it was cool: white stars, some of them glow-in-the-dark, scattered all over a blue-purple-black tie dye job that resembled a nebula; a stylized galaxy logo emblazoned on the chest, not stiff and plasticky and destined to crack someday, but soft and pliant, made to last; one hundred percent preshrunk organic cotton, colorfast, ultra soft and squishy, two sizes too big. Danny swam in it.
“The colors are awesome,” Sam gushed—as much as a goth could gush. “Let me guess, Christmas present?”
“Something like that,” Danny said with a cryptic smile.
He wore it every day. It came in handy for those cold walks to school in the morning. With the hood up and the string drawn tight, he could tuck his hands into the front kangaroo pocket and remain toasty warm.
It was 7:50 AM on a windy January morning, and a sleek black limousine waited on Second Street, purring like a leopard. A steady column of exhaust billowed from its muffler into the frosty atmosphere. Three teenagers, bundled in bulky winter clothes, stumped their way down the sidewalk toward Casper High. Danny spotted the limo and slowed.
“Uh, you guys go ahead,” he said. “I’ll catch up.”
“Something wrong?” Tucker asked.
“Nah, just—I forgot something at the house.”
“You’d better fly, then,” Sam said. “Literally.”
“I will. See you guys in second period.” Without waiting for a response, Danny turned and jogged back the way he’d come.
He kept up the feint for half a block, until Sam and Tucker were out of sight, before crossing the street and doubling back on the opposite side. His heart rate kicked up a few BPMs as he approached the limo. Spitting his gum into the gutter, he drew a deep breath and rapped his knuckle on the rearmost passenger window. A click, and the tinted glass rolled down an inch.
“Who’s that I see walking in these woods?” teased a voice from within. “Why, it’s Little Red Riding Hood.”
Danny snorted. “Is the big bad wolf gonna stop yapping and let me in? It’s freezing out here.”
The door unlocked with a muted thump, and Danny slid into the Rolls Royce’s warm, spacious interior. It smelled like leather and coffee and wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. Across from him lounged Vlad Masters, Amity Park’s newest part-time resident, dressed smartly in a navy three-piece suit. His hands lay clasped in his lap. Light glinted off the signet ring on his left pinky. His long gray hair was gathered into an immaculate ponytail—dapper enough, but especially fetching with the prominent white streak down the middle of his head. Danny caught a whiff of his cologne, spicy and sensual and no doubt eye-wateringly expensive.
“And here I thought teenage boys ran hot.” Vlad smiled at him, showing off sharp white teeth. “Good morning, Daniel. How was your weekend? Peaceful, I hope? No pesky ghosts distracting you from your homework and social life?”
A corner of Danny’s mouth curled upward. “Yeah, it was almost like some crazy-powerful halfa was patrolling the Ghost Zone and kicking the butt of any ghost who tried to sneak through.” He slipped his backpack off his shoulders and pushed it aside.
“Hmm, I can’t imagine who that might have been.” Vlad patted his thigh in invitation, but Danny was already on his way to him. He crossed the space and slipped into the man’s lap as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Me neither, otherwise I’d thank him for a nice, ghost-free weekend.” He slid his hands over Vlad’s shoulders to play with his ponytail.
“Oh?” Vlad’s eyebrows went up. “Well, perhaps you can give me your thanks and I can pass it along to your mystery protector if I ever happen to stumble across him in my travels.”
“You’d do that for me?” Danny said with a coy tilt of his head. “Go through all that trouble?”
“Hardly trouble, dear boy.” Hands slithered under Danny’s hoodie and made their way beneath his t-shirt to massage bare skin. Danny’s eyes fell half closed. Vlad’s hands were warm and strong, large enough to span his entire waist.
“Mm, I dunno,” he purred, looking down between their bodies at the tent forming in Vlad’s trousers—and the bulge in his own jeans. “The way I say thanks is pretty unique.”
“I’m not surprised.” The hands crept up to Danny’s chest. “You’re pretty and unique yourself.”
“You think so?”
“I don’t think, Daniel, I know.”
Thumbs teased Danny’s nipples into tight little peaks. He released a soft breath. “Well. If you don’t mind being the messenger…”
“I don’t. Not in the least.”
Desire suffocated Danny’s will to maintain the flirtatious banter; he leaned in, nudging Vlad’s nose with his own. Vlad met him the rest of the way. Their lips touched, sharing a soft preliminary kiss. Then mouths opened and tongues slipped inside, locking their faces together with a moist click. Vlad exhaled through his nostrils and hugged Danny possessively, cocooning the 14-year-old in his arms. Vlad’s mouth was cool and wet and tasted strongly of mint. It contrasted with the warm flavors of cinnamon and clove on Danny’s own tongue. Danny didn’t really like Big Red, but he knew Vlad did. Just like Vlad knew Danny loved spearmint, and consumed mint-flavored candies to please him.
They opened wide, deepening the kiss. Jaw muscles stretched and cheeks hollowed as they devoured each other’s flavor.
Leather creaked under Danny’s knees. He shifted, repositioning himself on Vlad’s lap so their erections nudged into one another. An enthusiastic growl rumbled in Vlad’s throat, sending a current of fear and excitement rippling through Danny.
Vlad Masters was a powerful man, both in terms of wealth and physical strength. His patience was slim, his ego huge, and his sexual appetite rivaled that of any teenager. He was also experienced. He knew what he wanted, and he chased it with a corporate executive’s cutthroat persistence until he claimed it.
Part of Danny—the rational, responsible part he was tuning out more frequently these days—knew he was giving in to the dark side and he shouldn’t be doing this. Shouldn’t be messing around with a man thirty-five years older than him, a man who at one point was his father and mother’s best friend. A man who also, in a very real sense, was his nemesis. At least when it came to ghost business.
But Vlad the man made him feel good, and he gave Danny nice things. Indulgent things. Food, experiences, secret gifts. Danny liked being spoiled. Being desired was even better. It felt good to be wanted and needed, or even just acknowledged. Mom and Dad were always so busy, wrapped up in their work and research. He received very little attention. It was easy to feel like a ghost in his own home.
But perhaps most importantly, Vlad understood him. He related to Danny. They were the same. And that was better than all the blowjobs and cool hoodies and after-school gelato in the world.
The hands massaging his torso became more demanding, grasping and pinching his erogenous zones until Danny’s brain dissolved in a nimbus of lust. That always happened whenever he was with Vlad. The man had learned him quickly. He knew all the right buttons to push, and in what order. Danny couldn’t have done a better job if he were doing it himself.
They broke apart long enough to catch their breaths before melting together again, this time with greater zeal.
They’d gone all the way only a couple times so far—Danny had lost his virginity a few days before Christmas, on a plush velvet and walnut couch worth more than his sister’s car—but Vlad already knew him so well. How he liked to be touched. What made him nervous, what made him moan. What elicited a ticklish giggle or a sweet blush. He paid attention to Danny like no adult ever had, made him feel special. The fact that they were the only two beings of their kind, hybrids—neither fully human nor fully ghost, somehow half dead and half alive—made their attraction to one another plausible, if not natural.
No. There was nothing natural about them. Not like this.
Danny broke the kiss. “I’ve got twenty minutes before class starts.”
“Well, then, let’s cut to the chase, shall we?” With a faint glimmer of ectokinetic energy, Vlad’s clothing vanished. Not just made invisible or intangible, but physically transferred to a pocket dimension somewhere in the Ghost Zone.
“You have got to teach me how to do that,” Danny said, raking his eyes over Vlad’s body.
Though the man was pushing fifty, he’d been endowed with a physique that men half his age would covet. He was unfairly attractive, so underwear-model perfect, that the sight of his sculpted flesh was enough to pin Danny on the precipice between snarling envy and blind, slobbering lust. Broad shoulders. Bulging pecs with hard, tight nipples. A disproportionately small waist packed with muscle. Thick, mature whorls of salt and pepper hair from collar to crotch. His blood-engorged penis stood erect in his lap, long and veiny and swollen red. A fat droplet of precome balanced at the tip like dew on a rosebud. Danny yearned to taste it.
“All in good time, little badger.” Vlad placed his hands on Danny and vanished every stitch of clothing on his body—except for his oversized hoodie. Goosebumps prickled Danny’s suddenly-bare legs when the cold air touched them.
“I love having you like this,” Vlad murmured, pulling Danny close to nuzzle him. “Just like this. So soft and warm. And mine.” The last word emerged as a growl. Fingers dug greedily into the supple flesh of Danny’s bare buttocks.
The sensation was electrifying, unlike anything Danny had yet experienced. Completely naked but covered at the same time—clingy leather under his knees, heat rising from his collar, cool air touching all his private parts as he sat, spread open and squirming, on the muscular thighs of a man who, on several occasions, had beaten him black and blue. Who still might, if their ambitions ever diverged this side of the Ghost Zone.
Danny drew a slow, calming breath, hoping to reclaim a sliver of moxie. It was always difficult around a man like Vlad, perpetually cool and in control. He managed a wry grin. “You forgot about taking this off.”
He reached up and pulled the tie out of Vlad’s ponytail. A curtain of silver hair cascaded free, framing Vlad’s angular face. Danny’s pupils bloomed.
“Oh, yeah. That’s more like it.”
Amusement creased the corners of Vlad’s blue eyes. “You like seeing me come undone, little badger?”
“I like seeing you. And seeing you come, period.”
Vlad grinned smugly. “I’m afraid you won’t get the chance this morning. You see, Daniel”—he pressed his cheek to Danny’s, his voice dropping to a throaty hush—“I intend to come inside you.”
A helpless noise rushed from Danny’s lips. He shuddered, hair rising on his arms, skin pebbling, nipples hardening under his hoodie. Blood throbbed in his erection, causing it to twitch. Vlad grasped Danny’s wrist and guided it between their bodies, gently wrapping the boy’s hand around his member. Danny felt its hot pulse against his sweaty palm.
“This,” Vlad breathed. He stretched his tongue to lick Danny’s earlobe. “All of this. Would you like to have it, Daniel?”
“Yeah.” Turning his head, Danny nosed his way through Vlad’s soft, fragrant hair to kiss his neck. The skin was rougher than his own, and relaxed, webbed with fine creases. The scent of cologne filled his nostrils.
Vlad hummed, approving. “I like a man who takes the initiative.” He tilted his head, offering more to Danny’s mouth. “But you’re not quite a man yet, are you? Ah!”
A nip of teeth. Not enough to break the skin, but enough to punish Vlad for his comment.
“I will be someday,” Danny promised, repositioning his hips so he could grip himself and Vlad in one hand. The webbing of his thumb stretched thin as he struggled to encircle the two columns of flesh.
“Don’t grow up too fast, little badger.”
The world suddenly spun as Vlad tightened his arms around Danny and pushed him down onto the seat. Danny’s gangly teenage legs sprawled open. Vlad crawled between them, his cock bobbing stiffly between his thighs. A drop of precome plapped onto the leather seat.
“After all”—a lewd smile, a feral flash of eyes and teeth behind long gray hair—“meat is tenderest when it’s young.”
He shoved his head under Danny’s hoodie and began to fellate him. Danny groaned at the goodness of it, the slick wet heat of Vlad’s mouth pulling and sucking, lips drawn tight around his shaft, tongue swirling on the flared crown of his glans. The slippery strokes revved him up so fast and so hard it was dizzying. He bit the back of his wrist.
“Not yet,” he begged. “Not yet. Don’t wanna—I’m so close—”
Vlad’s response was to release him with a squelchy pop and then open wide to gather both of Danny’s testicles into his mouth.
The new source of stimulation evaporated what remained of Danny’s brain. “Vlad, don’t! I can’t take—! It’s too—unhhh…”
The noises rising from between his legs were positively obscene. Slurping, smacking, animal grunts. It brought to mind fantasies so shameful they defied description. Danny’s cheeks ignited a few more degrees even as his protests faded, replaced by wordless encouragement.
The suckling continued for another minute while Danny moaned an accompaniment of fragmented sentences that barely resembled English. Vlad concluded his oral performance with a firm lick up the seam of Danny’s scrotum before emerging from the bottom of the hoodie, panting, hair tousled, mouth stretched in a wolfish grin.
“I do so love when you plead, Daniel. It’s music to my ears.”
Danny lifted his head from the seat, eyes desperate. “I need you in me. Now.”
“And so is that.”
He descended on Danny with a kiss, coiling his left arm around the boy’s neck while using his right hand to hold himself steady. Danny opened his legs and wiggled down the seat until he felt a blunt head press between his cheeks. He lifted his hips. Vlad guided his cock to the warm crevice wherein nestled the tight little cinch of muscle. A spectral glow flared around his body as he summoned beads of pink ectoplasm to ooze from his skin, coating his penis in a glossy film of lubricant.
And then he pushed into Danny.
“Uhn-haa—” Danny threw his head back and dug his fingernails into Vlad’s meaty biceps.
This was his favorite part, the initial penetration. The stretch, the burn, the sensation of being completely full of this 49-year-old man’s dick. As long as there was enough lube—and there always was, ecto or otherwise—Danny could take everything Vlad gave him. They fit together better than puzzle pieces.
A few seconds passed with Vlad motionless on his knuckles over Danny, buried to the root. Staring, breathing, waiting for the signal: a nod from Danny. He began to move.
Danny hugged his skinny adolescent limbs around Vlad’s larger adult mass. Inside him, Vlad sluiced and slurped through a clenching sleeve of slippery pink flesh. An attentive lover, Vlad listened to Danny’s breath until he found it, that high, delirious little unf as he grazed the boy’s prostate. He changed his angle and found it again. And again.
An intoxicated smile worked its way onto Danny’s lips. “Yeah. Right there. Ahh…”
Chuckling under his breath, Vlad sat up and pulled Danny’s hips up to his pelvis, splaying Danny’s legs over his thighs. Holding the boy’s waist, he began to pump into him, fast and hard, grunting with each thrust. Flesh slapped in quiet rhythm as the minutes trickled by without notice. The limo rocked gently on its suspension. Danny’s leaking dick bounced against his belly every time Vlad slid home, his balls drawing up tighter and tighter. He was on the verge of death. Sweet, blissful agony sucked at his core. Delicious tension built in his loins, heralding promises of the bone-jarring ecstasy that he found so addictive—and found only with Vlad.
Vlad jammed his hands under Danny’s sweat-damp knees and pushed, folding him in half. He leaned back, watching himself disappear into and emerge from Danny’s gleaming pink hole.
“I’m—gonna be late,” Danny gasped.
“I’ll write you a note,” Vlad grunted, never breaking his stride, eyes gorging on the sight of their bodies uncoupling and recoupling.
“Please, Vlad. I wanna come. Make me come, please.”
It was a tactic that worked every time. This morning was no exception. Muttering a curse, Vlad dropped Danny’s right leg, took the boy in his hand, and began to stroke while his hips pistoned forward and back, hard and merciless. His fist glowed pink. Muted energy rippled through Danny’s flesh.
“Oh, God, oh, God,” Danny groaned, eyes fluttering.
“Yes, dear boy. Come for me. Show me your fire.”
Danny bit his lip, dug his fingers into the edge of the seat, and let his body answer. His spine arched. Muscles turned to steel. Ejaculate spurted onto his belly, white and warm. Vlad bared his teeth and released a snarl that made Danny’s hair stand on end. Danny felt the subtle and familiar change in Vlad’s shape as he shot his load inside him. Three bursts, long and profuse.
“Unf,” Danny grunted. The semen was hot enough that he could feel it coating his passage, laced with the barest hint of spectral energy. Vlad fucked it deeper into him, until Danny’s insides tingled and a gyre of frost escaped his mouth.
At last Vlad slowed. Spindly pink volts of ecto-electric energy crackled all over his naked body in the aftermath. When he opened his eyes, they glowed red. After a deep inhalation, they cooled to their normal blue.
Smiling breathlessly, Danny pressed his palms to Vlad’s ample chest. His hands stood tan against the man’s milky skin. He could still feel him throbbing inside him.
“Wow. That was awesome.”
“Yes, it certainly was, wasn’t it?” Vlad leaned down and kissed him sweetly. “Thank you, badger.”
“You can thank me by writing that note.”
“In a moment. I want to enjoy this a little while longer.”
“Yeah, me, too, but I’ve already been late four times this year. If I’m late again I’ll get written up and they’ll call my parents.”
Vlad narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure this isn’t a gulag you’re attending, Daniel? Casper High Penal Colony, perhaps?”
“Hey, rules are rules. I don’t make ’em, I just gotta follow ’em. Things’ve changed a lot since you were in high school, old man.”
A halfhearted glare. “Yes, I suppose they have.”
Sighing, Vlad dropped a parting kiss on Danny’s chest before rolling off of him. Danny winced—not from pain, but from the emptiness—as Vlad pulled out and their union was broken with a moist smack. He reached for the box of fancy tissues sitting nearby and proceeded to blot the mess from his belly. Vlad opted for the colder but more thorough option from the limo’s stock of convenience items, using a wet wipe to clean himself. When he finished, he held out his hand, and Danny passed him the wadded Kleenex. They disappeared in a magenta flash, incinerated. Nice and neat.
Danny climbed back onto the seat, his clothes reappearing on his body with a red shimmer. Another shimmer, and Vlad was fully dressed again, his hair taming itself into its usual ponytail. He picked up a company notepad and retrieved a fountain pen from the inner pocket of his jacket, wet the nib on his tongue, and began to scratch out a hasty note.
In the silence, Danny looked out the window and combed his fingers through his messy black hair.
“I, er… have a business trip coming up in March.”
He turned, eyebrows knitted. Vlad never used filler words. And he never sounded this tentative.
“It should coincide with your spring break. I’d like it if you joined me.” The pen stroked the paper, leaving behind elegant wet lines. “Five-star hotel. Ultra-private. Every luxury imaginable. I can show you the true meaning of indulgence… unless you have other plans.”
A week and a half spent at some ritzy hotel, sleeping in, watching TV, eating like a spoiled prince, and the opportunity to rake Vlad’s back to shreds in a king-size bed, sounded like a dream come true. Danny peeled his tongue off the roof of his mouth.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Vlad capped his pen, ripped off the sheet, and handed it to Danny.
CHS faculty:
Please excuse Daniel Fenton’s tardiness January 13, 2004, as he was engaged in activities pertaining to an extracurricular science program sponsored by Vladco Technologies. Contact below with any queries.
Vlad Masters, CEO
920-555-6623
Danny looked up with sparkling blue eyes. “Is this your cell phone number?”
“My business cell.”
“What about your personal one? Can I have it?”
“Absolutely not.”
He sank back, thoroughly rebutted. “Okay, fine. Jeez. Just thought you might actually, you know. Wanna talk to me, instead of nailing me and then dumping me out the door like a—”
Strong fingers pinched his chin and pulled him close. Vlad kissed him for several long, warm moments and pulled slowly back.
Danny’s eyes hung half-closed, his protest forgotten. Vlad said nothing. He didn’t have to. His wide pupils cast shadows into his dark blue eyes, where an uncharacteristically naked quality dwelled.
Goosebumps rose on Danny’s arms. He knew Vlad cared about him, or at least pretended to. He mentioned it all the time. You know how much I care for you, little badger. But love? That was something bigger, something life-changing. Something that made him wonder if this wasn’t just a weird game, some kind of fragile, temporary equilibrium destined to shatter. If this was actually the real thing. If someday Vlad was going to ask Danny to be a permanent part of his life. After a quick examination of his own heart, Danny knew what his answer would be.
“Gotta go,” he said, shoving the note into his pocket and opening the door. A blast of cold air swirled into the limo as he got out. “See you Thursday.”
Vlad leaned into the doorway. “Have a good day at school, little badger. Stay warm.”
Shouldering his backpack, Danny raised his hood against the bleak winter morning. Then, in an act of sheer impulse, he bent down and pressed a kiss to Vlad’s smooth, shaven cheek. The look of surprise—and the dreamy glaze that settled over Vlad’s features—was worth the risk of being seen.
Danny straightened, wearing the smirk he’d stolen from Vlad’s lips. “I will now.”
Tucking his hands into the hoodie’s front pocket, he crossed the street and jogged toward Casper High, the glowing heat of Vlad’s half-ghost DNA radiating pleasantly inside him.