Sunset.

I felt it along every inch of my body as a surging wave of relief. My limbs aching for movement, I stretched and I flexed as vivid memories of that night flashed through my mind; its sights, smells, and sounds. Oh, and yes—the flavours! The climax of the night's prowl rushed back to me. A content sound not unlike a purr escaped me.

The air was laden with moisture and heat. The dull droning of the dehumidifier informed me that it was full of condensation again, and ready to quit on me. The air throughout the small basement apt in which I currently lived was rich with earthy odours, and usually laced with the culinary aromas from the main floor above. My landlord was an immigrant from the Middle East, so the cooking was... fragrant. 

My body twitched and froze. Every muscle I possessed tensed, instantly ready to strike.  I remained deathly still for a moment while I breathed in slowly through clenched teeth. The heady cocktail of flavour that was a pubescent teen boy dangerously stirred the hunger recently quelled within me. The ill matched bittersweet undertones of spiced body odour and cologne I recognized as Richard, the landlord's seventeen year old son, signaled to me that he was in the main room of my apartment—uninvited no less!! 

I soundlessly rose from my cold hard bed. My bare feet found the tiled floor just as unnerving as ever. Tactile patterns induce a general queasiness of sorts. That's why the tub out of which I just stepped was a great place to rest. It was completely smooth, if I ignored the chipped enamel near the faucet. 

I moved towards the bathroom door, with one hand placed gently on the door knob, and the other flat against the door itself. I heard him move around the apartment snooping through the drawers in the small kitchenette, then rifling amongst the newspapers on the coffee table. If he could've seen in the dark at all he may have remarked about the paper's origin.  

Richard continued to move throughout the apartment, avoiding the bedroom door. Undoubtedly, the boy assumed I would be in that room. He paused just inches away from me, standing outside the bathroom. The air he stirred by his movements flowed through the sliver of an opening between the door and the floor. His scent spilled over my toes and washed up passed my ankles into the small confined space around me. The knob shook briefly and I felt the foreign warmth it conducted along the brass and metal. I heard him gasp at the chilled contact of the metal. I found myself inhaling, tasting him on the air. I picked out the heightened anxiety from his sweaty tang, and I detected the faint surprise from the ice cold door knob like shavings of ice cold dark fear. With my hand still holding the knob, I felt his body shiver through it. The heat of his body radiated through the thin materials of the door and my skin soaked it up. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to step back and let go of the door knob. 

Had I been Richard, a human, it would have been eerily still and the darkness unnerving. I however, was able to hear the short quick breaths he took that threatened to stop altogether as his heart raced and beat against his narrow torso with all the strength of a human heart pumped full of adrenaline and flooded with testosterone could muster. I even heard the butterflies in the boy's stomach.

His body was just as torn between boy and man, as it was between fight and flight. Richard stepped back. His warmth withdrew from me—with lightning speed, I flung open the door. 

His reaction was quicker than I had expected. A strangled scream pulsed up from his chest through his throat and escaped his lips. If I were to compare the sound to anything, he sounded like a chicken being shot out of a canon. His body convulsed in absolute fright and Richard leapt back awkwardly as if he were a puppet yanked away by an unseen master. His dark eyes were rings of white in the shadows of his dark silhouette. He was tumbling backwards into the coffee table behind him.  

I dove into the musky cloud of his fear and caught him. I quickly adjusted my hold on him as I watched his reaction and his focus change to catch up to my blurring movement. My fingers clamped his dry lips shut and I held him tight to confine his struggle.

“Shh,” I tried to calm him—a vain attempt.  

He went rigid and stared at me with the fear of death in his eyes. Even his breathing stalled. His heart was nearly leaping out of his chest it pounded so hard I felt it with my own body. My own body soaked up the heat he generated and I was bathing in hot glow of his inefficient human engine. His eyes were wide open yet he saw nothing.  

I opened my mouth again but the words caught in my throat as I sensed something else, the sudden pungent aroma of urine. I didn't have to check visually to see that he had soiled himself. Mentally, I chided myself for needlessly frightening the boy to death. I know better than this!  

“I'm not going to hurt you." I told him. My words failed utterly as he went limp and unconscious in my arms as I said them.  

“Un—believable!” 

I slid my hands under his arms and lifted him up and away from me. He was wearing a sleeveless tee shirt, so my hands cradled his bare armpits. The light tufts of hair were moistened with sweat and I groaned. I raised him up higher to check the spreading wetness at his groin where it seemed to stop at his knees. His pants were snug enough of a fit to soak up the fluid quickly. 

For the moment I was at a loss as to what I should do with the child, until he began to stir again. His head grazed the ceiling as he came to. Rather than have him dangle there like a rag doll or a baby held up by an inept and reluctant babysitter, I quickly set him on his feet and let him regain consciousness and his footing. He groaned and swayed on his feet, blinking. I wiped my hands on myself, only to realize that I was merely wearing a pair of boxers. No wonder he felt so hot against me. I brushed my hand on his shirt which gave him a start. 

“Stay still!” I barked. He snapped to attention at the snap of my voice and froze. “Now tell me what you were doing in my apartment Richard!”  

He glanced around and gasped. He then looked at me and saw that I was more than half naked. Then, he noticed his pants. Even with his skin tone and the poor lighting, I still saw the flushing, and subsequent paling of his face. It was a flash flood of embarrassment followed by the chilling shock of realization. He hung his head and simply stood there, caught red handed.  

The smell of his urine was an assault on my sensitive olfactory system. I needed to fix that before anything else.  

“Take off your pants.”  

Richard's head shot up and he stared at me. I reached for the button fly of his jeans. He attacked my hands like they were demons.  

“Boy, you've just pissed yourself. Take them off now, or I'll hold you down in the shower while I interrogate you.”  

He gaped at me, horror-stricken.  

I grabbed him by the shoulders and steered him into the bathroom. He balked at this and stammered. I shoved him forward and nearly threw him into the deep tub. He clanged and clamoured and I reached for the tap with one hand.  

“Wait!” He shouted. “No! Ahh!"  

My other hand slapped against his chest knocking the breath right out of him and I held him from any sort of escape. Cold water hit him and he gasped sharply and choked on water. I held him firmly in spot as he tried to recoil from the frigid shower.  My strength alone kept him upright and in the cascading water as he slipped and flailed about. I felt like I was drowning a cat. 

“Stop it!” He cried out, the words sputtered out as the water washed down his face and into his mouth. He continued to beg me.

 “Please. Please stop!" The boy was sobbing now.  

I shut the water off, only after I figured he had been thoroughly rinsed. I still had a hand on him gripping his tee shirt and he stood up in the tub. He was shivering and dripping wet.  

“I'm sorry! Sorry.” He slumped and sunk to his knees, but instead he slipped and I saved him from crashing his head against the enamel steel tub.  

I held out a towel and stood over him. “Now strip and dry off.” He did as I told him. He fumbled with the wet clothing and peeled it off his body. I was getting impatient with him now. I flung the towel at him.  

“When you're dry come out. You and I need to talk.” I left him in the bathroom. I paced around the living room for a minute before I realized I was doing it. I stopped in my tracks and took a deep breath. I turned to see Richard stepping out from the bathroom with the towel around his narrow waist. He was holding it protectively around him and he avoided looking at me directly.  

“I'm dry now.”  

“Good. Now sit.” 

He shivered more while he walked over to the couch and settled down onto it. His dark hair was still dripping. He wiped away the drops that landed on his cheeks and nose. I moved to stand in front of him, and sat down on the coffee table and faced him.  

“Look at me."  

His eyes hesitantly rose to meet mine. His deep brown eyes looked nearly black in the darkness.  

“Richard.” His gaze wavered but returned. I forced myself to exude some sort of softness towards him, to counter the fear and terror I had inflicted earlier. “I'm not going to hurt you, okay? I'm sorry for giving you such a scare. That was mostly unintentional.” He shivered again. Part of me enjoyed his discomfort. Part of me wanted to prolong it. Instead, I quickly went into the bedroom to fetch a blanket. When I returned I caught him glancing at the entrance to the apartment. From what little I know of him, and the brief exposure I've had to him, I surprisingly liked the kid.  

“You're not leaving just yet. Not until you answer a few questions.”  

He managed the embarrassed and innocent look again. I handed him the blanket, which he stubbornly ignored. I tossed it so it landed over his face. He grabbed it and pulled it down onto his lap and glared at me as I sat before him again. He suddenly looked much younger like this.  

“Richard, why were you down here?”  

“I dunno.” He shrugged. The timbre of his voice had a decidedly untested adult quality to it, in spite of the glaringly infantile cop out, and the mumbled English. He didn't have the severe accent his father did. 

“You do not know?" I enunciated the words impeccably. “But here I find you in my apartment skulking about like some common thief. Were you going to steal something? Were you looking for something?”  

“NO! I wasn't stealing! I wasn’t...”  

“So what were you curious about then?”  

He looked sharply at me like I had read his mind. I hadn't of course, but then usually I didn't have to with mundanes. I looked him over; he was pressing his body into the back of the couch hoping to hide from me. I was tempted to take the answers from his mind, but thought better of it.  

Instead, I simply stared at him. I looked him over, up and down. He was uncomfortable with my inspection that much I could tell, but the reading I was getting off of him was strange. He fidgeted quite a bit and he breathed short quick breaths. I continued to focus on him as he sat there. At one point I thought he was near tears, just by his facial expression. It was curious to watch. Finally I spoke and broke the silence. 

“Do you mind if I throw your clothes in the wash?”

“Okay,” he answered. He was thinking about something, that much was obvious. I was curious to find out, but first I swiftly grabbed his sodden clothing from the washroom and ran them to the shared washer and dryer in the small hall at the top of the stairs between the two living areas. Half way up the stairs was a small landing where the exit was found. 

I could hear Richard downstairs plain as day, sitting on my couch, taking a deep breath trying to remain calm. He mumbled something to himself while I started the washer. When I returned he was holding the towel differently around his waist, though he was still sitting. The blanket remained ignored by his side. Richard's anxiety ridden aroma was now spiked with something a little headier. He was embarrassed of course, but there was definitely something else.  

“I could get you something to wear if you'd like.” He shook his head. He clutched at the edge of the towel covering his knees. I sat down on the sofa beside him. He glanced at the space between us and folded his arms across his abdomen before he looked away.  

“Richard. What were you doing down here?” I kept the question simple, and without any intensity. It was almost rhetorical.  

He looked down at his hands. I followed his gaze and I saw the small nick on his finger. He turned to me and said something, my eyes remained fixated on the small speck of red on his index finger between the first and second knuckle.  

“I was hoping to find something."  

“What?” I asked distractedly.  

“I wanted to find out more about you, who you are and what you are.” His voice was quiet, but clear in the silence of my apartment those last three words got my attention.  

“What do you mean?” I forced a look into his eyes. He blinked and looked away, but only for a moment.  

“I… I’ve noticed things, things about you. I was curious, I wanted to know."  

“You could always ask.”  

“My father never let me come down here, since you moved in. He told me to stay away from you. He said that you were dangerous.”  

“Then why does he let me rent this apartment?”  

“He has a price for everything.” My head tilted unconsciously at the cold tone with which he answered. “Because you were willing to pay the price he wanted."  

“Oh.” I sounded mildly surprised, but this was for Richard's benefit. I of course knew all this, which is why I was willing to pay his father. I could count on his greed when things got sticky. I could almost smell greediness off the man. 

“I've been watching you when I could, to see if I could find out anything. You always keep the lights off, and I can never see inside. You're not like anyone else I've met.” At this I glanced up at the nearest of the two windows in this part of the apartment. They faced north. There was a third window in the bedroom facing west, but it was boarded up. The bathroom had no windows at all.  

“I never see you coming in or out, and I wasn't even sure you actually lived here. You don't even turn the heat on, do you?” I looked over at him, this time his gaze didn't waver at all. He continued. “My father is out of town tonight, and I took this chance to come down and see for myself.”  

“And what did you see?”  

“Well, I didn't expect to see what I did." He smiled shyly, a smile that also had the potential for brilliance. “...a naked albino guy standing in front of me in the dark.” Once he said it, it did seem more than a little funny.  

“I'm not completely naked.” I corrected him.  

I laughed in spite of myself, and he laughed with me. He brushed away a stray hair from his dark bangs. I noticed the faint smudge left as his fingers brushed his forehead. He was still bleeding, however slowly. 

“You must have something on your hand, you left a mark on your~" I gently brushed the spot with a finger. He looked at his hands. 

 “Oh! Hmmmm I should be fine. If it was a bigger cut then I'd have to look after it, I'm a bleeder."  

“Really?” I looked away. Suddenly I felt shaky.  

“Blood doesn't make you queasy, does it?” 

“NO,” I replied quickly. I pinpointed the change in him. The trace amount of his blood led me astray, but the new ingredient in his aroma was something akin to arousal. “Queasy is not the word for it. You should go now.” 

“What?” Richard's quick response appeared to be in genuine disappointment. I was acutely aware of the residual smudge on his face, and the traces on my finger, the incessant beating of Richard's heart. It was racing again.  

“If you ever have some time and I'm home alone, feel free to visit.” His words were more rushed than his heartbeat, and it truly dawned on me.  

He was attracted to me. Strongly. 

 I maintained composure and thanked him for the invite though I nearly shoved him up the stairs. At the threshold between his home and my apartment, he remained.  

“I'm sorry for what I did. I know it was wrong to go snooping." 

“Don't worry about it,” I told him. “What's important is that you got caught doing it, and won't try it again, right?"  

Richard smiled again. “Right! I'll just ask first before I invade your privacy."  

I chuckled in spite of myself. I liked Richard, and then I remembered his vibe. I quickly recomposed myself.  

“Hey,” Richard called out before I went two steps. “Thanks for the towel and for walking me home.” He then tugged at the towel around his waist and held it out towards me. I glanced at it there, between us, increasingly aware of his nakedness just beyond it. I reached up and grabbed the towel, and promptly turned around.  

“Goodnight.” I called over my shoulder. I closed my door behind me and stood there a moment. I clenched my jaw tightly, and I breathed deeply sucking the air through my gritted teeth. My lips retracted to reveal my lengthened eye teeth, like a silent canine growl. I had just fed the night previously, yet I had the strong urge to pounce upon Richard and sink my teeth into the tender flesh of his young body. From experience I know that he would be delicious and flavourful.  

Now that I had spent some time in close proximity to him, I don't think I could resist, should my hunger call for it. 

I was doubly certain the boy was attracted to me, whether it was from repressed homosexual tendencies or some other level of fascination was irrelevant now. Richard was sussing out my weaknesses oblivious of the dangers of doing so. I spoke a warning in a hushed voice as if he could hear me. If anyone could have heard me say these words, I may have sounded just a little sad. 

“You cannot imagine the nature of the fiend you're tempting.”