Red Grow the Roses. Janine Ashbless

the big-city nightlife he’d heard so much about, and he found to his delight that there was plenty of sex available: with the Pill now available, trendy chicks had no excuse to say No. He shacked up in a squat with a girl calling herself Moonbeam who had a seemingly endless supply of pot and LSD and a similarly endless line of parties to go to, parties at which the right people showed up to mingle with the hip young things, or if they didn’t they should have and everyone said they had done anyway, the next day. He thought he was in love with her, just a bit, though that didn’t stop him sleeping with other girls. And she went with other blokes too, of course. She was the one who introduced him to Naylor.

       She said he was this totally amazing guy who hung out with the Stones and had insights into history and eternity like no one else.

       Ben ended up in a room draped with Indian-printed cotton and reeking of patchouli, on his knees with his cock down Moonbeam’s throat, watching awestruck while this skinny beautiful youth fucked her from behind and she gobbled his dick and made noises like she was seeing Krishna himself. Ben had never shared a girl with another man. He thought it the hottest experience of his life, and he didn’t mind even when Naylor began to bite at Moonbeam’s back and shoulders, sucking her blood. Admittedly, the pot probably helped with that surprise. And Moonbeam didn’t seem to mind either; in fact she seemed to revel in the sensation, climbing to new orgasmic heights. It wasn’t long before Ben was finding out for himself what it felt like.

       In the whole wide world, there was nothing at all he’d ever known that was as good as the sensation of Naylor sucking his dick. Teeth and tongue. Blood and spunk. People who derided that sort of thing didn’t know what the fuck they were talking about. Sometimes, thanks to that magic bite, he walked round with a hard-on all day. Sometimes he woke so drained that his hollow balls just about clanged together.

       For a little while the two of them were Naylor’s favourites. The vampire fucked them together and separately, whenever he felt like it, without asking any leave and without needing to. All shame and propriety vanished from Ben’s life. He’d bend over and spread his ass-cheeks in the middle of a crowded room at the flick of a finger, the crook of an eyebrow. He’d offer his arms and his anus and his cock. He’d ask for nothing in return but the benison of Naylor’s razor-edged kiss.

       That all stopped when Moonbeam’s heart gave out, quietly and without any warning, one night as she lay with her head tilted backward off the edge of the bed with Naylor sucking at her crotch and Ben’s cock so far down her throat that she didn’t even cry out as she died. The two men buried her body in a patch of wasteland and then Ben threw a tantrum of recrimination and they fought, very briefly and with devastating effect as far as the human one of them was concerned. Naylor must be credited with some impulse of contrition, because he saved Ben from bleeding out by force-feeding the boy his own vampiric blood. That was how Ben was reborn.

       In very short order he decided that he hadn’t loved Moonbeam that much after all.

       He was luckier than he knew: it so happened that Reynauld was away abroad that month, and his conversion was revealed as a fait accompli upon the older vampire’s return. Moonbeam’s death never came to Reynauld’s attention at all and Ben was permitted to stay, so long as he swore loyalty like the others.

       Ben doesn’t resent Reynauld. But he’s still close to Naylor, and that way danger lies. Ben’s bad at spotting danger, though: he lives his life – if that’s the word – on too much of a high. Ironically, these days he’s completely straight, chemically speaking. Psychotropic drugs don’t work on vampires. He can’t even get drunk – except on blood, of course.

       That’s all that’s left to him now: blood and sex.

      2: Nine for the Nine Bright Shiners

      ‘Come on. Oh, God, yes – come on!’

      And I do. Like I’m told. Filling her.

      Sometimes I feel like all she wants of me is the gush of fluid, that I’m nothing but a donor to her. It’s the tiniest bit demoralising. I mean, don’t get me wrong; I want this baby as much as Penny does. I’m totally committed to the effort. I’ve given up coffee and alcohol and even fish, to my dismay – they’re supposedly caked in pollutants that depress sperm count – and I’ve switched to boxer shorts instead of briefs to keep the Boys optimally cool. I take my mineral supplements: zinc and selenium and vitamin C. It’s just as important to me as to her.

      OK, so if I’m honest it isn’t. It couldn’t be. It’s all she thinks about these days. Sometimes I look at her and wonder how the dance-till-dawn party chick I first met turned into this macrobiotic-organic obsessive with the body honed by swimming and Pilates into a lean, mean, baby-bearing machine. Fitness is considered vital in the mum-to-be, these days, it turns out. No one just gets pregnant and carries on any more; it has to be conducted like a military campaign instead. Not that I object to a toned tum and a firm butt, obviously; it’s the look in her eyes that worries me, the way they’re like holes going down into a big dark place. Whenever we meet someone with a pushchair she tries to hide it but I see. I can see her hunger.

      * * *

      I get called away from the table during a dinner the mayor’s hosting at his official residence. It’s not a particularly formal do, luckily: just a Spanish business delegation and some potential local investors and a couple of members of the European Parliament. Not exactly exciting stuff, but not much potential for messing things up either; they’re all happily chowing down so no one’s going to miss me for a few minutes. Penny has turned up at the front gate, and security have rung through to me.

      ‘It’s all right,’ I tell them: ‘She’s my wife.’ And I bring her inside. She’s dressed up enough not to look out of place, thankfully, in a little cobalt-blue number I’m rather fond of because of the cutaway back. ‘Is anything wrong?’ I ask, drawing her into a corner of the hall, under a portrait of Gladstone. There are waiting staff at practically every corner so I keep my voice low. It’s odd seeing your wife in a work context. Two halves of my brain are in collision.

      ‘I’m ovulating, Richard.’

      I try not to frown, though I’m secretly exasperated. ‘Couldn’t it wait?’

      ‘Well, you’re not planning on coming home tonight, are you?’ That’s true enough: with the mayoral elections coming up in a fortnight, once the guests are gone we’re all likely to be in a strategy meeting until the small hours. I’m going to have to sleep over here or else I’ll get back home by taxi somewhere near 4 a.m., at a guess. ‘And I have to be up early tomorrow,’ she continues, ‘to catch the train to my seminar.’

      I nod reluctantly. Penny is a freelance consultant for the hotel industry and gives talks all over the country.

      She switches tack, from rational argument to tease: ‘Bet you can’t guess what I’m wearing under this dress.’ Her eyes glitter and she moistens her lips with the tip of her tongue. It evokes the first stir of a reaction in the region of my crotch, just as she intends. Tease works.

      ‘All right then.’ I look up and down the corridor. The diners will be well into the bottles of Krug by now. And it’s not as if I’m the only political adviser the mayor’s got to hand. ‘Down here.’

      I need a room with a lock on the door, which means a guest toilet unfortunately: I pick the one furthest from the dining hall. It’s an exceptionally well-appointed toilet of course. It also happens to be occupied, because as I lay my hand on the door I hear a voice within. A man’s voice, deep and measured. He’s talking to someone, although the other voice is not audible.

      ‘Blast,’ I mutter. I might think about heading to another location, except that Penny takes the opportunity to lean against the wall and brush her fingers up my fly, a furtive tickle that deprives me of the will to move anywhere. Her eyes are bright, her breasts plumped up even more than usual to create a mesmerising cleft. ‘Careful,’ I