Jordan Castillo Price Morpheus 03 Manikin

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

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First published in 2008, 2008

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Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

CONTENTS

Channeling Morpheus 3: Manikin
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Jordan Castillo Price

* * * *

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus 3: Manikin

Jordan Castillo Price
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2008 Jordan Castillo Price
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Editor: Margaret Riley
Cover Artist: Bryan Keller

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

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Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

Channeling Morpheus 3: Manikin

Jordan Castillo Price

Marushka loves pretty things: lace and velvet, porcelain

and pearls. She sews elaborate costumes for all of her dolls,
and she spends hours arranging their hair just so. Her
collection is growing; she's added a very pretty trinket, and
his name is Michael. She can't wait to dress him up.

Michael always suspected mentally ill vampires grew worse

and worse as the years went by. He'd never realized how
unhinged they could get.

Now Michael is in way over his head. Will Wild Bill save

him? Or was it only wishful thinking on Michael's part that
their connection ran deeper than sex ... or blood?

[Back to Table of Contents]

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

Chapter One

The straight razor slid along the tops of the toes on my

right foot. "Shoosh, shoosh, darlink. If you tremble, I might
nick you. We mustn't ruin your skin."

I rolled my eyes down in my head, which I couldn't move

even a fragment of an inch, and told myself not to freak out.
The vampire would keel over any minute. I'd slipped her
three tablets of Rohypnol, and I knew from experience that
three was more than enough.

Part of her, the edge of her hair, was visible in the dim

streetlight that threaded through a window high in the
bathroom wall. Her hair was flame red, in long, smooth curls
like Shirley Temple. It was so dim in the bathroom that the
red looked brown, or even black.

I swallowed. The metal apparatus that she'd clamped

around my head and neck put so much pressure on my
Adam's apple, even that small motion was painful.

The razor slid up my calf. The steel was cold. The tub was

cold, the water was cold, too—and I couldn't stop shivering.
"Marushka? Can we take a break? I'm freezing." If she let me
warm up for a second, I'd probably still be shaking from the
realization that the Rohypnol was taking its sweet time in
knocking her out. But I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.

"I know." Her voice oozed sympathy, and she was

probably even sincere. "But this is better for your pores. Once
the gooseflesh smoothes out, your body will be like silk." She

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

wielded the razor around the curve of my knee with such
delicacy that it was only the merest whisper of cold metal.

I ached to shove her away—she hadn't strapped down my

arms, even though the ancient leather restraints were in plain
view, because I'd managed to convince her that I was just as
crazy as she was. That I was into it. Whatever it was she was
doing.

It wouldn't have mattered if my hands were free or not.

She was so much stronger than me that I'd never be able to
fend her off, even if she didn't have a length of freshly-honed
steel in her tiny white hand.

I gritted my teeth, and I waited for the Rohypnol to do its

job.

The razor skimmed my thigh. Now both my legs were

completely hairless. "Such lovely skin. Your hair—why do you
dye it black? What color was it before?"

"Just brown."
"Yes, brown. Brown is better. I will make you a fine wig,

long, with curls. Brown. It will suit you. What color are your
eyes?"

I'd thought she could see in the near-dark. Maybe not in

full color. I filed that thought away with everything else I
knew about vampires which, at the moment, didn't seem
nearly enough. "Grayish."

She snorted. "I will give you a pair of emerald green eyes

that you will adore."

I'd seen Marushka's bell-jar collection of eyes—glass,

dozens of them, staring every which way—when she'd led me
through the old fabric store and the apartment above. They

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

were tucked behind the dress forms and sheet-draped
furniture, and the bolts of dusty fabric, the shelves of
patterns and rickrack. I was fairly confident that I liked my
own eyes much, much better. But I wasn't about to contradict
her—she had my balls in her hand. Her fingers were as cold
as the razor.

"Open your legs."
I wasn't sure if I could, but in the spirit of going along with

her vision of me, transformed and perfect, I did my best to
oblige. I forced my knees against the walls of the cold
porcelain tub, and I told myself she wasn't interested in my
ass. The other vampires I'd taken up with? Sure. But not
Marushka. She was in her very own league.

The blade swept along the crease of my thigh and I had to

force myself not to slam my legs shut. There were ankle
restraints within reach of the tub, too.

"Shoosh, Michael. My hand is steady."
No kidding. At the rate she was going, I'd be slippery

smooth all over in about ten minutes. "Will I get to keep my
own clothes?"

She stroked away the fine hairs behind my balls and

flicked them into the five inches of frigid water with a
practiced snap of her wrist. "Of course not. Your clothing is
filthy. I will dress you in something fine."

I reminded myself to act fascinated. "Like what?"
Marushka sat back on her heels and planted her elbows on

the rim of the bath. If I rolled my eyes down and to the side,
I could see her, barely. Her carefully painted face looked like
a kewpie doll mask.

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

"It would be a shame to cover you up too much. Perhaps a

silk shirt, open at the front. And a vest of embroidered
velvet." She reached into the tub, grabbed on to a single
chest hair, and yanked. I flinched. "Too bad I didn't meet you
before you grew all this ... fur."

"'Sokay. My teeth looked like they were too big for my face

until I was eighteen, at least."

She plucked another chest hair and twirled it between her

thumb and forefinger, directly in front of her face. Her eyes
crossed slightly. I noticed that her eyebrows weren't actually
eyebrows at all, just a pair of thin, curved lines she'd drawn
on—perpetually surprised.

"So, uh, tell me about the vest. What color is it?"
"I don't have it yet. I must make it. Especially for you."
Unfortunately, my question about the vest seemed to

galvanize her back into action, which was the opposite of
what I'd been hoping for. She cupped her frigid hand over my
cock and swept the razor over my pubic hair. For the first
time that night, I wondered whether I really did want the
drugs I'd slipped her to take effect. I might survive the
vampire encounter, but find myself a eunuch in the process.

"Black." My teeth chattered as I spoke. "The shirt, too."
"Black, black, always black." Marushka gestured like she

was sending back an overcooked steak at Ponderosa. "You
have no vision."

I certainly wouldn't, if I took her up on the offer of those

green glass eyes she had in mind. "Okay, what color then?
Tell me."

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

There was a flick, and a splash, and when she took her

hand from me, the cold air felt even sharper against my
naked groin. "Purple. Very dark. Like the skin of grape." She
pressed her chin into her forearm and leaned heavily into the
tub. "And embroidered in ... in gold, with..."

The straight razor splashed into the tub. Marushka

slumped to the floor. "Michael?" Her voice sounded very
innocent and small.

I almost felt bad for her. I groped my hands up the side of

the metal brace and felt for the latch. I couldn't imagine what
the thing must have been, originally. Something a dentist
might use while he was boring through a patient's molars with
a hand drill? Maybe a piece of medical equipment that
heralded the dawn of brain surgery. I shuddered.

I found some screws and springs and knobs. I wished I'd

gotten a better look when Marushka had lowered me down,
placed a kiss on my forehead, and snapped the cold metal
around my neck.

Water sloshed against the side of the bath as I pushed at

the tub wall with my bare foot and tried to extend my reach.
She'd even shaved my toes. It had never occurred to me that
there was hair on my toes.

I stretched, and I felt something that protruded a good

inch out of the mess of metal. A key. It was tightly seated.
From my which-way's-up position, I couldn't tell clockwise
from counterclockwise. My fingers were numb on the key and
I couldn't stop shaking.

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

Concentrate, I told myself. Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey. A

couple of turns and I'd be out of there. I grabbed the key,
and I twisted it.

It fell out of the brace and clattered to the floor.
"No..." My voice sounded as small and pathetic as

Marushka's had when the Rohypnol finally hit her system.

The important thing, I decided, was not to panic. I'm tall. I

have long arms. I'd figure out a way to get the key back.
Never mind that the chances of me then fitting it into the
right slot without being able to see it—and turning it in the
proper direction with cold-numbed fingers—were slim to
none. I'd get that key, because if I didn't recover it by the
time Marushka woke up, I was dead.

My shaking had intensified to the point where it made the

water ripple in the bath. I strained to rotate within the brace,
but it was too tight, and too solidly mounted. I reached back.
My fingertips brushed the crumbling plaster wall. There was
no way I'd ever reach the floor.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

Chapter Two

"Damn it." Okay. If I couldn't reach the key, then I'd have

to break the brace off its mounting. So what if it'd been
specifically built to immobilize people so that their heads
couldn't move. It had to have a weak spot in it—something
that would break, something that would shift. I pushed harder
against the tub wall, and I strained, and I...

Struggled. Nothing. It didn't budge.
I flailed some more, and cut my hand on a raw metal

edge. Hot blood trickled down my arm, and I remembered
how cold I was. And then the shivering started again. My
teeth chattered so hard I bit down on the inside of my cheek
and tasted copper. I flailed harder, cracked my knuckles on
the tub. Maybe broke something. My feet skidded against wet
porcelain. Fuck, oh fuck, what a fucking stupid way to die,
shaved bare with my head in a vise.

"Boy. You've got me at a loss for a smartass remark here.

Not many people can make that claim."

My eyes shot open. I hadn't even realized I'd clenched

them shut.

Oh God. Wild Bill.
He stood over me with his head cocked to one side. He had

his hair combed back rockabilly-style and a cigarette tucked
behind one ear. His eyebrows were all twisted up, as if he
couldn't quite figure out what to make of me.

Was it really him standing over me, or was it just a dream?

It seemed like a dream, wishful thinking and all, although he

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

never really glowered at me quite like that in my dreams. And
I wouldn't have thought about giving him a new hairstyle
either—mostly dark roots and pomade-slick. Oh, man. Even
making that face at me, he looked smokin'-hot.

"What the fuck?"
Okay, and I know I wasn't hallucinating that, because if I

were dreaming it up, I would've had him say something a hell
of a lot more witty and urbane. "K-k-key ... behind the tub."

Bill leaned over the bath, and the thought flickered

through my mind that he might take up where Marushka had
left off and keep on shaving me until I was entirely hairless. I
laughed, a sharp little yip. Or maybe it was a sob. "The
key..."

He took the vise in both hands and pulled. Metal shrieked,

and tiny pieces—springs and bolts and knobs—splashed into
the tub, bounced off the rounded porcelain edge and tinkled
to the floor.

He grabbed me by the forearm, and somehow I managed

to grab back, and he hauled me up. The cold water sucked at
me, as if it could keep me there, waiting for Marushka to
wake up and finish her sick makeover. Bill just pulled harder,
hard enough to yank my humerus out of joint if I didn't wise
up, and give him a little something to work with.

I clenched my muscles and gave over to the motion, the

feel of him pulling me up, up, from the freezing abyss. And
there he was, smelling like leather and cigarettes—and even
that didn't matter, as long as I could fall into his arms, and
everything would be...

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

Bill turned and walked away, and left me teetering on the

edge of the bath.

I ran my hands through my hair, tried to wring out some

of the water. My teeth clacked together. I put a foot on the
floor, and oh God, there was Marushka, fallen on her side like
a broken doll. There was nowhere to step where I wouldn't
touch her silky ruffled blouse, or worse, her Shirley Temple
hair. I aimed for the clearest spot and did my best not to
think about it.

"Bill?"
I heard the sound of things clattering together, as if he

were walking through the dusty flat, picking things up and
putting them back down, maybe harder than he needed to.
He'd come to Sioux Falls for me, though. Wild Bill was here.
That's all that mattered.

I got both of my feet on the floor. Marushka's hair clung to

my cold, wet feet like cobwebs. I looked for Will Bill, but I
couldn't see much. There were plenty of Bill-sized things in
the main room—dressmaker's dummies and furniture draped
in sheets, and behind them, floor to ceiling brocade curtains
that cast confusing shadows in the dim, ambient light. But
nothing that could move. "Bill?"

A cold draft stung the backs of my thighs, but the thought

of drying myself in one of those dusty sheets made my throat
flutter with nausea. Too much like a shroud. I'd just pull my
clothes on, and eventually they'd dry. Finding them—that was
the problem.

* * * *

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

I tried to remember. The whole night was a blur of

anticipation and panic. There was the antique toy shop where
I'd met Marushka, and then the dark alleyway where she'd
spun stories about her beautiful dolls, the abandoned fabric
store, the apartment above, and then...

"What'd you knock her out with?" Bill stood in one of the

doorways that led deeper into the narrow apartment.
"Roofies?"

I nodded. I felt twice as naked with him looking at me, and

I couldn't read his expression.

"How?"
I thought I spotted my clothes, but when I touched them,

my fingers sunk into a pile of crumbling velvet. The smell of
mildew billowed out, and I turned my head to avoid breathing
in any more than I already had.

"How did you drug her?"
I pointed at a dainty filigreed table beside the bathroom.

There was only one thing on it, an aperitif glass, dead center.
Bill picked up the glass with his pinky extended and gave it a
sniff.

"This is yours. It's not from that cut on your hand—this

thing's been sitting around for almost an hour. How'd she
draw it?"

"Syringe. Under my tongue. She didn't want to mark me

up."

He twirled the fancy little glass between his fingertips, and

stared into it as if there were something there only he could
see. And then he threw it to the floor so hard that it shattered

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

explosively in shards that sprayed against the wall like sand
whipped up by a hurricane.

"God, Bill, I'm barefoot."
Glass crunched as he stomped out of the room. I stared at

the floor and wondered how I was supposed to walk out of
there, and what his Jewish wedding imitation was all about.

And I shivered.
Wild Bill came back into the room, walked past me, and

dropped something heavy on the floor. My boots, just out of
reach. He kept on walking without slowing down.

I strained toward them, snagged a bootstrap, then slipped

it on my bare, wet foot. I hopped forward and got the other
boot on, too. The broken glass felt like spilled sugar under the
soles of my boots. I walked slowly, one hand cupped over my
groin, the other feeling for the wall.

A breeze hit me from the right. I hadn't noticed that the

apartment was particularly drafty while Marushka was making
small-talk with me and stropping the razor, but then again, I
wasn't shaved and wet at the time.

I looked through a doorway into an ancient galley kitchen.

Cobwebs hung thick from the ceiling, and the shapes of
several dozen knives—more knives than anyone should ever
need—covered the walls. Bill sat in an open window at the far
end of the narrow room, one knee bent with his foot planted
on the windowsill, other foot touching the floor. A cloud of
cigarette smoke surrounded him for just a moment,
luminescent in reflected streetlight, and then it dissipated as
the wind stole it away.

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

"I'm thinking a pair of jeans would feel pretty good right

about now," he said. He was backlit, and I couldn't tell if he
was looking out the window, or at me.

My teeth clattered together hard. I clenched my jaw in an

attempt to get the shaking under control long enough to
speak. "It's too dark. I can't find my stuff."

Something small bounced off my chest and dropped to the

floor. I squatted and picked it up. Bill's lighter. I hadn't even
seen him move to throw it.

I turned it around in my hand and flicked it. Flame.
I wanted to run over to Wild Bill, hold that lighter right up

to his face, and look into his eyes and see why he was acting
so standoffish and weird. But then another breeze played
over my bare, wet legs. I decided Bill was right; I needed my
clothes.

Marushka hadn't needed any light to navigate her lair.

She'd just towed me along, whispering promises of
immortality and beauty, and I'd followed. Lots of other people
had before me, too, judging by the disproportionately high
number of missing persons I'd dug up. I shone the lighter
over a wall of shelves. It was completely filled with boxes and
jars. I spotted the stub of a candle teetering on the edge of a
warped, faded cigar box, and I lit it.

My shirts—a regular T-shirt and a thermal long-sleeve,

both black—were draped over a candelabra covered in
decades of hardened wax. I pulled them on. Marushka'd been
right. They could have used a wash. But they were the only
shirts I had.

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

My jeans, socks and underwear were in a wad next to the

fireplace. Marushka'd meant to burn them. A stupid, small
detail, but my situation really hit home when I saw it. I
concentrated on putting in one leg, then the other. My skin
was so smooth, my jeans slid up as if they were someone
else's legs connected to my body. Doll legs. I shuddered, and
my teeth clacked together hard.

I turned and scanned the room. The dress forms cast

creepy shadows in the candlelight. No Wild Bill.

The smell of cigarette smoke wafted in from the kitchen.

Bill was still in the same position, more or less—one knee
bent, one foot on the floor. Only now he was lighting a new
cigarette from the butt of the first one. He squinted at me as
he inhaled, and a quarter of the cigarette burned, crumpled
and sagged from the end as it turned to ash.

"I have to kill her," I said.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

Chapter Three

Bill blew smoke out through his nose and squinted even

harder. He didn't say anything.

"Well?"
Another drag. Smoke framed him. "So, kill her."
I glanced back toward the bathroom. The old apartment

was still and quiet, other than the wind whistling through the
open window, and the crackle of the deep drags Bill took from
his cigarette.

"You don't have to try and stop me? You know, 'cos..."
He looked up sharply. "'Cos what?"
I shrugged.
My back slammed into the wall, and knives rattled all

around me, the blades glinting in the stream of faint yellow
light let in by the open window. I hadn't even seen Bill move.
His hand was on my throat, as hard and as cold as the metal
brace. "You think I'm like her? You think I'm anything like
her?"

I tried to shake my head, but it wouldn't move. "No. Not at

all."

His grip tightened. It felt like my windpipe might collapse.

"You think I got some kind of moral obligation to protect her,
just 'cos we both ended up on the wrong side of a pair of
fangs and then lived to tell about it?"

"N-no." Okay, I got it. It was a stupid question. I wished I

could take it back. I tried to loosen his fingers. They were like
steel.

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

Bill lunged, and his eyelashes brushed my cheekbone. "I'm

not like her," he said in my ear.

"I know."
He stayed there, that close—almost touching, but not. I

felt his breath against my wet scalp.

His grip tightened and I started to see stars. When I

spoke, my voice sounded strangled. "Kiss me."

I didn't want to think about what would happen if he

didn't. And for a second there, I thought he might not, that
he'd just keep squeezing and put me out of his misery.

Air whooshed into my lungs as he let go, and his mouth

covered mine as if he hadn't realized what he'd been doing,
and was trying to remedy it by keeping my vitality inside me,
where it belonged.

And then his tongue. Cigarettes and ... I hate to say it ...

cigarettes and vampire. They have a flavor. It's hard to
describe. Mineral ice. Pewter. Something subtle, and elusive,
and cold.

I slid my tongue over his and caught it on his fang, and

the taste of my blood mixed with the taste of Bill's mouth. He
made a small sound that could have been pleasure or pain.

He flicked his half-smoked cigarette out the window with

stunning accuracy. His fingertips brushed my face, gentle
touches I could hardly feel. I slipped my arms around him and
pulled him closer. I was tough. He didn't have to worry about
breaking me.

He pressed his body against mine, and he kissed me. He

threaded his fingers through my wet hair and explored my
coppery mouth. My tongue bled.

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

We both gasped for air when he finally broke the kiss.
"Just a little taste," he said. "That's what I keep telling

myself. I can stop any time." He pressed his forehead into
mine and breathed carefully. "Any time."

"Drink," I said. "I can spare it. She didn't take much."
He smiled, I think. He was hard to read in the near-dark,

and so close. "I'm not talking about blood."

So ... was that good, or bad? I figured I'd better not ask,

given that he was touchy enough to leave me with a necklace
of bruises.

He lingered over my mouth, and teased my lower lip with

his tongue.

"I'm cold," I said. What I didn't say was that I didn't know

exactly how long I had before Marushka woke up. I didn't
know how quickly vampires metabolized Rohypnol. We'd
killed Gray within the first few minutes, and I had no idea
how long Bill had been incapacitated by the dose he'd licked
out of my palm. I wondered if he'd answer me truthfully if I
got up the nerve to ask him someday.

"I'm not closing the window. This whole place stinks like

death." He curled his fingers into the neck of my T-shirt and
went right back to kissing me, as if it were a totally normal
topic for two people to talk about while they were making out.

I turned my head to the side. "Maybe we should finish up

and go."

"I should probably do plenty of things. Doesn't mean I

will." He dragged his other hand down my side, slid his
fingers into the waistband of my jeans. "How far did she get?"

"What?"

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

"Treasure trail's gone. Pubes are gone." He worked his

fingers into the crease of my thigh. "What else is shaved?"

My cheeks burned.
"Your nutsack? Hmm?"
I wished I could force myself to not respond to his hand.

Which would be like forcing the moon to cross the sky
backwards.

"Your hole?"
He petted my shaft with his fingertip. I hissed.
"Just goes to show ... it's never too late to teach an old

dog new kinks. I had no idea shaving would get my rocks
off."

I wondered how old he really was. He'd probably still get

carded, if he were able to drink.

He pressed his mouth into my wet hair. "I didn't know

you'd be this smooth."

"I don't think I can do this, not here." With Marushka just

a few yards and a few pills away.

"Don't worry. Just wanna cop a little feel. Damn, that's

sweet."

I couldn't imagine how he'd gotten his hand that far down

my pants without unbuttoning them. He must have been
double-jointed.

"I could lose myself in your thighs."
If Bill kept talking like that, maybe I would be able to

perform, in spite of the knives, the glass eyes, and the
vampire on the floor.

Bill stretched the neck hole of my shirts. Threads snapped.

He pressed his lips against the shoulder he'd bared, and all

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

the while, his fingers teased me, stroke upon stroke, just to
the side of my cock. He kissed my collarbone, fondling the
shape of it with his lips. He tilted his head and fit his mouth
against the side of my neck. The touch of his mouth was
maddeningly gentle. I wondered if he could tell where he'd
bruised me, if he could sense the broken blood vessels
beneath the surface of my skin.

I imagined him biting me, then and there. A rush of

warmth surged to my groin.

He snuck a finger between my legs and caressed my balls.

"Another vamp drinks you again, I'll be seriously pissed."

"It wasn't sexual. She wasn't even touching me."
His voice was a low purr, right in my ear. "Don't care."
The idea of me being Wild Bill's exclusive property? I could

pretend it didn't turn me on ... but my dick couldn't. And it
was pressed right up against the side of his hand, so he knew
I was up for it as soon as I did. I felt him smile into my hair.
"Right. Glad we got that all straightened out."

He stepped back and I nearly slid down the wall. He gave

me an affectionate pat on the cheek. It was pretty firm—
nearly a slap. I think it was affectionate. Mostly.

He breezed out of the kitchen and crunched through the

shard-covered living room floor. "I'll wait in the van while you
finish up."

I stared at one of the knives hanging across from me—a

foot long with a serrated edge and a couple of prongs at the
tip—and tried to process what Bill had just said. "Van?"

"I'll run the heat for you." The front door slammed, and

the kitchen doorway went dark as the candle snuffed itself.

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

[Back to Table of Contents]

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

Chapter Four

Saliva-tinged blood frothed from Marushka's mouth. Maybe

I'd overshot and three Rohypnol was too large a dose, and
her body was trying to reject the drug. I stared down at her
by the meager light Wild Bill's plastic lighter cast and told
myself that I shouldn't feel bad for her. She'd killed others.
She would have killed me.

Too bad the drug wouldn't just stop her heart and spare

me the duty of staking her.

I found my leather jacket and picked apart the lining to get

at the hickory stake I'd duct-taped down the side. It was a
much better system than the entire bag of stakes had been—
after all, you only needed one—but there were still a few
kinks to iron out. The jacket had hung strangely, and I'd been
paranoid that the stake showed. I could try a stake on either
side next time. It would feel stiff, but at least it would be
symmetrical.

I also had no mallet. I still remembered the way the

sharpened wood slid right through flesh, sinew and muscle
the night we killed Gray.

Marushka was on the floor, exactly where I'd left her. I

knelt beside her and pushed up her blouse. Her stomach was
flat and pale, and her ribcage was a gentle ridge. I placed the
tip of the stake over the point of entry, angled it, held it there
... then sat back and sighed. Staking a vampire by myself
was a lot harder than I thought it would be.

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

The apartment was teeming with my fingerprints, probably

Wild Bill's, too—though as far as I knew, he wasn't on the
national missing persons database. I figured that I should
wipe down everything I'd handled as best I could. Then I
could leave right away, once I actually killed Marushka.

I wondered if Bill would come upstairs and help me. I

doubted it.

The room was full of fluttering shadows cast by Bill's

lighter. I got the candle stub lit again and did my best to
remember what I'd touched. The table, the chair. The door,
the doorframe. The mantle, where I'd wrestled with jeans and
boots on a floor covered in minute bits of broken glass.

Wiping up my fingerprints would take a lot longer than I

thought. I'd better get started.

I pulled a sheet off one of the dressmaker's forms with my

eyes squinted shut and my breath held, in case the fabric
disintegrated in a web of rotten fibers. It stayed intact, which
was good. But I suspected it was full of mildew, because it
gave off a stink that I could taste when I breathed through
my mouth, something like an old refrigerator, or a damp gym
bag with a ripe pair of sneakers inside.

I ducked my nose into the collar of my leather jacket.

Better.

I wiped down the doorframe, and the table, and then the

kitchen wall—just in case I'd left fingerprints on it while Wild
Bill kissed me. I didn't remember touching it, but when Wild
Bill worked his magic on me—figuratively speaking, of
course—I didn't really remember much of anything other than
him.

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

I'd need to be extra vigilant about wiping down the area

around the tub. I'd probably left hundreds of prints behind as
I was groping for that key. The mildewy sheet stunk worse
and worse the longer I held it, so I went back into the main
room to hunt down a different piece of fabric that hopefully
wouldn't smell quite as bad.

The far end of the room had a sour, thick, chemical odor to

it. I wished Bill was there, smoking. At least I'd be able to
identify the smell of burning tobacco. I told myself to finish
wiping up and get out of there; I'd see him soon enough.

I held up my candle stub and reached for a cloth-covered

dressmaker's form that looked relatively new. The muslin
caught on the form, and it tipped toward me. It fell with a
meaty thud, and dust billowed up around it. I almost
neglected to look at it as I turned away with the fabric, since I
was so eager to go downstairs and join Wild Bill. But the
small hairs at the back of my neck—hairs that I still
possessed, thankfully—prickled as I turned away.

I looked down. Tiny seams joined with black stitches criss-

crossed the slim, androgynous shape of the dressmaker's
dummy. Dark, leathery circlets decorated the chest, carefully
stitched on where the nipples would be. I leaned closer and
held the candle stub high. The sour odor was strong. And
beneath it, the sweet undertone of rot.

It was a torso—a real human torso—cut apart and

reassembled. I dropped the cloth and staggered back, tangled
myself in the brocade curtains. The fabric was old and rotten,
like everything else in Marushka's flat. It clung to me like her

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

hair had my wet flesh, as if it could suck me in and keep me
there until she woke up.

The candle smoldered, and I thrust it away from the folds

of the fabric, horrified at the thought of being there, alone, in
the dark, with Marushka and her "dolls." Dust rose in clouds
as I slapped at the fibers that started to crawl with orange
sparks where the flame had touched it. A drape of brocade
gave way as the rotten fibers snapped from their suspension,
and another, and another. And soon I was swimming in the
wall of fabric, trying desperately to keep from burning myself
alive without snuffing my only light source.

I retched as putrid dust filled my lungs, and my eyes

teared. There wasn't a wall or a window behind the curtain—it
was a room. An old-fashioned parlor brimming with trinkets
and toys, and full of people, as if a grand party were being
held. In the dust and the dark. And nobody moving.

I pressed my fist against my mouth to keep from

screaming, and tasted my own blood. Candlelight played off
the frozen forms in elaborate curled wigs, and satin and lace,
reflecting back at me from dozens upon dozens of vacant
glass eyes.

I stared for a long moment, and then behind me, I heard a

wheeze coming from the bathroom. Screw the fingerprints. I
needed to finish off the vampire.

* * * *

True to his word, Wild Bill had the engine running and the

heat going full blast. His bucket seat was swiveled sideways,
his ankles were crossed on the slope of the center console,

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

and he bided his time by smoking and painting his nails black.
I almost mentioned something about acetone being
flammable, but just couldn't.

The van was old. And red. And that was about all I noticed.

I climbed into the passenger seat, and slapped my hickory
stake on the console. I glanced into the side view mirror.
Marushka's bathroom window glowed yellow. The flame had
caught. Good. Not that I was worried that I hadn't done the
job properly. She was dead, very dead, whether or not I had
garlic to stuff into her mouth.

I'd set the fire on impulse, since everything had seemed so

old and dry, and eager to embrace the flame. It was
something I could do to burn away her evil, and give her
victims some sort of dignified end.

Wild Bill screwed the top onto the nail polish and dropped

the bottle on the floor. "What's with the stake?"

"Look at it." I kept my face averted; I didn't need to see it

again. The tip had cracked off like the point of a cheap pencil.
Staking Marushka was like trying to drive a tent spike into a
steel-belted radial. The only reason I'd been able to kill Gray
with a wooden stake was that Bill's vampire strength had
been behind the killing blow.

Wild Bill left the engine running and hopped out of the van.

He sprinted up to the building next to Marushka's shop and
kicked the front door, so as not to smear off his nail polish.
After many kicks, the door opened and a man stuck his head
out. Bill pointed at Marushka's flat and the neighbor ducked
back inside.

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

Bill returned to the van, put it in gear carefully, with only

two fingertips, and pulled away. "You might want to consider
the peanut gallery next time you channel Mrs. O'Leary's cow,"
he said.

I swallowed, and swallowed again, and did my best not to

throw up. I closed my eyes, as if that would help me explain
to him. "It was full..." I cleared my throat and tried again.
"Her apartment was full of bodies. Dead bodies. With glass
eyes. Staring. And I could see ... their eyelashes. And
eyebrows. Sticking out, like toothbrush bristles. And their lips,
painted red, sewn shut with tiny little stitches." I rolled down
my window and took very deep breaths. A siren wailed in the
distance.

"No shit. Right there in the house? I thought maybe she

had 'em stacked in the basement."

"That was almost me."
I heard the click of a lighter, and smelled a freshly-lit

cigarette, which smelled a hell of a lot better than a room full
of human taxidermy. Bill turned onto a main street. We were
the only ones on the road.

"So you didn't stake 'er?"
I shook my head.
"You burned her alive?"
I shook my head again.
"Is this one of those car games, like I Spy, or Padiddle, or

Punch Bug Blue? When I figure out how the fuck you killed
her, do I get to smack you?"

I glanced at him to see if he was kidding, or if he wanted

to lay me out. Probably a little of both. He was sprawled in his

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by Jordan Castillo Price

seat, one black-nailed hand perched beside the overfull
ashtray with a cigarette balanced at the edge, the other
draped over the steering wheel, where he guided the van with
the underside of his wrist.

* * * *

"Are you ready?"
As ready as I'd ever be. My finger was already freakishly

swollen, mottled purple and brown. I might lose my ability to
perform certain rude gestures if I didn't visit the emergency
room, but I didn't want to go there unless I was in actual
danger of dying. I had no paper trail and I wanted to keep it
that way.

Wild Bill tilted the camping lantern so that it shone directly

on my hand, then he lined up a pair of wooden coffee stirrers
and a strip of duct tape. "Okay. On three."

I nodded.
"One..."
He yanked my finger and everything went red. I jumped

hard enough that I would have pulled my hand from anyone
else's grasp. Bill must've been ready, though. He had the
splints in place before I could think straight enough to yell at
him. "Fuck, you said three!"

He wound the duct tape around my finger. It throbbed.
"You enjoyed that."
"Then you should be flattered. There's not much left to feel

good about in this sorry-assed world." He gave me a shove to
the chest, and I toppled over backwards.

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

The back of the van smelled like a hardware store. My fall

was padded, barely, by a ragged scrap of indoor-outdoor
carpeting that was too wide for the floor space, its frayed
edges curving up the side, and too short front-to-back, which
left the rusty, slat-metal floor exposed by our feet.

Whatever the van had been hauling, Bill had emptied it

out, God-only-knows-where. Now it held only the camping
lantern, an armload of bottled water he'd scored at a twenty-
four-hour truck stop while he gassed up, the sleeping bag I'd
found for him in Minnesota, and the two of us. Me on my
back, him straddling my thighs.

He grabbed me by the jaw and kissed me, and pain flared

along my neck, the finger marks he'd made in Marushka's
kitchen. The ache distracted me to the point where it took me
an extra couple of seconds to notice something that wasn't
quite right—but when I did, I gave Bill a shove of my own.
That hurt, too. Both of my hands were mangled.

Wild Bill backed up enough to stare me in the eye. "What

now?"

"You taste like blood."
He smiled, showing fang. It wasn't a very pleasant smile,

either. "Newsflash. That's the only thing on my menu."

"Whose blood?"
"Some guy in the truck stop bathroom. What does it

matter?"

"Oh my God." I'd heard the expression "backpedal" before,

but I'd never physically done it. Wild Bill didn't budge, and I
only succeeded in making the carpet remnant shift on the bed
of the van.

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

"Wait a minute, wait a minute. I said no one else is gonna

drink you. I didn't say anything about me. I've got to spread
myself around, kiddo, no two ways about it. I'd tap you out in
a week if I tried to live off the fruits of your circulatory
system."

What had he said, back there in the kitchen, when my

pulse was pounding in my ears and I was surrounded by the
dancing glint of streetlight off a thousand dangling knives?
It's not about the blood.

Bill cocked his head and looked down at me. "And now

you're mad."

"Don't mock me."
He walked back on his knees and pushed up my shirts.

"Who said I was?" He lowered his mouth to my chest. His lips
were warm. No, hot. Great. Now I'd always be hyperaware of
how warm his lips were, so I could calculate back to the last
time he'd fed, and wonder who the lucky donor was.

"Right here." I felt small puffs of air as Bill spoke against

my stomach. "From here on down, there's not a hair on you."

He rubbed one cheek on my belly, then nuzzled me and

rubbed me with the other. He slipped a hand between my
thighs and fingered the center seam of my jeans. "I
understand jealousy, Mikey. Believe me." A snap, a tug, and
my jeans were around my knees. "Back there in the
apartment—if you'd been hard, from her handling you? I
woulda staked the bitch myself."

"Don't worry. That was the least fun I've ever had naked."

I did my best to play it cool, but the gut-churning jealousy I'd
been feeling turned to lust at the idea of my not-boyfriend

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by Jordan Castillo Price

killing someone just for touching me. And I reminded myself
that it hadn't happened that way. I'd taken care of Marushka
myself. He was probably exaggerating about killing her
anyway, and even if he wasn't, that'd be a pretty warped
reason for me to be attracted to somebody.

He ran his cheek over the crease of my thigh. His chin

nudged my balls, and when he sighed, I felt his breath over
the entirety of my smooth, naked groin. My cock shifted and
started to grow heavy.

Wild Bill sat up. His biker jacket jingled against the wall of

the van, and he peeled off his holey T-shirt with one hand.
The lantern shone on him. His cock, hard and ready, cast a
stark shadow in his faded jeans. I reached out to touch it, had
to twist my hand to brush it with my thumb and avoid poking
it with my duct-taped finger. My other hand wasn't much
better. It had a V-shaped skin flap that Bill had closed with
five stitches of unwaxed dental floss.

"Those the only clothes you have—the ones on your back?"
I nodded.
"They're full of blood. Not yours. Better get them off before

I deconstruct them."

I got naked. Fast.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

Chapter Five

Wild Bill crawled between my legs and shoved me back

into the carpet again. You'd think he'd be a little more gentle,
given what I'd been through that night. But you'd be wrong.

He reached over and turned off the lantern. It was pitch

black where we were parked. The van had no windows in
back, and a flap made from a black rubber non-skid floor mat
separated the back from the front. I don't think either one of
us could see, but I suspected that was the whole idea.

Fingers lit on my hipbones, dragged down my thighs.
"Oh, sweet Jesus."
I hoped that was good.
Bill stroked my legs, down, then up, over and over, and

pretty soon I was warm, too. He fit himself over me—and oh
my God, I'd never been completely naked, just with him. I
was so sleek and bare that I felt small hairs on his thighs and
belly that I'd never noticed before.

And his cock. I felt that plain as anything, maybe even

down to the veins, pressed against my pelvis.

"Squeeze your thighs together," Bill said.
That was more of an order than a request, I think, because

he got his knees around me and clamped my legs together
tight. His breathing was shallow and rapid. The blunt nudge of
his cockhead was unmistakable against my thighs.

"Fuck, oh fuck," he muttered, and I would've opened my

legs to let him ease himself in, but he wouldn't let me. He
crammed his cock in and let his whole weight fall on me,

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

breathing hard in my ear. "Oh, man. You feel incredible. If
I'da known ... I woulda grabbed a razor and shaved my bush
down to the skin, too."

"Where, back at the truck stop? Where you drank some

other guy's blood in the public bathroom?"

Wild Bill's breathy panting altered. A laugh. Maybe. "You

act like I sucked his dick back there. Not his blood."

"Did you?"
He grabbed my hair hard, and moved against me. He was

fucking my thighs. He placed his mouth just over my ear.
"Play it that way, if you want. Maybe when I was a pup like
you, I got off on making people crazy when they shared my
bed. But it was only mind-games, never biology. Not then."

Damn him for being able to talk so much and say so little.

Would it kill him to actually say what he meant?

He crammed his forehead into my hair and nailed my

thighs to the floorboards so hard that the van squeaked. I'd
have bruised hipbones the next day. I wasn't sure about Bill. I
didn't know if vampires bruised.

His hard stomach nudged my cock every time he slammed

his hips into me, and I felt the ridge of his cockhead tickling
my baby-smooth ass cheeks. Our silkiest parts slipped and
slid together, and yeah, it would have been wild if he'd just
shaved too, and my nuts clenched together at the thought of
that, and the idea that the whole van shook from the force of
his thrusts.

He stopped on the downstroke, and pressed his mouth

against my ear. "How do you wanna do this? We got the

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

whole Kama Sutra to run through. Only three rubbers,
though. Limited selection in the bathroom vending machine."

"I want to kiss you, that's what I want. But you taste like

someone else."

Wild Bill rolled off me. I couldn't see him, but I imagined

he was lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling as if he
were stargazing through the top of the van. "You're the
science whiz, so you know damn well that no one can spare a
pint a day. Not for long, anyhow."

Not long at all. Crap. Maybe if I didn't have to see the act

of him drinking from someone else, and if I didn't have to
taste it, ignoring it would be a heck of a lot easier. "What if
you ... finished. With me. Just a swallow. So that I know it's
my blood in your mouth, and not some stranger's."

"You really are determined to live a Harlequin Romance."
And he'd keep trying to see everything so much tawdrier

than it really was. Maybe we'd strike a balance somewhere in
between. I tongued the inside of my cheek, which I'd bit
earlier. It was sore and clotted. My tongue smarted, too, but
it had stopped bleeding seconds after I'd dragged it over Bill's
fang. Even my hand was done bleeding, now that it had its
Frankenstein stitches. "So ... where do you usually bite
people?"

"Only in your oversexed, adolescent jerk-off fantasies."
I acted as if he hadn't just said that. "On the arm? The

chest? The neck?"

Wild Bill sighed loudly, reached over me and grabbed his

jacket, which jingled. A few small packets dropped onto my

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

chest. I put my hand over them. Square, with a round shape
inside. Condoms.

He climbed onto my thighs again. "I don't bite—too dirty,

too painful." There was a spark, a whiff of lighter fluid, and a
dazzling yellow-orange glow. The sight of him straddling me,
knife in one hand, lighter in the other? Oh, man. "I cut."

It was small, as knives went—a butterfly knife, the kind

where the sheath splits open and flips around to become the
handle. I'd had one when I was twelve. So did practically
every other kid on the block. They were cheap Chinese
imports, too dull to cut butter, but we all thought we were
pretty damn cool, flipping them open and shut, and sneaking
them into class in the pockets of our chinos. Bill's knife fit his
hand perfectly. "Where should I start cutting you?"

I stared. My heart stuttered in my chest. I wondered if I

was scared of him, or just so turned on I couldn't tell the
difference between excitement and terror.

I looked from the blade to his eyes, and his pupils were so

huge that his irises looked black, with just a thin sliver of blue
around the edge. "You call it," he said. "The arm? The chest?"
He wet his lips. "The neck?"

I nodded.
The lighter flame dimmed and faded to blue. "You're one

sick puppy." The lighter died and left us in the dark. "I
suppose you want me to be fucking you ... excuse me,
making love to you ... while I do it."

Normally, he probably would have been able to bait me by

talking like that, warping everything about him, about us, into
something dirty. But I'd come too far and been through too

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

much to let him convince me that what we were doing was
wrong. I tore open one of the foil packets with my teeth. The
wrapper split easily, and squirted the slimy condom into my
hand. It stank of spermicide.

Wild Bill hissed when I rolled it on. I was less facile than

usual, my dominant hand stiff with stitches and the other one
taped to a bunch of coffee stirrers, but I managed. "Come on,
Wild Bill. Pound me good while you suck my blood."

That came out really jaded. Maybe he had succeeded in

baiting me a little.

He knocked my legs apart with his knee, picked me up by

my hips and dragged me toward him. His cock prodded my
balls, my ass. "Aim it," he said. His voice was ragged.

I reached down between my legs and fumbled with his

cock. Go slow, that's what I thought. Because it was going to
hurt. But maybe that was fine—maybe I didn't give a damn.

Bill let go of my hip and took himself in hand. The

reservoir tip crinkled as he swirled his cockhead over my ass.
He breathed slow and deep, forcing the air out through
pursed lips. "Can you reach the lantern? I wanna see you."

Undoubtedly, he'd follow that up with something nasty,

like, "when I split you in half with my bad boy." Oh, hell, I
was starting to think like Wild Bill talked. But I reached over
and turned the lantern on low, and the nasty part of the
sentiment never came.

He took me by the hip again, left his cock poised against

my ass, and stared down at me. "You're so fucking pretty."

How was I supposed to answer that?

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

He nudged his cock into me, just the tip, and that

stretched-tight feeling, the invasive burn of getting fucked up
the ass, competed for my attention with the throbbing in my
broken finger and my cut hand and my other cut hand and
my bitten cheek and my bruised neck. The cut he'd drink
from? That was nothing.

I waited for the big push with my hands clutching the

plasticky carpet fiber and my molars clenched together. And I
waited. I realized I'd closed my eyes. I opened them. Bill was
there between my bent knees, my insanely smooth bent
knees, watching me. "What, I'm supposed to beg?"

He swallowed hard enough that his Adam's apple bobbed.

"No. Just checking." He caught his lower lip between his
teeth—I'm assuming he didn't know he flashed a single fang—
and prodded in, shallow and slow.

My eyes squinched shut again.
"We can switch," he said.
I opened one eye. "Let's just do this. I'll get used to it."
The pressure was gone, and I thought for a minute that

he'd changed his mind and was going to insist that I trade
places with him, but then he thrust again, pushed himself into
me a good couple of inches, and I arched up off the carpeting
and into his hands. He smoothed his fingers over my shaved
hips and belly, my naked thighs, and when I finally got my
eyes open again, he had a look on his face I'd be tempted to
call tender. "Okay?" he asked.

I nodded.
Wild Bill folded his body over mine, laid his cheek against

my chest. He couldn't thrust that way, not much, but I

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

wonder if that was even the point. He knelt there with his
body clasped against mine, and I felt splayed open and
awkward, on my back with my butt on his lap, my hips in his
hands, and nothing to grab onto or push against to adjust my
position. It was all up to him.

He rubbed his cheek against my chest, and he rocked our

bodies together. I felt him inside me, big and hard, and
moving so gently that it surprised me that I could feel such a
subtle motion. I draped my arms over his tattooed back and
let out a careful breath. His butterfly knife glinted on the
carpet beside my head. "I don't drink from necks. Too
dangerous."

"Then why did you mention..."
"Too intimate. Kinda like kissing."
Kissing? I could think of a half dozen things he'd done to

me that were way more intimate than kissing.

He steered my hips, rocked into me, and oh ... Oh. I had a

handful of his hair squeezed so hard I almost popped my
stitches. "We even fit where it counts," he said. And not like it
was a good thing.

Why wouldn't it be? I was so hard that a couple of strokes

would finish me if he touched my dick. Or if he drank. Yeah, if
he drank, I was gone for sure. I spread my hands on his bare
back, pressed them flat—well, as flat as I could, given how
mangled they were—and felt the play of his shoulder blades
as they shifted under his skin, the muscles taut, hard and
defined.

I'd known just by looking at him, the way his clothes hung

on him, and the way he moved, that I'd be totally into what

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

was hidden under that tattered leather jacket. It was the
unexpected details that really struck me, though. Like the
way he could be so rough, and yet so sweet. And the
vampire-taste. I couldn't have dreamt that up myself, not in a
million years.

Wild Bill sighed against my chest. He was in deep, and

yeah, I still felt that burn of something big and stiff up my
ass. But that was nothing compared to the rush I got when he
rocked into me just right.

"You're a hell of a sexy breather," he said. "You know

that?"

I held my breath, self-conscious of the way I inhaled and

exhaled now that he'd said something about it. I'd never
thought about breathing—just like I'd never thought about
having hair on my toes.

I'd rubbed off another guy on the varsity track team. I'd

blown my neighbor the first Christmas he'd been home from
college. I'd fumbled through some awkward anal sex with a
kid I met at a concert who'd turned out to be even younger
than I was. But I'd never been with someone who was into
the way I breathed.

"I want to kiss you," I said. "But not with someone else's

blood in your mouth."

"It's long gone."
"But I know it was there. I'll taste it."
Bill pulled out, slow and still strangely gentle, and laid me

down on the filthy scrap of carpet. He kept petting me, over
and over, my belly, my sides, my thighs. I felt self-conscious
of my body now, too, because I was nowhere near as cut as

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

he was, and maybe I should've done a little less web surfing
and a few more crunches, even fifteen minutes a day. But he
didn't seem to care about that. Not at all.

His mouth closed over my cock, and his fangs stroked the

sides. Not only did I gasp, but I made a noise in my throat,
too. He treated me to an encouraging purr. Oh, man. I rode
that spike of pleasure for about a second, and then realized I
wouldn't be able to hold back much longer. "Wait a minute." I
shoved at his head. My finger throbbed.

Wild Bill settled his chin on my groin and tapped my dick

against his face. Without any hair around it, my cock looked
strange. And bigger. Kind of. "What now?" he said.

"I sort of wanted to ... you know, while you, um, drank,

and um..."

He rubbed his cheek against the shaft. "But I like getting

you off two, three times. It's fun."

"I just thought, if you were—" I wanted to say "inside me,"

but I just couldn't bring myself to do it, "—drinking from me,
it would be a little more intense."

I think he inferred my meaning anyway. "That's so porno

movie. Maybe I should show up with a pizza in my hands and
keep my tube socks on while a wah-wah pedal plays in the
background, and we both pull out at the last second and
whack off on each other's faces."

"I don't know what you..."
"Aw, fuck, never mind." He flopped down next to me and

pulled me onto my side, so we were facing each other. "Here.
Wrap those hot fuckin' legs around my ass."

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

I slung my upper leg over him. Oh. It hadn't occurred to

me we could...

The condom crinkled, and Wild Bill flicked his hips, and

there was that burn, familiar now, and oh, man, he was
halfway in like it was nothing at all, and if I looked up his
eyes were right there, staring into mine. "That how you want
it?"

I may have been breathing again. Hard to say. Bill

shimmied into position. I just gawked, and tried not to
breathe too obtrusively.

"What does that face mean?" he asked. He sunk his cock

in while he said it, too—not as deep as if we'd been
missionary, or doggy-style, but I sure felt it.

And I had no idea what my face meant. There was

nowhere to hide it, and maybe that's what he meant by
intimate, the feeling of being exposed and hairless before
your lover, and hoping he doesn't laugh at you. Or leave.

Wild Bill slipped his upper arm under mine and grabbed my

butt cheek. "She even got your crack with that straight razor.
Know that? Know how smooth you feel?"

I was sure it would feel delightful when it grew out. But I

was glad Bill enjoyed the sensation, at least.

"Like you're not dope enough as it is."
I didn't answer him with words, but another breathy sound

escaped me. I hadn't thought having something so big up my
ass could feel so incredible, and especially that I'd get off on
the feeling of his fingertips raking up and down my shaved
crack.

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

Wild Bill pressed his cheek against mine while he moved

his hips, and went in and out, in and out. "You want me to
suck your blood and make you come?"

I had no idea what he was trying to prove, to himself, or

me. "I want you to come. But it'd be better if you didn't
sound so disappointed."

"Don't worry, sweet thing." He pulled back and looked me

in the eye. His pupils didn't look as weird in the lantern light
as they had by the dim glow of the lighter. "Disappointed?
No. I'm lots of things. But not that." He pushed in deep, and I
couldn't keep the eye contact. My eyelids fluttered shut, and
when I pried them open again, he was reaching over me for
the knife.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

Chapter Six

Wild Bill's butterfly knife was no cheap Chinese import. It

was sharp, as sharp as Marushka's straight razor. I realized
as Bill was opening my skin that maybe the neck really wasn't
the best place in the world to cut someone—especially
considering how I'd finished Marushka. But Bill moved fast,
the cut was made, and before I knew it I had his dick up my
ass and his mouth on my throat, and then the indescribable
waves of pleasure started sweeping through me.

Bill fucked my ass, and he drank. I held myself against him

with my arm and my leg. I was whimpering and I didn't care.
I peaked, and Bill kept right on drinking. Every suck pulled
another heaving spurt from me until there was nothing to
shoot anymore, and still the contractions kept coming.

He thrust hard now, and that didn't hurt a bit, not

anymore, not with my whole body wracked in orgasm all
around his cock. And then he sank in deep and held it there,
and I felt his fangs press in on either side of the cut. His
breath hissed out over my throat, and he shuddered.

My neck throbbed where his fangs had marked it. But he

hadn't broken skin with them. I don't think.

Bill maneuvered out of me carefully, tied off the condom

and flung it not-so-carefully into the corner of the van.

I would've normally said something about proper disposal,

but I was too wrung out to do any more than notice. My abs
ached like I'd done a hundred crunches. I felt light-headed
and woozy. I wondered if it was dangerous to orgasm too

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

long. Or if maybe I'd lost too much blood that night, between
the shot I'd given Marushka, and the cut on my hand, and
whatever token amount Wild Bill had just swallowed. At least,
I thought it was a token amount. I touched the side of my
neck. My fingertip came away damp and red.

"You still want to kiss me?" Bill said it as if it was

preposterous.

"God, yes."
He sank down beside me and took me in his arms. Hard to

say exactly what his expression meant. Something wry, and
not entirely pleased. I touched his cheek—not very romantic
with duct-taped, bloody fingers—and pulled his face toward
mine. Our lips brushed.

"Why don't you want to be with me?" I said. "The first

night I met you, you really seemed like you were into it. Was
that just an act, or what?"

"No act." He stared at my mouth. "Well, not that part."

Another kiss. Chaste. Just lips. It hadn't been necessary to
drink my blood and wash away the taste of a stranger, not if
he was going to kiss me like that. But I was glad he'd done it
anyway—for the principle, and not for the minute-long
orgasm. Which was mind-blowing.

I kissed him again, and ran my tongue over his lower lip.

He sighed into my mouth. Knowing it was my blood in there
made a huge difference, whether Bill would admit that it
mattered, or not. It mattered to me.

Wild Bill slipped his arm under my head. I lay there, and

he ran his fingers over my cheek, my shoulder, my biceps, as

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

if he could figure something out by tracing my outline. "I
think you saved my life tonight," I told him.

"Probably." I listened hard for sarcasm, but I couldn't

detect any.

"So, what's the plan? Do we have to ditch the van

somewhere?"

"Hell, no. I bought it, fair and square."
"Oh." Because I saw, back at the truck stop, how Wild Bill

got groceries and gas with a vampire-look, a wink and a
smile. Which was possibly how he'd secured the money to
buy the van. And probably how he'd gotten the blood, too.

"I'd prefer to sleep in a place with a bed and a TV," he

said, "but in a pinch, we can play house in this rust bucket."

I had no doubt the "play house" remark was supposed to

be cynical, but the idea appealed to me anyway. I let it slide.
I figured I'd better pick my battles, since arguing with Wild
Bill would more likely than not leave me both defeated and
confused.

"I'm going to keep hunting bad vampires."
He snorted. "And here I thought you'd rather be a dentist."
Fine, mock. Better than him shutting down and going all

quiet, like he'd been in the kitchen. "You can do it ... with
me."

"My guidance counselor told me that my serial killer skills

were totally lacking. He recommended I look into food
services for a rewarding career. This was back when wooly
mammoths roamed the earth, but I'm guessing it still holds
true today."

"What are you talking about?"

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

"You know. Busboy. Fry cook."
"Not that—the serial killer part."
He trailed his fingertip down my ribs and drew a spiral in

the curve of my waist. "You killed two people that I know of,
and you're already itching to find a fresh target."

"But they were..." Vampires. And so was Wild Bill. Damn it.

"They were murderers," I said, a pretty good save,
considering what I'd almost said.

"Uh-huh."
Or not.
I reached for him, tried to fit the two of us together, but

he'd just ejaculated, and I wasn't really sure what was safe to
touch and what wasn't, especially with me so banged up. Plus
I was shaved, probably full of minute abrasions and cuts that
I'd only feel if I swiped an alcohol pad over my legs or groin.

Wild Bill disentangled himself from me, grabbed a fresh

pack of cigarettes he'd scored at the truck stop, whacked it
on the heel of his hand a few times, tapped one out and lit
up.

He sat naked with his knees bent to his chest and his

elbows resting on them. I tried not to stare at his body, and
failed. He ashed into his cupped palm.

He'd stopped looking at me. When the cigarette was about

half gone, he said, "I think I vamped your head. Didn't mean
to. But I think I did."

I hoped he was talking about the marathon orgasm, and

not me and him, in general. "It felt really good."

"Yeah. I was human once, too. I remember."

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

I wondered what it would take to get Ambrose Gray out of

our relationship. Evidently, killing him wasn't enough.

Wild Bill opened the back door and flicked his still-

smoldering cigarette butt into the grass. The cool night air felt
good in the close, damp smokiness of the van. The overhead
light shone a different color than the yellow glow of the
lantern, brighter, harsher somehow. Bill's voice seemed
harsher now, too. "We've got a few more hours to find a
place. You need a soak. You're covered in blood."

Was I? I touched my neck. The cut he'd made had closed.

I looked at my hands. I'd washed them in Marushka's tub
before I let the water out and set the fire, but I hadn't done a
very good job in my haste, in the dark. Dried blood crusted in
a brown crescent under every fingernail, and in the crease of
each of my knuckles. And worse, it looked like I'd stopped
washing a couple of inches past my wrists. The hair on my
forearms—which she hadn't managed to shave off before the
Rohypnol kicked in—was clotted with streaks and spatters of
blood. Some of it was mine. But most of it wasn't.

Wild Bill was totally dressed by the time I got my jeans

buttoned. My hands felt painful and awkward, and now that
he'd pointed it out, filthy.

A new cigarette dangled from his mouth. He squinted as

the smoke drifted up toward his eyes. "It'd be prudent to
make ourselves scarce, given that you left a gigantic flaming
beacon behind." The cigarette bobbed when he talked. "You
got a preference? East? West? North? South?"

I shook my head. I didn't.

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

"We won't make Omaha by morning. But Sioux City would

work. If I do ninety all the way."

I shrugged.
"Then take care of all your human bodily functions now.

The Iowa Express ain't stopping so you can tinkle."

Bill hopped out the back and stretched his legs. I'd never

thought about vampires needing to stretch their legs. Or
smoking like chimneys. Or being haunted by the memories of
the vampire who'd made them that way.

For someone who thinks as much as I do, I sure hadn't

noticed a hell of a lot, until now.

I hid behind a tree and relieved myself. Did vampires

urinate? I could hardly ask him, but judging by the way he
made it sound like my problem and not his, I was guessing
not.

I zipped up my fly, and noticed that by the moonlight, my

jeans looked like they were splattered with black paint. Blood.
He was right. I was covered in it.

The van's engine started. I climbed into the passenger

seat, and Wild Bill pulled onto a gravel path that led to a dirt
road, that led to a paved road, that led to a highway. He lit
one cigarette from the other, and even with his window open,
the cab filled with smoke.

I picked at the dashboard to give myself something to do.

I burnt my finger looking at the lighter, a glowing coil inside a
tube, attached to a handle. I had always called that hole in
the dash the "lighter," but I'd never thought of it as anything
other than the place you charge your cell and MP3 player.

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

I adjusted my heating vent. A brittle plastic slat snapped

off. I glanced at Wild Bill to see if he'd comment, but he just
squinted ahead through the cigarette smoke, and drove. I
dropped the piece of plastic out the window.

The latch on the glovebox stuck, but with nothing to do but

breathe secondhand smoke, I was willing to jimmy it until it
opened. A stack of papers tumbled into my lap. The papers on
the bottom were weathered and stained, but the top few were
fresh, yellow and pink copies of carbonless forms. Title.
Registration.

I opened up the title and stared. Michael McKinnon Davies.

"You registered the van to me."

"Uh-huh."
I blinked. My name didn't go away. "Are you crazy?"
Wild Bill didn't answer. I looked at him. He stared at the

road, expressionless. "I couldn't give 'em my own John
Hancock. I'm dead. Even got a headstone outside Rockford."

"You could've used a fake name. My family's looking for

me. God. Now I'll pop up on some DMV database."

"Send mommy and daddy a postcard and tell 'em you're

off finding yourself. It's better than letting them think you're
dead in a ditch."

I stared hard at the form and tried to will my name off it.

Damn it. "So what's your name?"

"It's Bill."
"Bill what?"
"What's it matter? That Bill died in 1987."
I propped my feet on the dash in an attempt to curl in on

myself and stared at the title by the on-again, off-again

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

illumination of the passing streetlights. I couldn't believe I'd
need to deal with my family now. I didn't have time for it.
And they'd never be satisfied with a postcard.

On the other hand, the mere idea of having the van in my

name made me weak-kneed and giddy. Sure, Wild Bill could
still duck out in Sioux City, or any other city, for that matter.
But he wouldn't have gone through the trouble of sun
proofing the back if he was planning on taking off.

Bill pulled off the interstate and into a shabby motor court.

The adjacent gas station sold lottery tickets and diesel fuel. A
hand-lettered sign hung in the diner window, biscuits and
gravy for $2.99. The motel hadn't seen a paint job since the
year Bill was turned, or earlier.

Wild Bill cut the engine and stared at the gas station. It

was quarter past five, and the sky was pre-dawn opaque. I
wondered what would happen if he were caught in the
sunlight. I suspected he wouldn't tell me, not in so many
words. But even though he wouldn't just come out and tutor
me in Vampirism 101, it didn't mean I couldn't figure out a
thing or two, if I just paid attention.

"Do I have to sleep with one eye open?" he said.
"Huh?"
"You heard me."
"But I don't know what you're talking about."
He sagged back into his seat and looked into the pack of

cigarettes he'd opened after we made love. It was empty. He
threw it on the floor. "Maybe you thought you were being
subtle, but I picked up on your mission statement anyway."

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

Was he asking me what I thought he was asking? "You

don't count. I told you, I'm just after the bad vampires."

"Define bad."
"Well ... they kill people, enough of them that I can spot a

pattern, and use it to find them."

Bill fiddled with the dashboard lighter. "What if you've got

the wrong vamp?"

I'll admit, a couple of months ago I wouldn't have cared.

I'd thought they were all monsters and figured that the only
good vampire was a vampire with a stake through his heart
and a mouth stuffed with garlic. Then I met Wild Bill, and I
needed to take stock and admit that vampires were as
different from one another as people.

That they are people.
"I'll need to make sure I'm not wrong. I was right about

Marushka."

"Uh-huh." He picked up the broken stake from the console,

looked at it, and put it back down. "So how'd you kill her?"

It's not as if there were tons of options available at the

time. The stake hadn't worked, so obviously ... I pulled
Marushka's straight razor from my pocket and dropped it
beside the stake. "I cut off her head."

He hardly glanced at it. "Right. Wait here a sec." He strode

to the office, was inside maybe three minutes, came back to
the van, opened the door, and nailed me in the side of the
head with a room key.

"Jesus—that really hurt."
No sense in complaining. Bill wasn't listening. He'd already

slammed the driver's side door shut.

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

I tucked the broken stake under the seat and pocketed

Marushka's razor, and then I went to our room and tried the
door. One bed. Something fluttered inside my chest. I was
grinning like a moron. I gnawed at the swollen clot on the
inside of my cheek until I subdued my expression, and then I
turned around and looked for Bill.

He was way across the lot in the gas station. I watched

him through the plate glass window. He pointed at the
cigarettes, and then the candy bars, and the clerk stacked
them on the counter. Bill pointed at something else, and the
attendant shook his head. Bill leaned in close. He looked
pretty motivated. The guy behind the counter gave an "oh
well" kind of shrug, unlocked a cabinet and handed him a
small bottle from it. Bill walked out without paying.

"What was that all about?"
"Some dumbass liquor law. No sales after two a.m." He

handed me a Kit Kat and shrugged out of his jacket. It
sounded like chain mail when it hit the floor.

"That's okay," I said. "I don't want a drink right n..."
The black plastic top cracked like knuckles when he twisted

it off. He dropped it beside his jacket, tipped his head back,
and chugged. I watched his throat work. A big bubble
traveled up from the neck of the bottle, then another, and
another. When the bottle was completely drained, Bill
dropped that on the floor, too.

"I thought you couldn't drink."
He went in the bathroom and slammed the door shut. I

looked down at the bottle. Jack Daniels. I picked it up and

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

sniffed it, figuring it was some kind of gag, colored water,
maybe. I blinked. No gag. That was whiskey.

And then the vomiting started.
I tried the bathroom door. It was locked. I guess he didn't

want anyone to hold his head. I sniffed the bottle again, and
tried to trace my steps backwards, kind of like I did when I
lost my house keys. It was no good. Everything that had
happened since we got to the motel made as much sense to
me as a videotape with random bits and pieces of TV taped
over the original content.

I opened the Kit Kat and inhaled it before I even realized I

was starving. Even the sound of retching hadn't dampened
my appetite.

For lack of anything useful to do, I paced the room. In the

light, my jeans looked like they'd just come through that
prom scene from Carrie. I perched on the edge of one of the
chairs and leaned back carefully. There was a plastic sign on
the table that read "Thanks for not smoking." I laughed. My
voice was rough from secondhand smoke.

I knuckled something out of my eye that could have been

sleep, old eyeliner, or maybe dried blood. I'd never seen so
much blood. It looked blackish red in the candlelight. I'm not
sure if that was because it was vampire blood, or because it
was so dark in the room. I could ask Wild Bill what color
vampire blood was, but would he tell me? Fat chance.

Eventually, the vomiting stopped. The shower ran for a few

minutes, and finally Wild Bill emerged—naked, with his hair
towel-dried and sticking out every which way. He crammed
the corner of a washcloth into his ear and screwed it in deep.

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

"Normally I would've invited you to join me," he glanced at
my jeans, "but not tonight."

He got into bed. The whiskey must've left him pretty

nauseated if he couldn't scrape up the motivation to disobey
the little plastic sign.

Something was bothering him, obviously, but I doubted

that he'd just lay it all out there if I asked. Probably the
opposite. I'd get some cryptic remark that just made things
more convoluted.

I couldn't help but check the toilet for blood spatter. There

was none. Either he'd aimed well, or he'd cleaned up after
himself.

Me, on the other hand? I got a look at myself in the mirror.

The vampire blood on my forehead and cheeks was plenty
red. Even dried.

I turned on the tub faucet and peeled off my T-shirt.

Wringing it out was a bitch, and it made my stitches ooze. I
stood no chance of getting my shirt clean, let alone my jeans,
not if I was wringing them with my mangled hands.

I took off my boots, pulled the shower toggle, and stepped

in. Red water pooled around my feet, stained my socks fleshy
pink. It was sort of like dyeing my hair. Except the water
wasn't tinted with hair dye. And I didn't rinse hair dye off with
my clothes on.

I turned and let the water pound my back. My hand wasn't

fit to steady me against the shower wall, so I leaned into it
with my shoulder, staring at the water at my feet. Red, red,
red, like it would never run clear. When I'd seen water
running red with blood in movies, it had always looked scary.

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

But I wasn't scared. Mostly I was tired, and I wished it would
hurry up and wash away.

Blood bothered Bill, though, which didn't really make

sense. He was a vampire, and blood was supposed to appeal
to him. Maybe it was the sight of the straight razor that had
done it. I'd shown him that, and he went for a pint of Jack.

I hunted vampires. That's what I did. It wasn't as if he

didn't know that when he met up with me in South Dakota.

Eventually, the water turned pale pink. I stripped off my

clothes and hung them over the shower rod. I faced the
shower spray and opened my mouth, let the warm water beat
against my teeth and tongue, my eyes, my hair. Blood had
misted me everywhere. I scrubbed myself with the cheap
hotel soap, because if I overlooked anything, Bill would notice
and be weird about it. I scoured my whole body from my
naked toes to my stubbly face. I needed a shave. Which was
pretty ironic.

I dreaded the idea of climbing into soaking wet clothes

later on, but I couldn't wring them out myself, either. Not
with my stitches and my splint. I considered asking Wild Bill
to help me, but thought better of it. Rolling my jeans in Bill's
discarded towel, I tried to wick as much moisture out of them
as I could, then I hung them over the towel bar. I did the
same with my socks and underwear and draped them over
the heater vent. I did my best to reshape the necks of my
stretched-out shirts where they hung over the shower curtain
rod. And then I figured I couldn't put it off any longer. I'd
have to go find out if Bill had changed his mind while I was in
the shower.

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

Dressed in nothing but the last dry towel, I went to see if

he was even in the room anymore, or if he'd decided I was
more trouble than I was worth.

An infomercial for the latest and greatest food storage

bags played on the TV, and Bill was in bed with the covers
pulled up over his head. I looked at the curtains. They were
the rubber-backed, room-darkening type that's typical of
motels. Ugly and functional. They covered the windows fairly
well, but there were gaps around the edges where some light
could filter in. "Do we need to lightproof the room?"

"It faces north. We're fine."
He'd positioned himself on one side of the bed. I took that

to mean that I was welcome to the other. I turned off the TV,
got in, lay on my back, and pulled the sheets up to my neck.
Wild Bill rolled to face me, grabbed the damp towel and
shoved it to the foot of the bed. He pressed into my side, and
we were skin to skin, the whole length of us. His body
temperature seemed low. I wasn't sure if that was from
throwing up whatever blood he hadn't yet digested, or if he
just felt that way to me because I was overly warm from my
marathon hot shower.

He pressed his cool lips to the cut on my throat he'd fed

from, and said, "That story about vamps being unconscious
and completely helpless from sunup to sundown? Not true. I
meant what I said about sleeping with one eye open. In case
you were thinking of trying something stupid."

I tried to analyze the sound of his voice, the inflection, and

figure out if he was serious, or kidding. I hoped he was
kidding. "I'm out of stakes, anyway."

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

He sniffed. A half-laugh. Thank God. Relief flooded me. I

thought I'd been steeled to see an empty bed when I came
out of the bathroom, but I hadn't, I totally hadn't. I turned
onto my side, peeled down the covers, and tried to see him
by the glow of the digital clock. I touched his cheek, his jaw.
"I would never hurt you."

"I'm doing my best not to think about where your hands've

been, and you keep on bringing it up."

I was tired, and sore, and I really, really didn't want to

fight with him. I pressed my lips against his. Things worked a
lot better between us when neither of us was talking.

I parted his lips with mine, and tasted a residual Jack

Daniels alcoholic sweetness. I wished he could have a drink, if
that would make him feel better. He burrowed his hand
through the covers until he found my shaved thigh. He
stroked it, and sighed into my mouth.

I reached down between us and took his dick in my hand,

pumped it loosely. His body responded to my touch. Once he
was hard, I guided him between my thighs since he seemed
so fascinated by the feel of them. I pressed my legs together.

"Uhn, yeah." He spoke against my mouth, breathing hard

now, and still kissing me, too. Loose, tired kisses, exhausted
kisses. Needy and wet.

We laced our arms over each other's bodies and held one

another by the rump. I loved the way his butt felt, smooth
and muscular, the round curve of it, and the concavity at the
side when he flexed, when he pushed himself between my
sleek thighs.

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

He sank his fingers into my shaved crack and moaned

against my mouth.

I thought I should probably get a condom. But whatever

little nicks or cuts I'd had from being shaved, I was sure they
were closed. Unless they'd opened again in the shower. I felt
the length of Bill's cock, the ridge under the head gliding over
my shaved butt cheeks, and I got a little rush from the idea
of him coming on me. Vampire come. Which would probably
smell ... and taste ... like vampire.

My mouth watered.
Bad idea. My entire inner cheek was a giant blood clot, and

I'd cut my tongue earlier on one of his fangs. Whatever
pathogens his semen carried would have an open invitation to
my bloodstream through my mouth.

But how bad would that be, really? Vampires weren't

inherently evil, and I wouldn't mind being stronger, faster...

A fang brushed my lip, and my body stiffened. I'd just

considered letting Bill turn me. Encouraging him to do it. I
forced my body to relax against Bill's, to resume the sweaty,
smooth grind that had us both breathing hard and loud. If I
were to let him turn me, it shouldn't be something I did on
the spur of the moment where I indulged myself in a greedy
impulse to swallow his come.

I arched my back and stroked Bill's cock between my

thighs. I don't think he noticed the pause, the half second
where I'd almost told him to make a vampire out of me.

His tongue glided over mine. He sucked my top lip into his

mouth, worked it, then switched to my lower lip. My mouth
felt tingly and hot. He snuck a fingertip up my ass. A thrill

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

shot through me. I'd only slept with him a few times, and
already my body was figuring out what to do, what to feel,
when we touched. I slid my fingers into his butt crack and
stroked his ass. He shuddered against me, and pumped his
hips harder.

He pressed his forehead against mine and breathed hard. I

think his body was streamlining its messages to his brain,
too. How else could we account for the fact that every time
we made love, it was better, more intense? "Are you close?" I
whispered. "You feel close."

"I can't tell you the last time I had a two-fer." His voice

shook. "But ... yeah."

My cock ached for him, all the years he'd denied himself

pleasure and subverted his desires into ... whatever it was
he'd done with himself. I didn't think he'd tell me, not just
yet. He wouldn't even tell me his last name.

I wanted to be the one to make him come, but every place

on my body that I could offer was either sliced up or newly
shaved. "I'll get a condom," I said.

Wild Bill grabbed my butt hard enough to bruise. "Don't

go," he breathed into my mouth.

My cock throbbed, and left a damp spot of pre-ejaculate on

his stomach. "I want to make you come."

He rolled onto his back and pulled me along with him. My

body covered his, and my hair fell forward to shield both our
faces from the glow of the clock radio. "Make me come," he
said. "Fuck me 'til I shoot."

I hesitated.
"What, is that too crude for your tender sensibilities?"

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

"No, I mean..." How was it safe for me to penetrate him,

but not the other way around? It made no sense to me that
vampirism was transmitted via semen, and semen only. What
about blood? Or lymph? Or saliva? Did we even need to
bother with condoms, when every time we kissed, I sliced my
tongue open on his fangs—on purpose? "We don't have any
lube."

Wild Bill let go of my butt and flung his arms open on the

bed. "Fine. Get a rubber. At least we won't have to do
contortions around the wet spot all day."

I found a condom in my jacket pocket, tore open the

packet and rolled it on. I saw Bill only as a few gentle green
highlights. He lay on his back with his knees bent, watching
me. I'm guessing he saw me just fine.

I climbed into bed. He urged me into place between his

legs, and then he pulled his knees to his chest.

"I liked the way we did it in the van," I said. Holding each

other. Kissing.

"I thought you would, loverboy. Get it started, and then

we'll tangle ourselves up and make out. 'Kay?"

I ran my fingertips over his balls and ass, and wondered if

I'd manage to do it wrong. I eased my finger into him, and
his breath hissed in. He was a sexy breather, too. I took hold
of my cock and lined it up, and pushed.

And made a really loud, satisfied noise.
"Fuck, yeah." Wild Bill undulated, and his body rode up my

hard cock.

Tight, oh God, so tight. I'd never last. Damn. "I'm gonna

come..."

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

"Relax." He let his legs drop to the mattress with my dick

deep inside him, and pulled me down against his chest. I
rested my cheek on his shoulder, and breathed carefully. He
stroked my back, from my shoulder to my butt, and then it
was as if he just remembered my shaved parts, and started
stroking my thighs eagerly. I brushed my lips along his jaw,
his throat.

I wondered what would happen if I drank his blood. That's

how people became vampires in the movies. Or sometimes
just by letting the vampires drink from them night after night.

I found some leverage with my knees, and I rocked into

him.

"So fuckin' sweet," he muttered, and he pressed kisses

into my hair. "I'm gonna jack myself. You put your hand over
mine."

Did he know I was worried about him contaminating my

hand? Or did he just figure that my grip was clumsy from my
injuries? I rounded my back so we could slip our hands
between us, and hoped it was the second reason, and not the
first.

Wild Bill pumped his cock, and his body squeezed at me. I

groaned and turned my face up for a kiss. His mouth fastened
over mine. He gripped my butt with his free hand and guided
my hips, his body straining, encouraging me to bury my cock
deep inside. I found an angle, a rhythm, and the feel of him
under me—writhing, trembling—was indescribably heady.

I thrust faster, closer in time to the punishing rhythm he'd

set on himself with his hand, and we spiraled up quickly. I
moved gently, then, so we could linger over each other's

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

mouths, with our bodies tensed and sweat sliding between us.
When the knife-edge of pleasure flagged, I sped up again,
angling myself differently to keep it fresh, to make sure we
rubbed together everywhere we could rub.

And then I slowed, and worshipped his mouth again.
Wild Bill turned his head and panted. "Finish me, kid.

You're killing me."

Instead I stirred myself around, found a new angle of

attack. I thrust slow and deep, and raked my teeth over his
jaw until he turned his face to mine and let me have his
mouth again. We kissed, hard. Our hands made jerky motions
on his cock, in no particular rhythm, and his abdominal
muscles went rigid as he flexed his back and pled with his
body for release.

My hair was stuck to my forehead, and my chest was slick

against Bill's. I pulled my mouth from his, and he gasped,
panted. I angled myself for the final climb and picked up my
pace. "Fuck, yeah, right there, sweet mercy..."

Wild Bill, saying that to me ... oh, man. I saw my peak

coming, and I kept going, pushed toward it. I buried my face
in the crook of his neck and thrust hard, trembling with the
effort of keeping it even and deep, and his arm went stiff, and
he made the most beautiful sound, deep in his throat.

I clamped down on his neck and thrust deep, careless now,

because he was there already and all I had to do was join
him. I sucked at his flesh, sweet and strange, like green
moss, like a cool freshwater lake. And I came hard, heedless
of how mercilessly I was thrusting now—and if vampires could
bruise, I was probably bruising him. And all the while he

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

murmured in my ear, "Yeah, baby, yeah, come hard, come
inside me..."

I peaked, and it was like a lightning strike, swift and

intense. And then a thunderclap of excruciating fatigue
followed. I almost collapsed on him. Almost. But at the last
minute I levered myself away from his vampire seed and
landed on my back beside him.

"Holy hell, kid. Way to own my ass."
"Don't call me 'kid'." I couldn't bear to let him know how

much it had meant to me to make him feel good. I was in no
shape for a victory dance. Even if I couldn't squelch the urge
to do one, I was so exhausted, hurt so badly all over my
body, that I was slurring my words.

He fished my bath towel from the foot of the bed and

wiped off his belly. I couldn't see the trashcan, so I dropped
my condom over the side of the mattress.

"Can you reach my smokes?"
I contemplated moving my arm. "No."
We lay there and stared in the general direction of the

ceiling, and I realized that I could sort of see it. The edges of
the curtains glowed gently.

Bill rolled out of bed, groaned, and headed for the

bathroom. My sweat cooled and dried, and I drifted in and out
of the early stages of sleep to the sound of running water.

He came back to bed warm and wet. "You used up all the

towels." He settled against me and hooked his leg over mine.

I pulled the corner of the blanket over my head. Once I'd

made sure we were both tucked in, I took a deep, slow
breath, let it out, and tried to convince myself that it was only

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

my exhaustion that made voluntary vampirism seem like a
workable plan. The alkaline scent of bleach pervaded the
sheets, and the two of us smelled like cheap motel soap. I
smelled of sex. And Bill still smelled vaguely like whiskey—but
also like wet stone with a hint of patchouli.

Like vampire.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Channeling Morpheus: Manikin

by Jordan Castillo Price

Jordan Castillo Price

Jordan Castillo Price grew up in the steel mill warrens of

Buffalo, NY, spent some formative drinking years in Chicago,
and migrated north to small-town rural Wisconsin once she
realized she was going to kill the next person who bumped
into her with a shopping cart. She did a six-year stint in art
school and played bass in a punk band that crashed and
burned just before their first CD was pressed. At least she got
a cool boyfriend out of the deal, since she ran off with the
drummer.

Jordan has a weekly show on erotica writing tips and

techniques at www.packingheat.net. She suspects some of
her listeners aren't much interested in writing, and just tune
in to hear her say naughty words.

Readers interested in freebies, snippets, and peeks into

the writing process should check out JCP News, a monthly
newsletter where Jordan posts links to free eBooks and
serialized M/M stories. Visit www.jordancastilloprice.com to
sign up.