8. Holy Wine

Seth agrees with his wife; the blond boy is beautiful.  They’ve watched him for the last five minutes, since he strode into the bar with the purposeful rhythm of a man trying not to appear quite as drunk as he is.

7. Euphoria

Passion is always a mystery and unaccountable, and unfortunately there is no doubt that life does not spare its purest children; often it is just the most deserving people who cannot help loving those that destroy them.

            - Herman Hesse

“Good morning, sweetie,” Mallory breathes in his ear as he wakes.  “Ready to be reborn?” 

“No,” Billy says casually, sitting up in bed.  “I’ve changed my mind.  Would you mind terribly?” 

Mallory tuts and pretends to think about it.  Before she can come up with an appropriately sarcastic answer, Billy has dived on top of her.

“Happy birthday,” Seth says from the doorway.  He shrugs off his robe and joins them.  It occurs to Billy, as he finds himself fellated, bitten and sodomised all at once, that this might not exactly be how everybody imagines turning twenty-one.

***

Interlude: Billy's Playlist

Billy is something of a mystery to Seth and Mallory.  While they are usually able to work out a person's story fairly easily, Billy has remained a closed book.  "Billy" isn't even his real name.  He's running from something, that's for sure, diving headfirst into sensory overload to avoid his ghosts.  Below are a few songs you might find in his battered, liquor-stained iPod.  In contrast to the more retro, melancholy tastes of his vampire bedfellows, these are the choices of a wild young thing who is very much of the modern age.

6. In The Garden Of Earthly Delights

“How did you two meet?”  Billy asks.

The three of them are on the bed.  Mallory lies on her back, taking care to stay still while Seth rolls a cigarette on her stomach.  Billy is sprawled across the foot of the bed; looking, for all intents and purposes, like a very expensive, spoiled pet.

“It was the late eighties,” Seth begins.