Edited: 01/11/23

Parting his eyes, Darren looked up into the inside of his long black velvet coat from the Future of Earthly Delites Tour or, as it was known in the US, the To the Moon and Back Tour. His head had landed squarely between the matching boots. As he continued to gaze into the trailing ends that swayed and dusted over his face, he was amazed that there was still glitter on it after all these years.

“Darren?” Daniel’s voice came again. It was angry and sloppy with alcoholism as it always was.

“Give me a second, Daniel,” Darren responded. Truth was, he wanted to lay on the closet floor until Daniel disappeared, but he knew that wouldn’t happen. He wanted him and he wouldn’t leave until he got what he wanted.

Sitting up from where Daniel knocked him when opening the door, Darren pushed the spilled plastic body parts of the trashed Star Wars figures over to the side, beneath hanging clothes and among shoes. Grabbing his phone, he quickly tucked it into his pocket. He was taking his time about everything. He didn’t want to see Daniel as he hated looking at him. The smell of him was bad enough.

“Hurry up, sunshine!” Daniel barked.

Darren hated being called sunshine. It meant something different in Australia than in America. Essentially, Daniel was calling him a crybaby bitch, but Darren was not such a thing. He didn’t cry or whine at how Daniel treated him. It was rare he fussed or talked back. He just silently accepted it. Getting angry and retaliating would only make it worse.

Finally standing before Daniel, Darren looked at the frail tree of a man who he once thought was a handsome prince. However, he looked like a blond Lucifer with his bloodshot eyes, etched scowl, dried blood stains around his mouth, and limp, unwashed hair. At his height, Daniel could make anyone seem small. Next to him, Darren looked like a measly whelp even with his solid stature, though he was a little over average height. Nowadays, the height difference was unbearably obvious and uncomfortable as he stood over him emanating aggression.

The closet was huge with six sections, rooms, rather, but standing close to Daniel made Darren feel like the two of them were stuffed in a coffin with the lid nailed shut. He remembered there was a time when his heart would thump, his stomach would squirm, and his flesh prickled at being close to Daniel. Now his skin wanted to rip free of his bones and sprint away.

“The junior Bouchard 1883,” Daniel demanded. Darren stared at him blankly no doubt thinking he had enough to drink. Growing impatient, Daniel flicked his head toward the door and snapped, “Go on then!”

Darren sighed and left the immense closet for the even greater duplex that they owned. They lived at Rafinesque Place located in Carnegie Hill. One of the, if not the poshest, vampire apartment complexes in New York. There was a choice between apartments, condominiums, and the penthouse. There were sixty-six floors and they lived on the fifty-third floor with the top level on the fifty-fourth floor.

Darren loved the complex that had been standing since 1908. Its history was etched inside and out with a rich neo-Gothic style. The outside was sheathed in limestone-colored terracotta panels. Each panel had a slightly different color to give a polychrome effect. The colors used were shades of blue, green, sienna, and rose.

Some of the complex’s windows were set in arched frames. The spandrels of the frames had golden Gothic tracery against a bright blue background. Some spandrels consisted of the iconography of the vampiric world. Bats, spiders, ankhs, double V’s to represent the fangs, wolves, rats, the All-Seeing Eye, crosses, the Star of David, and pentagrams were used.

The entrances and exits of the complex, twelve in all, were divided into bays with an attic above each. The main entrance on Tracy Avenue was a Tudor arch, surrounded by two bays. One bay was narrower than the main arch, and the other was wider. The five bays made a triumphal arch with a balcony and stone Gothic motifs. There were niches in the intrados of the arch. The All-Seeing Eye was in the top niche, the lowest niches had wolves, and the rest were phases of the moon. The spandrels on both sides of the arch depicted crosses. Above this was an ogee arch with more niches and two carvings of bats hovering above a double V monogram. Rats decorated the niches on the sides of the entrance. Inside the triumphal arch was a smaller arch housing a revolving door and a Tudor window. It was flanked by standard doors and framed with decorations. Above the smaller arch was a spider. The north and south entrances were almost identical and fed into the arcaded lobby.

The facade of the complex had vertical piers that protruded diagonally. Horizontal belt courses ran above some stories. Some stories were separated by dark-bronze spandrels. One story had a canopy of projecting terracotta ogee arches. These features created the effect of merging with the atmosphere. Higher up, a tall copper roof with complex tracery topped the canopies. There were also turrets and tourelles making for cozy nooks, of which one was located on the upper floor of Darren and Daniel’s condominium. The design of the building was utterly light, graceful, delicate, and flame-like.

The interior of the building was just as lavish as the exterior. The swimming pool, the Harlot’s Den, a place of debauchery where you could rent belle and beau sang, Famish, the restaurant, and Hema, the bar whose name was a play on the prefixes of other words for blood cells, were all in the basement. There was also a tunnel that led to others linking vampire-run establishments and other apartment complexes. The living quarters of Rafinesque Place were lavish, comfortable, and spacious with high ceilings, and rosewood walls and panels. The carpets were a plush beige like vanilla.

It wasn’t that Darren was into architecture or anything, but he was immortal and for twenty-two years he was laying low and not doing what he loved to do, so he had plenty of time to explore and research the structure that he lived in. At that moment, his mind was going over all the beautiful details as a way to avoid the wrecked living room as he crossed the condominium to the kitchen.

The kitchen had a path straight through to their other living room where Daniel’s grand piano lay in ruin. The rear leg was broken off and the tail was on the floor. The kitchen was nice and immense. It was clean and unused since Darren and Daniel weren’t old enough to eat human food. Behind the kitchen was the wine storage that covered an entire wall. The area was narrow and barely fit two people.

Stepping into the wine area, Darren’s eyes immediately went to the row of bottles at the very top of the wall beneath the ceiling. There they were, bottles of Bouchard 1883, dry ass cabernet sauvignon, junior variety, as the labels stamped on the corks read. Junior blood wine was blood drained from a human that was extremely inebriated with wine. Whereas classic blood wine was a mix of blood and wine, and the grand variety was a mix of wine and junior blood wine. Only pupe and older could drink classic and grand blood wine.

Why the fuck couldn’t he get this shit? Darren asked himself as he moved the rolling shelf ladder to the area where the wine was located. Daniel always had him retrieve the wine instead of getting it himself. A thought then struck Darren. Daniel was always drunk off his ass. If he climbed the ladder he could fall and hurt himself, or worse, sever his spinal cord by breaking his neck, which could kill a vampire. Even with how shitty he treated him, Darren still loved Daniel. He didn’t know why but he did.

Climbing the ladder to the top row, Darren retrieved the bottle and carried it to the kitchen. Daniel followed and waited for him to open it. “Go on to the lounge,” Darren said. “I’ll bring it to you.”

Daniel didn’t grudge Darren as he retired to the living room. Darren watched through the passthrough window as he sat at his bloodstained and beaten keyboard, which he basically used as a TV tray. It was sad how far he had fallen.

Darren knelt before the stove and retrieved the corkscrew from the broiler. He then proceeded to open the bottle of wine and returned the tool to its hiding place among the knives. The sharp kitchen tools were hidden because Daniel had tried to kill himself by shoving the corkscrew into his chest. It was a miracle he was a musician and not a physician. He completely missed his heart. The episode had terrified Darren and he beseeched Daniel to get help, but the advice was greeted with a hateful retort.

Carrying the bottle into the living room, Darren set it on the keyboard. Daniel snatched it up and took a long chug, his laryngeal prominence bobbing as he gulped. Darren stared at his throat. There was a time when that long neck would entice him, and he would paint sweet bloody kisses along its length.

“Why the fuck are you staring at me?” Daniel snapped when he was finished drinking. “Sit the fuck down.”

Darren moved into the living room and sat on the white blood-smeared couch. A brown wooden coffin was in front of him, being used for a coffee table. It was slightly uncovered, and all types of miscellaneous crap littered the lid.

If Darren had read about it or heard it from someone else, the story of the coffin would have been funny. After Daniel had wrecked the living room, he had a coffin delivered. When Darren asked what it was for, his answer was, “I’m a fucking vampire Darren, I might as well sleep like one!” One evening, believing that Daniel was at the bar getting shit-faced, Darren poured himself a glass of warm blood and settled in the living room. He set his glass on the coffin lid and it popped off when Daniel rose out of it, sending the blood on the couch and carpet. Daniel had slept in the coffin a few more days but ultimately returned to their bed.

The living room was a disaster and Darren was just too depressed and done to bother cleaning it. In the fireplace were the charred remains of one of Daniel’s guitars and next to that was the built-in bookcase with its destroyed shelves broken and splintered on the floor, with some hanging from the wall. That was the shelf that had been adorned with his Star Wars figures. He avoided looking at it.

Turning on the smart TV, Darren put on The Rise of Skywalker. He sat back on the couch tucking his leg under the bent one and wrapped his fingers around his knee. Star Wars always eased his mind. Usually, he watched Star Wars movies and shows when Daniel wasn’t there, but he decided to put it on anyway.

Life hurt. Darren hurt. Daniel was never physically or sexually abusive. It was all emotional, verbal, and mental. Honestly, Darren was thankful for that after the childhood he had, but yes, Daniel regularly assaulted him verbally. He shaved and grew his hair out because Daniel said his haircut made his head look huge and the beard made him look like he had been eating dirt. Darren had retorted by saying Daniel looked like a goosenecked anorexic giraffe. The gooseneck bit was redundant as giraffes had long necks, but it was funny. At the time, they laughed about everything, and wanting to please Daniel, Darren made the changes. He loved him…He still did.

“Christ, Darren!” Daniel exclaimed. “Can you change this shit? I’m sick of Star Wars all the bloody time!”

“All right,” Darren replied and switched to a cooking show. He wasn’t paying it any attention. Why would he? He just wanted some noise to deaden the stale silence between them. After Daniel’s downfall, he cried his eyes out silently every night lying beside him in bed. He had no more tears. He was truly a victim in the grind.

Daniel was unfaithful, Darren believed though he had no idea with whom. He told himself several times that he was being paranoid as he couldn’t smell anyone on him, but then he thought about the camouflaging herbs that voodoo women sold. One thing was sure, he wasn’t having sex with Darren. Darren’s mind was so far away from sex that he didn’t even please himself. He was sad and the situation was sad.

“I’m going to bed, sunshine,” Daniel announced as he let the empty bottle fall to the floor with a dull thump on the carpet.

“Good night,” Darren muttered.

Daniel stumbled down the hall and soon Darren heard his heavy feet clunking on the stairs. He stunk like a cesspool from hell. Vampires didn’t sweat, shit, or piss, but just like an old house can get dirty, dusty, and musty with disuse and no maintenance, so could the vampire body. He resolved not to sleep in the bed beside his fallen partner. Instead, he turned off the TV and sat in the dark.

The view of Central Park lit up at night was outside the window, but Darren didn’t budge to look like he often did. He silently waited for dawn. There were light-blocking panels in all the apartments in the complex. They could be scheduled to cover the windows at daybreak. Sometimes Darren wished theirs would malfunction so he would burn to a crisp. He wondered if Daniel would change then or sink deeper if that were possible. Soon, the panel slid over the window and Darren died in the same position he was sitting in. His head was bent forward, ebony strands hid his face, and his arms relaxed on either side of him. The only peace he achieved was that granted in his sleep.

belle sang: French. Female, beautiful blood
laryngeal prominence: Adam's apple, a feature of the human neck formed by the angle of the thyroid cartilage around the larynx