“Why didn’t you see it before now?”
“Before today I was never invited up here. The previous owners acted reluctant about receiving unexpected guests.” Athan’s intense gaze snapped back to my face and assaulted my eyes. “Thank you for acting so gracious toward me.”
Ha, obviously the previous owners were blind or, yeah right, not partial to burly, nearly naked, handsome Greek gods roaming on their beach. What a pair of snobs! I never knew the noble pair since I impulsively bought this island a year ago after seeing it online. I paid taxes, paid Korina, paid for maintenance, but, in my typically wasted and grandly callous manner, I never visited my expensive and supposedly haunted new toy until this month. Now I wished I’d traveled here the second I signed the deed.
My common sense tried nudging me. No. Go away. I knew this man. I knew he wished me no harm.
I knew.
Feeling inspired I gestured toward the secretive villa and offered my guest my charming smile. “Athan, would you enjoy a villa tour?”
“Yes, a tour sounds delightful.” Athan held out his hand to me and smiled in complete acceptance. Fuck me, the buff boy definitely read my mind. I grasped his large hand again and turned toward the villa. The white walls beckoned in supreme beauty. Before we continued, I slowly gazed around the twilight-embraced island and shook my head in bewilderment. Amazing how even under the approaching gloaming everything truly looked brighter and sharper. Amazing how I felt so renewed, so focused. What was wrong with me? Or, confess, what was right with me?
I hoped within the next few minutes pure, wet rapture told me the truth. My hand squeezed Athan’s, then we walked to the villa and continued up to my large second-floor bedroom. Instead of using the bleak electric lights I quickly lit candles. Without hesitation Athan tossed aside his snug bathing suit and revealed a potent cock. His power needed to explore my flesh. Mmm, when I removed my red Speedo, his eyes filled with sincere appreciation, then Athan extended his muscular arms toward me in a strangely religious gesture. I willingly became his supplicant and folded against his comforting yet surprisingly cool body. For some bizarre reason being cuddled by his arms felt like safety.
“Stewart, ah, beautiful one, I waited for someone like you for so long, yes, I waited for someone to release me from my exile. You need me and I need you. You need healing.”
I laughed against flesh, licked, and sucked in salty majesty. My cheek rubbed against smooth chest flesh. “You sound like Korina.”
“No surprise since Korina raised me from infancy on. I’m her only nephew.” As his words stirred my hair, Athan’s strong fingers urgently pressed into my upper arms. His fingers communicated something I wanted to understand. “My mother died giving me life. Unfortunately I didn’t listen to dear Aunt Korina seriously enough, no, I didn’t understand her ill-perceived quaint lessons on how this island feeds a lost soul. Instead I needed to challenge the world, so I left here at age sixteen and returned when I understood what I needed. The powerful world proved a daunting and ultimately destructive advisory.”
Yeah, that sad story sounded familiar. His damaged words faded into the warm air. I drew back and gazed up into Athan’s sad features. “But you’re back now, right?”
A disturbingly haunted smile frightened me. Athan’s low voice captured an emotion so alien to me I wanted to sob. “Yes, Stewart, I am back forever because I didn’t let the island nourish me. Now I possess the chance to correct the problem. I own the chance to nourish and guide you toward ecstasy.”
Despite the air’s warmth and my soon-to-be lover’s smooth, supple flesh connecting against mine, a despairing chill shot through my body “Athan, stop, you sound so bleak. I won’t have it, no, I won’t endure a handsome man acting sad while standing naked in my bedroom. Come on, Athan, if you’re going to heal me, start now.” I lunged up and pressed my lips against his soft fullness. My fingers slid up and teased his cheekbones.
As my body flowed against his cool strength, Athan’s fingers tightened against my flesh in near painful intensity. He easily lifted me up and tossed me into the welcoming sheets. In response I angled my hips up toward him and whispered in want, need, yes, overwhelming need. This time I was the one to hold out my arms in complete welcome. “Come heal me, Athan. Nourish me back to health. Use your power in me. Heal me.”
Haste did not rule my new lover’s soul. Athan stood by the bed and silently gazed over every inch of my body. He knelt on the bed and ran his fingers across my flesh, the tips tracing designs and perhaps soothing words on me. Somehow his touch drove security into my mind. Athan finally slithered his muscular body against my tingling skin then we kissed for long, heady moments, our tongues dancing and darting in perfect union. Each wild kiss somehow made me feel more centered and focused. Amazing. I’d never been kissed so purposefully, so deliberately. So healingly. We bit, nibbled, attacked, but always returned to our lips creating celestial light, the glow somehow healing a million cracks festering in my damaged soul. Athan’s fingers performed fresh inscriptions against my flesh, the tips tapping out messages from his soul.
I floated in the essence of sexual joy. Wait, fuck, was I crying? Absolutely. Why? Simply because of the supreme joy washing over me in powerful waves. The force reconnected me to something monumental. Someone finally taught me about life. Someone took the time to make me feel without demanding anything from me. Liberating. Incandescent.
When Athan’s stiff cock, it dampened by sweat and my tears, tenderly entered my eager channel, I screamed in sheer amazement, ahh, I thrashed under him in complete adoration and offered my being to him. More, please, please, please fill my longing emptiness. My inner muscles tried sucking every ounce of juice from his thick cock. Fuck me, how could a man’s primal cock feel so healing, so soothing? Magical. I arched up and adhered to Athan’s muscular goodness. Nourish me? Obviously I needed serious nourishing, hmm, my flesh lapped up what Athan offered me. I couldn’t gain enough of his healing powers. I didn’t understand any of it, yet a primitive part of me knew everything and accepted.
When Athan gained his true rhythm, he thrust deeply into me and hit my inner point. A sudden blinding light ripped across my eyes, then an orgasm the size of understanding rippled and shook my astonished flesh. I felt like I might vibrate apart, yeah, fuck, my flesh might whirl into the air like an uncontrollable sexual tornado.
As he rested against me, Athan smiled down at me, then he swiftly kissed my tear-streaked face. The expression filling his dark, knowing eyes looked jubilant yet somehow sad. “Thank you, Stewart. Be nourished. Your nourishment completes me, heals me, saves me. Thank you. I shall protect you until you are ready to be with me.”
Ready? What did he mean? My needy soul demanded knowledge yet my lips refused to ask.
“Stewart, know I will be here for you. Know and accept my power.” His arms held me close. Athan nibbled my neck, then his teeth pierced my flesh. I screamed in acknowledgment. We dissolved into perfect unity, blood to blood, soul to soul, into a endless red eternity.
I willingly submitted to his need.
I willingly surrendered.
I willingly ceased to exist.
*
“Stewart, are you all right? Stewart! Please speak to me!” A rush of Greek hammered my hearing until English resumed. “Stewart! Gods, I knew I needed to check on you earlier. I am a fool for letting you drive me away! Stewart, come back to me.”
Warm, callused hands, wait, what the fuck, they felt much smaller than Athan’s powerful hands, shook my limp shoulders. What? I blinked and stared into Korina’s frantic face hovering above me against the deep purple sky. A lantern shed light over us. My lips opened, failed, then tried again for speech. Why was I still alive? What happened to me? “Korina, what are you doing here? Where’s Athan?”
Korina’s weathered face paled into ivory. Her heavily accented voice whispered in bleeding pain. “Stewart, why do you ask me about Athan?”
“Because I was just with him! Where the hell is he? We embraced in my bed and now…” Hold on. I realized I sprawled on the burnt-red brick tiles leading to the mockingly serene pool. Another two inches and I’d float in the pool’s deadly water.
What had happened here? Movement felt impossible, damn, why did every muscle in my body feel stiff as marble? Despite the pain, I willed my trembling hands to reach up and touch Korina’s warm arms. “Where did Athan go? Korina, please, I’m sure you don’t approve of Athan’s lover but he did something for me. He nourished me. He healed me. He wanted to help me.” My mind babbled,
Athan bit my neck and made me feel rapture.
Why didn’t Athan kill me? Why? Why did Athan leave me here?
To my distress, Korina reared back from my tentative touch like I was the Devil himself, crossed herself, and uttered a hoarse cry. “Stewart, why do you act so wicked to me?”
What did she mean? “Korina, no, Athan spoke to me just a few minutes ago! He’s tall, muscular, and graced with a Greek god’s classic face. There was something so sad about him but when we made love he made me feel wonderful, he made me feel so alive! Please, Korina, he…” He left me alive. Damn him! Why did Athan leave me live? Why did he bring me back to the pool? Nothing made sense.
Korina lunged back at me and latched her capable fingers, they strong from years of labor, into my shoulder tendons. She shook my body in complete fury. “Stewart, listen to me. My gentle Athan disappeared at the foot of the stairs three years ago. My despairing nephew felt so heartbroken over his lover’s suicide he didn’t want to live, so he ventured from my house during a dreadful storm and let himself be swept away from the beach. After his Gregory’s death, Athan returned here to die! There is no way you could have…” Korina abruptly halted her rushed words, then her wise gaze lashed into my glazed stare with manic intensity. “What did Athan say to you?”
My mind twirled in confusion. My lips, they still tasting Athan’s comforting kisses, stuttered out words. “After we loved, Athan thanked me for letting him nourish me then, damn, we merged in a manner too wonderful to describe and now I’m alone again!”
My selfish words made Korina’s eyes glitter with sudden tears. “You ignorant boy, you’re not alone. Now I know my lost Athan passes into grace. You supplied his true chance to redeem himself. He saved you, ahh, he nourished you to save you. He felt your damaged pain.”
What did I hear? I blinked in profound disbelief. Renewed confusion created pain in my head, it far minor to what happened in my decayed heart. “But if Athan is dead, then…”
“You allowed Athan to move along.”
“No, this is completely insane. I refuse to hear this nonsense. Are you telling me a man who died three years ago loved me to secure his heavenly prize? No fucking way! No!” My throbbing neck told me otherwise.
Korina glared at me. “Ignorant boy! Why Athan nourished you is beyond my comprehension. You are an undeserving fool, a rich wastrel.”
No fucking way part two. “Korina, look at my neck.”
“What?”
My quivering fingers managed to reach my neck. My flesh felt the small puncture wounds. “Look at my neck. What do you see here? Does the bite tie in with your pretty moving along theory?”
Shocked silence filled the air until Korina gently touched the stinging area. “So it’s true. My tormented Athan still haunts the island. I never believed the strange tales from the last owners, since I despised them and thought they enjoyed tormenting me but…” Korina shook her head and clutched the cross hanging at her neck. “But he is still a good man! He wants to help you!”
What? I frantically rolled my head against the hard tile. “Fine, brilliant, you tell me you know Athan still dwells here. Well guess what, I don’t think he’s as good as you think! Come on, fuck it, he used me, then left me just like everyone else leaves me! Why am I always left behind to feel the pain?” Damn, could I sound any more insane or selfish? A mythical vampire seduced me in a glorious dream, bit me, and now I sprawled alongside a pool wailing about right and wrong. Idiot. I tried rolling in to drown but my body acted like a lead lump.
This time Korina’s intense gaze softened in sadness. “Nonsense, you sad, lost child. Think about it, young one. Athan is with you, yes, here, I believe he saved you from death. He left himself here for you to give you peace. He knows what you need and I hope you help him find happiness. There is good in you, Stewart, or else Athan would not try to save you. Hold him here.” Korina stroked my skin just above my aching heart. “Now try to feel calm. When I saw you I called emergency, so a helicopter comes to take you to the Nisyros clinic. It’s best they check your condition.”
“I don’t want to go!”
“Shh, I know, but we must act normal and cautious. I will go with you.” She paused and glanced around. Her smile broke free. “Yes, Athan will be there for you.”
What? How? My fuzzy mind couldn’t handle this spiritual bizarreness. Yet when I concentrated, definite warmth welled in me. Suddenly life didn’t feel so awkward or useless.
Athan?
A soft humming murmur flowed through me, the sensation sweet and satisfying as a song borne aloft in the glistening sea breeze.
I shut my eyes and relaxed into Korina’s lovely embrace. Bats circled overhead and sang to me of future glory. Their piercing song called to me.
As if to mock my completion moment, another sharp pain crushed down on me, the force feeling like it compressed my lungs into a messy bundle of helpless twitching gore. I gasped in surprise and stared into Korina’s frightened ebony eyes. I tried telling her it was all right but coherent speech staggered beyond my feeble control. Fuzzy darkness ate my vision’s edge, it ripping away from me bit by bit. The world slowly died around me, wait, no, I performed the departure ritual.