FIRST NIGHT
                        By Julie Woodcock
                         Copyright 1991

     When Jim Decker woke, his body was sore and aching almost
everywhere, but his cock was as hard as a railroad spike. 
Floating through his head were muzzy memories of exotic dreams: 
women.  Vampires.  Blood.  Pale skin, long legs, eager hips and
greedy fangs.  Amanda, nicking one nipple with a long, sharp
fingernail.  Blood beading in a piercing shade of scarlet against
the cool white of her breast.  The hot copper tang of it in his
mouth as he sucked, feeling her nipple going hard against his
teeth...Decker shook his head sharply, trying to clear away the
taunting memory of the dream.  Then he realized it was no dream. 
     Amanda had Changed him.  Drinking her blood had infected him
with the virus that had made her a vampire.
     He dimly remembered the question:  "Do you want to become
one of us?"  And, hopelessly in love with the woman who had
touched his mind and taken his blood, Decker had said "Yes." 
Knowing that Amanda was in love with Beau Gabriel, the vampire
he'd spent months hunting.  Hoping that somehow, the Change would
make a difference in the way she felt, promote Decker from the
status of victim to equal.
     In the hours that had followed, Decker had paid a high cost
for that obsessed "yes."  The virus wasn't a killer, but it
certainly felt like one.  Curled on the bathroom floor between
bouts of vomiting, he soon began to long for the coma that was
the crisis stage of the disease.
     "Hang in there," Amanda told him, kneeling to stroke his
hair.  "Shouldn't be much more than a few hours before you go
under.  While you're unconscious, the Change will begin, and when
you wake up, you'll be one of us."
     Now, five days later, Decker had to admit he felt rather
inhuman--but not in the way he'd expected.  His mouth tasted like
the bottom of the monkey cage at the San Diego zoo, and his eyes
were stinging and gritty.  But that was about it.  He wondered if
the Change had taken after all.
     He scratched his hairy chest and lifted his head from the
pillow to peer blearily toward the alarm beside his bed.  10:15
p.m.  But that had to be wrong; the room was flooded with the
bluing light of early twilight.  Stretching out a long arm,
Decker scooped up the wristwatch on the nightstand, then held it
to his face with a yawn.
     10:15 p.m.
     "What the hell?"  Decker growled, and rolled out of bed to
head for the window.  Shoving the heavy blue curtain aside, he
peered out.   The sun hung burning in the sky, but a crescent
shadow lay across it, obscuring a full two-thirds of its disc. 
That's weird, Decker thought.  I didn't hear anything about a
solar eclipse... 
     Then he saw the stars.  Blazing brighter than he had ever
seen them, piercing like lasers even through Atlanta's ambient
city light.  Decker jerked his eyes back to the blinding white
crescent in the clouds.  My God, he thought, squinting against
its brilliance.  It's the moon...
     He HAD Changed.  
     Warily, Decker probed his teeth with his tongue, but none of
them seemed any sharper.  "Amanda?"  Nothing.  He knew, he
sensed, that he was alone in his apartment.  Where had she gone? 
She'd promised she'd stay with him through this, help him through
the difficult first hours of his new life.  Why had she abandoned
him?
     Realizing he still held his Seko, Decker started to toss it
on the bed, then paused, staring at it.  Amanda had told him he'd
recover consciousness on Thursday, but the watch's date read
Wednesday.  He'd awakened a day earlier than expected.  Decker
cursed, loudly, monotonously.  Amanda was probably out hunting. 
All he could do was wait for her return.  
     He had a terrible feeling he'd made a mistake.  Should have
thought of that four days ago, Decker thought.  It's sure as shit
too late now.  Well, to hell with it.  He was damned if he just
going to wait around bouncing off the walls while Amanda was off
screwing someplace--he was going to go out.  He'd let her call
the shots too much as it was.  Past time he regained control of
his life.
     Fifteen minutes later Decker was waiting for the elevator in
the hallway, wearing a white linen suit that emphasized his tan
and the width of his shoulders.  He'd absolutely refused to wear
anything black.  
     "Hello, Jim."  The voice of the woman walking up behind him
was brightly feminine and instantly familiar.  Crystal Jordon,
his next door neighbor, a sweet kid who was something of an
artist.  Decker turned to greet her.  And caught his breath.  
     Crystal hesitated a few feet away, tall and slender and
beautiful, her blonde hair knotted loosely on top of her regally
held head.  She wore a strapless red satin dress that bared neck
and shoulders and most of her breasts with equal abandon.  The
brief skirt showcased long, muscular legs delicately veiled in
shimmering red stockings.  
     How could I have missed noticing how beautiful she is,
Decker thought, staring hungrily.  Must have been really hung up
on Amanda to have missed that... Suddenly a phrase floated
through his mind: "Hair of the dog that bit you."  If there was
an antidote for Amanda, Crystal might well be it.
     Decker smiled, his sensuous mouth broadening over white
teeth, his brown eyes warming like melting caramel.  Crystal
swallowed and wondered where the dark woman was, the one he was
always with.  
     She shifted on her uncomfortable red spike heels and 
checked to make sure the bodice of her dress hadn't crept too
low.  Her mother had always told her she was too well-endowed for
a dress like this.  Crystal certainly hoped not.  She'd bought
the dress because she desperately wanted to attract male
attention--but not by having her nipples peek out at the public. 
She might be lonely, but she wasn't a flasher.
     "That's a beautiful dress," Decker said.  
     "Uh...Thanks."  God, he was gorgeous.  He had the kind of
face she loved to draw; all sharp, clean angles and deepset eyes.
And his body was every bit as fine; she'd often seen him in
nothing but nylon running shorts, headed out for his evening
five-mile jog.  And every time she saw it, that muscle-knit torso
made her itch for a sketchpad.
     "He must be something," Decker said.  His eyes had warmed
from caramel to amber.
     "Who?" she asked, thinking, Brilliant conversation, Crystal.
Maybe I can try for complete sentences next.  With verbs and
everything.
     "The man you bought that dress for.  I envy him."
     Crystal managed to keep her jaw from dropping.  Decker had
never even seemed to notice her before.  "I'm just going out. 
Alone."
     "Really?"  There was that 100 watt smile again.  "So am I. 
Maybe we should go together.  Carpool.  Save gas.."
     "I don't..."
     "Come on, Crystal, think of the environment."
     She giggled.  "Well, when you put it that way..."
     Well, she WAS looking for somebody.  She'd been desperate
enough to have been content with a nebbish, but she certainly
wasn't going to turn down Prince Charming.
                           ***
     Decker first caught the scent in the elevator.  It was rich,
musky, deliciously erotic.   "That's a lovely perfume."
     Crystal turned to look at him, hazel eyes widening.  "I'm
not wearing perfume.  I'm allergic to almost everything."
     Decker decided the taunting aroma must be another product of
his enhanced senses; earlier, mint toothpaste had tasted like
salsa.  He took a deep breath, unable to resist savoring her
scent.  Smells like sex, he thought, feeling himself harden.  He
looked down at Crystal's curving, satin-clad hips and imagined
pulling her skirt up, reaching between those long thighs. 
Finding her wet.  Decker swallowed.
     To distract himself, he asked, "Where do you want to go?"
     She considered it.  He eyed the tantalizing pale skin of her
shoulders, the intriguing lines of bone and tendon.  "Well,"
Crystal said, "I was planning on going to that little place up
the block.  Frank's.  They've got a dance floor..."
     "Sounds good."  The elevator slid open, and he guided her
through its double doors with a hand on the small of her back. 
The satin felt warm and slick.  Decker looked down at the bulge
of her breasts swelling over the strapless bodice.  Pictured
tugging the fabric downward.  Freeing her nipples.  With her
coloring, they'd be pale, a virginal pink...
     Licking suddenly dry lips, Decker guided her through the
lobby.
     Half an hour later, they were swaying on the dance floor,
and  Decker's self control was fraying by the second.  He was
glad he was wearing a suit jacket; it helped camouflage his
erection.  Though he suspected Crystal was well aware of it
anyway.  His shaft had rubbed against her flat belly each time
they'd danced close.
     And to make matters worse, he'd developed one hell of a
toothache.
     Crystal fought the urge to grind her hips against the
intriguing hardness under Decker's coat.  God, she was hot.  She
couldn't remember the last time a man had affected her this way. 
He kept touching her, his fingers brushing her shoulders, the
tops of her breasts, her arms.  And looking at her, his eyes
promising all sorts of things, things she would have slapped
another man for even thinking.  Crystal didn't know how much
longer she could take it.
     "I'm really pretty tired," she heard herself say.  "Think we
could go back to the building?"
     She had an instant to be mortified at her own boldness
before he said, "Why not?"  The smile on his sensuous mouth made
her wobble on her high heels.
                               ***
     There were pictures of men in capes in Crystal's apartment,
all bearing her signature.  Decker eyed one of them, a big
hulking brute shooting power beams out of his hands, as she
walked up beside him and handed him a drink.  He sipped it
carefully, cautious of its chill; his teeth were killing him.
     "Yep, you've guessed my awful secret.  I draw comic books,"
she said with a giggle, nodding at the caped brute.  "You'd be
surprised how well it pays..."  Crystal leaned into him, and the
side of her breast rubbed gently against his arm.  After an
evening of torment, that was the straw that broke him.  
     Decker sat his glass down on the nearby table with a clink.
She was opening her lovely red mouth to say something else when
he turned and swooped in for a kiss, lips fusing over hers,
tongue penetrating between her teeth.  Crystal gasped.  Gasped
again as he roughly pulled down the bodice of her dress.  Her
hands came up to push at him, but Decker ignored them, wrapping
an arm around her waist, lifting her, bending her back, arching
her full, white breasts for his mouth.  His lips fastened on a
nipple.  It was as pale and pink as he'd imagined.  Hungrily, he
began to suck.
     "Jim..." It was less protest than moan.  Crystal arched her
hips into his, began slowly rocking against him.  He brought up a
hand to capture the delicious breast he sucked.  His long blunt
fingers squeezed, traced its curve, weighed its sweet fullness. 
Found her nipple and pulled it with delicate ferocity.  She
whimpered.  The scent of her, that strange, hot, sexual smell,
washed over him with such power that he moaned in lust.  Decker
switched his attention to her other nipple and began to feast on
it.
     Suddenly, as he sucked at her, he felt something shift in
his mouth.  He ignored it and sucked harder.  But suddenly his
mouth was full of pebbles, and he choked.  Off balance,
embarrassed, he coughed and released her.
     "You all right?"  she asked, staggering a little as she
watched him cough again.
     Unable to reply, he nodded and turned abruptly toward the
bathroom, meaning to get rid of whatever it was.  He stalked to
the small sink, dragged out a kleenex from the box beside it, and
spat into it.  Looked down into the wad of tissue distastefully.
     And saw four teeth.
     "Shit!"  Decker jerked his eyes toward the bathroom mirror
and opened his mouth.  His lost canines had been replaced by four
fangs, a long set in his upper jaw and a shorter pair on the
bottom.  Sharp and white and damning.
     Until that moment, he hadn't really believed he was a
vampire.
     "Jesus," he whispered, stunned.  Then came a second
realization, even more damning: What the hell am I doing here? 
In an instant, what had seemed a delightful evening of pleasure
became something much darker.  He wasn't making love to Crystal,
he was preying on her.  And it was wrong.
      Amanda had always teased Decker about being a closet
Fundamentalist, much to his irritation.  Now he realized she had
a point.  He might no longer consider himself a Christian, but
those precepts still formed the basis of his morality.  And he
knew that to stay in this apartment meant endangering an innocent
who had no idea of the risk she was running.
     Decker slipped out of the bathroom and headed for the door
just short of a run.
     "Jim?"  Crystal sounded bewildered.
     Decker, like Lot's wife, looked over his shoulder.
     While he'd been having his moral crisis, Crystal had been
changing into a black silk teddy.  Now she stood in the
apartment's short hall, her beautiful legs bare and curving, her
nipples clearly visible through the teddy's lace bodice.
     Decker froze.
     "Where are you going?"  She moved toward him, her breasts
swaying gently.
     "I..." Decker began, scrambling hopelessly for an
explanation.
     That scent came to him again as she drew closer.  Distilled
sex, making him harden.  Musky and salty and...something else. 
An undertone he hadn't noticed before, familiar, but also
strange.  Metallic, like copper... Copper.  Or iron.
     Blood.
     The thought horrified him, and yet at the same time there
was a wild hunger rising under it.  Suddenly he remembered the
things Amanda had done to him.  Things he'd loved.  Things he
could do to Crystal.
     "Don't leave," she said, coming against him, sliding one arm
up around his neck.  Her eyes were dark, glazed just slightly
with passion, and her pulse was beating hard in her throat, a
tempting flutter under her silken white skin.  At the sight of
that delicate, hypnotic beat, his lips parted.
     A thin frown line appeared between Crystal's brows.  She
drew back slightly.  Decker lowered his head toward the taunting
vein, but she stepped away before he could put his mouth to it. 
"Jim, is there something..."
     "Come here."  He reached for her, blind with the hunger that
had come out of nowhere, singeing his self-control to ash.
     Crystal backed up, feeling something icy creep along her
spine.  He'd gone very strange suddenly, the look in his eyes
almost feral.  And she'd thought, when his lips had parted, she'd
seen... "I think you'd better go home now."
     He looked amazed for a moment, then his dark eyes narrowed. 
Suddenly she became nervously aware of his height, his thickly
muscled body.
     "No," Decker growled, stepping closer.  "I was going. 
You're the one who called me back.  You made your choice."
     "If you don't leave, I'm going to call the police."
     "Call them." He bared his teeth, and she saw the fangs.
     Crystal turned and ran, but she didn't get more than a pace
before he scooped her right off the ground.  Without breaking
stride, he started toward the bedroom.  Crystal began to scream.
     He tossed her on the bed and straightened.  "Stop it!"
     It seemed something reached out, caught her, closed tight. 
She gasped and stopped.  "What...?"  A force, something almost
physical, radiating from him as he stood looking at her.
     "I'm not going to hurt you," he said.
     "Get the hell out."  But it was a whisper.
     "You didn't want me to leave a minute ago."  He sat down on
the bed beside her.  Crystal wanted to scramble away, but she
couldn't move.  Without touching her, he held her.
     "What are you?"
     "Can't you guess?"  He smiled, and she flinched at the white
evidence of just how inhuman he was.
     "Don't hurt me."
     "I won't.  Relax."  Decker reached out a long brown hand,
smoothed it against her face.  A strange kind of warmth seemed to
emanate from him, as if the field that held her was changing. 
Becoming soothing.  As if she was safe.  She knew she wasn't,
knew it, and yet...
     She relaxed.
     Decker could feel her terror fading, and wondered how the
hell he was doing it.  Somehow, when Crystal had started to
scream, he'd...touched her.  Felt her fear.  Wrapped his will
around her until she began to quiet.  Amanda had done the same
thing to him at other times, stoking his desire or guilt or
pleasure, but he'd always thought it took some psychic technique
she'd learned from Beau Gabriel.  Yet apparently the whole thing
was instinct, as much a part of a vampire as his fangs.
     Her scent was calling him again.  For a moment he tried to
fight it, but the hunger was too strong.   Decker reached out,
caught a hand in the bodice of her teddy, and ripped it down the
front with delicate brutality.  Eagerly, he rose over her, moved
between her thighs.  Lowered his head to seek her cunt.  The
scent of her arousal, still present after the long evening of
temptation, rolled over him and drowned him in pure lust.  
     Decker nuzzled her as he spread her thighs even farther
apart.  Flicked out his tongue to sample her wetness.  Salt. 
Musk.  Sex.  With a grown, he tightened his grip on her hips and
dragged her hard against his mouth.  His tongue drove deeply
between her slick soft petals, and he felt her legs jerk
convulsively in pleasure.  Hungrily licking, Decker reached up
along her sides to capture her breasts.  He found her nipples and
began to tug them as he delved for her clit.  Savoring its taut
wetness between his lips, he raked it gently with his teeth. 
Crystal's back arched, and she groaned.
     Releasing his hold on one breast, Decker moved to stab a
finger into her cunt.  Tight, so tight.  His cock throbbed with
hunger, and his teeth ached in sympathy.  Decker jerked upright,
and startled fumbling at the buttons on his shirt.
     Crystal watched him, as she sprawled across the bed, her
eyes glazed, her long hair tumbling halfway to the floor. 
Despite the passion in her eyes, there was a certain resignation
in them, too.  As if she knew that what she wanted didn't matter;
her pleasure or pain was incidental to him.  And somehow, despite
his hunger, that resignation reached him with a stab of guilt.
     Decker stopped, his hands frozen on his shirt. "Do you want
me to leave?"
     Crystal stared at him, at the fangs visible through his
parted lips.  To her amazement, she saw guilt in his eyes. 
"Would you?"
     "Yes.  I'd try, anyway."  He took a deep breath.  "I
shouldn't have jumped you.  I'm...new at this."  Decker smiled
wryly, the expression sorting oddly with his lethal teeth.
     Somehow, looking at him, Crystal believed he would leave. 
But she was wet, so wet, and his hands and tongue had been so
tender, not like a rapist's at all.  And for a reason she didn't
really understand, she believed he wouldn't hurt her.
     Suddenly, looking at his muscular body, the guilt and hunger
mixed on his face, his sharp fangs...she felt a wild excitement. 
A desire for the danger he represented.  She'd always been such a
good girl before, never taking chances, never risking anything. 
Safe.  And boring.  
     "Stay," Crystal said.
     Just for a moment he didn't move, as if he couldn't believe
that she hadn't thrown him out.  Then he was ripping off his own
shirt, eager to come to her, to bury himself in her heat and
scent and sweet, warm skin.  Crystal rose onto her knees and
reached for his fly, unzipping it, grabbing his pants to pull
them down.  In a moment, they had him naked, and he was coming
down on top of her.
     The strength of his entry made her gasp.  She wrapped her
legs around his taut waist.  Decker's arms corded as he braced on
his palms and began to stroke.  His shaft felt thick and long and
hot, as if it filled her halfway to her heart.  Crystal twisted
with the unspeakable pleasure of it, whimpering as he thrust and
thrust and thrust, each quick advance and retreat driving
pleasure further and further into her.  Straight to her head. 
     Decker watched her writhe under him as he breathed in the
rich smell of sex and woman and blood.  The pulse in her throat
was banging away, hypnotizing him even as he gasped at her grip
on his cock.  He lowered his head, touching his lips to her neck,
feeling the flutter.  A bead of her sweat rolled into his mouth,
flavored with the blood scent of the vein.  
     Goaded, he struck like a snake.  
     Biting into her soft skin, feeling the electrifying well of
blood.  His spine arched with the pleasure of it, driving his
cock to her depths.  Crystal screamed as her first orgasm began. 
Decker shuddered and began to drink, throat working as he pumped
against her, lunging hard.  The raw pleasure of taking her hit
his mind, splintered him.
     Suddenly it was as if a wall crashed down, and he was one
with her.  He could feel Crystal's jolting orgasm, just as she
tasted her own blood flooding her mouth, her tightness around his
cock.  They peaked in a mutual climax deeper and more violent
than either had ever felt before.
     A long time passed before they could moveight?"  she as                     ***
     "Beau, I think Jim's first time ought to be with somebody
who knows the ropes," said Amanda as they stepped out of the
elevator.
     Beau Gabriel eyed her under the rim of his Stetson, smiling
slightly.  "And you think I ought to lend him one of my girls." 
Beau maintained a large circle of female friends who were more
than happy to cater to his rather exotic needs.
     "Well, it WOULD minimize the trauma all the way around..."
     "You're absolutely right, Amanda.  I'd be happy to--on one
condition."
     Amanda paused in the act of unlocking Decker's door.  "I
might have known.  What?"
     "I get to watch when he takes her.  I wanna see the
sanctimonious bastard deal with real hunger for the first time in
his life.  Bet he wouldn't be so holier-than-thou THEN."
     "Beau..." Amanda began, exasperated, as she swung open the
door.
     And heard a giggle.
     Startled, the two vampires looked through the living room
and into the kitchen of Decker's apartment.  There, at the dinner
table, sat a lush blonde wearing a filmy negligee.  In front of
her sat a plate holding a very large steak.  Behind her stood
Decker, who was bending to nuzzle her neck.   His eyes snapped up
at the sound of the opening door.
     Decker bared his fangs.  "Do you MIND?"
     Hastily, Amanda backed out, reaching to drag Beau after her;
he seemed inclined to stay and stare at the blonde.  She slammed
the door.
     Beau stared at it, then turned to meet Amanda's wide eyes. 
He tilted the brim of his Stetson up with a thumb.  "Man sure
works fast, don't he?"


                              END