I'm sorry to have taken so long to get Chapter 6 to you. I'm writing GLOBAL ENTERTAINMENT as I post it, so it does take longer.

This story is copyrighted and cannot be reproduced in any medium without my express permission. If you should see it other than on Nifty, please let me know. Also, because there are sexual situations, you shouldn't read it unless you're a legal adult in your country of origin. The thought police are everywhere and, while closing down paedophile sites is admirable, they aren't likely to stop there. So, protect Nifty and don't read if you're underage.

If you find this tale interesting, you'll probably like TAYLOR MOUNTAIN in the scifi/fan file as well. If you'd like to explore the dark underworld of modern London, my ILLUSIONS is now running in the beginnings folder. Both TAYLOR MOUNTAIN and ILLUSIONS are being re-written, new chapters will be posted more quickly than with GE.

The very best vampire erotica from three continents appear in my new anthology from Starbooks LOVERS WHO STAY WITH YOU. You can help Nifty out by ordering the book through the Nifty link to A Different Light bookstore.

I really need to know if you like this story or the other two. The only way I can know is if you write and tell me. Vichowel@aol.com.

Dave MacMillan

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CHAPTER SIX

"You watched the films?" the Prince asked after Ned and I had finished our dinners that evening. We were sitting at a sidewalk table of a restaurant facing Pennsylvania Avenue. The outside dining area was covered with thick plastic and heated. We'd both had a Mr. Henry's special at Tom's suggestion – corn beef and pastrami sandwiches on a mixture of pumpernickel and rye, cole slaw on one side and Russian dressing on the other, a big dill pickle and home fries on the side. I was stuffed.

The Prince and his two companions had already eaten before we'd gone out. They just sipped wine. I was curious about them – Emil, I'd spoken with when he called to invite us up; Tom, I didn't know.

There was an easy camaraderie between the three of them, much like that between Ned and myself. I figured they were lovers. And that really intrigued me – three guys in a relationship. I could imagine a three-way, but only for sex. It just didn't seem possible that three guys could work together to make a relationship work. What seemed natural was that one of them would always feel left out. But I could see that these three were absolutely together. And that it worked.

The glue that made it work had to be the Prince.

There was a sense of easy command to the man. In everything about him. It just seemed to ooze from him. And it touched every one of us – including the men with him. It felt natural.

"We watched one of them, sir" Ned answered finally, looking down at his empty plate.

"Only one?" the dark-haired American named Tom asked.

"We didn't want to watch any more after that..."

As Ned spoke, I turned my attention Tom and the sandy-haired guy named Emil. They were as perfect as Prince von Muribor was. Perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect weight-to-height ratios, perfect looks. There was also a feeling of union, even communion, between themselves and between them and the Prince which went way beyond anything physical. I appreciated their perfection, but it didn't make me hard or make my heart go pitter-patter.

I glanced at Ned. There was the hint of roughness about him, little imperfections. He was sexy as hell. My dick tingled and threatened to grow.

"It felt really strange to watch Rick getting porked by that guy," Ned grumbled.

"You were jealous then?" Emil asked, prodding.

"Yeah," Ned admitted.

"I felt as if Ned was two-timing me," I chimed in.

|Two-timing?| von Muribor asked without moving his lips.

I stared at him. I knew damned well that he hadn't vocalized the words. But that was impossible.

|Cuckolding, Karli,| Tom answered. His lips didn't move, either.

"I felt like a slut when that guy was fucking me," I mumbled, wondering what in the hell was going on.

"And you did not like these feelings?" von Muribor asked both of us.

"Not one damned bit!" Ned growled. I nodded my agreement, even as my curiosity continued to grow.

"You didn't feel the same way as long as the vids were just being shown in Europe, did you?" Tom asked.

I glanced over at Ned before looking back at Tom, forcing my curiosity back down and trying to compose an answer that was completely truthful. Somehow, I knew I couldn't be anything but truthful about this. "Neither one of us really understood what was going on..." I started.

"We never saw them; we didn't even think about you guys making it look like we were having sex with others," Ned said.

"Your contracts specifically defined that we could put each of you together with other men in videos and that you would receive royalties on each vid sold," Tom said.

He had my whole attention then. Why I'd thought they were talking without words didn't even register.

Ned glanced over at me and studied my face for a moment before reaching over to take my hand in his. He squeezed and I squeezed back. "We aren't saying anything about breach of contract – or anything. We're just telling how we felt about what we saw today."

"You would not want to have real sex with other men then?" Emil looked from Ned to me.

"Is that what we're going to have to start doing?" I asked. I didn't like the idea at all.

"You know that Global's finally going to enter America," Tom said. "It stands to reason that we'd push our two American models to help open this market faster."

"I don't know if I – if we – could do that," Ned said and squeezed my hand again.

|Find others who will,| the Prince thought at his two companions. There was a total finality there that brooked no questioning.

I looked at him but couldn't tell if his lips had moved or not. I wondered if Ned had heard the man's order.

Suspicion burst over me then, like a flood. If Ned hadn't heard the Prince, then they were using telepathy, and I was somehow overhearing them. And I didn't like the idea of that at all. It was downright scary.

Von Muribor looked at me and his eyes widened. He studied me closely for a moment and my brain inside my skull felt as if it was itching. He slowly smiled and I relaxed, the fear and suspicion that had been growing in me oozing right out of me.

"There is another option," Emil said.

"Another option?" Ned asked and leaned closer to the table. "What option?"

Tom laughed.

"Did you watch the Queer As Folk disk?" von Muribor asked quietly.

"Yeah," I answered. "Half of the first season. I loved it."

"It was okay," Ned grumbled.

"I want to watch the other seasons of the show before we go back to Georgia," I told them, admitting that I was addicted.

"You may take the disks back with you," the Prince said. "Watch them at your leisure."

Emil and Tom exchanged glances and smiled knowingly at each other. Tom looked to the Prince who nodded to him.

"We had hoped you'd like QAF," he said. "It's things like that series that Global is moving into. Creating them, directing them, and then selling them."

"What about the porn?" Ned asked.

"We'll still be making films like that," Emil answered. "But porn films are only a small niche in the field of gay entertainment. It's lucrative and will become more so for us, once we've grabbed our market share in America – but its possibilities are limited. The possibilities with gay-themed serials are unlimited."

I looked from one to the other of the three men I knew were together and headed up Global Entertainment. I thought I knew what Emil had just said, but I wasn't sure.

"What're you saying?" Ned asked, giving voice to my own uncertainty.

"We try to be family with our employees, Ned," Tom said. "We try to respect each other's needs. We also try to use each other's talents to make Global grow..."

I felt a big "but" coming. I didn't like the sinking feeling I was having.

"Do you think you can act, Rick?" Emil asked, watching me.

"I guess..."

"And you, Ned?" Emil asked, turning to gaze at my brother.

Ned shrugged.

"We would like you both to work a drama class into next semester's schedule," Tom told us.

"Why?"

"Because, if you can act, we would like you to be in our first serial production," Tom said. "I don't mean just perform, either – that's what you or anyone else in a porn flick does in front of the camera. Acting is what you saw in those episodes of QAF."

"What happens if we can't act?" Ned asked before what Tom had just said could send my spirits into orbit.

"There are other components to creating and producing a series," Emil offered. "Other than acting."

"Does your university offer courses in film, writing and directing, production?" von Muribor asked.

I looked at Ned, hoping he'd know. He shrugged.

"You will need to find this out as soon as you've returned," von Muribor told us. "If your university doesn't have such courses, you may need to transfer to another school."

"So, you're saying you want to groom us for this TV stuff, right?" Ned asked.

"Right," Tom agreed.

"And we didn't answer the right way about continuing on in porn flicks?" Ned pressed.

Tom smiled. "Perhaps you did answer the right way – if your relationship with each other means much to you."

"But our answers knocked us out of us shooting any more sex scenes, didn't they?"

"Do you want multiple partners?" Emil asked.

Ned and I both shook our heads.

"And you don't want the films that have you with other partners sold in America?" he asked.

Again, Ned and I shook our heads.

"So, you've opted out of the porn business," Tom clarified.

"How are we going to live?" I groaned.

"Much less go to school and learn about acting and stuff?" Ned added.

Emil chuckled. "May we continue to put your images with other boys – only for the European market, of course – so that we can continue to send you royalty checks?"

Ned and I looked at each other. I shrugged.

"Only for the European market, though, right?" he asked.

Tom and Emil nodded.

I sat back in my chair, relief flooding over me.

"I have asked Jody and Johan to return to the house in order to show you around your Capital tonight," von Muribor said. It felt as if our future had been decided and it was time to move on to the minor stuff.

The funny thing was that I didn't mind that I hadn't had a voice in that decision, though it was about me as much as it was about Ned. From the looks of it, Ned didn't, either.

Our waiter was instantly standing at the Prince's side and handing him the check.

* * *

Washington, DC, was not some pretty winter wonderland as we followed Jody and Johan around DuPont Circle. The snow hadn't melted on the sidewalks during the day, it'd just become ice that crunched under our feet. The temperature hadn't gotten over thirty all day, and it nosedived toward the teens as soon as the sun went down. Most people had decided to stay home where they were warm. There was nothing worth seeing, and it was damned cold every time we got out of the taxi.

There were bars and our guides had barhopping in mind. They were crowded but everybody seemed only interested in cruising each other. Neither Ned nor I were all that interested in being cruised, but it would have been fun to talk with some of the guys.

We were too young to drink; and the bars we visited proved to be really boring places when we were the only ones not drinking. It was as if we had jailbait tattooed to our foreheads because we didn't have a drink in our hands.

I was happy to get back to Prince von Muribor's house where I could stay warm. And didn't have to worry constantly about my feet sliding out from under me. Jody and Johan disappeared while Valentin served us hot cocoa. The giant left us as soon as we'd finished our drinks and he'd rinsed the cups. Ned and I were alone in one big house and it wasn't even midnight.

"Here we are all alone," Ned said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. "What would you like to do?"

I laughed but my dick started to lengthen in anticipation.

"Well, we are in a strange city..." I temporized, dragging our mating dance out.

"We could go to bed," he said. Ned wasn't much for mating rituals; he was about as romantic as John Wayne. Direct.

Ned might be direct, but I knew my man. He was good for at least an hour, and I'd be left so sated that I'd fall asleep at the drop of a hat.

"We could," I agreed and grinned. I was completely hard inside my jeans.

He took my hand and led me to the stairs.

It struck me as we climbed the stairs that I didn't sense anyone in the house besides us. I knew Valentin was there, of course; he'd gone to bed as soon as we'd finished our cocoa.

I realized then that I'd had the sense of someone just at the edge of my mind since I'd awaken that morning. Even back in Atlanta after Emil had called. Someone watching what I was thinking. Someone heading me off before I could start to think when something weird happened that should have me thinking hard. Like those candles in the music room this morning.

And there had been weird things from the moment Johan had greeted us at the airport in Atlanta. He'd been embarrassed by paying attention to Ned and leaving me out; but people didn't blush in blotches. Or outlines of blotches. And Jody appearing out of nowhere while Johan disappeared almost in front of me.

In addition to those little items, there were the snatches of conversation I'd overheard last night and through today. Every time I'd heard someone talking, it'd felt like they were speaking another language and I'd somehow turned a universal translator on. The words had felt like they rearranged themselves so I could understand them.

Then, there were the weird things themselves, their happening. Every time I'd start to think about them, I'd mellow out or fall asleep before I could even think about freaking out over them. Like somebody was controlling my mind.

I didn't have the sense of that somebody being there now. My head was mine alone for the moment. I actually felt lonely.

Lonely maybe; but that didn't stop me from thinking about the last couple of days. And the more I thought about them, the less horny I was getting.

"Ned..." I said as we reached the second-floor corridor. My hard-on was gone.

He turned to look at me.

"There's been some really weird shit going on yesterday and today," I said.

"What's weird?"

"Do you remember getting on the plane yesterday?"

Ned looked surprised at my question, then uncomfortable as he started to consider it. "No," he finally mumbled.

"I don't either," I told him.

"I guess we were just really tired from cramming and our minds kind of just turned off." He started down the corridor with me on his heels.

"Maybe," I conceded. "But why did we stay in the plane after we landed until it was dark?"

He looked more uncomfortable when he glanced back at me. "That was pretty weird, wasn't it?"

"Do you remember anything about last night after I slipped on the ice and hit my head?"

He stopped in front of our door and faced me. "Nothing. I was out like a light."

"Right after you'd just slept for seven or eight hours?"

"Those candles in the music room this morning," he groaned as he opened the door and waited for me to enter the room.

I turned on the light and stepped inside. "I've been hearing voices since last night," I told him as he shut the door.

His face went white. "Voices?"

"Inside my head. It's like the words are translating themselves as I hear them."

"Jesus!"

"Have you noticed just how perfect all five of those guys look?" I asked.

"Perfect?" He looked at me hard. "Are you getting the hots for them, Rick?"

"Shit! You're all I need or want, Ned. But those guys are flawless – they look like they've never had a zit in their lives. They've all got perfect weight-to-height ratios."

"Yeah..." He looked down at the floor. "They all look like angels or something."

"Except for Valentin."

Ned looked at me hard. "This shit is weird all right, Rick. But that doesn't mean anything ... It's just coincidence or something."

"What do you mean?"

Ned sat down on the bed but didn't break eye-contact. "I mean, if it isn't coincidence, then it's got to have supernatural meaning."

"You mean like ghosts and stuff?"

"Ghosts, demons, ogres, werewolves, vampires ... Yeah, all that horror stuff. And we know there isn't anything real about any of those. So, all this stuff has to be coincidence."

"I guess so," I said, not all that convinced. I just didn't have an answer to how they connected to each other.

"Come here," Ned told me and patted the bed beside him.

I sat beside him and he pulled me close.

"What do you think about this acting stuff?" he asked.

"I think it'll be so cool – pretending to be somebody else, pretending to live his life. And being good enough that people think it's real."

"You can get into it then?"

"Yeah." I stroke his hair with my fingers. "What about you?"

He pulled back, his hands falling into his lap. "I don't know, Rick. It's one thing to make love to you for the camera. If this had happened to me alone – if you hadn't been there and we hadn't fallen in love – I probably wouldn't think anything about fucking some guy for that camera. Doing that, it's still me being me doing something that comes naturally."

I decided I didn't want to go where his words about fucking other guys could take me. I had him. I had his word that he loved me. That was going to be enough.

"That's just performing, Ned," I told him, staying away from that place I was avoiding. "It isn't acting."

"I know," he mumbled. "I don't think I can act – you know, become somebody I'm not." He looked over at me and smiled. "Not like you can. You'll be a great actor."

"Well, even if you don't become a drama queen," I said in my best vamp voice, "you can still be the strong, silent he-man in production."

"Will you still want me, Rick?" he asked, his voice soft, "When you're a big actor and I'm a nobody in production?"

I knew he was being serious. I stood up and moved to where I was standing directly in front of him. "Stand up, big boy," I said, giving Mae West a run for the money.

He tried to smile but couldn't pull it off. He stood up, though.

My fingers pulled his shirt out of his jeans. I started to unbutton it when he pulled me to him and kissed me. I kept unbuttoning his shirt, even with my hands squished between us. I pushed it off his shoulders while our tongues continued to duel.

We broke the kiss and he pulled my shirt over my head, buttons and all. "I want you, Rick," he growled as he pulled me back to him. "I want you more than I've ever wanted anything in my life."

"You've got me, lover," I whispered back. "Now and always."

His hands worked between us and unbuttoned my jeans. I toed off my loafers before he could slide them and my boxers over my butt.

"I want you in me," he said and pulled me even closer. His hands slipped under my jeans and underwear and met at my groin.

I pulled back to look at him hard. "Are you sure, Ned? We've only done that a couple of times..."

"I want you!" His hands were rough and demanding as he shoved my clothes onto my thighs.

He whipped me around and pushed me onto the bed. He grabbed the jeans and boxers and pulled them off me.

I lay back across the bed, naked and hard, and watched him strip fast. His gaze never left my pecker as he got naked.

His knees straddling me, Ned climbed onto the bed and lay on top of me. He kissed me with more hunger than either of us usually showed, his body grinding against mine.

My fingertips caressed down his back from his shoulders to his waist and back. He ground himself against me harder, our dicks rubbing each other. On their next trip south, my fingers moved onto his butt and began to knead both of his cheeks.

He gasped and broke our kiss. He pushed up to sit on my stomach. His eyes were glassy as they met mine. He rose from the knees until his butt was hiked a foot over me, his hard pole pointed straight at my face.

I groaned when Ned reached behind himself and grabbed my dick to stand it in position. "You're going to need lube," I mumbled. "There's some in my bag..."

"No! No time!" he growled. "I've got to have it now. I need it." He squatted lower and lower until the wide, blunt tip of my dick nuzzled hard against his hole. He rested there for a moment, took a deep breath, and began to push himself down onto my pecker.

His face showed his pain, but Ned wasn't about to stop. I could almost feel the force of will that opened him up and kept his hips moving onto me. He sat down hard after the head of my dick was in him, taking all of me. His meat wilted as pain flooded through him.

"I'd forgotten just how much this hurt," he grunted through gritted teeth. "Give me a minute." His breathing was fast and shallow for several minutes as he adjusted to me being inside him.

Ned wasn't a virgin; I had made love to him a couple of times over the past year and a half. But his butt muscles hadn't been trained through regular work-outs as mine had been. He'd never been hard with me inside him and he'd never come. He simply didn't enjoy the feel of my dick in him as much as I enjoyed the feel of his in me. I enjoyed driving, but I liked riding just as much. We'd slipped naturally into my being the bottom when we made love.

"You should have used lube, Ned," I told him.

"I'm okay now," he said and gave me a cocky grin. "Ready to rock and roll?"

He pushed his butt straight up and inch after inch of me slid out of him. He stopped when just the helmet of my pecker was still inside of him and held himself poised there for a moment. He grinned down at me before slamming his butt back against my groin. His soft dick flopped and filled out a little.

"That wasn't so bad," he told me and raised himself again, only to slam back down on me.

"It's feeling better all the time," he whispered and ground his butt on my pubes.

"Kiss me and take it slower," I told him.

He leaned over me, his face coming closer to mine. "Slower?"

"Yeah. Grind and hunch your butt up and down me, rubbing your dick against my abs, while we're kissing."

He looked surprised. "That's right!" he said. "That's how you do it when you're riding me like this."

His lips met mine as he settled his weight onto his elbows either side of my chest. Our tongues met as he settled more of his body on mine. His thumbs and forefingers began to roll my nipples as his hips hunched forward, pushing his dick over my abs as mine pulled out of him.

He pushed back down to take me back in. His body ground against mine, his bush scouring my belly. His pecker became hard and began to leak as he speeded up his movements.

My brain shut off, leaving me with only the sensations coursing through my body, from my dick and balls to my nips. My balls tightened and rose to ride my shaft as Ned plunged himself down along it before pulling himself away from most of it as he ground his own pole against my abs. My hands became vises gripping his buttcheeks. He groaned into my mouth with his every grind and hunch.

I couldn't help myself. My orgasm was on me, full-blown, before I knew it. Before I could do anything to prevent it. I grabbed his hips and held him as I unloaded into him.

I gasped. I bucked. And Ned rubbed my chest as I continued to pump deep into him.

He waited until my body relaxed and my breathing started to return to normal. "You're always good for two, baby," he said and smiled down at me. "I was almost there..."

Instead of finishing his sentence, he began to move on me again. His hard dick was slick as it rode between us.

* * *

I was spooned up against Ned, his arms around me. His breathing was slow and deep and I knew he was asleep. I was almost there, too – my mind wandering.

|The one called Rick hears us when we speak to each other,| the presence said, the one I identified with Karl, Prince von Muribor. It was almost as if the voice was at my ear, but something about it felt as if it was in my head.

My mind continued to drift toward sleep but my ears had perked up.

|He also senses when we're around him, even when he can't see us,| the voice I thought was Emil's added. |And when we try to ease his thoughts.|

|How?| another voice squeaked, almost like a child would. I felt the first two chuckle and knew then that the third disembodied voice was Jody's.

|It seems vampire saliva has proved to have healing properties,| von Muribor told him with a feeling of mirth.

|What're we going to do with him then?| Jody groaned.

|We do nothing,| von Muribor told him and I felt a hint of a threat to Jody in the way he said it. |We watch him. We raise barriers to him hearing and sensing us. We make him a television star. And we're there whenever he needs us.|

|It sounds as if we're going to have to treat him like one of us,| Jody grumbled.

|You are. We are,| von Muribor told him. |He's family ... They're both family.|

I drifted away on the benevolent silence that followed, knowing with complete certainty that I was protected from evil. That was the feeling I'd gotten from his words.