The following story is complete fiction. If you don't like stories with gay sex in them or aren't supposed to be reading them for legal reasons - don't. If you do and you can - go for it! This story is copyrighted, 2003 by the author. It may be posted to other FREE websites with the author's express written permission, and as long as my name and email address are included and no changes to the story are made. Thanks!

EIGHTEEN FOREVER

BY ROBBY SR.

With Many Thanks to: Ted in LA, for your wisdom

BOOK ONE

THE FIRST STORY

RECRUITMENT

CHAPTER ONE

Greg felt like skipping down the street but of course he didn't. An 18 year old skipping would look crazy, but that's how good he felt. Not only did he just get his butt fucked (some guy who came in for an oil change - Greg didn't even ask his name), but he'd just made a big decision. He was going to run away from home. He didn't have an actual day picked out yet, and he didn't know exactly how he was going to do it, but he knew he was going to make his way a couple miles from town to the freeway and stick his thumb out. Wherever he ended up; that's where he was going, and whatever happened was going to happen.

At 18, he didn't really have to "run away." He could legally leave and he knew it, but his family didn't worry too much about what the law said. For that matter, neither did the whole town. When he was 15 he actually did run away from home, but his folks found him and brought him back. That little adventure cost him two teeth (courtesy of his mom and her frying pan), and any hope of freedom in the future. Since then, anyone and everyone in town kept an eye on him and reported to his folks where he was, who he was with, and what he was doing. It was stifling and Greg had enough of it.

He walked down the street and smiled to himself. In spite of everything he still managed to do some stuff that no one found out about. He knew if he really wanted to blow his folks away all he had to do was tell them he was gay. On the other hand, he knew his dad would most likely have a heart attack and die right where he stood, and Greg decided his folks weren't worthy of him having that kind of stuff on his conscience; so he stayed in the closet.

Small town America is still a collective cesspool of simple minded folk, and Greg's parents and his town were model examples. Probably the main problem with these kind of towns was vision - no one had any. The few people in these kind of towns who had any vision at all, had the vision to get away from that town!

Life in these towns was pretty much set. Greg and all the other kids his age were simply told what to do. Not told on a day by day basis, but they were told what paths their lives would lead. It was all decided for them. Some were told to go to college. Some (who the town decided were trouble makers), were told to go into the military to get "straightened out." Others were told to just find a job in one of the nice factories around the area: that that was good enough for them. All were told to do something after high school, and after that something, to get married, settle down and raise a family. All done according to the rules set by the town. Those rules may or may not coincide with the law; but the law aside, anyone who didn't play by the rules wound up with a hard life.

There were penalties for ignoring the rules. The main penalty was that whoever didn't toe the line wasn't allowed to live in the town. No one was simply told to get out, but certain things happened to drive them away. A guy who wouldn't abide by the rules found he couldn't get a job anywhere, couldn't rent a place to live anywhere, couldn't find a group of friends to hang out with, couldn't get his foot in the door anywhere unless he made the changes the town wanted him to make. Most left town and stayed away. The towns weren't aware of it, but everyone who left was more than happy to get away. Like Greg, they didn't feel like they were being cast out, but let out: like they had been in prison and were now being set free. Or were, at least, escaping. Greg was one of the ones who wanted out, and was willing to do anything to get out. Anything at all. Problem was, he had to do it without his folks finding out what he was up to in time to stop him.

The sun had gone down but total darkness hadn't settled in yet. Late October was still quite warm during the day while the nights were turning cool. Greg was hungry but he didn't want to go home to eat. Hell, he didn't want to go home at all, but at least he could stall a while and get something to eat in town instead of going home right away. He checked that he had enough money in his wallet to get a burger, then shoved his wallet back into the pocket of his extra baggy shorts and headed toward the town's only burger joint when he heard the voice behind him.

"Young man!"

Greg stopped and turned around. A man was about a half block away and was pointing to the ground. "You dropped your wallet there," he called out. Greg looked and sure enough, his wallet was lying on the ground. His shorts were so baggy he didn't even feel that his wallet didn't make it into the pocket and he was too preoccupied to hear it hit the ground.

"Oh, Jeez!" Greg yelled and ran back and scooped up his wallet. He looked at the guy and thanked him. The guy was obviously a stranger in town because he hadn't seen him before, and Greg knew everybody else in town just like they all knew him.

The guy walked on past Greg, reached out and patted Greg's shoulder. "Quite all right, young man. Glad to help," he said and walked on up the street. Greg stopped and tried to look at his own back pocket to make sure that this time his wallet went in. When he looked back up the street, the guy was gone.

At the restaurant Greg took his time eating his burger and fries. His mind went back to the guy. There was something curious about him. He was a stranger in town all right. Right away Greg noticed the guy was impeccably dressed: something that was definitely out of place in this town! He'd had on a three piece, pin stripped suit and hat. Greg only had a glance in the growing dusk, but figured he was in his late 30's, maybe early 40's. His sophisticated manner of speaking said he was even older than that, but there was still something else Greg couldn't put his finger on. But growing up in this town taught him not to think too long or too deeply about anything. Thinking, after all, may lead to questions, and questions only lead to trouble! So he just shook his head and finished eating.

He took even longer to drink his shake before he figured it was safe to go home. By this time his folks should be drunk enough that they would care only that he was home. Then he could shut himself up in his room once again, put his headphones on so he couldn't hear his folks first arguing, and then fucking in the room next to his, and make his plans to escape.

Later that night he watched a movie on TV that showed him an easy way to get out. The hero in the movie was an expert in disguise. In the movie he could change his appearance and blend in anywhere. Halloween was coming up in a few days. Greg knew that on Halloween he too could dress up any way he wanted, and at least for that night - long enough to make his way to the freeway - no one would know it was him, and therefore couldn't report to his folks that he was headed out of town. He slept with a smile that night.

He worked at one of the town's two gas stations. Both of them were on the main street: one at each end of the town. Even though the town itself wasn't much of anything, it did happen to be situated between two freeways, and many people followed the freeways' signs to gas and food and ended up either at Greg's or the other station. Greg was the only one working, and though he wasn't officially a mechanic, he could do oil changes and light mechanical work. Many times he ended up either in the back of the garage or in the bathroom with his pants down to his ankles getting his cock sucked, or on his knees sucking the cock of some guy who was passing through town. Many frequently he went home from work with a load of cum oozing out of his ass, and he loved it all. He also loved that no one in town knew about his sexcapades at work in spite of how closely he was watched.

He worked a swing shift and got off work at 7 pm. He'd usually stop off at the burger joint and eat something there and hang out until he felt it safe to go home at a time when he didn't have to talk to his folks.

The next night he again went to the burger joint to eat and hang out and waste time. The place was particularly busy tonight and most of the tables were full. He ordered his food and stood in line waiting for his order to be filled.

"So we meet again. And you still have your wallet," the voice came from behind him again. Greg turned and the same man was standing there.

"Yeah," Greg smiled. "Learned my lesson last night for sure."

"At least that lesson didn't cost you anything. Nice when it happens that way, isn't it?"

"Sure is!" Greg laughed. "Thanks again for not just grabbing it. You would have been all of five bucks richer." The man only nodded, almost a slight bow. Greg's order was ready, so he took his tray and thanked the man again.

"Enjoy your dinner," the man said.

'Dinner?' Greg thought. 'It's a burger and fries, dude!' When Greg sat down he saw that he had taken the last available table. He saw the strange man walking through the place with his tray looking for a place to sit. He figured what the hell, and waved the man over, pointing to the empty seat at his table.

"Thank you so much, young man," the man said as he sat down. Greg got a better look at him. It was tough to judge the man's age. There were only a few lines on his face, but they were etched deep. His hair was about half gray, and he still had a full head of hair. Late 40's maybe? Early 50's? He was slim, and actually looked pretty good. Greg never cared about the age of the guys he sucked and fucked, only that they were horny and wanted either his dick or his butt. This guy would do fine. His eyes were what held Greg's attention. They seemed to be almost shining. Dark colored, wise eyes, but also teasing.

"Since this is officially our third meeting," the man smiled, "perhaps we should be properly introduced. My name is Harvard. Elijah Harvard. Ely for short." He leaned a bit closer to Greg. "No relation to the university." He sat back and smiled as though he was pleased with his own joke. "And you must be Greg."

Greg just looked at him, then snickered as Ely pointed to the name sewn onto his gas station uniform shirt. "Yeah," Greg smiled, "I'm Greg."

"Very pleased to meet you, Greg." Ely smiled.

Greg felt a bit silly. Even a little inadequate. No one in this town had ever been so polite to him...or to each other! He wasn't sure how to respond.

"By the way," Ely said between bites of his steak sandwich. "I am sixty two years old."

Greg almost choked on his bite of fries. How did he know...?

Ely laughed. "Don't worry about it, Greg," he said. "Everyone tries to guess my age, and I enjoy the fact that they all underestimate." Now his eyes seemed to be twinkling. "You did too, didn't you?"

"I didn't mean to be nosy," Greg mumbled. He started to say something else apologetic but Ely cut him off.

"Please put it out of your mind, Greg," he said. "Although I must admit I am something of a fraud. The sin of pride, you see."

"Huh?" Greg didn't know what to say.

"Oh yes," Ely went on. "I use many creams and lotions to keep the wrinkles at bay, and I color my hair now and then. Fortunately the hair I have is real, as baldness has never run in my family. Also I stay very active to keep my weight down." He made a show of looking Greg up and down. "It appears that you have many years to go before you need to concern yourself with such things."

"Thanks," Greg said simply. Now he was a little sorry he waved Ely to his table. Not that he didn't like him. Ely had a British accent, spoke a little slowly, distinctly pronouncing each word, and Greg just didn't know how to talk to a guy like that. It made him uneasy.

"You know, Greg," Ely kept talking and Greg kept eating. "When I was a boy I was sent to the proverbial finest schools, and those schools would accept nothing less than my being a perfect gentleman. It is a learned trait and nothing more. It's true I became comfortable with it and even enjoy it, but it is certainly not a requisite for the company I choose to keep. I was only fortunate to have parents who greatly concerned themselves with my upbringing and education." Ely looked down at his food, as though he didn't want to look Greg in the eye, "You . . . don't come from the same situation, I think."

Greg stared at Ely, shocked. "How did you know I was thinking about that?" he blurted out.

Ely smiled. "I can tell things," he said simply and shrugged. "I suppose it comes with age, but I can tell things."

"You mean you can read minds?!?" Greg's eyes widened.

"Oh my goodness!" Ely laughed. "Do I appear to be that mysterious?"

"Well," Greg smiled. "Yeah! You do!"

Ely laughed harder. "I'm sorry, Greg. I don't mean to be mysterious at all. I noticed you looking at my suit, and I noticed how you seem to be a tad confused when I talk. That's all."

Greg looked at the counter where other customers were ordering and saw the manager looking at him. 'Fuckin' bitch!' he thought. 'Wanting to know who the hell I'm with so she can tell my folks.' He looked out the window of the restaurant. He had the feeling that someone else was out there watching him, too. He was watched everywhere he went. Since it was night and they were inside the brightly lit restaurant all Greg could see was his own reflection in the window, but his skin tingled and he felt like the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up. He was sure someone was out there, also wondering who it was he was with and why he was with him. He wouldn't be surprised at all if his folks asked him who he ate with since he was sure someone would tell them. Damn he wanted out of this town!

"Is there a problem?" Ely was watching him. Greg glanced at the counter once more and saw the manager quickly look away from him.

He ended up telling Ely his whole situation. About the beatings that started even when he was a little kid. About the suspicion, about his running away, about every one in town watching him, and about his plans to get away.

"I see," Ely said. "I can't say that I blame you, either. May I offer a suggestion?" Greg nodded and Ely continued. "On Halloween night, it might not be a good idea for you to be out on the freeway wearing a lavish costume or heavily made up. Most people, I think, would be loathe to pick up a total stranger under those circumstances." Greg's eyes brightened as he realized Ely was right. "What you need," Ely continued, "is one of those masks that you pull completely over your head. A Werewolf mask, for instance. It will most likely come only with a pair of gloves that look like furry hands with claws. With the mask alone no one could possibly know it was you, and you could wear your normal clothes. Once you got far enough away to feel safe, you have only to pull the mask and gloves off and throw them away. Then you are nothing more than a teenager hitchhiking on the freeway. Much better chance of getting a ride."

"You're right," Greg smiled at him. "Thanks!"

"As for myself," Ely looked Greg in his eye and smiled. "I would pick you up without hesitation."

Greg perked up. He'd heard lines like that before. Well, a little more blunt than that ("Hey kid - want your dick sucked?"), but still... "You saying what I think you're saying?" he grinned at Ely.

Ely smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "I can tell things," he repeated.

Greg glanced around him and glanced at his watch. "I don't have a lot of time," he told Ely. "I gotta be home pretty soon or my folks'll beat my ass." He glanced out the window again but still couldn't see outside. "Tell ya what," he told Ely. "I'll leave and turn right. Give me a couple minutes and you leave and turn left. At the corner turn left again. I'll meet ya at the next corner."

Ely smiled. "You have a wonderful mind," he said. "I'm impressed."

Greg stood up and tried not to leer at the manager on his way out. He turned right, which was his normal way home. He walked around the block and waited at the corner for Ely. Ten minutes later they were in the woods, Greg's shorts were around his ankles, and Ely was on his knees with Greg's cock in his mouth and he was sucking hard.

Greg felt like his balls were about to be sucked right through his cock and into Ely's mouth. He wound up laying on the ground as Ely pulled his shorts off of him. Greg spread his legs and Ely laid on top of him. It was night, but there was enough ambient light for Greg to see Ely's eyes, which seemed to be twinkling still. Ely worked Greg's shirt off and he lay naked on the ground. Ely's eyes made a show of taking in the young body, and his hands ran up and down Greg's smooth chest, appreciating the gorgeous pecs, the flat abdomen, the muscled arms and thighs. Ely's eyes and hands traveled all up and down Greg's body and then those eyes bored into Greg's as Greg's cock bored back into Ely's mouth.

Greg was late getting home but he didn't care. Even another beating from his drunken parents would be worth it. The sex was fantastic. Ely was fantastic. He didn't merely fuck Greg; he made love to him, which was something Greg had never experienced before. Most of the sex he got was in and around the gas station, and they were all quickies. Ely took his time, and some part of his body or another came in contact with every part of Greg's body. Greg didn't feel like he'd just gotten fucked. He felt like he had been...elevated. Like he was made worthy. Oh hell, he felt damn good! It was about 8 pm when he and Ely went into the woods and it was almost midnight now.

Like all kids, Greg had a plan B, and even a plan C for getting in and out of the house when he didn't want his folks to know what he was doing. He climbed up the post of the back porch and onto its roof, tip toed to his bedroom window, raised the window off the latch he'd rendered useless a long time ago, and slipped into his room. He stuck his head out in the hallway and listened. No sound at all. He stripped to his underwear so it would look like he'd just gotten out of bed, and tip toed out into the hallway and down to his folks' room. Again, no noise. They must have already fucked and passed out. Good. He snuck downstairs and looked, but could find no evidence that they noticed he wasn't home. The caller ID showed the last call came in while he was still at work, so no one had called to gossip about him and Ely to his folks.

He went back to his room, laid on his bed and thought about Ely. About why Ely had made such an impression on him. Other guys were just today's and yesterday's fuck: forgotten about within minutes after they left. Something about Ely though, something other than the sex stuck with Greg. Something was strange about him. So strange as to be almost scary but Greg didn't know what it was. Ely said he didn't mean to be mysterious, but mysterious seemed to be all he was. What was he doing in town anyway? Most transients only gassed up and headed back out to the same freeway Greg longed for. Ely didn't even have a car that Greg knew about. He never said what brought him to town or even what business he was in.

His TV was on showing an old scary movie. Most late night shows were gearing up big time for Halloween, so Vincent Price and Lon Chaney and Bella Lugosi were all over the screen. Greg finally fell asleep without turning off the TV...

Suddenly he bolted upright in his bed. He was sweating even though the air was cool. He was panting. He knew he'd had a nightmare but couldn't remember what it was about. His clock glowed showing 4:00 a.m. His blanket and sheet were on the floor; meaning he had been thrashing about on his bed.

He pushed himself out of bed and went down the hall into the bathroom to rinse his face. He looked at himself in the mirror and rolled his eyes when he saw a nice hickey on his neck. 'Thanks, Ely!' he thought to himself. Now he remembered that Ely spent an awful long time at his neck when they were rolling around naked on the ground. He smiled to himself. He didn't really care. Let the town folk think what they want. Didn't matter to him one way or the other. He was almost out anyway.

He started brushing his teeth. He glanced back up at himself in the mirror, and just as suddenly as he bolted up in bed, his skin tingled again and the hairs on his neck stood up and he broke out in a sweat again. His toothbrush clattered into the sink and was forgotten. He wasn't sure... but he WAS sure... but it couldn't be! Now he knew why he felt uneasy earlier tonight. But it was impossible! He must still be dreaming. At the restaurant he was sure someone was watching him from outside, but he couldn't see because it was dark outside and light in the restaurant. All he could see was his reflection in the window, and that was the problem. His reflection was the only one he saw. Ely was sitting right there with him but his own reflection was the only one he saw! Greg looked down and his hands were shaking.

CHAPTER TWO

Greg stumbled back to his room in a daze. He didn't notice the toothpaste still running down his chin. He crawled in bed and sat up leaning against the headboard with his blanket pulled up under his chin, the sheet still on the floor. The TV was still on but Greg didn't notice. He just stared straight ahead and shivered under the blanket...

His eyes snapped open at the sound of his folks leaving the house for work. He was still half sitting and half leaned over with the blanket up under his chin. He looked around him and exhaled a deep breath as he figured he'd been dreaming.

'This is fuckin' stupid!' he thought. 'Nuthin' happened last night. No shit like that happened.' He figured he'd nodded off watching a scary movie on TV and dreamed the whole thing. He reminded himself that since he was a kid he was prone to nightmares after watching a horror film on TV. Ely couldn't possibly be anything other than ole Ely. So what if he acted strange? Actually, he wasn't really strange, just different. So much more sophisticated than anyone else in this fucking town would ever know how to be, and that doesn't make him weird or bad or anything! In fact, getting out of this shithole town and meeting people like Ely and other people who were just as different was exactly what Greg was looking forward to anyway.

He waited until his folks left the house and then went into the bathroom to take a shower. He looked at himself in the mirror again. The hickey was still there: even seemed to stand out a little more. He noticed he was pale and just shook his head. He thought he'd let himself get way too scared over a stupid movie. He showered and dressed. He didn't have to work today but he did have to stop in at the station to pick up his paycheck.

At the station his boss handed him his check and asked if he was all right. He looked a little down, his boss said. Greg assured him he felt fine and would be at work the next day. His boss glanced at Greg's neck, and then smilingly told him to get some rest. Greg walked to the bank and cashed his check. On the way back from the bank he passed the library, and after a moment's hesitation, went in.

Once again he thought he was being stupid to be thinking such things, but he couldn't help it. No one else at the library seemed to notice his presence, and no one noticed as he headed back into the shelves. He didn't admit to what he wanted until he found himself in the section labeled, "Occult." He spent the whole morning at the library.

In the afternoon Greg shopped at the local department store and bought a Werewolf mask. As Ely said, it also came with a pair of gloves shaped like furry paws with long rubber claws. That purchase went into a large sack and he walked home. At each trash can he passed he almost took the other small package he'd bought and threw it away, but each time he walked on. He kept telling himself he was being stupid for buying the damn thing, and then for thinking to throw it away, and then for not throwing it away. But he kept it.

At home he found a note from his folks telling him to cut the grass. Usually he got pissed when he found a note from them but this time he absent mindedly went outside and fired up the lawn mower. He figured this would be the last time this season to cut the grass anyway. Leaves were rapidly changing colors, bringing in Fall, and many of them were already on the ground. Nights were cool, but the days were still summer like. As he pushed the mower around the yard he kept thinking that he would look up at any moment and Ely would be standing there in his three piece suit and hat and smiling like he did. Then he kicked himself again for thinking that Ely couldn't possibly show up now because it was still day time and the sun was still out.

At the end of their back yard a creek bordered their property and led to a small area in the woods that Greg and a few of his childhood buds used as a swimming hole. It was still warm enough through the day to go in the water, so Greg left the mower and walked to the swimming hole, stripping off his clothes on the way.

He went naked into the water to cool off. He laid back and as he thought about being with Ely in the same woods his hand went under the water and he started stroking his dick. He smiled as he remembered how Ely was able to be aggressive but gentle at the same time. The other guys he fucked at the gas station simply went at it, shot a load either in Greg's mouth or on his face or up his butt, then pulled up their pants and went on their way. Only a few even thanked him.

But he remembered how he was leaned up against a tree and Ely fucked his face hard but kept his hands behind Greg's head so he wouldn't smack the tree. And how Ely insisted that they move into the grass, which was more comfortable than the twigs they were on, and then got on top of Greg and fucked him until both of them were drenched in sweat.

Greg's hand jacked faster and faster, making waves in the water as he remembered sitting on Ely's chest. Ely's cum oozed out of his ass and Greg smeared it on his chest while he fucked Ely's face, and Ely sucked every drop of cum out of Greg's dick and swallowed it all down.

Since he was alone, Greg didn't worry about anyone hearing him moan while he shot his load under the water hard enough for his cum to break the surface. He lay back in the water and panted and thought about how he and Ely laid naked together and held each other and Ely showered Greg with praise, which no one had ever done before.

No, Greg thought, Ely isn't a problem at all. He has an accent and so what? Just walking down the street he beats the hell out of everyone else in town. He simply stands out, but that's not terrible at all. Greg figured most people in town wouldn't like Ely simply because he was different. That was the only mind set these people knew - different equals bad.

Before his folks got home from work, Greg left them a note that he was going to eat with one of his friends and then hang out a while. He went upstairs to shower and change. In his room he took out the small package again and held it a while, trying to decide. In spite of his fondness for Ely and the nagging feeling of being stupid, he opened the package and put the chain around his neck. Hanging on the chain was a cross.

The burger joint was the town's "hot spot," where the local young folks went to hang out, meet each other, and find out where the party was. There wasn't a party every night; but whenever there was one somewhere, word got back to the kids working at the burger joint and they kept every one who came in informed. Greg wasn't worried about finding a party, but there was no other place to go in town except the bars, and he wasn't old enough to go to them.

As soon as he got in sight of the place he immediately looked around for Ely. He wasn't sure if he wanted to see him or not, but he wasn't particularly worried about it either. As he got closer to the door he saw that Ely wasn't there. Almost no one was there; which meant that someone managed to get hold of some beer and there was a party somewhere, or everyone had already come by and found out there was no party anywhere.

Greg was about to reach out to open the door when he suddenly felt lightheaded. So much so that instead of going inside he went to one of the outdoor tables and sat down. He felt flushed and even a little faint. He sat down and took in some deep breaths and thought maybe he was coming down with something. 'Aw shit!' he thought. 'That's all I fuckin' need is to get sick now!' He told himself he didn't care. He would put up with anything and any illness. He was getting out one way or the other no matter how he felt.

The dizziness cleared but he still felt funny. He couldn't put his finger on it, but he felt strange. He stood up and started walking. He didn't particularly want to, but he got up and started walking. He turned the corner and walked another block and kept right on walking into the woods. He knew he was heading for the spot where he and Ely got together the other night, and found he couldn't stop. He didn't know why he was going there, but damnit if he couldn't stop! It was almost like his body had disconnected itself from his brain and was acting on its own. He even thought about turning around: concentrating on it even, but he just kept walking straight ahead. He felt like he was being pulled. No one was with him, but he definitely felt like someone or something had some kind of hold on him, and was pulling and pushing him and wouldn't let him stop. Right before he could actually start to panic he walked into the small clearing where he and Ely had gone at it last night.

Ely was there. He was standing with his back to Greg, looking up into the star filled sky. Greg finally stopped and stared at Ely's back. His heart was pounding in his chest and he was sure Ely could hear it. Hell, the people back in the burger joint could probably hear it!

Ely turned and smiled at Greg. "I was hoping you would come," he said.

Greg looked into Ely's eyes and melted. He no longer cared about anything else: he was simply happy to be there. Ely took a step toward Greg, pulling off his suit coat. Greg smiled back. "I don't know why I'm here . . . but you do," he said. He reached out and put his arms around Ely. "I don't know, but I don't care." Their lips met, and the next thing Greg knew, he was lying on the ground and Ely was pulling his pants off.

Ely's mouth started at Greg's feet, his tongue working between the toes and up and down over the ball to the heel and back again. Greg moaned while Ely's mouth worked its way up his legs, kissing and licking. His hands kneaded the muscles in Greg's calves, massaged his thighs, pushed his legs apart and reached up to play with his balls and his dick. Greg closed his eyes and enjoyed the kind of attention no one else had ever given him.

Greg's body automatically arched his butt clear off the ground when Ely's mouth slid down over and swallowed and sucked on his dick. He felt a finger work its way up his ass and while his dick fucked Ely's mouth, Ely's finger fucked Greg's ass.

His heart started pounding all over again when he felt Ely's other hand start to unbutton his shirt. He felt a little stupid with the cross on his neck, but he also felt that finally he would know. He was sure Ely would notice that the other night Greg had no chain around his neck, and tonight he does. Greg started squirming as each button opened, wondering how Ely would react. Wondering how he himself would react! Wondering how he would explain if Ely asked. Damn he wished he hadn't worn it!!

Ely pulled his finger out of Greg's ass and swallowed his dick until he jammed his nose in Greg's bush. Greg felt Ely's body shift as he put a hell of a suck on his dick and very slowly slid his mouth up and up until Greg's dick popped out of it and slammed down against his belly. Ely shifted until he was straddling Greg. Greg couldn't remember when he did it or how he did it but Ely was naked, his clothes a pile on the ground beside them.

Greg's heart rate picked up and pounded harder and harder as Ely's hands reached inside his shirt. Ely pulled Greg's shirt open, leaned down and started sucking on a nipple. Greg's mouth opened but no sound came out. Ely's tongue licked his nipple, slid across his chest and started on his other nipple. On the way over, Ely's tongue pushed the cross out of the way with no reaction at all from Ely. Greg let out his breath and relief swept over him so heavy that he actually felt light headed again.

Greg spread his legs so Ely could get between them. Ely crawled up Greg's body until their lips met. As Ely's tongue slid into Greg's mouth his dick slid up Greg's butt. Greg moaned and wrapped his legs around Ely's hips and his arms went around Ely's back and they made out while Ely fucked Greg.

Greg had never felt so good. He had never been made to feel so good. He used his legs wrapped around Ely to pull Ely into him even harder. He moaned with each thrust and laid back as Ely's lips moved to his neck. Greg silently smiled to himself as he knew Ely was going to give him another hickey on the other side of his neck. He used his hands to massage Ely's back and head and just let Ely go at it. He didn't care. He was loving it and would carry the hickey with pride. He was leaving tomorrow night anyway and he wanted all he could get from Ely tonight.

And he got it. Ely took his time and worked Greg's butt with his cock while Greg squirmed with pleasure and felt Ely's hot tongue on his neck, licking and tickling and kissing and both of them moaned and the night wore on and they fucked.

Finally Greg used his hole to milk the cum out of Ely's cock while Ely bucked and humped and hollered out and emptied his jizz deep into Greg. Greg pumped his own load between their bodies and it got sticky while they laid together and caught their breath and made out.

Ely raised up a bit and looked into Greg's eyes. Greg was mesmerized once again by those eyes. They were hypnotic; almost like Greg could look deep into them and see Ely from the inside. Indeed, even in the night and in the ambient light, Greg could see his own reflection in Ely's eyes.

Ely smiled and kept looking at Greg. "It doesn't work, you know," Ely said. "None of it does."

"Yeah?" Greg snickered while he rubbed Ely's back. "What doesn't work?"

"The cross."

Greg froze. "Huh?"

"The cross doesn't frighten us at all."

Greg's eyes widened and his heart started pounding again. "What the fuck!?!"

Suddenly Ely's eyes burned into Greg's. Greg tried to look away but couldn't. His eyes seemed glued to Ely's. His body went numb. He tried to will himself to move but nothing worked. All he could do was lay under Ely feeling like he was pinned down.

"Garlic doesn't work, either." Ely's voice seemed to be coming from all around Greg. Like voices were coming from a different direction with each sentence, but they were all Ely. "Bibles don't mean anything to us." "Bullets don't touch us - silver or otherwise." "Holy water to us is just something to drink."

"Oh no..." Greg mumbled.

"Nothing you read about us in the library today is true."

"...no no no no no......"

CHAPTER THREE

Ely slid off Greg and lay beside him. Greg felt like a massive boulder had just lifted off him, but he still couldn't move. He could only follow Ely with his eyes, and Ely's eyes stayed connected to Greg's. Greg had never felt so weak. He knew he couldn't move a muscle no matter how much he wanted to. All he could do was look into those damn eyes!

"None of what you read or heard about works, not even with faith," Ely continued. His hand was sliding all up and down Greg's body, playing with it, teasing it, tempting it. "Right now all I want is time." His voice seemed like an echo. A loud echo, entering Greg's ears and bouncing around inside his head. "Time to show you what I can offer you."

"You're gonna kill me," Greg said flatly. "I'm gonna die tonight."

Ely shook his head. "Oh no. Killing you would be a very foolish thing for me to do indeed. It doesn't work if you are put to death in any way."

"...doesn't work?" Greg mumbled.

As Ely started talking Greg watched his eyes. Like watching a TV, he watched Ely's eyes. In one eye he was looking at himself. At his life. He saw himself as a kid, when his folks started hitting and beating him. He saw the taunts from the other kids at school, the sneers of his teachers, and how every one determined for him that he wouldn't amount to anything much.

In the other eye Greg again saw himself, but he saw himself as a grown man. He was smiling and happy. When Greg looked in that eye, he actually felt like he was floating. Like he was free. Like he was already out of this town and was happy.

"That is what I am offering you," Ely said as he knew where Greg was looking and what he was thinking. "A chance to be free. To be happy. To soar.......to be like me."

Greg's lips moved, "...dead."

"No no," Ely said. "Not dead. Alive. Very much alive. Alive and strong and happy and young."

Those eyes seemed to fill Greg's vision, but suddenly they retracted so that Greg was still glued to them, but now he could see Ely completely, and his heart rate picked up yet again.

Ely was different. The wrinkles were gone. The hair was no longer gray. Ely was....oh my! Ely was young! He was the same age as Greg now! His body was muscled, toned, hard, smooth, and - young!

"Yes," Ely said, "I am young now. I was 18 when I...crossed over, shall we say?" His smile was now as mesmerizing as his eyes were. "I can make myself appear any age I want, but no younger than I was when I made my first contact with my `mentor' and made my decision."

It seemed a monumental effort for Greg to talk. Seemed like not just his body was rendered immobile, but his whole being was pinned to the ground. "....sixty.........sixty........two......."

Ely nodded. "I only said I was 62 years old to keep things in perspective. I was born six hundred and twenty years ago in 1383 in Europe." Greg sucked in a breath, and another, and another. He sounded like he was about to choke but he felt nothing. Ely kept talking.

"When I was 18 years old I met a man much like I appeared to you. He showed me what I am trying to show you. That a life like mine and a life like his would be one where he, and then I, and soon - you - would finally be in complete control. That I, and you, would answer to no one! Explain ourselves to no one! Be controlled by no one!"

".......dead........"

"No, Greg. You are still being held captive by what you have heard and read. The change cannot happen overnight. It is much too complicated and intricate a change to happen rapidly."

Ely shifted again and was laying on top of Greg, their naked bodies touching, but still Greg didn't really feel it. His hands lay useless at his side. He could only stare into those eyes that were showing him the most beautiful scenes he'd ever seen. He saw himself floating high up in the air, running along a beach, rolling in green fields, always naked, always with Ely at his side, always happy, always strong, always young.

"In order for the change to begin," Ely said while he reached up and touched Greg's neck where his mouth had just recently spent so much time, "I must initiate it by mixing my blood with yours." He pulled his hand away from Greg's neck and Greg saw that Ely's finger tips were smeared with his blood. Greg tried to speak, to scream, to move, but all he could do was watch those scenes and smile.

"After I do that we can be together, but you must live out your entire life. You can only die a natural death that comes from old age and the illnesses that accompany it. You cannot die any other way or the change will not be complete, and I will have lost you and you would simply die. The change must be as natural as your life, and your death must be natural as well."

Greg tried to squirm, but knew all he could do was lay still and watch and listen. "During your life you will continue to nourish me as you have tonight. After a time, when your body begins the change, you too will have the same thirst as I do, and you must also find ways to nourish yourself. But I will be with you at all times. I will teach you ways to find your nourishment without acting as foolishly as the others have."

Greg's eyes widened.

"Oh yes," Ely said. "There have been many others, but no one who has captured my heart as you have. They turned out to be fools. They allowed themselves to be captured and imprisoned. They were put to death, and they were lost. Albert was the latest one to almost make it. He was 65 years old and already frail. He had only to wait for nature to take its course, but he was foolish and he allowed himself to be captured. He was executed, which is not a natural death, and after all his work he was lost." Ely was now sitting on Greg's chest. Greg saw Ely's now young, buff, and smooth chest with the flexing muscles as Ely's hands caressed Greg's face. "But that will not happen to you. I will show you how to nourish yourself without leaving a trace of evidence for the authorities to find."

Greg felt drained. He watched Ely's eyes as if he was watching a movie. He felt like his whole being, his very soul was leaving him and entering Ely somehow. He couldn't move, couldn't even blink. He only watched the wonderful sights he was seeing in Ely's eyes and listened. He no longer had to talk. He couldn't talk anyway. Ely could tell what Greg was thinking and Greg knew it. His thoughts were the same as speech, and Ely answered each question as soon as Greg thought about it.

"No," Ely smiled again. "Fangs would be cumbersome at best. They are nothing more than another product of your theatre. Biting into someone's neck will only produce an untimely and messy death. The human body can pump out its entire volume of blood in only a couple of minutes. No one - not even us - can drink that much that fast. The result is a tremendous waste, and an inconvenient loss of a regular supply of nourishment." He traced around Greg's eyes with his fingers. "As I will with you, we take only what we need, and even that is not nearly as much as legend will have you believe. You will nourish me, and still be more than able to function without anyone knowing." He traced Greg's neck with his fingers. "You have already nourished me tonight, and because you are so young you will be able to keep me fed for many, many years to come. That is why we always seek out the young - so that we can feed effortlessly for years and years."

Ely's eyes seemed to - well - they seemed to turn themselves off. Suddenly they were simply Ely's eyes again. Greg felt like a strong hand had just let go of him, and he could even move his arms and legs a tiny bit. Ely leaned down and gently kissed Greg's lips. "I sincerely hope you decide to join me," he whispered. "If you do, meet me here tomorrow night at the same time." He kissed Greg again. Greg was surprised to feel his cock stirring. "Meet me here, Greg," Ely whispered again, "and I will initiate the change, and we can be together, and we can be free, and we can be eighteen.....................forever!"

Ely stood up and walked away without another word. Greg watched him walk off and watched his butt. Ely didn't even pick up his clothes: ignored them completely and just walked away. Greg watched his young butt flex as he walked. Ely walked into the woods and was suddenly and simply gone...

As he did last night, Greg suddenly bolted upright in bed. He was drenched in sweat and the sheets were soaked. His blanket was on the floor again, as was his pillow. He was panting and swallowing hard. His clock once again glowed 4:00 a.m. and his TV was showing a test pattern. He jumped out of bed, went to the window and threw it open, gulping in the cool air. The woods behind his house appeared peaceful and empty.

'Aww fuck!' Greg thought, 'I can't do this! I gotta stop these stupid fucking dreams!' He tried to rub sweat from his eyes that were making them sting. So much so that he almost couldn't open them. He stumbled his way out of his room to the bathroom to rinse the sweat from his eyes. 'I don't know what fuckin' happened and what didn't happen anymore!' He turned on the faucet and splashed the cool water on his face over and over again until he woke up some more and could open his eyes. Still leaning over the sink he grabbed a towel and dried his face. He was thinking he needed a shower but would take one later after his folks left for work. He straightened up, looked at himself in the mirror, and almost passed out right then and there.

Now there was a huge hickey on the other side of his neck.

CHAPTER FOUR

After his folks left for work Greg stumbled downstairs in a daze. He walked around the house, looking out the windows as if he expected to see Ely out there. Of course, no one was there. He walked around the kitchen but didn't eat or drink anything. He sat in the living room in his underwear just staring straight ahead. He was trying to think, but that didn't come easy.

He asked himself if it really happened. But it had to. How else to explain the hickies on his neck? He'd read somewhere about people who do things to themselves while dreaming that actually leaves marks, but how the hell do you give yourself a hickey on your own neck? He wondered if he was sleepwalking the whole night. But if he did, how did his sheets get so wet with his own sweat? To soak the sheets like his were took time. He had to have been in bed thrashing around a while to soak his sheets that much. Maybe he was getting sick after all. Maybe that's why he sweat so much and had nightmares. He didn't feel bad at the moment, but he went back to the bathroom and took his temperature, which was normal.

He looked at himself in the mirror again. He felt his neck where the latest hickey was. No pain. No puncture marks, either. Kicking himself mentally seemed to be a new habit in the past couple of days. He once again felt stupid for thinking those kinds of things. This kind of stuff just can't happen, he told himself. Something else is going on. He couldn't explain it, but in a sense he didn't care either. He went back to the living room and sat on the sofa for a long time, thinking.

His eyes drifted to the coffee table and finally he found a reason to smile. There was a note there from his folks. They were going to some friends' house in another town after they got off work and wouldn't be home at all. In a rare display of intelligence, they wrote that they would spend the night at their friends' house instead of driving home after they had been drinking. Greg reminded himself that today was Halloween. Today was the last day he would spend in this house, and in this fucking town!!

He ran back upstairs and showered. He stayed naked and went through his room, gathering things he would take with him. The back pack he used his last year in high school would do fine. He decided to only take some clothes, his toothbrush, paste, and his electric razor, his Walkman and a few CD's. That's all he would need, he told himself. He had made his decision. He was going to leave. He was going to leave tonight. He was going to finally be rid of this place and these people.

He got dressed and went out to the garage. He found what he wanted there and put it in the top of his backpack, then hid the pack in the garage. He couldn't remember when the last time a car was parked in the garage. It was only used for storage, so his back pack was safe there with his Werewolf mask just in case his folks came home after all.

He went into town to the bank. In line he noticed that two of the tellers were new. He didn't know them, and figured they didn't know him, either. He let a couple of people go ahead of him until he could get to one of the new tellers. If they didn't know him, they shouldn't care about getting word to his folks that he'd come in and emptied out his savings account. Greg had worked at the gas station since he turned 16 and had been sneaking money into his savings account since then. He couldn't retire on it, but there was enough there to get him a place to live, and some food to eat until he could find a job. He turned most of it into travelers checks and kept some in cash.

Back at home, Greg thought as carefully as he could about his plans and whether or not he'd forgotten anything. He wished the clock would move faster. After 18 years of waiting, this last day seemed to move the slowest. He stripped down and jacked off. That didn't take much time at all. He laughed at himself and took another shower. He wasted some more time like he always did - by going to the burger joint and getting something to eat there. It was all he could do to keep from saying something to that smart ass bitch of a manager; knowing she could never get to his folks in time to tell them. He knew to keep things as normal as usual so no one would suspect he was up to something. He went back home and spent some time straightening up the house, wondering who would keep the place clean after he was gone since his folks never did anything.

Finally it was time. Even he didn't notice that he simply left the house he grew up in and walked away. He rounded the corner and walked out of sight without even a backward glance.

The weather was going down the tubes tonight. It was already cloudy and windy, and rain was forecast for later that night. Greg hoped he wouldn't be caught in it, but still figured it was a small price to pay after all.

He walked into the woods behind the burger joint at 8:00 pm. It was almost too dark to see, but he knew the way. His nerves started back up as he walked. He was afraid, but excited. Scared shitless, but exhilarated at the same time. The feelings confused him and started the butterflies in his stomach. He didn't know what to expect, but kept telling himself that anything was better than a life here in this town with these assholes.

He walked into the clearing and Ely was there. He was still a young teenager. Greg could barely see in the dark, but could tell that Ely wasn't wearing his usual three piece suit. Instead, he was wearing jeans and a tight t-shirt that accentuated his young buff chest. He turned as Greg entered the clearing. "So," he said softly, "you came."

Greg sat his back-pack down and sat down next to Ely. "Yeah," he said. "This was the longest day of my life; all I did was wait." He reached out and felt Ely's chest. "No suit this time?"

"No," Ely said. "In this day and age, it is most unusual for a teenager to wear a fine suit."

"Whatever," Greg said. He added slowly and carefully, playfully mocking Ely, "It is also most unusual in this day and age for a teenager to talk like you do!" and he laughed.

Ely chuckled and rolled his eyes. "I know," he told Greg. "As long as I have been here and existed, I have seen the world go through many changes, but the one I cannot seem to keep up with is the slang that teenagers use. It's like every generation invents its own language, and I cannot learn a new language every few years!"

"At least we look like regular buddies," Greg shrugged.

Ely leaned over and kissed Greg. "You can't imagine," he whispered, "how delighted I am to see you."

They kissed again for a long time. They wrapped their arms around each other and wound up laying on the ground with their bodies and tongues entwined. They made out for a long time and Ely was masterful at it. They kissed and groped each other. Ely rolled up on his side and slid his hands up and down Greg's body. "So you've made your decision?" He asked.

"Yeah, I did." Greg answered. "I'm here, aren't I?"

Ely's hand cupped Greg's butt. "Oh yes! You certainly are," he laughed.

"I do have a question, though. Is that okay?"

"Of course. Anything at all."

Greg scooted around to roll up on his side. In the dark, he had to move a couple of rocks around, which caused both of them to snicker. "You said before," Greg began, "that none of the stuff I read or thought I knew was true."

"That's right."

"Well, I heard a long time ago and probably read somewhere, that even legends start out from some kind of truth. So what is the truth? And how come the legends are so wrong?"

"Ah," Ely said. "That is not something I can take credit for. It was actually Bram's idea."

"Bram?" Greg said, "You mean...?"

"Yes," Ely snickered. "That one. He's one of us, you know."

"Oh man!" Greg said.

"We always knew that the public knowing the truth could easily harm us," Ely continued. "And up until only a little over a hundred years ago, no one really knew anything at all. So it was Bram's idea to write all the things that came to be accepted as the truth. You see, he said that if the public thinks they have the answers, they will then stop looking, and that could only help us."

"Wow!"

"Yes, it was a simple but brilliant idea that worked beautifully. It has served us well since that time, and you, Greg, are a fine example. You had convinced yourself that you knew, but found out it wasn't true. See?"

Greg shook his head. "Man! This is making me really nervous."

Ely reached out and caressed Greg's face. "Of course it does." He brought their faces together and whispered to Greg, "Nervous is normal. I was nervous also. So much so, that I almost didn't go through with it. But I remembered something one of my instructors from school told me. He told me that being nervous is acceptable only if you don't allow nervousness to become your master, and stop you from doing what you want to do."

"I guess that's right," Greg said. "Except I never done anything much before."

"Oh but you have!" Ely said. "The realization that you were above your situation, the plans you made, and especially coming here tonight is more of an accomplishment than any one else I have seen in this town would be capable of."

"But what about the truth?" Greg asked. "What is the truth? What scares you? What do you have to watch out for?"

Ely traced Greg's jaw with his finger. "The truth, Greg, is far more than any human can comprehend." Greg only stared and stayed still. "The truth is older than the recorded word. Far more ancient than any scholar of today or yesterday could ever know where to look for its origins. It is hidden behind the legends, buried so deep in the myths that even the teachers of Zeus and Valhalla didn't know it was there. That the truth could become common knowledge is the only thing that really frightens us. And the thought of it happening terrifies all of us constantly."

"Dude.." Greg mumbled, "I don't understand that shit."

"Of course not," Ely said. "But you don't understand only because we worked very hard to make sure you don't understand. Not at all because you have no intelligence."

"No," Greg shook his head. "I'm just a simple small town boy. I just don't understand. That's all."

Ely reached out and slowly wrapped his arms around Greg and hugged him for several seconds before he spoke again.

"Greg," he spoke softly. "I didn't seek you out because of what you are. I am here with you because of what you have in you. What you can be. What you can do. It is your potential that brought me here, not your past."

Greg squirmed in Ely's arms, sounding exasperated. "So what the fuck IS this truth? Why is it so scary to you?"

Ely held Greg closer. "Greg!" he almost whispered. "Dear Greg." He rubbed Greg's back. "The most important thing I must ask you to do right now is to try and understand that I cannot tell you what the truth is just yet."

"Awww shit!" Greg pushed himself away from Ely and sat up. Ely too, sat up and crossed his legs, facing Greg. "You're asking me an awful lot, ya know? You're scaring the shit out of me." Greg looked around. "Maybe you should find somebody else, dude. Find somebody smarter'n me."

Ely reached out and held both of Greg's hands in his. "I cannot tell you the truth, Greg, but as I said, only not just yet. I must ask you to trust me that you cannot know the truth until after you become one of us."

"After I die?"

"No - after you change. You will complete the change after you have lived out your natural life, Greg, and therefore you will have to go through the same dying experience that all humans must go through. However, your own experience will end in the change, not the total death. But only after you change and join us will you have the vested interest in keeping the truth as sacred as we do. Until then, we all would be taking far too much of a chance."

Ely could feel Greg's hands tightening in his. He could feel them shaking a little. "You are frightened now, Greg, but that is normal and expected. It is dark here and you cannot really see me, can you?"

"No," Greg said, his voice an octave higher, showing his fear. "I don't think I want to see you, either. I don't want to see your eyes. I know what you can do with 'em and I don't want that."

Ely's voice didn't change, but stayed soothing and calm. "Close your eyes for a few seconds, Greg, and I can give you a hint. But only a hint, and only one. You have nothing to fear at all, I promise. If you still choose not to join me, I will respect that choice and be gone. But first allow me to show you this so you can make an informed choice."

Greg could feel in the way Ely was holding his hands that Ely was not trying to fool him. Ely wasn't grasping like he didn't want to let go, or like he was about to make some other move to trap Greg. He simply held Greg's hands, even rubbing them with his thumb a little. The effect was actually somewhat soothing.

"Well, okay," Greg said, but a little weakly. "Go ahead," and he closed his eyes.

Almost immediately he felt calmer. Like someone had put a protective blanket around his shoulders. Greg silently counted to three, and then opened his eyes and looked directly at Ely.

Ely was sitting and smiling at Greg. A simple smile, but almost a smirk, like he was about to yell "April Fool," or something like that. But he didn't. He only sat and smiled at Greg. In spite of not wanting to, Greg looked at Ely's eyes, knowing that they could capture him like they did before, but they didn't even do that. They twinkled, smiling at him like Ely was smiling, but still Greg could see deep in them once again, and what he saw was that Ely was telling the truth and he had nothing to fear. Greg looked into Ely's eyes and then it hit him.

"Whoa!!" Greg yelled, and let go of Ely's hands and brought his own hands up to his face like he was about to clamp them over his eyes or ears, but he only held them up and looked around.

He could SEE Ely! It was night and cloudy and dark, but he could SEE Ely! The entire clearing they were in was bathed in light. A silvery, almost misty kind of light. Greg looked up and saw only a dark, cloud filled sky. When he looked back down, he saw Ely in the light. He saw his own body, he saw the ground, he saw the trees surrounding the clearing.

"Fuckin' awesome!" he said slowly and looked at Ely. "Where is that coming from?!?"

Ely snickered and said simply, "From me."

"Dude! How the fuck did you do that?!?"

Ely laughed and said, "Now Greg, I know you understand that I cannot tell you that now. Later, after you change, I can teach you, but not now."

"You mean," Greg was all wide eyed wonder now, his apprehension and tensions gone, "I can do that, too?"

"Oh you will do this and so much more!" Ely said. He leaned in closer to Greg and took his hands once again. "Greg, I can promise you this. Once you become one of us, you will in no way be a 'victim.' Not by any stretch of the imagination. That is all I can tell you now, but it is definitely a promise, and it is the truth. Look at my eyes, Greg! Look and you will see!"

Greg looked. And he did see. Not the same kind of scenes he saw in Ely's eyes last night, but he could see and feel that there was no threat in Ely's eyes at all. Those eyes that grabbed him and held him before and would not let him go, were now like a comforting relative who puts a protective arm around a small child's shoulders, making him feel safe. Greg felt safe. He was no longer afraid, not even slightly nervous as he had been the last couple of days.

Still with that beautiful smile on his face, Ely reached up with two fingers to Greg's eyes and made him close them again. When Greg felt Ely's fingers leave his face he opened his eyes and the clearing was dark. Ely was once again hard to see clearly.

But the apprehension and fear didn't return to Greg. He stayed calm, and felt calm, and felt safe. He reached out and hugged Ely, and Ely pulled Greg into him and they wound up laying on the ground again wrapped up in each other. Their lips met and stayed together. Their hands felt each other and slid up and down each other and once again Greg melted in Ely's arms. Finally their lips parted.

Greg smiled in the dark. "Okay," he said. "So how do we do this?"

"All you have to do is try to relax," Ely said. "I will do all the work. You will not feel anything that you don't expect." He leaned over and kissed Greg again.

Ely shifted and rolled on top of Greg, keeping their lips together. Greg laid back and let Ely go at it. Once again Greg only felt a hint of Ely's hands while they kissed, and when he opened his eyes he saw that not only was he naked, but so was Ely. He silently marveled and gave himself up to Ely.

Their hard cocks ground against each others'. Greg spread his legs and wrapped them around Ely. He felt Ely's cock rub his ass as he felt Ely's mouth move over to his neck. He turned his head to offer his neck to Ely and closed his eyes anyway even though he couldn't see anything. Finally Ely raised up and was on his knees between Greg's spread legs. One hand played with and teased Greg's hole and stroked his cock. His other hand reached into his jeans and pulled out some lube. He spread the lube over his own cock and put the head up against Greg's hole. He kept whispering to Greg, assuring him, praising him, telling him he was doing fine.

Ely reached over to the belt on his jeans. The clasp had a sharp point. Unknown to Greg, Ely pricked his finger on the clasp. As his cock slid up Greg's ass, he touched his now bleeding finger tip to the blood oozing from Greg's neck, and rubbed it in.

"Welcome, Greg," he whispered. "Welcome to my life. Welcome to your new life, your eternal life, which is in fact, life. Together we will make it wonderful."

Greg thought that Ely was right. He only felt Ely's finger tips at his neck, but felt nothing else. He almost didn't believe that anything happened at all. He felt Ely's cock in his ass and forgot about everything else, just like he did the past couple of nights. They laid together and Ely stayed on top of Greg until they were both spent and out of strength.

It turned out Ely did have a car, and it was parked at the edge of town. Thunder rolled in the distance. It was dark enough that they decided Greg didn't really need the mask after all. They walked through the woods to Ely's car and no one was around to see Greg anyway. Ely got in the driver's seat, and Greg walked around the car reaching into his back pack. Just before he opened the passenger door he pulled the wooden tent stake out of his pack, tossed it away, and slid in the seat. Ely started the car and drove out of town.

Once again, Greg didn't look back.

THE SECOND STORY

THE LIFE

CHAPTER ONE

The ambulance passed through the gates, and in one voice the paramedic and two Emergency Medical Technicians said, "Wow!" Facing them was a very large and old mansion. Older than any of them could comprehend. It consisted of a main two story wing with slightly smaller two story wings on either side. The driveway rambled up to and circled around a perfectly detailed garden.

The ambulance pulled up to the front entrance (it wasn't a front door - way too fancy for that - it was an "entrance"), where an old man dressed in a severely starched and pressed tuxedo was standing at the open door. The old man stood still, with his hands clasped together in front of him, and watched the ambulance roll to a stop.

"How 'bout that!" the paramedic said. "A real old time proper butler in full dress uniform!"

"Sure does go with this place!" one of the EMT's said as he headed around the vehicle and opened the back door. As the EMT's pulled the stretcher out of the back, the paramedic walked up to the butler.

The old man bowed very slightly as the paramedic approached, and pointed into the house. "Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said with the required British accent. "The master is in his rooms. You can use the elevator at the end of the hall. His private nurse is with him."

"Thanks," the paramedic said simply. He didn't ask the butler anything, assuming he wouldn't get much of an answer. The nurse would have better information anyway. He half expected the butler to ask if he could get any of them a drink. He wondered if the guy really cared about what was wrong with `the master.' Maybe he was wondering what his inheritance was going to be.

The first thing the paramedic noticed when he entered the room was that it was larger than his whole apartment. The second thing he noticed was the guy standing up by the bed. Then he saw that the bed actually did have an occupant.

The man in the bed was even older than the butler, if such a thing was possible. He was so emaciated that when he sank into the mattress and the blankets were pulled up, it appeared as though the bed was empty. The nurse was checking an intravenous line that snaked down and slipped under the blankets. The paramedic silently thanked the nurse for starting the IV for him. He wondered if the old man had any veins left!

The nurse looked up at their entrance and held up his hand; then touched his finger to his lips, instructing everyone to be quiet. He walked across the room - which took some time - and motioned for the crew to go out in the hallway. The butler entered the room and walked toward the bed.

Out in the hallway the nurse told the crew, "We have some time. He's fine for the moment."

"We were told it wasn't an emergency call. What's the problem?" the paramedic asked.

"Nothing really specific," the nurse replied. "I think his old body has finally had enough. But he's always been a fighter. Refuses to even consider giving up."

"How old is he?"

"Ninety three. He won't see ninety four." One of the EMT's was looking into the room. The butler was sitting on the bed talking to the old man and wiping his forehead with a cloth. The nurse continued with a smile. "He functions as a butler, but they're lovers. They've been together for 75 years now but they never married - just stayed lovers."

"Damn!" the EMT said and smiled. "Cool."

The nurse handed a sheet of paper to the paramedic. "His pressure's dropping. So's his heart rate. All day long they've been sneaking down. Easy to see it's a pattern that won't reverse. He's had a couple of heart attacks, couple of strokes, he's riddled with arthritis, he's diabetic, poor kidneys, poor liver - poor everything."

"Well hell!" the paramedic smiled. "He's 93, what do you expect?"

"Exactly what he says himself," the nurse said, "but he's adamant that not trying at all is tantamount to suicide, and he's totally against that."

"Okay," the paramedic shrugged his shoulders. "If he wants us to try something, we'll try everything. Who am I to question a 93 year old man?"

They went into the room, and under the stern and watchful eyes of the butler they broke out their equipment and did their required exam; then gently lifted the old man onto the stretcher. He was light enough that one of them could have lifted him by himself. The paramedic and one of the EMT's wheeled him out of the room. The other EMT stayed behind packing away their instruments and looked up at the butler. "Someone will call you with any news," he said.

"Actually," the butler said, "I was hoping for permission to accompany the master to the hospital. He has no one else." He opened his hands and shrugged, "And frankly, neither do I." His eyes were softened and he looked at the EMT hopefully. "I also believe, as the nurse does, that this time I will come home alone."

The EMT nodded. "Sure," he said. "We got plenty of room."

The crew met the nurse at the front door. The nurse had a couple of suitcases with him. The paramedic raised his eyebrows.

"Home health care seminar in Miami," the nurse explained. "I called the nurse that was going to relieve me and told her to sit tight. If he makes it home she'll come over, but I told her everything and she doesn't expect a call."

The EMT pointed to the butler's back as he went out the door. "What do we call him?" he asked. "If I didn't know he was a butler I'd think he was some kind of royalty or something."

The nurse nodded and grinned. "He's a character and a half all right, but he's a really nice guy and he's brilliant. Both of them are. But both of them always insisted on first names only. The butler's name is Ely. The `master' is Greg. . ."

Seventy five years earlier, Ely swooped into Greg's life when Greg was just eighteen years old. Some would say that Ely actually did swoop: that he turned himself into a bat, and with fangs bared descended on Greg, but it didn't happen that way. According to legend it was supposed to happen that way, but Ely explained to Greg that they didn't work like the stories and movies said they did. In fact, they themselves actually perpetuated the legends so the public at large wouldn't discover the truth.

At the time, Greg was ready to explode with the desire to get the hell out of the tiny little town he grew up in and get away from his abusive parents, abusive neighbors, abusive townsfolk, and just a generally fucked up life so far. Ely offered Greg a chance to become one of "them" like Ely was, and Greg accepted. But before Greg could officially and physically make "the change" he had to live out his entire life. He could only die of natural causes. If he was murdered, committed suicide, or died as a result of execution, he would only die like everyone else and wouldn't complete the change to join Ely's ranks.

Ely initiated the change back in Greg's town by mixing their blood right before they left town for good. During his life, Greg continued to feed Ely his blood. And now, 75 years later, the change was ready to be completed, and it looked like they both would have to find a new source very soon. . .

As they drove out of town all those years ago, Greg kept his eyes squarely in front of him; watching the miles go by and relaxing more and more as each marker zoomed past. That night Ely made himself a teenager so it would look like he and Greg were just buddies traveling down the freeway. Ely appeared to be in his 60's when he first met Greg, and changed his appearance when Greg accepted his offer.

"Greg," Ely said as he glanced to his side. "We have traveled over one hundred miles so far. We have gone around many, many curves. It is perfectly acceptable to look back now. There is nothing more to see there."

"I know," Greg smiled at Ely. "I couldn't wait to get outta that place, but I was thinking I might be scared, ya know? Like I wouldn't be able to do it. I feel like if I look back it'll be like wishing I was still there." He rubbed his temples like he had a headache. "But I damn well don't wish it," he said softly, as if he was trying to convince himself as much as Ely.

Ely reached over and squeezed Greg's thigh. "That is obvious," he said. "Many teenagers leave home under the worst of circumstances and are not prepared for it. They had no plans made, no money saved, no idea where they were going to go, no job ready for them. They wind up getting in one kind of trouble or another. It is always sad, but that will not be your fate - I can promise you that."

Greg curled his fingers into Ely's on his thigh. "I'm not really worried about it, dude. Anything is better than that place."

"I think," Ely said slowly, "that what you could use now, is something that is very important both for humans and for us. It is called 'closure.' It works wonders for the soul. And it is nothing to be ashamed of." Ely flicked his head behind them, gesturing toward the route they had come. "All you will be doing is saying 'goodbye,' and there is nothing wrong with that at all."

Greg smiled sheepishly. "I guess," he said. He squeezed Ely's hand. "I'm glad I'm with you."

"Ah," Ely smiled. "It feels wonderful to hear you say that." Greg leaned over and kissed Ely's cheek.

"Here we are!" Ely pointed ahead. They were passing a sign that said there was food, gas and lodging to be found at the next exit. "You must be hungry. I know I am. We can have a late dinner and find a hotel for the night."

"You mean you guys have to eat real food, too?" Greg asked.

Ely laughed. "Yes, yes we do. I rather enjoy a fine meal. One of my hobbies is cooking; more of a passion actually, but it is so much more enjoyable when you have someone to cook for. I look forward to many enjoyable evenings preparing meals for you!"

They pulled off the freeway into a town that was considerably larger than Greg's hometown. At the end of the exit were signs for a few all night restaurants and some hotels. Greg opened his backpack to look for his travelers checks. Ely stopped him with a snicker. "Don't worry, Greg. I have more than enough."

"I wanna pay my way."

As Ely pulled the car into the parking lot of a restaurant he tapped Greg's neck where the hickey was and told him, "You are more than paying your way! And I am not trying to be condescending in any way. Put simply, I have more money than I know what to do with. Far more than anyone would need in several lifetimes."

"Damn!" Greg said. He had trouble picturing having that much money and shrugged it off. He felt his neck and tried to see himself in the rearview mirror. "Does it show too much?"

"In the trunk I have some suitcases," Ely answered. "There are a few turtleneck sweaters you can put on. No one will see."

Ely opened the trunk and Greg pulled on a sweater. "This time," Ely said as they headed into the restaurant, "I want you to eat a decent meal."

"Know what, dude?" Greg laughed. "I think it's gonna be a long time before I'll want another burger and fries!"

They allowed the hostess to seat them and Greg touched Ely's arm. "Dude?" he asked, "do we have to go to a hotel? I'm too excited to sleep and I wanna get farther away anyway. I can drive if you're tired."

"Actually I slept most of the day; knowing this was going to be a long night," Ely answered, and grinned teasingly at Greg. "However, I wasn't thinking of sleeping..."

"Ah!" Greg laughed and reached between Ely's legs under the table and played with his bulge while looking around to make sure no one was watching. They were the only customers in the restaurant. "In that case - we're plenty far away."

They had steak. Greg insisted that Ely let him order. He said it would look weird for someone as young and buff as Ely to talk like the king of England this late at night and confuse the poor waitress. Greg grinned throughout the entire meal as Ely commented on the restaurant, the atmosphere, the service, the food, even the design of the menu itself. If they were just meeting for the first time tonight, Greg would have thought Ely was a food critic.

As they ate their meal, Greg looked slyly at Ely and asked, "You said you slept most of the day knowing this was going to be a long night. Umm . . . is that the only reason you slept all day?"

Ely looked at Greg and a grin slowly spread over his face. "It is the only reason," he said through a soft laugh. "I know what you are thinking, and no, that's not true either. We can go out any time we wish."

"But why is it I only seem to see you at night? I haven't seen you through the day at all."

"That's true, Greg, but you have only known me for three days now. That's not nearly enough time to prove anything. I have spent my days making preparations, and you have spent your days working. There wasn't time through the day for us to see each other."

Greg nodded but looked to Ely like he wasn't convinced. Ely put his fork down and reached across the table to pat Greg's hand. "You will see, Greg," he snickered. "We will drive through the day and I will be out in the sun and nothing will happen to me."

"It better not!" Greg laughed. "But if it does," he took hold of Ely's hand and looked seriously into his eyes, "can I keep the car?"

Ely almost choked on his bite of steak as he laughed. "I told you earlier that the legends were made up by us to use as a cloak of secrecy," he said when he calmed down. "There was a time, several hundred years in fact, when that particular myth of the sun destroying us was the best disguise we had. Between the 12th to something like the 19th century, people would believe anything and everything. If anyone suspected us of not being human, all we had to do was let them see us out during the day, and all suspicion immediately and completely ceased."

"Really?" Greg asked. "It was that bad that you really had to do that?"

"Well, not all the time, of course, but during the time history remembers as the Dark Ages, suspicion was everywhere. Education was sorely lacking in society, and superstition took its place far too often. With all the protection we have anyway, that simple idea was all we needed most of the time." He stopped talking when the waitress came to check on their meal. She stared at Ely an extra couple of seconds as he obviously impressed her with his enthusiasm. Greg smiled and lowered his eyes. He snickered as she walked away. Ely beamed at him. "It is good to see you smiling," he said. "You are beautiful when you smile and laugh."

Greg gave him a big smile, as though he was striking a pose. "Thanks," he said. He blinked a couple if times. "I really do feel like I've got something to be happy and smile about." He looked down at his food as though he was embarrassed.

Ely blew him a small kiss. "I'm happy to hear you say that, too."

Greg looked up at Ely as he thought of something. "Preparations? For what?"

"For your arrival at my house - I mean - our house," he said. "I made arrangements to have the house cleaned and the kitchen stocked. Another hobby of mine is reading. When I travel I have no real work to do, so I spend the days reading and sightseeing."

Greg smiled again. "What's to see around here?"

Ely shrugged his shoulders. "I have read a lot these past few days." They both laughed.

They kept eating but Ely noticed Greg seemed to be in deep thought, as if he was trying to decide something. Ely egged him on a bit. "There is something else, isn't there?" he asked.

"If everything isn't true," Greg said and pointed to Ely with his fork, "then how come the other night at the burger joint I didn't see you in the window? I remember looking out the window but couldn't see anything outside. All I saw was my reflection. I didn't see yours at all. How come, huh?" Greg's full attention was on Ely.

"Ah," Ely grinned, "so you did notice."

"Yeah, I noticed!" Greg said. "It didn't hit me at first, but I remembered later that night. Had a nightmare over it even."

Ely was still grinning. "Greg, it is night now, and we are once again in a restaurant." Greg's eyes widened a bit as he realized Ely was right. He spun his head around toward the big window. As it was the other night, there was nothing to see outside, and Greg could only see reflections in the window. Behind his reflection, he saw Ely waving at him and making faces and laughing. Greg spun back around, his eyes bugging out.

"Dude! How the fuck did you do that?!? Are you playing with me!?"

Ely tried to reassure Greg through his snickers. "Oh no, no!" he said. He reached out once again with both hands and took Greg's hands in his. They both glanced around quickly to see if anyone was watching. They were still the only customers this late at night, and none of the staff were in sight. "Greg, there is much I must ask you to take on faith and trust, but please try to understand. The guys we seek out must have a measure of stamina and courage in them. You came back to me and decided to join me in spite of the enormous fear I put into you. That is exactly what I was hoping to see. I put that fear in you on purpose, but not to play with you. Admittedly, it was to test you, as we must test all potential recruits." Greg nodded to show he understood. "It was I who planted the thought in your head that you did not see my reflection in the window the other night. But more than just the thought - it was not to occur to you until after we had parted for the night. It was important that I not be around for you to ask questions when the thought finally came to the forefront of your mind. I needed you to dwell on it yourself, think about it, and yes, even fear it. So I planted the thought, but not to appear until you had slept and woken up again. If you had the courage to come back to me in spite of the dread you must have been feeling, then I would know you were exactly the kind of person we need. And you did come back, and you did decide to join us, and allowed me to initiate the change."

Greg smiled but shook his head. "That's an awful lot of mystery, dude!" he said through a grin. "But it doesn't matter. Right now I'm just happy to be where I am." He nodded quickly in the direction they had come, "Away from that place, and...and," he lowered his eyes some and mumbled, "with you."

Ely let go of Greg's hands, reached out and used a finger under Greg's chin to gently lift his head up so they were looking at each other again. "You're beautiful!" he said. They both finished the meal smiling.

Greg walked back to the car as Ely paid the bill. When Ely walked out of the restaurant he saw Greg staring back up the freeway in the direction they had come. He stayed quiet while Greg said his silent goodbyes. Greg turned when he heard Ely approaching and quickly wiped his eyes. Ely saw the streaks down Greg's cheeks, and not caring who may be watching, he hugged Greg and pulled his head into his shoulder. He felt Greg smear his face into his t-shirt, wiping his eyes. "Closure," he whispered in Greg's ear. "It is good for you."

They entered the hotel room, dropped their suitcases, and Greg immediately used his body to pin Ely against the just closed door. They stayed at the door making out and groping each other for several minutes.

"I need a shower," Greg told Ely when they broke their kiss.

"I hope it's big enough for two," Ely said.

They held hands and walked into the bathroom. Greg turned on the water, and while the shower warmed up they slowly stripped each other naked. Greg bent over, pulled Ely's socks off and stood up. He took a couple of steps back and eyed the young Ely.

"I never seen you in the light," Greg said while his eyes took in the jet black, shortish cut hair. Ely's eyebrows were just as black as his hair. Ely smiled and struck a pose for Greg. His chest was baby smooth, prominent pecs behind two large nipples. Broad shoulders and narrow hips with a nice cock standing straight up and his balls hanging between almost hairless thighs.

Some guys have buff, muscular bodies that anyone could tell at a glance were gym bodies. Not that they didn't look good, but their muscles were the result of regular workouts. Ely's body was different. Muscular but not overdone. His muscles looked like they came not from regular workouts, but from regular work. Like he had spent all his life doing heavy physical labor. It was a more natural look, a real look. Greg salivated taking in Ely's body from head to toe.

Ely, still smiling, turned around. His back looked just as good. Still smooth, almost no hair on his legs. Wide shoulders with a V shaped torso and one of the cutest little bubble butts around. Greg simply said, "You're beautiful!" and went to his knees to kiss Ely's ass. He stood up and took Ely by the hand and they stepped in the shower.

Immediately they wrapped their arms around each other and the water soaked their hair and ran down their bodies as their tongues explored each other's mouths and their hands explored each other's backs. Greg once again pushed Ely up against the wall and they ground their dicks together and reached between them and stroked each other and played with each other's butts and tickled each other's holes.

Greg pushed Ely down in the tub and turned around to straddle him and they sucked each others' dicks up in their mouths. The water kept streaming down their bodies as each sucked the cum out of the other. Neither spoke but each were thinking the same thing: Greg kept some of Ely's cum in his mouth and turned around and laid on top of Ely in the tub. His tongue slid into Ely's mouth and Greg found that Ely also saved some cum and they made out and passed their cum to each other until it dissolved.

They stood up and slowly, sensually soaped each other down. They took turns with the handheld shower and rinsed each other off, playfully kissing and tickling each others' dicks and holes and licking each other's nipples and pits. They took towels and dried each other off, all without saying a word.

Ely took Greg's hand and led him to the bed. They didn't pull the blankets down, but laid on the bed and for a long time their bodies didn't even part. Ely spent some time and shot some cum on top of Greg, and then they rolled over and Greg fucked Ely and shot a load of cum into his ass. They lay between each other's legs and sucked each other's dicks clean and ate each other's butts and gave each other such a tongue bath that they had to take another shower that lasted as long as the first one with even more cum splatting on the shower floor.

Back on the bed they turned down the blankets and laid facing each other. Greg ran a hand over Ely's chest. "Is this real?" he asked.

"Real? I don't understand."

Greg's hand cupped Ely's balls. "Is this really you - or is it how you want me to see you?"

Ely smiled. "It is really me," he answered. "This is exactly how I looked when I was really 18."

"Wow dude! You're stacked!" Greg grinned.

Ely kissed Greg. "I lived in a small village where everyone was farmers. I spent every day working in the fields, tending the crops, taking care of the cows and horses, chopping wood. Hard work does a body good, but I wasn't the only one. All the men were very well built."

"Did you have a boyfriend?"

Ely sighed deeply. "Ah yes! There was a lad the same age as me. We used to sneak off every chance we got and he was wonderful. But in those days marriages were very much arranged. He took a wife that his father had chosen for him. He had no other choice. Her father secured employment for him that required them to move far away to London. I never saw him again."

"Damn!" Greg said. "That's some tough shit."

Ely wrapped his arms around Greg. "Obviously that was a long time ago. About six hundred and ten years or so. But I don't need to worry about that any more. I have you now," he reached down and cupped Greg's butt. "And you are more than worth the wait!"

Greg had said that he was too excited to sleep, but he was wrong. The tension of the last few days finally caught up with him when both of them were finally spent. The sun was just coming up, so it was good that Ely had the foresight to pay for two nights. He slipped the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door, went back to the bed, grabbed the blankets, and tucked an exhausted and sleeping Greg in. He got in bed and Greg snuggled up to him.

Being asleep and dreaming can often show how a guy really feels. Greg turned in his sleep to face Ely and snuggled up to him the same way a small child - frightened by a raging thunderstorm - will jump into bed and snuggle up to his dad where he felt safe enough to fall back to sleep. Ely pulled the blankets over them and whispered to Greg, "Don't worry my love - I'll take good care of you."

CHAPTER TWO

The EMT's wheeled the stretcher into a cubicle in the Emergency Room while the paramedic reported to the ER staff. A nurse came in, nodded to Ely, and took Greg's pulse, temperature, and blood pressure. After she left, Greg slowly turned to look at Ely. "Can I just go this time?" he asked hopefully.

Ely leaned down and patted Greg's shoulder. "Yes," he said. "It is safe now."

Greg sighed. "I don't mind telling you," his voice was shaking, "I hurt. I hurt all over. I'm ready to end this however I must."

Ely smiled. "In the last few minutes all your pain will go away. You will feel good again."

Greg managed a small smile. The last few years were tough on him. The arthritis wracked his body. He could barely walk but tried whenever he felt able. In the house he was mostly confined to a wheelchair. He and Ely had been very active throughout his life and he hated having to stop doing this and stop doing that, as the elderly are forced to do. Bit by bit his life ended even though he was still breathing. His head was bald, he was dangerously thin where he used to be buff. He hated looking at himself in the mirror and tried to see the Greg he used to be instead of the Greg he was now. Ely kept reassuring him that it was only temporary. After the change was complete he could be eighteen again any time he wanted.

"I would be satisfied," Greg said weakly, "if I could just walk again."

"You will do that and more," Ely promised. "Much more."

"I suppose," Greg said. His bony hand shook, but he managed to reach over to clasp Ely's hand. "You haven't steered me wrong yet."

The nurse stuck her head in the room and asked to speak to Ely outside while the doctor examined Greg. Ely left the room and the doctor began his exam. He was impressed that Greg wasn't a complainer, but laid stoically while he poked and prodded. Greg decided against running the battery of tests the doctor mentioned and the doctor didn't argue. A few minutes after he left, Ely returned and fussed over Greg some more.

"The nurse was warning me," he told Greg, "that it was time to say our goodbyes, and the doctor agreed with her." Ely snickered. "If they only knew that this is just the beginning."

"I feel ready," Greg whispered. "It feels like it. It feels like it's time," he opened his eyes wider and looked at Ely hopefully. "Did you call any of the boys?"

"Yes," Ely assured him. "They are on their way. Most of them should start arriving very soon. I think you have time for that."

Again Greg sighed deeply. Ely saw his eyes mist over. "I am not looking forward to that," Greg said while staring ahead. "I must make my goodbyes to them real."

"I'm afraid so," Ely said gently. He took a cloth and patted the sheen from Greg's forehead. "We can't take a chance on them seeing you again, you know that. I never promised you that this part would be easy. You are, after all, ending your human life, and you must leave that life behind."

"Yes, yes, you've told me that more times than I care to count," Greg said. "Especially the last few years." He squeezed Ely's hand a bit. "I am not looking forward to it, but I am ready. You did a good job with that. You did a good job with everything."

That job started years ago when Greg and Ely arrived at Ely's home in Florida. . .

They took turns driving, and after disciplining themselves a little bit and not stopping at each rest area on the way to have a good fuck, they drove through Florida and just south of St. Augustine the next afternoon.

"Why St. Augustine?" Greg asked Ely with a somewhat knowing look on his face. "You were here then, weren't you? This was the first permanent town in this country and you were one of the first to be here, right?"

Ely laughed softly. "I wasn't actually the first," he told Greg. "I was on the second or third boat, though."

"Seems like there'd be a lot more people for you to feed off of back in England. Why come here where there weren't anybody?"

Ely smiled and nodded. "One of the other passengers was with me." He reached over and patted Greg's thigh again. "Patience, Greg, patience. I have to ask you to wait for many years, but all will be clear to you in time."

"Oh man!" Greg rolled his eyes. "I don't know if I'll get used to all this mystery."

"Of course you will! Ah, we are home!" Ely pointed ahead. They drove through a small gate and the house came into view. It was a large, square, two story house, obviously old but very well maintained. The driveway was a long one and while driving it, Greg had time to see the grounds. It wasn't a yard, it was `grounds.' Once they passed through the gate, Ely told Greg that he owned all the land they could see from that point. Greg started saying, "Wow!" over and over again.

"I have services that take care of the place when I'm away, as I told you in the restaurant the other night," Ely said. "I take care of everything myself when I'm home. I called them yesterday while you were sleeping and told them we would be arriving today. They won't be here, but they will have stocked the kitchen so we shouldn't need to go running errands for a few days."

They carried the suitcases inside and left them by a large curving staircase in a foyer that was big enough to hold quite a party in. With their arms around each other's waists, Ely showed Greg around the house: the living room with a fireplace that took up one whole wall, a large den with a grand piano at one end, a huge kitchen that still had the original walk-in fireplace designed for cooking, the formal dining room with it's own fireplace and seating for 12 at an old and intricately carved table, and a library with books on all four walls from floor to ceiling with a rolling ladder to reach the top ones. Greg said "Wow!" in each room. They took the suitcases upstairs where there were five separate bedrooms including a master suite with it's own sitting room, balcony, and hot tub.

Every room in the house was filled with antiques. The furniture was handmade, large, bulky, but comfortable looking. Tapestries were everywhere. Tables were covered with knick knacks that even Greg could tell at a glance were old and very expensive. The entire house showed money - old money - and impeccable taste. Greg assumed everything was antiques, but Ely didn't see them that way. As he explained to Greg, he'd bought all the pieces when they were new.

Back downstairs Greg turned around and around and smiled. "How old is this place?" he asked, then squinted his eyes like he was a little afraid of the answer.

"The land was originally settled in the late 1500's, but the house was only a cottage then. One of the first bankers bought it with the land, and built this house sometime around 1630. He had foresight, quite a bit of it actually, hence his success as a banker. He had the original cottage dismantled and re-erected at the rear of the property for posterity. I use it as a storage cottage for the equipment to care for the grounds."

"When did you buy it?" Greg asked as he ran his fingers over the detailed molding around the door of the library.

"In 1763," Ely said matter of factly.

Greg rolled his eyes again. "Wow!" he said for the umpteenth time since their arrival. "This is gonna take some getting used to, dude!"

Ely laughed and kissed Greg, "And that's not all," he teased, and pointed to some of the books. "I have been collecting these books since then. This entire library is quite priceless. I'll have to show you the alarm systems very soon."

Greg looked at the books like they were something that could attack him and laughed. "Don't worry about me, dude! I'm just too happy to be here to mess with anything."

"Greg, Greg!" Ely snickered as he hugged Greg. "My love - this is your home now. This is no longer my house, but our house. You can `mess' with anything you want."

Greg hugged Ely back and let his hand slide down to Ely's butt. "Including you?" he teased.

"Especially me!" Ely laughed and gave Greg's butt a playful slap. "But come out back with me. I have something more to show you!"

Greg raised his eyebrows. "More?!"

Ely grabbed Greg's hand and led him out through the kitchen door onto a huge stone terrace. It wasn't a simple patio. The stones were obviously as old as the house and worn smooth from the years of traffic. They stretched from one end of the house to the other. The terrace was almost as wide as the house itself. Here and there, seemingly random, the stones gave way to plants and small trees, obviously meticulously cared for. Beyond the terrace was a smallish swimming pool with a hot tub built into one end. Hedges tall enough to block any view surrounded the place. They walked to the hedges beyond the pool where there was a tiny gate, and beyond the gate was the beach and the ocean.

"Wow!" Greg said again.

"Greg!" Ely laughed. "You are going to have to work on expanding your vocabulary!"

As an answer Greg swept Ely up in his arms and kissed him. They stripped down naked right where they stood and Greg jumped on Ely's cock and rode him hard until Ely's cum squished out of Greg's ass. Greg stayed on that cock and shot his load all over Ely's face.

They stood up with cum running down some part of both of them and Ely peeked out the gate. "There's no one out there!" he told Greg. "Come, let's rinse off," and he ran naked across the beach with Greg right behind him watching Ely's tight little butt cheeks jiggling, and ran right into the ocean.

They both dove into a wave and splashed around and splashed each other and then stood in the water wrapped up in each other, kissing, while the waves pounded into them almost knocking them down.

"This is the first time," Greg told Ely, "I ever seen the ocean!"

Ely smiled and kissed Greg again. "You are going to have a grand time here," he said. "I'll have to show you how to hunt for shells and teach you to snorkel and so much more!"

They stood in the water and held each other and made out a while. They had to wait a little bit to leave the water until the beach was empty again. Then they ran back to the house laughing, with their dicks swinging and butts jiggling. They rinsed the sand off their feet with a hose at the gate.

"I feel funny," Greg said as they gathered up their clothes and walked across the patio toward the kitchen.

"It's the salt in the water," Ely told him. "The water dries from your body but the salt remains. It feels like a film of some sort covering you. A shower with fresh water is all you need." They went back upstairs to take a shower, and one of the first things they learned was that if they were in any kind of a hurry for whatever reason, they had to take showers separately or one of them fucked the other under the spray until the water turned cold.

The first week they stayed at the house. The house and grounds were surrounded by the extra tall hedges and Ely and Greg stayed butt naked the whole week. They ate naked and hung out naked and ran around outside naked. When one of them got horny he simply walked up to the other one and fucked him. Since Greg and, technically, Ely were both teenagers, one of them or the other was always horny. They swam naked in the ocean when no one was around and played with each other in the pool when the beach was crowded.

Greg noticed on the first night that Ely wasn't exaggerating about cooking being a passion. He sat in the kitchen and watched and grinned as Ely chopped and peeled and mixed and stirred, and then brought everything to a dramatic stand still while he tasted. Greg helped when he could, and felt that Ely wasn't merely cooking - he was performing. But the food was the best Greg ever had, so he didn't mind Ely's theatrics in the kitchen at all.

Ely noticed that Greg seemed to enjoy paying attention to the details of the architecture of the house and to the detailing inside. He explained that it was all done in the 1600's when such work was done by hand, by artists in those respective fields. They were few and far between, and didn't come cheap.

Toward the end of the week, Greg was in the library looking at some of the older books. The one he had open on the desk was properly bound, but the pages were covered in a curious style of calligraphy. Ely came in and sat his bare butt on the desk, pointed to the book and told Greg, "This one and a few others I occasionally lease to museums. They are worth fortunes individually."

"This doesn't look like it came off a printing press," Greg said.

"It didn't," Ely answered. "It was copied by hand. I bought the book in Europe when it was new. I had to order it special, as the copying took painstakingly long and was only done when the sale of the book was assured."

"I'd be scared to keep something like this in my house!" Greg said. Ely had already shown Greg the protection the house had, and it was impressive. Greg was amazed at the things Ely had. The entire house was a museum in its own right.

Ely pulled up a chair and sat at the desk opposite Greg. He leaned forward and put his chin in his clasped hands. "What do you want to do, Greg?"

"Do about what?"

"With your life. What do you want to be? To become?"

Greg scrunched up his eyebrows. "Well, I thought that was already decided," he said while he rubbed his neck. The hickeys were both gone.

"You have already decided what to do in your next life. But you still need to find a passion to keep you occupied during your human life."

"Well..." Greg thought a bit, "I always been interested in architecture. I dreamed sometimes about being an architect," he said and lowered his eyes as if he was expecting Ely to laugh as others have.

Ely didn't laugh. "I suspected as much," he nodded. He rapped his knuckles on the desk top like a judge with a gavel. "Then an architect you shall be!" he announced.

"Aww..." Greg mumbled, "I don't know if I can really be one. But it would be nice."

Ely reached across the desk and cupped Greg's face in both hands, making Greg look in his eyes. "Greg!" he said and smiled, "I told you before, I came to you because of your potential, and I meant that." He tapped Greg's head with his finger tips. "You have a wonderful brain in this head. Until now you simply weren't given the opportunity to make use of it. Right now your brain is similar to a jigsaw puzzle. The pieces are all there, but they are mixed up." Ely caressed Greg's face. "What you need to do now, is re-arrange those pieces so they fit together, and then you can do wondrous things. But you need to re-arrange them in a systematic, organized, step by step manner." Greg looked a little confused but didn't say anything. Ely saw the look and knew the thought. "What you need," he told Greg, "is an education."

"You mean I need to go college?"

"Exactly," Ely said. "There you will be taught the means to organize your thoughts, and before you object, an education is not as frightening as it may seem to you now."

"Did you go to college?"

Ely snickered. "Yes, I suppose you could say that."

"Meaning what? Did you go or didn't you?"

"In the centuries I have been here," Ely looked Greg in the eye, "I have graduated from 14 universities."

Greg's eyes bugged out. "What?!? You went to 14 colleges?!?"

Ely laughed. "Yes, yes I did."

Greg looked away with his eyes wide and mouth hanging open. Then he looked back at Ely. "On purpose!?!?" Ely almost fell out of his chair laughing.

"Yes! On purpose," Ely said when he could talk again. "You will have to take my word for it, but it actually becomes fun, and as the years go by you can go back anytime you want. For most of us, getting an education in different fields of study becomes something of a hobby." He got out of his chair and walked around the desk, and pulled Greg out of his chair and hugged him. "If you wish to study architecture, then that is what you will study. I will help you, and I hope you can see that I should be something of a fairly competent study partner."

"Wow..." Greg looked out the window again. "College, huh....."

Ely laid on the desk and pulled Greg on top of him. They made out for a few minutes. "I know you," Ely said as he traced Greg's face with his finger tips, "so much better than you think I do. To you, we only met a couple of weeks ago. But I actually have known you much longer than that."

"How do you mean?"

"Again you must take my word for it and not ask why. But I was told about you when you were still a young boy. I have been to your town several times and watched and evaluated you." Greg tensed up a bit but said nothing. "I know many things about you that you may not be aware of yourself. We have met before but I made myself look different. When we made eye contact then, I knew you. I knew all of you. It was then that I fell in love with you. I am not talking about loving you as if an infatuation from the past two weeks, but from years of studying you. I didn't expect it myself, but I fell in love a long time ago with who you are and who you are going to be."

Greg only looked at Ely. "Your eyes, right? You sort of read me with your eyes, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did. I hope that doesn't upset you. I meant it from my heart that evening in the woods when I told you that no one has captured my heart as you have."

Greg didn't know what to say. Even his parents never told him they loved him that he could remember. Ely was the first to actually say it, and he's said it twice now. Greg didn't know how he felt, either. He looked at Ely laying under him on the desk and could tell that Ely didn't expect Greg to say that he too, was in love. All he did was lean down and kiss Ely; the longest kiss they'd shared yet. And as has been usual for them since they met, Greg ended up between Ely's legs and by the time the sun went down, they were both sweating profusely and the desk top was slippery.

Greg raised himself up on his elbows and gave Ely a quick afterglow kiss and simply said as he snickered, "Okay dude, I'll go to college." They both laughed and headed once again to the shower. If the shower had been a living thing, it would have been afraid to see the two of them heading toward it yet again.

CHAPTER THREE

The nurse entered the cubicle to check Greg's vital signs again. She told Greg and Ely that there were several gentlemen in the waiting room.

"Ah," Ely told Greg. "The boys are arriving."

"If you'd like," the nurse told Greg, "we can move you to a larger room, and they can all come in and sit with you. Or we can do the usual and let them come in two at a time for a few minutes each."

"I know what happens," Greg said slowly, noticeably weaker. "When a person dies, I know what the body does. I don't want the boys to see me that way. I don't want them to remember me like that. I'd much rather say goodbye to them now...." and his voice cracked. Ely leaned over to wipe a tear from Greg's eye.

Ely looked up at the nurse, "If I could have a minute with him, then they can come in?"

"Of course," she said. "Just let me know when you're ready." She left the room and a man came in wearing a white lab coat.

"Ah, Alex!" Ely said and he finally smiled. "So good to see you!" They shook hands and Ely introduced Alex to Greg.

"Hello, doctor," Greg mumbled.

"Wonderful to meet you, Greg," Alex said and patted Greg's hand. "But I am not a doctor. I am here as a witness for Ely."

"Witness?" Greg's eyes rolled to Ely.

"Yes," Alex said. "Ely has done an outstanding job with you, Greg, and I am here to witness you making your final decision."

"You're one....?"

"Yes, my love," Ely said to Greg. "Alex is one of us. You see, if you desire, there is still time, and you have a chance to change your mind about joining us." Ely's voice was clipped. It seemed he wanted to say more, but was restraining himself. Greg looked back at Alex.

Alex pulled a syringe from his pocket. "You see, Greg," he said as though he was reading from some kind of script. "If you change your mind about joining us - which we all hope is not the case - I can inject the contents of this syringe into your IV line. You will slip away quite painlessly and peacefully. Since your death would be from the injection, it will not be a natural death, and you will not complete the change. You would simply go to whatever reward would normally await you. If you decide to join us, I will gladly join Ely in welcoming you."

Greg looked at Ely, who was standing at his side almost at attention; something of a fearful look on his face. His eyes were blank - something Greg couldn't remember ever seeing in them. Greg's old knarled hands shook their way over to clasp Ely's hand, and Ely waited.

"I have often wondered," Greg said softly, "if I was making a mistake. If I was committing the greatest sin imaginable. As I am sure you have watched me," he looked at Ely, "I have been watching you, too. You must be right that all I thought I knew was false. I haven't seen you do anything one would have expected you to do. All you have done is take care of me and support me and teach me." His eyes rolled to Alex and glanced at the syringe in his hand. Ely stiffened. "Put it away, Alex. I'm yours." Ely sighed audibly and leaned down to hug Greg. When he raised back up, Alex was gone. . .

Greg did go to college and became an architect. He specialized in designing homes for first time buyers - not a lot of splash to them, but unique styles that were affordable. He worked alone from the library in the house and did most of his design work on contract from builders. When his business began to take up more and more of the library, he designed an extra wing to the house. It was a two story wing, with Greg's offices on the ground floor, and his design studio and storage on the upper floor. The outside perfectly matched the architecture of the original house. Ely was delighted and often helped Greg with whatever he could.

They had more fun in those years than Greg would have thought possible. They would often travel to Miami's gay areas. Sometimes Ely would be the same age as Greg, and sometimes he would look like he was in his 40's and would be the 'daddy' while Greg was the 'boy,' and they would pick up other young guys to fuck around with. They always had a big hotel suite, and many times between the two of them they would wind up having a nice orgy in their hotel with naked butts and swinging dicks all over the place. And of course, now and then one of the guys they brought to their suite went home the next morning with a hickey on his neck.

One Friday night they went to Miami to celebrate Greg's 30th birthday. Both of them were hungry so they went to the hotel's restaurant. Once again they had a steak dinner with baked potatoes instead of fries. Greg had gotten used to Ely's obvious delight in what Ely considered the "art" of dining. Greg sat and smiled at the waiter as Ely even made ordering the meal an event in itself.

"So babe," Greg said between bites of dessert. "You eat the same things I do, and you eat as often as I do. Why do you need blood at all? You get all the same vitamins and stuff that every one else gets."

"That's true," Ely answered. He leaned back and sipped his tea. "But it is not the usual nutrients in blood that we need. There is only one thing in blood that we need, but we need it regularly or we can't function normally."

Greg thought about it a few seconds. "You mean the red blood cells, right? You need them to carry oxygen, don't ya? Your body doesn't make them new so you need to take them from other people?"

"Not quite, but a good guess," Ely smiled. "Remember, we are not quite human. Were we to exist anywhere else, we may need something besides blood. But since we exist here and interact with humans, we must be able to maintain our humanesque quality so we can mingle and not be noticed." Ely leaned close to Greg, lowering his voice as though he wanted to make sure no one else heard. "What we need from blood, Greg," he almost whispered, "is DNA."

Greg stared, "Huh?"

Ely smiled. "That is all," he said and shrugged his shoulders. "As you know, DNA contains all the ingredients required to shape a human body. Everything from eye color to amount of body hair is pre-programmed into DNA." He leaned forward, closer to Greg, and lowered his voice. "You see, Greg, when you are human, you have a soul that is contained within your body. But when you become one of us, you are a soul, and the same way humans wrap their bodies in clothes, you and I must wrap ourselves with a body. Those bodies are not much different than pure imagination. That's why we can change our appearance as humans can change their clothes. But as humans must use other materials, and money, to acquire their clothes, we must use outside DNA to manufacture our bodies. The bodies we choose don't manufacture our own DNA, so we must ingest and use the DNA of others to maintain our lives and our looks."

"Wow!" Greg said yet again. "And DNA gets old like everything else and you eventually piss it away, so you need more. Damn!"

"Not only that," Ely said, "but once you drink someone's blood and take in their DNA, you can then make yourself look just like them. And after you take in the DNA from several people, you can mix the various ingredients and look however you want. That comes in very handy time and time again."

"Did you ever drink a woman's blood?"

"Yes, I did. Being able to change your entire gender can come in exquisitely handy!" Ely laughed.

"You mean in order to do that I'd have to have sex with a woman?" Greg looked worried. "I don't have any interest in girls at all. Never have."

Ely shook his head, "Nor do I. Don't worry, Greg, with women you simply use your eyes and put them under. Then you feed. Sex with anyone you feed from is not required, but it is certainly fun! But if you can turn yourself into a woman, you can then easily have sex with and feed off of any man who catches your fancy," he said with a smile and a twinkle.

Greg rolled his eyes and smiled and smacked his lips. "So you can change into a woman and get fucked by a straight guy?"

"Certainly," Ely grinned. "Any time you wish."

"You'll have to show me that," Greg laughed. "I'd love to get plowed by a straight man!"

"Of course," Ely continued, "DNA is found elsewhere too. Semen, especially, is almost nothing but DNA, and we can certainly make use of that, but for reasons inexplicable even to me, blood is more satisfying. It is the same as people who feel they cannot have a good day unless they have a cup of coffee as soon as they wake up. They can most likely get through their day without it, but they don't feel right unless they have that first cup first thing in the morning. Without the blood now and then, we feel much like we are about to come down with a flu or something similar. Almost like the symptoms of withdrawal. The longer we go without it, the more we lose the ability to maintain our looks, and we begin to look as old as we really are; something no human is ready to see."

He fixed Greg with a hard look. "That is why some people who have had the change initiated as you have resort to attacking people in order to get a quick fix of blood. They are the ones who stop being careful and get arrested. Far too many of them continue to attack people, and even kill them, just so they can have one feeding of blood. They are captured and put in prison and executed. Execution is not a natural death, so they are lost."

Greg looked worried. "But you said I wouldn't have to do that," he reminded Ely.

"Quite so," Ely replied. "Not all of us stay with the people we initiate. Normally we give them some training, and then allow them to live out their lives as they wish," he raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, "and most of them choose to live foolishly, and we lose them. However," he raised a finger like a teacher would to make a point, "those who choose to live foolishly as that aren't qualified to become one of us anyway. The lives they live are the test that determines their ability, or their worthiness, as you will."

Greg grinned. "You're working real hard to not lose me."

Ely looked straight in Greg's eyes, "I never want to lose you. I told you - I fell in love with you. If I lost you, I would want to give up my own life, such as it is, and accompany you to wherever you go." Greg only smiled and blushed. Ely put some money on the table, stood up, and took Greg's hand. "Come," he said. "Let's go back to our bed and I will show you how much I mean it!"

In their room Greg pushed Ely down on the bed and lay on top of him still fully dressed. "I want to tell you something," he told Ely.

Ely looked curious, "Yes."

"I'm no good at talking..." Greg began.

"You're not entirely correct," Ely smiled. "Your manner of speaking is very much more refined than when we first met. You haven't called me "dude" since you graduated the university."

"I don't mean that," Greg smiled and quickly kissed Ely. "I mean I want to tell you something I never said before. And I want to tell you before we do anything instead of after we cum so you'll know I mean it."

"And what is that?"

Greg got serious and even tensed up a little. He quickly blurted out, "I fell in love too. I love you! I fell in love with you!" And he slammed his lips back down on Ely's before Ely could reply. Ely sighed and moaned and wrapped his arms around Greg and wouldn't let go.

CHAPTER FOUR

The boys came in two at a time, led by the nurse. About a dozen of them were gathered in the waiting room. There were more who lived too far away to get there in time, and the nurse brought a phone into Greg's room so he could take the calls that had already started coming in. Ely did his best to see to Greg and help him keep up what little strength he had left. He loved the boys as much as Greg did, but had to force himself to remain somewhat aloof, as someone always had to in these situations.

In person and on the phone, Greg said his goodbyes to the boys amid tears and kisses and hugs and more tears. They didn't want to leave, but they did respect Greg's wishes. They still didn't leave the hospital but stayed in the waiting room, resigned to do what they felt was their part. Knowing they were there, they thought, may help Greg feel maybe a little more comfortable.

After the last of them stumbled from Greg's room wiping their eyes, Greg turned his own misting eyes to Ely. "Do I really have to stay away?" he asked with a pleading look to his mentor.

Ely leaned close and brushed Greg's wet cheek with his lips. "I'm afraid so my love," he spoke softly. "At least in the beginning, for it would do no one any good to let them see you. Indeed, it would even ruin things for some of them, and neither of us wants even a hint of that."

"I'm thinking," Greg whispered, "there is some way you haven't told me about yet that I can at least keep track of them and know how they are doing?"

Ely smiled, "There are many ways," he said while wiping Greg's forehead for the umpteenth time. "You will learn them all, and believe me, you will be most satisfied with it all."

"They really are something," Greg said. His words were coming more slowly now. Speaking was increasingly more difficult for him. The nurse came back in and checked Greg's vital signs again. His blood pressure was dangerously low, and his heart rate had dropped into the 40's. He had chosen against being monitored and being connected to wires and tubes. The only real purpose of his even being in the hospital in the first place was to make the legal process after he died easy. Dying at home would have delayed things too much, as the law required autopsies for any death not witnessed by a physician. The nurse asked if there was anything Greg or Ely needed, making them promise to call her if they wanted anything at all.

"I am so proud of every one of those boys," Greg continued, his words barely audible above the din of the Emergency Room. His hand squeezed Ely's a little. "And I am so proud of you." Ely only wiped Greg's head and dried his face. He didn't speak much. It wasn't needed. He thought back to the time when the boys first entered he and Greg's life. . .

As they did when Greg turned 30, they went down to Miami to celebrate when he turned 40. Several times in the intervening years, Ely turned himself into a woman so he and Greg could have some fun with straight guys. Ely was planning to do it again for Greg's birthday, but it didn't quite work out that way.

In the afternoon they were sitting at an outdoor table of a busy cafe in the gay area, sipping iced tea and watching the guys walk by in their tight jeans and t-shirts, tanks and shorts, or just swimming trunks and thongs. Ely appeared the same age as Greg. A cute young guy dressed in jeans and a tight t-shirt walked outside the cafe with a sandwich and a soda.

As it was the first time Greg and Ely met, they were sitting at the only table outside that had an extra chair, and Greg and Ely invited the guy to sit down, which he did with a smile.

"Thanks, guys!" he said. "It's way too hot to eat in there. The damn air conditioning is busted."

Greg and Ely introduced themselves. The kid said his name was Nate - short for Nathan. He didn't seem to have a readily identifiable accent so Greg asked if he was from Florida.

Nate shook his head. "Nah," he said between bites. "I'm an Army brat. Lived all over the place. Never stayed in one place long enough to pick up any accents at all."

"Have you been overseas?" Ely asked.

"Oh yeah," Nate answered between bites. "Been to England and Germany and Italy." He smiled at Ely. "You're from England aren't ya? You got a English accent."

Ely nodded and smiled. "I was raised in the Welsh countryside and educated in London," he said. "Are you in school now, Nathan?"

Nate shook his head. "I'll probably start up next semester."

"How old are you?" Greg asked. "Why did you come to Florida?"

"I turned 19 a few weeks ago. I finally had enough of my dad's shit, and told him I was gay and liked to suck dick. He went ballistic on me and threw me out. I hitched down here."

Ely and Greg exchanged a quick glance. "Where do you live now?" Greg asked.

Nate shrugged his shoulders. "Here and there," he said. "I just got here a couple weeks ago. Stayin' with a couple of buds now 'til I can get my own place."

"Do you have a job here?" Ely asked next.

Nate smiled teasingly at both of them. "I do if you guys are looking for some action," he said slyly.

"Ah," Ely smiled.

"Play for pay, is it?" Greg asked with a smile.

Nate got serious. "I can take it or give it, whatever you want," he said. His eyes were obvious about taking in Greg and Ely's expensive looking clothes. "If ya want," Nate continued, "I can get hold of my buds and they'll be glad to join us." He stood up and quickly groped his crotch, showing off his prominent bulge. "We can have us one hell of a good orgy," he smiled teasingly again.

Twenty minutes later the three of them were in the hotel room and they were all naked. Nate wasn't kidding. He took it and he gave it and he wanted more. He shot a load up Greg's butt and stayed hard and jumped in Ely's ass and then both of them took turns fucking him. They calmed down a bit but then went at it again in the shower. Greg and Ely were impressed to say the least.

After they dried off it was time for dinner. Both the guys heard Nate's stomach growling and figured the sandwich was probably the only food he'd had in a while. Nate agreed to spend the night with them in exchange for a good dinner and some more cash. They went into the hotel's restaurant and ordered a multiple course meal to make sure Nate got to eat his fill.

"If you hadn't said anything to your dad," Greg asked Nate in the restaurant, "would you be here in Florida today?"

"I dunno," Nate shrugged. "I was almost all set to go to college back in Ft. Hood, but I would have had to live at home. My dad told me a bunch of times even if I went to college I was still gonna do some time in a uniform one way or another. I just didn't want to. My dad's all military and shit, and I had enough of that growin' up. He was a Drill Sargeant at boot camp and that's how I grew up," he frowned. "19 years of fuckin' boot camp!"

"That's a hell of a way to raise a kid!" Greg frowned.

"Tell me about it!" Nate sighed. "He always said that not doing at least one hitch in the military was unmanly - that only pussies and wimps didn't volunteer, and he wouldn't have it in his own family. He really lost it when I told him I was queer. It was funny after I left and looked back on it, but not a scene I'd want to do over again for sure!"

Greg glanced up at Ely, who nodded almost imperceptibly, meaning that Ely had made eye contact with and "read" Nate, and was pronouncing him acceptable.

"Look, Nate," Greg began, and told Nate about his own situation, and why he too ended up leaving home and how he met Ely and ended up in Florida. He of course left out all the details about who Ely really was.

"I got an idea, Nate," Greg kept talking while Nate and Ely ate. "Me and Ely got a huge house. Hell, I get lost in it everyday. How about you come and live with us? You can have your own room and have the run of the place. You can bring your buds over and fuck 'em any ole way you want." Nate looked suspicious at first and the guys knew why. Greg told Nate about the house and where it was and why he was making the offer. Greg felt like he was paying it forward, and returning something of a favor to Ely. Ely joined the conversation and told Nate he would be most welcome.

"There is something we'd like you to do for us, though," Greg said.

"Hey!" Nate laughed. "You can have my butt any time you want it. You want a blow job just walk up to me any time and stick your dick in my mouth!" He winked at them. "I love being a cum bucket."

Greg and Ely laughed. "Well," Ely said, "we may very well take you up on that offer, Nathan, but I think Greg has something else in mind."

Nate got serious again. He looked a little worried. "Hey, guys. I can do some kinky stuff but I'm not into S&M or any of that stuff." He looked around the restaurant like he was looking for an excuse to get up and leave.

Greg laughed again. "Neither are we, Nate. What I meant was that I want you to go ahead and go to college."

"Huh? That's all?"

"After you graduate it will be much more than that," Greg told him. "But what you need to do if you want to show up your dad is to become better than him. More successful. More respected. Find what you want to do with your life and be happy doing it. If you can do that then no one - not even your dad - can ever put you down. And we'll help ya do that. You can stay with us as long as you keep working to better yourself."

All Nate had was a duffel bag, and he moved in with Greg and Ely and that's how Greg got the first of his boys.

A few weeks later Greg and Ely came downstairs to breakfast and Nate wasn't there. He stayed gone for two days and the guys started to think they'd seen the last of him. But on the third day Nate was back cooking breakfast, and explained where he'd been a little sheepishly.

"Jeez, guys!" he told them, "You give me more money and stuff than I need. I took the extra money and gave it to my bud in Miami. He needs it more'n I do."

"You said you had stayed with a couple of buddies," Greg said.

Nate was stirring some scrambled eggs for all of them, "Oh, my other bud hooked up with a guy who works with some porn studio and he's doing a video for them. It's what he wanted to do, so he's fine now."

"What does your other friend want to do?" Ely asked.

Nate shrugged his shoulders. "Just find a regular job I guess. He's not down with doing porn - he just wants to go to school somehow and make it on his own."

"Where was he before he came to Florida?" Greg asked but thought he already knew the answer and he did.

"Some dinky town up north. Everybody told him he wouldn't make it anywhere on his own so he just left. Couldn't stand it there anymore like I had to get away from my dad."

A couple of days later Greg had two boys living in his house, and it became a habit. By the time college started its spring semester, all the spare bedrooms had some boys living in them and studying. They all came from the streets after leaving home under the same conditions that Greg left over 20 years ago. It was still happening.

After the house was full, Greg and Ely were in bed and Greg somewhat sheepishly asked, "I know now is a fine time to ask, babe, but I hope it was okay to bring all those boys in here."

Ely just laughed. "I have lived in this house for over three hundred years," he said. "And in all that time, these past few months have been the first time this house has felt alive." He hugged Greg and pulled him in close. "Don't worry my love, I told you before you have a wonderful mind. You are making good use of it, and I am proud of you. Besides, if I had an objection, I would have said something before you made the offer to Nathan."

Of course there were benefits to Greg and Ely from the extra house mates. Once again the house was full of eager and extra horny teenagers. While the boys had their own rooms, no one ever slept alone. One or more of the boys came to breakfast from Greg and Ely's room, and now and then they would all snicker and kid Greg about the hickey that showed up on his neck, or the one that showed up on the boy's neck.

The boys felt a little uneasy, however, and tip toed around the antiques that filled the house. That was when Greg designed and built the third wing of the house. Again the outside perfectly matched the rest of the house, and the entire wing was given over to the boys with their bedrooms on the second floor. The first floor was almost like a separate house in itself, having a living room, media room, and kitchen. Ely had fun taking the boys shopping for furniture to decorate the wing. The boys were only too happy to stay naked the whole time they were home, and between the whole group of them, somebody was always fucking somebody else at any given hour of the day or night.

One night one of the boys was humping Greg's ass while getting his own butt filled with Ely's cock. Ely noticed in the middle of things that Greg was looking longingly at the boy's neck and licking his lips. He knew it was time to start teaching Greg.

After their shower they all went back to bed and Ely caressed the boy's face while looking into his eyes. Greg saw that, and knew what was coming. The boy turned his head and Ely went to work. To a casual observer, Ely was only kissing his face and neck, but after a few minutes Ely raised his head and motioned for Greg to take his place. Greg did, and got his first taste of the changes his body had started making and the boy got his first hickey. He took the ribbing from the other boys the next morning with a smile.

Every now and then one of the boys would come to breakfast with a fresh hickey on his neck, and it became something of a tradition over the years. None of the boys knew the real reason why.

After all the boys had left for school that next morning, Greg and Ely were relaxing on the terrace, making out under the sun. "I can't believe how good that felt," Greg told Ely.

"You mean last night?" Ely asked.

"Yes. You'll have to teach me how to do that."

"I already did," Ely smiled. "You had your first nourishment and you didn't leave any trace. You did very well."

"I don't mean that," Greg laughed. "I mean what you did with your eyes. How you got him to do that for us. You got to teach me that."

"Ah yes," Ely said. "You won't be able to do it like I can until after you complete the change, but you can certainly get started practicing now. It is very much like hypnosis."

"That figures!" Greg snickered. "That's what you used on me, isn't it?"

"Yes, in a way," Ely said, "but on a much higher level than any human can reach. Compared to what we can do, and what you will be able to do, hypnosis by humans is much like a small child riding a bicycle with training wheels."

"Wow!"

Ely laughed and cupped Greg's balls. "There you go again! Limiting your vocabulary."

Greg ran his hands over Ely's chest. "Well you can't blame me," he smiled as he rolled on top of Ely. "Not with you all naked like this and looking gorgeous and making me horny as hell!" He sunk his tongue in Ely's mouth before Ely could answer and they spent the rest of the morning going at it on the terrace and in the pool.

Ely taught Greg the basics of hypnosis and Greg practiced on the boys. One of them was having trouble with his grades in school in spite of his obvious motivation. With the boy's cooperation, Greg tried to plant a hypnotic suggestion in him to improve his study habits, and his grades went from barely passing in one semester to slightly above average the next.

Greg and Ely had the boy in their bed, and after three loads of cum went flying, Ely made eye contact with the boy only for a second, and the next semester he was only two grades short of straight A's. Greg was impressed both with the boy and with what Ely had done, and they all celebrated with an orgy in the house that seemed to last all weekend.

"Why don't you do that for everyone you see?" Greg asked Ely.

Ely gestured to the boy. "He has come into our lives, and we have an emotional attachment to him, so doing it for him is acceptable," he told Greg. "If I do it for him, I'm helping. If I do it for everyone, I'm interfering."

Greg nodded. "So all your power is in your eyes?" he asked.

"Not really," Ely said, "Our power is in the make up of our entire being, but it is expressed mostly through our eyes."

Over the next decade, Greg practiced. Ely explained that humans could only hypnotize someone who knew about it and had agreed to cooperate, while Ely didn't need permission. But once Ely made eye contact and had the guy, Greg could then take over after Ely planted the thought in the guy's head to do what Greg told him to do.

One night he and Ely were in a straight bar where a particularly talented stripper was dancing and flashing her tits. One guy sitting at the bar caught Greg's eye, and when he went into the bathroom, Ely told Greg to give him a minute and then go in. Then Ely followed the guy into the bathroom.

They stood next to each other at the urinal. Ely glanced at the guy, and without his accent, said, "Man it'd be something if she walked in here right about now, eh?"

The guy pulled his dick out and glanced at Ely. "Hell yeah!" he said. "Naked an' drippin' an' ready! I'd fuck 'er right here!" The glance was all it took. Ely made eye contact and held the guy's gaze. The guy's own eyes went blank and Ely knew he had him.

"She will," Ely said. "The next person who walks in will be her." The guy smiled and held his dick. Greg walked in and the guy's dick got hard in his hand. "She likes you," Ely continued. "She wants to give you a blow job. She wants to suck your dick."

The guy started stroking his dick. He turned to face Greg and smiled and showed off his hard on. Greg slowly backed into one of the stalls. The guy turned and followed with his eyes. Greg sat down on the toilet.

"She wants to suck your dick right there," Ely told the guy. The guy walked into the stall and closed the door. He reached out and grabbed Greg's head and rammed his dick into Greg's mouth, thinking he was the stripper. Greg sucked and licked and played with the straight guy's balls and swallowed his dick.

Before the guy could cum Greg looked back up into his eyes. "I want your cock!" he growled as he stood up and turned around. He knew that thanks to Ely, the guy was hearing the stripper. His pants fell to his ankles. "I want you to fuck me," he said as he lubed his ass. "Fuck my pussy hard!" Greg bent over as Ely left the room and headed out to the car to wait for him.

The guy grabbed Greg's hips and rammed his dick up what he thought was the stripper`s cunt. Greg gritted his teeth and took the guy's pounding as silently as he could and enjoyed it. The guy reached around and played with Greg's chest while he fucked, and he remembered the guy was thinking it was the stripper's tits. He cheered the guy on and shot his own load into the toilet while the guy emptied his balls into Greg's butt.

Greg pulled his pants up and the guy surprised him by grabbing him and giving him a somewhat sloppy, but hot drunken kiss. He let Greg go and sat on the toilet smiling as Greg left.

Greg left the bathroom, and was walking back through the bar before he thought to marvel at the fact that no one else had come in while he was getting fucked. He got in the car and smiled at Ely.

"So, it worked well did it?" Ely laughed.

"Oh man!" Greg said. "That was awesome! That was fucking awesome! I sucked his dick and got him to fuck me!" Greg told Ely everything while they drove home.

"Did you make sure he didn't remember anything?" Ely asked.

"Huh?" Greg looked at Ely. "No. Was I supposed to?"

Ely threw his head back and laughed. "Oh, Greg!" he said. "You must always make them forget. Especially the straight guys! Always!"

"I didn't even think about it," Greg said.

"Right now," Ely laughed, "he is most likely trying to convince his friends that he had the stripper in the bathroom."

Greg's eyes went wide. "Oh no!"

"Oh yes!" Ely was still laughing. "It could be that she came back into the bar and his friends could very well be drunk enough to ask her if it was true."

Greg buried his face in his hands. "Awwwww shit!!" They laughed all the way home.

Over the next couple of decades Greg practiced what Ely taught him and saw to the boys' education, and he and Ely fucked each other and fucked the boys and got fucked by straight guys and generally had a grand ole time.

One thing Ely didn't tell Greg, and hoped he never asked, was the main reason they generally had fun was because Ely wouldn't let it be any other way. All human couples go through life learning that lover's spats and lover's fights simply went with the territory. Ely wasn't human any more, however, and disliked that aspect of life. He used the power of his mind to prevent it. Any time Greg looked like he was upset about something that humans normally argue about, Ely made eye contact, entered Greg's mind, and saw exactly what was bothering him. Armed with that information, he could easily deal with it. Greg never knew what Ely was doing, and Ely was hoping he never would: at least not until he could be properly trained after the change was complete.

One by one the boys graduated college and moved on to their careers. Nathan somewhat followed in Greg's footsteps but preferred working outdoors, and he became a landscape architect. The perfect garden at the entrance to the mansion was one of Nathan's projects.

Some of the boys moved to other cities and some stayed in the area. Greg felt like a father several times over. Each time one of the boys got a job and moved away was an incredibly emotional time for Greg and Ely and the other boys; who felt like they were losing a brother.

Some of the boys got business degrees, one became a doctor, a couple were lawyers, one became a college professor, and one actually became a well known actor. With Ely's guidance one of them majored in economics and saw to the financial planning of the others. With his and Ely's help Greg's fortune grew and grew. At one time or another each of the boys sported a nice hickey that the others laughed at until they wound up with one of their own.

When Greg was 65 years old he had his first heart attack. It wasn't a large one and he came through it very well, but had to stop taking in boys from the streets. The idea carried on though, as the other boys got settled in their lives and took in boys of their own and did for them what Greg had done. . .minus the hickies.

By the time Greg was in his early 70's he'd had a stroke and another heart attack. So far he came through it all, and in his semi retirement he and Ely would host reunions with the boys, or traveled around to visit them when Greg felt up to it. The arthritis began invading Greg's body, and the last official designing he did as an architect was to redo the inside of the now huge mansion to accommodate a wheelchair, adding an elevator behind the stairs in the foyer and widening the doors so he could still get around the whole place. Many times he asked Ely how much longer he had to wait.

"I know it is hard," Ely had told him. "But the longer you can maintain your human life, the easier it will be to adjust to your next life." They were laying in bed. Ely was slowly giving Greg a hot oil massage which helped the pain in his arthritic joints. Ely made himself look as old as Greg. They no longer played the daddy/boy thing as sex was almost non-existent for Greg now. He finally had to admit he was old when he couldn't get it up any more in spite of the medicines on the market to help. It was tough, and Greg often said he was ready to end the whole thing - that what he had been living for his whole life no longer needed him, and he felt completely useless.

"What is there to adjust to?" Greg asked Ely while he relaxed under Ely's experienced hands. "You've taught me everything I need to know, haven't you?"

"Oh no," Ely said. "You have learned much, and you have learned well, but there is much more that you cannot know until the proper time."

Greg sighed and turned over onto his back. "There you go again," he smiled. "Keeping the mystery alive. Is there a purpose to that? Something to keep my interest going so I don't give up?"

Ely laughed. "I hadn't thought of it that way . . . but if it works then I suppose it is a good thing. I can only tell you now that you will consider the whole thing well worth the wait."

"How much longer do I have to wait?"

"I don't know," Ely said. "We cannot always see into the future. Not at will, anyway. Like you, we mainly strive to learn from the past. What I do know is that those things you will be able to do after you change will be much easier and faster for you to learn the longer you can hold on now."

"I hope it's not much longer," Greg said. "My body has deserted me, the boys are gone, there is nothing for me to do and I'm not used to that." His eyes misted over and a tear ran down his cheek. "My life now is nothing more than a list of 'used to's. Used to do, used to be, used to be able. Right now I really don't care what happens next. I just want it to happen now." His eyes locked onto Ely's and he pleaded, "Can't I just go? Please?"

Ely stretched out next to Greg, putting an arm around him. "The boys are doing fine, and it's because of what you did for them. They love you for it and they always keep in touch. In many ways they are not gone." He ran his hand over Greg's chest, now reduced to two wrinkled nipples and overly prominent ribs. "But Greg, I love you, and I need you. Even after all these centuries and all the people I have known and all I have done, I cannot imagine any kind of a future without you by my side." He leaned over and quickly kissed Greg's cheek. "I too, am waiting with you, and I too am anxious for you. But we both must bide our time and wait for nature to take its course at its own discretion. It is not for me to let you go. That decision rests entirely with nature. But I will always be here with you my love - always."

Greg managed to reach over and pat Ely's cheek. "I know that babe. I love you too. With all I ever had and what ever I have left, I love you." He smiled. "That is so much easier to say now. But do you know that I also trust you?"

As he did all those years ago, Ely pulled the blankets over them and tucked Greg in. "Yes, I know," he whispered. "And I have no intention of letting you down." They both fell asleep holding each other.

CHAPTER FIVE

Greg's breathing was labored now. He didn't talk much but only held on to Ely's hand while Ely talked and soothed and wiped his forehead. The nurse came in several times to check Greg's vital signs. His blood pressure was too low to measure now and his heart rate was about to drop into the 30's, which was not normally enough to sustain life. She glanced frequently at Ely and could tell that Ely understood. She asked what she could do to make both of them as comfortable as she could and then left them alone to go back to the nurse's station and marvel at the strength both of them had. She would go to the waiting room to keep the boys informed and was equally impressed with them.

Greg and Ely still thought of them as the "boys," even though Nathan was now 72 years old and retired. The youngest of them was now 48. They all had come from the streets after leaving home as soon as they turned 18. Ely was right that they weren't really gone. Aside from being in the waiting room, they all had stayed in touch with each other and all considered Greg more of a dad than their real dads. And they all had taken other boys off the streets and let them finish growing up just as Greg had done for them. Those second generation boys came to refer to Greg and Ely as "Grandpa." What Greg started would go on for a long time.

The doctor came in the room now and then for what they all knew was just a perfunctory visit, and turned his attention more to Ely. He asked if they had made plans, and Ely explained that Greg would lie in state back home and have a quick funeral, and that the boys and everyone were prepared for it. The doctor was satisfied but told the nurse to keep an eye on Ely, as they would have to see to him most likely in a matter of minutes.

Greg's eyes were more than half closed and he only laid still and breathed. Each breath ended in a small grunt which told Ely how difficult it was for Greg. Ironically, the sun was just going down when Greg opened his eyes and looked at Ely with a smile on his face.

"You're right," he whispered. "It's all gone now."

"The pain?"

"Yes. I don't feel any pain at all. It's been so many years. It feels wonderful." His hand gripped Ely's with surprising strength. "So, so wonderful!" They talked for a couple of minutes and then Greg's head turned slowly to look straight ahead.

Some nurses are amazing, and so was Greg's. She seemed to simply know. She suddenly came into the room, and as Greg sighed deeply, she reached over with two fingers. As Greg ended his sigh, she pulled his eyelids down so they would stay somewhat closed. With her helping, Ely walked out to the waiting room to tell the boys. At the same time he was thinking that now the real work was about to begin.

THE LAST STORY

THE TRAINING

CHAPTER ONE

The sound came to him the way light tries to make its way through a fog. He felt himself floating in that fog. He couldn't tell if he was floating around the sound, or if he was still and it was the sound that was moving around.

"Greg..."

He expected the proverbial brilliant white light, but it wasn't there. There was no light at all; only the sound. The sound of his name.

"Greeeeg..."

It was definitely closer now. Still seemed like it was moving around some, but closer.

"Wake up, Greg..."

The voice was at once right next to him, and far away. Almost like an echo, but he thought he was hearing the echo before the original voice.

"Come on, my love."

He felt a pressure on his chest. Pushing. Like it was trying to push him down. Hold him down. He wondered why since he wasn't trying to go anywhere, but apparently he was expected to try. How was he supposed to go anywhere when that pressure was holding him down? What was the big deal anyway? What if he didn't want to go anywhere? `Oh well,' he thought. `May as well see what all the fuss is about. . .'

Greg opened his eyes. He didn't know it, but as soon as he opened them, they twinkled.

Ely was standing over him, smiling. His hand was on Greg's chest, gently shaking him. Greg listened and heard the distinctive sounds of a hospital. He realized he was still there.

"I thought it was over," he whispered. "I thought I was...."

Ely leaned in close and whispered, "It is over my love. You are."

"I am?"

Ely snickered. "Yes, yes! You are!" He reached over and patted Greg's head. "Welcome my love. Welcome back!"

Greg's eyes widened. "The pain!"

Ely showed his familiar slight bow. "It is no more, I can tell."

"It's still gone!" Greg beamed. "It's gone! Oh man!" He twisted his body some, flexed his arms and legs, looked at Ely and clapped his hands together. "It feels great! I don't remember when the last time was I felt this good!"

"Yes, yes," Ely said with a small laugh. "But we don't have time for that now, Greg. You must leave here and go wait for me in the car."

"What for?"

"I don't have time to explain now, my love. Come, sit up," and he helped pull Greg up to sit on the edge of the stretcher.

Greg smiled and jumped off the stretcher. He looked at Ely and smiled. "I can do it myself now! Isn't that great?"

"Wonderful. But you must leave!"

"What's the hurry?"

Ely gently put his hands on Greg's shoulders. "Look, Greg." He turned Greg around. Greg turned and saw himself. He saw his old self on the stretcher; eyes half closed, each eye looking in a different direction, both eyes with a milky covering to them: the look of death. He brought his hands up to his face. He felt himself and knew he was standing up on his own, yet there he was lying on the stretcher. Dead.

Somehow it was more frightening than when he first discovered what Ely really was so many years ago. More frightening than the thought of Ely with fangs, turning himself into a bat, only living at night, and the other legends that weren't true. He spun around, sucked in a breath and fell against Ely, burying his face into Ely's chest. His head was spinning. Suddenly he was afraid and shaking. Ely wrapped his arms around Greg and hugged him.

"I know, my love, I know." Ely held him. "It is not easy seeing how you look in death. But you are not dead. What you saw you can say goodbye to, for it is no longer you." He patted Greg's back. "This is you now." Greg was sobbing. "You are alive, my love. Very much alive." He reached out behind Greg and pulled the sheet up over the face of the body on the stretcher.

Greg pulled his face out of Ely's chest and looked at him. "Am I okay?" he asked while his eyes dug into Ely's, searching for the truth in them. "Am I really okay?"

"You are okay," Ely reassured him. "You are exactly like me now. You are more than okay."

Greg just stood still. He looked at his hands, looked down at his feet. Ely snickered, "Don't worry, you are all there. But you really must go to the car."

"I don't want to be by myself."

"It won't be for long. Just until I can sign some papers and see to the boys."

"Why can't I wait here?"

"Because," Ely said with some exasperation showing. "Right now I am the only one who can see you. You must leave the hospital before any one else can see you. Especially before any one can see you and recognize you. We can't have that!" He wrapped an arm around Greg's waist and gently pushed him toward the curtain. "Wait for me in the car. The window is open - you'll have to climb in that way."

Greg was walking but was looking at Ely, scared and questioning, but he'd spent his whole life listening to Ely and doing what Ely had told him to do. So even though his head was spinning with questions and fears, he went. Ely kept looking behind them to see if anyone was watching. He reached his hand out in front of Greg to the sensor over the entrance to the Emergency Room and the door opened. He pushed Greg out the door. "Lie down in the back seat and wait for me," he called out to Greg. "Keep down!" Ely scurried back into the cubicle.

Greg half walked and half stumbled to the car. It was parked on the street around the corner from the entrance to the hospital. He absent mindedly thought that one of the boys must have driven it to the hospital, remembering that Ely rode in the ambulance with him.

At the car he reached out to grab the handle of the car's door and missed. He tried again and missed again. Then he realized he wasn't missing. He watched as his hand slowly reached out, curled around the handle, and...nothing! It was like his hand went right through the metal of the handle...like a ghost would do.

A ghost!!

Greg's head started spinning again. That's what he was now, he thought. In spite of the training and preparation Ely had given him over the past 75 years, it was mind numbing. He didn't dwell on it, but just climbed into the car through the open window; not even wondering how Ely knew the window was open since he didn't leave Greg's side that Greg knew about. Nor did he wonder how he could climb through a window when he couldn't even grab hold of a door handle. He just did it.

He realized he was naked when he saw a shirt, jeans, and sneakers in the back seat. It didn't occur to him to be glad no one saw him walking from the hospital to the car. He simply pulled the clothes on, lay down in the back seat, held himself and shivered.

He opened his eyes to the sound of Ely getting in the car. He didn't realize he'd fallen asleep. He yawned, sat up and looked around to see that night had fallen. Street lights had come on and it was tough to see people clearly who were walking down the street.

"It is all right now," Ely told Greg. "You can come in the front seat and sit up."

Greg silently climbed over the seat and then sat still, staring straight ahead. "Is it all right for real?" he asked without looking at Ely. "Did it work?"

"It worked beautifully!" Ely said excitedly. "You came through it all as if you have done it several times."

"Believe me," Greg said slowly, "once is enough." He turned to look at Ely. "Now why all the hurry and secrecy in the hospital?" he asked as Ely drove down the street.

"Just as a baby's body must form over time in the womb," Ely explained, "our bodies must form and solidify after the human body dies. It is the last stage of the change. Until that happens, you are invisible to all but us."

"Okay, but if I was invisible why did you get in such a hurry to rush me out of the hospital?"

"As I said before," Ely said as he reached over to pat Greg's thigh, "the longer you can maintain your human body, the faster and easier you can get used to the final change. If you had only lived a short time, your new body could take a couple of weeks to solidify enough for people to see you." He glanced at Greg and smiled, "You hung on much longer than anyone I have ever known. For all I knew, your new body could have formed in a matter of minutes. At first people would not only be able to see you, but see right through you. It would not have done for the hospital staff to see that!" Ely patted Greg's thigh a little harder. "Indeed, I think you could walk around even now and no one would know what you really are. You made the final change very quickly."

"I feel tired," Greg sighed. "I don't hurt or feel bad or sick. I just feel so tired."

Ely nodded. "I was expecting that. A human baby exhausts itself during the birth process, and we too, use a lot of energy making the final change and end up just as exhausted." He stopped the car at a light, turned and looked seriously at Greg. "You cannot go home, I'm afraid," he said. "Some of the boys will stay there and your human body will lie in state for a day. The other boys and our friends will come around. They of course cannot see you as you are now. You must stay in a hotel for a few days until the house empties out again."

Greg yawned again and nodded. "I don't care right now. I just want to sleep."

Greg waited in the car while Ely registered in the hotel and then followed him to their room. Anyone watching would have thought Greg had been drinking by the way he was walking, but he was only tired.

In the room Greg sat on the bed and kicked off his shoes. He was too tired to unbutton his shirt, so just pulled it up over his head like a t-shirt. He tossed it aside and ran his hands through his hair. He laid down and stretched his legs out, and then suddenly bolted up in bed. He ran his hands through his hair again. And again. And again.

"Hey!!" Greg yelled, his fatigue forgotten. "My hair! It's back! I got hair! Oh man I got a BUNCH of hair!!"

Ely laughed and sat down next to Greg. "You have much more than hair, my love!" He wrapped his arms around Greg in a hug and said in his ear. "You have everything you had when you were 18. You ARE 18 again. I told you it would happen and it did." He pulled away from Greg, and for the first time in nearly 30 years, Ely was also 18 again. Greg just stared and smiled and stared and smiled.

Greg suddenly jumped up and looked down and felt his bare chest. His pecs were back! His arms were filled out and muscled again! He felt his chest and arms and looked at Ely and smiled and said, "Wow!" over and over again. He ran to the wall mirror, looked at himself and said, "Wow!" Ely stayed on the bed, watching and laughing. Greg alternated from looking at himself in the mirror to facing Ely saying, "Look at this! Look at this!" and back to the mirror.

Suddenly he stared at Ely with his mouth hanging open and groped his crotch. "Oh shit!" he yelled and unzipped his pants. He reached in and pulled out his dick. Almost immediately it got hard. "Look, babe!" Greg yelled and showed his dick to Ely. "It's back! My dick! It works! My dick works again!"

Ely smiled and smacked his lips, "It certainly does, my love! It certainly does!" Greg's expression turned sensual. He gave Ely a `you're gonna get it now!' look and almost ripped his pants getting them off. He ran across the room and jumped up on the bed, jumped on top of a ready and willing Ely and jammed his dick in Ely's mouth.

Ely sucked and sucked and swallowed a load of cum and sucked some more until he swallowed another load and kept right on sucking. It was like Greg was trying to make up for almost 20 years of lost time right then and there. Greg didn't say a word but humped Ely's face and grunted and came. He pulled his dick out of Ely's mouth and it was still hard. He yanked Ely's pants off and Ely automatically spread his legs. Greg fell on top of Ely and fucked his ass fast and furious and shot two more loads before he collapsed on top of Ely sweating and panting.

Once again Ely tucked Greg in to bed and leaned over to kiss his sleeping cheek. "Welcome back, my love." He reached back and felt his freshly fucked butt, smiled, and sighed deeply. "Ahh yes! Welcome back!"

CHAPTER TWO

Greg opened his eyes, and after a moment of disorientation realized he was in the hotel room. He sat up and stretched. Then he remembered, and eagerly ran his hands over what he thought of as his new body. He smiled and checked out his once again buff chest, muscular legs and arms. His hand went by itself to his hard dick. It looked the same as it did so long ago. He ran his hands through his once again full head of hair. He leaned back against the headboard and saw that he could see himself in the mirror on the opposite wall. He smiled again and was glad that he could see himself after all. Another legend bites the dust! He blew a kiss to himself in the mirror and watched himself play with his dick.

The clock next to his bed ticked off another minute and he checked the time. A note from Ely sat by the clock. He read the note and smiled. Their car was in the parking lot for him and the keys were on the table by the window. Ely had come in a few times to check on Greg and wrote that he could come home now. Greg checked the clock again and saw by the date that he had slept for two whole days! Wow! How the hell had he done that? He remembered that he was exhausted when he left the hospital but he didn't think it was that bad! He jumped out of bed and hurried into the bathroom and rushed through a quick shower (after he jacked off under the spray and hooted when he shot a load), then brushed his teeth with the brush and paste supplied by the hotel. Ely had left some more jeans and a t-shirt for him and he dressed quickly. He was hungry - ravenous - and ordered two whole meals at a drive through and ate them on the way back home.

There was another car in the driveway when Greg pulled up. At first he was afraid one of the boys was still there, but Ely wouldn't have written the note telling him to come home if it wasn't safe. Most likely it was a car he'd rented so he could leave Greg theirs. He stopped the car right outside the front door and almost left it running in his hurry to get inside and find Ely.

He slammed the front door open and closed and hollered out. The teenaged Ely ran in from the library and Greg didn't even slow down when he ran into Ely's wide open arms. Both of them hugged each other and spun each other around, and wound up on the floor of the foyer hugging and kissing with Ely welcoming Greg back.

Greg was grinning ear to ear and raised up to sit on Ely`s chest. "Look at this!" he teased and yanked his t-shirt off to show off his chest.

Ely's hands felt Greg's pecs and tweaked his nipples. "Mmmm," he moaned. "It is so, so nice to have you back!"

Greg leaned down and kissed Ely. "Believe me! It's good to be back!" They rolled around on the floor while clothes went flying in all directions, and all the rest of the morning each used every part of his body to show the other how he felt.

They finally lay spent and wet with sweat and spit and cum. They lay side by side with their arms around each other, hugging while they caught their breath.

"It's been so long," Greg whispered to Ely. "It feels so good."

"It certainly does," Ely replied while he ran his fingers through Greg's new hair. "It is even more wonderful than it ever was. And you! You are absolutely gorgeous!"

Greg grinned and teased, "Yeah, I am, aren't I!" They both hugged and laughed.

Ely playfully slapped Greg`s butt. "Now! We must get busy. We are having company for dinner tonight. We must start preparing it now."

"Yeah? Who's coming?"

"Well, now that you are one of us," Ely said as they stood up and gathered their clothes, "I thought you should meet a couple of others."

"How did you know I'd be back here today?"

"I didn't, really," Ely answered. "But they will be staying with us a few days, so I knew there would be plenty of time whether you came back today or tomorrow."

At the bottom of the stairs Greg stopped Ely. "When are you going to tell me? I've been waiting for too many years. When are you going to tell me the stuff you've been keeping from me?"

Ely cupped Greg's face. "Tonight, my love. We'll start tonight after dinner." They went upstairs to their room, where the shower in the bathroom was probably thinking, 'Oh no! Not those two again!'

After their shower they stayed naked except for aprons and prepared dinner under Ely's tutelage. Ely had told Greg years ago that cooking was a hobby of his. Greg learned early on that Ely meant cooking completely from scratch. No instant or boxed or canned stuff for him! It took all afternoon to get dinner ready. Well, it wouldn't have taken quite that long, but they kept going at each other in the kitchen and by the time dinner was almost ready they were covered in cum and more sweat and flour and crumbs and had to take another shower. . .

Almost on cue, the door bell rang as Greg and Ely finished dressing. Ely said the dinner was to be casual, so they dressed as typical teenagers in somewhat baggy jeans and Florida style tanks and stayed barefoot.

Two guys came in and greeted Ely at the front door. They were as young as Greg and Ely and similarly dressed. One was a typical looking Florida teen. Blonde hair, a little longish, slightly unkept looking. Sky blue eyes, a buff chest only barely contained in a tight t-shirt. A pair of legs that anyone would want wrapped around them rose up and disappeared into a pair of shorts that stretched around a juicy looking butt.

By contrast the other guy was dark haired with thick eyebrows and what appeared to be a permanent 5 o'clock shadow. As buff and young as the others, a little more hairy, with eyes that teased and twinkled as much as Ely's always did. They came in holding hands. The dark haired guy and Ely hugged and they were obviously old friends in spite of how young they looked. Ely shook hands with the blonde and turned to Greg.

"They have heard all about you, Greg," Ely said as he pointed to the blonde guy. "This is Ken." Ken and Greg shook hands. "Ken completed the change only a couple of weeks ago," Ely told Greg. "But he has been able to go out in public only for the past few days."

"Yeah?" Greg asked, "How come?"

"I didn't last as long as you did," Ken smiled. "I was only 57 when I had a stroke." He looked at the guys a little sheepishly. "I didn't make it..." he patted himself as if to reassure himself that he was still there, "...sort of."

"Believe me," Greg told Ken as the others snickered, "93 is no picnic! I could have done without it."

"Because he ended his human life while still relatively young," Ely explained, "it took longer for his new body to form and solidify to the point where he could let others see him." Ely hugged Greg from behind. "It only took you about a half hour or so." Ely pointed to the other guy and asked Greg, "Does this guy look familiar to you?"

Greg shrugged his shoulders. "No, I'm afraid not," he shook his head and nodded to the guy a little apologetically. "Should you?"

The guy laughed. "Not at all, Greg," he said. "We've only met once, and only for a minute, and I didn't look like this." He walked forward to shake Greg's hand and at the same time playfully punched Ely's shoulder. "This old guy is just playing games with you. My name is Alex."

Greg's eyes lit up. "Wait!" he said and glanced at Ely, then back to Alex. "The hospital, right? You called yourself Ely's 'witness' or something?"

"Exactly!" Alex said.

Ely somewhat gallantly swept his arm toward the dining room. "Let's continue at the dining table," he told the others and led the way. "For dinner is served."

It was an almost laughable contrast. Four teenagers sat around the table in jeans and shorts and tanks and t-shirts. All were barefoot and all sat back overly casually. They could just as easily have been passing a bottle of wine around while a CD blared, and yet dinner was served and eaten with all the pomp and circumstance of old British Edwardian aristocracy. Ely's cooking "hobby" obviously extended beyond the kitchen through the table settings and into the library where brandy was served in heated snifters.

CHAPTER THREE

On the coffee table in the library was a small, obviously old book. Greg and Ken flipped through it and snickered to each other.

Ely told them, "That book was one of the first official studies of us ever done. Not a scientific study by any means, but at least one that was accepted as official. As you can see, it is completely inaccurate - which pleased us immensely."

"Everything is here," Ken said. "The garlic, the crosses, the sun, the holy water. All the stuff you're not supposed to do or like."

Alex laughed and put his arm around Ken. "You mean all the stuff WE aren't supposed to do or like. Don't forget, you're one of us now."

"But that is all minor," Ely said. "There are in fact, a few things you need to learn immediately."

"Yeah!" Greg said. "More than a few, I think."

"That's right," Ken said and looked back and forth to Ely and Alex. "There's got to be a lot of stuff judging by the secrets you kept hinting at all my life."

"You too?" Greg asked Ken.

"You bet!" Ken told Greg. "Every time I'd ask a question, it was the same old thing." He mimicked Alex, "Not yet. Not yet. Later. Later. He never told me a damn thing!"

"Same here," Greg said and smiled. "They're a couple of sneaky old bastards, aren't they?" Ely and Alex looked at each other, smiled, and rolled their eyes. They'd both been through this before.

The brandy was changed to tea. Both Ely and Alex were originally British so there was tea everywhere. Spoons and cups clinked while Ely and Alex made small talk, and Ken and Greg got acquainted with each other. Greg asked Ken what part of Florida he was from, and Alex quickly stopped Ken from answering. The new guys looked at the old guys, puzzled.

"Now is a good time to learn one thing," Alex said and glanced at Ely. "Wouldn't you say so?" Ely nodded and had Ken and Greg sit facing each other. They did, but each kept looking questioningly at his mentor.

"You will tell us what part of Florida Ken hails from," Ely told Greg with a smile. "You will find," he continued, "that it will be much easier to do now that you have completed the change." He told Greg to look into Ken's eyes.

"You must concentrate," Ely said while standing behind Greg. "The trick is not to tell yourself that you are entering Ken's mind. The trick is to tell yourself that you are already there." He stayed silent while Greg and Ken stared at each other.

Greg stared into the pupils of Ken's eyes. He looked as deep as he would look into Ely's eyes. He told himself he had passed into those eyes. Along the optic nerve. Into the brain. Surrounded by the gray matter. Lights flashing as the nerve impulses jumped from synapse to synapse. He felt the same. Ken was seeing the same thing. He was entering Ken and at the same time letting Ken into his own mind. The lights brightened and settled and the gray matter changed from a mere brain into a man's mind.

"Whoa!!!"

Greg and Ken both jumped back a little. Both looked at each other with mouths hanging open. Eyes wide. Foreheads scrunched up. Greg was the first to find his voice. "You're kidding!" he told Ken. "Colorado?!?"

Ken laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah," he said. "A town near Denver."

Greg flexed his hands. "But you look so typically Florida-ish."

Ken laughed. "Blonde and blue eyed boys are all over." He smiled and nodded at Greg. "So are dark brown and green eyed boys!" They both laughed. "Your hometown was smaller than mine."

Greg nodded. "Yours was small enough, though." He turned serious. "I'm sorry about your mom."

Ken shrugged. "I was still a baby. I don't remember. The doctors today say it was post-partum depression or something like that, but no one knew it then. She didn't leave a note I heard, so no one really knew why."

"And your dad," Greg spoke softly, "moved into a bottle and never came out of it. But men aren't allowed a claim to depression, so they called him a drunk. Your foster parents were worthless."

"Yeah," Ken lowered his eyes. "I was in their house so they got money from the government. That's all I was to them - a walking pay check."

Alex spoke up. "You have both risen well above your odds. Be proud of what you accomplished in your human lives and don't dwell on your beginnings. Whether you are one of us or not," he put an arm on both their shoulders, "the important thing is tomorrow, not yesterday."

Ken and Greg talked some more. Both were amazed at how much information they had gleaned from each other in so short a time. Seconds was all it took. Ely and Alex laughed with them and assured them that the fun was only beginning. Then Alex looked serious and told Greg to read him while Ken read Ely. The guys happily made eye contact with the others' mentors.

But they were disappointed. There was simply nothing there. They concentrated. They stared. They almost broke a sweat. But all they saw in Ely and Alex were nothing more than a pair of eyes. Finally they gave up when Ely and Alex burst out laughing. Greg and Ken looked at each other and rolled their eyes. Ely sat down and put his arm around Greg.

"My love," Ely snickered, "that was just another lesson. You see, the same way you can read other people, you can prevent them from reading you."

"Yeah, I guess so!"

"It is very important," Ely told them. "You must never go out in public without that mental block in place. Never!"

"Why is it so dangerous?" Ken asked.

"Psychics," Alex said, "mediums, clairvoyants, whatever you want to call them - they are real. You never know when you will come face to face with one of them so you can never take a chance."

"They are a threat I take it?" Ken asked.

"Not intentionally," Ely told them. "They aren't out looking for us or anything as crass as that. But they can read enough of us to know what we really are. Being human, they are completely unpredictable. In an effort to increase their esteem in others' eyes and prove their worth to the general public, they may very well try to expose us." His smile vanished now. His face was stern, his gaze seeming to bore right through Greg and Ken. "And we can NOT let that happen!"

Both guys threw their hands up. "Hey! No problem here!" Ken said.

"Not from me!" Greg agreed.

Alex stood next to Ely, looking equally serious. "We cannot over emphasize the importance of this," he told the guys. "It can only take one accident and the consequences could be immeasurable."

The rest of the evening was spent with Greg and Ken practicing reading each other, then blocking each other. During a break, Ely served dessert with the same flourish he'd served dinner. The night wore on, and Greg mentioned how surprised he was at how easily he and Ken were learning the "tricks of the trade," as he called them. He got to where he could pick up Ken's thoughts in less than a second; as long as it took to glance into his eyes. Ken learned just as quickly.

"It's not uncommon at all," Ely told them. "It's in our make up to learn quickly. For us, and for you two now that you are one of us, it's actually instinctive. As instinctive as breathing."

Greg snickered. "And fucking?" He glanced at Ken. "I sure hope so!"

"Yeah, what's going on with that?" Ken asked. "I wasn't this horny when I really was 18."

Alex and Ely laughed. "You are correct," Alex told them. "Our sexual drives are heightened quite a bit. You must learn all over again how to control it. We can't have you jumping on every guy who walks by!"

"Why not?" Ken asked with a twinkle in his eye. "Can't we just look at them, pop a thought in their heads, pop their butts, then pop the memory out of their heads?"

Alex and Ely sat down, sighed, and shook their heads. Once again, they'd been through this before. Greg sat back, pulled his feet up onto the edge of his chair which forced his legs apart. He gave the old guys a wicked smile and groped his crotch.

"Well come on, teachers!" he told them. "Your students are ready to learn!"

What they did the next couple of hours didn't need any teaching. Or learning. The four of them wound up on the floor on top of a pile of their clothes. Their bodies were so entwined that a casual observer wouldn't have been able to tell which leg belonged to which body, who's face it was up in who's butt, or who's dick was getting sucked. They kissed, they licked, they sucked, they ate, and they fucked. No one said a word, but there was noise anyway. Smacking noises, slurping noises, squishing noises. Moans and sighs and grunts. The sounds of a bunch of guys having a nice "instinctive" fuck.

By the time they got up off the floor, their clothes were wrinkled and damp with their own sweat. Four naked guys walked out into the night and splashed around in the ocean. They washed each other off and went at it again right on the beach. Alex and Ely - the old friends - made out on the beach while Greg and Ken took turns plowing each other's butts in the moonlight.

That moon crawled almost all the way across the sky before they were all spent enough to think about getting back in the house before the early morning joggers started showing up on the beach. They stumbled, exhausted, into the house. Alex and Ken went arm in arm into a guest room and Ely took Greg into their room. They fell on the bed and slept immediately.

They didn't wake up until early the next afternoon. There was a note in the kitchen from Alex that he and Ken had gone into town to shop, and would be back in time for dinner. Greg fixed breakfast for him and Ely, and while he carried the plates to the table he stubbed his toe on a chair.

"Aw fuck!" he yelled and slammed the plates onto the table. "I did it again, dammit!" He sat down and looked at his toe, expecting to see blood. "One of these days I'm gonna break a toe I bet - aww Christ!"

Ely's fork fell clattering to the floor. He jumped up, looking pained. "Greg!!" he yelled.

Greg stopped and stared at Ely. Ely had never spoken so sharply to him. Then he remembered what he was now and what he had said. He jumped up and wrapped his arms around Ely. "Hey! I'm sorry babe!" he said. "I didn't realize. We're not supposed to like that name anymore."

Ely relaxed and hugged Greg back. "No no, my love," he said softly, "it's not that at all. There's nothing to be afraid of." He pulled away from Greg and put his hands on Greg's shoulders and looked deep in his eyes. "But Greg, if you're going to say that name - you're going to have to show much more respect than that!!"

CHAPTER FOUR

Greg only stared at Ely, his toe forgotten. Ely wrapped his arm around Greg's waist and led him into the library, sat him on the sofa, and sat in a chair facing him. He leaned forward and looked into Greg's wide and wary eyes.

"Let me tell you, my love, why we are here."

Greg didn't blink but just sat back; his arms on the arm rest of the chair, feet on the floor. This is what he'd been waiting to hear for the past 75 years. He swallowed and only nodded at Ely, who had stood up and was pacing back and forth while he talked.

"All the holy books say the same thing. That God created the heavens and the Earth," Ely began as he walked back and forth with one finger pointing up in the air. "When He made this planet, He made the people last." Greg nodded. This much he knew.

"Before He made the people," Ely went on, "when the Earth was filled only with plants and animals, the planet could function completely on it's own. It took care of itself. The plants and animals used the planet's resources, and the planet provided and replenished itself without any further help. You see, God never intended to micro-manage the planet. Until He put people here, He really didn't need to manage it at all. Without people, the planet would still be functioning and taking care of itself even today."

Greg shrugged his shoulders. "So He considers people something of a mistake?"

"Oh quite the contrary. God wasn't at all satisfied with the planet until He put the people here. After all, what good is it to create beauty without that beauty being appreciated? You won't see a group of animals travel to a spot just to watch the sunset, but people will. You won't see animals sit in the lowlands and look up to admire the majesty of mountains, or travel up into those mountains just to sit and enjoy the view. But people do those things and more. The people provide the appreciation of that beauty, and it has in turn inspired people to create beauty of their own. But as you know, with the first two people things didn't go very well. Eve committed the first sin by eating from the forbidden tree. She then committed the second sin by enticing Adam to do the same. Different people may or may not believe that story, but that isn't important."

Greg only stared at Ely as if to say that there must be more to it than this. There was.

"Regardless of how politically incorrect it may be in these times to say so out loud, it was women who screwed things up first," Ely continued. "But men and women both have been screwing things up since then. So much and so badly that it no longer matters who did it first. If you'll remember, they screwed up so bad that God decided the best thing to do was to start all over again, and He had Noah build the ark."

"Yeah," Greg said. "And Noah took all the animals and stuff and started populating the world all over again. Everyone knows that."

"Yes, but you see, God still doesn't want to micro-manage the planet. He wants the people - the humans - to manage the planet on their own. To that end, he gave humans four things that would allow them to manage the place without Him having to intervene all the time."

Ely ticked off the numbers on his fingers. "Those four things are: a brain, a soul, a conscience, and a will. He then turned humans loose to learn how to use those four things in conjunction so they could manage the planet themselves."

Greg stared in awe. Even slowly shook his head and then told Ely, "But that won't ever happen. Humans running the place without needing God? The whole world will have to work together and get along and - no - it won't happen!"

"Well," Ely flicked his hand as if he was dismissing an underling. "That they haven't yet is not at all unexpected. You see, Greg, a human baby must first learn how to sit up, and then to crawl, then to walk, then run. The human race must learn how to get along and manage the planet in the same type of baby steps. The planet and the universe have been around for billions of millennia, and the human race only for several thousand years. By comparison, the human race is still very much in its infancy. There hasn't been near enough time for them to learn much."

Greg was sitting with one hand over his mouth. He was looking away from Ely, not following his movements but staring out the window, deep in thought. Ely kept talking.

"As time went on and humans reproduced, God knew that He would still have to intervene at times and manage the planet until humans could learn how to do it themselves. But He also knew that if humans knew without a doubt that God was working for their benefit, they would become lazy and would not even try to do anything on their own. They instead would expect God to continue to take care of everything."

Greg looked back at Ely. "Haven't they already been doing that?" he asked. "They go to church, they pray, they ask God to take care of everything. And they do it at least every Sunday. When I was a kid I was always taught that if I just believed in God that He will take care of everything. No one is even trying to do anything themselves."

"For the most part, that's true," Ely answered. "But there are some humans who are trying. If not, there wouldn't be any progress. Not in medicine, not in the engineering that built planes and rockets, not in technology. But there are others who, like Eve, are using what they know but not in a productive way. In fact, they are using it in terrible ways, with disastrous results. The best example of that are the world's dictators. They use their knowledge to gather power, and then use that power to oppress and enslave their people."

Greg only nodded. "Okay."

"If God were to do everything Himself, humans would never learn, and God would always have to do everything Himself - exactly what He never wanted to do. So God needed a way to intervene now and then, but without humans having even an inkling that there was any Divine intervention at all. In fact, the best scenario would be for humans to think that they did it all themselves, thereby giving the entire human race a boost of confidence. Most times, that intervention needed to be in the form of some task that would have to cause someone to come to some harm, or something to not work, even to the point of being destroyed. In other words - dirty work."

Greg was leaning forward, his hands clasped between his knees. He only stared as Ely spoke. "He couldn't have the angels do it, as angels are incapable of even considering doing anything other than good. He couldn't have Satan do it because Satan cannot be trusted. Satan won't do anything unless there is something in it for him. He certainly won't do it for the sole gratification of serving God."

Ely stopped pacing, and sat back in the chair facing Greg. He leaned forward and looked Greg in his eye while Greg stared back.

"That's where we come in, Greg. We are the ones who do God's `dirty work' for him. Put in today's terms, we are the equivalent of God's CIA, his Divine Mossad, a Holy sort of KGB. And since I am using those metaphors, you can use them to understand why we have such a need for secrecy. If the public knew we not only existed but actually walked among them, they would revert back to the days when humans depended on God so completely that they did nothing for themselves. The entire planet would go back to being a tribal state. And the population of the planet is much too big for that these days. The human race is headed in the right direction, and we must make every effort to see to it that things like that don't change. That's why we perpetuate the legends that we are evil - demons - spawns of Satan - only existing at night, and so on." He reached out and put a hand on Greg's shoulder. "Those legends and myths are the best disguise we have. It is paramount that we not be exposed or only chaos would reign in the world. No one can know - can not even suspect - what we truly are and what we do. If they do, then we have failed. Miserably. See, Greg, I told you even back in the woods when we first met that when you complete the change, you would in no way be a `victim.' And you are not." He leaned forward and cupped Greg's face in his hands. "What you are, Greg, is...chosen!"

The color had drained from Greg's face. He couldn't speak.

"So you see, my love, if you are going to utter His name in any context - you must do so with the utmost respect."

Ely knew from experience that now was a good time to leave Greg alone to think. He patted Greg's thigh and left him staring into space and went into the kitchen to prepare dinner. As was his custom he spent a long time at it, cooking everything from scratch. When Alex and Ken returned from shopping in town it was already dark, and they found Greg still sitting in the library in the same chair, staring out the window, not even noticing that any one had come into the room.

Greg jumped when Alex put a hand on his shoulder, seemingly coming out of a trance. He looked back and forth between the two of them and out the window and at the clock.

"So Ely told you then?" Alex asked. Greg only nodded.

"Bowled you over like it did me I see," Ken said. Again Greg could only nod. Ken went into the kitchen to help Ely with dinner. Alex sat down next to Greg.

"Did you have any idea?" Alex asked softly. He knew what was going through Greg's mind now. Greg just shook his head. "Are you pretty much okay with it?"

Greg took in a deep breath and sighed. "Not much of a choice at this point is there?"

"Not true," Alex smiled. "You always have a choice. You can choose right now to stop the whole thing if you want to."

Greg frowned at Alex. "You told me in the hospital that I was making my `final' decision."

Alex nodded. "Yes, I did. But can you understand that at that particular moment we hardly had the time to explain everything to you?"

"Well, yeah, but man it's all so overwhelming."

"Of course it is," Alex said. "It was the same for me, too. Ely went through it the same as you are. If you trust him, and you are comfortable with me, then you should see that it isn't really a bad thing."

Ely stood at the door and in his usual flourish announced that dinner was served. He took Greg's hand and pulled him up out of the sofa. "Come my love, you must eat. As you have already learned, we still need to eat."

At the table Greg asked Ken, "So you know already?"

Ken nodded. "Alex told me about a week ago. I spent the whole day sitting in a chair and staring at nothing."

Greg looked at his food and nodded. He spoke without looking up. "So I guess I'm just going with the flow."

"For starters, yes," Ely said. "The same way all of us started out. You are reacting quite normally, Greg. Just as I knew you would."

Greg ate sporadically - not even aware of what was on his plate. He looked at Alex. "You said I could choose to stop right now." Ely stopped in mid bite and froze. "You said I could end it if I wanted to." Ely took in a breath and held it. "I don't want to, but how would I do it if I did?" Ely sighed and his whole body seemed to slump in relief. Greg didn't notice.

"Well certainly not with a wooden stake in your heart," Alex smiled.

"I know that one!" Ken chimed in. "All you have to do is drink blood from one of us."

"Huh?"

"That's correct." Ely said. "As long as we wish to stay here, we cannot feed on each other. We cannot even allow our blood to mix, as I mixed our blood to initiate the change. We have to be very careful if one of us gets cut or something. The other cannot help. Just to get our blood in each other's eyes, or into an open wound is enough. But it must be the whole blood. You see, all the body fluids are carried through the body by the blood stream, so therefore, all fluids; tears, sweat, saliva, even urine and semen is a by-product of blood. But all that is safe for us. I really don't know the exact ingredient it is that is so dangerous to us, but it is the whole blood directly from the source - the veins - that can harm us. That is the only way to end our existence on this planet."

"What would happen?"

Ely shrugged. "When humans die they immediately go to their reward, as it were. We would do the same thing. Except we don't have to die again. We've already done that. We would simply vanish from here, and ascend to whatever would normally have awaited us in the next life."

"I thought we were here forever," Greg said. "I thought we were eternal. When you told me we could be 18 again you specifically said, 'forever.'" Greg was speaking pointedly now, causing Alex and Ely to glance at each other.

"Yes, I said that," Ely smiled. "I wasn't lying, Greg. I was only selling the idea to you. I couldn't tell you the truth, remember, so I had to become something of a salesman. We certainly are eternal, and as is my fondest hope, we will be together forever, but there are two reasons why we may not be here in this world forever."

Greg didn't really eat. He pushed his food around his plate and listened.

"While we are no longer human," Ely went on, "we are still not perfect. There is a possibility that one or more of us could 'go bad' you might say. If that happens, there is a way to be taken out, but we have to do it to each other. To that end, we never know who all the others are. Obviously, we can't just walk up to one of us and say, `Here, drink this.' You know me and Alex and Ken, and you will meet others from time to time. But you and I and all of us will never meet all of the others. If need be, one of us can see to it that you taste our blood and vanish. It's a system that works very well."

"Has it ever happened?" Ken asked. "Have you ever had to do it to anyone?"

Ely shook his head. "I haven't myself, but if it was done I wouldn't know anyway. I wouldn't ask, and if anyone asked me, I wouldn't tell them. Other than teaching it to guys like you and Greg, we simply don't discuss it amongst ourselves. We see one of us behaving in that manner as an embarrassment to all of us, and simply don`t enjoy discussing it."

Greg nodded as though he still had questions but wasn't ready for the answers. He simply asked without looking at anyone, "What's the other reason?"

"Well," Ely said between bites, "while we will be here for a very long time indeed, we won't be here forever. You see, there will come a time when humans do in fact learn how to manage the planet on their own. It may take thousands of years or thousands of centuries, but it will happen. When that time comes, we will no longer be needed here. We will then ascend to our reward the same as humans do on their deaths. Except we won't have to go through a dying experience as we have already done that. We can still be together, still be 18. And we will be at least that much forever. But we will not be here on this planet forever."

Greg ate without realizing what he was eating. He didn't say much, but kept nodding, as though it was all something he expected to hear, but not at that grand scale. He looked at his plate without seeing the food. He twirled his fork around and then put it down and looked at Ely. "Why me?" he asked. "I'm not anybody. You came to me when I was 18 and I hadn't done anything. Nothing at all. Why not someone who'd already proven himself? Someone who'd already accomplished something great. Invented something. Found a cure for something. You know - someone who already showed how smart he was and you knew he could do even more if he became one of you?"

Ely put his own fork down (which was not something he was accustomed to doing in the middle of a fine meal), and reached out to hold Greg's hand. "My love - I knew what you were capable of even before you knew yourself. I told you that back when we first met. You never were a 'nobody' except maybe in your own mind. Certainly not in mine. Yes, there are plenty of 'somebody's' around, but we do not want them. That is not to belittle their accomplishments during their lives, not by any means. They have done wonderful things, and there will be others.

"But they have also attained a kind of status. A notoriety. They have become accustomed to being shown respect and special treatment. Were they to become one of us, they would immediately expect that respect and treatment to continue, and we cannot work that way. We are all equal. We have no boss to answer to here in this world. We have no chain of command, no corporate structure. We do not need the same kind of discipline that humans do because we are above that. We cannot have anyone in our group who sees themselves as above the rest of us, for that is not what was ordained."

He reached out with his other hand and held both of Greg's hands and looked deep in his eyes. "You have done great things too, Greg. And you have done them quietly, modestly, with no fanfare and no expectation of reward. Because of that, you and people like you shine so much brighter than the others. You are exactly the kind we seek out. I told you that I knew you even when you were a small boy. I watched you all those years. If I saw in you that you would ascend to the same kind of status as the 'somebody's,' I would not have approached you in the woods."

Dinner was over and Greg helped Ely clean up the kitchen, but seemed to still be in something of a trance, a deep frown on his face. Ely stayed close by but didn't push Greg. Ely actually did most of the work as Greg was moving slowly, more into his thoughts than his actions. When the kitchen was finally clean, Greg walked back into the library, but suddenly came back into the kitchen. He looked at a puzzled Ely, shook his head, and hurried upstairs. Ely peeked into the library and saw Ken and Alex making out on the sofa. Their shirts were already off and Ken's hand was in Alex's pants.

Ely walked into the bedroom where Greg was sitting on the edge of the bed. He sat down on the bed next to a very confused looking Greg. Greg turned to face Ely. "Isn't it wrong?" he asked. "Considering what you told me and what we really are and who we really work for, isn't it wrong for us now?"

Ely shook his head and smiled. "Oh no!" he said. "Nothing could be more right, actually." He reached over and took Greg's hand. "You see, when humans die, as I said, they go to their reward. We, however, don't go anywhere - we stay here. But we don't stay here unrewarded. Think about it Greg - being here on this planet, in this world, as long as we are destined to be can become insanely boring. There must be something to maintain our interest throughout all these years. Even when we were human, sex was the most interesting thing there was. It was the only thing that kept us going - the only thing we wanted to do, and the only thing that made us feel our best."

Greg nodded and finally managed a small smile.

"I already told you that now that you are one of us your sexual awareness, desire, and energy are quite heightened. That is because sex is our reward." Ely put his arm around Greg's shoulders. "We don't have to follow the same rules the humans do. We can do whatever we want with whomever we want, and when and wherever we want. We have permission, and we have the increased pleasure and satisfaction from it. When you think of anything sexual - know that for us, it is allowed."

Greg nodded, but looked at Ely like he didn't hear. "You could have told me something," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"This isn't a joke, Ely." Ely stiffened. Greg had always called him "babe." He was afraid of this. This time he didn't need to get into Greg's mind. He knew what was there, and knew he would have to deal with it the mortal way.

"This is....this is....." Greg spread his arms, "this is HUGE. You could have given me some kind of a hint at least."

"No, my love, I couldn't. I swear to you, I couldn't."

Greg sat up and looked away from Ely. "This is a hell of a secret to keep from me all my life!"

"Greg, I...."

Greg cut him off and yelled, making each word its own sentence, "Seventy!... Five!... Years!" His head snapped around to look at Ely, his eyes narrowed, "You said you loved me!"

"I DO!" Ely pleaded, "I do love you! I've loved you all this time!"

"Bullshit!" Greg's eyes filled with tears. "I guess I was stupid! But I had this wild idea, ya know? I kinda thought that loving someone meant you also trusted him!" Tears were dripping off his chin. Ely reached out but Greg slapped his hands away. "I trusted you! I never questioned you - I never asked you anything, really. Certainly nothing to compare with this!!" Ely's face was buried in his hands. "I loved you and I trusted you! You said you loved me but you never trusted me or you would have told me something! You lied to me all those years!"

Ely's head snapped up. "NO!!" he yelled and stood up. He started pacing like he did in the library. "I did not lie to you. I did love you - I do love you! And I did trust you or I would not have stayed with you all this time!"

Greg looked deep in Ely's eyes and shook his head. "No, you don't know what trust is. Or you don't know what love is. Or you've forgotten. Something as big as this - you should have told me. Told me something! You owed it to me!"

"I loved you all your life, Greg!"

Greg could hardly speak now. His eyes were open faucets. "You didn't love me. You fucked me. You manipulated me. You trained me. You used me." He shook his head. "But you didn't love me."

Now Ely's eyes were full of tears. He pleaded with Greg, "No, no, Greg! Please! Let me ex......"

Greg snapped his arm to the door. "I would like to be alone now please!" Ely hesitated.

"Would you leave me now please? Would you just go?" Greg wasn't trying to use any of his power, but the expression on his face left no room for interpretation.

"Greg - I..."

"GET OUT!!"

Greg slumped back on the bed, his feet on the floor, his hands up to his face. He didn't see Ely leave the room, but only heard the door slam. He heard Ely's footsteps fade away down the hall. He heard them go down the stairs. He heard the front door open and slam closed. "Oh man," he mumbled to himself. "What have I done?"

CHAPTER FIVE

Greg crawled up onto the bed and sat cross legged, hugging a pillow. He glanced at the bedroom door when he heard footsteps and wondered why he didn't hear the front door downstairs again if Ely was coming back. He didn't want Ely to come back, but found he was at least a little happy to hear the footsteps, and that feeling confused him even more.

The door opened but it wasn't Ely. It was Alex. He wasn't the teenaged Alex who'd been in the house the past couple of days. He was the Alex who was at the hospital. The Alex who looked to be in his 50's. Greg was puzzled.

"Greg," Alex said as he walked into the room, "we're going to talk."

Greg only frowned at Alex and looked away. "I don't wanna talk."

Alex stood at the end of the bed and glared at Greg. Neither one of them were happy at the moment. "I didn't ask if you wanted to, Greg. I said we're going to...."

Greg's eyes snapped up and glared back at Alex. "Don't think your little charade means anything to me!" he spat at Alex. "You can look like my daddy if you want but you ain't nothin' to...OOWW!!"

Alex's eyes suddenly seemed to widen. They slammed into Greg's eyes and the force Greg felt slammed him against the headboard. He felt his head crack against it and then felt himself being pulled forward and shoved back again until his head cracked against the headboard a second time. All the while Alex simply stood at the end of the bed with his arms folded across his chest and his eyes almost nonchalantly burning into Greg's mind. Greg sat still and stared at Alex, submitting, but still obviously angry.

Alex leaned down, his hands on the bed, his eyes still boring into Greg. His voice was soft, but it was what was behind the almost whisper that had Greg`s full attention. "Don't you play with me, boy!" Alex slowly shook his head. "I've been at this far, far longer than you have. When I say we're going to talk, that means you're going to listen. Now I can hold you here like this as long as it takes. Or you can decide to make it easy on yourself and I'll let you go, but one way or the other, we are going to talk. Now!"

Greg couldn't move. The power behind Alex's eyes was a steel hand pushing him down on the bed and against the headboard. He actually felt the pressure of his head pushing against the headboard and he knew Alex wasn't kidding one bit. He couldn't move his arms or legs, so the only way he could let Alex know he was willing to cooperate was to simply think it. He knew Alex could read his thoughts as easily as he could hear speech.

Alex raised up and at the same time Greg felt the unseen hand release him. He looked at Alex as he rubbed the back of his head. Alex walked around and sat on the bed.

"You're angry now, Greg, and in a way that's understandable. You're confused, and that's understandable too. But I don't understand just who you're angry with." Alex nodded toward the window, indicating Ely somewhere outside. "You're not really angry with Ely, not deep in your heart you're not. You're not angry with me, at least you weren't a few minutes ago. You're not angry with Ken, so exactly who are you angry with?"

Greg leaned over a bit to look Alex in the eye. "I'm pissed with everything and everyone, okay? I'm pissed that Ely kept all this from me when I should have had some say in it all. I'm pissed with Ken for acting like it's no big deal. I'm pissed with you for being a part of it all. I'm pissed because I feel like I wasted my whole life just so I can be used. It might not make any sense to you but so fucking what? I don't care how many times you push me down or how you use your fucking power on me but it doesn't have to make any sense to you. Who the fuck are you anyway? It only needs to make sense to me. And right now it doesn't make any sense to me at all. So go ahead and slam me up against the wall as much as you want, it won't change anything." He shifted position on the bed to bring his face right next to Alex, their eyes only a couple of inches apart. "Are you getting this, Alex? I'm not impressed!" Greg turned away, as much to give Alex the idea that Greg was done with him as to avoid Alex making eye contact again.

Alex stood up and walked to the window. "All right, Greg," he said without looking at him. He looked out the window instead. "You think I'm just trying to show off? You think I'm just having fun with you? Ely told me you were a lot more intelligent than that. Was he wrong?"

"Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. What business is it of yours?"

"Oh, none I suppose," Alex shrugged as he walked back to the bed. "I just don't want to see the same mistake made twice. That's all it is. Pure and simple."

Greg reluctantly looked at Alex, and saw that he had changed back into the teenager he was when he arrived a couple of days ago. "Why do you keep doing that? I don't care what you look like. I know it's you anyway."

Alex just smiled. "I look like less of a threat this way." Greg only shrugged. "More approachable I guess. That's how I want to be."

Greg sat with his knees pulled up under his chin. He only glanced at Alex. "What mistake?"

"Well, Greg, both Ely and I have recruited many people. But I've only fallen in love with a guy I've recruited twice. Ely has only done it once. With you."

Greg lowered his head so his face was between his knees. "You mean Ken?"

Alex nodded. "Yes, he's something isn't he?" Now Alex was smiling. "I guess you'd have to call it love at first sight. You'll notice that Ken does seem to be okay with everything? He does consider it a big deal, but he's certainly not as torn up over it as you are. That's probably because I've done this once before and screwed it up, and learned my lesson by the time I met Ken."

Greg raised his head up and looked at Alex. "So there's another one of you - of us - out there somewhere who you used to love?"

"Oh yes! And I still love him as a dear friend. Like a brother, I guess. And he's out there all right." He patted Greg's shoulder and pointed to the window. "He's out there sitting on the beach."

Greg's eyes went wide. "Ely?!?"

Alex smiled and nodded. "Yes, Ely. I'm the one who recruited him. When I told him the truth he accepted everything except that I really loved him. Said all he was to me was an assignment. . . sound familiar?" Greg's mouth was hanging open. "He accepted the idea and the work involved, and took the training." Alex looked toward the window and sighed. "And then he didn't speak to me for over a hundred years."

Greg stayed wide eyed and open jawed. He shook his head.

"I'm more than twice as old as Ely is, Greg. When you've been here that long, a hundred years isn't such a long time in retrospect. We eventually got back together, became friendly again and even became lovers - fuck buddies anyway - but that special spark we had never returned and we only stayed friends. I don't know if it was my fault or his, or both of us, but the kind of love we originally had just wasn't there any more. I always regretted it all these years, and then I met Ken. Things are fine for me now." He sat back down on the bed, put his hands on Greg's shoulders and looked him in the eye. "And I want to do all I can to make things fine for you and Ely too."

Greg looked into Alex's eyes. He didn't try to read him but only looked in his eyes out of habit. Still he smiled. "Is that why you're here?"

Alex nodded and smiled, "Yes, it is. Originally Ely only asked me to be his witness. He called me when you were sleeping it off in the hotel just as Ken and I were getting ready to head for the airport. He sounded like a babbling baby!"

"Yeah? How so?"

Alex leaned back and grinned. "He was a nervous wreck! I can't remember ever knowing him to be in such a state, and I've known him a long time indeed!"

"What was he so nervous about?"

"He was afraid, Greg. He was afraid he'd blow it with you the same way I did with him, and he didn't want it to happen so badly that he was willing to dredge up old memories for both of us, and ask me to come here as a friend and help see him through it."

"Wow," Greg said. "I can't remember a time when he wasn't in complete control. Sometimes it made me nervous how cool he was about everything. How he had all the answers." Now Greg managed a small snicker. "It seems strange to think that there's anything he would need help getting through."

"Well," Alex said, "until now nothing had come up, I guess, that put your love for him in jeopardy."

Greg leaned back against the headboard and sighed. "I told him in the hospital," he said to Alex (and maybe to himself), while looking straight ahead, "that all he did was support me and teach me and take care of me."

"Yes," Alex said softly, "I was there, remember? But Greg, he didn't do any of that out of any sense of duty. He didn't do it because of an assignment. Everything he did, he did from his heart. He did it because he wanted to."

Greg looked at Alex questioningly. He was trying to decide whether or not to believe him. Alex saw the look and smiled. He reached over and took Greg's hand. "Greg, you're one of us now," he said. "You don't have to wonder any more. You don't have to question. You can find out for sure right now. Look in my eyes and see for yourself."

Greg did. He looked deep into Alex's pupils and suddenly Alex was an open book. Greg knew then that what Alex told him was exactly the way he felt. He knew that Alex wasn't trying to cover up even his own thoughts. It only took a second, and then he felt like an intruder. He backed out of Alex's mind and mumbled, "Sorry."

Alex laughed, "Don't even be sorry, Greg. You have the power now so use it. Besides, I invited you."

"I guess I'm acting silly but I feel like I've been hit by a truck. There's a lot to think about!"

"Yes there is," Alex assured him. "And no, you're not being silly. What you're feeling is as normal for us as it is for humans. Let me ask you," he let go of Greg's hand and pointed to his feet. "You stubbed your toe this morning, right?"

Greg looked at his foot. "Yeah, I did. Why?"

"It doesn't hurt, does it? And it didn't hurt then either."

Greg thought a second. "You're right! It didn't."

"That's because you only reacted the way you did out of habit. You see Greg, we have no nerve endings in our bodies that register physical pain. Only pleasure. You will never feel that kind of pain again no matter what happens."

"No kidding?!"

Alex smiled and shook his head. "You can be damaged," he said, "in a car accident for instance. You can have broken bones and be cut up and bleeding. You will feel no pain at all. It's only a change in the way your body is shaped at that moment. All you have to do is change yourself right back into yourself the same way you can change your age and looks, and poof! You're back to normal again."

"That doesn't sound bad at all!" Greg said.

"Yes, but then, that's physical pain. Now emotional pain is another matter entirely," Alex said. "That's something that does carry over from our human form. And like our sex drives, our emotions are just as heightened. That's why you're reacting the way you are. It's only in your make up, something you haven't learned how to control yet. So don't tear yourself up because you feel confused or even angry. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. But please don't make any rash decisions, either. You haven't had enough time to think things through yet. And it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with Ely. He did what he had to do, and you will understand that in time. So you need to give it time, and give him a chance, okay?"

Greg reached out and squeezed Alex's hand. "Thanks," he said simply.

Alex smiled and nodded. "That's what I'm here for," he patted Greg's leg. "And as for you not having any say in it, remember I told you downstairs that you can choose any time to end it all and go on to the next life. Do you understand how special that makes you? Makes all of us?" Greg shook his head.

"Ely was not kidding when he told you that you were chosen. We all were. But we are the only ones who have been chosen, yet given a choice. The others did what they were chosen to do, and then went on to their next life. But we must stay here in this world for who knows how long? It can become quite trying, even oppressive. There are some who made the choice to leave, but the overwhelming majority of us choose to stay and do the work we were chosen to do. See?"

Greg's expression didn't change. "What do you mean, 'the others'? What others? Why did they spend such a short time at it?"

"Oh, you know - Moses, Noah, Jesus, King David, King Solomon," Alex waved his hand, almost dismissively. "That bunch."

Greg let his head fall back against the headboard all on his own this time. "Okay," he said slowly. "I guess I understand now...wow!"

Alex stood up and walked toward the door. "If you need some more assurance, Greg," he said as he started out the door, "just turn off the lights in here and look out the window."

"Is Ely going to do something?" Greg asked.

Alex only turned and quickly winked at Greg. "No," he said. "No...not Ely. . ."

"Huh?" Greg said, but Alex had gone down the hallway to his own room. "Aww all right!" Greg said to himself. He got up, crossed the room and turned out the light, then walked to the window.

He was confused, as there was nothing to see. The sky had clouded over that afternoon and rain had been falling off and on. No rain was falling at the moment but outside was pitch dark. He knew that from this window he should see the beach, but he saw nothing. As he watched, he thought back 75 years ago to the night he sat with Ely in the woods. That night was almost as dark then as it was now. He remembered that Ely told him he could give him a hint. . .

It was not something that could be written off to quirks of nature. The thunder in the distance told Greg more rain was coming any minute. There was also thunder in the distance that night in the woods so long ago. Above tonight's cloud cover was a full moon.

Suddenly, a pinhole opened up in the clouds, and while thunder rolled, a tiny beam of moonlight shot down from the clouds and perfectly spotted Ely sitting on the beach. He was sitting with his head between his knees, seemingly unaware of the light. Only it wasn't the sheer white light that moonlight was. Ely was sitting in a spotlight of the same silvery, misty kind of light that bathed the clearing in the woods the night before he left town with Greg. It only lasted a few seconds and was gone. The beach was dark again.

Greg leaned his face up against the window. "Oh, Ely..." he mumbled to himself. "Oh man..."

Ken was naked and had just pulled Alex's shorts off. He sat on Alex's thighs and rubbed his chest with one oiled hand and stroked Alex's dick with his other hand. They both glanced at their bedroom door when they heard a second set of footsteps go down the stairs and out the front door.

"I guess you did good," Ken told Alex with a smile as he stroked his dick with the oil.

"Yes, I suppose so," Alex smiled and reached out to tweak Ken's nipples. "But it's not something I want to get used to! I'm glad I did it, but that was hard work!"

"Well, here," Ken said as he scooted up a little on Alex's body. "Do something easy," he said and grabbed Alex's oiled dick and held it up. "Do something fun," he guided that hard dick up his butt and sat down on it. He threw his head back and started bouncing up and down. "Do it to me!" he moaned.

CHAPTER SIX

Greg woke up to find it was already noon. He figured Ely had woken up much earlier, as he wasn't there and his side of the bed was cold. Greg sighed and stretched. He smiled when he thought about last night. . .

He had gone out to the beach, and found that even in the darkness his new sixth and seventh sense and his heightened sense of sight guided him right to Ely. As he walked up next to him, he saw that Ely was still sitting with his head between his knees. The wind had picked up some and the sound of the pounding waves and rolling thunder masked his approach, but Ely looked up anyway just as Greg walked up to him. Greg reached out and mussed Ely's hair as he sat down on the sand next to him. He couldn't see much detail, so he ran his fingertips down Ely's face and felt that his cheeks were wet. Ely had been crying. He sat stiffly, as if he was waiting for Greg to either speak, or make some kind of move. Greg put an arm around Ely, and spoke.

"Babe," he said softly. Ely relaxed some at the sound of his pet name. "If you're not planning on going anywhere, I'm not going anywhere either." Ely suddenly wrapped his arms around Greg and hugged him. "And if you are planning on going somewhere," Greg said in his ear, "I'm going with you." Ely hugged Greg tighter than he ever had before and Greg hugged back. They didn't speak but sat and held each other for several minutes. Greg felt Ely rub his face into his T-shirt to wipe off his tears, and Greg remembered when he had done the same thing with Ely a lifetime ago. It was the first time in their years together that Ely had shown even a hint of vulnerability. Greg found that he was glad to see it. It made him feel needed, and that made him feel good.

Finally they parted, but sat together with an arm around each other. Ely started talking, and Greg wondered if he was talking to himself as much as he was talking to Greg.

"The sea relaxes me," he said. "It somehow allows me to calm down and think clearly. I can sit here in the daytime and watch the waves, or listen to them at night. I think that if I had not been raised on a farm, I would have been a sailor." The waves were sounding like they were closer, and Greg knew the tide was coming in. Ely put a hand on Greg's leg and squeezed his thigh. "It's an amazing thing you know - the sea." Greg stayed quiet and let Ely talk. "It's even more eternal than we are. It was here first, you know. And it's the only thing that has remained constant since. There are mountains now where there were none before. There are plains and fields now where there will be mountains in the future. The planet is ever changing, but the sea will always remain constant. It will always be here, never changing, always watching and always listening. It has seen everything, and it has heard everything. Can you imagine the knowledge it has built up after all this time? There are times - tonight especially - when I wish with all my heart that there was a way I could tap into that knowledge. If I could, I would have the sea tell me where I went wrong with you tonight and hurt you so. And I would have it tell me how I could be absolutely certain I would never hurt you like that again."

In the dark Greg slid his free hand up Ely's arm to his face. He turned Ely's face to his and kissed him. Their lips stayed together for a long time before Greg reluctantly pulled away. "Did that feel like I'm hurt?" He asked. He ran his fingers through Ely's hair and felt him shake his head. "Being angry doesn't always equal hurt, I think," he told Ely. "Most of the time it only equals being confused. But being confused doesn't always mean hurt, either. If you had told me back in the bedroom that it was true you only saw me as some kind of project, I'd be hurt. But you didn't say that, and in spite of everything, deep down I knew you wouldn't. I was only pissed and I was striking out. I wasn't pissed at you, I was pissed at things, but you were the only one in the room with me so I struck out at you. It`s been said that you always hurt the one you love." He signed deeply. "I certainly didn't mean to hurt you, but I do love you." He nodded toward the ocean. "That's what the sea would tell you - that if there was anyone doing any hurting, it was me hurting you. And it would tell you that I got a lot to learn, and that you're the best teacher for me." Ely leaned into Greg and Greg held him. "And I would tell you that you're the one I want to teach me."

They sat for a few minutes listening to the waves pounding onto the shore. Ely turned to look at Greg. "I don't want to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth," he said. "But what changed your mind?"

Greg hugged him tighter. "It was what Alex said." Ely mumbled something. "Yeah, Alex came and talked to me," Greg told him and kissed the top of his head. "You knew he would. That's why you asked him to come here." Ely only kissed Greg's nipple through his t-shirt. "He told me that you were his first love, and Ken was only his second," Greg went on. "And here it is almost 700 years since you had someone to love and care about. I was amazed. I mean - humans get all bent out of shape if they go a few months or so without a boyfriend, and you and Alex went for centuries! All kinds of lifetimes with no one! I couldn't imagine how you could handle it. It seems like you would either get used to it and not want anybody, or you would take anyone out of desperation. But you're not the kind of guy who acts out of desperation, so I figure you've only been `picky.` And after all that time, all those centuries," he kissed Ely's head again, "you picked me." He shifted them so they were laying on the beach in each other's arms. "I feel really special right now, babe, and I don't want to screw that up!"

The lightning picked up, and now and then lit up the two guys making out on the beach. It wasn't long until each time the sky lit up it showed Greg and Ely with less and less clothing on until they were both naked. The rain that had been light all afternoon now turned into a downpour.

Greg laid under Ely and let his hands run up and down Ely's back as the rain beat down on them, and the lightning and thunder came closer. "Shouldn't we go inside?" he asked. Ely only mumbled and ground his dick into Greg's. "What about the lightning?" Greg laughed.

"It can't hurt us anymore," Ely said as he slid his body down Greg's. "It can go right through us if it wants to, but it won't touch us. It does, however," and Ely snickered a bit, "seem somewhat fitting right now given the legends about us."

No one would be out on the beach in that kind of weather so neither of the guys worried about it. The sky lit up now and then, making a natural slide show which first showed Ely on top of Greg, then Greg on top of Ely, then both of them with their heads buried between each others' legs. It showed Greg with his feet up in the air, and then showed Ely on all fours.

The tide came in, and now and then a large wave would hit the shore and cascade over the two naked teenagers making love on the beach in the storm. They went at it and stayed at it until the storm blew over. They didn't bother trying to find their clothes in the dark and went naked into the house and fell asleep in each other's arms as soon as they hit the bed. . .

The aroma of coffee and bacon wafted up the stairs from the kitchen and pulled Greg out of his revelry. He took a quick shower (alone this time), put on a pair of cut-off jean shorts and went downstairs. Ken was in the kitchen cooking breakfast in his underwear. Greg walked in the kitchen and took a second to appreciate Ken's blonde body. Toned and hard. Smooth and tanned. Greg didn't blame Alex at all for being attracted.

"Morning!" Greg called out as he walked in the room.

"Hey!" Ken's face broke into a smile. He left the pan and crossed the room with his arms outstretched. He wrapped Greg up in a hug that lasted long enough to let Greg know he had a buddy. He pushed Greg back to arm's length and looked him up and down, seemingly checking to see if Greg was all there. "How do you feel?" he asked Greg with a smile.

"Fine," Greg said. "Still going through the initial shock I guess, but a lot better than last night."

Ken went back to the sizzling pan. "How 'bout some breakfast? I make a great omelet, bacon, hash browns and toast."

"Sounds good," Greg said as he realized how much his stomach was growling.

"I'm not the artist in the kitchen that Ely is, but I can hold my own," Ken laughed.

Greg poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table. "So you know about last night I take it? Alex told you everything?"

Ken looked at Greg and shook his head. "Alex tried to blow the whole thing off but I'm the one who pried it out of him." He smiled and patted his butt. "I told him none of this unless he spilled," he shrugged and grinned apologetically. "I guess I'm basically just nosy."

Greg laughed. "It's okay," he said. "It helped! I'm not complaining at all."

Ken stirred some mushrooms, peppers, onions, and cheese into the eggs. He folded them over and cut the whole thing in half, then loaded them onto plates and brought the plates to the table with the bacon and potatoes and toast. "Dig in! Close your eyes and I bet you can imagine that Ely cooked it all."

Greg took a bite of the omelet. "Mmmm, I don't need to imagine anything. This is good!" He attacked the bacon and potatoes. Ken could tell how hungry Greg was. Great sex did that. "Where did you learn to cook like this? Is Alex the chef that Ely is?"

"Alex is a great cook, but Ely's the chef. I learned to cook in my foster home. It was either learn to cook or starve."

"Oh yeah," Greg said and rolled his eyes. "That wonderful foster home."

Ken nodded. "The other guys were pretty cool. They were all straight, but when I told them I was gay they told me to let them know if anyone hassled me about it. I really think they would have done some serious damage. They were pretty rough."

"I would have been in my grave a long time ago if I'd come out," Greg said. "The other guys took it all in stride, just like that?"

"Yeah," Ken answered. "We all came from the same kind of background and they figured that was hassle enough. Our foster folks only sat back and collected the government checks - you already know that. So we kind of had to look out for each other. I was the brainiac of the bunch. The other guys helped each other score with the girls, I helped them with their homework, and they kept everybody off my back about being gay. It was a nice trade."

"Did they do okay after high school?"

"One of 'em hit the road and we never heard from him. One got his girlfriend pregnant so he got a job and married her. The others went on to college. I don't know if they graduated, but they all went at least."

"When did you hook up with Alex?"

"Right at the end of high school. I moved in with him the day after I graduated. Didn't even tell my foster folks I was leaving. I'd turned 18 right before graduation and the government checks stopped anyway, so I'm sure they didn't really care."

Ken jumped up and went back to the stove. "I don't know about you," he said over his shoulder, "but when I finished the change my appetite came back with a vengeance!"

"Me too!" Greg laughed. "You cook it, I'll eat it." Ken made two more omelets and fried up some more bacon. He sat back down with Greg.

"So what did you do while you were with Alex?" Greg asked.

"We lived near Aspen. Alex got me an entire resort, and I ran that and started a ski school," Ken told him. "He bought the whole thing outright. I almost fainted when I saw him write out one check for the whole thing!" he laughed.

"Well they both had several lifetimes to save up some money." Greg laughed as he remembered a night years ago when Ely told him, "I have to keep it quiet so no one gets suspicious, but I have separate fortunes on deposit in over 20 banks around the world under different names."

"That's one way to put it!" Ken said.

"So you were a ski bum and I was a beach bum," Greg grinned.

"Yeah, and we look like you should have been the ski bum and I should have been the beach bum. You can never tell, I guess."

Greg stood up and started collecting the plates. He rinsed them off and Ken put them in the dishwasher. Greg checked Ken out each time he bent down to put a plate in the dishwasher. He liked the way Ken's back muscles rippled, the way his butt cheeks flexed in his white briefs. Ken stood up, looked at Greg and smiled. His eyes quickly walked up and down Greg's body.

"You look great!" was all Ken said.

"You're the model," Greg answered. He looked down and saw the growing tent in Ken's underwear. He reached out and rubbed Ken's cock through the material as he smiled at Ken. "Damn nice one too!" Ken stood still, smiling at Greg, and kept his legs slightly spread. Greg slid his hand into Ken's shorts and pulled his blonde cock out, and it finished getting hard in his hand. "Ely told me anything sexual was allowed," Greg said a little sheepishly.

Ken reached out and pulled Greg's zipper down. He un-snapped Greg's shorts and they fell to his ankles. "Alex told me the same thing," he told Greg as he stroked Greg's cock. "It's a good thing. I'm horny as all fuck right now!" He slid a hand around Greg's waist and pulled Greg into him, their lips slamming together.

Greg wound up on his back on the kitchen table. Ken leaned down and let his tongue slide down Greg's body and got his dick wet. Ken went to his knees while Greg's feet went up in the air and Ken ate Greg's ass out and tongue fucked him and Greg reached down, grabbed Ken's head and held it there at his ass while he begged Ken to eat him.

Ken was happy to oblige. He got his own face wet with his spit while he licked Greg's hole and his cheeks. One hand went up to jack Greg's dick and a finger from the other slid up Greg's ass. He glanced up at Greg. "Did Ely tell you that we can't feel pain anymore?"

"Alex told me."

Ken jammed two fingers from each hand into Greg's hole. He used them to wrench that hole open and jammed his tongue inside. Greg didn't feel pain alright, but the pleasure made him arch his butt clear off the table and howl out loud. His feet slammed down on the table and he humped his ass into Ken's face while Ken happily tongue fucked and licked Greg from the inside.

"Oh shit!" Greg yelled. "Get up here Ken! Get up here and fuck me dammit! Fuck me now!"

Ken climbed up on the table, up on top of Greg. But before he slid his dick into Greg's waiting ass, he looked deep in Greg's eyes. "Alex showed me this a couple of days ago." His voice was husky, lusty, low pitched. "Come on in," he almost barked, "Let me in you, too!" Greg didn't know what to expect, but he wanted Ken - now - so he let Ken into his mind.

Ken rammed his dick up into Greg's ass and Greg felt his own dick being squeezed at the same time he felt Ken inside him. Ken started humping Greg, their eyes stayed connected, and Greg could swear he was the one fucking Ken as well as getting fucked, and Ken felt like he had Greg's dick in his own ass even while he was the one fucking Greg.

"Awwwwww shit!" Greg whimpered as he figured out what was going on. By getting into each other's minds, they could feel not only what they were doing to each other, but what was being done to them. They each felt the other's pleasure as well as their own. The intensity suddenly went through the roof and shot up into the sky. Their eyes widened and mouths opened and both of them immediately broke out in a sweat. They wanted to scream, but the force of the pleasure they felt took over and the only noise was whimpering and small grunts as all their concentration went into what they felt.

It was a good thing they'd cleared the table off already. It was the breakfast table but it was long enough to seat four people at its sides. Ken started slam banging Greg at one end, and by the time he'd filled Greg's ass with cum they had scooted all the way to the other end. Since they were so well connected mentally, they shot at the same time, Greg's cum hitting him in his own face. It was also a good thing there were no neighbors near by, or the screams their bodies finally allowed to escape would have sent a neighbor flying to a phone to call the police. And the fire department. And the local military base. And possibly even the nearest zoo!

Ken collapsed on top of Greg, and they silently wrapped their arms around each other and panted and sweated. Greg's fingers dug into Ken's back, turning the skin under them white. They stayed together and silently recovered from the most intense fuck they had ever had. Greg finally unwrapped his legs from around Ken when Ken's dick softened up enough to fall out of Greg's hole by itself. They gave each other an after fuck kiss and Greg laid on the table staring wide eyed at Ken while Ken crawled off of him.

Greg's head fell over in Ken's direction. "Man! I still can`t believe it!"

"Yeah," Ken said between breaths. "Alex warned me before we even started but it didn`t matter. Took me completely by surprise anyway, just like it did you. He said I'd have to learn again how to handle it all."

Greg reached between his legs and felt his hole. It was still loose. "Well you're handling it just fine for me!"

Ken grabbed Greg's hand and helped him sit up. They looked at the door when they heard a car pull up. "They're back." Ken said.

"Who's back?" Greg asked.

"Alex and Ely," Ken said as though Greg should have known.

"Back?" Greg asked. "Where'd they go?"

"Didn't Ely tell you?" Greg shook his head. "They went into town. Ely said he needed to see his realtor."

"His realtor? I didn't know he had one. What for?"

Ken said nonchalantly, "He said he needed to put this house up for sale."

"What!?!?!?"

CHAPTER SEVEN

Greg ran naked outside with cum running down his leg. Ely and Alex were pulling packages out of the trunk. A naked Ken followed Greg outside. Alex and Ely had frozen with their hands half in and half out of the trunk, looking questioningly at the two naked teens running up to them. Greg stopped in front of the two of them. As if wired together, both Ely and Alex's eyes traveled down Greg's body to the shiny cum on his leg. They both had knowing half smiles on their faces. Greg didn't seem to notice but both Alex and Ely appeared to be back in their 50's and both wore three piece suits in spite of the warm day.

"What do you mean, put the house up for sale?!?" Greg yelled. Both pairs of dressed eyes traveled back up Greg's body to his face. "What sale!? We never talked about selling the place! Ely?!"

Ken walked to Alex and shrugged his shoulders. Alex put an arm around Ken and smiled at him. His eyes glanced down to Ken's wet dick. Greg's eyes darted back and forth to all of them. No one said anything, so Greg put his hands on his hips, looking like a teacher or parent who'd just caught a kid doing something that needed an explanation.....a naked teacher or parent. "Well??"

Ken said sheepishly, "I thought he knew. I only said you'd gone to put the place on the market, that's all."

"That's all?!?" Greg yelled. "That's all?!?"

Ely looked like he suddenly woke up. He rolled his eyes and threw his hands up. "Oh good heavens! I forgot to tell him!" Alex started snickering. Even Ken had a smile on his face.

"Oh! You 'forgot' to tell me! Well that excuses everything, doesn't it?" He turned around and started stomping back towards the door, yelling over his shoulder. "I guess I should just go pack and do what I'm told. Why discuss anything with me anyway? Who the fuck am I? Just the architect who made it all bigger and better, that's all! Lived here all my life so why the fuck should I have any say in anything, right?!?" At the door he spun around with one finger up in the air ready to make another point and then froze, staring at the three other guys.

They were all doubled up laughing. Ely was walking toward Greg with his hands waving in the air like he was trying to use sign language since he was laughing too hard to talk. Greg still had one finger up in the air and looked at each one of the guys while a sheepish grin spread across his face.

"I, uh..." Greg said, "I stepped in it again, didn't I?" That made the other guys laugh even harder. "I jumped in with both feet, apparently."

Ely walked up to Greg and wrapped his arms around him. Between laughs he told Greg, "My love! Don't worry! We aren't going anywhere."

"Well what the hell do you mean? You put the house up for sale! What do you mean we're not going anywhere!?"

Ely tried to talk and catch his breath at the same time. "I have to, Greg! Every 50 or 60 years or so the house has to show on paper that it changed hands. Otherwise someone will get suspicious as to why the ownership hasn't been turned over from time to time."

Greg glanced at the other two - who were still laughing. Ken nodded at Greg. "Alex did it once before I changed, so I knew what was going on. I just assumed you knew about it too. I didn't mean to jolt you like that."

Greg looked back at Ely, who told him, "I go to the realtor's office as an old man and put the house on the market. A month or so later I go back as a younger man and essentially buy the house from myself. I tell them I live too far away to come back for the closing, so it's all done with the real estate agents and the mail. I mail the paperwork to Alex. He puts it all in a new envelope and mails it back to the agent so there is a post mark from Colorado. I do the same for him when he needs me to."

Greg slumped into Ely and rolled his eyes in relief. He playfully spanked Ely's butt a little and said, "Don't scare me like that again!"

Alex just as playfully slapped Ken's butt. "Don't you scare him, either!"

"Oh no, daddy!" Ken teased the older Alex, "I don't wanna get in any trouble."

Alex made a show of looking up and down Ken's naked body, "Looks to me like you've already been in some trouble!"

"Oh I sure did, daddy!" Ken laughed, put his arms around Alex's neck and ground his dick into Alex's crotch. "I got in some real nice trouble!"

"Yes!" Ely snickered as he bent over slightly to look closely at the cum drying on Greg's leg. "And it appears as though the trouble he got into is right here!"

Greg grinned and took Ely's hand. He led Ely back to the car. "Well I guess you'll have to think of something to do to me, right daddy?" He looked at Ken and both of them laughed.

Greg pulled Ely's jacket and shirt off and tossed them behind him. He half lifted and half pushed Ely up onto the hood of the car and then pulled his pants and briefs off. Ken put both hands on Alex's shoulders and pushed. Alex went to his knees as Greg climbed up on the hood of the car. Just as Ken shoved his dick in Alex's mouth Greg squatted and sat down on Ely's face on the car. "Go on, eat it!" he told Ely. "Eat me out and get me in some more trouble!"

Ken wound up bent over the open trunk. One hand held on to the trunk lid and the other was used inside the trunk to brace him as Alex fucked him. Greg bounced up and down on Ely's dick on the hood and shot a load that splattered all over Ely's face. Ken's load went into the trunk and Alex's load went right up Ken's butt.

Now that there was cum in or on all of them they all grabbed the packages from the trunk and headed into the house. Inside the foyer Ely told Greg and Ken, "Since we are all awake, how about we pack a bag and head down to Miami?"

"Sure!" Greg said and told Ken, "We'll have some nice 'trouble' down there for sure!"

"Actually there is another motive for the trip," Ely said. "All of us could use some nourishment. We can get some guys up to our suite and you two can practice some on changing your appearance."

"Sounds good to me!" Greg smiled. He grabbed Ken's hand and led him up the stairs. On the way up, Alex and Ely overheard Greg ask Ken, "Do you have to pack his bag for him, too?"

"If I didn't the only thing he'd take is a damn suit!" Alex and Ely once again looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

They hadn't been to Miami since Greg was nearing 65 years old; almost 30 years ago. There were some changes, as expected. Ely had found a new hotel to call their favorite. He explained that he had to do that from time to time anyway so he wouldn't be recognized by the hotel staff for too many years, or someone would wonder how he could live so long. The new hotel had huge suites with amenities all over the place. They checked in and followed their usual custom of immediately having a meal to try out the hotel's restaurant.

Greg was looking forward to going out and seeing what other changes Miami had gone through, and doing some cock hunting with the guys. He was disappointed to be told he would have to stay in the hotel room while the other guys went hunting.

"You know some of the boys still live in the area," Ely told him. "We can't take any chance of you running into them and having them recognize you. Until you feed on some other guys you can't change the way you look." He patted Greg's head and smiled. "By tomorrow night we can all go out and do whatever we want."

Ken decided to keep Greg company while Alex and Ely went out. Before they left, they made themselves look older and rich. That way they knew they could easily find some boys willing to get naked for some cash. They got dressed and left, and Greg and Ken were already pulling each other's clothes off.

Downtown, the guys didn't need to use their eyes at all for other than cruising. There were as many young guys on the streets as there ever were. Ely knew that wouldn't make Greg happy, but there was nothing further they could do. It didn't take long at all until one cute guy dressed to tease asked them if they were looking for some action. His smile widened when Alex offered a generous finder's fee if the guy could gather up three or four other guys for a nice orgy.

Greg and Ken were just getting out of the shower when Alex and Ely came in the room with four of the hottest looking guys Greg had seen in a number of years. Everyone knew the game, and within a few minutes there were eight naked guys all over the suite in different stages of a good fuck. Greg and Ken and the "dads" used their heightened sex drives to fuck the four guys over and over again until they were exhausted. Greg and Ken kept glancing at their mentors and Alex and Ely knew what they were thinking: that this was one hell of an appetizer to their "meal."

When the guys were spent and just laying around with each other, Greg and Ken used their new found talent with their eyes, and while they only appeared to be making out with the other guys, they were actually sucking on their necks. Alex and Ely did the same with the other two guys. Greg and Ken spent a little time feeding on each of the four guys. With Alex and Ely's practiced talents, the four guys were left with nothing more than a hickey.

The next morning they all had a huge breakfast in the hotel's restaurant. The four guys were sent off with their stomachs full of food and their pockets full of money. They kidded each other about their hickeys, but were more than happy with the night, and the monetary results of it. One of them gave Ely his phone number and left with a promise that his services would most definitely be used again.

The rest of the morning and afternoon was spent in their suite teaching Greg and Ken how to change their appearance. Since they had taken in the DNA of four different guys, the combinations of looks they could achieve were plentiful. Again Ely told them the trick was not to think about the actual act of making the change, but to tell themselves that they had already changed. Greg and Ken closed their eyes and concentrated. They found that actually changing the way they looked was the easy part. When they looked at themselves in the mirror they understood why Alex and Ely had burst out laughing.

Greg, who used to have dark brown hair now had a head of flaming red hair. The problem was, he had jet black chest hair, and his crotch hair was blonde. He had one blue eye and one green eye. He certainly looked different - there was nothing of the old Greg left in him. At least that much worked!

Ken's blonde hair was replaced with dark hair, but his eyebrows were still blonde, while his chest and crotch were covered in red hair. His eyes were also two different colors, and his feet were two distinctly different sizes. They laughed at themselves and each other.

"When you're deciding what to look like," Alex told them between snickers, "you must concentrate on the complete look. You must think of every tiny detail, as you can see." The two guys were shaking their heads. "But don't worry, with practice you can do it all in a second. You actually learn how to make that mental picture of what you want and then change yourself into it in the blink of an eye."

The guys spent the afternoon practicing. They found that it was easy to get one look right, and then return to it later without having to think about it. The difficult part was the act of picturing a complete look that they hadn't tried before. Easier was looking the exact same as a guy they'd fed from. Easiest was making themselves look like an older or younger version of themselves. Just for fun, the four of them went out to dinner looking completely different. It was more important for Greg and Ely in case they ran into any of the boys, but the idea of the charade was fun for Ken.

They chose a restaurant in the middle of the gay area for its eye candy and atmosphere and its eye candy and menu selection and its eye candy and its wine list. A somewhat overly feminine waiter scurried up to their table. "Good evening, gentlemen!" he said, over doing it a bit. "My name is Archie, and I'll be your waiter this evening!" When they weren't looking at the menu or talking with the waiter they were checking out the eye candy.

Since it was Saturday night, the place was crowded. The service was still excellent in spite of the crowd (which pleased Ely immensely), and the noise level allowed them to talk about as privately as an empty restaurant would. Ely ordered for all of them with his usual flourish. They all could tell the waiter was both impressed, and a little confused at such obvious experience coming from what appeared to him to be a young college student.

"Okay," Greg said after the salads were served. "I did what I did in my life - my human life. So what's next? What do we do now?"

"Basically," Alex said, "we wait. We wait until we have some work to do. Until then we just live a life much like we did when we were human."

"It's that simple?" Ken asked.

"It is until we have something to do. Then it can get somewhat complicated." Ely told him.

"You mean it gets dangerous?" Greg asked with a hard stare.

Alex and Ely alternated answering questions while they ate. Even though there were full tables around them, they pretty much ignored the other diners and were ignored themselves. No one was paying any attention to any other table. The theory that the best place to hide something is right out in the open, is a good one.

"Oh not really," Ely smiled. "Keep in mind we cannot be harmed, so what is dangerous for humans is no concern for us. But we can get fairly busy. And things can get complicated what with us having to keep what we do a secret, yet get it done anyway."

"Like what?" Ken asked. "What have you guys done before?"

"Well," Ely said while looking down at his salad, "the last 'operation' I took part in - and Alex too and several others," he waved to Alex, who smiled and nodded, "was in the early 1940's . . . in Germany."

Greg and Ken stopped eating in mid bite.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Archie arrived carrying a small folded table. A busboy right behind him balanced a large tray on his shoulder. Archie popped the table open and the busboy placed the tray on it with the same drama Ely had used when he ordered.

Greg and Ken were still staring at Ely.

"Ah!" Ely exclaimed as though nothing untoward was going on. "The aroma is quite seductive, Archie!"

"Thank you sir!" Archie beamed. "I'm sure your palate will be equally pleased." He made a show of carrying Ely's plate on his fingertips as if he was holding on to egg shells, and with a swoosh placed it in front of Ely who clapped his hands together. The others were served with the same drama as Archie beamed and gushed his best wishes for a pleasant dinner. The busboy refilled water glasses and tea glasses, and then both of them scurried away; leaving the guys to their dinner.

Greg and Ken were still staring at Ely.

"It looks wonderful, doesn't it?" Ely asked no one in particular as he artfully snapped his cloth napkin open and spread it over his lap. "A flawless presentation! Wouldn't you say so?" he asked Alex.

"Undoubtedly!" Alex smiled. "Obviously this place is now on your list of favorites."

"Absolutely!" Ely said as he cut into the prime rib. He took a bite and almost dropped his fork on his plate. "Mmmmm!" he leaned back and chewed with a smile on his face, almost like he'd just cum right in his shorts. "Perfection!" he exclaimed. "There is none better!"

Under the table, Greg's leg straightened out and gave Ely's shin a swift kick. "Will you get ON with it?!?" he growled. His eyes quickly scanned the tables around them. No one was paying any attention to them.

Ely and Alex both snickered. "I'm sorry, my love," Ely said as he went back to work on his dinner. "But nothing of substance has happened since then, and this particular story is becoming quite tedious to tell again and again."

Greg fixed Ely with a hard stare. "Try!"

Ken stared equally hard at Alex. "Try really hard!"

Alex started since Ely was still busy gushing over dinner. "Well, obviously our old friend, Adolph, had gotten completely out of control. Rather quickly, too. We needed to take him out, and we needed to do it as quickly as we could while still remaining invisible to the general public."

"So you killed him." Greg said, trying to hurry things along.

"No, no," mumbled Ely between bites. "He killed himself. What we did was guide things in that direction. Remember, it had to be done so that society at large would think they accomplished his defeat themselves." He reached over and patted Greg's hand. "My love, please - eat."

"Ely!" Greg said and stared deep in Ely's eyes.

Ely saw the look. "Greg, no matter what - you must eat. And this dinner is particularly good. Please keep in mind - I was there. I helped. I do realize the seriousness."

Greg lowered his eyes. "Sorry."

"Not at all," Ely said and held Greg's hand. "What you don't understand quite yet, Greg," his eyes went to Ken, "nor you, Ken, is that we consider the operation more of a failure than a success."

Ken and Greg's heads snapped up. "A failure!?" Ken said. "How on earth could it be a failure? He was gotten rid of if the history books are correct."

"Oh yes, they're correct," Alex said. He took a deep breath. "But so, so many were lost. So many more than needed to be. We feel we got started too late, that we should have gone to work sooner and possibly saved more innocent lives." He shrugged his shoulders. "But as I'm sure Ely told you, we are not perfect, and that operation is much too good an example."

"Okay," Greg said. "How?"

"Well we couldn't just walk up to the man and plant this or that thought in his head," Ely told them. "He was very much unapproachable. Too well protected. We had to begin with the outer fringes of his circle. We had to first taste the blood of those in that outer circle so we could look like them. Once we accomplished that, then we could go further into his circle, feeding off his men at each layer, changing our looks, and advancing closer and closer to him. As long as we looked like the men that their superiors expected to see, we had no trouble making contact further and further up the chain until we could come face to face with old Adolph himself."

"So you had to have sex with all those guys?" Greg asked.

"Not at all," Ely said. "We had neither the time, nor the inclination. As you will both learn, having sex with guys while feeding is not a requirement. It is of course, the most pleasant way to feed as you know from last night. But all you really have to do is make eye contact, and the man will do what you tell him."

Greg thought about it a second. "I guess I'm glad to hear that!" he smiled at Ely. Ely nodded to show he understood.

"It is also not an absolute that we feed from the neck," Alex continued. "We do - mostly because the neck is so close to a guy's lips, but any part of the body where the blood vessels are very close to the surface of the skin will do. The bend of the elbow where most hospital labs draw blood for example, or the area right behind the knee - which is what we used on his men, and on him. It's an area where a small bruise would be the least noticed."

"Understand," Ken said. He hadn't started eating, either. He looked at Alex. "I'm glad to hear it, too." Alex smiled and nodded. Neither Ken nor Greg would have been happy to learn that the love of their lives used to fuck Nazi's.

"Once we got to him, we started feeding on him," Ely said. "As I said, there were several of us, so after we had all fed on him, his total blood volume was significantly depleted. Not enough for anyone to notice immediately, but with the depletion of blood volume came a depletion of oxygen supply to his body tissues, specifically his brain." Ken and Greg glanced at each other but didn't talk.

"Greg, Ken," Alex smiled at them. "You want to hear more - you have to eat." Both guys sighed and mechanically started eating. After the first bite they both fixed the other two with another hard stare.

Alex nodded. "The decreased oxygen supply didn't take long to show its effects. He started making mistakes. Bad judgments. Wrong decisions. His inner circle stopped trusting him. No longer believed in him. Indeed, some of them even plotted to assassinate him. A few tried, as you know from your studies, but they were disappointingly unsuccessful."

Greg and Ken were eating without thinking or tasting. They only kept eating so Alex and Ely would keep talking.

"But still, it was a slow process," Ely said without looking at the guys. "We were extremely frustrated. We were even discussing entering his mind and causing something catastrophic like a stroke or heart attack."

"Why didn't you?" Greg asked. "Seems like something like that wouldn't cause any suspicion. Not in those days anyway."

"It most likely wouldn't have," Alex answered. "If we had taken that step, it would have been the first time in our history that we killed a man outright. But as it happens, we didn't have to. Fortunately he made a big mistake in redirecting his armies away from western Europe and turning them east to Russia." Alex looked at the guys. "And you know what good that did."

"Yeah," Ken said, "the Russians beat 'em bad. Kicked their butts."

"Yes, and then the United States went into full gear and finished the job in Germany. Old Adolph finally saw the futility of his actions and finished our job for us," Ely said. "However, we all remain highly dissatisfied at the length of time and the lives lost during the process, but we had to keep our primary mission in mind - that no one had even an inkling that it was us working on Divine direction."

Greg and Ken ate and looked at their plates. "But still," Ken said, "you did it. You might not be happy with it, but you still did good."

"Yes," Alex said with a sigh. He'd finished his dinner and leaned back in his chair. "Over time we were happy with the way things turned out. But Ely is right, it certainly took a long time for us to feel better about it."

"One thing that helped us get over it, though," Ely told them, "was when we realized that it was going to work, we split up and traveled to the camps. You know - the concentration camps." He too had finished his meal. He pushed his plate aside and folded his hands in front of him on the table. "Working alone, there was no way we could overpower the guards. So we chose one and fed off of him. Afterwards we filled his mind with conflicting thoughts and sent him away. He wandered off and became lost, and we took his place in the camps. We made eye contact with as many of the inmates as we could and planted a thought of hope in their minds. Enough, we hoped, to keep them struggling for one more day and one more day, as we knew the allies were on their way and would liberate the camps." He grinned at the guys. "In some places it worked so well that the inmates rose up and overpowered the guards themselves, and escaped even before the allies arrived."

"I see why you don't feel good telling that story," Greg smiled and signaled the waiter. Archie came almost running to the table.

"I hope your dinner was satisfactory, gentlemen," he gushed.

"Oh it was certainly that!" Greg said before Ely could say anything. Greg winked at Alex. "We'd like to see if dessert can live up to the entrée."

Suddenly Ely's eyes lit up and he was back to his old self again. "Yes! Absolutely! Let's have dessert!" he smiled at Archie. "I saw the display when we came in and haven't gotten it out of my head!"

They had dessert and decided to walk back to the hotel. They were only one block from the beach and could hear the waves hitting the shore as they walked. Greg could tell that Ely was listening to the waves and that they were relaxing him. He was glad to see it, so he guided them all toward the sand and they started walking along the beach.

They took off their shoes and socks and walked barefoot for a while. Night had fallen and the beach was almost empty. Here and there the glow of a bonfire broke the darkness, with guys huddled around it for warmth and companionship. The sounds of laughter and conversation flowed and ebbed with the waves as they walked past one group of guys after another. Outside the hotel they stripped out of their clothes and sat on the sand in their underwear. It wasn't a nude beach, but they certainly looked out of place fully dressed. The moon was out, and the street lights and the lights from the hotel dispelled some of the darkness. But the late hour, the nearly empty beach, and lack of their own bonfire made them practically invisible. The two couples sat arm in arm facing the sea.

Greg turned to Ely. "That can't be all," he said with a smile. "What have you done that was all good?"

Ken nodded agreement. "I bet there's a lot more of that," he said. "It doesn't have to be recent, but I bet there's plenty of those kind of stories to tell."

Alex and Ely grunted. They glanced at each other with a knowing look. Their protégés were taking care of them and they knew it. Get them to talk about something good so they'll feel better. They knew it was a psychological trick, but they silently appreciated the gesture.

"Well, one thing that we can't take complete credit for, but are particularly proud of, is this very country itself," Alex said.

Ken signed dramatically. "Oooookay!" he laughed. "Are you going to tell us you used to be Benjamin Franklin?"

Ely and Alex fell back on the sand laughing. Ken and Greg looked at each other and shook their heads. It almost seemed to be teachers against students, but playfully. They both jumped on their mentors and lovers and tickled them until the teachers begged the students to stop. A few other guys and couples walked along the beach past them and watched and giggled and then moved on.

When they were somewhat alone again Ely started talking again. "Oh no," he said. "Nothing as spectacular as that." He looked at Greg and Ken. "But you remember we said that we have ways. We have ways to look out for each other. To watch each other. To protect each other. Even to remove each other if the need arises." The guys nodded. "Well it is a system that works very well, as I said. In fact, it works so well that when this country was forming we thought the same kind of system would work here too: if it was put into place at the very beginning. So we were there in Philadelphia at the beginning. We planted the thought in a few of the delegates heads. It worked, and once again, society at large thought that they did it themselves. It boosted their confidence, and they finished the job of making a country without any further assistance from us. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"Sure," Ken said and shrugged his shoulders. "Democracy, right?"

"Well, yes, in a way," Alex answered, "but not the general idea of democracy itself. More of a single aspect of democracy. A single aspect, but we feel it was the most important aspect of all."

"I got it!" Greg said as he rolled on top of Ely and raised up to sit across his hips. "Checks and balances!"

Ely reached up to caress Greg's face. "To put it in recent terms," he smiled, "Bingo!" Ely let his hands slide down Greg's body and grope his crotch but Greg snickered and pushed Ely's hand away. Ely looked puzzled.

"You're not done yet!" Greg teased. He scooted up a bit and ground his butt on Ely's bulge. "You wanna get up in here you gotta answer another question first."

Ely and Alex groaned. Ken agreed with Greg. "Come on guys!" he teased. "You made us wait all our lives. You said we'd be together forever. You said you couldn't tell us anything until now. So you can talk now and fuck later!"

"Yeah!" Greg tickled Ely some more. He winked at Ken. "But not too much later!"

Ken leaned over and ran his finger tips along Alex's lips. "One more," he teased, "And I'll give an apple to teacher!"

"All right, all right!" Ely laughed and held a finger up in the air. "One more question. But only one."

Greg stopped teasing. "How do you know? How do we know? How do we know when we have a job to do? Who tells us? Does someone appear to us in a blinding light or something? Do we get a phone call that sounds like it's really, really long distance.....?" Ely put his fingers up to Greg's mouth to silence him and looked at a grinning Alex.

"You'll have to teach him what the word `one' means!" Alex kidded them.

"Well we wanna know!" Ken laughed and tweaked Alex's nipples. "Do we get an email that comes from TheBigGuy@yahoo.com?" he laughed.

"Oh come off it!" Alex rolled his eyes. "Of course not!" Ken and Greg looked at each other and laughed. "He uses Hotmail," Alex said matter of factly. This time it was Greg and Ken who fell back on the sand laughing.

"Actually, that question doesn't have a clear cut answer," Ely said as he sat up. "We don't really get 'told.' We don't get any definite communication in that sense." He crossed his legs and looked at both of them. Greg had long since gotten used to the look Ely was giving them. It meant he was serious now.

"You see," Ely went on, "you get a feeling. A sense. Something that you feel strongly about. You see something happening somewhere in the world, and you feel that we need to do something." He had the guys' full attention now. "When that happens what we do is get in touch with each other. I, for instance, would get in touch with Alex. I would tell him what I was thinking and why." He held a finger up in the air. "If Alex were to say, 'I was thinking the same thing, and I was about to call you,' Then I would know that my thoughts were on the right track. So Alex and I would then call someone else. If we got the same response, then we would know for sure that we had a job to do. But if even one of us seems surprised or confused, or professes to know nothing about what we were talking about, we would have to re-think our position on the matter. Then we would travel and get together and discuss the issue amongst ourselves face to face. We would go to work based on a majority decision." Ely shrugged his shoulders. "I suppose you could say that the initial thought was of Divine origin, but we've never questioned it. When you think about it, it's not really that important anyway."

Ken was sitting up and rubbing Alex's chest. "So what you're saying is that we don't really know, but we know." He nodded a few times while he thought about it. "I guess you could say it doesn't make any sense, but it makes sense," he grinned at the guys. "If that makes any sense!"

Greg thought about the night in the woods with Ely when they first met, and the eerie light that bathed the clearing in the woods. He thought about the other night with Ely on the beach in the darkness and the same light again. "You know what?" he told the guys. "It doesn't have to make any sense."

Ken looked down at Alex. "I lied about something," he teased. Alex only looked at him. "I don't really have an apple for the teacher!"

"Oh screw the damn apple!" Alex growled as he put his hand behind Ken's head and pulled him down. "I want a blow job!"

They both got a noisily energetic blow job. Other guys walking along the beach stopped to watch a bit while they pulled out and stroked their own dicks. They walked away smiling. Along the beach the noise from the laughter and conversations died down as word spread. It wasn't a nude beach before, but it sure was now!

The night wore on and the air grew chilly. The guys put on their pants and shirts, using their T-shirts to wipe the cum off their faces. They laughed and headed back up to the hotel. The lobby was empty when they walked in the entrance and headed to the elevators. Ken pushed the button and Greg used the isolation to give Ely a quick kiss. "In the morning we'll call room service and have breakfast in our room," he told Ely.

Ely frowned, "My love, you know how I feel about room service," he told Greg. "They are always late, and the food is cold, and you never know how long it sits after it is prepared until they bring it to your room."

"Yes, I know, babe," Greg said with his arm around Ely. "But tonight," he reached between Ely's legs and massaged his dick through his pants, "I'm gonna work your body over so hard and so long you won't care one way or the other what room service brings us tomorrow!"

Ely grabbed Greg's hand, they forgot about the elevator, and ran up the stairs.

CHAPTER NINE

The four of them made quite a comical group at the door to their suite; groping each other and kissing and pulling each others dicks out while trying to slide their key cards into the slot to open the door. The only thing they all kept missing was the key card slot. It was a gay hotel after all, so anyone in the hallway wouldn't have complained at the sight of four young guys acting like they were going to fuck right there in the hallway.

One of their key cards finally worked, the door flew open, and they spilled into the room. The four of them went to the same king sized bed and went nuts on each other. Ken and Greg had a new respect for their mentors and lovers, and showed it to them all the rest of the night, and that bed got a real trashing! Bodies slid over bodies, dicks got sucked, butts got fucked over and over again. They switched off and switched off and everybody took a load of cum up their butts and down their throats and all over their bodies.

Greg and Ken had fun changing their looks after each load of cum was shot. Ely and Alex picked up on it and the guys felt like they were fucking a bunch of different guys. If the scene was filmed, the audience would have thought there was a huge orgy going on in that room. They changed their faces, make their dicks bigger and smaller, tightened up their butts, and fucked until after the sun rose.

They emptied all their cum and calmed down and laid together and held each other. When they finally tried to pull themselves apart to head for the shower, they imagined hearing a sound much like Velcro being pulled apart when they separated their naked and sticky bodies. The four of them slept together in the same bed until the early afternoon.

The room service waiter wheeled brunch into the room on a big cart loaded with food. He didn't say anything about it, but noticed that of the two king sized beds in the suite, only one was used. He left the room thinking to himself, `Damn! I wish I could afford to stay here!'

They sat around the table naked. This time Ely kept smiling and told Greg that he was right - this particular meal was wonderful even if it was room service. While they ate they laughed at each other as each was playing footsie under the table and each guy snuck a foot up into someone else's crotch and used his toes to play with the guy's dick. Each also felt a foot up in his own crotch and they ended up back on the bed almost without finishing the meal.

They exhausted themselves all over again and emptied themselves all over again. The four of them all fucked each other and got fucked by each other once again and they kept at it almost until dinner time. Both couples made eye contact with each other again and increased the intensity of the sex to immeasurable proportions; all of them stuffing pillows in their mouths to mute their screaming orgasms. By the time they couldn't get hard again, Greg and Alex had fallen off the bed and had finished fucking on the floor. Ely and Ken were spread eagled on the bed. All of them panted and smiled and rubbed cum into their bodies.

The shower didn't get a work out this time. The guys were too tired so they only showered and hung out in the room. Ely flipped through the phone book, looking for another new restaurant to try out for dinner. He read the ads like a food critic would and made the other guys snicker.

Alex leaned over to Greg. "I've told him several times he should open his own restaurant."

Greg thought about it a few seconds. "Maybe not," he smiled. "He may never come home!"

"You know you're probably right," Alex said. "Come to think of it, he has a degree in culinary arts and I hear he almost never went home from school!"

Ely grinned and shook a finger at all of them. "I will find us a good restaurant and you know you will all thank me!" he laughed and kept turning the pages.

After they laughed Greg asked Ken while flicking his hand toward Alex, "Does he have as many degrees as Ely does?"

"Oh man!" Ken rolled his eyes. "He's got more of 'em than I can count! When he told me I should go to school there was no way I could argue with him."

"He told me I could go back to school when I wanted," Greg said. "That it's something like a hobby."

"Actually, Greg," Ely looked up from the phone book, "it is a little more than a hobby. I considered it something like an assignment."

"Yeah?" Greg asked. "How is it an assignment?"

"Well, Greg," Ely set the phone book aside and Greg and Ken knew they were about to learn something else new. "I have many degrees, as I said. Among the others, I am an ordained Christian Minister." Greg's eyes widened. "I am also a Jewish Rabbi." Now Ken's eyes joined Greg's. "And I am also a Catholic Priest." The guys rolled their eyes and looked at each other. Ely pointed to Alex. "Alex here has studied the eastern religions. Together we make something of a team." Greg and Ken looked at Alex smiling at them, then back to Ely.

"Just like that!" Greg said. "You just decided to go out and get yourself all that training?"

"Not so much like that," Ely grinned. "It took over two hundred years. I went to school when I wanted something to do."

"Oh yeah!" Ken threw up his hands. "Bored? Got nothing else to do? Go to school and become a preacher. Three times!"

Alex and Ely looked at each other and laughed. "You'll have to wait," Alex told them. "You'll see how it can get. One of these days you'll decide that getting educated in different fields is actually fun to do. We decided to study the religions, however, because we felt we needed to know what makes those religious leaders tick. How they think. How they are taught to think. When they make their 'declarations,' we know what they are really thinking, and what their agenda is."

"Come to think of it, there's a lot of them I don't trust," Ken said. "And I'm not even sure why. There's just something about them I can't put my finger on, but I don't trust them."

Ely was nodding as Ken talked. "Your lack of trust is well founded, Ken," Ely said. "Those leaders truly expect to be followed. They feel that they are above the same requirement that politicians and other types of leaders have to explain themselves. In their opinion, all they have to do is speak, and it is your responsibility to listen, to believe, and to follow." He raised his finger once again to make a point. "And most especially, to not question. In fact, there are some religions that have declared questioning the Bible to be a mortal sin. What that declaration couches, is the fact that it absolves the leaders of those religions of accountability. They claim that questioning the leaders is the same as questioning the Bible. That claim also disguises a demand that we all see them on the same level of Divine righteousness as the Bible itself. Therefore, they claim that they have no need to answer those questions." Ely spread his hands. "You can imagine how dangerous such thinking is - they have assigned themselves the authority to do or say anything. As long they hold the Bible in one hand, they expect no reprisals from their words or actions." Ely sighed. "They hold the Bible up not as an instrument of faith or guidance, but only as a wall to hide behind."

"Not only that," Alex put in, "but in countries where religious freedom is written into the laws as a right, they claim that any question of their authority in that respect is a violation of that right, once again absolving themselves of the same accountability that other leaders must submit to. But they do it in a round about manner; they are very cunning, never coming right out and saying so. People today see that behavior; it makes them suspicious, and that's where distrust such as yours comes from, Ken. As Ely said, it is well founded. Leaders such as those bear very close scrutiny."

Greg and Ken were both sitting with one hand over their mouths, once again in deep thought. Ken waggled a finger at their teachers. "You guys know don't you?" Alex and Ely looked at him. "You know who's right, don't you? Which religion is correct with what it teaches?"

Ely and Alex looked at each other as if they were deciding who would take this one. Ely smiled and spoke, "As we've said before, Ken, we are not perfect. We don't know everything. But when it comes to which religion is correct, we do know this - none of them are."

"Really?" Greg said, surprised. "None of them? None of them even come close?"

Ely shook his head. "You see, right now all religions teach their followers that they are elite. That while it is ordained that they show compassion and respect to people of other religions, that those other religions and those people are nonetheless inferior. As long as they teach that, they will never be correct. When the day comes that they all teach equality in its Divine sense, then they will all be correct."

"That day is a long, long, long way off!" Ken laughed.

"It certainly is," Ely said. "Another thing holding it all back is the way countries and governments are run. In the United States especially, and other countries that have such a diverse religious population, a strict separation of church and state is mandatory. That isn`t understood by the public as yet, though." The guys were looking intently at him. "These days, and in this country especially; every religion in existence is represented here. And each one of those religions is trying to impose its beliefs on the rest of the population through the country`s laws. There are members of many religions working to get themselves elected to government positions so they can work to make their own beliefs the law of the land, and we can`t have that."

"How would that be stopped?" Ken asked. "If we tried to tell them they can`t do that we`d be interfering with their free will wouldn`t we? Alex told me that was a major rule that we allow them to act according to their will."

"Alex is absolutely correct," Ely answered. "But a separation of church and state isn`t interfering with free will at all. No one is being told they can`t practice their own religion, they are simply being told that they can`t force anyone else to practice their religion. Doing that is an interference of free will in itself anyway. Those who try to pass laws such as that are guilty of suppressing free will themselves."

"They`re doing that without laws though, aren`t they?" Greg asked. "For instance; it isn`t a written law, but isn`t it true that no matter what religion I am, I have to do some things for other religions? Like, I`m not Catholic, so why should I be forced to refer to a catholic priest as `Father,' or a nun as `sister?' By requiring me to do that, they`re requiring me to practice at least a little Catholicism aren`t they?" Ken was nodding as Greg spoke. "And there are people who say that because their own religion doesn`t believe in this or that, that when I`m in their presence I can`t do this or that either, even if my own religion allows it. That`s messing with my free will, too, right?"

"Yes, it certainly is," Ely nodded. "And achieving a balance between those two is a hair thin line that humans have not yet learned to draw and maintain. You would have to ask yourself, if this country were to stop having a secular government, and change to a religious government, which religion in the country would run that government?" He looked at the guys with a smile on his face.

"Oh man!" Greg said. "All of them would want to run it!"

"They would," Ely said. "And you can imagine the trouble that would cause. Indeed, civil wars would break out all over the place. So it`s imperative that in countries such as this one, the separation of church and state must be strict and total. Convincing the religious leaders and fundamentalists of that however, is a job of impossible magnitude today. Each religion believes and teaches that it is right, and that it is the only one that is right. They have blinded themselves badly, and it is hurting everyone. But by and large; on the other hand, when you walk down the streets of any city, and look at all the individual churches, most of those pastors and reverends and such are nothing to fear. They genuinely concern themselves with the welfare of their congregation, doing what they can to help and guide with an open mind, and they are certainly needed. There wasn't really a problem with them, and we paid them no mind until after the advent of the television in the 1950s. At that time a few of them used that medium to rise to more prominence than what was good for the population as a whole. Those few corralled for themselves a wide sphere of notoriety, and far too much ability to exert influence on the government. Those are the ones who bear scrutiny, and we provide it."

"Have you ever had to take any one of those out?" Ken asked.

Alex shook his head. "Some have been taken out, but it wasn't us who did it. Fortunately, their own people finally saw through their charade, and did the job themselves. We are ready, but as long as people take it upon themselves to not only ask questions, but demand appropriate answers, we will only have to watch."

"Watch TV!" Greg grinned.

Alex nodded, "Watch TV, listen to the radio, read, peruse the internet - however, whenever, and wherever those people show themselves, we need to be there."

Greg thought back over the years with Ely, and then it suddenly connected. He remembered all the evenings when he was studying or working on his designs, and Ely was sitting in his favorite chair in the library reading one magazine after another. It seemed he subscribed to almost everything in print. "So it wasn't just enjoyment, or a hobby," he said to Ely. "You were actually working, weren't you?" Ely bowed slightly as was his habit.

"So I guess we need to start reading everything we can get our hands on, eh?" Ken asked.

"It used to be that reading the newspapers and word of mouth was the only way to keep up with things," Alex told them as Ely went back to the phone book. "But now days there are many ways to stay abreast of world events. Magazines are one way, television and radio, the internet especially. Over time we learned our lesson. When we are suspicious of anyone; religious, political, academic, whatever - we find a way to come face to face with them. Even if it is from the first few rows of an audience, we make eye contact with them and then we know exactly what is behind their words. It's actually a much easier job today than it used to be."

"So how much help do we have?" Ken asked. "How many of us are there?"

"Worldwide we number several thousand," Alex answered. "We work much like a sales force does; each of us having a certain territory that we pay particular attention to, and report to the others whenever something is up." He nodded to Ely, "Ely and Greg will keep an eye on the southeastern portion of this country. You and I, Ken, watch the middle of the country. There are other couples who watch the western third. It depends on the total population of a particular area. Some countries have a few of us. Other areas of the world have one of us who watches an entire country. When we can, we work in pairs, although some of us are single, but eventually we find at least a partner to be with us, and when we're lucky," he reached over and patted Ken's thigh, "we fall in love." Ken leaned over for a quick kiss. "We get together now and then - about once a century or so to socialize, discuss, and keep up with each other."

"But you said we would never know who all the others are," Greg pointed out.

"That's true," Alex said and nodded. "Even if we tried, we couldn't get all of us together in one place anyway. There's just too many of us, and when we're not working on a particular operation such as the last one in the middle of last century, we get involved in other projects to keep us occupied. Ely, for instance, would not have attended any gathering while he and Greg were looking after their boys."

"AH HA!" Ely yelled and made them all jump. He didn't notice. He kept talking excitedly, "Here is a place that sounds worth a visit. Upscale, classy."

"Sounds good, let's go," Greg said and grinned at the others.

"Somewhat elegant apparently," Ely continued as if he didn't hear. "A varied menu."

"Sounds good, let's go," Greg sighed.

"It has everything from seafood fresh caught from the ocean right outside, to Italian, to Oriental, to Mexican!"

"Sounds good, let's fucking go!" Greg laughed.

"It's located just a few blocks from here and situated between two dance clubs. We can have dinner and then go check out the guys at the clubs. We can make ourselves look to be in our middle 20's or so and have some fun." Ely looked up from the phone book and saw that the guys weren't listening to him any more. They were already getting dressed.

CHAPTER TEN

A couple of years later Greg and Ely packed up their winter clothes and went to visit Alex and Ken in Colorado. The first thing they learned was that Colorado had real winters, not the psuedo winters they were accustomed to in Florida. The clothes they packed weren't warm enough and they had to go shopping immediately.

Alex and Ken had a large, secluded, and beautiful log home built on a mountainside. The living room was designed much like a ski lodge. Greg marveled at the fireplace which was located not in one wall, but right in the middle of the room so that a fire was like the bonfires Greg was used to on the beach. A hood was suspended from the rafters that connected to the chimney.

Their property bordered the ski resort that Ken owned. Before Ken ended his human life he and Alex had his will fixed so that Ken left the resort to. . . well . . .to himself! He claimed the property as a young man, with the proper but fake identification. The resort would remain with Ken as long as he wished. Once a lifetime or so, Alex had to put their home on the market as an old man and buy it back as a young man, the same way Ely kept his home over the years. The resort however, was owned by a corporation, and they had no need to do the same thing with it.

Once every couple of months or so, Ken would sponsor (what was initially at the consternation of the locals), a Gay Days at the resort, and young gay men would fly in from all over. That was when Alex and Ken did their own feeding. Ely and Greg went to visit during one of the Gay Days.

Greg saw that the place was just as crawling with hot men of all types as the beaches of Miami were, albeit with the guys wearing considerably more clothing. What he quickly discovered was how much fun it was working all those clothes off! The living room of Alex and Ken's house saw many orgies with naked guys all over the place and in every bedroom. Any time the guys wanted a butt or a dick, all they had to do was turn their heads and one or the other was right there.

The lodge and hotel on the resort was what occupied most of Ken's time. As beautiful as any hotel in Miami, each of its guest rooms had a panoramic view not of the ocean, but of snow filled mountains. It also had a restaurant that Ely smilingly pronounced first rate. They spent many evenings there having dramatic dinners. Ken hired as many gay staff as he could but wasn't able to make it 100 percent. Still, there was enough for some interesting office parties now and then!

In the evenings they would often go enjoy the gay night life of Aspen. Most times they would all pretend to be housemates and would bring home several guys to spend the night, and other times they would make themselves look older and do the daddy/boy thing. Greg and Ken especially had fun with that, now that they could be the "daddy." Greg was somewhat disappointed to learn that Aspen had its share of boys on the streets, and he would always make sure to include them in their sex play. He would slip some extra bills in their pockets the next day as he sent them off.

During their visit, Ken taught Greg to ski. Alex and Ely already knew how to ski, although they all saw how rusty Ely was. The resort also had a few trails that attracted cross country skiers. Not a lot of hills to them but miles of ski paths that wound around the resort. Greg was immediately caught up in the thrill of skiing, with the wind rushing past him as he seemed to fly down the slopes. Hearing only the wind, he felt like all problems and concerns were literally blown away during a rush down the slopes, and he understood the attraction.

One morning Ken led Greg along one of the cross country paths. At one point, Ken veered off the path and they ended up skiing right into the woods. Greg followed but was apprehensive skiing right between trees. He had always thought that trees were something a skier tried really hard to avoid! Ken slowed down and then came to a stop. Greg skied up next to him and gasped. The woods broke into a small clearing, and right in the middle of the clearing was a tiny log cabin. Picture post card perfect!

"Wow!" Greg yelled as they took off their skis. Ken brushed a thick coating of snow off the door, opened it, and took Greg inside. The interior was no larger than a typical master bedroom. There was a small fireplace on one wall, with wood all ready stacked next to it. More wood was stacked outside. On the wall next to the door was a single bed. The opposite wall was lined with cabinets. The last wall held a sink and chair. The chair made Greg laugh. At the outset it was a regular chair, but the seat of the chair lifted up to reveal a chemical toilet.

The cabinets were stocked with canned and dehydrated food. One cabinet held a fairly extensive first aid kit. Another held a telephone, a small radio, and a flare gun with several flares. "There're twenty of these cabins all through the resort," Ken told Greg. "The idea is that lost skiers can hopefully stumble onto one of these cabins and have some shelter and food and a way to send for help."

"That's smart!" Greg said.

"It's worked several times, too!" Ken said. "The phone here is connected directly to Air Rescue. If it isn't working they can use the radio. If even that isn't working, they can fire off flares if the weather is clear." Ken showed Greg a folder that explained how to use the equipment. "If they're not injured and can move, they can build a fire and cook some food. The phone is the only electric thing in here, so they have to use the fireplace to cook." Ken showed Greg a cabinet that had a few pots and pans, plates and silverware of the type a camper would pack. Ken started a fire in the fireplace that quickly warmed the cabin. "This cabin is due to be checked and re-stocked in a couple of days," he told Greg. "So it's okay if we use up some stuff."

Greg thought about the tiny trail they had come from. He couldn't imagine even an experienced skier trying to navigate the trails while carrying sacks. "How do you get supplies out here?" he asked.

"With snowmobiles," Ken smiled. "Most times I grab one and come re-stock these places myself just to get out and around. But I have a crew that regularly keeps up. In the summer I hire a bunch of college kids to spend the summer here and work on any repairs and fix up the trails and chop wood and stuff."

"Nice way to get it done," Greg said.

"Yeah, I put 'em up in the hotel and pay 'em good and feed 'em good," Ken said. "They either don't want to go home for the summer break from school, or they just want to make the extra money," he grinned at Greg. "Some of them bring their girlfriends and I have to make sure the two of them work in separate places every day, or they spend the whole day fucking in the woods and don't get any work done!"

Greg laughed. "That sounds almost cruel!"

"Nah," Ken said. "You should see that hotel every night in the summer! Business is real slow then and the kids have the run of the place."

"Oh yeah!" Greg said. "Say no more - I know what they're doing!"

Greg was sitting on the bed. Ken came and sat next to him. He put his arm around Greg. "And," he said as he reached between Greg's legs and fondled his crotch, "it can get real interesting in the woods depending on who you come out here with!"

Greg smiled. "You sneaky bastard," he laughed. "It's getting real interesting right now!" And he leaned over to kiss Ken. They wound up naked on the bed with the fire in the fireplace in a tiny little log cabin way out in the woods, and fucked each other over and over again until late afternoon. Ken sighed and said they needed to start back before dark.

Back at the house, Alex left word that he and Ely had gone into town, and they would have dinner there. "We can go to the hotel and have dinner, or I can whip something up here if you want," Ken told Greg.

"Let's eat here," Greg said. "We can find something, can't we? Does Alex keep the kitchen as well stocked as Ely does?"

"Oh yes!!" Ken laughed. "He likes to eat like Ely does - but even so - with all the spontaneous parties we have here we want to make sure we can feed everybody. Hey! How about grilled steak?"

Greg looked outside at the snow covered patio. "How?"

Ken had gone into the kitchen. He came back into the living room with a grill and fit it right over the fireplace. Greg nodded his approval. "Nice!" he said.

"The fire can burn down to a nice set of coals while the potatoes bake," Ken said and smiled. "We can actually grill 'out' without even going outside."

In the kitchen they washed and wrapped a few potatoes and put them in the oven to bake. Ken took some corn from the refrigerator that Alex got at the local farmer's market right after being picked from the fields. They sat at the table pulling the shucks from the corn.

"So do you still run the resort like you used to?" Greg asked.

Ken shook his head. "Alex talked me out of it. I hired a manager, so I'm considered something of an absentee owner. He convinced me that I don't have to work like I did when I was human. He said I'd have other things to do now."

"What are you doing now?"

"Well, not much at the moment, really," Ken shrugged. "I still go to the resort a lot, but more like a guest." He grinned at Greg, "No one knows me now. They think I'm a relative of the owner. I ski a lot more than I ever did. I started getting sick when I was in my early 40's and had to stop skiing, so it's kind of nice to get caught up with it. I drag guys over here when I can. Travel some with Alex now and then. How about you?"

"About the same," Greg said as he pulled what he thought were hairs off the cobs of corn. "We go to Miami a lot - there's a lot happening down there. We travel some too, up and down the coast."

Ken put the corn in a pot and sat it on the stove to wait until the potatoes were almost done. He took a couple of steaks from the refrigerator, and brought them to the table for him and Greg to tenderize and season. He saw Greg staring at nothing in particular, with something of a frown on his face. He sat down and put the steaks aside. He reached out and took Greg's hands.

"Hey," Ken said and looked Greg in the eye. "We're friends now, ya know? I really like you and Ely a lot. If something's wrong, you can talk to me. You can tell me anything."

Greg thought a second and broke into a grin. "Oh no, no!" he pulled Ken's hands up to his mouth and kissed them quickly. "Nothing's what you'd call 'wrong', but," he even glanced to his sides like he was making sure no one could hear; even though no one else was there. "You know what I want to do? Next fall I'm going back to school!"

"No kidding!" Ken smiled. "Cool."

"I'm just a little nervous about it, that's all," Greg snickered. "I had a blast in college when I was 18, but it's been an awful long time!"

"Sure has!" Ken laughed, "Why? What are you going to study?"

"Archeology."

Ken turned his head and thought about it. "Okay," he said slowly, "Um. . . what brought that up? That's coming right outta the blue."

"Well," Greg sat back, "it's not so much that I want to go around the world digging around looking for lost cities and all. But I want to learn the languages, ya know? I want to be able to translate hieroglyphics myself, and studying archeology is a great way to learn that." Greg was on a roll. He didn't notice that Ken was sitting back giving him a hard stare. He was excited and talked faster. "And then after that I want to learn Latin and Hebrew and the old Greek languages. I want to learn how they analyze the stuff they find, and how they tie it all together. I know it'll take several years and all, but I got nothing but time, right? I been thinking about it a long time now, and I really want to do it." Finally he noticed Ken staring at him. "What?"

Ken leaned forward, still not taking his eyes off of Greg. "You want to read the Dead Sea Scrolls for yourself, don't you?"

Greg jumped back a little. "You didn't read me," he said. "You didn't come into my mind, I know that. So how did you know?"

"Because I've been thinking the same thing. Even when I was still human I was thinking about stuff like that. I've always thought that all those people weren't telling us the truth. I couldn't put my finger on it - still can't - but I always felt like they were hiding something. There's the scrolls in Israel, but that's only one issue. The Vatican, for instance, has a ton of documents that they won't let anyone see. They just tell everybody to take their word for it. I've always been suspicious."

"Yeah!" Greg said. "When you guys were with us in Florida you said something about that. That's what got me thinking about it. I've been thinking about it ever since. I talked to Ely and he said it sounded great to him. Aside from going back to college he said it's a great idea and I should go for it."

"What if we both did it?" Ken asked. "I could go to school here, and you could go in Florida. We could be a team after that!"

Greg shrugged and smiled, "Sounds great to me! Not only that but it would give us an excuse to travel around. If nothing else it'll be a lot of fun. We could go to Europe and all. Ely and Alex I bet would love to go back to England for a while."

They talked about it while the potatoes baked. They talked while they grilled the steaks. They talked while they ate and while they did the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen. They sat in the living room in front of the fire and talked about it with their arms around each other.

"What does Alex say about it all?" Greg asked.

"I haven't even talked to him about it yet," Ken said. "I've only been thinking about it is all."

Greg started to say something else and suddenly stopped and stared straight ahead. He seemed almost in a trance and Ken had to nudge him.

Greg turned to look at Ken. "You know what this means?"

"What?"

"Remember what Ely told us when you guys were with us in Florida? That night in Miami on the beach?" Greg turned to face Ken. "I've been thinking about it. Now I find out you've been thinking about it too. Ely said it sounded good to him. If Alex says to go for it too, then. . .well. . . "

Ken's eyes widened and he swallowed hard. "Yeah! It means it wasn't just us thinking about it. It means. . . "

Greg said it. "It means it's not just a thought. It's an assignment!"

"Oh man!" Ken said. "We need to talk to Alex and Ely!"

"When do you think they'll be back?"

Ken looked at the clock. "Alex likes late dinners. They're probably eating now. We could call them I guess."

Greg laughed. "Get Ely out of a restaurant?!? We'd have to tell him the house was on fire or something!"

Ken sighed deeply. "Man this is something! This is heavy!"

Greg nodded. "But we're up for it, aren't we? We can handle it. With the two of us and Alex and Ely's support we're not going at anything alone."

"Yeah." Ken had a huge smile on his face. "We're ready for it!" He stood up and pumped his fists in the air. "I feel good now! I feel pumped!"

They both did. They felt great. They had a job to do now. They felt like they had a purpose. They knew it would be a while before Alex and Ely got home, so they got naked and made very good use of the time.

THE END

Intelligent comments and constructive criticism are VERY welcome! Send them to: slzyguy@hotmail.com Please mention story title in the subject as I have several stories on the net.