SOULBOUND ‡ waif
By Wes Leigh
This is a work
of fiction (or is it?) intended solely for the entertainment of my readers. It
includes references to historical people and places, in particular, the London
borough of Whitechapel and its streets. I also wish to make a special
acknowledgement of Bram Stoker's ground-breaking novel Dracula, which spawned a
new genre of literature, the Gothic horror tale, and led to countless movies
and novels that inspired and horrified generations of fans. This story includes
several (not so subtle) references to Mr. Stoker and his novel, by which I
intend no disrespect, but rather acknowledge his inspiration of my foray into
the realm of vampires.
This story is
the property of the author and is protected by copyright laws. The author
retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent.
If you enjoy
this story, please support the Nifty archives today with a thoughtful donation
by visiting https://donate.nifty.org/. Readers who would like to chat are encouraged to
contact me at weston.leigh@protonmail.com.
Note to readers: SOULBOUND ‡ WAIF
is a prequel in the SOULBOUND series. If you haven't read the original
SOULBOUND, I recommend you read it first before reading SOULBOUND ‡
WAIF. For a short guide to all the Soulbound stories,
please read SOULBOUND ANTHOLOGY.
November 30, 1888
We are boarding the RMS Umbria in Liverpool,
headed for New York in the Americas. We should be there before the week is out,
and I plan to spend the time as productively as possible, writing down the
story of what transpired over the last few months. Consider this my biography,
the story of Xavier Smyth, and how I lived to the ripe old age of fifteen before
dying.
Confused yet? Allow me to start over. I was
born Thomas Xavier Gibbs in the year of our Lord 1873, in Whitechapel, England.
I've never cared for my name. Xavier sounds rather pretentious to me. I much
preferred being called by my nickname, Zavy. I suppose even my nickname has
been stolen from me, just as my life was snatched away when I was bitten by a vampire.
This is how it happened ...
"Not a day goes by I'm not hearing about some
type of ruckus. Like as not it'll be Wentworth lads mafficking
with boys from Hanbury street. Folks always asking me why I don't do something about
it. And what the hell am I supposed to do? It'd take a bloody army to maintain
order round here."
-- Constable Dobbin, Whitechapel Station
London, England. Whitechapel District. Early
Fall, 1888.
"Zavy! Oy, mate! What's
the rush?"
Zavy
stopped and turned to look behind him. His raven black hair blew into his eyes,
also dark and piercing. He was a handsome lad, fifteen years old and eager to get
the day started. He pushed his hair aside impatiently and motioned for the
other two boys to follow him. Reggie, the one who had called out for Zavy to
slow down, had black hair like his own and similarly handsome features, as you
would expect since they were cousins. The other boy, Jack, was shorter and
fair, with blonde hair and freckles. They were both running after Zavy, pulling
their coats on as they ran.
Zavy
shook his head and waved for the other two to hurry. "Wanna get there before a
bunch of Worthies show their ugly arses. So move YOUR arses, me lads!"
Jack struggled
to get his arm inside his coat. "Bloody hell, Zavy. We ain't even had a chance
to grab a bite. There's a bit of bread and broth left over from last night. What's
the bloody hurry?"
Reggie
patted Jack on the back affectionately and laughed. "Zavy's
mad as hops today, Jacko. There's no stopping him when he gets like this."
Zavy
shook his head impatiently. "Stop talking and start running. If we make a few
pence at the stables, we can eat at the Gray Fox later and still have something
to show for our morning. Otherwise, you know how Crawley will be."
Reggie
and Jack looked at each other, frowning. They did indeed know how Crawley could
be, especially when the boys didn't return home with a few pence each. The
reminder of Crawley's heavy fist was all they needed to forget about a missed
breakfast and run the faster after Zavy, who had already turned and started sprinting
up the street. He was right. Getting to the stables early meant they could make
enough to buy a late meal and still have something to hand over to the greedy
bastard they lived with.
The
stable was two streets over, on Wentworth Street. It was a risk, because the
lads who lived there were aggressive bullies who liked nothing better than
picking a fight with boys from other streets who made the mistake of wandering
onto what they considered their territory. Street brawls were all too common, and
the constables didn't even try to stop them, so Zavy knew he was taking a
gamble working at the stables. But a few bruises were worth it! Old Man McCoy
ran the place, and he was a decent enough chap. He paid fair wages to the boys,
knowing they'd work the harder for it and be grateful for the chance.
McCoy
was just opening up the main doors when the boys ran up and waited politely for
him to push the heavy doors aside. He glanced at the three teens, nodded, and
pointed at shovels and rakes. "Aye. Figured the three of you would be here
early and eager. Back stalls need mucking out and fresh straw. Get with it,
lads."
Zavy nodded
and grabbed a rake, heading for the back of the stables. Reggie and Jack
followed his example, trotting inside. They'd been working only half an hour
when another group of boys strolled up and saw them hard at work.
Jack
looked over and whispered, "Worthies are here."
"Ignore
them," Zavy whispered back. "They're too bloody late, so they can just fuck
off."
Reggie
chuckled. "Kinda hard to ignore them. Smell like the Thames and look like
walking piles of shit."
Jack
laughed and picked up a pile of horse manure. "Oy, look what I found. A Worthie
under some straw!"
Reggie
tried to shush Jack, but apparently his indiscrete comment had been loud enough
for the other boys to hear. They wandered over and blocked the entrance to the
stall where Zavy, Reggie, and Jack were working. The tallest, a red-headed boy
with angry green eyes, squinted and said, "What have we here, lads. Three little
quims from Hanbury street. I think they're lost. Got confused and thought they
could leave their shitholes to come to our street."
Jack
stopped working and glared. "Ain't your street, Flanders. And we ain't quims."
Flanders,
the red-haired boy laughed. "Now listen to that, lads. A Hanbury quim with a
mouth. Maybe I should stuff me pego in and see if he
can still talk with his mouth full." To emphasize his point, Flanders grabbed
his crotch and squeezed.
Jack
sneered. "Wouldn't be much of a mouthful, from what I can see."
Zavy
stepped forward and put his hand on Jack's shoulder. "Let's get back to work,
Jacko." Turning to Flanders, Zavy said, "Don't know what you Wentworth lads
want, but you ain't gonna find it here."
Flanders
looked around the stables and said with a snarl. "Don't suppose you boys
noticed, but these stables are on Wentworth Street. That means it belongs to
Worthies. You fellows are a few streets away from home, and the way I figure
it, you'd best stop coming over here, unless you like getting your skulls
busted."
Zavy
leaned his shovel against the stall wall and crossed his arms. "We know where
we are, Flanders. We know who you are and that you think you run things over
here on Wentworth Street, but we see things a bit different on Hanbury. The way
we see it is like this. We go where we want. We do what we want. And no one
tells us otherwise."
Flanders
stepped up until his nose was inches from Zavy's. They
were almost the same height, so Zavy didn't back away. "Get your arses home to Hanbury," Flanders said with a growl. "Last
warning."
Zavy
looked down at Flanders' feet and smiled. "Over on Hanbury, they teach us to
get up early and to work hard. Guess that's why we're mucking the stables and
you're just standing in muck."
Flanders
looked down and saw he was indeed standing in fresh horse shit. He moved back,
only to have a large glob of manure and straw land on his foot. He looked up,
furious, and saw Reggie smiling wickedly with a now-empty shovel in his hand. "Sorry
about that, mate," Reggie said with a sneer. "Didn't see you standing there."
The
Wentworth boys snarled and began to move forward as one, but Old Man McCoy came
around the corner just then and saw everything. "Ach! What are you lads up to? Don't
you be starting trouble around here."
"Not
wanting any trouble," Flanders said. "Just looking for work."
"Don't
need anyone else today," McCoy replied. "Keep looking." He pointed at the door
of the stable and waited until the four Wentworth teens walked away. Looking
back at Zavy, Reggie, and Jack, he gave them a searching look, but said
nothing, returning to his own morning routine.
The
three were relieved. They weren't afraid to fight, but four on three wasn't
exactly fair, and they did need to make a few pence that day. They went back to
work, shoveling manure and spreading out new straw.
͠ ͠ ͠ ͠
Old
Man McCoy checked on them an hour later. He looked around at the clean stalls
and grunted. "Good work, lads. About as I've come to expect from you lot." He
pointed at the ladder leading to the loft. "Bring down fresh straw for empty stalls
in the back. Got a few horses coming over from Spitafields
that'll need bedding." McCoy stomped off, nodding his head with satisfaction at
the work of the Hanbury boys. They seemed to do a much better job than the lads
on Wentworth Street, who tended to mess around a bit too much instead of
working.
"I'll
get the straw," Jack said, climbing the ladder into the loft.
"I'll
help," Zavy said with a smile. "You'll keep a watch for us, Reg?"
Reggie
nodded his head. He knew what that meant, but he didn't mind so much. The lads
were always nipping off to have a bit of play. There was no privacy in their
housing, so you had to grab your fun when you could.
Jack
and Zavy hurried up the ladder into the loft. Moments later, a bale of straw
tumbled down and landed on the ground, busting apart. Reggie began carrying it
into the stalls and spreading it out. From above his head, he heard giggles and
rustling. Grinning, he slowly climbed the ladder and peeked into the loft.
Zavy's trousers were around his ankles and Jack was
kneeling in front of him, bobbing up and down on Zavy's
cock. Reggie watched for a moment, feeling his own cock begin to swell up in his
pants. He reached down and pulled on the fabric, making more room.
Zavy
glanced over and smiled at Reggie. "You want a bit of this next?"
Reggie
nodded.
Jack
looked over and frowned. "Wait below, Reg. Don't want McCoy catching us, now do
we? I'll give you a bagpipe next, and then one of you can do me."
Reggie
nodded and slid down the ladder to the stable floor. Gathering armfuls of
straw, he quickly scattered it around the stalls.
In
the loft, Zavy gently stroked Jack's cheek as the younger boy sucked on his
cock. Jack was fourteen, a year younger, and as dear to Zavy as his cousin
Reggie. The three of them were like brothers. Even considered themselves such,
and acted like it too, spending every moment together, working to provide food
for the family, consoling one another when Crawley's fist bruised their backs,
holding each other in the night to stay warm.
The
three of them had been together for years. Reggie had lived with Zavy from an
early age, when both of Reggie's parents died of pneumonia. Then when the two
of them turned ten, diptheria took Zavy's father, and his mother moved in with Crawley, who
grudgingly accepted the boys living there as long as they kept providing money
every day for their lodging. That was five years ago, and it had been a tough
road since.
Jack
had joined them a few years back. He'd been friends with Reggie and Zavy for
some time, moving in with them when he couldn't take living with his own family
any longer. As Jack explained it, his father watched every bite Jack ate,
grumbling that the boy never brought in as much as he stuffed down his throat. One
day, Jack couldn't find work, and the man kicked him out, saying he was old
enough to find his own place. Jack hadn't minded. His dad was a lazy lout and
his mom a whore, so moving out was a move up as far as Jack was concerned.
Zavy's mom had taken the boy in and told him he could sleep
on the pallet with Reggie and Zavy in the corner of the main room, but the
three of them would have to work even harder from then on to provide food for
the family. Zavy had assured her they would, and they had. The three of them
worked very hard, never enough for Crawley, but nothing ever satisfied that
bastard.
It
was a tough life, but no harder than what most folks endured in Whitechapel. And
there were good times to be had, especially for horny teen boys who could find
work at a stable with a nice, secluded hay loft where Jack's talented mouth
made Zavy's body quiver. The boy somehow managed to
swallow all six inches of Zavy's cock, gulping to
keep from gagging. Zavy stroked Jack's cheek again, making the blonde look up
and smile as he bobbed up and down.
Jack reached
underneath Zavy's cock to play with his balls,
knowing his older friend loved that too. It always seemed that Jack was the
first to kneel down and take Zavy or Reggie into his mouth, but that was fine
by Jack. He knew he'd be getting his own cock sucked in a bit, and he didn't
mind going first. He actually liked the taste of Zavy. A little bitter, but
sweeter than Reggie's. He could swallow what Reggie put out only by pushing the
thick shaft to the back of his mouth and holding it there when it began to
shoot out his stuff. Zavy was different. Jack actually liked to pull off enough
so that Zavy's cum landed on his tongue where he
could taste it.
Zavy
was getting close. Jack could tell by the way the dark-haired lad kept standing
on his toes, pushing his cock deeper into Jack's throat. Jack squeezed Zavy's balls a little harder and stroked the insides of Zavy's thighs.
Zavy
moaned and whispered, "Oh, bloody hell, chuckaboo. Keep
doing that. Just like that."
Down
below, Reggie kept working. By the time he'd distributed all the straw, he
heard a loud moan above him, a grunt, and a sigh. Smiling, he looked up and
shouted, "I'm ready for another bale, if you two are about finished."
Jack's
head appeared at the opening to the loft. He was smiling and licking his lips. "Zavy's done. Come on up and help me with this." Jack made
motions of pulling a cock in and out of his mouth, grinning down at Reggie.
Reggie
felt his own cock beginning to stir again. Working at the stables was the best
thing Zavy had ever suggested, even if it did mean running into Wentworth fucks
from time to time.
͠ ͠ ͠
Jack
stared at the money in Zavy's hand with eyes wide in
wonder. "I can't believe me eyes. Old Man McCoy is a
class fellow."
Zavy
nodded. "He did right well by us. Ten pence for a morning's work. Not bad,
lads. Not bad at all."
"What
are we gonna do with it?" asked Reggie.
Zavy
grinned and handed two pence to Reggie. "That's for a couple of meals at the
Gray Fox. We'll split it between us and eat like kings!"
Zavy
handed two pence to Jack. "Stash that away. That's a good lad. That will be for
our breakfast tomorrow."
Jack
nodded and slid the pennies into his shoe.
Zavy held
up the last six pence. "This we give to Crawley. Ought to get him off our back
for the day, don't ya' think?"
Reggie
and Jack nodded in agreement, smiling. It would indeed. Six pence would feed
the rest of the family well enough for that day. Crawley would probably send
them out to buy food and a quart of bitter to wash it down with, so the three
teens were looking forward to eating again that night. Two meals in one day! Who'd
have imagined the day would go so well?
They headed
down the street, laughing and slapping each other on the shoulders, heading for
the Gray Fox tavern where they served the best meat pies in the borough. Turning
a corner, the three stopped suddenly. Standing before them was a gang of
Wentworth Worthies. Eight of them.
Zavy
looked at Reggie and Jack. Both curled their hands into fists. Zavy nodded and
turned to face the Worthies. "Well then. No need to mess about. Let's do this."
͠
͠ ͠
It was all gone. All ten pence. The Worthie
fucks had even found the two pence Jack had stashed in his shoe. The three
Hanbury lads had nothing to show for their morning, except black eyes, bloody
noses, and bruised ribs.
Holding each other up, they stumbled back to
their home where their mother shook her head sadly and Crawley yelled at them,
calling them lazy fucks who wasted their day and then got their arses handed to them in a street brawl.
Zavy tried to explain what had happened, but
Crawley would hear none of it.
"Get out of me house!" he yelled. "You lot
ain't sleeping under me roof until you pay your share of living here."
It was cold that night, sleeping on the
stairs leading up to their building. But where else could they go? They huddled
together, shivering and doing their best to keep each other warm. Early in the
morning hours, Jack began to cough. Zavy took off his coat and wrapped it around
the smaller boy, doing what he could to keep the lad warm. Jack whispered his
gratitude and snuggled in closer to Zavy's body.
The sky began to turn a lighter shade of gray
when Zavy woke the others up and suggested they head down to McCoy's stable. Having
nothing better to do, they agreed and stretched their aching bodies and
stumbled after Zavy up the street.
When Old Man McCoy came out of his cottage to
open the stables the next morning, he saw the three disheveled teens standing
in the street, shifting from foot to foot and shivering. He studied the boys
carefully, noting the fresh bruises on their faces. "Get started on the front stalls,
lads," he grunted, turning and walking back into his house. He returned moments
later with a jug of milk and a loaf of day-old bread. He handed it to Zavy and
said, "It's not much, but it's what I have in the house."
The boys thanked the old man and quickly
devoured the bread and guzzled the milk, before getting back to work.
͠ ͠ ͠
McCoy paid them
twenty pence for their work that day, though Zavy protested that was far too
much. McCoy simply shook his head and said, "I've a delivery to make over on Petham Road. You lads'll be going
with me in me wagon, helping me unload and all. Then I'll drop you off on
Hanbury afore I head back here."
An hour later, the
three boys sat in the back of McCoy's wagon as it pulled down Wentworth Street.
Standing on a corner, watching as they drove by, were the Wentworth lads from
the day before. They snarled when they saw the Hanbury boys riding in the back
of the wagon, but there was nothing they could do.
Reggie tipped his
head at the Worthies as they rolled past.
Jack held up his
hand with his middle finger out.
Zavy laughed and
pulled Jack into a hug. They'd probably have trouble later for it, but it was a
good day to be alive. The morning sun was warm in Whitechapel, and he and his
brothers would eat well soon. Life couldn't get any better.
The end of SOULBOUND ‡ WAIF, Chapter One