Page 84 of Fangs with Benefits

‘You feel alive to me,’ I say honestly. ‘You don’t feel dead. Or undead. Whatever you are.’

‘Ah, because I’m so indelibly charming?’ he teases.

‘Something like that.’

Elijah pulls me back against him and I exhale into the feeling of it. When he’s unbearably kind and patient, it makes me crave things I can’t have. Makes me wonder what universal forces I would need to bargain with to keep him like this, sleeping in my apartment with his cat, scratching my back while I fall asleep, treating me like I’m already his.

In all of the vampire media of my childhood, the answer was relatively simple: make her a vampire too.

But would I want that? Would I actually, really want it? I used to think the answer was an unequivocal yes, but that was when magic was a fantasy, something I dreamed about being real, not a tangible man in front of me with an infectious laugh and expressive eyes.

‘Sit with me?’ he asks, dipping his head to the couch. ‘Let’s watch a movie and wait to think about existential planning over dinner.’

‘Deal,’ I sigh, and giggle when he hauls me over his shoulder for the three steps to the couch, where we’ll spend the day tangled up in each other.

Editor’s Note in Knuckle Butter journal regarding ‘Nocturnal Affairs’ by Molly Mason

Mason crafts a surreal story about two souls finding an unlikely companionship in the quiet hours of the night. Her soft prose and thoughtful attention to detail left us with a feeling of radiant comfort amid the characters’ mutual grief.

The story also serves as propaganda in favour of adopting a hedgehog, but that’s just icing on the cake that is this delight of a story.

Chapter 29

Elijah

In today’s lesson in humanity, Molly took me to a Broadway show–a masterful production with such talent on display I found myself moved to tears multiple times. Molly loved it, gripping my hand in the tight theatre seats, checking my face for my reactions, and tearing up too when we all stood to clap for the cast after the show.

Some sort of horny demon possessed her afterwards though, because on the train she put her mouth next to my ear and whispered all the things she wanted me to do to her. I tried not to react, but eventually had to readjust my cock in my jeans for all the filthy words she muttered about what we could get up to tonight.

The walk from the train to her apartment feels charged, a current zipping between where our hands are held between us. Before the door’s even clicked shut behind me, Molly’s legs are around my waist, her mouth moving against mine. I kiss her back hungrily, one arm holding her up and the other sliding into her hair. She keeps telling me I’m not supposed to run fingers through curls like I do, but I can’t help myself–her hair’s so soft and often warmed by her neck.

Plus, she always moans into my mouth when my hands find their way into her hair, and little else feels quite so electrifying as her hands gripping me likewise, pulling roughly at mine.

‘God, you taste good,’ I murmur. ‘These jeans make me feel unwell.’

‘Mm? That doesn’t sound good,’ she says while I kiss down her jaw, her neck. I reach her bed and drop her onto it, bouncing once with a giggle.

‘It’s very, very good,’ I tell her, and trace my fingertips up her thighs, around her groin, then to the button of said jeans, which I undo easily. I unzip the trousers and groan at the glimpse of crimson panties beneath a tiny white bow in the middle of the band.

Molly props herself up on her elbows and unbuttons her shirt to reveal a matching bra, so bright against her pale skin. She has constellations of freckles across her chest and shoulders, and if I had forever with her, I would count and kiss every one.

I put my palms on her stomach then slide them up her sides, over her bra, her chest, her neck. Molly tips her chin back as I do, goosebumps covering her skin. I lean over to press a deep kiss to her mouth, then pull back to strip her jeans from her body. The little bows make me feel like she’s a present, an early Christmas gift just for me. I feel up and down her smooth legs as I survey her body, her soft belly that I’d like to leave hickeys all over, her strong thighs. I stroke over the fabric covering her pussy and grin when I find it damp already.

‘Elijah,’ she says, a little breathless.

‘Hm?’ I increase my pressure on her clit, circling the way I know she likes

‘Your fangs are out again,’ she says. I quickly close my mouth, my fangs nicking the inside of my lip and healing over a moment later.

‘Sorry,’ I say, trying to rein it in best as I can. It feels fruitless when I can only think about feasting on her pussy until she comes so prettily around my fingers.

Molly pushes up on her arm and grabs the front of my sweater before pulling me down. I stumble onto the bed above her, my cock pressed against her thigh.

She tugs me down until I’m just above her, then uses her thumb to push the side of my mouth down, looking with fascination at my lower and upper fangs. Fascination and what looks like her own hunger.

‘So it wouldn’t turn me into a vampire if you bit me?’ she asks.

‘It wouldn’t,’ I say tentatively.