"Smith-SlowboatMan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Adam)

we were together.

Or at least he never told me he had.

I had never asked.

I was hunting the night we met. The spring of 1946, a time of promise and good
cheer around the country. The war was won, the evil vanquished, and the living
bathed in the feeling of a wonderful future. I had spent the last thirty years
before and during the war in St. Louis, but my friends had aged, as always
happened, and it was becoming too hard to answer the questions and the looks. I
had moved on many times in the past and I would continue to do so many times in
the future. It was my curse for making mortal friends and enjoying the pleasures
of the mortal world.

I pleaded to my friends in St. Louis a sick mother in a far away city and booked
passage under another name on an old-fashioned Mississippi riverboat named Joe
Henry. I had loved the boats when they were working the river the first time and
now again loved them as they came back again for the tourists and gambling.

For the first few days I stayed mostly to my small cabin, sleeping on the small
bed during the day and reading at night. But on the third day hunger finally
drove me into the narrow hallways and lighted party rooms of the huge riverboat.

Many soldiers and sailors filled the boat, most still in uniform and most with
woman of their own age holding onto their arms and laughing at their every word.
The boat literally reeked of health and good cheer and I remember that smell
drove my hunger.

I supposed events could have turned another way and I might have met Johnny
before feeding. But almost immediately upon leaving my cabin I had gotten lucky
and found a young sailor standing alone on the lower deck.

I walked up to the rail and pretended to stare out over the black waters of the
river and the lights beyond. The air felt alive, full of humidity and insects,
thick air that carried the young sailor's scent clearly to me.

He moved closer and struck up a conversation. After a minute I stroked his arm,
building his lust and desire while at the same time blocking his mind of my
image. I asked him to help me with a problem with the mattress on my bed in my
cabin and even though he kept a straight face the smell of sexual lust almost
choked me.

Within two minutes he was asleep on my bed and I was feeding drinking light to
not hurt him, but getting enough of his blood to fill my immediate hunger.

After I finished I brushed over the marks on his neck with a lick so that no
sign would show and then cleaned myself up while letting him rest. Then I roused
him just enough to walk him up a few decks, where I slipped away, happy that I
might repeat the same act numbers of times during this voyage. It was an