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***DANIEL'S JOURNAL NO READING ARMAND***
4/23/25
I was on a home office call with my assistant when I heard what sounded like the Vampire Armand trashing our kitchen.
“Matt, gonna have to talk to you later. Yes I'm booked for New Orleans. Saturday. Yeah…yup. Red-eye flight. So I'll talk to you after I…yes, yup. Bye.”
I was too late. My 514-year old vampire boyfriend had crashed out the back door and was gone with the wind. He’d been wearing only his trousers, no shirt or shoes, not even his “Pumping Curls” L’Oreal hair spritz. He had spent the last 4 hours at the breakfast “nook”, a small round table with stools, still like a bronzed statue except for his busy fingertips placing all those little LEGOs bits into place on a plastic Taj Mahal. It now sat proudly on the kitchen counter, completed, though it looked wonky and warped. I suspect one of those hours was spent with it in the microwave.
The breakfast nook that we’d fucked on last night had been broken in half, legs snapped off like toothpicks.
Armand was having a real bad time. He needed to be found. Not that I could do much to stop him, but he needed me to find him. It was obvious. He just needed me.
So… I set out from our apartment at about one and was now wandering senselessly in East New York, near Queens for my next clue like pursuing a fairy tale creature through an enchanted forest of brick, exhaust and garbage. Also other vampires. Fortunately though, the nastier riffraff had been rightfully scared off by Armand’s “clues.”
Armand’s clues: I first followed the miles of long scratches down rows of automobiles, but only those that cost more than 100k and especially Cybertrucks. From there, I followed broken street lamps that had gone out completely. I saw an ATM pried apart, a cash box crushed wide open and empty--no surprise there--Armand often enjoyed tossing wads of cash into the street. I glanced up then and saw it, his Magnus Opus and I'm not fucking kidding. High above there was a massive Armand hole driven straight through a backlit billboard.
Where the fuck was my babycakes, my maker, my mentor, my companion, demonic angel, psychotic little twinky gremlin chaos princess?
***
Hey there, I’m Daniel Molloy, vampire boyfriend wrangler, two-time Pulitzer winning journalist, and author of the best-selling book “Interview with the Vampire.” The Goth manager at Barnes & Nobles places it on their top fiction recommendations but don't believe them! It's nonfiction and there's no better evidence that vampires are real other than myself .
Of course, I wasn't a vampire when I started the interview. I was a deranged seventy-year-old man at the beginning of the terminal descent known as Parkinson's disease.
I was doing exactly what Armand had done over the past few months and is doing right now: avoiding my fear until it compacted and lit a fuse, exploding into utterly crazed behavior. In my case, I decided that it was a good idea to re-interview the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac that almost killed me fifty years ago.
No. I was probably not entirely of sound mind when I went to Dubai. But I also had no reason NOT to go. I wanted to prove that it wasn’t a drug induced dream I’d had in 1973, and that vampires were real. And it was blurry but I remembered fucking a vampire and coming the hardest I'd ever had in my whole damn life. So fuck yeah I went to Dubai.
How did I end up an actual vampire? Well. I came to interview Louis, but after he suddenly decided to leave, I stayed to be with his ex, Armand.
Armand, who was in a dwindling companionship with Louis after 77 years. Armand, who was quite literally dumped into the wall of the Dubai penthouse when I was there. Me, causing the breakup after using my journalism skills to unearth a three-quarters of a century old truth bomb. Louis, who decided to leave the Dubai penthouse at some point though it's a bit hazy why. All I remember is Armand and I ending up alone together, mortal me expecting to either get murdered or fucked real good and then murdered.
Instead, Armand lobbed a truth bomb back at me.
Armand made me remember us . Armand, incidentally, was THAT vampire I’d fucked fifty years ago (I thought it was only once at the time, insert LMAO emoji and an eggplant). Even more interesting, Armand and I had been together sporadically between 78-90, and although my memories he’d taken when our ways parted, fuck , for years I’d felt a giant missing something-- and in an instant Armand put back that missing piece. It was MUTUAL love. I truly loved--I DO love-- that beautiful sadistic little fucker.
Okay, okay , now I completely understand why the Goth manager at Barnes & Nobles calls my “fiction” book “Gothmantasy.” Armand, newly single by hmm an hour tops who had never made a vampire in all his 514 years, offered to make me one and love me for all eternity. So to Armand, who had been responsible for some of my misery but also the greatest happiness I’d ever known in mortal life, I said fuck yeah.
As you’ve probably already figured by now, as a human I was completely fucking deranged. But as far as vampires go I think I fit right in.
Seriously, what is not to love in a pain-in-the-ass stubborn snarky forever seventy-year-old? I don't endure, the universe has to endure me and all my bisexual Boomer bullshit for all of eternity.
Yep, a baby at seventy-one. I was learning how to walk and talk and eat all over again, but I could also browse Tiktok at an extraordinary speed. My writing career was resurrected with my book along with a new pursuit, interviewing vampires and finding out exactly what the fuck was vampirism, a question intended to be as loaded as it sounds. What can I say? I'm a bright young reporter with a point of view.
One year as a vampire had truly seemed like seconds. New vampire euphoria was supposedly natural. It's a preternatural learning curve, and although I'm a very fast learner, I apparently managed to overlook something very important, or specifically, someone .
Months before, at the end of January, I’d told Armand about my plan to interview The Vampire Lestat. He was 264-years-old and the lead singer of the rising rock band, “Satan’s Night Out.” He was a crucial part of my first book and would be the focus of my second.
Guess who Lestat was to Armand? An ex. Also Louis’ ex. You remember that Armand is Louis’ ex? Yeah. These three fucking vampires, I tell you. Entangled for more than two centuries. They needed to meet some NEW people. I guess that would be me.
Anyway, the Vampire Lestat was a powerful vampire who could light me on fire or crush my head instantly. He could mentally overpower me, or torture me to get even with Armand for some ex-boyfriend’s ex-boyfriend reason. But again with these hilarious, ridiculous, dramatic vampires, Armand wasn't concerned about Lestat harming me or even exposing all the other evil things he's done through the ages (pretty sure at this point, my human conscience was dead like the rest of me, anyway) No. Armand was probably afraid that I was going to fall madly in love with a Glam Rock Vampire and leave him.
Possessive, obsessive, insecure, and paranoid, Armand had all the ancient vampire boxes checked. He's essentially a sexy Nosferatu. Fucking Gothmantasy.
“Armand, I am not going to fuck Lestat! I'm going as a reporter not to fuck vampires…well, not this time at least.” I laughed.
Armand was on the sofa, legs pertly crossed, giving me his best dainty, almost indiscernible little scoff as if I were the most preposterous.
“Is Louis going to be present at the Interview?” He said, long lashes low, pretending his glass-like fingernails were more interesting.
“No. But I have been assured by him too that Lestat will behave. Quote Louis, ‘Lestat's on ice as thin as the Mississippi’ s’”
He flicked my words away with his hand, “You must do what your work requires of you. Your work is important. I can see that it is to you and maybe…maybe this world too. Maybe you will lift vampires more from darkness, who am I to say. Beloved. I love you and support your endeavors, always have. Always will.”
He looked up at me, briefly nodding serviceably, pressing his lips together in a smile that didn't reach his eyes as he began to undo another button on his shirt. His chest was lean and pectorals round, the color of toasted caramel syrup. I swear his large dark nipples had the Spell gift. I was now bewilderedly horny and very confused.
“So you're sure you’re okay about the Interview…”
“--I am totally okay about it. Now Come here.”
It all seemed a bit odd but it was the answer from Armand I'd wanted and the conversation ended when he started sucking me off.
Truth was, maybe there had been signs all along these last few months but I’d chosen to ignore them… Armand had never been in my office or in my work without permission. He’d respected boundaries, no lurking, stalking, or gremlining of any kind. He continued to say only supportive things.
It was now April and after compiling endless notes and having countless meetings with my “team” as well as Lestat's, I was finally set to meet up with him during his tour. I had my tickets and specific hotel arrangements booked and was leaving for New Orleans in three nights. Armand was apparently finally reacting by menacing New York City like Vigo the Carpathian in the 1989 classic, Ghostbusters 2.
Yeah, I should have known better, 514-years-old, when Armand talked like a Valley Girl he was definitely like, not “totally okay about it.”
***
Guzzling cocaine through the nostrils during the Reagan era (you try being a journalist during Iran-Contra) had robbed my human life of much of my ability to smell. These nights, though, I could detect detailed notes of this city like the taste buds on a wine connoisseur.
Mostly I smelled the general rot, down to the rusted rat feces, but if I focused I could chase after a specific scent; a smell of marijuana coming from down an alley, the smell of hot food being delivered somewhere within a mile radius, and from the propped open window of a nearby ground floor apartment behind a wrought iron enclosure, the sweet smell of a newborn. No, I don't eat babies. However, this was a reminder that I did need someone full-sized to eat soon.
In my breast pocket, I pulled out a pack of Marlboro reds and a lighter. I lit the cigarette and inhaled. It tasted like nothing and I felt nothing from it. There was absolutely no benefit from it except that it was fun blowing smoke and the smell kept me from thinking about babies.
Under the broken billboard, a lit rectangular sign got my attention. I followed it to a rather nondescript, squat building facing a backstreet. Sugardaddy’s , the sign read in nearly illegible fluorescent cursive along with a white Champagne bottle being poured into a red high-heeled shoe. A gentlemen's club.
Something else caught my notice as well, but I had to get closer. I pitched my cigarette out in the street before I approached the bouncer under the sickly yellow lights of Sugardaddy’s front entrance. A broad, street level sign using standard black plastic letters read:
WED
RANDI RAI
LUNA LUSCIOUS
DU FND ME BORING
If the bouncer had noticed it, he didn't care. He also didn't regard me much as I walked in, which said that I looked like the usual customer. Hmm, creepy old men also just so happened to be Armand's type. He was definitely inside. Confirmed.
I paid an attendant through a small window like at a bank and got my hand stamped. I entered the place, ready to party.
Except it was dead for a place like this, even on a Wednesday. The lights shone prismatically around a central platform where a girl danced around a pole to a mix of awful modern songs. The girl wasn’t particularly the most enigmatic dancer but she looked the part, at least.
I wandered around the floor in search of more of Armand’s clues, when I realized it was the crowd itself . The guys in these places should be less lethargic than they seemed. They were quiet, stuporous, and hunched over their drinks, like they’d just finished an 18 hour shift and were so beat down, they should just go home and to bed.
Armand . I couldn't feel him, but I could feel the shared, collective apathetic pall among ALL the mortals here. Something that could not happen without preternatural help. They were awake, but not alert. He had clouded their thoughts, a telepathic tranquilizer projected over the room.
The strippers were affected, but not as much as the men. They were still working, lined up against the bar, looking for private dances. They worried about their parents, their kids, paying their rent, if they should get a cat…their thoughts were practically as pure as the baby’s. I avoided these types as much as possible. I may be a monster but I’m a mutual one. I'm still invested in helping flourish the Savage Garden. Whether Uptown or the Bronx, DA or crackhead, it was never hard to find and pluck out Big Apple’s most rotten.
I walked by a hallway that was roped off. VIP admission only, it said. No bouncers were around.
I heard my final clue:
“Silence, dog! Your entreaties grow insolent! You shall crave of me nothing!”
I threw open a thick polyester curtain. Here, I found Armand.
***
The room was dimly lit and everything from the moldy worn carpet, to the walls, to the curtain barriers was a faded burgundy color. It had several metal folding chairs, two small round drink tables, and in the center, a stripper pole. The oval mirrors, one on each wall, had very debatable spots and smears.
Nearby some poor dude was on his hands and knees, his chest resting on the seat portion of one of the folding chairs.
He was a linebacker big with giant limbs, a broad chest, and large stomach. His head dangled, senselessly. He had dazed deep brown eyes and a massive erection. This was not unlike how I felt in my first encounter with Armand all those years ago.
As he'd been at our apartment earlier, Armand was shirtless. He wore the same pleated black trousers but it was the stripper shoes that really got my attention. His toenails curled over the front of them, pearl white stilettos. He towered over the dude, one sharp heel tip point hovering over the tailbone. His usually tame blue-black curls had unleashed into dozens of tiny jump spring prank snakes from a fake potato chip can. He glared at me as he spoke.
“He shall enjoy the same pain that he inflicts on others.” Armand gently poked the stiletto tip into the man’s asscrack. Dude moaned like he was having the best time of his death, veins bulging from his fat cock under that chair. “He's yours, Daniel. Drink from him and give him his sweet, well deserved release.”
…well what do you do? You fucking do it! I got down the carpet, as I was suddenly so very aware of my thirst to a point of near emergency.
I couldn't even tell you what the song was. It went from rap to what Armand has explained to me is Dub-Step. Laser beam noises, robot farting sounds, a thousand rubber bands twanged all at once was the kind of weird shit you heard for starters.
I ran a slender thumbnail over this stranger's handsome jaw and strong neck, locating where his major artery pumped away. I kissed it. Human flavor can be compared to a confectionery. The sugar was in the blood of course, but also the skin, the hair, down to the syrupy essence of his sweat.
My eating implements descended from my gum line. Two long prongs deftly plunked into him. The blood came. I have learned to control the size of the wound and angle of the stream. I latched on, a thick torrent pouring straight into the fulfilling warmth and depthness of my belly.
Armand pushed the stiletto into the man’s rectum, down to the base of the shoe heel. He pulled it out, the tip slick and red. Falling on all fours, he spread him wide and pounced fangs first inside, tapping straight into the punctured artery just as it started to hemorrhage like a pressurized jar of marinara. Armand swallowed hard several times, Adam’s apple bobbing across his long, slender throat. Not one drop of blood was lost.
“Auggggh.” Dude shot his load on the carpet and died.
I was full, blood drunk and in pure euphoria…I had so much to say to Armand but when I tried to speak it was glossolalia. Maybe I'd have a smoke first. I took out one and placed it to my lips and fumbled for my lighter. Armand was already there with his Fire Gift to light it for me, blood all over his face, his chin, and into the corner of his smile.
I drew. Exhaled, “Baby, what are you doing?”
Armand’s eyes set upon me directly, two fiery sunsets. He plunged his hands deep into his trousers and pulled out…a light blue envelope that he handed to me:
DANIEL MOLLOY was neatly written on the front in bright red ink.
I ripped it open. It was a greeting card. A bulldog wearing sunglasses.
“Read it out loud, Daniel. It is amusing!”
“Happy Birthday DAWG.” I read out loud as Armand’s odd delicate laughter filled the room. I continued, “Another year older and still as cool as ever.”
I looked at him in shock and confusion. I scrambled for my phone. To look at the date.
”I thought it was next month.”
“No, I made you tonight. One year ago. It's totally okay. I remembered it for you.“
My eyes fell to the bottom of the card where Armand wrote in extra loopy cursive:
Happy Vampireday, Beloved
I love you. Good Luck on your interview.
I was totally not okay right now. I felt so fucking dumb. I choked up with tears.
Armand rolled the corpse onto his back, onto the floor. Dude was still fully erect. What a way to go. Written on his belly in long bloody fingernail scratches in surprisingly neat handwriting:
Happy Vday Daniel
Armand took from his pocket one tiny little child’s birthday candle and set it in the corpse's belly button. He lit the candle with his thoughts and clasped his hands together. “Did I surprise you?”
“Yes.”
“Beloved?”
I was a mess. I was sobbing now. I’ve cried more in one year than I had in my whole natural life. I had gotten it all wrong.
“ Beloved .” He said soothingly, coming closer, baffled at my tears. “What is it?”
I blubbered, my tears tasting like blood, shaking my head, I wiped them away. “Thank you. Yes. You fooled me. I love your surprise. ”
It might as well have been Christmas, as his eyes lit right up, and then a fanged smile he bore that stretched as long as the Grinch’s. “It's cheap and squalid and depraved like how you like it.”
He tilted his head up at a cheap rotating projector above that spit colors and the exact same glittery diamond shapes as an actual 1970s disco ball.
I laughed. “I especially like it when you are dirty and depraved.”
He jutted his lower jaw out, and a playful glimmer came to his face. He ripped his pants off. Lots of good pants had been lost this way.
Underneath he was wearing a white thong to match the shoes, just tiny little spaghetti straps tied at his slender upper thighs holding the teeny triangle of fabric together over his manhood. His balls did not even fit completely, The thong, however, riding up in between the cheeks of those two perfectly plump melons, fit just fine .
He whipped his head around from me, his long slender hand grasping the shiny pole and he swung.
Under the rotating lights, cycling through blue, to purple, to red, colors splashed on one side of his body while the other perpetually remained shadowed. He spun athletically, wrapping his long legs around the pole. He climbed to the top and hung upside down looking like some sort of bat.
He paused to give me a razor smile as he slowly slid down to the floor. I set down my cigarette in a nearby ashtray and stepped onto the platform with him. I held my hand out as he descended, running my hand over his smooth hot skin, engaged muscles, his clenched back, waist, butt and thighs.
I crouched beside him, breathless, “Armand. Baby. I will not leave you. Ever. Never. I will not stop loving you. I’d die for the last time first.”
“No! Don't say that.” He cowered, speaking with a shaky whisper, “I could endure if you left me, but not if you ceased to exist. That is my only fear, Daniel. I know you will be untouchable in New Orleans territory like you are here, but I can't help but worry even though I know to be a good companion there are some things I must accept.”
“Like what?’
He slumped, “That you must go and I will miss you dearly.” He looked ashamed, his eyes rimming in crimson tears.
And that was it. The gloomy, pouty resigned face of my going away was the same expression psychically projected throughout and worn on every patron of Sugardaddy’s.
“I get it, babe. I’ll miss you too.” I stuck my hand to his burning chest and he responded by wrapping his arms around close and protectively, bringing with it a long, deep, steady kiss.
He took my coat off, without breaking the kiss. He swiftly unbuttoned down my shirt with his fingers, at work as quickly as he would with his LEGOs. Still our lips did not part.
I'm in a new body. I am still surprised at what it can do and how it feels. I had been mourning my waning virility for years. I had reentered the world as a truly different creature. Now I only suffer from the good kind of tremors and stiffness.
To Armand, though, it's not a new body, it's still good ole mine, and as before mentioned, he had a geriatric kink for it. He came in all-consuming, his hands stroking all over my flesh, whatever ropey muscles I have and playing in my loose skin. I'm like one of those tactile sensory play boards for toddlers. I’m all the textures. When we watched movies on the couch Armand sometimes liked to nibble on the leathery skin in between my fingers.
He undid my belt and squeezed my love handles like plush toys, gripping as he pulled my pants down. I kicked off my boots. My underwear wasn't half as sexy but I know how this hardens him. He smiled silkily, rubbing the cotton and what's under there, his own personal pet penis. I was intensely bone hard already, the underwear stuck a bit to my dribbles of precum when we took it off.
The lights transformed Armand’s otherworldly eyes into impossible colors. He gazed at me deep and longingly and I read him well enough now. He was feeling vulnerable. It was my turn to grab him. He wanted to be handled. He wanted me inside. He wanted to get fucked.
I hugged him, lifted him, turned him and slammed his chest and belly against the pole with a loud clang. Armand gasped and clasped the pole and I ripped the thong off him, his cock bouncing at full mast. I ran my hands down the swoop of his backside and placed both hands on his rump. My Armand.
Oh I loved him. Even my dying cock felt fire in Dubai even before I knew who he was to me.
I hissed and bit my wrist open, blood freely pouring out, down his crack. I took my first two knuckles and pried his pucker open, using the fingers in the other hand to invade his hidey hole. I fingered him wide, real good and slick and then snuck in a quick, surprise squeeze at his prostate.
He let out a funny little squeal and I silenced him by slamming him once again into the pole, reverberations deafening all other music. I pinned him and pushed my cock up against his bloody rim.
Armand assisted by scooting a short distance up the pole and sliding down onto me. I rocketed into the ripe opening of his glistening, winking maw. I started to thrust almost uncontrollably.
I watched him carefully in the mirror as I fucked him. His face was pressed against the pole, misting it with little sighing noises to my rhythms. I stroked his tangle of hair away from his face. My taut rocks bounced off his firm cheeks as I pummeled, I walloped. I sloshed around in that thickly ridged blood-wet, excruciatingly tight little opening.
“You know that I love you very, very much, Armand.” I said matter-of-factly and slowed my pumping to a halt, reining him in now, holding him firmly, then more and more strongly. I squeezed hard enough to hurt a human and strong enough to comfort an Armand. He gave over to me completely.
My key was still deep in his lock and I knew exactly how to turn it. I focused in on that p-spot, rocking teasingly slow on my heels. My hand fell to his groin, caressing past soft curls and I started gently jerking him until I was rowing to the rhythm of the song we created with our clinking pole, soft moans, and sloppy butthole sounds.
He tried so hard to make me happy. Meanwhile the only thing I had to do in return is to simply keep existing.
“It’s all right.” I coaxed softly. “Come baby.”
He did. I pinched up on his cockhead and watched long slow strings shoot from his hose end into his clenched frown-shaped belly button, turning it into a milky little pool. The overfill dribbled down into those cute curly tufts, making them all sticky. My cock instantly choked and blew hot sweet cum inside Armand with crippling ecstasy.
I lost my senses, Armand had wrecked me like the rest of the city. I oozed down the slimy pole onto the slimy floor.
“What’s the matter? Are you okay, Daniel?”
Armand stood over me, and maybe it was the lighting but he looked a bit rosy and flushed. Glowing, really. He was genuinely smiling. I hardly remember how monstrous and terrifying he looked to mortals. To me he was everything beautiful about the world.
“I’m totally okay.” I announced contentedly, looking for a cigarette. “I’m like, totally very okay.”
We moved away from our love puddle, snuggled and smoked cigarettes in the corner of this seedy backroom. I’m redressed sans my underwear that I was forced to use as an Armand butt mop. He wore what Dude had on, a Mets jersey, jeans that don't fit, an oversized baseball cap, and a giant gold chain. He looked utterly out of place like this, but also freaking adorable.
The pole truly looked like somebody had gotten murdered here. Wait I almost forgot hahaha-- somebody had! Dude’s body was still in the corner, ready for the nearest dumpster.
We heard noise. Lots of it. From the rest of the club, gradually rising voices and laughter and clinking drinks. Everybody in Sugardaddy’s was starting to come out of their catatonia, and they whooped and whistled and called out stripper’s names. They seemed to be having a really great time. Just like us.
And suddenly I heard the ENTIRE club’s voices lift all at once together and sing, “ Happy Vday to you, Happy Vday to you… ” Armand commandeered them all to sing: “Happy Vampireday dear Daniel…”
“Best and filthiest vampireday yet.” I said, smiling. Armand beamed.