III
It's gloomy when finally Jasper wakes and he doesn't know where he is. The lights are off, the curtains are drawn and he's curled up under the duvet in the middle of a bed. He pushes the quilt out of the way, shuffling back against the headboard. His head rings. Absently, one hand drifts to his neck and he feels a jagged scab under his fingertips.
He crawls to the end of the bed and climbs out. A light flickers in the bathroom. Jasper flicks it off and on again and fluorescent light fills the room. He winces, rubbing his eyes. A thin, blonde-haired boy peers back at him from the mirror. He touches his neck again, tracing the thin, crescent-shaped scar. He remembers scarlet channels of blood like fingers grasping, crawling down his throat, down his thighs.
What happened last night?
He remembers eyes as red as rubies and copper hair, skin as cold as ice and long elegant fingers wrapped round his wrists. He remembers watching the digital clock on the bedside table turn from 10:04 to 02:37, as tears leaked from the corner of his eye and that brute of a man took him with short, staccato thrusts.
He remembers the man leaving. He remembers closing his eyes and waiting to die.
And he remembers the man coming back. He remembers a hot cloth pressing to his cheek and his throat and between his legs.
Jasper flicks off the light.
/ \
The streets are awash with florescent light from the street lamps. The whores in their tattered tights and skimpy skirts are already creeping out of the shadows. He's missed a whole day, Jasper realises. That means another day of school. He'll have to blow the headmaster again, just to keep from being expelled. It's the way he got in anyhow. See, most schools don't accept homeless kids from out of town. But Jasper just, kind of, turns up when he can and blows the headmaster when he has to.
He's got $250 tucked into his underwear and another 250 in his shoe. That's more than he makes in a week. Maybe, if he could save a little more, he could afford to rent an apartment. When he came to San Fran, seven weeks ago, he stayed in hostels. Then he got mugged. Then he ended up on the street. Three weeks ago he sold himself for the first time. But he's got a hidey hole where he keeps his cash and he does all his homework and he'll get himself out. He will.
Jasper walks a block till the whore's trade in their sequin dresses for denim shorts and tight white tees. First he's going to hide his cash and then he's going to get a proper meal and a good night's sleep. Then, tomorrow, he'll buy a pair of shoes and a couple more blankets for the mattress in the alley he calls his home.
He walks all the way to TGI Fridays. By the time he gets there he feels so sick he throws up in the loo before ordering his food. Once he's eaten he throws up again. Someone kicks him out. He smells of tramp and now he smells of puke. He buys a packet of crisps from a store instead.
And once he's booked into a hotel that has clean sheets and doesn't remind him of the one he woke up in he closes his eyes. He thinks about the man that looked like a boy, wide-eyed as he'd sunk inside him trying to hide under a mask of cruelty. Next to his alabaster skin, his red eyes and fiery hair resembled the exotic feathers of a bird. But Jasper's known cruel people – they're the reason he's on the streets in the first place. And the man-boy could have killed him but he didn't. He'd kissed hesitantly and he'd fucked desperately and he'd bit him and hurt him.
And there's that final thing. Blood dripping from his perfect, pink lips, flecking Jasper's cheeks like freckles. And Jasper thinks, vampire.