Page 36 of By the Pint

I expected last night to have gone a little differently. Okay, a lot differently. I definitely didn’t expect Dima to make me an offer for tutelage. To say he’d hand over full access to histhoughts if I could learn, from him, how to better control my own. It was a no-brainer. Even Dima saw I didn’t need to think on that decision.

Learn how to erect barriers to protect myself from other mind readers. Get the business info. Fulfil my end of Killian’s agreement. Become a vampire. Win, win, win, win.

Dima could see into my mind — had seen inside my mind — so it wasn’t as though I was at risk of losing my secrets. Not that I had any, except for how often I stroked myself to the thought of him. Before and after our hook up. Sure, there were things I didn’t want others knowing. Others being the general population, the commonfolk, fans, but he wasn’t included in that umbrella. He was an unregistered telepath too. We both had damning information on the other.

I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Or our night together. About my face pressed into the cold stone wall. His teeth scraping along my neck. The feel of his cool body tucked against mine in the bed. His freezing feet nestled into my calf.There’s even a nude. Just kidding. Or am I?About how he legged it the next morning without saying goodbye. The way he filled me so completely. His fingers wrapped around my cock. The cry he emitted as he came. Right into my ear. My gods, that sound. I replayed it over and over and over.

My poor dick hadn’t been this messed about since I was a teenager and I figured out I liked all genders. It was in a constant state of semi-alertness.

I needed to take the edge off before meeting with Dima. Sure, he’d know I’d masturbated while thinking of him, but it was better than the alternative. Not having the focus for my lessons — whatever they might be — because my energy reserves were being depleted. My groin seeking him out like a metal detector.

I turned the water on again and stepped into the shower for the fourth or fifth time that day to work out my frustrations.

At 8:01 PM I made my way down to the lobby and out the rear doors to the inspiringly named‘FUN ZONE’.My lip curled instinctively as the garish lights from the kid-friendly area hit me all at once. The warm smell of chlorine seeped into my nostrils as I passed the entrance to the pools and splash pad (now closed). An oddly inviting scent. The jangling neons of the arcades gouged at my eyes. They were sectioned into more modern, attention-whoring machines, and older seaside-style contraptions. VR headsets and shoot-em-ups were sitting beside old-school one-armed bandits and penny pushers. I squashed the traitorous notion it all looked rather fun. Fun was not exactly within my wheelhouse.

I continued through the double doors, which, I noted, were not on an auto-sensor — a lucky break for Dima — and into the chill winter evening. Winters here, just outside of Remy, were nowhere near as bleak and biting as winters in the City of the Undead. Even still, the fresh night air snaked around the exposed skin at my collar and wrists.

To the left was a wooden adventure playground with a sign that read‘THE TREEHOUSE’. The lights were off, meaning it had closed for the night. But what lay to the right more than made up for the dearth in eye-clawing stimuli.

The gates to the Jungle Frenzy golf course towered over me like the gates to some long-lost dinosaur kingdom. They were easily twenty feet tall and flanked by real fire flaming torches. Beyond them, the largest mini golf course I’d ever seen. Complete with sunken pirate ship, crumbling, lost palace ruins, and a volcano at least double the height of the gates.

Why in the Eight and a Half Kingdoms a vampire would choose here to give lessons was beyond me. Unless it was the closest spot to some private classroom he’d hired for us. I hadn’tforgotten he was here for a quilting retreat, so there must have been areas for those kinds of activities.

“Good evening, Moonflower,” Dima said, literally emerging from the shadows. How were there even shadows for him to lurk in? The place was more lit up than a first-year student at fresher’s week. Dima had donned his usual gilt embroidered cloak, but underneath he wore a basic, black, cable-knit jumper, black chinos, and boots, and damn, he looked good.

Double damn, he would have heard that.

“Mosquito,” I shot back at him.

Dima laughed at the nickname. Of course he did. He closed the gap between us until he stood two feet from me, and stared into my eyes for the longest moment, like he was counting my breaths. His gaze briefly dipped to my lips. His smile dropped and then rose again. “I’m glad you came tonight.” His voice was soft, free of that mocking edge he sometimes adopted.

I nodded. Didn’t even try to form a response because what was the point? Dima would hear it the same time I did.

“I’m glad you came … all over the shower tiles,” he added, laughing and slapping a hand against my bicep.

I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose. What had I signed up for?

“Don’t worry, I had a wank thinking about you, too.”

Make it stop.

Okay, sorry. I’ll be good, he said, though his self-satisfied grin was still plastered all over his face.Are you ready for your first lesson?

“Yes. Let’s get this over and done with. Where are we going?” I hoped we wouldn’t be outside for too much longer. The cold was starting to get to me. I’d only worn a long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans, and my nipples pebbled against thetemperature. Dima kept smirking at the silhouettes they made through my shirt.

“Fancy a game?” He held out a hand towards the gates of the mini golf course.

“You’re not serious?” I let my eyes travel over the Jungle Frenzy welcome booth. To the young werewolf sat at the desk casually swiping up on his phone screen, the rows of neon clubs, the grainy black and white security camera footage cycling on a TV behind him. When Dima said nothing, I added, “And then we’ll go to the classroom?”

“Where’s the fun in that? Why can’t we learn as we play?”

“But … No … How will I take you seriously?”

Maybe that’s your problem.Dima said into my mind.Maybe you don’t need to take everything seriously. You really wanna spend ten-thousand years plus on this planet miserable as fuck?

Damn, I kept forgetting he could see all my thoughts and desires.

I’m perfectly happy being miserable.I didn’t know if I was saying it for his benefit or mine.

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