Work Text:
[start of tape]
Grainy, analog Hi8 videocassette footage, belied by the timestamp in the bottom right corner: 27/10/2018.
A body—presumably the person who had been setting the camera to record—moves out of frame. The brightness adjusts, and the image resolves to the profile of a man in a suit, taking up the left side of the shot. He is not the one who set the camera to record; rather, he looks like he’s been sitting on this sofa mastering his frustration for some time. His gloved hand pinches the bridge of his nose. “Sir, if you insist on doing this,” says the man in the suit, “please, for posterity, tell them it was your idea.”
“No one else will view the recording, Rashid,” says another voice off screen. “Will they?”
Rashid huffs. “Not if I can help it,” he mutters, then lowers his hand to regard the camera directly. “What—is that a camcorder?”
“It is a Sony CCD-TRV65.”
“You’re not using the iPad?”
“No one else will view the recording, Rashid,” the other voice repeats. “But still—better to use a camera which is not connected to the internet, just to be safe, don’t you think?”
Rashid’s shoulders slump, relieved. “Yes, sir.”
A watermark appears briefly at the bottom of the recording: Talamasca Video Archives - Archival Date: 13/8/2024
“Still,” says Rashid, “would you—just, for my sanity, would you please tell the camera it was your idea?”
A face appears in the foreground of the footage, too close to the camera. Large, doll-like amber eyes fixate on the lens. “This was my idea. It came to me after I uncovered footage of Rashid on the YouTube video platform—”
“I was a graduate student, a teaching assistant,” Rashid interjects, “it was a recording for my students, and it was unlisted so I don’t know how he found it—”
“—where he demonstrated the proper technique for extracting semen from a bottlenose dolphin using manual stimulation.”
“It’s a trained behavior!” Rashid protests. “It’s necessary for researching and maintaining the genome of the captive population!”
“Yes, he was entirely professional about it,” affirms the man in the foreground. “Rashid is always entirely professional. That’s what I find most arousing about him. Thus: here we are.”
The man moves aside, and the camera refocuses on Rashid, whose defensiveness finally cracks into amused disbelief. “Sir,” he says.
“Is that not what you asked me to disclose?”
Rashid scrubs a hand down his face with a sigh, but fails to stop smiling. “You’re sure about the recording? You seemed to like the game well enough before, without introducing a camera.”
“Perhaps I wish to indulge in the fantasy of being a research specimen.”
For a long moment, Rashid locks eyes with the man offscreen. An unspoken challenge passes between them.
“And if I were a research specimen,” the other man continues, “surely the historical record should reflect just how thoroughly I have been researched.”
Rashid shuts his eyes. “Alright, fine. Come here, sir,” he says, beckoning the other man closer with a gloved hand.
The other man steps into frame again, this time at the same distance from the camera as Rashid. His head is cut off at the top of the screen, but his body appears tall and slim, dressed in loose black clothing that drapes gracefully over his frame. “How do you want me?” the man asks, softer than before. The camera microphone barely manages to pick up the sound of it.
He is then pulled into Rashid’s lap. Again he appears doll-like, docile as he allows Rashid to arrange his body, both knees pointing obediently towards the camera.
Rashid reaches up one hand to hold the man’s jaw still and keep his face exposed to the ceiling lights. “This is the vampire Armand,” Rashid says, directing his voice to the camera. “He is five hundred and ten years old, which is quite old for a member of his species in the wild, though they have been known to live upwards of 6,000 years in captivity.”
The man in Rashid’s lap—Armand—squints at the camera, and murmurs thoughtfully, “Is that so...?”
Rashid pinches his jaw more forcefully, reprimanding him: “I’m the researcher here, thank you.”
“Of course,” Armand agrees, shifting his weight eagerly on Rashid’s lap. “My apologies. Carry on.”
(Perhaps the Hi8 cassette is not recording fast enough to catch it, but Armand does not seem to blink with any regularity.)
“It’s easy to confuse vampires with their sister species, humans. Apart from their diet, you can also identify a vampire by certain physical characteristics.” Rashid uses his free hand to lift one of Armand’s hands for the camera. “Here, you can see Armand has long, sharp claws instead of fingernails. These claws can be powerful weapons when a vampire needs to fight off another member of their species, but in day-to-day life the vampire might also use their claws as tools for slicing into the flesh of their prey, or slicing open envelopes.”
Armand makes a noise almost like a snort, but he maintains his composure.
Rashid lowers Armand’s hand, then reaches up to gently hold Armand’s eyelids open on one side. “You’ll also notice that the iris of a vampire’s eyes will be more brightly colored than that of a human, and it will reflect more light. Some zoologists speculate that the vampires have a tapetum lucidum at the back of the retina to reflect light, common in feline species, but researchers rarely have the opportunity to conduct ethical post-mortem dissections on vampires, so that theory remains unconfirmed.”
“The dissection need not be post-mortem,” Armand murmurs.
Rashid glances at him sidelong, releasing his eyelids. After a beat, he uses his grip on Armand’s jaw to shake his head for him. “Ethical dissections are done post-mortem,” he tells the vampire flatly.
“You’re the researcher,” Armand concedes airily.
“The most definitive physical characteristic of the vampire species is their fangs,” Rashid continues for the camera. He pushes up Armand’s upper lip on one side to expose his gums. “Here, in the retracted position, Armand’s canine teeth look like those of a human—part of the normal dental arch, in the same position as all the other teeth. But the canines of a vampire are not part of the dental arch. The roots of those teeth actually sit behind the dental arch, suspended in cartilage. When it’s time for the vampire to eat, specially adapted muscles push the tooth into an extended position, before locking in place so that the tooth is stable enough to puncture the flesh of a prey animal.
“In captivity, with a vampire that has been trained to hold open its mouth for a dental examination, you can digitally stimulate the gums above the canine teeth to elicit a feeding response.” Rashid does so, rubbing a latex-gloved finger in small circles over the gumline, but nothing happens aside from a bit of drool escaping Armand’s mouth at the corner. “The feeding response would be more immediate if I stimulated the inside of his mouth, but I know better than to put my fingers directly in the path of those fangs. Just be patient, and after thirty seconds or so, you’ll be able to express the fangs from the outside.”
A wordless noise from Armand... and then his fangs drop. “There we go, good boy,” Rashid says absently, dismissively, as if he works on these same behaviors with this creature every day of the week and there’s nothing particularly novel about doing it in front of a camera. He releases Armand, patting his thigh. “Clothes off, sir.”
Armand stares at the camera. He runs his tongue over his teeth, winces, then stands up off Rashid’s lap. Again, his head is cut off at the top of the shot when he’s standing, so the camera does not catch the expression on his face as he undresses completely. Lean muscle, lightly furred chest down to soft stomach, a thatch of black pubic hair and a slim, erect cock.
The Talamasca archival watermark appears again, briefly, at the bottom of the video.
“Come here,” Rashid instructs, and Armand settles again on his lap in the same position as before, though now his erection rests visibly in the dip between his thighs.
“Some wild vampires live in social groups called covens, with strict social hierarchies they maintain by demonstrating physical or sexual dominance. Other wild vampires live alone or in small groups, instead demonstrating physical or sexual dominance over their prey in conjunction with the typical feeding response. In another species we might refer to this collection of behaviors as breeding behaviors, but since vampires don’t sexually reproduce, it would be more accurate to call them social behaviors.”
As he speaks, Rashid absently runs one hand in circles over Armand’s chest and stomach.
“Without a coven, a vampire in captivity won’t have an outlet for those instinctive social behaviors. It may exhibit increased aggression or distress, and in extreme circumstances it might try to physically dominate its keeper in lieu of another vampire. In another mammalian species we might curb these behaviors by prescribing hormone suppressants or surgically neutering the animal, but between their powerful metabolisms and accelerated healing, vampires are immune to both of those treatments.
“Instead, we’ll need to simulate the sexual domination the vampire would otherwise experience within a coven. If we can convince the vampire’s body that he has been dominated by a more powerful vampire, his hormones and behaviors will settle back to baseline.”
Armand swallows, stares at the camera and says nothing. With his heartbeat, his erection starts to rise from the cradle of his thighs, bobbing in the air.
Rashid watches him for a long moment, then pats his chest. In a low voice he tells Armand, “I’m going to have you lay down over my knees, and you’ll point your rear at the camera. Alright, sir?”
It takes a second, but Armand nods and hums affirmatively. “You should zoom in.”
“What?”
“You should—nevermind, I’ve got it.”
For a few seconds, Armand’s eyes seem to... vibrate side to side, and then the shot tightens, until the top of the frame lines up with Armand’s navel.
Then, he rearranges himself as instructed, laying himself out over Rashid’s lap with his ass facing the camera.
It’s a pretty ass, round and supple. It fills up almost the entire frame. The low fidelity of the cassette recording only flatters it more.
As soon as Armand’s settled, Rashid pets a hand up and down his spine. “There we go,” he says. “Armand here is going to help me demonstrate how to manually stimulate a captive male vampire until he reaches orgasm.”
The sound of a pump bottle offscreen. “You’ll need gloves and lubricant,” Rashid explains, “and you’ll need to make sure that your vampire is in a good mood and ready to engage in his trained husbandry behaviors. If he doesn’t want to participate, you won’t be able to force him. This kind of stimulation might be distressing for the vampire, especially if they’ve never been sexually dominated before, so you must be patient and continue reinforcing their cooperation with rewards.
“Luckily for us, Armand has lots of experience being sexually dominated, so he’s always happy to participate.” Rashid lands a sharp smack on his ass. “Arch your back, sir.”
With a breathy noise, Armand complies, presenting himself. His cock isn’t visible, so it must be sandwiched between his stomach and Rashid’s thigh. His balls, though, hang pert and tight between his legs.
“You can proceed to stimulation even without this, but if the vampire is particularly receptive then he’ll exhibit lordosis behavior, which you’ll see in the curve of his spine and the tilting of his pelvis. Now, with that green light, I’ll spread his cheeks apart and use my lubricated fingers to stimulate the outside of the anus.”
Rashid does so. The muscles of Armand’s thighs jump at the first touch, but then he settles. A quiet moan reaches the microphone.
Rashid proceeds to describe methodically inserting fingers into the ring of muscle and stimulating the inner walls. “Don’t be afraid to use firm pressure here,” Rashid advises, lifting his elbow to leverage his fingers hard against Armand’s hole. Armand grunts, his knees spreading apart reflexively as he endures the assault. “Vampire muscles can be tough to manipulate, so you’ll need some elbow grease to really stretch them out.”
Then Armand shouts and flinches—Rashid must have hit something at a bad angle. “Shh,” Rashid soothes him, stroking his back with his other hand. “Alright, you’re alright. I’ll be more gentle. You’re being very good.”
Armand settles. Rashid’s fingers retreat to stretch out the ring of his hole, then press back inside. Three of them. “I should mention that, if our goal was just to induce orgasm, then of course we could stimulate his penis. But orgasm alone won’t be sufficient to curb those problematic social behaviors—he needs anal stimulation to feel sexually dominated, and ideally we can help him reach an anal orgasm to really firm up those hormonal adjustments. Just like in a human male, the vampire’s prostate can be found about two inches inside the rectum, between the base of the penis and the navel. You’ll want to tilt your fingers towards the front of his body, then—”
The sound of a door opening. Rashid falls abruptly silent. His face is no longer visible in the shot, but his grip tightens on Armand.
Footsteps, then silence. “Not what I expected to see first thing walking through the door,” says a new voice, somewhere behind the camera.
“Good evening, sir,” Rashid says. Professional.
Armand is frozen across Rashid’s lap, looking caught. “Louis,” he says, somewhere on the far side of Rashid’s body, “I can explain—”
“What is this, some kind of vampire anatomy lesson? Or...” Louis bursts into laughter, tinged with cruelty. “Shit, Armand, you want to be his zoo animal?”
Rashid has not mentioned whether or not vampires are anatomically capable of blushing in embarrassment, and the mediocre color reproduction of the camera leaves the footage ambiguous, but Armand might be blushing, all across his shoulders. “You’ve no right to be angry,” he says tersely, “you said—”
“I’m not angry,” Louis says, still laughing. The footage wobbles, and there’s the sound of a muffled thump as Louis, presumably, sits down on the sofa beside the camera. “I’m not angry, I’m surprised. Sure, I told you to get Rashid to fuck you if you were desperate, and it’s fine you took me up on that, fair and square. But I never imagined he’d say yes.” Another sharp laugh. “Shows what I know. God damn.”
Rashid’s gloved fingers ease out of Armand’s hole. He speaks to Louis: “Now that you’ve returned, sir, perhaps I should leave you to it—”
“I ain’t playing zookeeper,” Louis says, and from the timbre of his words he must be grinning. “Don’t stop on my account.”
Rashid still hesitates, shining wet fingers hovering in the air.
The creak of the sofa. Louis’ voice softens when he asks, “You feel his heartbeat?”
Rashid’s hand on Armand shifts to the left side of his back. “Yes, sir.”
“You feel his fat dick on your thigh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And he hasn’t moved since the moment I walked in the door, even though he could’ve gotten up or covered himself if he wanted?”
Armand shifts a bit, rearranging his weight over Rashid’s lap, but then he settles again with a sigh.
“That’s because he still wants to be good for you,” Louis says gently. “He’s real eager, Rashid. Go on.”
Rashid rests his hand over the curve of Armand’s ass, the lubricant from his gloved fingers leaving a trail against plush skin. “You’d like to continue, sir?”
Armand doesn’t respond verbally, but the camera catches the bouncing of his curls as he nods wordlessly.
“Could you hold your cheeks apart for me?”
It takes some maneuvering for Armand to snake his hands back there, but then he holds himself open, exposing himself entirely to Rashid, Louis, and the camera. His hole gapes open obscenely, dilated and wet.
Talamasca watermark.
Rashid refreshes the lubricant. Four fingers, digging into Armand’s hole with the sort of impersonal, ungentle force one might use on livestock. “The... the fiction of it,” Rashid tries to explain, bashfully, while he works Armand open again, “we were—”
“I’m caught up,” Louis says. “Got the full download from his head. What was it? Keeper gives him an anal orgasm to make him think he got fucked by a bigger, badder vampire?”
Armand moans, shifting his hips up to take Rashid’s fingers deeper.
“Regular fucking will settle him,” Rashid says. His voice doesn’t sound like the keeper anymore... more like he’s speaking directly to Louis, like they’re conspiring to keep Armand sated. “Otherwise he’ll feel unsettled, like he has to test his strength on someone just to figure out where he’s supposed to be in the pecking order.”
“We wouldn’t want that,” Louis agrees, playing into it. “Better fuck him so good he forgets to disobey.”
“Other vampires in captivity might be satisfied with less stimulation than this,” Rashid says. “But Armand has a much higher tolerance, so we’re forced to give him more and more intense stimulation to trick his body into accepting that he’s been dominated. Sometimes that means using more fingers at once, or perhaps even pushing a whole fist inside him.”
Armand squirms, groaning, digging his claws into his own cheeks as Rashid tugs hard at his rim.
“But the girth of the penetration alone isn’t really what we need to sell the verisimilitude of vampiric sexual domination,” Rashid says. “Rather, we should mimic the behavior of dominant vampires in the wild.”
Louis chuckles. “And how might you do that?”
“With tools. We have special gloves, with sharp metal points at the tips of the fingers to simulate vampire claws... and there are also handheld, imitation fangs that we can press into the back of his neck, to simulate the sensation of being mounted...”
Something comes out of Armand’s mouth that might have been language, but it’s not recorded clearly enough through the microphone to be parsed. Some kind of desperate noise, at least.
“Doesn’t look like you’re equipped with any of those special tools,” Louis observes.
“I’m woefully underprepared,” Rashid admits, twisting his wrist to dig into Armand’s prostate. Over the sound of Armand’s cries, he says loudly to Louis, “Perhaps you could assist me, sir?”
The sounds suggest that Louis gets up off the couch and steps closer to the other two, but the camera shot is cropped so close to Armand’s ass that there’s hardly anything else visible but him squirming and spreading himself open to be stretched on Rashid’s fingers.
“There are a few different anecdotal accounts of vampire sexual domination behaviors which all mention the same curious detail,” Rashid says. “Wild vampires who want to make a particular point of dominating their submissive counterparts... have been observed using their claws to threaten the submitting vampire’s testicles.”
“Well,” says Louis, “if we’re aiming for verisimilitude...”
Louis comes into view, and for a moment it looks like the blurry shadow of his shoulder might obscure the shot of Armand’s ass, but he seems to be conscious of the camera as he shifts to the right, leaving only his hand in frame. He takes Armand’s balls in hand, running the pad of his thumb over them thoughtfully. Then—he shifts his grip to use his sharp, claw-like fingernails, piercing through the skin.
Armand screams and bucks—Louis’ other hand comes down on the back of Armand’s neck to hold him in place as he cums. His hole flutters in pulsing waves around Rashid’s fingers. He moans, staccato and helpless as animal rapture grips his body.
“Fuck,” says Louis, admiringly.
“Good,” Rashid says softly, “that’s—that’s a success, I’d wager.”
Now Armand’s shaking. His balls are bleeding a little bit, from the tiny punctures. His breathing is fast and deep enough to make his whole body rise and fall underneath Rashid’s hand. He’s still holding himself open.
“That’s a well trained animal you’ve got there, Rashid,” Louis says. A wet sound from him offscreen—perhaps licking his fingers clean. “How many times have you two done this?”
“Just a few times, sir,” Rashid answers diplomatically. Not hiding anything, not wanting to get on anyone’s bad side. “Just recently.”
“Think it’ll mellow him out? Or was that just part of the fiction?”
The sound of a little moan from Armand, as his muscles go limp and his hole winks shut. In the shadows of his hair the camera barely picks up the point of his nose, as he tilts his head to listen to them speak.
Rashid strokes Armand’s back with his clean hand, thoughtfully. “Animals in captivity benefit from enrichment activities, sir. But simulating intercourse will always be a poor substitute for the real thing.”
Louis snorts. “Don’t sell yourself short. I told you, I ain’t playing zookeeper. It’s good he’s got someone else to play that with. Sometimes I think it’d take three of me to keep up with the shit he gets into.”
Armand’s body tenses. He releases his grip on his ass, starts trying to push himself up off of Rashid’s lap. “Louis.”
“Hey,” Louis says, “hey, no, and you were getting so relaxed...” There’s the sound of his footsteps, and then he appears on the far end of the sofa, taking Armand’s face in his hands and kissing him.
It’s clear, from the expression on Louis’ face, that his good humor is genuine. (The tape itself can offer no indication whether or not this is a rare occurrence.)
Armand tells him something, too quietly to be picked up on the microphone, but Louis starts to shake his head before Armand’s finished speaking.
“You’re all good. You wanna do freaky zookeeper sex tapes with Rashid? That’s good, want you to have fun sometimes, Jesus.”
“But I—”
“It’s not complicated.” Louis’ brow furrows as he studies Armand’s face, and then a startled, bitter smile stretches across his lips. “But you wanted it to be complicated, didn’t you? Huh. Sorry to disappoint.”
Louis stands up, and steps out of frame. Bereft, Armand almost tries to follow him, but something that Louis does off screen must stop him. His eyes track Louis’ movement around the room.
“I think Rashid deserves to be thanked politely for taking such good care of you,” Louis points out. “Don’t be rude.”
“I won’t be,” Armand promises, devoted. The camera picks up the movement of his muscles under his skin as he shifts up back into a sitting position. “But, after...”
“After, I will be in our room, where you can apologize to me for trying to cause problems on purpose.”
Behind a curtain of curls, there’s a flash of teeth. “Yes, Maître.”
“Have a good night, Rashid,” Louis says, and then his footsteps exit the room.
At this point Armand, still naked, climbs up to straddle Rashid’s lap and push their bodies close together. Though their faces aren’t visible in the shot, Rashid must be happy enough to accommodate this, because his hands do rise to hold Armand. Black latex against the vampire’s bare skin.
“To reiterate, sir,” Rashid says, “I will not accept sexual favors from you out of gratitude.”
“I know,” Armand replies with a tone suggesting this is a well-trodden argument. “Louis knows too, for that matter. Though it would be much simpler for everyone if you would.”
“It would also be simpler for you to dismiss me and go to him now. We both know that’s where you would rather be.”
Silently, Armand shifts impossibly closer. His movements momentarily reveal to the camera a large wet spot on the thigh of Rashid’s dress pants, where the vampire’s cock had been.
“You won’t offend me, sir,” Rashid says. “It’s quite alright.”
“No. It would be rude,” Armand says firmly, almost as if he’s reminding himself of that, like it’s a rule he’s learned rather than an intuitive evaluation. “Moreover, we have not yet finished the scene. I would like to be told how good I was, please.”
Rashid chuckles, and one of his hands runs up and down Armand’s back. “You were very well behaved, sir,” he says. “I’m lucky to work with such an obedient and cooperative vampire. You were a very good boy for me.”
Armand hums contentedly, shifting again. Beyond the crease of his thigh, in the shadow where his body presses against Rashid’s belly, the tip of his cock is briefly visible. But he doesn’t seem to be seeking any pleasure beyond the simple comfort of Rashid’s hand stroking his back.
“I am grateful, you know,” Armand mumbles. “For how well you take care of me. Your unwavering loyalty is... an unearned blessing.”
“Unwavering loyalty,” Rashid repeats blankly.
“Well,” Armand says with a laugh, “unwavering where it matters.”
The room falls silent but for the spinning of the cassette. Rashid’s arms come up to wrap around Armand, fully embracing him.
“When you study wild animals, you cannot intervene in the cycle of life and death. Barring special exceptions for preserving endangered species... if the animal fails to thrive, you must let it die,” Rashid says gravely. “It’s different in captivity. A zookeeper’s main prerogative is to keep their animals healthy and safe... and only secondarily must they encourage the animals’ natural behaviors. I... I prefer zookeeping. I prefer to bond with the creatures in my care, enrich their lives, and do everything in my power to shield them from suffering, or loneliness.”
The scratchy sound of a sniffle. A thready hum of acknowledgement.
“So it’s no great sacrifice to give you the care you require. It’s exactly what I’m here to do.”
A long moment of silence. Rashid takes a deep breath, holds it, then exhales. As Rashid takes his next breath, Armand mimics him, and they exhale together.
“Thank you, Rashid,” Armand whispers.
“You’re very welcome, sir.”
Eventually, Armand climbs off Rashid’s lap. Naked, half-erect and unashamed, he approaches the camera and kneels in front of it. His face is too close to the lens as he examines the camera controls, but even in the blur, the redness of his eyes is apparent. He presses a button.
[end of tape]