Garner working as a waiter at an upscale restaurant with a growing attraction to a man named Alonzo, who always asks to be put in his section for dinner. One night after work, the man is assaulted while trailing Garner. Garner goes to his aid, but is shot for his trouble.<br><br>Taking time off from work to recover, Garner is resting on a park bench when Alonzo suddenly appears at the other end of the bench. Garner never saw him approach. He asks why Alonzo is trailing him.<br><br>After some hesitation, Alonzo explains he wants to recruit Garner to help fight against others who systematically hunt people like himself. Garner isn’t inclined to get involved in anything dangerous, but he does finds Alonzo more and more attractive, so he agrees to consider the idea. As he learns more about Alonzo’s bizarre and dangerous subculture, what Garner really wants to know is whether Alonzo is romantically interested in him at all.

Call to Love

“So,” he said. “I can’t tellyou what it’s like, but perhaps I can showyou.”


Garner blinked, not understanding. Then he thought he did, and felt an icy chill pass down his spine. Looking at Alonzo, he saw that Alonzo understood that Garner got it. Garner bit his lip.


He wasn’t afraid exactly, for he trusted Alonzo now; he also felt fairly certain that his own being specialmade him a formidable opponent in any gnarly situation that might arise from such a showing—not from Alonzo, but from others.


“How?” he asked, though he felt he knew.


“Simple. You take some of my blood.”


Garner nodded, then asked, “By mouth?”


Alonzo smiled in answer, and Garner shuddered when he pictured biting Alonzo’s neck and sucking blood from his jugular vein.


“It doesn’t have to be the neck,” Alonzo said. He held out his arm, the wrist exposed.


Garner stared, horrified and repulsed. Neither said anything for a time.


Chapter 60