Eventually, his trance deepened even as I entered his room. Automatically, his body responded to my presence, which was a delightful turn of events.

And I thought that if he knew me, he loved me.

Night after night I resisted the temptation to waken him; I longed to sit and talk with him, to just be together, in the darkest of night, our secret society of two, just discovering each other and being together.

I should never have succumbed, but the loneliness became too great, this lifestyle of utter isolation. Ultimate control over my victims left me without companionship of any kind. A new feeling was growing in me, a different kind of hunger, a starvation for someone who was like me, or could be like me. I wanted someone I could share with, for even though I was a creature of the night—one whose will had turned toward the dark—I still felt, aspired, wanted.

There were others of the night. I had seen them—moving shadows. Whether there were others like me, I have no idea, for I shunned them all. I wanted nothing of what they had. I wanted only the warmth, and the living ones, the ones with the succulent flesh, were the only ones who could give me the warmth. I doubt companionship with any of the myriad night compulsives would have sated my appetite for conversation.

I knew that the time would come when I would meet someone I could teach, someone who saw in me something of his own aspirations, and I looked at this boy child and wanted it to be him; I wanted so badly to roam the streets with him, to teach him all I had learned, sharing my life. One night, the temptation, the desire for companionship, overturned all my sensibilities, and I wakened him.

I did it slowly. My control was absolute. I could, with a run of a scale, put him back to sleep; I wanted him to become accustomed, perhaps gradually, over several nights, to my being there, with him, in the flesh.

I felt his consciousness rise; my heart pounded in excitement. I was to awaken my lover, I was to actually be with him, converse with him, truly, in real life as I had so often in my fantasies.

I sat next to him, my legs dangling off the edge of his top bunk, and I trailed a finger through the familiar light hairs that grew in a line downward from his navel while I brought his consciousness up, slowly, level by level.

He would be so surprised to see me at last; the girl of his dreams, his nocturnal partner, the one who had spent such erotic moments with him. He would be so pleased. I could hardly wait. The anticipation jittered my internal organs until I thought I would have a seizure. This was him, this was the one, this was my life partner. Surely this child would choose me.