Night School Vampire by A.J. Llewellyn & D.J. Manly

D.J Manly writes...

Ah night school. It attracts well…let’s say…a unique kind of crowd. The people who work at dead end jobs during the day and really want to move up…they’re at night school…as well as a mix of drop outs, and dreamers, and one or two students you really can’t pigeon hole.

I’ve taught night courses at a couple of colleges in my life.  I’ve seen all kinds of people, and I’ve also seen students I had to wonder about. They were the ones that didn’t fit. You just can’t figure them out no matter how hard you try. They’re usually very bright, and they stick to themselves, don’t socialize with others on the break and they have a particular way of looking at you. These are the ones on the first night who introduce themselves with no more than their name, who don’t go on and on about why they took the course, or how they love their pets.

When I came up with the idea of Night School Vampire, I had only to dip into my past memories of the various students I’d encountered in the courses I’d taught in the Colleges. I could see night school as being the perfect place for someone like Socrates, someone who lived only at night, someone with nothing, but time on their hands. Wow, night school is the perfect place for a… vampire. Got me thinking, I might have even unconsciously ran a hand over my throat as I did…were any of my students back then….ah….naw. 

Everyone knows vampires don’t exist, right?

A.J. Llewellyn writes...

When D.J. first suggested the idea for this story as well as the amazing title, I decided then and there that my character, Devin Gold, who teaches Socrates at night school, that he would have no idea the man he's so attracted to is a vampire.

Not only that, but I decided that Devin doesn't believe vampires exist. In fact, he comes from a long line of people who do believe in them and have spent his entire life from the time he was a toddler, dragging him around in his pajamas when he should have been sleeping, in search of vampires.

This idea came to me after attending a sci-fi convention, and meeting author Whitley Strieber, the man who penned Communion, his non-fiction account of being abducted by aliens.

I witnessed firsthand how so many people remain touched by this book. I thought it was funny that so many wanted to share their own abduction encounters…and that so many more wanted to know how they could be abducted.

Welcome to America, folks, where truth is stranger than fiction. We jostle for space with vampires, werewolves, aliens intent on anal probes (just why are they so fond of those, anyway?) and of course, night school.

I've attended evening college courses myself and it always struck me that the people who attend them want so badly to learn. So many miss out earlier in life and return as adults, though most of them are probably not as old as Socrates, who admits to being four hundred years old.

Or…are they?

Is there a vampire yearning to learn in your night school?

Night School Vampire is available at Amber Quill Press. 

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It’s tough being a vampire. For one thing, there’s so much time on your hands. And for another, being undead for centuries means that you meet way too many stupid people...

Socrates Delis, since he has to be awake at night, wonders why he shouldn’t make better use of his time. So to ease his loneliness and hopefully meet a more educated group of people, he enrolls in night school at UCLA’s extension courses and quickly finds that poetry isn’t the only thing on the agenda. Somebody is killing off young gay men around town, and students are nervous. And by the way, didn’t Socrates swear off love? So why’s he finding himself attracted to his hot, human teacher?

Devin Gold loves his work. The great poets are his favorites to share with his English lit students, and while teaching, his life often seems just about perfect. But holy heck, his crazy Uncle Vince just blew into town and has even invaded Devin’s night classes, disrupting his life. Uncle Vince and Devin’s mom think they’re vampire hunters. Devin knows there’s no such thing, and has lived with the shame of their insanity all his life. Now his uncle swears that LA, even night school, is swarming with fangers.

How can Devin keep his sudden attraction to his handsome new student, Socrates, a secret? He’s not sure, but he has to try, especially since his obsessive uncle will undoubtedly insist that Socrates is a vampire. It’s tough being a sane human in La La Land...

Genres: Gay/Dark Fantasy/Vampire/Ménage (M/M/M)/Group Sex/Voyeurism
Heat Level: 3
Length: Novella (25k words)

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