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Needless to say, I spent the night wide awake, walking the floor, stopping occasionally at the foot of the big four poster bed remembering all the loving we'd done in it and wondering if I could go on letting that be enough. I thought of it as loving - at least it was on my part. I was becoming unsure of John.

Several times I got the feeling I was being watched. I wondered if ol' George's ghost was in the room with me. Once in my meandering around the rooms I stopped and stared into the big mirror on the wall next to the bed. I got a distinct feeling that I was being stared at. I can't say that I don't believe in ghosts, but I came close to admitting that I did that night.

The next morning I was unfit to go to class. I waited until Karl and Clay left before leaving my rooms. I got a big mug of strong black coffee and wandered out to the gazebo at the back of the lawn.

As I lounged there mulling it all over for the ten thousandth time and enjoying the late morning sun, I casually studied the back of the house. From the way the rooms were laid out upstairs, it should have been symmetrical, but I noticed that the right side, which was my side, protruded a good four feet further out than the left side. The anomaly was cleverly disguised by a couple of Italian cypress trees and vines covering the walls. There were windows on each side of the house. The window on my side was dark. I could see closed drapes.

There was no window on that wall in my bedroom. As I pictured my bedroom I could see the large ornately framed mirror where this window was on the outside. I supposed that old George liked watching himself and John having sex and that was why the mirror had been placed over the window. But that didn't explain why my side of the house was four feet deeper. My bed room felt no deeper that Karl and Clay's. It disturbed me enough that I got up and went in to check it out.

Putting one foot in front of the other, toe to heel, I measured off the depth of their room. My shoe is approximately twelve inches long. It was twenty footsteps across the room. I then did the same to mine. It measured exactly the same; then why the difference on the outside? I went back out and examined the exterior of the house. There was nothing to explain it.

I went back up to my bedroom and studied the back wall where there should have been a draped window. The huge ornate gold framed mirror hung there instead.

Wondering why the mirror hadn't been centered on the wall, I tapped on the wall with my knuckles to the left of it. It sounded hollow. I walked into the sitting room and knocked on the outside wall. It sounded much more solid. I tapped on an inside wall and it sounded less solid than the outside wall but more solid than the back wall next to the mirror. I pondered what that meant, and decided that the other side of the back wall must not be finished.

I sat on the edge of the bed and studied the mirror with its ornate gold-leafed frame. It revealed nothing. I walked over and examined the outside edge. It fit snugly against the wall. I couldn't see how it was attached to the wall and it certainly didn't look like it was covering a window. I looked at the huge oil painting next to it. The top of the frame hung ever so slightly away from the wall. I took hold of each side of the mirror and attempted to lift it off the wall. It wouldn't budge. "Curiouser and curiouser," I muttered.

I sat back down on the bed and studied the mirror frame more closely. The design was a rather typical gold-leafed ornate Rococo. As my eyes wandered over the richly carved surface, I suddenly noticed something in the middle of the right hand side that didn't repeat in the design on the left. I walked back to the mirror and ran my hand over the anomaly. On close inspection, I could see that there was a seam around it.

On impulse I pushed on it. It receded and the right hand side of the mirror moved away from the wall. I grasped the edge and it swung out and away. Damn, it was a door. I peered into the darkness and saw spiral steps descending in to blackness. I searched and found two wall switches and flipped one. Below I could see three bare bulbs lit, each about ten feet below the next. The other switch turned on the ceiling light at the top of the stairs.

Before descending, I checked the back of the mirror/door to see if it could be opened from the back side. I found that it could, but decided to prop it open with a chair.

The stairs spiraled down three floors. That meant that the bottom was at basement level. As I neared the bottom I could see a door.

Descending to it, I turned the latch. The door swung open into a small room, about six feet square. I stepped into it and started to examine the smooth walls for a switch. The door swung silently closed behind me. The latch clicked, sealing me in darkness.

After I got my panic out of the way, I felt for a door knob where I thought it should be. There wasn't one. The wall was as smooth as the other three. Maybe I misjudged. I felt to the right and then to the left, higher, lower; no latch release. I thought about panicking again, yelling for help, but there was no one home, and even if there was, I doubted if they could hear me. I slumped against the wall and forced myself to calm down.

Once I started thinking logically, I knew there had to be a way to open the door I'd just come through. And as I analyzed it, even though I'd not paid any attention to it before, I recalled a conversation between Karl and John the night John and I became lovers. Karl said that he'd found the entrance to an access tunnel in the basement. So I figured there had to be at least two other doors in this room; one into the basement and one into the tunnel.

I started on the wall that I knew I'd entered through. There had to be some little trigger to release the latch. The latch had been at normal height on the other side. And as I thought about it, I recalled that the door had not been in the center of the wall. There had been about three feet of wall to the right of the door which put the hinged side of the door in the corner. Then I remembered stepping down into the room. So I started feeling around about eight inches above where I figured a regular door latch would be. Still nothing.

The total lack of light was getting to me. I sat down on the floor against the wall I'd entered through. Drawing my knees up, I hugged my legs to my chest. I had no idea how long I sat there. The quiet was as complete as the lack of light. I wondered if this was what purgatory is like. How long it would be before someone missed me and came looking for me?

Time lost all meaning. I had no idea how long I sat there before I thought I heard something. I listened. About the time I thought it was my imagination, I heard another noise. Someone was descending the stairs. I thanked God that I'd propped the mirror/door open. I stood and pounded on the door yelling out. And then I heard my name called. "Raff, where are you?"

I knocked on the door and called out. "I'm locked in, Kacy. Can you open this door?"

"Raff, I can hear you. Where are you?" His little voice was getting closer.

"Come to the bottom of the stairs, Kacy."

I could hear him slowly coming down the stairs. "This is scary, Raff. Why are you down here?"

"I'm locked in, Kacy. Can you open the door?"

I heard him jiggle the latch. "I can't open it, Raffy. It's too hard."

"Kacy. Who brought you home?"

"Daddy."

"Go get your daddy, Kacy. Tell Clay I need his help to get out of here."

"Okay, Raff. Don't go away."

I don't know if it was just little boy talk or if he thought I could go somewhere, but I called out, "I promise I won't go anywhere until you get back with your daddy. Hurry, Kacy."

I could hear him slowly climbing the stairs. Three stories; God, I hoped he'd remember to get Clay to help me.

It must have been at least fifteen minutes, if not three hours, before I heard Clay's booming voice, "Ralph, are you down here?"

I banged on the door and yelled. God, it sounded so good to hear him flying down those stairs. The door opened and the light from that dim bulb blinded me. I climbed into Clay's arms, snuffling back tears of relief. "I've never been so glad to see you."

Clay laughed. "How in hell did you find this stairwell? Did John show it to you?"

"I found it on my own." Now that I was rescued, my curiosity returned. "I'll tell you in a bit. Hold this door open. Don't you dare let it close. At least not until I discover how to open it from inside."

I looked up at the ceiling of the little cubicle. There was a light bulb. And then I noticed the switch in the stairwell just outside the door. I flipped it and started searching the edge of the wall next to the door opening. I found it - an indentation about the size of a small knot hole. "Clay, step into the stairwell and let the door close. Let's see if I can open it from inside."

He stepped up into the stairwell and let the door close. I pushed the little circle that was almost hidden in the wall. The door opened.

Clay smiled nervously. "Can we go back up now?" He asked.

"There's got to be another door. Let's find it first."

"Ralph, I'm getting claustrophobic. Do you have your cell phone on you?"

I felt my pants pocket, and felt more than a bit foolish. "Yeah, I do."

"Okay, I'm going back up. Call me as soon as I get to the top to see if you have a signal from down here. You can call me if you get locked in again."

"Thanks Clay. I don't think it will happen again."

He left and I turned to the other walls. Now that I had light and knew what I was looking for it wasn't long before I found another hidden latch release on the wall straight across from the stairs. I pushed the release and the door opened outward, but only opened about three inches. I pushed but it wouldn't give. I put an eye to the crack. It looked like it should be the basement.

I thought for a second or two. If I was at basement level then the wall to my left should be wooden, while the one on my right should be solid rock or concrete. I tapped on the left wall it sounded hollow. I tapped on the right wall and it sounded hollow, too. I tapped nearer to the back corner and it was definitely solid. So I tapped out toward the center and hit a hollow sound again.

I searched the wall until I found another hidden latch release. With a bit of trepidation mixed with a lot of curiosity I pushed it. Another door opened, inward this time. I pulled it open and peered into a tunnel of blackness. I found a light switch and flipped it. A string of light bulbs lit as far as I could see down the tunnel. I estimated that it was about ten feet between bulbs. I counted eleven bulbs, it looked like there were more, but I couldn't see them clearly.

I was at the back of the house, and the front of the house faces south. I figured that the tunnel ran south, which meant that it went under the street and under John's front yard, probably ending up in his basement. I glanced at the floor of the tunnel and noticed footprints in the dust, all one size, coming and going. I leaned against the doorframe and stared down the tunnel and thought about the implications.

The only times I ever saw John enter the house through the front door was on the nights he came to dinner. Yet he had been in the house almost nightly since Kacy had brought us together. It had become a routine that he'd show up soon after everyone had retired for the night. I was always in my room when he'd knock on the door to my suite. Night before last had been different; I'd come out of my bath to find him lounging on my bed. He'd said that he'd just let himself in. I thought I'd locked my door. I'd gotten into the habit of doing that because Kacy just didn't understand about privacy and knocking.

Last night had also been different in that we fell asleep in each other's arms. I'd awaken later to find him gone. I distinctly recalled having to unlock my door the next morning when I went down to the kitchen. Not once had he allowed me to walk him to the front door. He'd kiss me good night at my bedroom door and tell me not to bother, he'd let himself out.

I turned out the lights in the tunnel and closed the door, then remembered to call Clay. My phone indicated that there was no signal. Feeling a bit dumb about not having thought to use the damn thing I headed back up. Clay was waiting for me when I stepped back into my bedroom. "So did you find another door?" He asked.

"Yeah, it opens into the basement, but there's something blocking it. I couldn't get it opened more'n three inches."

"Hmmm, weird." He left, not seeming to have any more interest in it. He went about doing his own thing and I headed for the basement.

The door to the basement is under the grand staircase. I stopped at door and pictured John descending the stairs and instead of exiting the front door, doing a u-turn and heading for the basement stairs. I headed down into the basement and found the partially opened door just as I'd left it. There was a stack of heavy boxes blocking it. I closed the door, and left the boxes just as they were. The blockage explained why John had used the hidden stairs to access my room. He'd waited until I was in the shower to enter.

After taking a quick shower and changing out of my dusty clothes I hit the books until dinner time. Clay had shown too little interest in the hidden stairwell. He must have known about it. I decided I'd accost both him and Karl at dinner. Kacy beat me to the punch. Just as I was about to ask Clay if he'd told Karl about the stairwell, Kacy asked, "Daddy, is Granddaddy John a vampire?"

"What would make you think that, Son?"

"Every night when he leaves Ralph's bedroom, he goes down into the basement. Just like the vampire in that movie. Is he a real vampire, Daddy?"

"What are you doing out of you bed at that time of night?" Clay asked.

"Well… every night I hear someone going down stairs, so I started checking to see who it was. It was Granddaddy."

"You should be asleep at that time of night."

"I would be if Raff and Granddaddy wouldn't make so much noise."

Both men glanced at me and then looked at each other. I chose to ignore the whole situation and asked, "Clay did you tell Karl about the hidden stairwell?"

Clay flushed as Karl shot him a sharp look. "I hadn't had a chance."

I let them squirm for a moment before asking, "But you both knew about it already, didn't you?"

Both men looked guilty.

"Raff got locked in the bottom of the stairs and Daddy had to rescue him, Karl."

Karl grinned and then burst out laughing. "It's quite a set up that my great grandfather went through to be with his mistress, isn't it?"

"So you did know about it, and the tunnel, too?" I asked.

"Guilty as charged. I discovered the anomaly of the stairwell and the tunnel before we moved in. And then when Dad first met you I noticed that he was interested in you. Why do you think I gave you that suite?"

This wasn't jiving with his previous reactions when Kacy exposed John's feelings towards me. I asked him why the dichotomy.

He looked at Clay and then said, "Before I found out that John is my father, and before Clay came back into my life, I had a really strong attraction to him. It was frustrating because he acted like he was completely unaware of how I felt. I guess I hadn't gotten it completely out of my system and simply went off the deep end with jealousy. So… well… anyway it did help getting you together faster, didn't it?" He oh so innocently asked, then grinned at me.

"You conniving bastard," I said, shaking my head with a big smile while Clay right out laughed.

Kacy tired of being ignored had gotten off his chair and leaned against Clay. "Daddy, you didn't answer me. Is Granddaddy John a real vampire?"

Clay pulled the little boy up into his lap and said, "Yes, and if you don't stay in your bed at night he just might grab you up like this and bite you." He started nibbling on Kacy's neck making him giggle and squirm.

"Stop, Daddy, and tell me the truth."

"Okay. The truth is Granddaddy John is not a vampire."

"Then why does he go into the basement when he leaves? Why doesn't he go out the front door? He lives right over there across the street."

"Why do you think he goes into the basement?"

"So he can sneak through the tunnel Raff found. And no one would know he was here."

Clay again attacked his son's neck and told him he was a smart cookie. It constantly amazed me how the kid could be so adult and at the same time be just a little kid. I love that little boy. My heart leaps into my throat every time I think about having ever thought of leaving him and Clay.

Once decorum had been re-established, I asked if John was aware that they knew about the tunnel.

Karl nodded his head. "Yeah, I told him I'd found the entrance in the basement."

"But I don't think that he's aware that we know of his nightly visits." Clay said.

I felt my face turn red. I hadn't really thought about them knowing or not. I don't know why it embarrassed me. They both laughed and I got over it. Then it dawned on me that Karl and his devious, conniving ways had probably stacked the boxes in front of the access door in the tunnel to force John to use the hidden stairs. I asked him about it.

He laughed. "Of course, I did. And it worked didn't it?"

I nodded sheepishly. "It startled the devil out of me to walk out of the bathroom to find him lying on my bed watching me." I wondered why John hadn't moved them to continue using that door.

We finished dinner talking banalities, cleaned up and went our separate ways for the evening.

I headed for my bedroom intent on going through the tunnel before John headed my way. I stepped into the stairwell behind the mirror and pulled it closed after me. Realizing I hadn't turned on the overhead light, I noticed that it wasn't totally dark. I turned and looked through the mirror into my bedroom. 'Now that makes total sense.' I thought to myself. John couldn't just burst into George's bedroom not knowing if someone besides George would be there. I thought about my feelings of being watched and wondered if John had been behind the mirror.

Ten minutes later, I stood at the doorway to John's study. Across the room, I could see him sitting in his comfortable old high-backed club chair reading. I admired his handsome profile, so masculine and self contained. My heart surged; I knew I'd do whatever it took to be with this man.

I cleared my throat. John startled and looked up. At first he looked confused and then he smiled a warm loving welcoming smile.

"Hey, Kid. I didn't hear you knock." He'd stood and strode over to take me in his arms. I leaned into his lips. When he broke the kiss, he muttered, "I'm sure I locked the front door. I haven't used it in days."

I let a short laugh. "Do you realize what you are admitting?"

"What?"

"How many times have you been over to see me since you last used the front door?"

"Oh… well, I..."

"Just used the tunnel?"

"Tunnel?" He pulled away from me and backed up a couple of steps.

"John, don't dissemble, it's unbecoming. I don't think you really have a key to Karl's back door. But then you've never really needed one. You've got the tunnel."

He quickly regained his equilibrium and ruefully smiled. "So how did you find out about it?"

"Curiosity. I was sitting at the back of the garden and noticed that my bedroom side of the back of the house sticks out further than the other side."

"I guess only a man would notice that and wonder about it. George's wife never did."

"I wonder. I'd think that she'd think it very strange, covering a window with a big mirror when there is such a beautiful view of the valley from it."

"Maybe she did know and was okay with it. My wife knew. But as long as we kept it secret she was okay with it. Karl and Clay told you that they knew about it?"

I grinned and nodded. "Karl said that was why he gave me his grandfather's suite." I paused and frowned in thought.

"I just realized that you've been using the tunnel from the very beginning when Kacy made his big pronouncement.

John grinned. "You know, that was the first time I'd been through the tunnel since George died."

Things settled back into a status quo - a fancy word for a stalemate. During the summer Karl drove Clay down to L.A. to the clinic in San Fernando Valley that specialized in repairing injuries like Clay's. It was again going to take some time for his surgeries to heal, but this time he'd have a good knee once it did.

John began using the hidden stairs up to the mirror to come to me each night. (Damn, writing that sentence makes me feel like Rapunzel locked in her high tower.) I had yet to get a straight answer as to why he didn't want me to go to him. I wondered if I ever would.