Who doesn’t love a good female vampire?

At least while they’re true to form in the first half of this little short…

“Quartier de la Mabeleine”

A Quiet Meal 4

It’s long, difficult work to swallow a creature whose shoulders are more than half as wide as your own, especially when you have a torso closer to the shape of one of those humans than a proper predator. His head was ready to slip down my throat, and the feeling of that bulge there – and the anticipation of it in my stomach – was plenty of encouragement to keep swallowing. I had to empty both my lungs and his to fit him in, and he still got stuck. I began to despair that he was too plump, too meaty, too scrumptious. I knew my eyes weren’t bigger than my stomach, but both were bigger than my jaws. Still, even at that moment of the most pain, when it felt like my lips couldn’t possibly stretch any wider, it was worth it. Once I had his shoulders into my throat he just slipped right down, and I could feel the lumps of his head and elbows and hips and knees and huge feet squishing down through the almost-too-narrow passageway between my spine and lungs. We were both in a race against time the last few moments. Neither of had been able to breath for minutes, and until I’d pushed him all the way through my torso, through the “finish-line” gateway of my vestigial pelvis (and, incidentally, the vestigial pleasure buds his squirming body triggered there), neither of us had room in our chests for a breath. Of course I had the benefit of practice, and I knew I could hold on despite the burning in my lungs and the light-headedness and the stars creeping into the corner of my vision, but he was mad with fright and still fighting me. He must have been been pretty close to blackout before warm waves of pleasure washed through my hips and he spilled down into my gut.

I could feel him breathing then, sucking in great heaving gasps inside of me, and I curled around the bulge squirming just below my waist.

My stomach sack had swollen, as it always did with meals as big as him. The skin there was stretched so thin I could nearly see through it – and I wish I could. I’d love to watch his face, to stare contentedly into his terror-filled eyes, to watch him beg for mercy even though it was clearly too late. Instead, I had to content myself with watching the bulges that were his shoulders and face and belly and knees squirm through the rubbery pink flesh. As thin as it was – thin enough for air to pass through, I guessed, since my meals never seemed to suffocate – it was far too strong to worry about him breaking out or even clawing through, though I suppose it would hurt if he tried. My claws gently raked over the skin distended between my scutes and I sighed with pleasure.

He was a perfect fit. Even basting in the thick, slimy, narcotic pre-juices my stomach had begun to secrete around him, he could barely move. With absent-minded pleasure I lightly drew the outline of his shoulder, the bulges of his face, the lumps that were his folded long ears, and traced down his back to his big, meaty hips and thighs. His breath was still ragged and frightened, and heavy enough that I thought I could almost feel it through the membrane lining of my sack. If I clapped my hands down over the shape of his mouth I could probably suffocate him and end his desperate struggles, but why would I want to? Each time he moved I groaned with pleasure, and my stomach pumped out more of the drugged pre-juices that would, over the next few hours, put him and me both into a blissful stupor. Sometimes I spoke to my meals as I felt them move, telling them how much I enjoyed them, taunting them to try to escape, and I think they heard me, even if they never answered. With this rabbit I just sighed.

Finally, after a doleful grunt that was meant to indicate my dissatisfaction that I couldn’t just curl up here in the tall grass, I unwound to slither slowly back toward my burrow (though at this point I would take and dark, private place I could find). It was too dangerous to remain so exposed once his real digestion began. I had no idea if the euphoric stupor would carry him through the slow process of melting away to bits of bone and teeth, or if it would wear out and he’d spend a few minutes or an hour or a day in pain. I didn’t really care. For the moment we both squirmed with pleasure, and soon I’d be asleep, curled around my warm belly. With any luck I’d spend the next few days of the tall grass, of plump, juicy bunnies, and of big watery eyes too filled with the terror of me to look for an escape.

End

A Quiet Meal 3

“It will be like a kisss,” I hissed into his ear, “except over your whole body, and it will never ssstop.” My hand had lingered below his belly, and now my fingers curled around the shaft of his still-partially-erect phallus, squeezing and then pumping to fill it with blood. His phallus did nothing for me – it was nothing like the lovely shapes that would fit into my crevices – but this wasn’t the first young bunny I’d ever had for lunch, either. I knew ways to make my meals pliant without pumping them full of poison.

“I- I’ve never been kissed,” he gurgled back. His lids were scrunched shut, his buckteeth nibbling his lower lip with an expression of pleasure and anticipation not unlike the one I’d giggled at before I pounced.

“Oooh… a big boy like you?” My hand continued to squeeze and stroke his now-firm phallus while I shifted and curled to reposition him, to bring him up above my head where gravity would help. I could already feel my throat beginning to dilate and my ribs stretch wide. Thin, oily saliva filled my mouth and dripped down my throat; I licked it from my lips. “I find that sssso hard to believe…”

Just for fun, because he was so cute with his eyes pinched shut, I kissed him. It was nothing too serious – even thinking that way was gross – but his lips puckered back against mine and he moaned with pleasure. His mouth opened greedily and his phallus surged in my hand; I let it go hastily – I didn’t want him making a mess in my coils.

I think his eyes opened to see why I’d pushed him away, because he yelped in surprise. The last thing he would have seen was my wet, pink mouth stretching over his face and turning everything to black. Oh, how he kicked then! I slipped my tail up between his legs until my sex buds were squished right in between where his thighs squirmed and squeezed, and it was my turn to giggle with pleasure. With strong, wriggling thrusts I pushed my mouth further over his wedge-shaped head, slickening his fur with my saliva. He squealed through his tightly-clamped jaw and kicked with such strength that I had to squeeze him just to the point where his bones were ready to crack before he relented. Once I had my tongue beneath his chin and my fangs behind his skull, it was only a matter of a few gulps to drag his head to the back of my throat. I took a few deep breaths while I gathered my energy for the hardest part.

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A Quiet Meal 2

“There now, that’s enough.” I peeled him away from my chest, holding him at arms’ length so I could look into his eyes. With my thumbs I wiped the tears away from his eyes, being especially careful not to scratch him with my wickedly-hooked claws. “No more crying now, bunny. It’s time to be brave.”

I could have just bitten him, of course. There would have been something scrumptious about my long fangs sinking down into the soft flesh of his neck and pumping his veins full of venom until his body was as limp as a doll in my arms. He would have been perfectly quiet then, and I wouldn’t have had to worry about the kind of trouble his cries might bring: scavengers, or a dozen of his brothers bent on revenge. Or worse: plenty of predators wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to snack on a lamia too busy gorging herself on bunny to make an escape. But I could always bite him later if I had to. Until then, I was willing to take a little risk. I wanted more than calories from his body.

I lifted his chin with a finger and smiled at him. My moss-green eyes caught the limped brown pools in his face as they rose from my chest and held them tight. I wasn’t the most skilled, but I had a bit of a knack for mesmerism, and rabbits were weak-minded. Sure enough, his mouth went slack and his small sobs faded. His strong legs still squirmed a bit, but I was enjoying that. “Are you brave, bunny?”

“Y-y-you’re g-g-gonna eat me, aren’tcha?” More tears welled beneath his eyes.

“Sssshhh…” I cooed again, running my claws through his fur and scratching behind his head where I thought he’d like it. “Yesss.”

It was a quick cruelty, and I relished the whiff of sudden terror in the air before I continued. “But I don’t hear you sympathizing with the plants you eat or the bugs you squash with those clown feet of yours, do I? You’re my food. It’s natural.” My torso swayed slightly as I held myself near to him, and the subtle motion caused his lids to droop and his mouth to fall a little more slack. His feet moved only occasionally now.

“Will it hurt?” he whimpered.

“Mmmm…” I answered, still feeling too cruel to lie to him. My claws traced down his neck and chest and over the little bulge of his belly. This young rabbit was a lucky find for me – he was the perfect meal. He was nearly grown to his full adult size – his body was meaty and well-developed – but he was still plump and incautious and naive with youth.

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A Quiet Meal 1

“Sssshhh…” I cooed softly into his ear, nuzzling into the soft fur there. My forked tongue flicked between my lips, and my coils spiraled even tighter around his body. When I pressed a claw to his mouth, his sobs died to whimpers.

The rabbit still shivered with fright. His teeth chattered, his muscles quivered, and his big, wet eyes flicked around wildly. He struggled and kicked even though he had no real hope of escaping.

That was fine with me, as long he remained quiet. I could taste his fear on the air around him, between the salt of his tears and sweat, and the tang of his rut from a few minutes earlier. I folded him against my chest and wrapped him into a tight hug that sent his bodyheat coursing deliciously through my cool skin and scales. The sensation was almost as pleasant as a morning bask on my rock, but right now I couldn’t be lazy – I had to be cunning. I held him against me, stroking my claws through his fur and hissing lullabies until his shakes calmed and his breathing evened out to just hiccups and stifled sobs. “Ssshhh, bunny… Ssshhh.”

Even while I petted his head my coils wound their way up legs and hips, moving him toward my tail where I would be able maneuver him more easily into my throat. Thirty feet of muscle and scales and intestines is a lot of me to feed, but as it turns out it’s hardly enough to get a really good hold on lunch. While I cuddled his upper half and whispered into his ears, I wrestled with his legs for better position. My scutes skittered tantalizingly over the corded muscles in his thighs and calves, making my mouth water in anticipation of all that meat.

As my tightest grip scooted further toward my tail, down near my cloaca and and the sex buds buried on either side of it, I moaned a little and squeezed him just a bit tighter. For a few tingly moments I gave up wrestling just to rub against him and please myself, and his gurgles of fear and my murmurs of pleasure mingled. Nothing came of it – my grumbling belly wouldn’t be put off for such a trifling pleasure – and I don’t think he ever realized that I was masturbating with him; the poor dear was clinging to me and had buried his face between my breasts to cry like I was his mother.

Even if he had realized, he couldn’t complain. That’s what he had been doing when I’d caught him in the tall grass. He had been hunched over when I first spotted him, hands working furiously between his legs, eyes pinched shut and grunting while he nibbled his lip. I had watched him for a few minutes, thrilling at my own voyeurism before I made my approach. Even if I had made a sound while I slithered up within striking distance, I doubt he would have heard it. I don’t know if he was more surprised or embarrassed when I pounced him to the ground.

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Beast 16

The fear of reality, not as she would have it, but as it inescapably was, took her, and the animal came out. Her nails were claws and her teeth, weapons; “I could kill you now – before you could even move…” It was an empty threat, and we both knew it.

It cost her much, but at last she threw herself before me. “I beg you to spare me – show me the mercy which I have lacked… Please!” The last word was ripped from her lips in a wail. Her old accent was strong – she had been broken and reduced. If she was released now, she would flee. It would be years before she’d be bold enough to return to the city, to kill in my precinct.

But she’d had her chance for mercy long ago, in another time and place. No one becomes what she was without choosing it. She had never shown mercy to anyone – not to my apprentice, not to the young man behind the club at the strip, and not to whomever’s blood was on Her lips tonight. She deserved no mercy. I had no desire to give it to her. But she got it.

I spoke: “Release those souls you hold within you. They aren’t yours, and that’s why they’ll never satisfy you. Do this and repent, and nothing will keep you here.”

There was no moment of hesitation, no time to consider; “No!” she snarled. “It cannot be done! They are mine!”

And it was over. Whatever half-life she had vanished when her head left her body. There was no mess. Even her corpse would not survive the night. I opened the window, so a breeze could catch the dust and scatter it. I can’t know what happened to the souls she stole, or even her own soul she bartered. I hope they’re free now.

She had called it upon herself. It was what she had really wanted all along.

End

Beast 15

Many had died here, on these grounds – my apprentice among them. He had been prepared for the job – it wasn’t his first – but he was not ready for her, or for her power.

She had been ready for him. She would have broken him, remade him for Her own amusement before finishing him; she would have seen him coming. I should have seen it coming. It was not my fault, but I could have prevented it.

The door guards were dispatched in the same way as their colleagues, and the house was gained. I marked the entryway with a cross – it was mostly habit, but occasionally it was effective. She was not hard to find, in a drawing room upstairs, sitting in an over-stuffed armchair, watching a large picture hang in a heavy, gilded frame on the wall across from Her. She looked up when I stepped into the room, possibly surprised, but hiding it well. “Hello,” she said. Her voice was easy and carefree, somewhat inviting. Her voice was less certain when she waited a moment but got no response. She looked me over. “So they sent a woman, this time…”

She stood from the chair and raised herself to her full height, which was impressive. She stood, then finally approached. Her cloak swept back, and beneath she was nude, and perfect. She was strong, but supple; had there been life in her flesh, she would have been the model of health. Her face was both beautiful and pretty, and her hair was clean and straight and long. Her lips were full and seductive, and her eyes were dark, and deep enough to fall into.

She looked on me with desire, though I was homely, and short, and scrawny.

She looked on me with eyes that wanted to devour me, eyes that were gateways to a void. Her eyes caught to mine, pulled me into her, poured me into the bottomless pit. She was empty, and could never be filled.

But I was full, and could never be emptied. She grasped for an ego, and found the endless river of Purpose. She held me, and drained me, but it cost me nothing and gained her less. She shied away, cowering back against the wall. Her eyes were no longer devouring, but defensive of the emptiness behind – she clung to it like a talisman, like treasure. The world closed in around her. “You’ve trapped me here, haven’t you?”

Next

Beast 14

Fury

She called it upon herself.

11:18pm, Thursday the 3rd. Four miles outside the city line on N. Charles Road. Subject’s residence.

The woods had provided ample coverage for unnoticed surveillance of the estate. Only two guards remained on the premises – one at the gate, one in the manor. She had left at nightfall, and the maids two hours before. Two more guards were due in less than an hour. They didn’t use dogs, which was good; dogs make better guards than men. She wouldn’t have abided dogs anyway, and they would have been useless around her.

She would kill again tonight. She had left earlier than expected, and it would be impossible to try to find her in the city. There was nothing to do but wait.

Waiting becomes routine.

I had warded the periphery of her estate, except for the gate. That’s a lot of rice. Once she arrived back, the last ward would be placed, and she would be trapped inside, with no escape. Even if she lived and I did not, she would be confined to Her grounds indefinitely, likely to starve. After tonight, she wouldn’t kill again.

It was 12:00am, and the third shift arrived. The two new guards had only just come in the gate when she drove up, early. Many of them – her kind – prefer to be chauffeured, but she was more independent, somewhat roguish. She parked her fancy, black European car and disappeared into the house. I completed the ward and hopped the fence.

There were no theatrics, and no violence. They are too messy and noisy, and far too risky. A small gas pill lobbed between them while they were talking, and the two guards outside were safely unconscious for eight hours or so. They were professional, but unprepared.

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Beast 13

But then she was gone.

The loss of her ripped into me like a cannonball in the stomach, and I sobbed with the enormity of it.

Someone came running up and knelt over me, pinning my shoulders against the convulsions of my tears. Fingers pressed into my neck, where blood still somehow managed to gush out. It hurt like the devil’s pitchfork, but my eyes didn’t much feel like opening, and I couldn’t seem to move my arms or my mouth to tell them to bugger off. A bright light flashed around and passed over my eyes and made my head hurt, and there were a lot of noisy voices, but that didn’t matter. The body wracking sobs were over, but I felt wrong, alone… I was a soul without life… I was hers, I needed to be with her, to be in her, but it was dark and she was gone and I was cold and alone and stranded.

I was being jostled, but that faded away.

At last I looked up and I saw her, her deep dark eyes intense in the moonlight. She had been there, always, and was laughing at me… but I needed her. I stretched out my hand to her, pleadingly, and she took it, lifting me up. She was huge, and growing bigger, or it was I who was smaller. She seemed pleased with me as she opened her lips, showed her teeth, and swallowed me. They closed behind me, sealing me into the endless, empty night which savored my soul.

I was finally, fully, hers.

And I was nothing.

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Beast 12

But then she enveloped me in her cloak and her lips closed over mine and her hands grabbed my chest and pulled my shirt down and I was naked, down to the bare feet, and I had no time to figure out that impossibility as everything was happening as I had imagined it, as I had dreamed, except even more because it was real. I could do nothing but submit as her kisses became frantic and noisy and hungry, her teeth nipping at my ears and chin, and she pushed me down and straddled me, her cloak settling over us so we became one black lump on the ground, squirming as she covered me with her hands and her lips.

After I don’t know how long, she sat up, wiping her lip with the back of a finger, smudging away a bit of my blood. She relaxed, and looked me over. I would have expected her to be panting for breath after that salvo of long kisses, but she was still. Her long, dark hair disappeared into the shadow of her cloak, and I could imagine where her full lips might fit into the outline of her face. She was tall, and not thin, soft, and strong – if I had tried to wrestle out from under her I knew there would have been no escape for me, unless she wanted it. But I did not want to fight her, or run away; I wanted to be hers, I wanted to give myself to her – that was why I came.

Then she placed her hand on my face, her thumb on my lips, and she spoke. It was in some other language, completely unfamiliar, but from her mouth it was dark and beautiful. They were words of possession – my life was hers now – and my blood burned within me, eager to be done with my body and sate hers.

With a hawk-like swoop she was on me, biting into my neck. Her full weight held me down, trapped me as she took numb flesh with blood, biting again, sinking her teeth deeper into me. She crouched over me, and the cloak fell closed around us — she was a pitch-black night on me, drawing the heat from my body; her teeth and tongue pillaged me, reaching further in for even more. I was hers, I was inside her, she had my life, and she wanted my soul.

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Beast 11

I decided I would spend another hour or so there, make a night of it, then head home to resume the same tragic routine which had brought me here in the first place.

And then two hands, strong but feminine, took hold of my shoulders, and a face pressed up to the side of my neck. “Do not turn,” whispered a low, breathy woman’s voice. “Do not see me.”

There was a momentary urge to pull away and turn around, but my instinct to obey commands won out. She spoke again. “I have watched you watch others; I have seen your thoughts… I know what you desire, to sacrifice yourself to me, like a lamb on the altar . . .” Her voice was sultry now; she brought her face closer and her lips brushed my earlobe. As she spoke, her hands, cool like a rock in the morning, came up to my neck and felt for my pulse. A cold electric thrill ran through me as I realized what was happening – I couldn’t believe it even as I was living it.

She pulled her thick, black velvet cloak around us both, and we stood. She pressed herself to me; she was naked beneath the cloak, and even through my clothes I could I could tell the rest of her body was as cold as her hands. Her body was soft and curvy – as she began walking me forward her hips sidled against me and her legs slipped between mine. Every sense but vision was directed behind me, reaching out for any nuance of her.

We headed for a shadowy walkway between two buildings – she pushed me onward until we were enveloped in darkness, and the din of the clubs and the street became a background murmur. I came to a dead end, a stone wall; she turned me and pushed me back against it. Her dark shadow loomed over me, and for a brief moment, fear took me.

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Beast 10

She came gliding down the stairs into the room, and I lost her for a few moments in the crowd. I pushed away from the wall and through the crowd until I saw her again at the other bar. She glided as she moved, buying some expensive drink; grace dripped from her fingers. In her wake all the other women seemed cheap and fraudulent in their dangerous seduction.

I watched her for a long time, shelling out the money when she began to move from club to club to bar. My lower arm was a galaxy of stamps. I usually stayed about a dozen inconspicuous steps to her side, sometimes passing in front of her or casually glancing over when I thought she was looking my way. I wanted desperately to capture her interest without looking like I was trying to. I needed to be where she could notice me, be that magic place where her heavy-lidded eyes would fall on me and she would decided I was the one. But if she saw me she never made a sign; perhaps she hid her notice of me, or perhaps I was to her as I was to everyone else in the room: scenery – something to move around when walking by.

The drinks and the early morning hour had slowed my thoughts when she finally made her way out of a last bar and climbed into a limousine, which was waiting just on the other side of the barriers.

She left alone. She could not be the one – I had watched her get drunk on something blue, I had seen her careful grace slip away, her aura fade to a quiet haughtiness – she was just another woman.

I sat down next to a planter on the island divider and dropped my chin onto my fists. There were several hours of full dark left, but the crowd in the streets had begun to thin. There was nothing for me here. The women were no less alluring now, but that was not what I had come for. Why spoil a life-long career of virginity after all these years, or, even if they were to notice me, what was more likely: why embarrass myself with a pointless effort that would yield only mockery? The idea of casual sex is a much less frightening thing in the comfort of your own lonely room.

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Beast 09

I sat myself down with my Pepsi on a saggy purple-velvet couch just outside a club where they were playing what sounded like a funeral dirge set to a drum machine. I watched the people walk by, especially the women. I hadn’t ever paid much attention to them before, but they were pretty attractive in an evil, dangerously seductive kind of way, dressed in their shiny black leather and leopard spots and fishnet stockings, all made up to look like agents of death. Whether with natural beauty or with a mask of blood-red lips and heavy-shadowed eyes, whether thin as a waif and draped in long, flowing black gowns or slightly plump and sensuous beneath tight and suggestive skirts, they all had something to offer, but they certainly weren’t offering it to me. Out of the 90 minutes or so I sat watching people from the couch, I caught the fleeting attention of a half-dozen people at most, all of whom seemed more interested in the couch than its occupant; the rest didn’t notice me any more than the fire hydrant a few feet away. It was all right, I was used to it… and that wasn’t my reason for coming, anyway.

About an hour after I had coaxed the last drop of Pepsi from the bottom of the cup, I stood to stretch my legs, then squeezed my way through the crowd to a promising-looking club across the street. (The couch was instantly taken.) I headed inside, stopping at the door to pay seven dollars for an ink-stamp on my hand and a once-over of disdain, then made my way down the stairs and around the floor to the bar, to begin numbing my senses.

After leaning against the wall for quite a while and spending about twenty bucks too many on drinks, I thought I spied the one I had been waiting for. She was tall and had long, curly, auburn hair. She wasn’t overweight, but neither was she bony and thin – she looked soft, and healthy, though her skin seemed pale in contrast to her black satin dress. She was as goth as anyone else in the room, but elegant goth instead of punk-rock goth, if that makes sense. She was Death, not it’s groupie. Most importantly, she had that aura of selfhood – that self-confidence and assurance that people admire in movie characters. It seemed to me that when she looked around the room, her attention was directed toward determining how the people in the room would suit her, rather than if she fit in.

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Beast 08

Nyx

I don’t know what it was that finally pushed me over that precarious edge, what made me decide the time had come. I had pondered it for some time – years, in fact – but I never had the courage to do violence to my own body. The pain in my heart and soul had never outweighed the pain I felt a thousand times over when I imagined a knife in my chest or a bullet in my head.

Maybe it was that one movie, where the man I thought could have been me found someone who loved him just like I wanted to be loved, then threw it all away. Or maybe it was that song on the radio, the one which I had once called my theme song, the one that now only filled me with the despair of what I knew I would never be. Maybe I had just finally been convinced by a friend at work, through an impassioned but meaningless conversation (meaningless to him, anyway) that there were “people” out there who would take the responsibility from me, who would do it without pain, and who would find some use for a life I had given up on.

I went downtown, to the strip, and, because it was summer, all the clubs had spilled out onto the streets and flooded them with a swirling mass of people and music and lights for at least ten blocks. Tables and chairs and couches were scattered about on the sidewalk and the street, and dancers clogged the intersections – which was safe enough since the block had been pyloned off from traffic. Someone had driven an SUV between the barriers and parked it outside a bar – the doors were open and the radio blaring, and the hundred-odd watt bass sounded better than the over-taxed speakers from the clubs. A black-clad man and a barely-clad woman leaned against the mirror-like polish of the sidepanels, entwined in a throbbing, wet embrace.

There were empty bottles and discarded red plastic cups everywhere, but I didn’t buy more than Pepsi myself, since I thought it would be best to keep my wits about me for a little while longer. I wandered further down the street, past the pop and hip-hop music, past the alternative stuff and that little jazz club, down to the end of the strip where everyone wore black and silver and leather, and both men and women had eyeliner on. I felt a bit out of place among all the darkness – I was a normal, average-looking fellow wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt. The only thing saving me from complete social rejection was the pair of army-surplus combat boots I had worn to put out the bad-ass vibe and avoid muggers or pickpockets or whatever. Tattoos of an eight-ball and aces, and of Crazy Jane on a Chevy peeked out from beneath my sleeves.

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Beast 07

Her dark, knowing eyes slow-danced mine as she drew me to her, beneath her cloak. My clothes were gone, and the heavy silk lining closed on me, washing over my skin. Her arms surrounded me, enfolded me, electrifying my skin. I had not realized it before, but she was taller than me, and as her face came close to mine she seemed almost to loom over me. Her presence was more substantial, more tangible, than my own.

Her skin was smooth, her body supple; her curves molded to fit me. She was cool, not cold – like an autumn breeze – and the warmth of my body seeped into her like rain into grass. I knew that with my heat went my life, and I was frightened. She felt this, and was concerned. With pleading eyes she soothed me, and explained that she needed me. My fear saddened her; she mourned with me. She was so very cold, so fragile, and I would protect her, preserve her. I was a worthy sacrifice. I was worthy.

She kissed me, gently, and I knew I was appreciated. Her lips were like rose petals brushing over my face and neck. I felt she was growing warm; my own heat began returning to me through her skin. With great care and love she kissed the vein on my neck. There was a gentle prick as her sharp teeth slipped through my skin, opening me to her. The sigh of pleasure and relief which ran through her body comforted me. Her warmth grew and mine diminished; with increasing strength she held me to her, supporting me as my toes and fingers gave the last of their life to her.

When she was warm and flushed and safe, and my legs could no longer hold their own weight, she laid me softly to the ground and knelt over me. Her kisses were hot and sticky on my neck; they were salty when she pressed her lips to mine.

My thoughts were slippery, confused and lost within my head, but her eyes smiled down to me in contented pleasure. I will be well, they told me. You have given me peace. Your life has found meaning in mine. This came clearly, but fleetingly, and then was lost to me. She tenderly closed my eyelids; they were no longer in my control. My thoughts were fleeing, disappearing into the darkness of the encroaching shadows, slipping like sand between my fingers. One, however, remained.

I loved her.

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Beast 06

She lifted herself from her chair, and I saw that she wore only a heavy black cloak. It was held in place by a large broach perched where her neck met her shoulders, and fell to brush the floor lightly around her feet. The moonlight streaming in from the French doors behind her cast a blue glow around her and shimmered off the heavy, velvet folds in the cloak.

I had expected you, she said, again with the voice of my own thoughts. Her eyes held mine, held me like stone, as she softly crossed the polished floor to where I stood. Her bare feet made no sound, and her hips swayed gracefully beneath the velvet. The cloak parted slightly as she walked, revealing smooth legs, white like marble, long and lithe. I knew I was being seduced – not actively, but by the nature of her being. I was graced with the attentions of a goddess. The beauty of her person demanded worship. Worship demanded sacrifice.

She stopped no more than a foot from me, and it was I who lurched as if fighting momentum; we stood in the moonlight across the room by her armchair. Her eyes left mine to roam over my body, studying me as I had studied her the past few weeks. Her eyes paused and narrowed at my belt, where my weapons hung, and a hot wave of shame washed over me and flushed my face. Had I really come to kill her, to extinguish her, to mar her beauty with a sharpened piece of wood? The belt hung like lead at my waist; I wanted to cover it, to hide it, to send it a hundred miles away. She would curse me, revile me – and rightfully so – for this blasphemy.

I lifted my eyes, and saw that she was once more gazing at my face. I am not angry. Her eyes spoke again, through the voice of my thoughts. I understand, and I forgive you. And then the belt was gone, lifted from my hips. I felt relief like joy; I felt free; she had lifted my guilt; she had accepted me and washed me clean with her forgiveness; I was not unworthy. She touched a finger to my cheek to catch an escaped tear. I worshiped her.

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Beast 05

Medusa

I never hated her.

Oh, I hated what she did, and I certainly feared what she might be able to do to me, but I never hated her.

Finding her lair was a simple enough matter: she never looked behind her that night when I followed her back to her rambling estate edging up to the woods outside of the city. She was still glutted after the attack I’d had to watch while I waited, and she was careless.

Nor did breaking and entering pose a problem: whether through arrogance or confidence, she had no significant security system.

I took no real pleasure in my job, not the way I knew some others did. Some of them cackle with glee, or hurl insults, or even derive some form of sexual gratification from doing their killing; they are the ones who hate. I simply administer justice. At times I even pity them, the ones I must kill. I am not always so sure they can help themselves. There is no joy in putting down what was once a face-licking, tail-wagging pet, though it may now be a rabid dog.

When I found her she was sitting in an over-stuffed arm chair, watching a large portrait hang in a heavy, gilded frame on the wall across from her. As I paused in the doorway, deciding between taking her quickly and quietly – by surprise – or announcing myself – allowing her the drama she deserved – she turned her head to face me. It was not a movement of surprise, nor was it slow and deliberate. Rather, it was cordial, as if I had responded to an invitation and had arrived just on time.

Welcome, she said. Rather, she didn’t say it, but her eyes spoke it clearly, and I heard it in my head – not in the soft, sultry voice I knew to be hers, but in my own voice, indistinguishable from my thoughts.

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Beast 04

She kicked down the fire escape ladder and disappeared back through the door, so, shifting my satchel to my back, I started up the rungs to the balcony. Then I paused. What was I doing? This was still the bad part of town, and an alleyway, and there was no reason to think I was any safer up there where she was than I was discussing the relative value of a quarter with the drunk man from the parking lot. She certainly hadn’t exuded much concern or friendliness. I should just go and get to my car and clean myself up when I got home.

But she wasn’t homeless, and I doubted she would rob me, or that this was some kind of set-up. What did the establishment sign beside the door say? I couldn’t read it, hanging as I was on the ladder. What was there to worry about, really? It was light up there, and with luck maybe she could show me another way around the block than through the alley.

She came back out the door and I started up the ladder again. When I was near the top, she hooked a hand under my arm and helped me to my feet. Again I paused, twisting my shoulders away from her, but this time I could not think why. She had an exceptionally firm, strong grip. I loosened my shoulders, straightened my coat, and composed myself. She took my hand in her own and turned my arm to dab at my coatsleeve with a paper towel. Her hand was cool, almost cold, and I realized for the first time how hot and sweaty my own were. I looked into her face, through the glare of the balcony light, and could see into her eyes now, the “windows to her soul”. Her eyes were large and dark, and her gaze held mine as firmly as I now realized her hand gripped mine. I felt tension build briefly, and I almost tried to pull my hand free, but that all silently slipped away, like an autumn leaf plucked from the tree by a breeze. My shoulders drooped, and some of her calm passed into me. In her eyes I saw not her soul but mine, and she was actively soothing it. She was taking control of my emotions. Her lips parted as the tendril fingers of her psyche wrapped around mine. I realized then that she was calling to me, she had been calling to me, in my mind. She was a whirlpool, a Charybdis, and I was the sailor riding inescapably into her swirl.

And when I realized that, she had me. She had me down on my back on the grate of the balcony, and she was arched over me, her teeth deep in my neck. If there was pain, I didn’t notice it, or rather it was removed, as was the cold from the steel grate biting into my naked flesh – I was already hers, and all my feeling went to her. The hungry kiss of her lips, her fingers smoothing back my hair, her leg folded around mine – I sensed these only through her. Even then, as I thought, it was from within her, a mote in the inky depths beneath the swirl.

Still, I couldn’t help but feel a bit smug. I had known, hadn’t I?

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Beast 03

By this time I’d picked my way through the refuse as far as the two dumpsters, and had begun to take soggy steps through the cardboard piled up around them. But when a rather stable-seeming box collapsed beneath my shoe and I flung my hand out toward the rim of the dumpster to catch my balance, instead of finding the cold steel I expected, my fingers closed around what was almost certainly another human hand, but cold and lifeless. I lost my composure. With a shriek that embarrassed me even then, I scrambled down the cardboard between the dumpsters, tripped on something, and landed with a great crash on my side in a pile of garbage bags, which broke open and spewed out some rather unpleasant-smelling, sticky, wet things. I had lost my satchel, and with a curse I begin pawing about to find it. The police department would be getting a call about this place in the morning – whether that was an overdosed bum or the mutilated victim of a slasher, I knew they would have to do something about it. I bumped into a garbage can and sent it to the ground with a glaringly noisy clatter. I sat down against the dumpster and rubbed my head. The ground was as wet as the boxes, but I was already filthy, and I was tired, and cursing seemed futile.

Then a door opened on the balcony above me, and a strong yellow light filled the alley. I was spotlighted like a criminal in the police department’s NightSun. A silhouetted figure stepped out onto the metal grate and looked down to me. I expected an annoyed barkeep with a handgun to mistake me for a vagrant and chase me away, but the shadowed person said nothing. It was a woman – even though she wore some long, form-concealing coat and the bright light obscured her features, I could tell by the way she leaned against the railing. I could see my satchel now – it was on the other side of me – so I grabbed it and stood, brushing the garbage off my suit.

“Sorry for the noise . . .” I raised a hand to shade my eyes and maybe see her face. “I fell.” I really was a mess – there was something disgusting slimed all over the arm of my coat. I called up again, emboldened by the heroic adrenaline in my veins, “You wouldn’t happen to have a paper towel I could borrow? My uniform . . .” I twisted my arm in the light to show off the brownish smear.

She paused, then answered, “Come up. I will take care of it.” She had a low voice, but it carried well. She had some immigrant accent I couldn’t place – from Eastern Europe, or South America, maybe. Her words sounded thick and deliberate.

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Beast 02

I should have just walked straight to my car; I could have ignored the panhandler, but he was pretty large and really seemed drunk, and I was a bit edgy. So, I casually adjusted my course to follow a walkway away from the lot, as if I hadn’t seen or heard him at all. The plan was to walk around the buildings beside the lot and come back to my car from the other side; with any luck, the man would be gone or too drunk to hear me until I locked my door. But he started toward me, yelling something angry and waving his arms, so I stepped up my pace and turned down an alleyway that led between two of the buildings.

When I looked down the alleyway, my heart sank – it was littered with the silhouettes of garbage bags and cardboard boxes, and halfway down a couple of dumpsters almost blocked the path entirely. It was too far to go to the end of the block and follow the streets, and it would have been even worse to turn around and go back through the parking lot and face that man now; beside I could still hear him yelling and sounding not too happy and maybe even getting closer. I figured that at least down the alley there would be no traps set for an unwary citizen, as not too many citizens were stupid enough to enter it. So, I picked my steps, held my satchel to my chest, and made for the far side.

It was darker than I thought once I made it a few yards into the alley, since I blocked the light from behind me. The black shapes of bags and who knows what else swarmed together in a rather threatening manner. The light from the street at the far end was my beacon of hope, and I pressed on, even when I brushed up against something that felt alive and mangy. I drove fear from my mind by concentrating on how I would congratulate myself when I got home for making it through such a gambit without fleeing in terror – maybe I’d have a wine cooler and write about this adventure in the journal I had started, dramatizing it a bit to capture the mood, of course. That drunk man had a knife or a big stick in his hand, hadn’t he? I set a brave face and squared my shoulders – this was heroism, here.

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