Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Incubus Cave
   by Nysidra
   Fantasy Erotica (MF, magic, incubus)
   Summary: Young Teresa meets an incubus in the woods, but it wants to do
more than feed on her.
   <->
   I was hungry.  My legs hurt, my feet hurt.  These were the first of many
signs (side cramp, tired, haven't recognized anything for a while) that I
have gone further than ever.  This is exactly what I wanted when I left the
house this morning.
   I pulled my bag around and pulled out a strip of purple ribbon.  Purple
meant a 'good spot' that was worth hanging out in.  This place earned the
purple because of the cave.  I climbed the nearest tree and tied my ribbon
to an old branch.
   I wanted to check it out, see if there were any wolves or bears inside,
but I didn't.  What if it had bears ...  or wolves?
   The sun cast the shadow of the tree over the path toward the cave.  I
surveyed the land around me.  I could make it back before sundown if I ran.
   That didn't propel my descent the way it should have.  I was the only
child in a house full of busy adults: grandparents, uncles, aunt, a mother
and father.  The second oldest person in the house, her uncle Bobby, was
twenty-two years older than her.
   The nearest neighbor was a ten minute walk away, and they had two
children, girls.  Almost all the neighbors had a piece of property that led
into and out of the woods.  There had been talk a couple years ago about
cutting the old stand of trees for farmland, but some group came along and
paid everyone to do nothing.
   This was the crux of my 'problem.' One adult assumed the other was
watching me, or if none of them knew where I was, they assumed I was next
door.  As a result, there were long stretches of time where no one missed
me.
   Instead of heading home, I circled the cave, inspected the ground for
tracks - human or large animal.  Old boot print, but new shoots of grass
pushed through the print.  Must have been made in winter.  Last frost was
about long enough to cause this.
   From behind the cave, I could walk right up to the top.  How far down
was that?  Seven, eight feet?  I stood up and bounced on my knees then made
the jump down.
   Oomph!  I landed hard and stood with a grimace.  Shouldn't try that
again.
   The entrance, dark, probably went pretty deep, and down into the ground.
Vines, grasses, and roots dangled over the oval entrance.
   I pulled out my torchlight, but as I had guessed, it went lower before
taking a corner.
   I wanted to go inside, and I knew better than to take a single step
closer.  Two steps back, and I turned out my light.  Going into a dark hole
alone was a dumb-girl move.
   The walk home ended up taking far less time.  I wasn't wandering back
and forth, and it seemed to be downhill from the site of my new discovery.
   Hanging the purple ribbon was my rite of Spring.  It would be my
favorite spot for the upcoming summer.  I could just feel it.
   ***
   My neighbor Alice was the first person I took to the cave.  She was
Carol's older sister.  Carol was my best friend, but she was sick and Alice
had come home for the summer.
   "You know I'm too old to hang with you right?"
   I nodded.  "I just wanted to show someone my cave.  I found after the
frost."
   "A cave?" Her brow arched and she shrugged a little.  "I want to see
this."
   I didn't think Alice would be up for the walk.  She had preferred to go
into town or stay with her cousins long before she left for college.  She
was in better shape than she looked.
   Alice brought a satchel filled with snacks and water.  I had to rely on
my ribbons to mark where to get food and water.  It was nice to have an
easy source of nutrition on the way out.  Given the convenience, I took
Alice the long way.  I didn't want anyone else to know how to get there
without me.  Good spots in the woods were like a social currency.
   "You found this all by yourself?"
   "Uh huh."
   "Wow.  I can't believe they still treat you like a stray cat."
   I shook my head and frowned at Alice.  No one ever left food out for me.
I am very capable of cooking for myself.
   "Someone needs to have a good talk with..." Alice shrugged out of her
satchel and set it on the ground.
   We had arrived at the cave, and I didn't have to say a word.  She peered
into the entrance as if squinting would give her night vision.
   "Stay here," she whispered.  "I need to look inside."
   I sat near her back and stared daggers into her back.  How dare she tell
me to stay?  What did she think she was trying to do?  Did she want to take
my spot over?  What would city folk care about a den hole?
   Good luck finding it without me.  I flicked the flowers beside my
thighs. Alice babbled about gemstones, metals, underground river systems.
Her words faded, muffled by the cave.
   I needed to lead her back a different way, make a slow semi-circle to
confuse her direction of the cave.  I pulled her satchel over and checked
for markers.  I wasn't going to let her take over my spot, have a bunch of
fools drinking and smoking in my hangout.
   I rolled my head back to check my purple ribbon.  She wouldn't notice
that unless she knew where to look.  Alice didn't live here anymore.  This
was not her woods.  Even she said she didn't come this far out when she was
'a kid.'
   It better stay that way.  My frowned deepened the more I considered the
possibilities.  I should have waited for Carol to get better.
   The passage of time didn't concern me until I had to pee.  When I
returned, I realized that we had a few hours of daylight left.
   Had Alice hurt herself?  I ran towards the cave.  I heard noises.  Once
I could make it out, about three feet from the cave entrance, I stopped
like I was about to fall into a pit.
   Alice was moaning.  It wasn't a 'I'm hurt,' moan, not a 'I'm sick' moan.
It was the kind of sound I heard when I couldn't get to sleep at night. 
The kind of moan that came from the other side of a closed bedroom door.
   This was not a house.  There wasn't a closed door.  This was the woods
and she was alone in a cave.
   I closed my eyes and listened for a while longer.  I had not misheard.
There wasn't time to misunderstand a single note.  What was wrong with her?
How could she breathe around all that racket?  Didn't she remember I was
waiting on her?
   I huffed and straightened.  Maybe she thought I couldn't hear or that I
had left her to head back home.  After all, I had been under her order to
stay put.
   But was she screaming?
   I took a step back from the cave.  Even if I went in there, what was I
going to say, do?  I kept walking backwards until her cascade of moans
muffled.  I sat on the ground, drew my knees to my chest, and sat there,
stunned, confused, and so very embarrassed.
   I should have left Alice and went home, but I didn't want to be
responsible if she got lost in the woods after dark.  I needed to get back
to familiar territory, or Alice wouldn't be the only one at risk.
   Just as I stood, Alice crawled from the cave and staggered toward me. 
She looked like a warmed over zombie: pale, sunken, dazed.  A worse look in
the weakening daylight.  Glassy eyes, lax jaw.  She stared into nothing.
   I scrambled to my feet and away from her.  She stumbled forward each
step on the verge of missing and sending her to the ground.  I moved, she
followed.  I was so scared that tears poured down my cheeks.  My throat
burned with the need to scream.
   I mostly led her home by accident.  I wanted to get away from her, get
home, and get out of the woods after dark (with a zombie).
   As we were neighbors, when the trail split she swung to the south and
shuffled her way home.
   I took off at a sprint.  My feet beat the ground so hard that I sent
twigs flying.  I wanted to yell for help and protection, but I couldn't
explain why I was so scared.  I pulled a thigh muscle.  I had a terrible
cramp in my side.  My head ached.
   I stormed into the house and took the stairs two at a time to my
bedroom.
   No one who heard me get home and hour after sunset stopped by to check
on me.  Laughter, the murmur of music, smell of food.  Elsewhere an
announcer pitched an advertisement between plays of the game.
   No one cared about me or what happened.  I didn't even know how to
explain myself if someone did.  I lay in a ball on the floor of my closet
crying into my lap.  I fell asleep in that closet, afraid that zombie Alice
would find her way to the house, walk in without anyone stopping her and
bite my neck open.
   Or worse.
   The noises Alice made played like a demented ear worm, even in my
dreams, I heard it.  When I shut my eyes, her sunken face haunted me.
   I woke that morning and rubbed my swollen eyes.  The closet door was
still shut.  I didn't hear shuffling on the other side.  I got on my hands
and knees and checked for feet.
   Nothing.
   I hurried to the bathroom and washed up, constantly checking the door
knob of the bathroom.  I waited on my bed for a knock, a phone call, a
scream, for someone to call my name.
   No one came for me all day.
   Hunger drove me from my room late that night.  I tipped down the stairs
and entered my kitchen like a thief.
   The following day I listened.  No one mentioned poor Alice, sick Alice,
or worse, departed Alice.
   My father, Kevin, had come out surgery.  He was always in surgery, out
of surgery, prepped for surgery.  His reliance on these surgeries with
long, complicated recoveries was the reason we lived here.
   It wasn't enough that they saddled my aunt and uncle to care for their
parents, now they had to help the prodigal son and his family too.  I'd
heard this too, but I haven't figured out the prodigal son part.  I thought
that was the child someone wants back.
   No one said anything about Alice.  The gossiping, arguments, and
screaming at the television bored me to tears.
   I had to know about Alice.  I walked to Carol's house.  It had been four
days since I heard that she was sick.  I had a perfectly good reason to
show up.
   A high squeal of laughter pulled me from my anxious funk.  Alice was
being chased by a young man.  She looked normal, healthy.
   I thought I had lost my sanity.  Before anyone could see me, I ran away
from Carol's house.
   I couldn't go back home.  I needed to think, to swim.  I headed for the
lake.  I ripped my clothes off and jumped into the cool water.  Only coming
up for air, I swam laps until my arms and legs ached.
   Then I made for the dock.
   "Hey, Lil' bit." Nick waved as if he'd been trying to get my attention
for a while.  "Why the stormy face?  Someone upset you?"
   I shook my head as I slicked water from my arms and legs.
   "Hold on." He stepped onto his back porch then ran over with a towel. 
"Find anything lately, young explorer?"
   I nodded before I remembered what it was.  Did he see the look of fear
on my face?  No, he was just staring at my body.  I finished drying off but
checked for leeches or cuts.  He seemed to be looking at me pretty weird.
   I handed the towel back to him and dressed.  Nick lived on the far side
of the lake and often fished from the pier.  He was like our life guard on
the lake, making sure we were safe.  Aunt Megan called him a harmless perv.
I'm beginning to expect that far away look in his eyes had a lot to do with
that remark.
   The important thing was that he'd lived on the lake a while.
   "Could I show it to you?"
   "Now?"
   I looked at the sun.  "Yes."
   I thought the walk might be hard on him, but he didn't complain.  We
talked about school, my parents - I had plenty to report given my
self-imprisonment the past few days.  My stories made him laugh, so I kept
talking and making him giggle until we reached the spot.
   "There." I pointed at the entrance, but stopped over ten feet from it.
"Have you ever been in there?"
   He walked closer, stooped at the entrance.  "Have you?"
   "No.  There might be wolves or bears or snakes." Part of me hoped there
was, not for any malicious reason.  I have never seen a wolf or a bear, but
snakes were cool, even the tiny grass snakes.  I didn't want to see one
badly enough to risk my life though.
   He crawled into the entrance, the dark seemed to swallow him.  My heart
pounded so hard I felt like my whole body moved with each pulse.
   "This might be a nice spot." He mumbled as the darkness of the cave
swallowed him.  He mumbled something else, but I couldn't quite make it
out.
   I sat on a rock about four feet from the entrance and waited.  Maybe the
air in there was poisonous, deep mining fissures.  All it took was fresh
oxygen to make a person feel better.
   That didn't explain the grunting.  Nick made a mixture of bedroom sounds
and hurting sounds.  He hyperventilated high-pitched moans.
   My skin turned cold.
   I bolted and climbed my tree with the purple ribbon and waited.
   Worried, confused, but elated.  I wasn't crazy, and I learned something
today.  Whatever happened in that cave affected male and female, young and
adult.
   Nick emerged from the cave looking much worse than Alice.  He stumbled
and fell twice as he walked away.  I followed him at a distance.  Enough to
know that he made his way back to the lake.
   Good enough for me, but I kept watching.  What if he tried walking into
the lake?
   What did I think I was going to do about that?
   I released a held breath as he stumbled around the bank toward his
house.
   ***
   I went back to the cave the next day, but I spent that day in the tree,
watching the entrance.  I waited for an animal, ghost, or slimy bulbous
creature to climb out of it.
   Nothing happened.  The birds in the next tree over provided the bulk of
my entertainment.
   I knew it was affecting people in a weird way, but I couldn't figure
how.
   ***
   The cave became my subject of research.  I became a scientist, observing
a phenomena in order to answer the growing pile of questions.
   I visited Nick two days later and watched him fish.  He seemed okay when
he saw me, but he didn't stare at me as long as usual.  He waved as if it
were any other day.  No secret in his eyes, no fear.
   Did they remember?
   I took others to the cave.  Always one at a time.  Charlotte held the
record for time in the cave.  It was dark when it released her.  The other
senior, Bridgette had the kind of voice that could break glass.  I spent
most of the time looking over my shoulder wondering what kind of attention
she'd draw.
   The screaming didn't last long.
   I convinced Jared - he graduated last year - by saying I thought there
were wolf puppies in the cave.  He crawled a few feet from the cave and
collapsed into the dirt for several minutes.
   Unless he crawled closer, I was not going to come out of my tree and
help him.  He managed it a few minutes later, and I wanted him hobble away.
   I had one more person I wanted to try.  Lisa was ten years old, four
years younger than me, and she whined for most of the walk.  I nearly
chewed my thumb off while I waited - and not in the tree.  I stood on the
rock, my ear straining as I listened for her voice, but there was only
silence.
   What was I going to do if she didn't come out?  What if she hurt
herself?
   Before my anxiety could reach critical mass, Lisa walked out, eyes
glassed over.  She walked over to me and blinked a few times.  "No," she
said in a flat voice.  "Like the last two.  Perfect."
   Lisa turned and headed home, skipping and running until she was out of
sight.  She didn't look pale or zombified, just spaced-out.
   A heavy darkness stayed with me the whole day and much of the next.  I
felt dizzier and more afraid than ever before.  I had too much evidence for
harrowing conclusions.  A sentient power in the cave sent a message to me.
   I had been at the entrance of the cavern mouth.  Why didn't I go in? 
Why didn't it grab me?
   Did it?
   Rain clouds churned overhead, but I didn't care about the forecast.  I
stood in that cavern entrance, arms folded over my chest.  The wind whipped
the leaves in the trees overhead.
   Like the last two.  Perfect.
   Over the past couple days I was supposed to reach a conclusion about
what to do next.  Never return.  Tell someone who would hunt the creature.
These were all things others people might do.  Me?
   I leaned forward.  Would it hear me from here?  Perhaps I should go
inside.
   I took a deep breath and yelled.  "Okay.  Bye." And set off for home at
my own run, trying to beat the rain.
   ***
   I managed to find someone every four or five days.  No one seemed to be
getting hurt, even if it sounded terrible.  Besides, I was curious.  As
summer marched on, I also became less afraid.
   When I didn't have a person with me, I took my reading out to the caves.
I had marked the place as my summer hangout, and it was the best hangout a
girl could have.  The thing that made people moan, scream, and left them
staggering like a zombie was my own personal pet.  It defended my hangout
from discovery.
   We only ever communicated the once, through Lisa's soft, emotionless
voice.
   Mostly, I brought it girls.  They were easy, but I soon discovered that
with a little play acting, I could get a boy to follow me.  Frank was
Michelle's older cousin.  He was always looking at me like Nick whenever I
went to her house.
   I don't know what it was about, but I played into it.  Frank grinned at
me the entire walk.  It made me a bit nervous, but I took faith in my
defender.
   Frank went inside the cave and I climbed to the bed of grass over it and
propped my head on my wrists.
   In this experiment, we test the creature's memory.  She'd told him about
Frank, that he would trap her in a corner and rub his body to hers.  That
he was always trying to look up her skirt.
   I wanted to listen close, so I positioned myself right over the edge of
the top of the entrance.
   My experiments had expanded from this spot to include my time at home
and visiting others.  I made a point to listen to people doing it.  Jenny
had a stash of video tapes with people doing it.  I went to her house and
watched that too.
   I never heard anything like what the cave did to people.  The heavy
breathing and occasional moans are nothing.  This was wilder, crazier.  It
sounded like torment and delirium, like a sickness of the mind.  Orgasmic
seizure?  That seemed close.
   My pet and I made that happen.
   I rolled onto my back and grinned.  Frank whimpered between his grunts
at first, but then he was screaming, almost crying.
   "Come inside!"
   I bolted upright from my daydreaming of Frank writhing and bleeding on
the cave floor.  Words?
   Frank's frantic, orgasmic voice begged.  "Come inside.  Please, come
inside." He screamed again, panting, grunting.  "Please, come.  Come
inside. See.  Come see me." That last word was dragged out through another
screeching orgasmic howl.
   It sounded like his inside were being twisted and turned.
   I stumbled down the hill, went to my knees and violently puked this
morning's breakfast of strawberry jam on buttered toast.  I counted to
five. No more followed.  I got to my feet and ran.
   I on the path to my house, stumbled and took a hard shoulder at the
tree. I didn't get up.  My shoulder throbbed and tears shimmered in my
ears.
   I looked at the way I came, but I knew nothing would follow.  I looked
toward my house with the same certainty that no one had seen me fall.
   I feared and hoped two equally unlikely conclusions.
   My breath slowed and I pushed myself upright with my good arm.  It was
like waking up from a nightmare, except I hadn't been asleep and it wasn't
over.  Leaning against the tree, I rolled my head and shoulders forward and
cried tears of relief.
   Laughter from the open windows of my house.  A car pulled up to join the
others.  The door opened and the visitors were welcomed with cooing sounds
and open arms.
   Was it their gaming night?
   I pulled my clothing aside to check my shoulder.  Yeah, that damp
feeling was blood.  I needed to wash that out sooner than later.  I pulled
myself to my feet and took the back way into the house.
   ***
   I had to check on Frank.
   I cared because no one would have cared about me.  I didn't want to go
missing without anyone caring to know the details of my final days.  I
washed my shoulder.  Gripped hold of the dish hook and bared down while
antiseptic bubbled in the cuts.
   Showered.  Dressed for bed.  I was tired.  I flopped on my bed, but
sleep did not come.
   I had to make sure he got home.
   I didn't sleep.  I passed out.  I woke in the middle of the night
drenched in sweat.  An upswell of drunken laughter from downstairs.  I was
either coming down with a fever or this was a physical manifestation of
dread.
   I had to give it a few days.  The closet wasn't as good a hiding place
as usual, too cramped.
   My visit to Michelle's house the next day went as hoped.  Frank was in
the pool drinking a beer.  He looked a little tired, but he was alive.
   ***
   I went to other places in the woods, past winners of the purple ribbon.
Nothing did it for me.  Rocks, climbing trees, rivers that dried in summer.
Fox holes and massive bird nests.  They weren't all that interesting.
   As greatly as I feared that thing in the cave, I could not stay away
long.
   I had no one to talk to about it, no one who I trusted with my secret. I
tried talking to Carol, but she never paid attention for more than a few
seconds.  She wanted to play stupid games like the other kids.  The older
ones wanted to watch television or go into town or find a place to drink.
   "You been on any walks in the woods lately?" Charlotte had been waiting
by the path from my house.
   "Yes." I answered automatically.  All I did was walk in the woods, I
didn't think much of it.
   "Can I walk with you?"
   "Sure.  Some place you want to go?" I set off toward the cave.
   "Any place you're going is cool.  Just want to walk."
   That's how I discovered repeats.  No one ever came out and said it. 
They hinted, sought me out.  When I looked, I could catch that far away
look, like they were seeing something in their mind.
   What else did I have to do?  Nothing of great interest.  I played the
pied piper and led them to the cave.
   I no longer got close while someone went inside.  I went up the tree,
the safest vantage and listening point, but not too close.
   ***
   Summer ended.  The college crowd left.  Homework kept the others out of
reach, but I could still find someone to go walking with me about once a
month.
   As leaves turned yellow and red in the trees, I decided to forgive my
friend for scaring the hell out of me.  I sat by the cave and talked to
him, talked out loud to myself.  I gambled by taking a few adults out.
   It didn't try talking to me again.  That helped.  I stopped worrying and
relaxed.  We were on good terms again.
   I did my homework and studying at my hangout spot.  I made it my home
away from home.
   But dark came sooner and sooner, and I couldn't visit long.
   Given my familiarity with the area, my confidence that I was invisible
and ignored by adults, I understood what happened next.
   Winter had come and gone.  The bloom of Spring had me in the woods,
itching to take a peek at the cave, to say hello.  It had been a year since
I discovered the place, four months since I last visited.  I missed my pet.
   I didn't think of it as male or female.  I wasn't even sure it was
separate from the cave.  The cave could have been a shell, holding the
entity inside like a hermit crab.
   I dreamt about it all winter.  Most nights the dreams were pedestrian,
with me being there, around it, leading people there.  Other times it was
more like a nightmare, with me getting trapped, pulled inside, caught by a
monster that wanted to kill me.
   It was a nice day out.  I sang to myself as a made the hike.  It wasn't
anything popular or from the radio, but a nonsense song to keep myself
entertained.
   "Where are you headed, young woman?"
   I spun around.  Bearded, heavyset man in black boots, overalls, and a
flannel shirt.  I knew everyone that lived in these woods, but I had never
met him.
   Regardless, my answer was automatic.  I was a few hundred feet from the
cave.  "I found this cave.  Do you want to see it?"
   His expression darkened.  I'm not sure what I said wrong, but he looked
plenty angry with me.
   I put on a huge smile to hide my nervousness.  "I think there might be
some kind of treasure in it."
   "Black-hearted, devil-worshipping little whore of evil."
   "Who?  Me?" I actually said those words, but I didn't wait for much of
an answer.  I pivoted on my back foot and ran.  He looked like violence
when he spoke.  That's the best way I could describe it, like a person who
wanted to punch me until I stopped breathing.
   "Filth like you can't be cleansed.  You sorcery will not work on me. 
I'll put you down like the demon you are!"
   For his size, he was really fast.
   I didn't know what to do.  I couldn't risk turning around to head back
home.  I went for the cave.  I twisted around trees and cleared rocks. 
When I reached the top of the hill, like a jack rabbit, I hopped.
   Michelle has a swing near her house.  Once we made a contest to see who
could jump the furthest.  I dismounted and got a fluttery feeling in my
stomach.
   That's what I felt.  I had been little then and the landing hurt, but I
took it in stride.
   It wasn't like that this time.  My knees screamed on impact and I with
them.  Branches snapped, signaling the crazy man's fast approach.
   I went to stand and my left leg hurt so much it stole my breath.
   No choice.  Like a crab, I scuttled back using both hands and my right
leg.  I shuffled into the mouth just in time.  Hopefully he'd think I kept
running.
   None such luck.
   I dragged myself out of the ray of the day's light, hoping that the
vines and darkness would hide me.
   "That's the right place for you to be." He snorted and spat on the
ground.  His feet disappeared, but only for a moment.  He came back
dragging a branch and tossed it into the entrance.  His disappeared and
reappeared a few times.
   Was he trying to bury me?
   "Go away!"
   "You are the only thing that will go away, witch."
   I screamed again, but I couldn't do much else.  My leg throbbed and my
knee felt hot as the sun.  Fear and pain fueled my growing panic.
   "Why are you doing this to me?" I sobbed the question, but inside, I
knew.  That knowledge fueled my tears.
   I sniffled and waited.  He hadn't come back with more branches.  That
didn't seem like a good job of blocking me in.  If I took my time, I could
work my way clear.
   I shuffled to the exit, pulling my dead weight along.  I scooted about
twice before he returned.
   The smell of gasoline choked me.  Scrambling as fast as I could manage,
I backed into the darkness, around the corner.  This hill went on for a
while.  Maybe I could find another exit.
   I looked all around for the tiniest hint of light, but there was only
darkness, profound darkness.  Also, it was damp.  The stones were cool to
the touch.
   The first difference I noticed was the tightening of my skin.  I brushed
my fingers along my forearm.  Every hair stood on end.
   How long before my zombified body marched into the flames?  Would the
fire die out before then?  Would I choke to death in the throes of orgasmic
lunacy?
   Something tugged on my shirt and I screamed.
   It happened again, a small tug on the back right side of my shirt.  I
pushed myself in that direction with a pained whimper.  Pain zipped up and
down my leg, but I resigned myself to my fate.
   Each time I felt a tug, I moved in that direction.  When it changed
direction, I followed.  I rolled onto my one good knee and did a
three-limbed crawl.
   It tugged on my hair instead of my shirt.
   The smell of smoke and fire faded as I inched through the dark cavern. I
made a close-mouthed grunt when I felt pressure on the back of my head, but
I followed the warning to stay low.
   I couldn't stop crying, even knowing that it seemed to be helping me. 
Pain, fear, confusion, regret.  I was losing my mind, but no so much that I
couldn't keep moving.
   I hadn't been eaten.  Other than the weird feeling on my skin, a bit
like being close to a static-charged blanket, I was still alive.  Tugs
turned into pushes on my rear.  Each touch sent me into a mild mental
panic.
   Light.  I tugged, pushed, wriggled, and dug until I was pulling my way
down a wall of vines, moving dirt and rocks and roots away with my hands,
trudging through the dirt.  My knee hurt more, not less.
   I emerged under a dead tree.  It had been struck by lightning two years
ago.  It must have fallen over finally.
   I crawled from under the charred remains of the large oak and viewed
smoke rising in the distance, quite a ways away.
   I stared in wonder at the hole and the rotted trunk.  My knee had
swollen, blood soaked the mud caked into my cuts.
   In the distance, a man's scream filled the air.  The sound put sad smile
on my face.  I didn't give my pet enough credit.
   I searched the fallen tree for a decent support branch.  Once I was on
my feet, I began the long, slog home.  I didn't have to get far.  Smoke
brought people into the woods.  As my story went, I had fallen out of a
tree when I heard the scream.
   ***
   I busted my knee.
   I spent the next couple weeks limping.  Even when I could walk, I
couldn't get far.  My recovery period gave me plenty time to think though.
   Think isn't the right word.  Review.  I assembled information.  I even
pulled out a bunch of papers and wrote down my observations, my evidence. I
stared down at the facts.
   Sentient.  Capable of communication.  Protected me.  Took others.  Gift.
   Yes, the gift.  I found a pendant in my bag, tarnished silver and molded
around a pretty red rock.
   I lay on my desk and stared at it, rolling it back and forth.  Pretty?
It was gorgeous, precious.
   That man wanted to kill me.  He had been wanted for murders all over. 
The officer said I was lucky he never saw me.
   I was lucky I went into the cave.
   ***
   When I could make the journey, I went for the cave.  I owed it some
trust.  I made sure to be more careful.  I watched my back.
   Sweating and taking frequent breaks, I cleared out the charred
entranced, nerves on fire.  Did it die trying to save me?
   No way.  I kept looking at the entrance, but saw nothing.  However, I
felt it watching.  Just beyond that layer of darkness, something was in
there.
   I had to dip inside to pull out the last branches.  I held my breath the
entire time.  Nothing happened.
   I brought my reading to the cave and sat inside the entrance.  No more
vines blocked the light.  I had swept it clean of soot and charred sticks.
We had an understanding, I supposed.
   My reading habits changed.  I found books on the brain, memory loss,
hypnotism, and psychic vampirism.  These were the closest subjects I could
find for 'thing that feeds off the energy of others.'
   That led me to studying the occult.  That man called me a witch and
accused me of sorcery.  I had hoped to find out why he wanted me dead.  I
didn't.  I can't understand what witches or sorcery had to do with me.  I
hadn't done anything.
   I closed my book and looked at the bend in the cave.  It didn't need me.
I was not a witch.  It wasn't my creation.  It could move.  That meant it
could travel.  How long had it been living in there?
   No one who visited the cave remembered anything about it, except for me.
   ***
   People started noticing me.  My powers of invisibility, coming and going
like a ghost, failed me time and time again.
   Aunt Rebecca stopped in her tracks and entered the kitchen.  She looked
me up and down.  "Hey, Lisbeth?"
   "Yeah?" My mother said from the laundry room.
   "You need to get T some clothes, hun." She said while looking at me.
   Lisbeth stepped into the kitchen and laughed.  "I'll put some clothes on
the bed for you." She giggled as she walked away chatting with Rebecca.
   I finished making my sandwich and went to look at myself in the mirror.
I never gave much thought to myself.  I ate when I was hungry.  I bathed
when I was dirty.  I slept when I was tired.  As long as I didn't linger in
one spot too long, no one bothered to notice me.
   What had I done to make them notice now?
   My clothes were too small.  That was all.  The skirt rode high on my
legs, which kept getting longer.  My shirts didn't fit anymore because my
chest kept getting bigger.  I had these two fat nipples that you could see
pretty clearly through my cotton shirt.
   Once on the way to the cave, Nick asked, 'Do you know what a bra is,
woman?'
   I knew.  I just didn't own any.  That was another thing.  No one called
me a girl anymore.  No one asked me over to play.  It bothered me a little,
but only a little.  I usually went out to the cave.
   Anyway, enough about my body.  I'd get some bigger clothes and no one
would notice me anymore.
   The rain thundering down outside didn't look to be clearing any time
soon.  I went in search of my grandmother.  I found her in bed on the third
floor of the house.  "Nan, do you know anything about a cave?"
   She pulled her oxygen mask away and her eyes roamed until they settled
on me.  "No," there was a slack in her voice, like she was sleepy.  "Don't
know about a cave." Her eyes misted over as if she wasn't in the room
anymore.
   "I could show you." I couldn't, but I wanted to know how she'd answer.
   The plastic under her creaked and she rolled her head from side to side.
"Too old to be wandering in the woods.  No more."
   That was all the proof I needed.  It had been around a long time, and
everyone that went inside got turned except me.  Did I forget about the
cave?  That couldn't be it.  I wasn't too young.  My pet accepted thirteen
and fourteen year olds with ease.
   The day it spoke through Frank's voice, 'come inside.' It had been
asking for me, to go and see him.  Did I go in and he made her forget?  No
way, the fear and torment of that day was fresh.  When other people forgot,
they really forgot.
   Plus, I had been inside.  I crawled all the way through with it touching
me, prodding me, pulling me to safety.  I sat in the entrance for weeks
after without being sucked in.
   I never put this question to it directly.  Honestly, I was afraid to
hear the answer.  I didn't want to be given a second chance.  I would not
accept.  I did not want to become a zombie.
   For the two years following, about once a month, I listened while it
used the others.  I spent my leisure time, when I could snag it, reading
and studying near the entrance.
   My family noticed me no matter what I wore.  In result, they missed me
when I wasn't around.  I took on chores, responsibilities.  I needed to
pull my weight and earn my keep.  I saw the look in the eyes of my uncles,
and I learned to avoid being alone with them.
   I grew to fear that look as much as I feared the look of violence.
   One of my uncle's got a little too bold, so I took him to the cave.  He
sounded terrible and looked ragged when the thing in the cave finished with
him, but he never did that to me again.
   I hadn't meant the visit to be revenge, and yet, I had hoped.  Perhaps I
had mentioned my disgust before, but I never said this was the man.
   Did it punish my uncle or did I imagine he had a worse fate?  I will
never be sure.
   ***
   I stooped inside the cave's entranced.  My whole body practically filled
it up.  It was only a year or two ago when I thought the entrance massive.
According to my mother, I had grown like a ragweed.  I was tall and heavy
and kind of fat.  I was not ready to be so soft and squishy.
   To the thing inside the cave, I said, "I guess it's a good thing you
never needed me.  It's been surreal, but I'm leaving now.  I'm headed to an
out of state college.  On scholarship and everything.  You ever figure
that? Anyway, I'll miss you."
   I meant that.  Even the fear and the trauma and the distant I kept,
whatever it was, it was my closest friend.
   "I cleaned the pendant you gave me." I fished it from under my blouse.
The outside was warm from being squished between my breasts.  My aunt says
I got 'knockers like your real mama.' I never learned about this real
mother.  I only saw one woman who insisted she call me that.
   The pendant hung from a strand I'd woven myself.  It was long enough to
slip over my head.  "Thank you.  It's very beautiful.  I love it.  I really
do.  I'll keep it always."
   My eyes stung so I blinked, then the wet tracks rolled down my cheeks.
Until that moment, I hadn't felt anything about leaving home.  Saying
goodbye to the cave sucker-punched me in the gut and I wept like a little
girl.
   This soul-sucking, orgasm forcing, incubus-succubus thing in the
darkness was truly my only friend.  That was depressing enough.  I had
shared and given so much, but what did I get in return, other than
terrorized?
   "Take care of yourself," I whispered as I pushed to my feet.
   Just then, well outside the entrance, I felt the hairs on my arms and
legs rise.
   I should go inside.  Say good bye in person.
   I stood rooted at the spot and let that thought echo in my head.  It was
only the one notion, a suggestion, not a compulsion or a need.
   I could.
   One small step backwards, then another.  I set each foot firm to make
sure I moved away, not one movement towards that cave.  I couldn't.  My
fear swelled to twice its normal size and swallowed me whole.
   I spent the walk home numb.  Body and mind on auto-pilot.  It wasn't
like the zombie walk.  This was a walk of misery.  I cried so hard that at
times I used my sense of sound to guide me.
   We could never be friends.  I feared it too greatly.  I felt ashamed,
weak.  It had always trusted me, even protected me.  Each time I turned my
back and walked away.
   ***
   College.  I worked my way through it, as numb and cold as the day I left
the home.  There was so much to do, learn, understand.  People were so
confusing.  Trying to talk to them was hard.  They laughed and called me
country, ignorant.  Others pointed to me and whispered things like
'corn-fed,' and 'adorable.'
   From others, they said nothing, it was in their doe-eyed look.  There
were many who didn't believe in rumors and came to her personally.  That
never went well.  I didn't know anything about popular culture: music,
movies, television, even most books.
   I had nothing in common with others.  Some children played in the woods,
but they didn't know anything about water purification or trap making. 
That was painful.
   Then there were the males.  They scared me.  I had to swallow a scream
many times in the first weeks.  It was like they latched onto me like stray
dogs wanted to be petted.
   I didn't have any place to take these people, any way to make them go
away.  My first semester was spent scared, confused, and disoriented. 
According to my counselor, my experience was normal.
   It never seemed like it.
   The upside of living on campus was that I got to listen to four years of
people in the throes of passion.  I got an earful of randy teenagers
screwing in the rooms above, below, and beside me.  Some nights I was right
in the room, lights on and everything.
   I see how it was different.  I heard how it was nothing like those
people in the cave.  It almost sounded boring in comparison.
   Knowing all this, I couldn't have the experience for myself.  I feared
sex.  I feared not knowing the difference between arousal and being drained
of my energy.
   Some couples would walk away so tired.  How did they know when to stop?
I knew all about the mechanics, the words, the actions, but that was all.
   My first attempt at a relationship ended with a dirty confrontation. 
After several months, he said I must have been molested as a child.  He
said I probably didn't remember and should try hypnotic therapy.
   Until that moment, I wasn't aware of how physically violent I was
capable of being.
   The boyfriend nonsense wasn't for me.
   Hypnosis?  Fuck that.
   ***
   By my third year, I relaxed enough to socialize properly.  I figured out
how to make friends with people.  I worked hard at my cultural education as
part of this plan.  I didn't want to spend my life as the ignorant hick.
   The trick was to have some place to go.  A purpose for interacting, a
goal to reach.
   I sought camaraderie with the occultists, but that ended the night I
shared what I had experienced.  They laughed, roared even.  Tears shimmered
on the way down a few faces at my expense.
   A joke?  I played the hand and they were hugging me and shaking my hand.
They praised my imagination and we launched into a discussion about what
works I borrowed from.
   To them, if a magic was not written in an approved book, then it wasn't
actually magic.
   Maybe some people are too busy to write.
   It gave me a very early clue that most people would not understand me
until I learned to speak their language.  I would not work that hard to
tell people my greatest fears.
   I waned to go home in the summer, but I couldn't afford the trip.  The
first years, I had to work double shifts to afford to eat.  The second
summer, I could have tried.  Now that I was used to making money, it didn't
seem like a good idea.
   Thus my triumphant graduation ended with a sorrowful discovery.  I left
home for four years and returned to discover it was destroyed.
   The area behind our houses was privately owned.  A steel fence gleamed
against high grass declared this so: No Trespassing.  Private Property.
   Beyond the grass were yellow and black trucks with lobster claws on the
front.  I took a few steps around until I could read the sign with pictures
of a suburban development.
   Fine.  Whatever.  Just as well.  It never needed me.  It would survive.
   The house was still there, but my father had died.  My aunt was
surprised to see me because my mother had left two years ago.
   I didn't need to come home to learn any of that.  I regret ever making
the trip.
   ***
   My work as an earth scientist got me a nice job with the state.  I did a
lot of traveling, hiked through a lot of trails, but I never found anything
as magical as the cave.
   My first house had a path that led to a trail.  I used the house like a
hotel, only going there to recharge for another day outdoors.  I would find
a spot, much like when I was a little girl, and listen to the trees
rustling in the evening breeze, gaze into the sky looking at the moon and
stars.
   Some nights I sobbed, cried like the pitiful, lonely woman I had become.
Nights like those I was crushed by the weight of my loneliness.  In those
moments I wished I could go back.  I had so much I wanted to tell it.
   I wanted to talk to someone who knew me, to tell it what I had become.
Maybe I hoped someone like that would be proud of me.
   "I never called you anything," I mumbled to the evening winds, above me
were a mass of stars.  "If I knew your name, I would call it.  I made the
wrong choice.  I should have gone inside.  I should have let you make me
forget."
   Every night like that was my living nightmare.
   Ah, what I had become.  Not the typical stuff, like not being a disabled
burden on the family.  No, they were plenty appreciative of that.  My
family l called whenever I forgot to send money home.
   I tried so hard to fit in, in college, to complete my social and
cultural education.  Towards that end, I created a 'goal to reach.' I found
a party or hot spot that I thought was trendy.  I reviewed movies as early
as possible and promoted the ones I thought they would like.
   When I got my state job and found this house, I started over with my
neighbors, coworkers, people in town.  It was just that easy to pick up
again.  People wanted to use their time wisely and find the best place to
go.  Very often, that gratitude paid off long down the road.
   I had so many friends that that I memorized them by categories,
attributes that helped her remember their details.  All the same, every day
was an act, every place had become a stage.  My body and my outward
personality fit me like a huge costume.
   I played the part damn well, but there were fewer chances to be
'myself.'
   Eventually, I left my state job and did what satisfied me most.  I
collected people.  We went out and saw the hottest movies, got tickets to
the finest concerts, ate at the most delicious restaurants.
   People relied on me to know these things: where to party, what to drink,
where to dance.  Minus the luxurious upbringing and trust fund, I made my
living as a socialite.  Businesses paid me to mention their name in
conversation.
   Convenient, as I also had a ground of adventurous eaters that loved
nothing better than giving a place second and third chances.  I always
called them.
   I became the pied piper of delights.  I made my best checks from clubs.
I could fill a venue and keep the party going.  I admit I love making a
living off helping other people have fun.
   Too much time alone made me restless.  Restlessness lead to
sleeplessness and self-pity.  If there were four walls around me, it meant
I was going to sleep.
   ***
   I outgrew my location and moved to the big city.  I found another place:
small, quaint, but near to nature with plenty of space for walking and
hiking.
   It took me about six months before I wasn't bleeding my savings, another
year until I was paying a bill within days of getting it.
   Tonight I worked a night club.  People were mingling, talking, milling
about.  I walked through the crowd, keeping up with everything, meeting new
people.  Playing cupid or peace keeper as needed.  Unless the host called
for a bit of chaos, I could push for that too.
   No one ever asked for chaos.  Unfortunate.  That might have been an
engaging gig.
   I went up to the balcony.  Couples swayed and hugged between kisses. 
Below, people danced and laughed.  The base of my neck tingled along the
skin.  Gooseflesh broke out along my arms.
   My hands gripped the guard rail and I scanned the room, rushing from
person to person.  I didn't know what I was looking for, but I wanted to
meet every eye until I found something that fit.
   Nothing.  I didn't see anything unusual.
   I shut my eyes.  Grasped at conversations, crowds, the whispers and
laughter, the kisses and gulps.  As the rustle of leaves with a gush of
wind, the sound of the club shifted.
   Laughter outweighed arguments, flirtatious overtones took over the mild
boredom.  An upswell of euphoria moved through the crowd like a cloud.
   I opened my eyes.  I could see the general shine of people having a good
time, no exceptions.  I went down into the crowd and said hello to people.
The glaze in their eyes could have been anything from sleepiness to
alcohol, but I didn't believe that.  I knew that look.
   "My goodness, Teresa, this place is so cool!" Angeline danced around me,
rubbing her body to mine.
   "I'm glad you're having a great time." I kissed her on the neck and
turned in a circle or two with her.  Our hips swung from side to side,
dipped low and we pressed our breasts to one another's as we stood.
   "Nights out with you are some of the best in my life."
   "You too?" Mole on his cheek, balding buzz cut, big on electronics:
David Meeks.  He winked and licked his lips at Angeline and she made starry
eyes right back at him.
   "You serious?" She said.
   "Very."
   They embraced and kissed as if they were long lost lovers.  Right there
on the dance floor, in front of me.
   People weren't just paring up, they grouped up.  It was like an airborne
ecstasy had been pumped through the ventilation system.
   I breathed deeper.  I was ready now.  I wanted to know what it was like.
I joined a group of dancers for a few minutes, move on to other people.  As
the party reached its crescendo I eased toward the wall, to get out of
people's way.  It was like frenzy of a new year's celebration on a Saturday
in Spring.
   More than a few people looked like they were going to punch any alarm
clock that sounded before noon.
   I stuck around as people left.  I helped to clean up, make sure that
people had rides.  A few people depended on me to be their safety number,
so I took that information too.
   I tried to meet, look at, touch every single person tonight and got no
sense of something magical.  Did these creatures talk to each other?  How
would one look?
   My heart broke knowing I was so close to something, anything like the
thing in the cave.  The overhead lights turned on and the last of my hope
died.  This wasn't a mystery for me to solve.
   "Hey, I'm glad you're still here." The promoter pulled me into a hug. 
He had been sweating, but he also smelled of perfume.  I hugged him back.
"Here.  Thanks.  You are a gem.  Call me if you have an opening next week?"
   "I will.  Enjoy your night."
   "You bet." He winked and ran back through the Employee Only door.
   Two hundred dollar tip on top of my fee?  I guess I didn't miss out
completely.  Might as well head home.
   "Teresa," called a male voice from the door.
   I smiled and practically bounced as I turned to face him.  I took
powerful, long strides, swinging my hips and filled my face with happy,
happy thoughts.  My stage directions were memorized and internalized. 
Everyone is My Best Friend.
   "Hey there!  You have me at an advantage," I teased.  "Where did we
meet?"
   "It was a long time ago." He extended his hand.  "Taradon."
   Firm shake, not sweaty.  Nice grip.  I liked the way his hand felt in
mine, the weight of him.
   "Taradon." I couldn't imagine forgetting his name or his attractive
face. "Did you enjoy yourself tonight?"
   "I did." He grinned, looked her over with a cool approval that I
appreciated.  He seemed refreshed, calm, happy to be looking at me.  That
was attention I felt comfortable with.  The look in his eyes was keen,
thoughts turning over in his head.  He must have arrived to the club later.
"Are you the promoter?"
   I laughed, light and sudden.  We stepped aside to give way for others to
move around them.
   "The proper term is socialite, I think.  I'm paid to match customers
with businesses, students with teachers." I should have stopped there, but
it was late, a bit of purple in the sky.  Cars were still clearing the
parking lot.  "Basically, I'm paid to have friends, makes news ones, and
keep everyone happy."
   "They teach you that in college?"
   He had me laughing again.  Did I look like I had been to college? 
Another point in his favor.  Most people thought building a business on
human interaction was something a pretty girl could do on her looks alone.
   "I studied earth sciences, so no.  Turns out I'm better at this job.  It
comes naturally to me."
   "What part?"
   No.  I hadn't had anything to drink.  Why was I hanging out behind a
club after-hours with a stranger?  Had I taken leave of my senses?  "Walk
me to my car?"
   "Can I take you to breakfast?" He pushed off the wall and followed me.
   I had a script for this one too.  It happened so often that I barely had
to remember what to do.  Soft smile, a moment to give it serious thought.
"Thank you so much, but no.  I really appreciate your offer."
   He kind of slouched and gave me this lazy smile then his cheeks flushed.
The blush looked so endearing.  I just knew he was going to try again,
reschedule, but I didn't mind him being persistent.
   "It was nice seeing you." With a curt nod, he turned and walked away.
   Over and done.  I was supposed to make my farewell, get in my car, drive
home, and pass out.
   My heart pounded in a rare show of nervousness.  I wasn't very pleased
with the script.  I could not guarantee a next time if I didn't remember
knowing him.  "Taradon?"
   "Yes?"
   "Do you have a car?"
   "Yes."
   "Follow me."
   I had to try.  Oh, I've failed so many times before, but I always try.
One more failed attempt wouldn't make a difference.  I clung to this rare
spark of hope.
   My goodness.  He didn't look like a model or a movie star.  Just,
comforting.  No, that wasn't the word.  When I looked at his face, I
thought about jumping into his arms and kissing him.
   That was just weird.
   I led him to my house in the massive secret garden.  Flowering hedges
were my fence.  A foot path wound around water features, sculptures, and
cultivated plants.  I invited him to view the garden while I went to the
back porch.  I kept an outdoor fridge with water, fruit, and bread.
   I put some water on boil and arranged our breakfast plate.
   He was still in the yard when I finished, going over the paths again. 
He would pause, look over each plant as if inspecting a fine work of art.
Given that I had created this nirvana from the plants that grew wild and
the trees from past storms, that was quite the compliment.
   Handsome male specimen, lean, graceful.  A bit of scruff on his jaw. 
Yes, quite comfortable to look at.
   I poured two cups of tea and set the fruit and bread on the table.  He
sat beside me.  We drank, ate, watched the sunrise.  There was a nice
breeze through the yard, but not too chilly.
   The birds kept up a racket, flew down to peck at the feeder.
   "How was college?" He bit into a strawberry.  He looked happy to be
sharing a plate of fruit over tea and a sunrise.
   Was that where we met?  I frowned and searched my memory, but came up
blank.  The question caught me off guard.  "Okay." I couldn't think of
anything else to say.
   "Do you have children?" He glanced toward the house.
   I nearly choked on my tea.  "No.  Um, no." I coughed and set my tea
down. "I prefer the outdoors.  I spent most of my childhood outdoors."
   "Sound adventurous."
   I hummed in assent.  He had no idea, and I wasn't eager to give him one.
Telling others about my childhood was not a mistake I made anymore.
   He finished his tea, and I lifted the pot to pour him and myself some
more.
   "Tell me about a book you read."
   Goodness this man was weird.  No wonder we were getting along.  Maybe
that's what intrigued me about him.  I could be honest about this. 
"Shadows in the Dark: Demonology in the Modern World."
   He smirked and shifted away from the sunrise to look at me.  "What did
you learn from it?"
   "I don't know if I'd call it learning.  The subject is a big interest of
mine, at least, what other people think of it.  I was pleased by this one's
more primal aspects of communicating with entities, spirits."
   He nodded, so I went on.  I told him about the book, and furthermore, he
listened.  For a moment I closed my eyes and I was back there at the cave,
talking about the book in my lap.
   I don't know if he was patronizing an eccentric woman or if his interest
was genuine, but I was thankful either way.  When I said something it was
because I felt that way, I wasn't trying to help or placate another person.
   We split the last of the tea as the sun crested the hedge.  Sleepiness
did the rest.  I saw him off, showered, and collapsed into the pitch dark
of my bedroom.  Other than helping me sleep during the day, it made me feel
like I was in the cave.  In an alternate reality where I hadn't been a
scared baby.
   I was so tired, but I lay awake a few minutes more thinking about
Taradon.  He knew far more than average.  He asked questions, got more in
depth with the subject in a way that reminded me of when I had first
started out.
   That was a good night.  I grinned in the dark, and it wasn't for anyone
but myself.
   ***
   The next night I worked a restaurant opening.  Me and my foodies got a
table and shared a delicious meal.  I was all business.  I used the
restaurant venue to set up an interview for another friend.
   During the moments of downtime, driving, washing my hands, waiting in
line - I thought of him.  I needed to get his details next time.  I could
find some great books for him to read, introduce him to different teas.  He
seemed comfortable in nature.  He might be a good addition to the camping
trip.
   Next weekend: Different club, different music scene.  The DJ played high
tempo dance tunes.  Even so, the gooseflesh began around 11pm.  I rubbed my
arms and looked around, waited.  The changes were so slow.  I didn't bother
asking if anyone felt it.  All they felt was content.
   It pained me to see evidence of such happiness around me.  I never knew
that kind of joy, that abandon.  I got close, smiling, happy, excited. 
These people didn't look excited, they seemed elated, enraptured.
   "Teresa!  Dance with me, baby," an inebriated acquainted beckoned.  He
draped his arms around me.
   I didn't bother to recognize his face.  I don't know if he was slurring
from alcohol or the stuff in the air.  I swayed from side to side with him
draped over my back.  He switched to another woman, and I made my exit.
   Oh, two women.  His eyes rolled toward the ceiling as their hands
caressed him.
   Jealousy bubbled up and stung the back of my throat.  I needed fresh
air. I weaved through the ecstatic crowd and out the rear door.
   No one would notice.  Someone else had them well in hand.
   My bitter twinge of resentment deepened and doubled back into a heavy
cramp of anger.  What in the hell was happening in there?  I looked
skyward. The anger burned hot and quick, leaving a low melancholy in its
wake.
   "You seem to be the only one not having fun."
   I didn't look down.  I was good with voices.  Taradon had been here
after all.  Did he just arrive?  "I am immune to fun."
   Damn.  I hope he didn't take that as a challenge.  That was the last
thing I needed.
   He leaned on the wall beside me.  He was about six foot one or two, a
little taller than me.  He was looking up at the stars as well.
   The shirt hugged the curve of his pectoral.  Not too hard, not too soft,
just right to use as a pillow.  I sighed heavily.  "How many of my events,
um, I mean ...  How many times have we met?"
   "This is the third time.  You should become a promoter.  Showing up
wouldn't be so much like stalking."
   I laughed.  "Right.  I forgot to get your number when we met." I pulled
out my phone and handed it to him.  "It's easier if I can invite you."
   He typed on the phone.  "You have five new messages."
   "I check it between gigs.  I can't be everywhere at once."
   He handed my phone back and leaned closer.  My belly fluttered with the
first breath that touched my ear.  The last time I felt that weightless
shift I had been listening to thing in the cave feed.
   He said, "I would like for you to come inside with me." He turned and
walked away.
   I followed like I was tethered.  I couldn't think long enough to do
anything other than my first impulse.  Those words.  It was like a weird
'de ja vu.' I always paid attention when someone said 'come inside.'
   That's a lot, and yet, I haven't gotten over it.
   I didn't have a panic attack.  I didn't hold my breath waiting for an
unseen monster to grab me by my ankles.  He took my hand and led me to the
center of the dance floor.
   Taradon pulled me into his arms, wrapped me in his firm embrace and we
danced while the club was swept away on its elated energy.
   Yes.  I hypothesized that the two were related.  The goosebumps, the
strange heightened euphoria, the butterflies in my belly, and Taradon.  He
had been to three of my events.  No, just the two.  We'd met ...  where?
   My own need to think things to death exhausted me.  I leaned on his
chest, yes, it was a nice spot, and stared out as people stayed on the
dance floor through exhaustion.  People went another round when they should
have stopped.
   He was attractive, I liked him.  The fact that I rarely felt attraction,
sexual or otherwise, was a result of my defective personality.
   But what if it were true?  What if the thing in the cave wasn't a
monster or an entity?  What if it could be male and look human?
   What was I going to do?  Excuse me, Taradon, are you an incubus?  Did we
meet underground?
   'It was a long time ago.'
   He'd said that too.  I stared at the chain around his neck.  While
dancing, I moved my hand around and felt the pendant on his chest.  Would
it be like the one I was given?  Was that their secret code?
   Or a normal piece of jewelry.  I had one, after all, and that meant
nothing about me.
   He wasn't affected by the euphoria in the room.  Each time his eyes
appeared crystal clear, lucid.  He would lean down, but not kiss me.  We
stared at each other and I would grin.  I don't know why, but he made me
feel ...  airy.
   It's a matter of simple, normal physical attraction.  But for me, it was
a rare and unique experience.  Finally, I had a taste of that basic human
desire.  Or was I pretending to feel this way?
   My nerves fueled more thoughts like that, and my poor mind spun a mile a
minute trying to explain every foolish notion.
   Taradon danced with me, made it so easy to relax, but I couldn't.
   I stepped back from him, but his hand held mine.  I waited, but he
didn't let it go and I didn't want to pull my hand back, so I wrapped it
around his and tugged.
   We stepped outside.
   "I want to go back to my place." I knew exactly what that sounded like.
I can't say whether I was thinking about taking the plunge or not, but I
needed to get some place where I didn't have hundreds of eyes on me, some
place quiet.
   I never took any of my friends home.  I had a few dates managed to get
inside my previous house, but at least those had been dates.
   Regardless, it had been a while.  Books upon books lay on shelves,
tables beside chairs, the kitchen counter.  A half-finished puzzle covered
the floor under the window.  I snatched up half empty glasses of water and
put them in the sink.  Dog-eared magazines lay on the kitchen table.  I
picked up the ones on the floor.
   I didn't think much of my surroundings.  I was learning to accept my
loneliness.
   Taradon inspected my house with the same keen scrutiny he gave to my
yard.  I kicked off my heels and curled up on the couch.  One two many
blankets on it though.  I folded one while he browsed my bookshelf.
   No snide comments, no questions.  Something about him had me off
balance. He seemed athletic, graceful, but a smart dresser, clean.
   "What piqued your interest in the occult." He sat on the opposite end of
my couch and unfurled like a large cat.
   "Something I discovered when I was little." That I had said even that
much put me ill at ease.
   "Something?"
   "I don't talk about it." I snapped.  The charming socialite was gone. 
Confused, scared, and anxious, I searched for a tactful way to kick him
out.
   "Never?"
   I took a breath.  He hadn't done anything to deserve my nastiness. 
Plenty of people openly discussed their childhood.  "I used to, but the
laughter shut me up."
   "Previous lovers?"
   It must have been the look I gave him.  I'm not sure what it looked
like, but I wanted to gut him with a sharp blade.  Previous?  How could
there be a previous when I never had the one?!
   He looked down at his hands, scratched the back of one knuckle.  I don't
think I made him uncomfortable.  He pretended as if he hadn't said a word.
   Good.  I had a questions.  "When and where did we meet?"
   He smiled, but didn't look up.  "I gave you a gift.  You said you'd keep
it always."
   I didn't move.  My body had frozen to the couch.  I breathed, my heart
ticked, time passed, but I had frozen.  When else had that happened in my
life?  As hard as I thought, I only knew of one time.
   I fished into the the collar of my dress and tugged on the silver chain.
I had taken meticulous care of it, polishing the silver with tiny brushes,
cleaning the dark red rough gem underneath.  It looked like a nickel-sized
garnet, if garnets were something you pulled from a pick-and-mix stand.
   I crawled to his end of the couch, holding it out.
   "Have you had it valued?"
   "No.  It has tremendous value already." Why would he ask that?  "Why?"
   "You went to college for the earth sciences."
   "It's not like that.  I could have tested it, but this was a gift.  I
don't want to know what it is.  It's beautiful.  It's one of a kind because
it was mine." I stuffed the pendant down my shirt.  How was this a prank?
What had I said in college?
   He lifted his shirt overhead.  His lean muscled build brought baseball
and swimmers to mind.  His warm color darkened under the curls of dark
hair. His nipples were so dark.  I didn't expect that.
   I blinked a few times.  What in the hell just happened?
   I regained a semblance of sanity, but kept staring.  He had on some kind
of pendant as well.  I leaned closer and lifted it.  Woven strips of black,
red, purple, white, and orange.  It was all very tedious macrame.  The
texture and colors reminded me of my tracking ribbons.  Black for caution,
red for food, blue for water, purple for hangout, white for viewpoint.
   "Where did you get this?" I ran my thumb over the patchwork.  The
details of the weaving created a perfect mesh for the dark stone inside.
   "I made it to replace the one I gave away."
   I let the disk fall to his chest and eased away.  He was telling a
fantastic lie or the horrifying truth.  Why?  What did he want?  To impress
me?  When did I tell someone about my pendant?
   The fridge kicked off.  I don't know how much time passed.  Maybe I
imagined it.  I snuck a look at his chest.  I couldn't make excuses while
looking at netting made from my tracking ribbons.
   Anyone could buy a ribbon.  That I assumed they had been mine was
foolish.
   I stood and brushed my hands down my lap.  "You're welcome to stay the
night if you want.  I'll be in my room.  Lock the door on your way out."
   I chanced a last look and paused in my retreat.  He looked so
uncomfortable, so hurt.  Was he really so dejected that I didn't buy his
story?
   The muscles of his face tensed as if he were upset.  "I gave it to you,
Teresa.  You hurt your knee.  You were bleeding." He pointed to my left
leg. "You entered the cave as a last resort.  It was me or the fire.
   I deflated and plopped onto the couch.  It was that or fall on my ass.
   "I hated to see you in such pain, such distress, but I knew I could get
you out.  I wanted to keep you.  You don't understand how much I wanted
that, but I fought my selfish desire and led you out.  I gave you my ruby.
I knew I could find you if you kept it." He leaned and reached for me, but
stopped short of my thigh.  "When you started harnessing your gift, I
thought it would be a good time to see you.  I felt like you were looking
for me.  I've missed you."
   Did he forget how he said he wanted to keep me?  Never let me go?  Did
that mean he wanted to turn me into something worse than a zombie?  Why was
fate so cruel?  The one man I had felt attraction to had a mountain of
evidence that he wasn't a man at all.
   Deep breath.  Focus.  Make sure he's not lying.  "What were you doing in
there?"
   "Hiding.  Sleeping.  I have a few places where I lay low.  Literally, as
fas as the cave."
   I grinned.
   "It's a good stop, not too many people, enough to hibernate a while.  I
could get what I needed a few times a year.  I've nearly been killed," he
furrowed his brow a moment, "five times.  I'm not a fan of death.  I prefer
to avoid it."
   A few times a year.  "And then this girl came along herding lambs to
slaughter."
   "I had no idea you were so young, not really." He moved with a smooth
grace, like a snake strike in slow motion.  He put his arm around me and
pulled me to his bare chest.  He whispered in my ear, "I missed you so
much."
   Dead things in my body were suddenly warm and tingling.
   He brushed his finger over the chain resting on the swell of my breast.
"You wear this.  You are my Mistress." He kissed me on my neck, soft press
of his lips and he sighed.
   All the craziness aside, I was a shitty mistress to have.  "Taradon," I
said as if trying to calm a dog that could turn rabid any moment. 
Considering what I had seen him do to others, it was a smart approach.  "I
don't understand what you want with me, but I probably can't give it to
you. I'm damaged." I bit down on the inside of my lip.
   He shifted until he was resting on my shoulder, lying between my open
legs.  I didn't want him to get up.  I liked having his weight and warmth
bearing down on me.  I had tried to write my childhood off as a story I
made up, an imaginary friend.
   Taradon took a sudden breath as if waking from a nap, pushed forward,
and kissed me.  My tongue danced with his and it never felt awkward or
practiced.  I pulled back with swollen lips and a numb jaw.  He stared down
at me with gorgeous greenish-brown eyes.
   I had never felt this arousal.  My panties were soaking wet, my clitoris
felt so swollen and needy that it burned.  I had never enjoyed kissing, but
I had my tongue deep in his mouth.  Once I panicked when someone touched me
in an intimate way.
   His hand snaked under my dress.  His thumb rubbed my hip and I rolled my
hips to press to his reaction.
   "I haven't been able to have a sexual relationship.  I get panic attacks
when anyone touches me."
   "I'm touching you."
   "That's what what I'm trying to say."
   He grinned.  "No one has been here before me."
   Yes, that was the point.
   He started kissing me again and I heard something I had never heard
before.  He moaned and it wasn't that machismo, 'yeah, baby' or that primal
grunt I'd heard plenty of from other beds.  It was low, soft, meant only
for my ears.
   How could I give so easily into something that frightened me?  Something
that fed off other people?  What if that's what he finally achieved with
me? I struggled under him, pushed on his shoulders.
   "Teresa, let me show you."
   "Show me what?"
   He reached for the zipper of my dress and I leaned into him.  I closed
my eyes while the air cooled my back.  He undressed me one article at a
time, and damn myself, I was wary of each movement, waiting for him to do
something wrong.
   "Spread your legs."
   When I did he eased down the couch, half off it himself and spread my
outer labia open.  His finger smoothed up and down my wet inner labia, then
he spread those.  I took a breath and held it, wondering what he saw there,
how he viewed me.
   The cool tip of his tongue darted out, flicked under my clitoris.  I bit
down on my bottom lip.
   I rolled forward, spread my legs wider.  "Keep doing that."
   For a while, he did, but the enjoyment was short-lived.  I had moaned,
high, breathless, wanting him to take me.
   That's when I stopped cold.
   He stood and undressed, perched on the arm of the couch between my
spread legs.
   He wasn't the first man I had seen naked.  I've seen my fair share of
the male anatomy.  I even played host to an orgy hoping that would be a
curative.  No sight quite effected me like his.  I drew my legs together,
sat up and cupped his heavy balls.  The soft dark hairs felt softer that I
expected, like the hair on a baby's head.
   His breath turned heavy and deep while my hands explored.
   Taradon leaned forward and whispered in my ear, "Please put me inside
you."
   Oh, I have been begged before.  Men have been throwing themselves and on
me to no effect.  Not this one.  I leaned back and he eased onto the couch
with me.  We entered a coordinated dance that required no spoken direction.
   I had him sit on the couch, his hips at the end.  I straddled him, my
knees on either side of his body.  I paused and luxuriated in the sensation
of my nipples to his chest.
   This wasn't a man.
   He was at this moment.  I kissed him on the neck as the head of his dick
pressed to my pussy.  All I had to do was sit down.  I knew the mechanics,
that it might go easiest for me in this position.
   "Lean toward me," he whispered, then placed a firm hand to the small of
my back.
   Whatever we were doing, whatever this was, it wasn't scary or frantic at
all.  I leaned forward and rocked back, worked him inside me one bounce at
a time.  Wow, talk about an oil slick.  My arousal poured over the
underside of my clitoris.
   I looked up and my eyes fluttered shut as I leaned in to kiss him again.
My sore lips and jaw muscles didn't matter.  I whimpered through the pain
as he spread me open.  For a moment there was more discomfort than less,
but I was so happy it was him, or the fantasy of him.
   I was not sold on my sanity at this point.  My hips seated on his and
then I rocked my hips up and down.  Slowly at first, but when I got
comfortable, I found a rhythm I liked.
   Untried hours ago, but I got greedy like a bitch in heat.
   Tears welled in my eyes.  Confused and happy, feeling things I had never
felt, and I wasn't sure other people felt at all.  I was overwhelmed with
love, peace, and connectedness.  There were noises, high, low, warbling,
but it was so quiet.  Not the kind of sound that would carry well beyond a
cave entrance.
   My legs got tired and I sat there: panting, sweat pouring down my face
and pooling between my breasts.  I needed more practice with these
movements.
   "May I drive?" He pulled me down, my head beside his.  His voice sounded
thicker, his lips tickled my neck.
   My stomach did a freewheeling somersault.  Did I?  "Yes." My voice
cracked.
   "It will be different, Teresa." He tucked his arm around my lower back
and turned until I was under him.
   "Wait!" I pushed on his shoulders.  Goodness, he was a great specimen of
human male, but he was more than that, a creature of magic.  My pet.
   "My bedroom is at the left end of the hall."
   I grinned as he lifted me, one hand under my butt, the other around my
shoulders.  I had plenty of meat on my big bones, but I felt light as a
feather in his arms.
   The only light was the one from the hallway.  Ah yes, the bedroom of
darkness.  "Can you see?"
   "Very well." He kicked the door shut and my back unfurled on the bed.
   He eased back into me and my arms curled around his back.  Witch,
sorcerer, consorts with devils.  I had a private grin.  I didn't understand
then, but I understood now.
   "Please, Taradon, I want to ...  I want you to come inside me."
   He chuckled and groaned and sighed.  "I can do this all night."
   "I know."
   His chin rubbed back and forth along my nipple.  "Not yet, you don't."
He changed his strokes, slow and long, pulling almost out and going all the
way back in, over and over.  I raked my nails down his back.
   He growled and bucked harder into me.  "Don't be scared."
   "I won't be." I panted.  Yes, I was a little scared, but not so much
that I was going to stop.
   "I want to hear you scream." He grabbed my hips and I knew this pace. 
Fast, hard, smacking bodies.  I kind of curled sideways and then I
exploded.
   I screamed.  Bright pinpoints of light exploded behind my eyelids. 
Everything was cranked to a million, body and soul.  I shuddered, mumbled
nonsense, and chased my breath.  Taradon fucked me right through it.
   I gulped for breath like I had been running for my life.  I clung to his
slick, muscled back as if he were my savior instead of my sole nightmare.
Sweat soaked the sheets under us as he softened inside me.
   I pressed my ear to his chest and listened to the thunder of his heart,
the purr of his lungs.  My ever thinking brain took the first opportunity
to make conjectures.
   As I breathed normally several realizations washed over me.  I was not
tired.  I remembered.  Yes, I screamed, but it was a bit of noise, not the
repetitive screech I recalled from childhood.  What I had just experienced
was different, unique.
   I touched him.  Sweat on his skin.  Tiny hairs on his chest.  I pushed
slightly, and he rolled onto his back.  Did he always have this body? 
Well, no, that didn't seem possible.  All the same, it was a nice body to
have.
   Between his legs, his limp cock felt sticky and wet.  I'd never handled
a post-sex penis before.  His balls were covered in soft, long dark hairs.
I rested my head on his thigh.  He spread his legs open for me.  He smelled
of the mixture of our sexual fluids, tart, acrid, and savory.
   I angled the tip of his penis to my mouth, circled his foreskin with my
tongue.  He thickened in my hand, so I continued.  When he fully stiffened,
I took his head into my mouth, sucked him deep.  He had a lot to work with,
but I remained steadfast to my task.  I used one hand to support myself and
used the other to fist his shaft.
   He tugged on my thigh, so I swung around until I straddled his chest. 
When he lapped at my pussy, I swooned.  We shifted and ended up on our
sides.  I'm not sure either one of us were rushing toward any goal.  I
sucked on him while he licked me.
   Before long, my jaws muscles turned sore, and I lay on lap, holding him
in my mouth.  He had intoxicated me, but not in a way I did not enjoy.  I
was adrift on a low level of euphoria.
   I wanted him, not an it, a male, and I wanted him to want me back.  I
fought my dizzying lust and concentrated on the daunting task in my hand,
but failed again.  He proved so much better at arousing me.  I could do no
more than ride the wave as it crested.  I soared and soared, then I was in
free fall.
   Taradon rolled onto me and thrust into my mouth.  I swallowed around his
head, gasped for air.  He pulled out, then trust back inside.  All I had to
do was keep my mouth open and work my tongue a little.
   His growl started low in throat, in time with the shallow thrusts of his
cock into my throat.  When he ejaculated, he swelled and emptied into my
mouth.  I sucked and took as much of him into my body as I could.  I
thought my heart would stop, that my muscles might give up, but I allowed
him deeper into my throat, into my soul.
   He grunted and jerked as he emptied his load into my mouth.  He was
still pumping away when I reached my climax.  We entered an unbroken circle
of orgasms that only faded in intensity before leading into the next.
   I lay on his hip, panting as he lapped and kissed my pussy.
   That last orgasm had been the one I feared having my whole life.  Yet
here I was, floating, not quite a zombie, not yet.
   I loved it.  I snuggled next to him.  I was tired, but not drained.  My
whole body felt relaxed.  After shocks rolled through my body like fast
moving waves.  He kissed me on the forehead, caressed by neck.
   "What are you?"
   He penetrated me, a slow, but continuous entry.  "A creature of magic,
feeding on the energy of others." He punctuated his words with a deeper
thrust.  "Long lived, powerful, but alone."
   Okay, I had my answer.  That it sounded mad wasn't on the forefront of
my mine.  I kissed him as my hips quivered.  He rolled me onto my back and
worked his way deep, slow and lazy like.
   "I think I'm good now." I arched my hips forward, widened my thighs.  I
wanted him; I wanted more.  I needed the next orgasm, ached for its
singularity.
   I froze.
   What was I doing?  Didn't I hear him?  He was some kind of monster.  Why
was I letting him use me?
   Taradon made a shushing sound then kissed my lips.  "You are safe with
me, Mistress.  Don't you know that by now?  I want to feel you orgasm while
wet, warm, and throbbing around me.  I want to empty myself into you." He
warmed me with another one of his long, deep kisses.  "I want you just as
much.  I need you."
   What sense would it make to stop now?  I mean, even if I were a zombie
tomorrow, the effects would not last forever.  I relaxed and let his words
seduce me.
   "Taradon?"
   "Yes, Teresa?"
   "I don't want you to stop.  I want to feel you come inside me."
   He thrust a bit deeper, slammed into my body a little harder each time.
The intensity of my feelings for him could not be normal.  It must have
been his sexual charisma, oh, and the orgasms.  All of it acted on me like
a drug, a mood enhancer.
   He fucked me, found a spot within me that wound me tight and shot me
toward the clouds.  I panted and whined and begged.  I could barely catch
my breath.  He was going to kill me, and I wouldn't put up the slightest
fight.
   "I've got you," he twisted my left nipple, sending spiked pleasure down
my belly.  "Relax and experience it."
   I gulped for one breath after another.  Experience.  I would never
forget this keen longing.  "I want you."
   "Fuck yes," he groaned.  "I feel it.  I'm here.  Take me." He thrust all
the way in, then slid out, each round he moved slower.  "I've waited so
long to fuck you." His voice sounded strained.
   I clamped my arm and legs around him as the violent shuddering began.  I
thought I pulled a muscle or sprained something, but I just held onto him.
I held onto the faith that he knew what was happening, that he cared.
   With a gasp, I leveled out.  My vision cleared.  I could finally make a
word around my pants for breath.  It was like the high without the
overdose. Like ice skating on the edge of danger and finishing with a
perfect ten.
   He settled beside me, out bodies soaked with sweat, legs tangled.  The
smell of sex was thick in the room.
   He chuckled into his pillow.  It was a low sound, dark.  I pecked him on
the cheek, to kiss him goodnight.  His cheek felt different.  I kissed him
again on the lips.  Different mouth, different jaw.  Sharp nails whispered
down my shoulder.
   Yes, that's right.  A creature.
   ***
   I woke in my dark bedroom and walked to my bathroom.  My habitual
process didn't require wakefulness.  I used the toiled, brushed, washed,
moisturized, accentuated.  While applying my make up I frowned at my
reflection.
   What in the fuck was I doing?  What had I done?  Had it been a dream?
   I grabbed my arms, wiggled my legs.  I leaned closer to the mirror.  My
muscles were a bit sore, but I looked gorgeous.  Today was even going to be
a good hair day.
   Nothing in my bedroom.  No one in the living room.
   I went about my day.  I had work to do, after all.
   When I stopped for a meal, it was king sized.  I went to a diner and
ordered triple eggs, sausages, toast, and a side of pancakes with apple
glaze.  I wolfed it down and went about my errands.  The day passed with
ease.  Nothing got on my nerves, I found delight in everything.
   When I got home I slipped into my bed, both content and concerned.  I
wanted to see him again, but I really needed some good sleep.
   ***
   Warm fingers smoothed my hair.
   I knew it was Taradon as easily as I knew that he could be equally as
threatening and harmful.  How long had he been in bed with me?
   "I want you to bring me someone," he kissed me on the temple.  "I'll
show you how I feed."
   Someone?  I wouldn't bring them to my house.
   "Okay." I understood his reasoning.  I needed to know how it was
different.  I had heard him with plenty people, but I never saw it.  The
fear of hearing it was enough though.  "Why?"
   "I want you to relax when I touch you." He eased down, sucked on the
lobe of my ear, scraped it with his teeth.  "I want to do things to you
that make you scream until your throat hurts.  When I do, I want you to
know how different an experience it will be."
   Until my throat hurt?  I squirmed in equal parts uncertainly and
curiosity.  He didn't move, so I did.  I rolled him onto his back, lightly
massaged his muscular arms.  I worked my way down his body until I hand his
thighs in my hands.  I cupped his balls, stroked his semi-hard cock.
   When I straddled him and took him inside me, I felt like a queen, a
goddess.  I was twenty-seven years old and I had a lot of time to make up
for.  I rocked against him, making every stroke just the way I wanted it.
My moans filled the room.
   This is different.  I didn't know how yet, but I reminded myself that I
wasn't a zombie, and I could stop any time I wanted.
   His hands rested on my hips, but occasionally his nails grazed my back
and ass.
   Not only did I not want to stop, I wanted more, but I tempered my surge
of greed.  I rode him with smooth, steady strokes, even when I felt close
to climaxing.  I didn't rush toward my orgasm.
   I thought back to him calling my Mistress.  I wanted to hear that again.
I liked the way it made me feel.  I shuddered each time I sank on him. 
Like a freight train in the distance, steady, unstoppable, my orgasm
overtook him.  I braced on his shoulders for support as I rode the feeling
out.
   As my climax subsided, he bucked into me, insistent and quick.  I pulled
one of his hands up to my mouth and bit down on his finger, sucked the
knuckle into my mouth.  And it was like fireworks.  Neither one of us made
a sound.  Our bodies just seized and trembled against one another.
   I leaned down over his chest and found his lips in the dark.  My tongue
played over his lips, licking him.  "I want more," I moaned.
   "Use me, Mistress.  Use me for your pleasure."
   I giggled and nipped at his cheek.  After a soft sigh of satisfaction, I
bit him again, lower, on his neck.  I moved down to his chest, placing
little bites until I got to his nipples.  I tongued and sucked on them as
if I could gain nourishment from the action.  I pulled one between my
teeth, first softly, and then again with more pressure.
   I kissed and nibbled my way down his body, down to his shaft.  He was
hard by the time I got there.  I bit him on the inside of his thigh, then
on the inside of the other.  Each time I moved a little closer to his
groin. I rubbed my nose in his balls and then took his shaft between my
teeth, I didn't bare down.  No, I didn't do that until I put him in my
mouth.  I drug my teeth up to the head, but I wondered if maybe that was
uncomfortable for him.
   My pleasure.
   I kissed the tip, flicked my tongue in the drop of liquid.  So
delicious.
   "What do you need, Mistress?"
   Yes, I adored that word on his lips.  I chuckled and pulled away from
him, rolled out of the bed.  It was dark in the room, but I knew my way.  I
spread my legs and leaned on the wall, my round ass up turned and begging.
I wanted him to fuck me while I stood, using the wall to brace myself.  I'd
seen a couple fucking like this once.  He had his fingers between her legs
and she looked enraptured.
   His arm wrapped around my waist, his legs were perfectly positioned
behind mine.  "Finish telling me," he whispered.
   I didn't think much on his statement.  I thought back to the couple, his
fingers busy between her legs, the way he fucked her, the way she was lost
to him.
   He entered me.  I was so wet and swollen, he never had to pull out.  He
just slid in, and two of his fingers circled my clitoris.  It was more like
making love standing up, the way he did it, and I liked his interpretation
better than my memory.  Tears rolled down my cheeks they hit the floor.
   So very, very lonely.  Was it going to be that way when he left?
   He pulled out suddenly and I gasped as he spun me around, pinned me to
the wall, and entered me again.  His cheek brushed against mine and I knew
all that moisture wasn't from me.  "Being inside you is perfection."
   It wasn't so much the words.  It was that thick, low inhuman voice that
spoke them.  The reverence in that growl, the way I was suspended in the
air, held by his weight and his power.  I started crying, for real, sobbing
while he fucked me.
   He held me, carried me back to the bed and we lay there in each others
arms.
   Perfectly crazy.
   ***
   Finding someone else was easy.  That was my calling, finding people, but
it couldn't be just anyone.  I needed someone who would be on autopilot for
a while.  I knew that whatever he did caused that person to be drained,
tired.  He'd been exposed before and I didn't want him to get in trouble
because of me.
   I couldn't bring anyone into my home.  That was just common sense.
   Denise and her partner Candice had been eager to have a dinner date with
me.  That was too small and too intimate a venue for me, but for Taradon,
it would be perfect.  I asked if I could bring a friend.  Denise and
Candice seemed a little disappointed, but accepted.
   They had a lovely home, set apart of the other houses, and it was just
going to be the four of us for tonight.  It was the perfect set up.
   I pulled up to Denise's house with Taradon.  My nerves were shot.  I
felt like a drawn string the whole evening.  I wondered how the women would
react to my friend.  I never said it was a male and I know that the pair of
women liked me.  I'd cultivated them under the pretense that I might like
being with the both of them.
   More than that, I feared what I would see.  I knew what it would sound
like already.  I could never forget those sounds.
   "Hello, Teresa," Candice answered the door.  "Denise is out back, and
hello," she smiled coyly as Teresa introduced him.  Candice didn't seem to
mind his presence at all.
   "You keep such handsome company," Candice whispered to Teresa with a
girlish gush.
   Taradon was as charming and enigmatic as the day he approached me. 
While I was a bundle of nerves, he was lax, comfortable, at ease.  Denise
was as taken by him as Candice.  The two women were fascinated, enraptured,
hung on his every word.
   At first that put me at ease, but the two of them never let up.  They
were practically drooling over their eagerness to learn more about him. 
That was all right for the first hour, but then it started to irritate me.
   After dinner we retired to the lounge.  Denice and Candice were showing
off their home theatre.  For living in a cave, Taradon didn't miss a beat,
he asked them all the right questions and dropped just the right amount of
knowledge to impress them.
   I flopped on the couch and fumed as I watched the two of them compete
for his attention and approval.  Weren't these women lesbians?  I looked
down.  Goodness, I was actually pouting like a toddler.  I rolled my eyes
up to the ceiling.  Why should I care?  Why did I care?  This was stupid.
   I snapped my eyes back down when I heard a moan.  Candice had her hand
under Denise's skirt.
   And where was Taradon?  I sat up and looked around.  He had his arms
folded over his chest, eyes closed, shoulders slumped, leaning against the
wall behind me.  He wasn't touching them and they had become oblivious.  I
checked his jeans.  He wasn't even aroused, not even half staff.
   The women undressed and writhed against each other as if desperate to be
naked.  Their moans echoed off one another and they went to the floor in a
torrent of violent ecstasy.  The same overwhelming moans rose and fell
without end.  It was dizzying listening to them both, frightening,
harrowing, watching the color seep from them with each successive orgasm.
It was as if each release sapped the life from them.
   I looked back to Taradon.  His skin looked flush as if he were sitting
in a sauna.
   I knew from experience that this could go on for several hours.  Though
I knew the experience was draining them, they also seemed so enraptured,
caught up, high on whatever he was doing.
   I don't know why it made me so angry, why their impossible cries of
orgasm did nothing but further grate my nerves.
   Candice and her petite frame twisted with lust just in front of Denise.
They weren't fucking or doing anything to each other.  Whatever was
happening to them was taking place in their heads.  I didn't want to hear
it.  For the moment, I directed all my irritation on Candice and she
moaned, but right there at the end there was a hesitancy, a trip from 'this
is bliss' to 'ow, wait, stop.'
   I perked up, leaned forward curiously.  Pain?  My heart beat a galloping
rhythm as I focused on the memory of that sound.  She'd yelped as if she
were being burned, as if Denise had bit her, and I felt a spark of heat in
my spine.  That sounds as if it were painful, but really it was more
effervescent, relaxing.
   This time I looked at Denise pushed a little of my sudden hatred onto
her.
   She jumped and cried out as if she'd been smacked.
   "Careful," Taradon climbed over the back of the couch and put his arms
and legs around me.  He sighed against the back of my neck and situated his
hands at my stomach.
   Careful, he said.  Not, stop.  Not, what are you doing.
   Careful.
   Candice balled into a fetal position and groaned low, she whimpered and
then...
   My head fell forward.  I blacked out or my eyes closed, but there was
darkness and I let the electrical storm in my brain pass.  I can't say
exactly it felt like a roller coaster, but maybe what it would feel like if
the roller coaster crested the highest hill and went off the tracks.  That
elation of rising and rising and racing at a high speed without the wind
and the rain.  Rush.  Pure rush.
   I gasped.  My lungs burned and still I was flying.
   "Remember to breathe."
   I drew one shuddered breath after another.  He sat behind me, holding
me, keeping me steady.  Until I could see again, sort of.  Everything
looked blurred, like I couldn't focus.  I didn't need to see.  I only had
one question to ask.  "Have I upset you?"
   "No."
   I felt far away and my voice sounded weak, strained.
   "I'll get you home.  Relax.  I have you."
   One hand behind my head, he kissed me, and I suppose I kissed him back.
He had me all right.
   I remembered the sensation of movement, but I didn't pick up much in the
way of sound.  It seemed like a couple minutes passed before I felt his
hands undressing me.  We were home.  I felt my slick cotton sheets under
me, the warmth of my room, the darkness, and his warm naked body on top of
me, but at a distance.
   His kiss brought me out of the depths and kept me from sinking.  His
lips were tender, neither greedy or insistent.  I felt energy passing
between our bodies from my heart to his, through every place we touched. 
It felt divine, magical.
   I wanted to wrap my arms around him, but I couldn't move anything but my
mouth.
   "Give yourself time," he instructed, only a hair's breadth from my lips,
his voice taking on that grumbling depth that signaled he'd dropped his
human guise.  "It's happened to me before, several times." Those razor
sharp nails whispered down my arm.  "Feeding, but never knowing that
frenzy, that lust, that completion.  I know that anger.  I've hurt others
so profoundly that their heart failed.  It left me in this abysmal
catatonia.  Weak, alone, vulnerable, and unable to discern my environment."
   "Is that how you nearly got caught?"
   "It played a part a couple times," Taradon answered.  "The power I
harness attracts others, brings them to my flame.  All I have to do is burn
and drink their energy.  That's how it works.  But you," he paused and I
was no longer on my back on the bed.  I was on my stomach, lying on him,
cradled in his embrace.  "You walked away from me again and again.  Your
fear was like a blinding light in the distance and yet you always returned.
I've wanted to hold you since that first summer.  Hold you, not torment or
eat you." His chuckle was a little like I might have imagined a dragon
would chuckle, or, you know, a demon.  "You are my kindred.  The way you
cared, observed, returned to me.  Morbid curiosity of youth or not ...  I
have wanted you since that day."
   "You have me."
   "If you have any anger or doubt about what I've done, I'd rather you
tell me."
   Huh?  I had to gather my dandelion thoughts.  Anger?  What did he do? 
What was I supposed to be angry about?
   I lay there on his chest, listening to his powerful heart beat, his
breath.
   I had somehow managed to cause those women pain.  I was the one lying
incapacitated in his arms.  He was showing me how to feed.  He was teaching
me.  I had done something to myself that he had done before.
   Wait.  I wasn't a devil or a monster.  I'd been born a normal little
girl.  How did this happen?
   I thought about the gem he shoved in my pocket.  The one I'd been
carrying and wearing every day since.  That must have something to do with
it.  He'd taken my ribbons and created one around his neck, but there was
something inside it as well.
   Was he turning me into something like him?  Was it something that could
be passed on?  Like vampires or werewolves?
   Taradon repositioned us again.  His head lay on my shoulder, his hand
played with my breast.  I felt the weight of his legs over my own.
   Oh, I had anger, a low rumbling molten sea of anger, but not about this,
not for Taradon.
   "Just rest," he encouraged.  "I will protect you."
   I never wondered what I needed to be protected from in the darkness of
my own bedroom.  When I could move on my own, I placed some calls. 
Claiming to have a bout of the flu relieved me of my appointments.  An ill
socialite was no kind of draw.
   I wasn't going to take long, a day or two.  I would soon return to
working, pretending, herding.  For the moment, I craved a bit of quiet.
   When Taradon left, I never knew where he went, where he lived, what he
did, or how he found me.  As I cleaned my bedroom, I let those nagging
little questions bubble to the surface.  Was I hallucinating him?  Did he
really exist?
   I set the nagging aside when I passed the mirror.  I was radiant.  My
wavy hair: lustrous.  My eyes: bright.  My skin: glowing.  I hadn't lost
any of my weight, it just seemed to sit better on me.  My huge tits looked
a little fuller, heavier.  My ass sat a little higher.  I seemed more
taunt, built, and damned fine.  I even looked my face over in the mirror.
   Time to rejoin the partiers.
   ***
   I dressed for the country club party.  This one wasn't my job.  I was
actually invited.  I could use a few more 'high society' types in my cadre.
Looking the way I did today, that wouldn't be a problem.  I scavenged my
closet for my finest cocktail dress, and let my hair do its thing, full and
wild.
   My finest cocktail dress displayed my cleavage, which meant I needed to
get my pendant from between my breasts.  I pulled out the shorter chain and
lifted the pendant.  Now that I knew it was a ruby, I was glad I had my
silver clasp.  I grabbed my clam shell and snapped it over the pendant.
   I didn't show it to others.  Not ever.
   I walked from my car toward the clubhouse.  I was worried about being
let in.  I worried all the time.  Parties like this helped me find more
work.  Three people worked the entrance.  Greeting or turning away those as
necessary.  I'd been invited, but that didn't matter to the gatekeepers.
   "No, I'm sorry," a polite voice said.  "Not this evening.  Private
event."
   "What are you doing standing in this purgatory?!" Get over here," a
beaming voice said.
   She was talking to me, politician's daughter.  Much, much shorter than
me and very touchy about her reputation, Melissa Ballinger.  I loaded my
charm and showered her in compliments.
   "Can I buy what you're taking?" Melissa whispered as she walked me into
the reception area.
   "Pardon?"
   "Forget about me, you look absolutely amazing this evening."
   I smiled and thanked her.
   "What the secret?  Tell me."
   I grinned as I considered showing her.  Careful.  I shook my head and
created a new line: "Exercise and diet, I suppose."
   "Ugh.  I wish you'd said surgery and dermabrasion or something easy."
   "I wish," I matched her vapidness as we walked into the ballroom.
   I walked into the ballroom.  Marcus C.  Gage's annual garden of
delights. The glass accordion doors were all open, and the art exhibits
continued out into the garden.  I hadn't made it more than fifteen steps
when a prim looking woman pulled me aside.
   "Teresa.  Thank goodness you came."
   "Hi," I took a breath, "Annabelle Sanford." The country club president,
very high society.
   She beamed.  "Could you do a little magic for me?"
   "How many?" And for how much?
   She blushed a little and pressed cash into my palm.  "I know this is
short notice and you're not working, but I would consider it a huge favor."
   It felt like two or three hundred dollars, if the other bills were the
same as the outside one.  I picked up my phone and sent out an email.
   "I'm currently walking the halls of the Marcus C.  Gage's Annual Garden
of Delights.  Fine art, fine folks, and," I looked over at the
refreshments, "wine and catering provided.  Anyone can show up, but not
everyone can get in.  Class 2 event, look sharp." She spent a few minutes
standing in the corner selecting names from her contact list.
   That would net a few people in the short term, but if the event was
getting dull, then I had to really work.
   I was so good at this, making other comfortable, causing laughter,
connecting people, making all those who knew me feel important.  It was
like riding a bike, I barely had to think about it.  I was playing match
maker with people already in the building, getting them talking,
interested, learning about the artists, showing them similar pieces.
   So much for not working.  If I wasn't at home, I was never truly off the
clock.
   Excitement, contentment, friendliness.  I took a step back once my
cultivated connections began to show up and join in the discussion.  It had
become a real event.  I'd spun them up and the machine was off and running
smoothly.
   I sat on one of the stools out in the garden.  Everyone looked so
lovely, swept up in the energy I'd created.  Like Taradon, I had been
creating a mood in a whole group of people instead of an intense rise of
energy in just one.  The whole group.  Is that what had been 'sustaining'
me all this time?
   All the good it did.
   Laughter spiked from somewhere in the ballroom.
   What if I worked a haunted house for Halloween?  What if I could make a
whole place feel fear?  I knew all about fear, the chill of apprehension,
the heaviness of my whole body, the dread of the unexpected.  What if I
could cause that unease, that nervousness, like a fog, seeping through the
crowd, crawling up their legs?
   A girl squealed and two other people jumped.
   "Oh, my god," she put a hand to her chest and panted.  "I'm so sorry.  I
thought something fell on me." There was uneasy laughter and if they didn't
want to admit something spooked them as well.
   Okay, fear would not help my career.  Stop that.  Lust?  Easy. 
Painless. It won't lead to death, right?  Just heightened arousal, a need
to get laid.  They way I felt when Taradon touched me, when he kissed the
spot on my neck just under my ear.
   I braced myself on the table beside me with both hands.  Like the quick
onset of drunkenness, my head spun, but my mind was still present, aware.
Did that mean it worked?  It was hard to open my eyes, keep them open, as
if I were sleepy, lethargic.  I closed them and listened to the crowd. 
They sounded a little drunk, heavily flirtatious, the laughter said, 'let's
go back to my place' this time.
   "You're like a toddler," his voice was husky in my ear.  "I turn my head
one moment and you're running out into traffic."
   "You know much about toddlers?" I let go of the table and leaned back
onto him.  He smelled good, crisp.
   He pulled me off the stool, wrapped his arms around my waist and bit me,
firmly, on my neck.  He bit me hard, and if I hadn't been so lethargic I
probably would have cried out.  I whimpered and squirmed, but not enough to
draw attention.  He eased up, kissing the spot he'd bitten.  My eyes opened
and I felt some of that lassitude fade away.
   "What happens when you push too far?  When someone like you, is immune,
and notices you?  What happens when you attract the notice of someone who
wants to burn you alive?"
   I felt myself pale in his embrace.  That fear I'd been thinking about
only moments ago was clear and present.  "I don't know.  I forgot." Tears
welled in my eyes.  I could smell the gasoline again, my left knee
throbbed.
   "You do not push a crowd until I've taught you how." He kissed my ear
and dapped the tears from my cheeks with a napkin from the table.  "And I
will once you are strong enough, but I will not lose you, my curious,
vibrant little toddler."
   Well, Mistress just went down the drain, didn't it?
   Now that I wasn't drunken and lethargic.  I stood straighter.  I turned
to look at him.  I swallowed.  Goodness me.  He looked like a millionaire
in that suit.  I took his hand because I wasn't sure if my legs would hold
me as I took him in.  Once I adjusted, I remembered the crowd behind me. 
"I forgot to be careful and I got away with myself.  I won't push a crowd
without you, but..." I looked at him, met those brilliant eyes.  "Will you
do it for me?"
   "You've felt me work a club."
   Yes, but that wasn't what I wanted.  He noticed my hesitation.
   "You want to witness something else."
   It shamed me to hear him say those words, but they were so true.  There
must have been something wrong with me to want to inflict suffering on
others, but pleasure just seemed so boring.  I glanced down and saw what he
thought about my suggestion.  His dick thickened down his leg.
   "It's dangerous to do alone, right?" I couldn't tear my eyes away from
the evidence of his arousal, not yet.
   "More than that.  It is," he paused, "too dangerous to do in a safe
place and too fatal for a neutral place."
   "Will you be like me?  Not able to move?"
   "For crowd?  Yes." Taradon turned me around to face the couple
approaching us.
   "Good evening, Teresa and who is this handsome gentleman you have been
hogging?" I could tell by her lazy smile that she was drunk.  Short spiked
red hair, anorexic figure, dark blue eyes, Pamela Lance or Lancet ... 
something like that.  She owned a fashion boutique in the metro area.  She
was not one of my friends nor did I want her to be.  "Trying to steal him
away before anyone sees him, hmm?"
   The man on her arm smiled apologetically.
   "He's the one stealing me," I said.
   "I guess I should warn you about our community's ice princess.  You're
fighting a losing battle with this one."
   The guy with her didn't seem concerned that she was blatantly coming on
to Taradon.  He was looking at me, really looking at me, especially my
breasts.
   "What do you do?" I stepped aside and let her at Taradon.  I stepped
close, took his hand.  I listened while he talked to my chest, sipped on
his wine.  "Do you know Charles Levier?"
   "I do," the young man blushed.  "I had been hoping to get a moment with
him."
   "Are you worth the moment?"
   He flushed and made a concerted effort to meet my eyes.  "Sorry, I'm ...
yes.  You're so beautiful," he sighed.
   "It's okay." I walked him over to Charles.  With the prying eyes shaken
off, I handed him over to his idol and began to work my way out.  I stopped
by to see if I'd done Annabelle Sanford proud and got an extra $500.
   I walked out to my car and found Taradon lounging on the hood.
   I wanted to hike my dress and crawl on top of him.  He looked so fucking
refined and relaxed and powerful.  The urge was so strong it even caused me
to twitch, but I stood there, just staring at him.  I gathered my wits
before I walked closer, leaned on the hood beside him, but I couldn't just
'relax' not like he always seemed to do.  "I don't want to be a brat,
Taradon.  If I'm not supposed to toy with people, tell me."
   He rolled his neck and looked at me.  "Do you ever wonder: maybe I have
these urges because he wants me to?  Do you always fight your impulses?"
   My lips parted but I didn't have an answer.  I didn't like the answer
once I figured it out.  I never thought it was him, and I always fought. 
"You mean straddling you ...  or?"
   "I'm not going hurt you.  I've tried to prove that to you.  No one is
going to notice you, and if anyone does, they'll only envy you.  Yes, I
want you to hike your dress, I want to fuck you.  I want to fill my ice
princess with my warmth."
   I drew a sharp breath and pushed away from the hood.  Yes, I always
fought.  "Get in the car."
   He smiled a conspirator's smile.  "May I drive, Mistress?"
   I picked my keys from my clutch.  "Of course you can, Daddy."
   There was a warm golden brown flash in his eyes just before he rolled
off the hood of my car.  He seemed preoccupied during the drive, so I kept
quiet.  He couldn't control the way I felt.  I could resist his
suggestions. He could influence me, seduce me, turn me on, know my desires,
maybe even my thoughts at times.
   For how long?  How long did he 'stalk' me?  I told him where I was going
for college.  He'd asked me about it.  What kind of young girl allowed her
neighbors, friends, and even other children to be fed upon?
   I had my suspicions, being well read and all, but it wasn't true.  I was
very good with people.  I had emotions and feelings.  It took everything I
had to learn to blend in and then I learned how to be paid to do it.  I
wasn't a sociopath, though I could see how it fit.
   Either way, I began to see the appeal and the drawbacks of a cave in the
woods.
   Another thought intruded, interrupted my navel gazing.  I could know his
desires.  Hmm, maybe.
   He didn't take me back to my house.  We pulled off into a small, unlit
parking lot near a trail.  He parked and pulled a bag from my back seat. 
"Change your clothes." He instructed as he began to undress.
   I recognized my cotton skirt, fitted tee, running socks and hiking
shoes. Good thing it was warm out tonight.  I waited for him outside the
car.  I could see pretty well, even after the headlights were out.  He led
me up the trail, into the woods.  We climbed until we could walk the crest
of the hill overlooking a subdivision.
   "We're going there," he pointed to a field just ahead.
   The view was beautiful, picturesque, and the field got pretty close to
the houses.
   He spread a blanket on the grass and lay down with me.  Side by side, we
looked out over the backyards, I could count about ten from my vantage
point.
   "Good, there." He pointed to a house.
   The sliding glass door opened and someone walked out carrying beers.  It
looked like a small house party, about six people, no children.
   "I'm going to lie down.  Straddle me so that you can see."
   See what?  Regardless, I sat down on him and made sure I could see the
gathering below while relaxing on top of him.  It was a great spot.  Dark,
high up, excellent vantage and hearing.  I got an ear full.
   First, the laughter took a sour turn, took on a near hysterical pitch.
One by one they dropped to the lawn and flailed in the dirt like slugs in
salt.  I was ever so still, listening, watching, soaking in each second. 
The pain seemed so acute that they could do little more than moan,
breathing looked like it was a chore.  And it continued.
   This was more than I imagined possible.  I even flinched, forgot to
breathe myself as the bleeding bodies converged into a scene quite apropos
for a hell on earth mural.  They were clawing, biting, fighting one
another. There were no screams.  It was more like a sorrow song of low
wails, moans, whine, and haunted gasps.  It was a symphony, a masterpiece.
   I looked down.  Taradon seemed to be in a trance, but a look of strain
was clear on his face, as if he were having a bad dream.  This had to be
difficult.  Only certain people, far away, and not close enough to soak in
the energy.  Or could he?  The strain I noticed seemed to be one of hunger,
need.
   "Let them go," I whispered.  I felt high, soaring like a bird of prey, a
queen sitting atop her throne.  Have you ever just felt like a fucking god?
An omnipotent ruler?  On top of everything?  Until that moment, I never
had. Let me tell you, it's fantastic.
   The music of torture ended.  Dazed, baffled, confused.  They stood and
picked up their clothes, tended their wounds, dirt knocked off.  They moved
almost automatically, a little dazed, but not drained.  Everyone
disappeared, but she was sure they'd wake in the morning freaked the hell
out.
   Taradon's breathing was shallow, rapid.  His heart was pounding fast and
powerful.  He felt hot to the touch.  I eased down and kissed him.
   "Everything is okay," I cooed.  "I will protect you, my love." I reached
down to free his hard on from the shorts he wore.  I slid onto him, kept my
kisses on his face.
   He could overdo it, become overwhelmed, vulnerable, and I'd asked him to
do just that.  He had planned to show me even though he warned me it was
dangerous.
   "You can tell me no, Daddy.  Sometimes." I chuckled as I worked my hips
on him.  "Are you okay?" I waited.  I closed my eyes and tried to feel for
it.
   He was fine, in a state of ferocious bliss, but paralyzed to act on it,
made more so by my tight cunt.
   I squeezed my vaginal muscles around him.  "Isn't this what you wanted?
For me to straddle you, to fuck you under the night stars.  How long," my
stomach did somersaults and I felt my arousal spike as I rode him, "have
you wanted..." I clamped down on his shoulders as a vertigo swept through
me.
   He was coming.  He didn't move a muscle, but I felt his hot ejaculate
filling me.  I squeezed his shoulders because there was something else
filling me.  It was like some kind of narcotic going straight to my heart.
I bit down on my tongue to resist crying out, screaming my pleasure into
the night.  My eyes rolled into the back of my head, my skin prickled,
heart thundered.
   I was still for a long time.  I was so high that all I could do was lean
back and look at the stars moving along the sky.  They looked so fucking
bright and there were so many.  My consciousness floated from side to side
like a feather untouched by the wind, miles to go before reaching the
ground.
   I rolled my head forward and my neck creaked.  The sky was a little less
dark blue in the east more so than the west.  My knees screamed as I stood.
My legs were very angry.  I walked the pins and needles out and gave myself
a few 'am I sober' tests.
   Some protection.  What the hell just happened to me?  I rolled my neck
and shoulders.
   "Taradon." I pulled his shorts up.  "Stand up." I held his hand and
waited.  I didn't know what made me try it.  Maybe it was just a lucky
guess.
   He rolled to his feet, eyes closed, and I gathered the blanket and
draped it over my arm.  I led him as if he were blind.  Though I saw a
slight, lazy opening of his eyes as we neared the car.  Birds were singing
and the sky was a violet blue.  I drove home and got us inside.
   I didn't go to bed.  I had him naked and in my bath.  He was a zombie, I
realized.  And given how I felt, I knew who had done the feeding.  I bathed
his deliciously sexy body with my soaped hands.  I lingered over each part
of him.  I sat between his legs and took advantage of him, jacking him off
with my oiled hands, sinking two of my fingers into his ass.  He was my toy
and I played with him, toying with his straining cock for up to an hour
before I let him come.
   I was a very sinful girl.
   I worked while he slept.  As the day turned to evening I worried that
maybe I was being a bad influence on him, like I was the catalyst driving
him to self destruct.
   But it felt so good.  No matter how much I wanted to stop, I kept
wanting more.
   ***
   I went to check on him after sunset.  The room was dark and I closed the
door behind me.  I peeled off my clothes and found him on the bed.  I
straddled his face.  For once, I just acted on my impulse.  I moaned as his
tongue lapped at me, he attacked my clitoris.  Just when I was on the edge
he tossed me onto the bed, crawled on top and fucked me, hard.  I was
quiet, not because I wanted to be but because he hand was around my throat.
I hummed and he growled.
   It was over in under a minute.  I lay under him, limp and passive and he
crouched over me, tense and coiled.  I angled my head up and licked his
neck.  What was he fighting?  I couldn't tell.  I turned onto my back, got
on all fours under him.  His heavy breathing turned into a threatening
groan.
   My pussy found his erection.  I wriggled my hips until he was seated, I
backed into him.  I arched back until my ear felt the heat of his breath.
   "Ready?" His tongue flicked out and traced the shell of my ear.
   "Yes."
   No.  I didn't know what he was talking about when he said he wanted to
make me scream until my throat hurt.  I'd forgotten.  You ever just let go
and ride and scream because, hey, you were just going to enjoy it?  Well, I
didn't know the ride would end, and I was screaming because I was afraid I
would die.
   I didn't.  I lived.  I slept like the dead, and I remembered, and
cherished his presence.
   He gave me a month to recover, and thank goodness, because I might have
done something stupid if I didn't let myself think it through.
   Depravity runs deeper with him than I thought it did with me, so deep
that it cut, and cuts have to heal.  Some time during that month I
suspected he snuck into my bed and slept with me, leaving just before I
woke.  I could smell him in my sheets, almost feel the ghost of warmth he
left behind.
   I felt him at my events, but I never saw him.
   When he came back, he did so by sitting in my garden, having the tea
ready by the time I got home.
   "Hey," I sat down on the grass beside him and accepted the offered cup.
   He didn't look comfortable.
   I did.  I let my body drape over his, the way I always wished I could.
"Touch me, finger me."
   He lifted my skirt and slipped his hand into my panties.  He found my
building moisture and spread it over my clitoris.  "Did you miss me?"
   "You were never that far away."
   "You noticed?"
   "Yes, I noticed.  Thank you for allowing me to, ah, mellow out."
   "Thank you for letting me devour you." That was it, I felt him go slack
under me, his added a second finger, but kept his pace slow and teasing.
   Then my doorbell rang.
   "The hell?" I hissed.  With a groan I got to my feet and went through my
back door to the front.  "Hello?"
   "Hey, Teresa.  Sorry about just dropping by.  It's David.  Remember me?"
   David?  Ugh.  Yeah, I remembered this prick.  He was my boyfriend in
college.  The one who dumped me because I wouldn't fuck him.
   "Yes." I didn't step back from the door.
   "I'm sorry I didn't call, but I really wanted to stop by and see you. 
You were pretty easy to find.  You've definitely changed since college. 
May I come in?"
   I didn't know the answer to that.  "Uh, fine, sure."
   "I have a friend with me.  Is that okay?"
   An ambush.  Perfect.  Just what every girl wants from he ex-non-lover.
"Bring her in."
   David started running his mouth the moment he was inside with his
'friend.' I smelled psychologist on her a mile away.  He had some kind of
bleeding heart love-lost speech all keyed up.  I stood there and listened
to how much he loved and cared about me and didn't want me to drown myself
in obligations to avoid what I needed ...  blah blah blah.
   Taradon stalked into the room, looking every bit the demigod in a pair
of heather gray cotton gym shorts.  The material was soft and thin enough
that it outlined the detail of his semi-stiff cock.  Goodness, complete
with a small wet spot.  Mmm, so much more than David had.  I know because
he had horrified me by asking me to watch him masturbate.
   "He's the one who thought you were abused?" Taradon asked, interrupting
David's monologue.
   David whirled around and looked at me.  I loved that wide eyed look of
shock.  He'd been one-hundred percent sure I was single and alone.
   "That's what David said," his friend looked at me.  "Have you worked
through it?"
   "Nothing to work through," I said with a shrug.  "It was an excuse he
made up because I wouldn't give in to his pressure to fuck me."
   David stuttered.  "I only wanted to be intimate with you." He turned
toward his friend shaking his head.  Worry and shock was all over his face.
He wanted to protest, but the half naked man in my house was making his
argument difficult.
   Ginger, she was a psychologist just like I thought, couldn't take her
eyes off Taradon, specifically the outline under the waistband of those
shorts.
   "You're so addicted to sex, David.  It didn't work out between us
because I didn't want you.  Have you fucked Ginger yet?"
   "What?" He blinked and shook his head.
   "You want to fuck her, don't you?" I grinned and walked over to him.  I
put my hand around his shoulder.  "You want to fuck her where?"
   "Everywhere," he whispered like a naughty child, reluctant to answer the
question.  Ginger was oblivious.  I didn't have to worry about her.
   "Where David?  Do you still take your cock in your hand?  Do you like to
be watched?" He mumbled his assent.
   "Open your pants, let's see it."
   He undid his belt, opened the pants, pushed down his blue briefs.  Not
bad, but not Taradon.  He was hard, circumcised, and weeping with arousal.
   "Where do you want to fuck her?"
   "Her mouth, I want to fuck her mouth."
   "And?"
   "Her ass, her pussy.  I want to fuck you."
   "You won't.  Pretend Ginger is me.  Do all the dirty things to her you
wanted to do to me.  You wish I had been abused, don't you?  Wish you could
make me want all the things you imagined?" I don't know if I was right but
he certainly whimpered as if I were onto something.
   Ginger was dressed down to her bra and panties.  She got on her knees on
the couch, still staring at Taradon.  He looked at me, and beckoned me over
to him.
   I left David standing there and went to his side.
   "You're such a bad fucking girl," Taradon put his arm around my waist
and held me close to him.
   Behind me, Ginger moaned.
   "Will you punish me, Daddy?" I took his nipple between my teeth.
   He pressed on my shoulder until I went to my knees.  He fisted his hand
in my hair and thrust his cock into my mouth.  I took him, as much of him
as I could managed while Ginger and David got swept into lustful abandon
not but three feet away.
   They had begun to climax, the kind that never ended though between the
peaks, you could hear the desperation, pleading for it to end, never stop,
continue.  I couldn't see.  I only heard.  I had a huge cock in my mouth.
He moved my head back and forth as slow or quick as he wanted.
   Whatever was happening behind me wasn't loving or tender.  Ginger was
crying out and David sounded mean as their bodies slammed together.  Then
her crying stopped and she was choking, gagging.  That hollow sound in her
throat happening much faster than it should have, and where was David
smacking her while he fucked her face.
   Taradon's head rolled back, his thighs tensed, and he came, filled my
mouth over and over.  I swallowed.  They screamed.
   I didn't hear them leave.  I was on the floor, on my back, staring at my
ceiling.  Taradon must have ushered them out.  I heard his low voice giving
instruction.  I was throbbing, unsatisfied, needy, wanton.  All the things
I never thought I'd be.
   Taradon leaned over the back of my couch.  "What does my Mistress need?"
   "Just you."
   He grinned and wrapped his tongue around his sharp elongated teeth. 
"Good."
   <->
Written: Feb 2010
"My sexual interests are like my eating habits.  I'll try anything once,
twice, if you prepare it differently." -Bianca Lee
   Contact: nysidra at hot mail dot com
  
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