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Dreams For Insomniacs

Sierra Brown

Pam woke with blood on her hands. It startled her as she began to search herself for signs of injury, but found nothing. This has to stop, she thought. For years, her sleepwalking disorder had been gradually getting worse. It had begun with her stumbling around the house, waking up in the kitchen or on the couch; feelings of confusion upon waking. Then her neighbor had spotted her roaming the street. Soon after, she had woken up behind the wheel, after nearly driving into someone’s house. She had tried medications, therapy and hypnosis -- nothing had worked.

The therapists insisted upon having someone living with her, to keep an eye on her for her own safety, but she refused. She was a perfectly independent thirty-year old woman and wasn't going to have a babysitter. Sometimes she thought she understood what it must be like for an alcoholic, blacking out, not knowing what you did the night before. The mornings were always like putting together pieces of a puzzle. Some strange things had happened before, but this was a new one.

She spent several minutes trying to scrub the blood from her hands and arms. She tossed her bloodied shirt into the trash, hoping the problem would disappear just like the trash soon would. Retrace my steps, she thought hard. I came home, had dinner, took a shower, read a magazine until I fell asleep. There were just blank spots where her memory ought to be. She couldn’t imagine where the blood had come from, but then again, not much was surprising anymore.

*

Brandi was your typical girl. She was generally a good kid but, just like every other girl her age, she was more intrigued by the thought of partying with friends than being a good kid. There was a party tonight that she would rather be dead than miss. But of course mom and dad just didn’t understand. So Brandi had created quite the work of fiction to buy herself the evening free of parental supervision. Fortunately for her, her best friend lived a couple of blocks away, so all she had to do was convince her parents she would be there all night, pack her party attire in her overnight bag and meet her friend there, playing it off as innocently as possible. And, not surprisingly, they had boys coming to pick them up for the party. Her plans were laid out perfectly. She said “bye” to her mom and dad after convincing them she could walk alone down the street at night and headed out.

Pam’s head was spinning as she looked at herself, disheveled; strung out. This wasn’t the woman she used to be. The bed looks barely slept in. Was I even in it at all? She roamed the house, looking for clues to her escapade. She swallowed some of her medication without water; the pill was bitter and scraping against her dry throat. It didn’t help any. She was only getting the side effects without the benefits. All these pills are frying my brain, that’s what’s really happening. Maybe some fresh air will do me some good. She went to the closet and got her shoes and found them wet and muddy, as if she had just tromped through a swamp. What the? I don’t remember coming home like this. She looked out the window and saw that the ground was indeed wet from a heavy rain last night. Oh well, back to that walk I was going to take. After finding some clean shoes, she opened the front door and saw lying on the step a small silver chain and locket. This is just getting weirder and weirder she thought. Inside the locket was a picture of two girls, no older than sixteen, one a preppy looking blonde and the other a fair, small redhead. Pam knew that this had to be a clue.

*

Brandi had been trotting along down the sidewalk of the quiet suburban street, eagerly anticipating the upcoming party when she heard a large animal scuffling across the yard a couple of houses down. It must be a deer, she thought. She carefully stopped for a moment, hoping to catch a glimpse of the animal, but it was already getting quite dark, and past the glare of the streetlights, it was virtually impossible to see into any yards beyond. She heard something rustling around in the bushes, followed by a sniffling sound. What the hell? Animals don’t sniffle. This is starting to get a little spooky.  

She recalled just minutes earlier lecturing her parents on being over protective about letting her walk at night, but was now beginning to doubt herself. The street was just so empty. There could be a madman running around the neighborhood and no one would know. She wondered which was more unsettling: the silence or that odd sniffling sound in the bushes breaking the silence. I better get moving before I find out. She quickened her pace, passing up the yard emanating the odd sounds. She looked back once, twice, and saw nothing. Then suddenly from behind came a hit so quick she never saw it coming. She was pounded once across the back of the head with a crushing blow from a 2x4. Before the pain had time to register, she was rendered unconscious.

*

After her early afternoon stroll, Pam had begun to feel a bit better, minus the nagging curiosity that seemed to be fueled by the silver locket that had lain on the front step. As she rounded the curb to approach her house, she noticed that the door to the shed in the backyard was standing wide open. Oh, for Pete’s sake, what was I doing in there? Well, I suppose that would explain all the mud. As usual, the pieces seemed to be coming together. That is, until she looked inside the shed. There was a chair placed directly under the bare light bulb that hung from the ceiling and the chair was loosely draped in a thick nylon cord. The cord had once been white, but was now caked in dried reddish-brown stains, similar to the bloodstains on her hands this morning. The same stains, though far larger, were all over the concrete floor and beneath the chair as well. With them was a dried yellowish puddle of what looked and smelled like vomit.

Pam also noticed many of the tools she’d used for household projects were now scattered all over the shed, and bore these same bloodstains. This was clearly not Pam’s blood and she paled at seeing so much of it. Whoever it had belonged to surely was either in very bad shape or dead. What the hell happened here? Wait. Dont panic yet. Maybe it wasn’t me, maybe some murderer was on my property while I was sleeping last night and is trying to frame me. Oh God, I can’t call the cops until I know for sure. There’s just too many pieces that don’t fit yet. The police had their share of encounters with her sleepwalking shenanigans. It didn’t seem worthwhile getting them involved again. She didn’t think that she was remotely capable of hurting anyone but, if she were sleepwalking, then the normal rules just didn’t apply.

*

The harshly lit room spun before Brandi’s eyes as she struggled to regain her senses. The pain shooting through her head was overwhelming and she quickly became nauseous. She tried to lean forward to heave up her dinner but literally could not move. The impulse of getting sick still grew and she vomited all over herself. As the warm stream of bile crept down her chest and dripped to the floor, she realized that something wrong was happening. Her vision was still blurred, but she could now see well enough to know that she was in some kind of garage or shed. The reason she couldn’t move was that she was bound to the chair. Still, she tried to remain calm. Then a woman entered the room.

“Please help me, miss, untie me, please! I just want to go home!” Brandi croaked.

But the woman showed no signs of responding to her.

*

The T.V. had only been on for a several minutes before Pam stood paralyzed in shock at what she saw. The 5 o’clock news was running a local piece on a missing girl and the reporter cheerfully delivered the news that was now terrifying Pam.

“Police have been notified of a missing sixteen-year old girl. Brandi Stahl’s parents filed the report this morning when their daughter didn’t come home last night. She had planned to meet a female neighborhood friend, but never showed up. None of her friends claim to have seen her since yesterday afternoon. Though we can't officially declare Brandi a missing person yet, if anyone knows of this girl’s whereabouts, please notify the police at once.”

The screen displayed a photo of a smiling, innocent-looking blond teenager, who apparently lived just a few blocks away from her. The very same teenager who’s photo was inside the locket in Pam’s trembling hand.

*

Brandi raised her voice to this strange woman, who was now roaming about the room as if looking for something

“Lady, please don’t hurt me, I don’t even know why I’m here.”

Brandi surprised herself when she began to cry. The fear had finally begun to take over and she no longer had control over her emotions. The woman walked towards her with a roll of tape and spread an excessively large piece of it over her mouth, rather clumsily. As a matter of fact, Brandi thought, she’s doing everything a little funny, like she’s not quite all there. But the woman was still functioning fine, minus a few small quirks in her behavior. The woman slapped Brandi hard across the face, making her head pound even harder once again. Her cheek stung and her eyes watered. A large pair of gardening scissors were in the stranger’s hand now and Brandi didn’t even want to know what she planned to do with those. She closed her eyes and prayed not to find out as she felt the blades stabbing deep through the side of her thigh.

Behind the tape she let out a muffled scream and didn’t need to open her eyes to know she was already bleeding. The agony intensified when the blade was yanked back out, creating more blood to gush forth. Now the woman was using the scissors to cut open the front of Brandi’s blouse. A few snips and her top was hanging wide open, just one snip more and so was her bra. Brandi now not only felt terror but also humiliation as the scissors blades grazed across her firm breast, then the other, and back again. All it would take was just a little pressure…But she backed off. Brandi let out a sigh of relief, which was short lived once she saw the pliers in the woman’s hand. They were the large adjustable kind one might use to loosen up a dead bolt, and as Brandi squeezed her eyes shut once more she felt the cold steel jaws clamping onto her nipple. The pain exploded as the woman clenched the pliers down and twisted. It was shocking how much twisting it really took until the little mound of flesh had finally ripped off with tiny threads of tissue still attached behind it. The nerves being torn apart sent electric agony shooting through Brandi’s chest and she groaned for mercy, but the woman was unrelenting. She dropped the pliers, still holding the nipple to the floor as if she had already tired of this form of torture on many others before.

*

The news bulletin had really begun to startle Pam. What scared her the most was the fact that she was even considering that she was capable of doing something so terrible. How could something as simple as a sleep disorder be causing her to feel like such a monster? It wasn’t this incident that was causing the mental anguish. Her sleepwalking had been making her life hell for over twenty years now. When she was a teenager, it was virtually impossible to keep any friends. Getting invited to a sleepover usually ended with every girl at school being afraid of “the creepy chick.”

In her twenties she had a difficult time maintaining a boyfriend. Then there was her husband. Pam missed the feeling of having some semblance of a family. But he too could no longer handle her disorder. When he left her he said that he “just couldn’t take the constant worry,” so Pam felt like they were on a sinking ship and he had taken the life raft for himself. It wasn’t his worry, it was his selfishness.

Seemingly, everyone had abandoned her for something she had no control over. It was all a slap in the face after thirty years of trying to be a good person. If the therapy and/or medication didn’t eventually start working, she felt like she would be alone forever.  

*

The secretary at the desk of Doctor Callahan’s office looked annoyed.

“Do you have an appointment?” she asked.

Pam responded timidly “Umm, no, I’m sorry, I don’t, but if I could just see the Doctor, it’s urgent!”

The secretary cut her short and snatched up the phone “I’ll see what I can do, just have a seat, please.”

Pam knew that the doctor would see her. She had been seeing him as a patient for two years now and had been seeing him as more than a patient for several months. Their affair hadn’t been anything over the top. They had once defined it as “good sex during office hours.” And that’s precisely what it had been, but Pam felt awful guilt when she found out that Dr. Callahan was married.  

Over the last few weeks, her lust for the doctor had drastically decreased. It was like a switch had been turned off. This always seemed to happen with men, but she wrote it off as just her being crazy as usual. The secretary hung up the phone and glared at Pam from over the top of her wire frame glasses and said curtly “You can go on back now.”

Pam opened the office door only to find Dr. Callahan reviewing the previous patient’s file, and he, too, seemed annoyed with her showing up.

“What’s wrong, Pam? I can’t say that you’ve ever just showed up unannounced like this.” Callahan stood and glanced up and down her torso.

“I can't remember exactly what I did last night” she replied in an exasperated tone, nervous and fidgety.

“You never do, why is it an issue today?”

“I think I did something really bad. I mean, terrible.”

The doctor had come over to her and was rubbing her inner thigh, obviously more interested in her body parts than her problems. Pam really wanted to talk, to try and figure out what was going on in her head, but for now she tried to play along, running her fingers through his black hair, which was starting to develop flecks of grey. He put his hands on her thin neck and gave her a slow, deep kiss. She moved in closer to him and could feel him already excited and ready for her.

She wished she was feeling the same enthusiasm. He was moving quickly, his hands were already under her shirt, feeling breasts free of the restraints of a bra. As he began breathing harder and rubbing himself up against her, she wondered how can men be SO easily amused? He was stroking the front of her jeans with his hand and was reaching for the button when finally she had enough and pulled back, frustrated and tired of his advances.

“Look Gerald, I didn’t come here for this. I really seriously need to talk to you.”

He looked shocked at her denial of him, but remained professional. “What could you have possibly done that was so terrible?”

“I think I hurt someone.”

He stared deep into her eyes and said “It wouldn’t surprise me, Pam. You’ve been acting extremely tense lately. Something rather strange is going on with you, like it or not. I think that somewhere in your mind is a lot of angst and resentment built up, waiting to explode.”

Pam immediately thought that those things didn’t sound like her at all, no way. She could hardly stay mad at anyone! “But why would I be so angry?” she asked.

“Well, that’s what we have to find out. I know you’ve tried hypnosis for your sleepwalking before, but I’d like to try a different kind with you. It puts you in a frame of mind to look at your past. Maybe there are things that have happened to you that you’ve blocked out, forgotten about. Things that would cause you to feel anger or frustration, or even rage. You need to remember, Pam. And when you’re done remembering, you’ll simply wake up. Are you okay with that?”

“Sure, I guess.” she agreed, but she was also very wary. What if she saw something she didn’t want to see?

The doctor had her lie down and get comfortable. He held her hands and instructed her to relax, to clear her mind of any thought, to think about her past without really thinking about anything at all. He told her how to start from the beginning, the earliest years of her life. Before she knew it, she was in a deep trance on a journey through her mind. She saw her birth, her first steps, her hated adolescent years, she saw the night she met her husband, and the day her mother died.

Her life was rushing past her like she was driving too fast through a tunnel of light. Then the flashes slowed and she saw a day that she barely remembered. It was like watching a movie, only blurrier, and further away. She was thirteen. She was at school. She was putting up with the normal woes of early teen life. She saw herself walking the hall with the school adviser, him asking her if she wanted to talk outside. She said yes.

Pam’s gut clenched. She felt overwhelming dread. Something bad was about to happen to her child-self. Something already had that she had somehow forgotten over the years. Her view shifted to the rear of the school, watching herself try to pour out her heart to the advisor, all the while his eyes on her breasts. She saw him nervously look around, as if checking to see if anyone else was there. In the blink of an eye, he slammed her head against the brick wall of the school, causing her to wilt to the ground in pain. She was still conscious, but disoriented. He was shaking as he undid his belt and pinned her down. Pam watched as her thirteen-year old self was stripped and forcefully violated. Both her child self and adult self cried.

She continued to see other atrocities she'd blocked out during her childhood: her father drunkenly beating her mother and her first boyfriend killing her 3-month old German shepherd and even the mangled body of her best friend after being hit by a car full of joyriding teenage boys. All the while she wished she could look away; close her eyes, but she remembered what Dr Callahan had said: You need to remember, Pam. Most of these forgotten events would certainly explain this pent up torment she was experiencing, and deeper still, would explain why she lost interest in men so quickly. She hadn’t ever had a good experience with one. Now there was another memory coming into view, this one being more recent; very recent, in fact. The horror that lay before her was nothing she could've imagined. But this time, she wasn’t the victim…

*

Brandi came to, groggy and disoriented again. She couldn’t even recall passing out, but the blood loss must have gotten to her at some point. The first thing she noticed was that she had been stripped naked. She looked down at her mangled remains of her breast and instantly sobbed. If she lived though this, she would forever be scarred, deformed and ugly. The woman had been sitting beside her all along, watching, waiting for her to regain consciousness for round two.

The tape on Brandi’s mouth prevented her from successfully saying anything, but she still managed to squeeze out a few muffled words that sounded a little like: “you fucking cunt.”

She turned away for a moment, rummaging around in a cabinet then returned, holding a large pair of rusty pruning shears. She yanked them open and squatted down in the chair in front of Brandi. Just minutes before, Brandi would have been happy to see her on her knees down there, pushing her legs open, but this didn’t look good. She tried to squeeze her legs together, but the wound in her thigh was too painful to exert that kind of pressure.

And still in some sick way, she was hoping that she would be receiving some sort of sexual gratification. But what she got instead was a rusty 12-inch blade shoved inside her, ripping every piece of her soft flesh to shreds. She shrieked in agony and bucked against the ropes holding her, nearly toppling over the chair she was tied to. The woman was sliding the rough blade in and out, in and out, causing her to convulse in pain, feelings of pleasure now a notion difficult to comprehend. The blood was gushing down her bare legs, down the legs of the chair, onto the handles of the shears, and the strange woman’s arms, and all over the floor. Brandi lost track of how long the torture went on for, it had felt like hours, but soon enough she bled out for good, hyperventilating in catatonic shock at the atrocities being executed on her. She could hear and feel her stifled sounds of breathing becoming louder, panting against the cloth until her world had started to dim into a fuzzy, lightheaded state. Eventually the dimming just faded to black and the pain dispersed.   

*

Pam woke in a panic, the doctor’s couch drenched in sweat, her heart beating out of her chest, tears streaking her face. Her fear and shock had temporarily her disoriented for a few moments before there was yet another problem. As she was slipping out of her unconscious state, she felt a distinct claustrophobia, as if someone were invading her space. Wondering why she was lying on her stomach, she heard the doctor’s breath, felt it blowing on the back of her neck, ragged and stinking. Her pants were around her ankles and, for the second time today, she felt herself being violated. As she had been in the doctors hypnotic trance, reliving her moments of hell, he had been here doing the unthinkable to her. A rage that she had honestly never felt before boiled inside her. A whole new side of her, a whole NEW PAM took over. This was a Pam that was seeking vengeance and she was relentless.

The doctor was completely unaware that she was awake. She let him get his last few hard jabs in and looked to his desk where she saw her only opportunity then she pushed him off of her with all her might. The last thing she remembered was the look of shock on his face as she snatched the long, gold letter opener from his desk and jammed it into his Adam’s apple.

*

It didn’t take long for the secretary to notice Pam leaving the office covered in blood. As Pam drove away, her normal, more rational side began to shine through, and she was once again horrified at what she had just done, not to mention what she had seen herself do during the hypnosis. All the while this new, more violent self was arguing that she had done the right thing, telling her that the doctor had certainly deserved what he got and so did everyone else who mistreated her. Expect for Brandi, that is. Perhaps it was simply a case of the victim becoming the victimizer, taking back the power from being the powerless.

But this new self had also convinced her to evade the police cars that were now trailing her, but old Pam’s driving skills didn’t  quite measure up to that of the several police cars in relentless pursuit. Lights ricocheted off her rearview as sirens filled her ears. Covered in blood and gazing hard at her reflection in the mirror, she saw the making of a monster, morphing into the darker half of herself…

*

As she was being handcuffed and placed in the police cruiser, she finally felt at peace with herself, realizing now that all these years, there had been more than just the kind, timid, doormat Pam, more so than the hazy sleepwalking one. There was also a strong contrasting, irrational perhaps even deranged Pam and she embraced it. It was a side of her that she was sure had always existed, just waiting for the right moment to lash out. The pieces had finally come together and there wasn’t much else she could do but embrace it. Besides, she knew the police would soon find the pieces of the missing girl’s body buried behind her shed. And she already planned to plead temporary insanity. Indeed, the system had a soft spot for young girls just like the timid, doormat Pam.

*

Sierra Brown makes her risky, sizzling debut here at SNM. Sierra is a twenty-one year old student of forensic pathology, living in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her work has been published in the November 09 issue of Estronomicon at screamingdreams.com She loves reading horror and dark fiction and enjoys watching classic horror films. She also loves music, mainly thrash metal, death metal, and industrial. She uses anything and everything as inspiration, keeping the fun in writing. Readers can feel free to email her at shreditup666@yahoo.com  - or visit her page at:

Sierra Brown

Lascivious Hunger

Paula Ray

Hot water showered over Kara as she soaped a washcloth and absent-mindedly sang, “That you old black magic that weave so well…”  Her voice reverberated off the tiles as she swayed her hips. With dainty fingers all coated with shaving cream, she slathered her underarm and shaved the area then repeated the process on the other side. A familiar burning contraction pulsed through her abdomen. Has it been a month already? She ran a palm across her belly. Quiet. The hunger growled.

Kara’s menstrual cycles were non-existent. Instead, she was cursed with a sexual appetite that demanded sating in a very peculiar manner.

She tried to ignore the tingling between her thighs and lathered her long dark hair then piled it atop her head. With one foot on the tub’s edge, she smeared shaving cream on her leg and over her most intimate area. The blade glided across her slick skin as she drew the razor from her ankle toward her upper thigh, making slow overlapping strokes until she could no longer detect a singular prickle. After addressing the other leg in a similar fashion, she moved the razor to her delicate area below and gently guided the blade across her mound of softness several times then retraced her path with delicate fingertips, making sure that she was flawlessly bald -- there. The slightest touch sent ripples of arousal through her body. A relentless need surged through her.

She knotted in agony and reached for the shower head, turned it to high-power massage, rinsed off quickly, and brought the nozzle close to her swollen womanhood. Clenching the towel bar with one hand, she held on as the rollercoaster of pleasure drove her up and over a powerful climax then slowly brought her to a breathless halt. Dizzy, she carefully stepped out of the shower, dried, and wrapped the towel around her body.

The mirror was fogged up, but she knew a rosy cheek glow would be present as well as the deepening of the color and puffiness of her mouth. She opened the bathroom door to let out the steam and glanced at the clock as she padded into the bedroom.

Eight o’clock…Rum Runners opens at Nine. They tend to draw in the ritzy sort and I haven’t been there in a long time. Rum Runners it is.

Kara tiptoed into her walk-in closet and contemplated what to wear to the snazzy piano bar downtown.

Red dress, black dress, or…this: one shoulder lavender dress?

Individually, she held up the garments beneath her chin and looked in the three-way mirror. The fullness of her pout and blush upon her lush cheeks were very much present, as she had expected -- even the lengthening and curling of her dark eyelashes was visible. 

Choosing the sexy, yet demure, lavender dress with a built in bra, she slid it over her head and grabbed her favorite silver sandals by the straps as she went into her bedroom. She opened her lingerie drawer. A pair of white sheer lace panties with tiny elastic hip strings rested in plain view. Perfect. She slipped them on and stepped into her sandals then took a look in the mirror. Her wet hair left damp, dark splotches on her dress. Good grief.

Kara rushed to the bathroom, slung her hair toward the floor and reached for her blow dryer. She dried her long tresses and the damp spots across her bosom. When she stood upright, her soft, wavy chestnut hair cascaded down her back and came to rest at the base of her shoulder blades. Another abdominal twinge and flutter. A dab of deodorant, spritz of perfume, and quick glance at the clock. Eight-twenty-two? That’s all? She crossed her legs and grimaced. Think about something else. Sing. That’s it. Sing. Singing an old song her mother, had taught her, she opened the safe behind her mother’s portrait and removed a potion bottle.

“I’ve got a crush on you...” Kara poured a small amount of potion into an extremely tiny bejeweled bottle disguised as a necklace pendant then made sure both bottles were tightly closed. The twelve ounce bottle was half empty, but only a few drops were needed per month. Six ounces of her mother’s potion would last half a century, at least. Kara locked the larger bottle back in the safe and draped the necklace around her swan throat. Diamond stud earrings and bracelet secured, she was ready to go.

Rum-Runners

Very few people were at the bar when she arrived. The piano player placed an enormous goblet on the lid of the piano and tossed in a five dollar bill to give customers the hint to tip. Kara sat near him and watched his agile fingers tap across the keys. No wedding band was visible on the young pianist’s hand. His aftershave wafted through the air and the mixture of soap and lemony masculine cologne. She felt woozy and deliriously hungry.

He spun around and in a melodious baritone voice he asked, “Do you have a request?” His short black hair glistened in the candlelight and those pale green eyes of his drew her closer. She scooted toward him and scanned his entire body, from his Adam’s apple, barely peaking over his red tie, all the way down to his black patent leather shoes. He looked like a model in his sleek pin-striped suit.

With one finger rimming the edge of her wine glass, she wet her lips and slowly uncrossed her legs. She caught him looking, as if trying to catch a glimpse of her undies. With a well-rehearsed shy smile, she sat her wine glass on the bar and bent toward him, making sure her cleavage was eye level to his gaze, but not obvious that she planned it. Tucking a loose tendril behind one ear, she coyly looked him in the eye then averted her gaze and softly said, “I love the song Misty.”

“Misty it is.” He paused and waited for her to lift her eyes to meet his then he winked and grinned wide enough to reveal deep dimples on each side of his mouth. He had a boyish charm with a strong manly chin, broad shoulders, and a long lean physique. She found him positively scrumptious, but he was too young, too nice, and seemingly too sincere for her to play with, but oh how she longed for a taste of him.

His fingers danced poetically across the ebony and ivory as he embellished the tune with lush jazz chords and extended runs that utilized the full range of the resonant black lacquer grand piano.

She remembered the days of torch singing, how she would lounge across the top of the piano and sing in a sequined gown. Men and women were captivated by her voice, but that was decades ago. The age of electronics left a lot to be desired when it came to music, at least in her opinion. The constant booming aggressive bass and screaming vocals, people wearing tattered jeans and far too much makeup detracted from the sensuality of music. Here at the piano bar she could remember her youth and the intimacy of gathering around a piano that was easily heard but soft enough to engage in conversation while enjoying the ambiance without having to yell into each other’s ear.

There were only two couples seated nearby. No single men. She had hoped to get this over with quickly, but if she had to wait, at least she had a piece of man candy to savor visually while soaking up the enchanting music played by a master.

The pianist turned back around, “I’m Jerry. I think I’ve seen you in here before, but it’s been a long time. What’s your name?”  He let his eyes graze her shoulders, hair, and settle on her mouth.

Her stomach lurched. She clenched her purse and tried to concentrate. What name am I using now? Geesh. Come on. What is it? Phoebe! That’s it. It’s Phoebe! Kara straightened her back and spoke clearly, “I’m Phoebe. It’s nice to meet you. You’re right; I have been in here before, a very long time ago.” Another searing contraction. She pressed her palm to her tummy, “I’m sorry. I’m a diabetic.” She lightly touched his arm. “Please excuse me, Jerry.”

She slid from the barstool, grabbed her purse, and sashayed to the ladies’ room, making sure her bottom jiggled just so as she moved across the floor. She knew Jerry would be watching; she could feel his eyes upon her.

Once inside the restroom, she let out a huge sigh. How could he remember me from two years ago? I’m not going to be able to come back here. Damn. She scrounged around in her purse and entered a stall. Seated on the toilet with panties around her ankles, she spread her knees and turned on her pocket rocket. No one else was in the bathroom. She let the vibrator tickle her hardened pink pearl that glistened with thoughts of Jerry. With head resting on the tile wall behind her, she placed one hand on the toilet paper dispenser.

A rush of toe-tingling warmth poured all through her body. Bringing the vibrating domed head onto the perfect spot, she let her hips gyrate until she could no longer contain her ecstatic moans. Her tenderness became slippery and she continued to let herself ride wave after wave until her little pink pearl was slightly sore. Her tension eased.

She washed herself and her toy in the lavatory. When she came out of the ladies room, there was a gray-templed gentleman seated at a high-top table alone. He looked at Kara, lifted his glass and gave her a nod. He was handsome in an intellectual, businessman, boring sort of way. There was a pale strip of skin around his wedding finger. Looks like we have a cheater.

Kara walked right by him on the way to the bar, getting close enough to catch a whiff of his scent.

When she was within arm’s reach, he spoke. “Hi.”

She took a few more steps then glanced over her shoulder, “Hi,” then she promptly made her way back to her barstool and continued to sip her wine.

 He approached and motioned toward the stool next to her. “May I sit?”

“Please do.” Kara turned herself toward him and gave him a direct smile.

He perched himself beside her and began making small talk. Kara nodded and said very little and forced herself to appear interested in his droll conversation and amused by his drab jokes. Finally, the gentleman made his move.

“Would you like to go some place...quiet? I’m staying at the Carlton.” He gave her a knowing raised-eye-brow gaze.

“I thought you’d never ask. Allow me to be frank. This is how it works: I’m in charge and the fee is five thousand. I can process your credit card, a one-time payment made out to Verve, Inc. I won’t complete the transaction unless you are thoroughly satisfied. You’ll get a receipt to file as you wish.” She was direct with eyes unblinking.

He cleared his throat and shook his head like he had the wind knocked out of him for a second and then he let out a chuckle. “It’s a deal. You’re the boss, pretty lady.”

“Very well, no rough stuff and do as I say.” She reached for her purse then looked back at him. “I’m very selective, for the record.” She slid off the stool toward him. He gently grabbed her waist and helped her to her feet.

The Carlton

The gray-templed gentleman’s name was Bill, or so he  told her. He leaned back against the headboard. His naked body was sprawled atop the sheets and his eyes were fixed on Kara. She danced for him, inching her dress down over her hips and turning so that he could see everything as she bent over and shimmied her panties down to the floor. She spread her legs and crawled onto a chair, knees against the seat cushion, hands gripping the back. With a dramatic toss of her head and arch of her back, her long tresses spanked her round bottom.

“Just watch.” She cooed as she moved her middle finger to the magic area that drew his attention and hers. She rubbed herself feverishly, unleashing her desire then opened her pendant bottle and allowed one fat droplet of potion to splash onto her tongue. She closed the lid and spun around and climbed onto the bed, slithering between his knees. Poised with her mouth open just above his mushroom cap, “May I?” she asked and let her tongue flicker across his excited tip.

He reached for her head. She pulled away. “No. Don’t touch; just enjoy. Let me do it.”

Bill groaned and nodded. She eased him into her warm wet mouth, all the way. He let out a sigh and stared at her as she took him to a place he’d never been before. She could feel his pulse rising, blood rushing to his manhood, the trembling excitement raking through his body. He exploded, gushing forth what she craved. She sucked the life force from his body into her own. Her cells rejuvenated as his internal organs withered with age, weakening. She looked up girlishly at Bill. He was breathless, exhausted, and grinning from ear to ear.

He whispered, “Damn.”

Kara licked her lips, “Satisfied?” She knew the answer, but she loved to hear it all the same.

“You have no idea, darling. That was the best…” He reached for her head again. She pulled back and stood up quickly.

“Worth five grand?” She winked.

“And then some. Give me your number. I’ve gotta see you again.” He coughed and hassled for breath.

“No seconds. This is a one-time thing.”

“Change your mind for an extra grand?”

She shook her head no.

He caressed her thigh. “Come on, a phone number?”

“No negotiation. Rest. I’ll see myself out.” She crammed the paperwork and portable credit card machine into her purse and dressed hurriedly. He drifted off to sleep, unaware of his aged interior, unaware he would die of natural causes before his time. She didn’t know if he’d have a heart attack, kidney failure, or develop Alzheimer’s and fade away with no memory of his life, but she knew from that moment on that he was doomed. He’d be dead within two months and no one would ever trace a thing back to her.

Kara made her way to the elevator. Once inside, she caught a glimpse of herself in the chrome. She stared into her eighty year old eyes that sparkled like she was still in her twenties and wondered if it was worth it. Did Bill have a family? ...Don’t do that to yourself. Forget him.

Kara’s Past

Life continued on as normal. Kara had accumulated quite a savings over the years and enjoyed the luxury of not having to work, but she occasionally took on temp jobs to give herself something to do. This way she never got to know her coworkers very well and if any of them snooped too much, she simply wouldn’t work there again. It was important she keep her distance. Attachments meant, eventually, people would notice her lack of aging and investigate. It was better to keep herself detached from society, especially men. It wasn’t hard to keep her distance from women, most hated her anyway, probably jealous of the way men looked at her. She couldn’t help it.

Her mother told her a woman’s beauty was her most valuable asset. As long as she was irresistibly gorgeous, the world would open its arms to her. For the most part, it was true. She got everything she had wanted and usually all it took was a little flirting with a wealthy man, but sometimes Kara longed for companionship and felt as if something very important was missing from her life.

At a young age, Kara witnessed how men abused her mother--stealing from her, hitting her, calling her names. It was no wonder Kara’s mother grew to despise men. After one of her mother’s boyfriends had raped Kara -- forced himself into her private sanctuary of femininity, savagely, brutally, ripped her flesh with his probing angry rod, Kara’s mother disappeared for a few days. When she returned, she brought the potion with her and told Kara it was made from the blood of the man who raped Kara, mixed with Kara’s blood and that of her mother’s  A sorceress prepared the potion using witchcraft for a very steep price.

Kara’s mother stole the money from the man who raped Kara, before she killed him. Her mother never revealed the name of the sorceress or how she knew of her, but Kara suspected learned of the sorceress through the lady who did tarot readings in the apartment below them. Kara and her mother learned to wield the potion’s powers together as a team but, eventually, Kara’s mother began to grow younger and didn’t want her around -- she didn’t want people finding out that her daughter was as young as she was.

One day, Kara woke up and found a note from her mother saying she was leaving and would never return. She gave Kara instructions and warned her about becoming enraged while the potion was in her bloodstream, which was approximately six months after drinking it. Kara searched for her mother for years, but there was no use. Her mother knew how to disguise herself, change her name and vanish.

Kara only viewed men as a source of fuel. She refused to allow men to hurt her like they had hurt her mother. No man was allowed entry into Kara’s sacred personal space. She was independent—beautiful, rich, deceivingly young, and terribly alone.

Darren

A tall, thin, blonde guy leaned against a heavy metal poster in a gritty biker dive. He had tattoos up and down his arms and a plethora of piercings. The band blared out violent music. Kara hated coming to these places, but nothing else was open on a weeknight at one in the morning and she had to satisfy her hunger. She wore a plaid mini skirt, fishnets, combat boots, and cropped T-shirt. She snapped in a few pink extensions in her hair and smeared on a ridiculously heavy coat of eye make-up and dark lipstick. She didn’t wear underwear or a bra.

The blonde guy stuck his foot out to block her when she approached the bar. “With anyone?”

She shook her head no.

He removed his foot. “Good. I’m Darren.”

The throbbing between her thighs intensified. She knew he wouldn’t have five thousand dollars, but he had what she needed.

He stood erect and slid his hand beneath her skirt and petted her. His eyes widened when he had complete access to her treasure between the large holes in her fishnets.

She wanted to push him away, but it felt too good. Her knees went weak. She parted her legs slightly and grabbed his arms to steady herself and let him continue as she gazed into his eyes. Her chin quivered.

He whispered, “Let’s get out of here.”

She nodded and smiled, took his hand as he led her behind the building. He picked her up and pressed her back into the brick wall and kissed her hard.

“Taste me,” she whispered.

He knelt between her legs and tore the crotch of her fishnets open and licked, slurped and devoured her; such a tiger. She squirmed and whimpered, releasing the pressure inside herself. He looked up at her and smiled then lowered his head again. “I want some more. I know you have more. Give it.”

Fuck. I don’t want to stop. Come on, Kara,  focus.

He eased two fingers inside her and she rocked in amazement of how wonderful it felt.

He whispered, “That’s it. You like that, don’t you, baby girl?”

“Yes.” She clasped her breasts and squeezed them as his tongue flickered against her. Kara seized the opportunity to steal a drop from her potion bottle as she draped a leg over his shoulder and surrendered again and again. She kept exploding and couldn’t turn it off.

He was just what she needed. Then she heard him unbuckling. Wait. No. I let him go too far. Crap. No. She pushed him away gently and purred, softly petting herself and wiping his mouth with her fingertips. “You are amazing. May I taste you now?”

He stood and lifted her completely off the ground forcing her to wrap her legs around him. “I prefer what’s between your juicy thighs.”

No. He can’t do that. It hurts too much. She pushed him back. “Not yet. I’m hungry for you.”

“And you’ll have me...” He thrust fast and hard and rammed her without permission. Rage boiled within her. Adrenaline coursed through her veins and her mind went blank. When she came to, he was groaning, sprawled at her feet on the gravel. He stared at her with fear in his eyes, grasping his neck. Blood was all over the wall, her body and his. His throat was lacerated as if an animal had clawed and bitten his neck, shredding apart his skin. There was a metallic taste in her mouth. She knew the latent testosterone of all the men from her past had surfaced and transformed her into a beast. She felt her face, her snout, her fangs.

Darren gurgled as if he were trying to say something.

She looked around. No one was there. She felt his pulse. It faded then stopped. She made a run for it. The closer she got to her apartment, the more her physical appearance resumed its luscious form. She slipped in the back stairwell and climbed eleven flights and snuck up into her apartment without anyone seeing her; she hoped.

Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck!

She took a long, hot shower, packed her bags, assumed a new identity, using another fake ID, social security card and credit card. She had three extra identity packets on hand at all times. She was now, Amanda Wellington. Shit. I really liked it here.

New Place

Kara found a nice apartment in a town a few hours away. She took only what she absolutely needed and spent her first few days restocking and buying furniture. It took her mind off of what happened with the biker.

He shouldn’t have forced himself on me like that. It’s his own fault. She rationalized it, but deep down, she knew he didn’t deserve anything that severe.

She went to the grocery store and was scooping some gourmet coffee beans into the grinder when Jerry walked up.

His eyes lit up as he pushed his buggy toward her. “Hi, Phoebe. I remember you from Rum Runners.”

Damn. “I’m sorry, you must have me mixed up with someone else. My name is Amanda.”

Jerry gave her a questioning glance. “Amanda, huh? Okay, Amanda.” He winks. “Nice to meet you. I’m still Jerry.”

He doesn’t believe me. Smarty pants. What’s he doing here anyway?

“I just got a job at the Hilton. I play there five nights a week. If you like jazz piano and those old tunes like, Misty, come on by. I’ll buy you a drink.” He said his piece then walked away, whistling, Misty. She eyed him and smiled to herself as she folded the top of the bag over her freshly ground coffee. It wasn’t that time of month yet, but she was tingling in all those delicious places and found herself whispering, “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry.”

Jerry’s Piano

Kara tried to put Jerry out of her mind, but he was all she could think about. She fantasized about him throughout the day, even while driving. She had to see him again. She called the Hilton to find out his schedule and planned her visit. In a simple black dress, she went to the Hilton. He was playing piano with his back turned to her. She sat behind him. After he finished his set, he turned around and saw her there. He smiled brightly.

“Hi, Phoe…I mean Amanda.” He walked up and sat beside her.

“Hi Jerry. You play very well.” Why are my hands sweating? He’s just a man. Calm down, Kara.

Jerry and Kara talked during his breaks for the remainder of the evening. He asked for her phone number and she refused. He gave her his card and requested that she call him sometime. She did.

The first few weeks of their courtship, she insisted they meet up at the Hilton, but he got frustrated with that arrangement and begged her to go to dinner with him. She did -- several times.

The pangs in her abdomen erupted. It was that time of month and she didn’t want to act on it. She told Jerry she was ill and barricaded herself inside her apartment until the torture ran its course. Locked away in her bedroom with her vibrating toys, the urge to consume passed. She was never successful before.

The courtship resumed. Jerry wooed her with flowers, dinners and long romantic talks into the wee hours of the morning. He was such a gentleman. She felt herself blooming beneath his kisses and the arousal she experienced with him was warm and sweet, not a fierce pain layered with hunger. She wanted to know what it was like to be with a man completely, willingly, unlike the way she’d been with men in the past.

The First Time

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Just say the word and we’ll stop.” Jerry whispered as he kissed Kara’s neck, his hand gently undressing her.

She relaxed as he explored her body.

He lifted his head from between her legs and smiled. “You taste so sweet, baby, so sweet.”

More… She didn’t say it aloud, but he somehow heard her and dove back down, slipping a pillow beneath her hips.

She moaned softly and covered her face with her hands and lost herself in the sensation.

Jerry kissed his way up her tummy and slowly pushed himself into her. “Uncover your face, baby, look at me.”

He filled her completely. His warmth soothed and touched her in a way she’d never known.

She removed her hands and looked into his eyes. He took it slow as she trembled beneath him. When her cries of pleasure increased, he grabbed her wrists with one hand and thrust himself into her harder, faster. She screamed with pleasure and clamped her thighs around him. They crested as one.

Her breath hitched afterward, overwhelmed by emotion. She wanted to just give herself to him. He kissed her passionately, caressing the interior of her mouth with his tongue and then he whispered words she had never been told by any man, “I love you.”

She froze. Do I say it back? What do I do? Come on; think fast. She grabbed a marker from the nightstand. The one he used to label his CD earlier. She wrote, “Jerry”, across her swollen feminine lips.

He smiled, “Well…that’s one way of saying it.”

She looked up into his eyes and saw he was laughing at her a little, in a sweet sort of way. She sighed and smiled with an embarrassed eye roll, “I love you back,” she gave her head a shake, “I mean…too.”

The Visitor

Kara went over to visit Jerry at the Hilton. There was a redhead hugging his neck. The woman slid beside him on the piano bench and they began to play a song together. They were sitting a little too close for Kara’s comfort. She looked at his face. He was gazing into this gorgeous woman’s eyes with an undeniable familiarity.

I knew it! Mother said this would happen. The minute you let a man get too close, he’ll crush you, toss you aside like a piece of garbage.

Kara felt the transformation bubbling inside of her. She ran back to her car and tried to calm down to avoid the blinding metamorphosis.

When she got home, her rage had dissipated. She flung herself across her bed and sobbed then thought about how to destroy Jerry.

He stopped by after his gig, as usual. She had already taken several gulps from the large potion bottle and was waiting in the nude. It wasn’t even that time of month. She shoved him down onto the couch and unbuckled his pants then yanked them to his ankles as soon as he came through the front door. She dove right in.

In no time, she felt him gush and tremble as she siphoned his energy into her body.

Afterwards, she silently abandoned him and retreated into the bathroom, staring at her reflection. This time I’ll stick around and watch it happen, you bastard.

The next day, Jerry said he felt sick and he stayed in bed. He lifted his head when she entered the room, “Amanda, my sister, came for a visit. She’s staying at the Hilton. She surprised me. I haven’t seen her in a long time. Anyway, I’d like for you to meet her. I told her we’d have lunch today, but I’m not sure I’m up for it.” He coughed up phlegm in a tissue.

“Your sister?”

“Yeah. Her name’s Sheila. She doesn’t look anything like me. She has red hair and big blue eyes. You’ll love her.”

“I’m sure I will.”

Kara ducked into the bathroom, slammed the door and glared at her reflection. What have you done, Kara? She sat on the toilet seat and cried. It hit her; she knew what she had to do.

She opened the large potion bottle and took a huge swig then poured the rest down the drain. She flushed her necklace down the toilet and dried her tears.

Kara went to Jerry. She sat on the edge of the bed and caressed his cheek. “I’ll take care of you. You’ll be good as new in a flash.” She leaned down and kissed him, releasing her energy into his mouth, forcing air into his lungs. He squirmed but couldn’t pull away. She held her lips over his until the transfer was complete.

He perked up, “Damn, baby, how’d you do that? I feel great! You are some kisser.” He chuckled and stroked her hair as she rested her head on his chest and listened to his young, strong heartbeat.

When he took a shower, she slipped away. Like the beast she felt she had become, she wanted to die alone and not have his eyes upon her and helplessly witness her deterioration or run the risk of him finding out the truth. She drove as far as she could in her extremely weakened condition and assumed a new identity. She checked into a hotel room, alone, struggling to breathe, and waited for the nightmare that was her life to end.

*

Downtown Blues

Daniel Fabiani 

The Lower East Side has always been a welcoming place for me. Life glints and churns inside the sinewy entrails of cultures and subcultures and it seems to have always been in that old world sort of way. Born and raised and re-born here, this place was and is all I know. At least that is what I believed until I met Jason Trembly; the skulking sociopath who has spent more time careening through these narrow streets like a lost child rather than actually enjoying the city itself. His admiration for opalescent toxins and the fluttery feeling that it offers as it’s pushed into withered veins forced him to take on that life. He’s like me, a wanderer, a vagabond of sorts; but these streets are what I know best, and he is a presence that I want in this concrete jungle.

He’s twenty four years old, homeless and always on the hunt for next quick job. And Jason has not seen me yet. I cannot communicate with him until he feels it is right. I have sent the signals, dropped a parking meter like dead weight in front of his unsteady gait; coins splattering and eyes hungry, wanting that change as if they were golden medallions. I have broken many a store window at all hours of the night during countless random walks. Yet his withdrawal-crazed mind still did not understand the lurking essence by his side.

He liked to pick out Chinese scrapings and some cool plates of dim sum or General Tso’s Chicken from the old food shops. Either way, garbage always gathered in piles and its dredges stuck around long enough to exhale onto the surrounding area the stink of old waste or for trucks to turn it into slush to slip it into filthy sewers. But Jason took no notice of my offerings, just thought of it as pure luck.

I blew hot wind at him when he was lying helpless on the cold bitten corner of Mulberry and Grand; the snow coming down like an unraveled quilt of frozen white holy water; flakes so pretty you would not believe a pile of them could freeze limbs and dissipate the life straight out of a heart. I squeezed dope out of his body once, forced it back through the ruined port at the base of his brachial artery. I knew he pushed too much of the stuff, an untimely death imminent, and my chances to be with him were about to shatter so I followed the trail of poison around his blood vessels, stopped it with my pinky finger and reversed the flow, sluicing from his wound like a thread of snot.

I brushed his lengthy dark brown hair from his face through many withdrawal frenzies, the sweat salty and hot against my lips as I pressed them to his forehead to ensure that he would make it through. But did he feel me? Did he look in my eyes as I paid close attention to him? It was not so much that he could feel my touch. After all, what was there to feel? I had not yet introduced myself to him yet; all I had done was keep him safe from himself, something that I cannot do too much longer.

Jason has a job now, not a steady one, but after the last bout of withdrawal, and my will o’ the wisp kisses to the thinning meat of his face, he decided to give up the stuff and work off the books washing dishes in a local Italian joint on Mulberry Street.

He scored enough cash there to rent a room in a tenement over on Mulberry as well, above “Ristorante S.P.Q.R.” and he loves it there. The habits have ceased and his face has begun to color again. At night I pass an ethereal hand through his frail body, the tissues beneath like flaky fish guts from the drugs, but I love him either way. Jason just smirks as I do this to him; my fingers running along the upside of the soft venison that is his stomach, the taut tendons that control his fingers and toes, the dull pink kissers that once were vibrant lips. He still sweats at night, regurgitates the worst withdrawal can offer, but he does not crack, and for that I commend him.

By day, Jason was a thin and wan young male trying to keep clean and not let his hair grow too long; it’s hard for him to clean up his act. By night he was a maniac who gained a new friend through liquor and had already become enamored with the spawning despair at the bottom of a bottle. He picked this habit up to detain the nausea, the chiseling headaches, the violent spasms and mood swings that almost cost him his job. Washing dishes is no fun task when your mind is consumed with the one and only thing that makes you happy; the tip of a glittering needle and the smoky-cool liquid of dope.

I kept watch over him, still signaling, throwing a battered metal garbage can down at his feet, breaking car windows as he passed them. I uprooted some cobblestone and materialized before his eyes like leaves twisting in a savage wind, but he took no notice. Soon after meeting alcohol his face began to sink again: the rent was not being paid and his Old Italian landlord was not happy. She wanted him out at the first of the month, told him to pack his shit and get ready to go, hair stringy, white and ratty in front of her crow-wrinkled face; eyes droopily serious, cut-throat eyes that had seen it all.

So as the landlady slept that night, I reached my hand through the calcified cage of her ribs and choked the life out her heart until her body’s electric filled my fingers with twinges of mercy. Then I crept my fingers over to her lungs like seedy spiders. I wrung them out of blood like a dirty sink sponge and let the blood pool atop her ancient diaphragm. Jason was surprised to find out that his landlord had died quietly in her sleep and that her sister would be taking responsibility over the century old tenement.

“You have time to pay the rent,” she said, “I am in mourning for my sorella.”

Jason took that as an excuse to hold his breath and go for a deep dive, far into the depths that alcohol can lead you to; the wicked burn of amber liquid, oh what it can do to the human mind! I should know so myself as I’ve picked up a drink now and again. But Jason’s issues were further deep-rooted than a little old ghost of one hundred years could fathom; even one as desperately in love with this human form of pity. But I found the courage to show myself and to allow Jason to see how much potential we have, to allow him to be with me forever. It came unexpectedly, simply the time was just right.

I waited until he was two bottles in. Jason hadn’t even gone to work that morning, the landlord’s sister ready to kick his stinking ass out for the new set of roaches that now lived in the cartons of take out piled in all places of his apartment. I took that time to enter his head, just to see what was going on. His brow was seeped in withdrawal sweat, it soaked warmly with Jason’s flavor, something between moribund and youth. The sulcus of his brain burst with an ethanol sickness, pining for something I could not see. I swooped around him then and wrapped two skinny arms over his body like a cold blanket. He immediately withdrew the Jim Beam from his lips and it made a sucking pop, sticky from too many swigs, and asked who was there:

“It’s me, Jason, don’t worry.”

“I am not worried; just tell me who is there.”

I came up in front of him, materialized as best as I could, not a typical ghost that was made up of white clouds and cotton softness. I am an actual ghost who can take on the shape of anything. I took the body of a woman I had once helped out as she begged God to take her life to spare her from her husband’s beatings. I took it upon myself to fulfill her prayer; too bad I am no God. My hair was long and the color of dark strawberries, tied back in a pony tail to show Jason the entrancing pallor of my face and the small glitter in my eyes.

“You’re a woman,” he stared at me in disbelief; his eyebrows crinkled and weary.

“Yes, a woman I am, Jason. What troubles you?”

“Nothing, am I hallucinating? How much have I drunk?”

“You are just fine, you will be okay. You are with me now.”

“What are you?”

“That is nothing to worry about…”

“A ghost or something? Please tell me!”

“I guess you can say that.”

To admit that I was a spirit to my lovers is always the hardest thing to do. In most cases they scramble and run away no matter what shape I have taken; a dog, a goldfish, an old matted cat and even their heart’s desire. The minute I open my mouth and reveal my true form they want nothing to do with me. But this was not the case with Jason. He was young, partly witty, an addict who wanted a little more out of life then the loneliness at the bottom of a bottle or the simple despair of trying to achieve the same kind of high as the night before. Jason and I got along very well after that.

*

“Brenda,” he would call me, which was fine as I never gave myself a name in human form; I left that part up to my lovers. That night I drank a sweating wine cooler. As he deemed my new name, he sipped warm whiskey from a bottle, sometimes pouring it over ice as if to cool the liquid amber flame down his throat. I told Jason of my travels and of my life back in the day when streets felt narrower and the buildings looked newer. He could not get passed a time where more fruit vendors stood than actual restaurants. That was an alien concept to him. I elaborated about the years when no cars passed over the cobblestone he frequented everyday and that as many bodies as he sees moving between one another was quadrupled in the good old days; immigration laws have cleaned up this area.

I told him of the many ghosts of years passed that still linger around the alleyways about the ones shrouded in the lead black of night and in the run down tenements looking for a place they can call home. He asked if they could cause harm and I told him they could not. But some chose to do things such as pull you out of bed by your ankles while you slept, or stick out a leg as you ran for the train because you were late to work only to fall on your face and scrape your knees. Those ghosts were pranksters, not all were out for blood.

We shared stories like campfire tales. We held hands as we serenaded each other; he didn’t notice I was feeling more than his skin, I was fingering the fine velvet of male muscle beneath, making him my own with every ethereal caress. We talked about history and the horrors that occurred and continued to keep a close friendship.

We made love as well. When he touched my body for the first time his eyes lit, knowing that what he was about to do would be different. I had no heartbeat or blood supply, I was simply a gorgeous pale shell on the outside and a shapeless wandering presence within, looking for love and comfort, or something to that effect. His small pallid hand was a chiaroscuro of flesh compared to the icy porcelain death of mine. His veins were rigid from elbow to wrist, lines of teal and blue crisscrossing like twine to supply his soul with blood; that was a mechanism my body could never possess.

But this bothered him not. My breath was frigid and tinged with stale cigarettes; my bones were the temperature of a morgue; nipples permanently hardened and an albino pink sparkled in my eyes like a lab rat. This did not faze him. The iced path of my thighs, the fetid, brisk slug that was my tongue did not scare him off. Jason was a loyal man. Our first time I can remember well, his face tumescent red, cheekbones lucent through that blossoming rouge, eyes a spider web crimson from my view, soaked in the colors of lust, with fire.

And the situation did not shake him one bit. When we climaxed our union, his eyes did a menial twist, his nose twitched and sweat dripped on my face, the ghosts of temperature exchange birthed a coiling white wisp of water vapor into the air. His orgasm was quick and full of energy. Six pumps of pearlescent spitfire straight into me, dripping out like tendrils of white-rot nectar. Then he rolled over in our moth eaten bed and asked me some things.

“How have my landlords stopped bothering me? You’ve been here for three months and I haven’t paid a single penny of rent, nor have I worked,” he was inquisitive and I loved it, and it brought color to his face like when we made love.

I dared not tell him of my extreme jealousy, that I did not want or need any female in the presence of my dear Jason. His landlords were a quintuplet of mean, crinkled old sisters; but young or old I just sought Jason all to myself. One by one I crushed vitality from their age worn hearts, ensuring that none of them would bother him for money. He was too precious to allow any insignificant being to harass him.

Jason’s questions proceeded daily and I brushed them off while we continued learning about one another. I found out that he was not native to New York City, but he had actually moved down to the “Big Apple” not to long before we met.

“My town was one of those places where if you took a shit the wrong way, they ousted you or singled you out until you couldn’t take it anymore.”

“I have seen some towns like that,” I lied to him softly.

“So when I picked up the dope problem, the people did not take long to kick my ass out. So I came here.”

“Jason there must be something else than that from where you came,” I said, growing too curious for my own good.

He didn’t say much at that point. An orange blade of sunset covered the west side of his tenement like a cloak of light. Then his trembles began again. I thought it was me at first, the temperature of my human form, after all I was gelid to the touch, but realized it was simply the effect of a body trying desperately to kick a habit; to not let those familiar, swimmy feelings of the past over take him.

I stood and ran to get him a glass of Jim Beam -- his favorite -- poured it in a cup and fed him some of the stuff to calm him down. The tremors slowed down to small spasms then, but I knew the jig of alcohol replacing the other stuff would not last. There was something much more deep seated in my lovely Jason.

His eyes gave into the temptation of forced sleep, one of the lesser beauties that alcohol offers, and I took this opportunity to let my fingers enter the electric-white pulp of his brain. I passed through liquid metal bursts of memory, a labyrinth of no return in my sight; Jason hid them as if in a cavern from layers and layers of opiates and alcohol bouts. The memories were groggy as I received them.

I saw rows and rows of trees blocking street corners, dripping colorful leaves, cracked and dry on the black top pavement, a car or two passing, blowing the dead tree weeps up and back in the air like a tiny orange twister. I saw rows of families dressed in good Sunday attire, girls in white skirts, boys in vests, hair slicked back and bright blonde in the sun. Their shoes shiny and black as they held small, delicate hands and a church in the center of the town with a steeple as old and moss layered as California Sequoias.

There is one boy whom I cannot take my sights off of. He is the ugly duckling at the end of a line of Puritan, suburban blood. His hair is gelled back and is not like the others.

Neither light in color nor silky, this made him an outsider. His shoes shine but his eyes do not; the obvious is that he hasn’t showered, there are smears of dirt on his chin and a tall woman with white gloves licks her finger tips and wipes his little face. He is alone in the world; I can see it in the fading light of his two green eyes.

Fast forward and I see a teenage Jason, so handsome, his dark features brilliant versus the Scandinavian look of the town; but he is not welcome.

“Isn’t he a half breed?” A nosey kid asks another.

“I hear his father is Italian, or maybe African. Who knows?”

The reply was snarky, rolled in wet-money sheets of an upper class mindset. The school yard is filled with Aryan faces that glow pink under any light; hair flows as yellow as maize, eyes sparkle the blue of gems. There is no room for a half-breed in suburbia, but the tall woman, his mother I presume, is no half-breed. Her reputation allows such an odd child to stay in the town. The father is nowhere in Jason’s memory. The only thing he clutches is an old dog-eared photo of a man with a great set of teeth holding his mother with two big arms. They are smiling as lovers do -- as I wish I could with Jason forever. Then I am sent to another set of memories.

“Do you love me?” A small teenage girl whispers in Jason’s ear in a theater dark room.

“Yes I think I do, Shelly.”

They embrace and kiss for an amount of time that I do not want to count. I saw it in his eyes that he loved her. Jason loved her more than his own mother, than his own heartbeat. Those enamored green orbs told me everything and I tried to reach inside him through this fluid river of Jason’s own memory, but I could not; yet his face alone told me all I needed to know. Shelly moved on to be the best thing of his teenage years. When she’d stopped coming around, Jason slipped into a full scale retreat from society.

His mother could not console him; he had no friends to help him along. It was all too easy to start the habit as the inner city was bloated with the pushers and the users. I see him holding his mother’s leg razor to his wrist in a tub of hot water. His skin is seared lobster like and his face is choked with tears, sweaty tears that can only fall in such torrents from a lover taken away by force. Shelly’s family would not have her with him, the half breed; the odd boy from the other side of town. But he cannot do it, he cannot end his life, so he drops the blade and sinks into the water; large bubbles sizzle at the surface.

He meets with the dealer in a piss stained alleyway of the inner city. His face covered with a ski mask, lips pink and chaffed; eyes beady and black, the wind whipping his jacket open; Jason knew he was far from suburbia then. The needle was supplied, safe in package, followed by a dull sliver spoon and a lighter. The exchange was formal and they both knew they’d see one another soon. I can feel Jason’s loneliness, his self-pity and the hollowed bulb of his heart that only Shelly could fill; I could never replace her.

The drug is in chunk rock form, a translucent white, looks like pebbles. They melt drudgingly on the spoon and pop and splash opal toxins that he had no idea would wrap that proverbial noose around his neck and pull tight. The needle sucks the stuff up. It is warm within the barrel; I can feel it as Jason feels it. He ties his biceps with a belt, a neat trick he seen on television I presume. How else would a small town boy know how to shoot dope?

The vein is ready; is long as his forearm and speckled teal-blue under the bathroom fluorescence. Tears are running down to his chin and are running off the side. They fuse into the collar of his shirt and form patches of a wet, lonely soul. I can feel his despair and smell it. It is rank with dope now as the needle draws in his blood and swirls into the drug, a now pale-red liquid charging into his bloodstream to shock the pain and numb it. I see it run through tiny blood vessels of all shapes and sizes, of myriad speeds and lengths. It is slow when drifting through his veins, but it picks up the pace when exchanging through the puzzle of his heart, the throbbing valves, and is spit out into his arteries.

He faints as the liquid embrace throttles his brain and even his consciousness and bullies it with expanding black clouds. His face hits the toilet bowl and he finally sleeps more than he had the week before. He wakes in a pool of spit and dried blood and his mother’s friend is poking him in the back of his head.

“Sarah, he has a drug problem,” the woman squeals through small pink lips and large, yellow coffee stained teeth.

“He does not,” Jason here’s the voice of his mother breathless, everlastingly out to protect him.

“Fix him up, Sarah, or he will be not welcome in this town. We have no tolerance for ingrates.”

I can smell perfume, cloves, week old caffeine and the stale stench of perfection. All of this I perceive through Jason -- and through this punishing memory.

 The woman leaves and slams a gloved fist on the bathroom door and his mother is bending down to him, cupping his face devoid of color, wiping the juices of pity from his mouth and cheek, bruised navy blue from the fall.

“What is wrong with you?” She whispers into his face; breath pristine and fresh after two cups of lemon-mint tea. Jason does not reply.

*

There is a gap now, I drift through a shadow, or seven, and I am standing still in a puddle of confusion, of thoughts purposely erased from Jason’s brain; these are things I cannot look for, they are gone. I feel a rumble. A light switches on and slices the dark with a single yellow bolt and it blinks like a dying light at the end of a mile-long tunnel, or like an eyeball opening to its first sight of morning.

I removed myself from Jason’s liquor drenched mind and saw that his eyes were open, wide, staring at me as if I had an extra set of ears or eyes. I looked him back, said nothing, my own hurt masking my affection for him. All that I have done, all the landlords that I rid for him, all the love I have given to him and all the neutrality he has shown me did not allow me to speak. He would never love me like he loved Shelley and he was going to wallow in that until the final day he pushed the syringe too far in his vein and his stomach exploded from all the beatings alcohol rages upon it.

“Brenda,” he said with a tired look on his face. “Brenda, why are you staring at me?”

“What am I staring at? You?”

“Yes, you are staring right at me.”

“I don’t know why, Jason, I don’t know…”

Jason stood and rubbed his temples, aching from my adventure through the distorted box of memories hidden deep in there. I couldn’t help but to still be in love with him, but the way he pined over Shelly was something he could never do with me; could never implicate that kind of sentiment for a spirit. It was impossible. I should have known, but when one is looking for love, the mind surpasses the bad and only has room for the good.

“Look, I am going to take a shower, I have the worst hangover I have ever had in my life.”

“Just go…”

“What is the matter with you?” Jason stared me down again, the last time we would ever speak.

I could have fled, could have easily rid myself of my human form and made my way back into the blender of The Lower East Side, back to my lonely eternal life. Downtown will always be my home. It’ll always be the sight for me to be sad upon when I need to remember that I can still feel. But Downtown would not leave me in vain like this. I just could not let it cast another hundred year old blue shadow onto me. I was not going to be left alone, not when the man I love can be with me forever. I would woo Jason to join me -- and by the only way I knew how.

There was on old set of needle, spoon and lighter that Jason kept hidden under the kitchen sink. He thought I didn’t know, but I knew everything about him. I ditched my human form and materialized back into the comfort of my freedom that was barred by bone and cold-putty flesh. The set was right where I knew it would be; a bag of junk in the right corner. There for a real bad day; perhaps the day when he decided to end it all. What was there to live for without her anyway? Me? Never in a million years could he love me like I loved him. He would sooner let himself slip into permanent unconsciousness than dare to love an essence over the mere meat-bone-tissue of a perfectly constructed, warm-blooded woman.

I heard the toilet bowl flush. My non-existent heart idled; my phantom lungs held air in; my unseeing eyes were ready for anything. When I heard the shower turn on and the jingle from the curtain hooks open and close, I made my way into the bathroom. It was much easier to walk through walls in my true form. I set up the supplies so when he came out he’d not be able to resist. I backed into the corner of the bathroom and waited.

The shower head turned off and Jason finally stepped out. He defogged the mirror with his hands and opened the door a crack to let some of the steam out which had engulfed everything. That’s when he noticed it: hair dripping and body temperate from shower water; the drugs were at his disposal. The lighter went off first and the rocks melted then he sucked the needle back as he tied his arm with his bath towel. The vein showed its long, dull colored face in no time. He injected and injected, and injected again.

“Fuck it. Fuck everything,” he mumbled.

“I love you, Jason, but she can’t have your heart. I simply won’t allow it.”

But it was too late. The amount riding along the throughways of his blood vessels was too powerful for his body to fight off. I held him up as his knees buckled; stark naked and gleaming with man sweat and water vapors. I opened my mouth as if in a permanent, struggling yawn and entered his perfect pink one. He was the sweetest thing I ever tasted and the last thing I’ll ever need to taste. His soul slithered out to me in the same color of his life, grey; and it curled along my tongue like tangled hair. He added heat to my own form, but it did not last long.

I lowered his body to floor as he lay peacefully sleeping now. Whoever would find him would just blame the drugs. I leaned into his perfect face; his green eyes slack, half-open, a silent imploration for me to stop the bags beneath that would never to be erased. I kissed his lips and his new wound, rimmed red with ectoplasm and thanked him. I released him knowing he would always be with me, never with her, and so we began our journey through the chintzy streets of New York City together -- and finally…forever.

*

Daniel Fabiani is now a 4 time published author at SNM. He really captivates his readers and lures them in with his unique purple-prose. He is 22 and native to NYC and has the accent to prove it! He makes his living by working in a hospital where his encounters with the dead are an everyday affair. He is in his last year of college in NYC and hopes to utilize his degree one day. He has a novel in the works and it is more than halfway done. Dan is featured in Bonded by Blood II and his featured story was nominated in Predators and Editors polls for Best Horror Story of 2009, placing 3rd! His other credits include Sex and Murder, The New Flesh, Drops of Crimson and Microhorror. He's currently featured in 3 new anthologies: BBB II, Nocturnal Illumination and Ruthless. Read his new return interview here in the February issue with Lilith on his new award nomination! Readers may contact him by e-mail, dfabiani46@yahoo.com or:

http://prose-lover.livejournal.com

http://danfabiani.webs.com

Daniel Fabiani

Astral Amore

Kerry Morgan

The most dangerous enemy is the one you love.

--Kerry Morgan

My fingers entwined in his hair, squeezing and pulling as his lips tugged at my beckoning nipple. Hard and tight, my breasts were full and aching with a need to be touched.

“Please.” I whispered. “I have to kill… I must go kill someone…” However, his lips rolled across my stomach to find the other breast. He nibbled the tender pink nub lightly and I felt both his rough hands upon my chest, grasp and squeeze; his lips crushing mine with his passion. My back arched as I wrapped my legs around his athletic frame and begged with the heat from my center. “Please, oh God please.”

“Angela,” his deep, sexy voice rumbled next to my ear when a knocking ripped me out of the dream that wasn’t a dream. He’d been coming to me at night. As I would relax and ready myself for astral travel, Chris would show up, sometimes to watch me drift, sometimes to tease my body with longings I wasn’t sure I should have. I knew his name but couldn’t recall his face. His hands were real enough that my nipples were raw with the attention he had bestowed, but I still couldn’t get him to take me. I always woke up too soon, though I wouldn’t say I had awakened from a dream. I traveled astrally too often to know this wasn’t an actual dream, even despite the fact that I was asleep as it happened.

I always wondered if someone would come for me, with all the astral killing I did. If I killed bad guys in my astral form, then surely there were bad guys that could kill for wrong reasons in their astral forms. I knew I had enemies out there.

Would anyone think to hire an Astral Assassin? I hoped not, and yet Chris had been coming to me at night for weeks. I had completely fallen for his tender blue eyes and his soft messy brown hair and graveled whispers.

Still, there was one major screaming problem. He always came to me when I needed to do my job. I love my job. I get to talk to ghosts. If an innocent is murdered and their killer gets away, they come to me to receive their justice. Feeling their last emotions, I can find their killer in my astral, or spirit form and, with my particular gifts, I kill them and no one is the wiser. It isn’t a job that I can perform while being distracted. I mean, I get to kill; it’s not as if I can stop in the middle of my job for a quickie. That’s what worries me about Chris. He must know this, which makes me wonder, is he after me? Is Chris evil?

Yet how could I call such lips caressing evil? Full and perfect lips, telling me of love and total completion night after night. Physical, pink softness whispering my name constantly among the stars. I loved his voice, his touch, and his murmurs, even if I only felt them when I was in astral form. Boy, could my astral form sense him. Every glorious inch of him; and I wanted every inch of him. Desperately.

Yes, I chose to scare people before I killed them because their crimes justified such treatment. Was he using seduction as bait to lure me into trusting him? Was he planning on killing me? Would I even care under the expertise of his fingers? I didn’t think I could ever fight Chris. I was deeply afraid that I’d fallen in love with a man sent to kill me. Why did I believe he could kill me? Because I’m an assassin. No one could love me. Why else would he show up in astral form and not find me in the physical? I didn’t know.

There was that knocking again against something in my living room before I was at last ready to leave the ecstasy of sleep. Wonderful. Couldn’t even scratch my eye lids open before the knowledge I would have to kill someone today seeped into my consciousness. Just once, I’d like to wake without knowing I would have to take a life. Sometimes killing gets old even when it’s justified.

Heaving a sigh, I turned to get up out of bed to see a hideous face grinning at me not two inches away from mine. Angela… Angela…” the ghost mocked making smooching sounds with dried husks of lips. “Come here my peach and let me touch those glorious lips. Here, I have something you can kiss,” the spirit indicated bucking against the side of the bed.

I took my fist and slammed it hard against the side of the skull’s head, spinning the thing around in circles. When it stopped spinning, the green flaps of skin still left atop its head fluttered over its eyeless sockets. The skull flipped the dead flesh as if it was bangs hanging in its eyes. “Oh, I’m sorry I was just teasing. I miss sex and kissing. I’m here because I need your help. I’ve been murdered.”

Disgusted with its play let alone the wake up call, I retorted, “When in the fifteen hundreds?” Pushing the blankets aside as I got up out of bed, I could see the full apparition. The rest of it wasn’t much better than the skull. The skeletal bone was green with decay, bits of old dried marrow showing from broken bones, loose teeth rolled around inside its mouth, which it chewed up and swallowed only to have to rotting teeth appear right where they should be, where the macabre jaw crunched down and began chewing all over again.

The thing was disintegrating before me and reforming itself before the dust could blow away. Such beauty I was subject too. I rolled my eyes and headed out the room toward my salvation. Coffee. Hot, black and ready, for I could smell the fresh aroma drifting down the hall, calling me. I loved the new coffee pot, which allowed me to time my drug of choice to be perked as soon as I needed it to be.

I heard a thump drag behind me and knew the skeleton was following me. It wasn’t going to go away and let me enjoy the remnants of the only sex I’d had in months, spirit or in body and that was just sad. My center still waited for the pleasure it was promised, no teased with, and the ache was irritating. 

“I’ve been murdered,” it said in a raspy voice from the area of the floor as I prepared my fix of caffeine. “You are supposed to help.”

“Can you stand?” I asked. Leaning up against my kitchen wall with my cup of steaming coffee grasped between my hands I could see half of the green deteriorated skeleton laying on the floor looking at me, still grinding away at its molars like they were chewed up pieces of bubble gum.

“You aren’t going to try to blow a bubble at me, are you?” I asked sarcastically.

“Are you going to help me?” It responded.

“If I can, yes.”

“Then no I won’t blow tooth-chunk bubbles at you, but what other use can I put them to now? Keep my jaws working,” it answered with a toothless grin that filled up with decaying teeth as I watched.

“Well we wouldn’t want you to lose that function now, would we? So you were murdered. Okay, but the state you are in implies that it had happened several, if not hundreds of years ago. How do you know I can help you?” I asked the skeleton saturating my question.

As it looked up at me, its jaw nearly fell to the floor. Neat little trick. A decomposing bone hand came from behind the wall where the rest of its body hid from view to grab at the jaw. How could a skeleton still look like it was in the process of rotting?

I was going to find out as I watched its broken finger bones, splintered and sharp shove its jaw back into its hinges. It adjusted its jaw clacking its teeth together and then answered me.

“Technically, I was brought back from my rest improperly. And my husband has no talent for restoration. I didn’t start out this way, he just didn’t have the juice to put me back together as pretty as when I went down.”

“What do you mean you were brought back from your rest that way? You look at least a hundred years dead.”

“That’s the problem. A drunk driver killed me and my husband tried to raise me from the dead with crap tools, so to speak.  He is inept at everything and he didn‘t have the power to bring me back to a decent state. For Pete‘s sake, he used animal blood to invoke my spirit, not even human blood.

"That's why I look the way I do. My flesh can’t stay whole it just peels away as you’d peel the shell off a hard-boiled egg. It was the magic he used. He wants to become a ceremonial magician but he needs kills to accomplish such a rank. I believe he wants me to accomplish that part of his task.”

“First, what are you talking about? He needs kills and second, if your death was an accident, I can‘t avenge you because your husband is a bad magician.” I probed.

“Yes you can. Let me explain. I was planning to leave him. He knew this but he planned to use me to do his dirty work. He knew I would never do such a thing alive, so he figured he could force me in death. He got in a car and followed me on my walk home from work, which is when he hit me.

My husband works at the morgue in the hospital so all he had to do was put a dead body in the driver seat, and he doesn’t even have to lie or say it was a drunk driver. It was around the same time as my accident. He did the autopsy and took the body. Working in the morgue gives him access to such things.”

“Then he performed a ritual using old animal blood to entice my spirit back but my flesh reacted to the dead blood, bringing me back like this. The animal wouldn’t be able to cover a whole human being, not to mention it had been dead for a while so I look like I’ve been gone for years instead of days. Hence, my constant disintegration.

 What would he care as long as I have awareness and he can control me with his stupid old animal blood. I’m to kill and torture for him so he can perfect his half-assed magic. I don’t want to kill and torture people for his magical gain; I just want to go back to the magical Summerland.”

“And you believe I can send you back?”

“I believe if you stop my husband, I can go back. He doesn’t want me back to love, he wants me back to torture and kill for him.”

“Why?” I queried again.

“Because he is dying of lung cancer. If he gets the human blood from the kills he expects me to make, he believes he can save himself. Through magic.”

“So what you are trying to get me to believe is that your husband, who works in the hospital morgue, stole a dead body on the night of your death, put it behind the wheel of the car that hit you, which your husband was actually driving, to kill you. Now he has used dark magic with animal blood to raise you from the dead to use you as a slave to, as you put it, do his dirty work.”

“He wants me to kill people so he can harvest their human blood.”

“For his dark magic to keep himself alive. And he didn’t use yours because…”

“He couldn’t harvest mine before I was embalmed. He only got to me after I was buried. I was outta here and finally happy until he brought me back, stuck like this. Please help me.”

“Even though he works in the hospital morgue? Wouldn’t he have been the embalmer?”

“That’s part of his stupidity. He hit me with the car in the wrong area. I went to a different hospital.”

I laughed. She was right, her husband was an idiot. I considered the skeleton’s plight. It was so gruesome looking, I had to test what it was saying to be sure it wasn’t going to turn on me. What if its state was contagious? I doubted it but I still opened my chakras to send my power to the awareness of the skeleton. Instantly I could sense Chris fingering me at my center. My legs buckled and nipples tingled with excitement. I gasped and a moan escaped me before I could pull back out of the wave of energy to read the skeleton.

“Jeez,” she answered, “I wish I could do that. Do you always orgasm when you close your eyes? You make me want to see if we could, I mean you‘re so pretty…maybe the animal he used was a male one...” The thing was laughing at me.

“Shut up. Besides, you said you were married and had a husband. I’m not into women even if we could ignore the fact that, oh yeah, you’re dead, so knock it off…”

 “Too bad,” the ghoul said.

I growled. This was going to be a problem. I couldn’t fight for the woman to return her to rest if I was on the edge of cumming every time I slipped into trance.

“Okay, listen. I am going to try to help you, but you are going to have to help me too. I need you to show me where this man is that raised you from your death, I need to know how to find him, but I’m having a little trouble….”

“Ya think?”

“Do you think you can show me his picture or where he is and cut the crap?”

The skeletal figure looked down to the white carpet two inches from its face and I felt the vibration of energy coming at me before it hit. When it crashed into my psyche, I could smell wet earth, horrid deterioration, and death. My fingers curled and my coffee mug fell to the floor as I grasped dirt that wasn’t there, covering me, suffocating me until light appeared above my head. I reached for the light and my arm broke. I tried to force my fingers to work, digging myself out of the hole splintering finger bones on both hands.

I crawled out of the earth to see through my third eye, a man standing above me with his arms raised to the moon. Red and black candles were surrounding my grave. The headstone had been defiled with dark markings created by charcoal scribbled all over it. I was angry and I knew the man, standing nude but for a black trench coat before me. His engorged cock twitched as my bones knit together with dried marrow. My flesh should have been fresh, but the old blood ruined me as I escaped the ground. The pain was too intense. My nerveless body had nothing to regulate the pain with so it saturated my mind and my heart.

“Please.” I heard myself grovel in a rasp, “Please, the pain. It’s too much. I was at peace. What have you done Saul, what is happening? I shouldn‘t look like this, I shouldn’t be here, I don‘t understand.”

I knew I was reliving the skeleton’s rise from the earth and couldn’t avoid the pain. With other clients, I could feel what they went through but not this intensely. Usually, it was the knowledge of the pain, not the actual feel of it.

The man was painting himself with what I assumed was the animal blood the skeleton had spoken. “Justine. It worked! You are back. This is most glorious!” The man was speaking to the skeleton which my awareness had inhabited, though I could do nothing more than what the skeleton, Justine had done, which wasn’t much more than feel the hideous transformation from a freshly dead body, to that of one too small, too furry, and too old.

Her embalmed skin rotted over her cheekbones, flaking and falling to the earth. Her pristine white teeth turned green and ached inside a withering gum line. It felt so odd I had to bite down to keep the feeling of it at bay. I couldn’t tell what animal the man had dug up, it certainly wasn’t a large one. Bones crunched too tightly though they formed the correct shape of a human frame.

Maybe because she was a human and her husband was just using the essence within the blood. Not trying to recreate the animal. Whatever the reason, being restored hurt. I wondered if the skeleton of Justine was still in so much pain.

“Please make it stop. What have you done?” Justine asked in the vision. She was moving slowly, crawling grasping at small blades of grass to help her move, but her bones simply slipped through the dewy softness. It wasn’t really her consciousness now though, it was mine, and I was forming a plan.

As the skeleton crawled toward her husband he was responding back to her, but I could no longer hear what he was saying. My astral form was tingling with pleasure. “God not again.”

Nevertheless, it wouldn’t stop. The feel of his fleshy fingers caressing me, bringing me closer to the edge between insanity and the ultimate pleasure. It was as if my astral form was caught inside the skeleton and acted as if it had flesh. Was I really loosing my mind? Had I cracked under…pleasure or pressure from being astrally inclined and gifted?

I writhed on the ground before Justine’s husband. “What are you doing?” he asked his dead wife groveling before him. Interesting. My astral double caused the bones to react to its movement. That hadn’t happened before, and I could hear him again. “What is going on Justine, you aren’t trying to get me to…you always were sooo kinky.”

 My breasts were squeezed again and the skeletal spine bowed as the femur bones spread for her husband hovering above her with interest. “What? You can’t expect me to fuck a corpse. That’s just plain sick!” the man answered.

“It is sick.” I thought to myself, as another spasm tried to bring me back again.

 “Fuck you, Saul.” The skeleton spoke. I wondered who had said it, Justine, or me for I had felt the exact sentiment.

“Now, my dearest loving wife, you’ve hurt me. There isn’t any flesh of you left to enjoy. In fact, I can hardly stand to look at you.”

“Then don’t! By God put me back. What do you think you are doing?” Justine’s skeleton was crawling along the ground trying to get away from her husband. She was moving too slowly so the man just kept stepping above and around her, watching with amusement. He didn’t seem to grasp that I was trying to get the feel of his fingers caressing me to heights that were supposed to be physical pleasures, off my astral body.

“Now come, Justine, I have a need for you. There is a job I need you to complete. They can’t charge a dead person with murder now, can they? And this job will get me everything I need in one shot then I‘ll think about returning you to your…grave…” he finished with a laugh.

“Yes, well…that isn’t going to happen, Saul.”

“And why not? Look at you! You can’t do a thing about it. I have control over you.”

“Prove it,” Justine’s fleshless mouth spoke, but I directed the words like a ventriloquist.

The man lifted his arms to the moon and began chanting. I laughed. I couldn’t help it. As soon as he started chanting, the feeling of being touched in my center stopped and I could think clearly again. Using Justine’s skeletal body, I crawled toward him, giving him the illusion that his chanting was controlling Justine. I moaned as if I was in pain and her husband smiled, continuing his chant to draw the skeleton closer.

As soon as I was within reach, I beckoned to him, trying to draw him down to my level. He kept chanting but did kneel down to brush his fingers along the skeletal forehead of his wife. That’s when I struck, slamming my sharpened, boney fingers into his chest. I grabbed his heart and squeezed until it burst inside his body and he slumped to the ground.

Instantly, I transported back to my own carbon body, which was on the kitchen floor, cumming harder than I thought was possible. Wave after wave of pure pleasure rippled through my center. The second I could breathe again, I realized the skeleton was gone and I could see Chris above me pumping hard and faster. His dark brown hair hung into his face so I couldn’t see him. His body spasmed above me and I knew he was finished. I closed my eyes wondering if I was about to die, but nothing further happened. 

I opened my eyes and discovered I was alone, half-naked lying on my kitchen floor. He’d disrobed enough of me while my awareness was elsewhere. He could have taken me and I never would have known it. Sure, I felt the pleasure of him upon my return, but now he was gone.

At least he hadn’t killed me, which was a good thing. Maybe he wasn’t another assassin after all. Maybe, just maybe, he was like me, but he wasn’t around to kill me.

I wondered when I would ever know as the last vestiges of our activity throbbed gently and left me happy, but curious and hungry for more.

*

Kerry Morgan has been dishing up terror for over thirty years and still adores it. She's had a few publishing credits in Ezines. This is her 3rd publication with SNM, one of which appears in the BBB II anthology. Her novel is called The Astral Avenger and she is working on a sequel. Kerry also has two short stories published in the Ladies of Horror Anthology. She has also just released a new anthology on Amazon: Nocturnal Illumination. Kerry also teaches martial arts classes and hails from Vermont. Please visit her website and send her comments on her story at: www.kerryamorgan.com and also www.paganimagination.com. She owns Pagan Imagination ezine and SNM supports her.

                 www.myspace.com/krymrgn