He’s sleeping now.
I have been watching him for a few minutes. Just going over in my head what happened between us. How I felt his breath against my face. How he kissed me and pressed his body into me.
I watched his eyes. That’s how you always know. When you see the emotion there, tangible, almost like pain.
And then he subsided against me, with a soft groan in my ear.
Now I sit in the window. All the lights are out but the street below is bright and loud. I catch some breeze now and again, but it’s all hot city air.
There’s a fan whirring above the bed, and it laps the air around in waves.
It sends shivers down my back.
My fingers and toes are numb. So I just sit, waiting to feel something again.
There’s half a bottle of wine on the floor, and I am pretty sure that I can drink the rest by myself. He’d only had a glass. It was just a nicety. Both of us knew what was going to happen tonight; no one really needed softening up for the business at hand.
Well. Maybe one of us knew what was going to happen.
He is like many of the others, but I enjoyed him. I like his smooth skin and the muscles in his back. And the way he didn’t feel the need to apologize for asking for what he wanted from a woman he didn’t know.
Still, I’m a little uneasy. It does help that no one will be looking for me. The one benefit of not keeping anyone in your life is having no one to answer to.
It’s been like this for a few months now. I just know what I need, and I can’t help myself. Of a dozen men, I can barely remember their faces.
Their eyes, I do remember.
What I don’t like is taking their memories. Each one has given me something. Perhaps its because of the kind of men they are: young, gruff, perhaps afraid of any real affection. But when the moment came, I always saw their memories. Within that little death, I see their lives flash before me. All the lovers before. Sometimes anger. There was one who choked a girl until she almost lost consciousness.
Some I found easy to hate.
Others stir sympathy within me. Like this man. Even in the midst of our coital bliss, there was another woman on his mind. He kept reliving that last angry kiss goodbye, when she told him it was over. He has not processed it yet. But he’s still in love.
It’s always the hardest when there is sympathy, when there is a longing. And truly? Each of them I have found beautiful, in their own way. The light in their eyes, their energy, no matter how brutal or troubled they were, is a breath of life.
I am watching his chest rise and fall. I can almost hear the steady sound of his exhalation.
I can time it to the beat of my own slow, steady heart.
I put the wine bottle to my lips and take a drink. Its like a cool, bitter kiss.
I have a decision to make.
I can rouse him from his slumber, stir desire in him again, to take more of his life force.
Or I can bite him, take it all now, and in my greed, end both my suffering and his.
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© 2009 Lori Titus
Lori Titus’s The Marradith Ryder Series appears each Wednesday on Flashes in the Dark. Many of her short stories have appeared on MicroHorror and Shadeworks, and she is currently writing an anthology of short stories with a tentative release date in 2010.
For more information see her at http://www.myspace.com/talesforthedark.
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Tags: Lori Titus
May 4th, 2009 at 5:20 am
Wow! Very good. Lori really got into this characters head, which, in turn, got the character into mine.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
I do like it when the horror is not immediately obvious, and the monster ambiguous. Nice story Lori, you made your monster seem very real and human despite her cravings
May 5th, 2009 at 7:55 am
Beautiful story, Lori!
May 5th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Thank you all for your comments.