The Wizard & I

I didn’t frequent places like this. If I’m being entirely honest, I had never been to one in my life up to that moment.

Twenty years ago I would have never even needed to consider it; breaking the law for a taste of something more than just survival. To think I had once defended that very same law, and now I was practically in violation of it simply by choosing to continue my existence.

But synthetic sludge can only take a creature like me so far before he begins to crack.

Twenty years of this hell. Twenty years. A lifetime for many of us deemed to be monsters.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I wouldn’t.

I stood outside that door with defiance in my heart, and hunger in my stomach.

We called them chefs. Those willing to indulge my kind in consensual feeding.

Others called them fools.

I reached a shivering hand out to the door knob, twisted it until a click signaled I had gained entry, then walked forward with the door folding in until I was out of the dimly lit hallway and inside a warm room.

The amber glow from the lamp in the corner shone forth to illuminate a woman’s figure reclining back on a chaise lounge, her blue lips pursed and suckling the straw off a juice pouch.

Her skin tone matched her mouth nicely; she was coated head to toe in periwinkle flesh. Only her hair broke the mold with a deep shade of black, and even that had been tainted with trickles of navy.

I had to admit, I didn’t think my first chef would be a demon. They were so rare I couldn’t even remember the last time I spoke to one.

I went to close the door behind me, and she finally piped up for the two of us, “Quiet one, aren’t you?”

I crossed my arms and looked away, but out of the corner of my eye I caught her intrigued gaze, “It’s hard to know what to say when you’re about to swap bodily fluids with a stranger.”

She laughed and slapped her knee as she orientated herself upright, then continued to chuckle into her fist.

“Quite a way to put it don’tcha think? Making me out like some lady of the night.”

“Oh, you may as well be, sweetness. According to the law, you’re just as heinous as I am, and in more ways than one.”

“Well,” she reoriented herself and put the empty pouch in a trash can next to the chaise, “I’d rather be caught doing what’s right than what’s legal.”

I tried not to smile at that.

She must have been young. Young enough to still carry that dangerous naivety that led her into a place like this to begin with.

I shrugged, “Those are certainly two different things nowadays aren’t they?”

“Now more than ever. For all I know you’re an undercover cop getting ready to jump me.”

I opened my lips, went to raise my hand, about to say something like I wouldn’t be shaking this much if I were a cop, but I went silent, and found myself clenching at a hunger pang instead.

She reached out in concern and leapt from her seat, “Oh, poor thing, com’ere,” she came to tower over me as a big warm hand rested on my shoulder and gently prodded me towards the chaise.

She walked over to a table in the corner and began taking out supplies; a tourniquet, some water, alcohol wipes.

“When was your last time feeding?” she asked.

I gulped down a groan and tightened my grip on my stomach as the pain ripped through me, like the tip of a mace was twisting and turning in my abdomen.

I swallowed and seethed, and as the tension began to subside I found it in me to answer with a strain in my tone, “It’s been a few days.”

Her head shot over to me. “A few days? Can’t most of you go weeks without feeding?”

I shook my head. “I’ve… I never drank from anyone before.”

Her gaze was piercing now, no longer a mild shock, but a major one.

I gulped, and found myself fearful of how she’d react. Very few chefs would find themselves willing to be a vampire’s first taste. It wouldn’t be beyond reason to assume she’d send me out the door.

Damnit, Sasha, since when has the truth mattered to you?!

“...Shit,” she finally said, then walked over to me, tourniquet and water bottle in hand, an alcohol pad in the other one being rubbed into the section of her arm she intended on me feeding from, “Be honest with me, do you think you’re gonna, you know?”

I glared at her, halfways from pain, the other half feeling insulted. It was a valid concern, both of us were intending on making it out of this alive tonight, and I was sure she had heard the horror stories of what a hungry vampire can do the moment they get real blood for the first time.

She had a right to be scared.

That didn’t mean it wouldn’t feel shitty to know she was.

I shook my head. “I’ll be fine.”

“Well, it’s not exactly you I’m worried about in that case, is it?”

“If there are any precautions you want to take, I won’t stop you from taking them. But if we could please get this over with, I’d be delighted.”

“Alright alright, I trust you. But, just for my own peace of mind,” she put a hand into her back pocket and pulled up the hilt of a knife, “I’m of better use to your kind alive, got it?”

I nodded slowly, and somewhat hoped she didn’t seriously think that would stop me in case things did get sour.

“If it’s what you have to do. I was expecting some sort of bondage situation to tell you the truth.”

She came to sit down beside me and began pulling the tourniquet up her arm. “I’d like to give you the dignity of controlling yourself. You’re not my first virgin, you know.”

“You looked surprised to know I was one.”

“Well, been a while since the last one. Let’s just say it didn’t end as nicely as I had hoped,” there was something in her eyes as she said it, like a long gone moment was ripping through time just to show up in her mind once more.

I winced as another pang hit me, a wave of blades coursing up my colon and into my stomach, the anticipation of a meal in view being irresistible despite how foreign it all seemed.

To sink my teeth into skin and not a plastic pouch, to soon taste warm, thick, salacious metal instead of sour rotten milk.

I never thought I would one day long for the taste of a childhood injury, from biting my lip and then wincing at the blood, only to now crave it on my tongue every day of my life, knowing my own wasn’t even a viable option.

I began to breathe deeper, my eyes beginning to burn as saltwater coated them, my nose singed with her scent, her heat, her sweat.

I pictured myself licking the skin on her arm and I groaned, a painful jolt of saliva pouring from behind my tongue like a faucet turned on high.

She stuck out her arm, a precious offering beneath the loose tourniquet. My vision blurred as I locked in on her vibrating purple veins, they seemed to glow in a ghostly light as my mind wiped every other image from my peripherals until the blood pumping within her was all I could see.

I took her arm in my hands like a fragile infant being passed to me, and my lips hit the fiery skin of her arm. My tongue teased her pores as I searched for the perfect spot, and my teeth locked into place as my lips receded.

I did my very best to be a gentleman, but I couldn’t resist the jerking instinct in my jaw screaming for me to bite.

I clamped down, locking into place, and she flinched, a hand moving to grasp my shoulder and push me slightly, telling me silently to ease myself. I ignored it, pushing deeper, needing more.

My teeth retreated to allow the blood to flow, and I whined obscenely as the fluid pooled into my mouth.

That first sip was ecstasy, divinely soft, hot and flavorful as it slid past my tongue and down my throat.

I sighed between every gulp, suckling from her like a baby latched to its mother’s breast, feeling a tingle down my spine as my body demanded more.

I sucked harder, squeezing her arm dry long before her heart could pump more into it.

I felt my teeth growing antsy and I was feeling the urge to dig in more, open new pathways for her blood to spill through. My hands were clasped around her forearm like I was clinging to a ledge for dear life, leaving marks where fingernails met skin. I could feel it, that bloodlust, my satiated stomach demanding I take more lest I never get this lucky again.

Then her fingers weaved themselves into my scalp, and her voice turned from heavy breaths between clenched teeth to a sweet and gentle song, and I croaked in my throat as my growing rage began to fade into stinging tears.

She hummed and caressed my hair, playing mother to me, as if I needed that. But the comfort was undoubted even if it made me wince at first, and I found my attention had shifted from desiring more into feeling euphoria in what I had already gained.

A full stomach, for the very first time.

I broke my lips from her wounds and released her arm from my hands. I took a few open mouthed breaths and moved to wipe my face with my wrist, looking down to see it had been coated in saliva and bright, nearly neon orange blood.

I couldn’t help myself, and lapped it up with my tongue like a desperate dog licking broth from a plate.

She pulled the tourniquet tight and pressed a wad of paper towel to the nasty mark on her arm, a swollen purple mass with two punctures, perfectly round and still dripping with her precious nectar.

“There we go, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” she said in a cheery tone, and I couldn’t tell if she was talking to me or herself. I could have lost it and killed her, and she was bandaging herself so casually you’d think I had only given her a paper cut.

“I just, I can’t believe it’s even possible… to feel like this.”

“Yeah. Hard to go back to the fake stuff after your first real meal, so I hear.”

“I feel… I feel amazing.”

“Glad to hear. That’s what I do it for,” she took a swig of the water bottle, “that and, well, the other thing.”

I smirked at her, rolled my eyes and reached for my wallet. “And I was just starting to think you were doing this for the thrill of it.”

“Hey, I need to eat too, you know.”

I pulled out the two-hundred we had agreed upon in our messages earlier. She was the cheapest chef I could find, not that money was an issue before I was afflicted.

Nowadays it absolutely was, and I needed every penny I managed to get my hands on.

As I handed the cash over I did some quick math in my head. From what I knew, most human chefs could only reasonably donate every few months. My demon friend here could replenish much faster, but four-hundred bucks a month was still hardly sustainable. That was little more than pocket change nowadays.

“You know you’re underselling yourself, right?”

She smiled at me and took another sip, then cleared her throat and replied, “I’m not actually doing it for the money, you know.”

“Why do it at all then?”

“Well, like I implied before, because I like to help people.”

“Pfft,” I shook my head, “you mean you like to help vampires.”

Blame the cynic in me, but I knew this was probably a kink of some sort. Masochism, maybe some kind of life-giver fetish. Would certainly explain the maternal play earlier.

“No,” she came to scoot a little closer to me, “you know you’re still a person. Don’t let them lie to you.”

“Hardly a lie, is it? People don’t do this.” I circled the room with a finger, implying the obvious. “People don’t have to do so much to hide the fact that they’re not people.”

She smiled, but I could tell she was just using it to hide the pain of the reality.

“Yeah, Lord knows I get that,” she sighed, and pulled her hair back to reveal two massive cut-off slabs of black keratin on her head. “I’ve never even seen ’em full-grown. Had to keep ’em shaved ever since they broke through when I was twelve.”

I investigated the ridges with a little more than a glance. They would have been magnificent grown out. I could tell from the base that they had a striking pattern and an outward facing curve.

She’d be a divine beast with her horns. Intimidating, fear-inducing.

The same fear they see when they get a glimpse of my teeth.

The same reason we both had to do so much to hide our true nature.

“Same went for the tail, course that was something I didn’t get to miss.”

“Tails? demons have tails?”

“Legally they gotta cut ’em off at birth. Never knew I even had one ’til I asked what the scar on my back was from.”

“I suppose your skin is the only thing they can’t do much about, right?”

“Not really. Surprisingly, no rules against that. Just filthy, dirty looks. Course, those I don’t mind. It’s better for everyone if I only partly look like a devil, isn’t it?” she laughed gently, like she was chasing the pity away. I was finding myself already aching for another sip from her, although I couldn’t tell if it was just a need for comfort to send that same pity running, or the dreaded bloodlust I had been warned about by my own kind.

Either way, I couldn’t hang with a drained demon all day. I had money to make. A living to sustain.

Another price for existence to pay.

I put on a big smile and jolted up from the seat before we could start getting too sentimental, “Right, well, it was a pleasure doing business with you, miss…?”

“Chloe,” she reached to shake my hand excitedly, “and you’re…?”

I gulped, and contended with giving her a fake name. I didn’t want her to match a face to it, should a hidden memory remind her of a certain publicized incident from the end of my glory days.

It was everywhere for months. The press made sure to make an example out of me, and nationwide my name had become synonymous with Monster Suppression Initiatives.

But that was twenty years ago, she was probably a child when it happened.

“Sasha,” I gulped, but her eyes didn’t light up with recognition, so I sighed and said, “It’s been a pleasure, miss Chloe, but I must be off.”

I began walking quickly towards the door, deal set, exchange made, time to leave and forget what had been done here.

“No worries. Hey, if you find yourself needing another pick me up next month, give me a-”

I was out the door before she could say another word, leaning against it as I tried to catch my breath.

There was a burn in my stomach, but it wasn’t the usual hunger pangs. This time it was something yearning and black. A void within, a bottomless pit, something that wouldn’t find itself satisfied with an occasional nibble from a willing donor here and there.

A need for something truer than that, something I couldn’t risk setting free.

No matter how deeply I wanted to.

I shook it off as quickly as I could and made my way out of the hall and down to another door, opening it up to a sinfully loud atmosphere full of drunken patrons and trashy music. Men raged in the corner at each other over a game of pool, while women talked among themselves or put off yet another man’s attempts at getting in their pants.

The scene before was not my style, but this was even more unusual for me.

Unusual unless I was attempting to pick up new clients, at least.

I moved through the crowd with reluctant urgency. I scanned the room for a clock, only to see in bright digital light that it was a quarter til 10PM.

Shit.

I burst through the front door and out into the world, the blood of the night rushing through the busy streets, the air warm with stale summer heat and bitterly scented from fresh vomit on the sidewalk.

I took a shortcut through a wide alleyway, accidentally kicking a rattling empty can of spray paint into a wall as I hurried forward. I watched it roll away, and my eyes drifted upwards to see the wet red lines that once occupied the can.

FANGS OFF OUR NECKS

There was a symbol below it, a bleeding red sun. Crudely drawn, whoever did it wanted to be in and out fast.

I could probably catch the little bigot if I tried, but it was no use. A well-intentioned, presidentially pardoned Daybreaker being attacked by a vampire for seemingly no reason would only set my kind backwards, not forwards.

And that would be the best case scenario.

Worst case? Being led to a gang of them, beaten to a pulp, left to die or worse.

A vision quickly flashed through my mind. My own head swinging from someone’s balcony, my mouth agape in a forced grin as fishhooks tied my lips to my cheeks in a ghastly reveal of the sin in my existence.

I’d seen it before. Defended the man who did it.

Said he was attacked, scared, wasn’t thinking straight. Blacked out, and there he was, hanging, like it was human instinct to desecrate a corpse.

The classic predator panic defense.

I shook off the chill that had been gathering in my shoulders and spine, and forced myself onwards.

I turned left out of the alley and picked up my pace, all but running as my black shoes clicked and clacked along the pavement, bringing me further from the pretend safety of that blue demon’s arms and closer to the wicked paws of a different creature.

One of my own kind, in fact.

A father even.

In a sick, twisted, brutally cruel kind of way.

You could say my place of work was beyond casual. Hell, the only time I even had to wear clothing was when coming and leaving.

The front door was just as sketchy as my little chef’s had been. In the back of an alleyway it stood tall yet inconspicuous, the red paint chipped to reveal dented metal and rust.

I knocked three times, waited five seconds and knocked twice more. A small slot opened up to reveal two piercing red eyes.

“You’re late,” he grunted, slamming the slot shut again before unlatching the door from the other side and swinging it open.

“I got caught up in something,” I walked past him and moved to take my leather jacket off as he shut the door back up.

“I’ll say. Might have to take this out of your pay, yeah?”

I knew better than to challenge him there. I learned long ago not to cross Maurice, and I had enough marks on my body to remind me of those lessons.

I draped my jacket over my arms and tried not to look at him as I started making my way towards my room, but he flashed over to stand in front of me and took my jaw in his sharp talons.

His nostrils hit my mouth and he took a deep breath, exhaling through his lips before he raised back up, still holding me in his tight grasp.

“How the hell did you get your grubby little paws on a demon?”

I tried to pull away, but it only made his grip grow stronger.

“There’s a demon chef on Baker’s Street.”

“A chef?” He shoved me back and I had to catch myself before stumbling. “You’re wasting your hard earned harlot money on a chef? Your daily due of Soylent Red not good enough for you?”

“I was curious. I won’t be doing it again, I could hardly afford it this time.”

I made another move by him but he stopped me again, this time with a hand twisting my shoulder towards him.

“I forgot to mention, your favorite client is in today. I know you’ll be a good boy for him, won’t you?”

I gulped, depending on his mood he was either playing a filthy joke on me, or actually speaking the truth.

I indeed had a favorite client, the one person to treat me like a human once I was inside that room down the hall.

“Don’t I always?” I faked a smirk, hoping the face I made was enough to satisfy his sadism and leave me on my way.

“That you do,” his sinful smile fell to an accusational grimace, “according to your clients at least.”

I stepped forward quickly, reached my room and held my hand on the doorknob.

I took a moment to bury the sting of Maurice’s touch, blow out the scent of his face pressed against my lips. I breathed with a turn of my wrist and I stepped inside.

And there he was, lounging on the red silk. The only thing he wore was a sheet pulled past his hips and over his groin.

His black slitted golden eyes pierced through mine and sent my fangs out of hiding with a smile. There was a jolt in my center that made me shiver, and I took a moment to thank whichever god was watching.

I tossed my jacket to the floor and walked over to him.

“My apologies for keeping you waiting, sweetheart.”

His mouth turned to a grin, “The anticipation made it all worth it, my love.”

I came to rest beside him on the bed. He rolled forward to kiss me and ran his fingers up my scalp.

I broke from his lips only to ask, “Would you like a drink before we get started?”

“You’re all the drink I need,” he muttered as he grabbed me and pulled me into the sheets alongside him. He tossed himself above me and his hands moved to rip my shirt from my chest. His mouth pressed rough nibbles down my abdomen before he went to unfasten my zipper from between his sharpened teeth.

He was being greedy today. As greedy as I had been earlier.

Karma.

With him, I didn’t mind it so much.

He always stopped to look at me once he was inside, once his hips snapped and he began moving within me, with me.

It was my cue to hold him, to wrap myself around him while he penetrated my core.

His lips left overstimulating marks against my neck, his tongue rougher than it should’ve been, his nails digging deeper than any human man could.

That was Sebastian’s gift, his curse, evidence of the betrayal of his bloodline.

Not too similar to mine, but a curse in itself.

His long silky blonde hair fell in my face and all around me as he arched up and flinched.

He tensed, and with a tremble to his nearly whimpering voice, he spoke, “I love you, Sasha.”

I felt him pour himself inside of me, and with something like ecstasy, I humored him with a genuine smile and cooed, “I love you too, Sebastian.”

He was quicker that night than he usually was, and within a few moments of kissing the fire away from my face, he collapsed to the side and reached out to hold me in his arms.

Running circles with his finger in my chest, he gathered his breath in the subsequent passing moments and nibbled my ear before whispering into it, “Are you sure you don’t want me to try getting you off?”

I shook my head as I had a million times before, “Our moments together are about you. You know that. It’s what you pay for.”

“But I do love you. And as long as you insist on living a life like this, paying for you is the only way I can keep any other man from hurting you.”

I glared at him and gently pulled away, sitting myself up against the headboard. I swallowed what should have been my pride, and from the corner of my eye I looked at him and muttered, “I think you should go.”

“Please, Sasha, run away with me. I can take you away from here, I can-”

“Stop,” I wanted to believe it, of course I did. I wanted more than anything for him to take me away from here and settle me down and live a disgustingly perfect little white picket fence life together.

But I wasn’t a child, and I knew it was better protection for both of us if I never entertained his delusions about me.

“Please, Sash.”

“Enough,” I leapt from the bed and took my nude form towards the bar cart at the edge of the room, “you’re a client, nothing more.”

“Fine. How much for forever?”

My head spun to face him. “Forever?”

“You heard me. How much will it take for Maurice to release you?”

“You want to buy me?!”

“If it’s the only way you’ll be free from this place, then yes.”

I scoffed as I unsteadily poured a cup of wine, “I don’t need nor want your pity.”

“I don’t pity you, Sasha, I love you!”

“If you love me then you’ll go and let me get to my next client.”

He shook his head defiantly. “Do you even understand what I feel for you? How deeply I cherish you?”

“I can’t say I do.” I walked over to him, cup in hand, lips already stained red with the blood of a grape. “You’re telling the monster you pay for sex that you love him. What am I supposed to take away from that other than the fact that you’re horny and stupid?” I spat the words at him, gunpowder on my breath, yet we both knew they were only warning shots.

He needed to go away. If he got too close, I knew he would burn.

His head swung, pain washing over his face as he spoke in a voice just a smidge above a quivering whisper, “You’re such a sight to behold, Sasha,” he looked up at me again, tenderness in his golden eyes as he gulped down a tear, “the most beautiful creature in the world, and you don’t even know how beautiful you are. Suffering day in and day out, and none of it was even your fault.”

“I said I didn’t want your pity.”

He swallowed again and raised himself from the mattress. “I’ll never stop loving you. And I will free you from this place someday, I swear to it.”

He walked over to his clothes, folded neatly on a chair by the door.

A far cry from where mine had fallen.

I sat on the side of the bed, pulled a drawer out from the nightstand as I laid my glass upon it and grabbed a box of cigarettes.

I stuck one between my lips and struck the end with the blaze off a lighter as I watched Sebastian dress himself.

Suit and tie, the whole get-up. His shoes alone could pay my rent for three months.

He never told me what he did for money. I assumed he was a nepo baby. No hard-earned businessman would find himself falling for a poor vampire prostitute.

Life wasn’t Pretty Woman, and my name was most certainly not Julia Roberts.

But he was cute, and sweet. I connected to him deeper than I had with nearly anyone else in my life. We’d often spend most of his paid time talking, debating, getting drunk and otherwise enjoying one another’s company.

He tipped me often, and generously. He knew more than anything that I refused to be seen as a charity case though. I’d rather steal an extra hundred from his wallet while he engaged in a post-coital nap than have him hand it to me like I was some desperate beggar.

Still, I wasn’t about to send him off entirely and lose my gravy ticket either. It was a delicate balance between dignity and desperation, and it was one I teetered on often.

I took one final puff off my cigarette before extinguishing it in the ashtray and rising from the bed to see off my favorite client before he stepped out the door yet again.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and enveloped his torso with my bare body. He eagerly grasped at me, pulling me in for a kiss on my lips with the impatience of a starving calf.

I was looking at a painting of a beach on the wall before realizing I hadn’t yet closed my eyes within the embrace, but by the time I went to do so he was already pulling away.

“I’m going to free you from this place. I swear.”

I crossed my arms and smiled, “I’m sure you will.”

He didn’t take his eyes off me as he walked out the door, his gaze saying so much he had already said prior.

So much I was tired of hearing.

And yet, I could never tire enough of it.

With that, Sebastian left, and I returned to the bed to await my next paying lover.

Roughly fifty-percent of my clients were regulars. Most of those who saw me on heavy rotation considered me a friend of sorts. None were quite as sentimental as Sebastian, but I was comfortable enough with them that it was easy to zone out while they took their fill of me.

For the other fifty-percent, this wasn’t the case.

My last client of the night was a new one. The moment he walked into the room it was like the temperature dropped twenty degrees.

His gaze was piercing. His lips were smiling but his eyes were grimacing.

My usual offering of a drink didn’t seem to quell him too much. He just nodded in response, sat down on the bed, and watched me from across the room.

I kept cool. I had to. He’d be more likely to let his guard down if he didn’t know mine was up.

I watched him from the corner of my eye as I poured us both glasses of wine. I saw him fidgeting with something in his pants, but not in the typical way I caught men doing behind my back.

I felt a burning heat climb up my spine like a snake slithering up a tree, and I turned just in time to catch him pulling out a knife and attempting to stuff it under the mattress.

He couldn’t see me from where he was bending, so I spun back quickly, my breath catching in my throat and settling in my chest like a stone splashing into a bucket of water.

My hand was wrapped so tightly around the neck of the wine bottle that I had to practically pry my fingers away from it. I needed a defense, I knew that, but I couldn’t be so obvious with it.

I took a brief moment to collect myself, put on a sultry face, and made my way over to the man with the wine glasses caught between my fingertips.

I offered him one, and he took it without a thank you.

It’s one thing trying to kill your vampire prostitute, it’s another to be rude when he’s offering you free booze.

“You do this sort of thing often?”

He shook his head. His eyes never left mine.

Now, it was usual for men to stare at me, but it’s typically my body they were undressing with their eyes.

This man wasn’t undressing me with his eyes. He was prying my skull apart with them.

“Well don’t you worry, sweetness, I have more than enough experience for both of us.”

It was a line I used often. Most didn’t like to admit they paid for sex, especially from another man. The fact I was a vampire might’ve been a box they hadn’t checked yet.

But this man wasn’t responding to my cheekiness in the slightest. He didn’t even seem interested in sex.

He just sat there. Sipping his wine.

Staring at me.

I made a move to get the upper hand, put my wine down on the table beside the bed and rolled my body in front of him, then down between his legs.

I snaked my face up his pant leg and towards his crotch, ignoring the noxious smell as well as I had a million times before. I pulled his zipper down with my teeth, and reached a careful palm into the crevice to pull out a flaccid weight of flesh.

It was far from instinct, I still had to force myself to move forward and do the deed, this time not out of obligation but for the fact that I was hoping it would serve as a distraction.

He moved himself to lay down, and I moved on top to continue the job, feeling him stiffen beneath me, his hands finally finding my scalp.

He shoved me back suddenly, flipped us over, picked me up by my arms and threw me to the bed.

I landed on a pillow, resisting the urge to reach down under the mattress and grab the knife before he could.

Then he kissed me. Blackened metallic and bile on his tongue, with a hint of some spirit and tobacco for good measure.

He shoved the meaty wet muscle between my lips, our faces smashed together as his fists took hold of my wrists and began forcing them up and over my head.

The barrel of my chest collapsed and inflated rapidly as he held my wrists tightly within the grip of one palm, then started moving the other down and towards the blade.

I couldn’t rip myself from his grasp without starting a struggle, but I couldn’t sit there and wait for him to actually get the knife out to do anything either.

I bit down on his tongue as hard as I could, a splash of blood shooting out and into my mouth as he began frantically pulling away, harshly screaming into my face and wildly grasping at the mattress in search of the blade.

I spit him out and pushed him off the bed, sending the back of his skull careening into the ground with a thunderous thump.

I moved quickly and reached under the mattress, pulling out the knife just as the man got to his knees and transitioned from threatening my life to pleading for his own.

“Please, pleasepleaseplease don’t, don’t do this man!”

“Me? You hid a knife under my bed!”

“That was for me, you’re, you’re a vampire, man!”

“Then why’d you reach for it? Was I being at all threatening?!”

“You, you’re, you’re a monster, man!” He spit out some blood, and what might have been a chunk of his tongue. “Was jus’ protectin’ m’self, man, jus’ protectin’ m’self…”

Drugs.

I huffed and started to relax, knowing I held every card for the time being.

“No weapons in my room, that’s the deal.” I pointed to him, the blade tightly held in my fist. I scooted across the bed and pulled open the drawer of the nightstand, plopped the knife inside and shut it back up.

There was a small key I kept hidden under the lamp, and I used it to lock the drawer before sliding it back in place, keeping it as far away from the mad man as possible.

The guy was shivering in the corner and crying, balled up on the floor, mucus and blood smeared all over his clothes and the wood panels around him.

I shook my head, looked up to the painting on the wall, and as cheesy as it sounds, pictured myself to be anywhere but here.

My clacking steps took me home that early morning. I yawned while waiting for the elevator outside my apartment, taking a quick moment to turn my head and catch a glimpse of teal lining the black of the night.

I tried not to get antsy about it. I knew I’d be fine, but it still felt like a tiger was stalking me from the shadows.

I walked into my apartment, slung my jacket over a chair and quickly made my way to the living room to draw the blinds shut. I waltzed to the kitchen to grab a glass from the cabinet and opened the fridge to pluck a bottle of red wine from inside.

My arrival home usually triggered the following part of the morning: a dark-gray haired man in a bathrobe lazily stumbling out of the bedroom to the left of mine.

He came to meet me in the kitchen, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he yawned a half-hearted “Morning,” and got to work on a cup of coffee for himself.

“Sleep well, Fielder? No nightmares of intruders or the dreaded mailman?” I teased him, and he mumbled an incoherent response, something probably along the lines of, “Shut the fuck up, Sasha.”

I grabbed my glass and made my way over to the living room once more, sat myself down on the couch and flicked the TV on in an attempt to drown out the events of the day.

-Silly Max! You know you’re not supposed to eat people!

Ruh Roh!

That’s right, Max! It’s hard to control yourself during that time of the month, isn’t it?

Rohhh

Don’t you worry though! With newly formulated Supripro Plus, you’ll be back to your normal self in no time! Just-

Before I could contemplate what the advertisement was even trying to sell me, the man in the bathrobe had grabbed the remote from my hand and muted the TV.

“I hate that goddamn commercial,” he tossed the remote back to me and returned to grinding his coffee beans in the kitchen.

“What, are you telling me being a werewolf doesn’t make you talk like Scooby-Doo?”

“Don’t joke about it. It’s dehumanizing.”

“Have to be a human to be dehumanized, sweetheart,” I took a sip of my wine and adjusted my tired eyes to the slop on screen, some reality show titled My Husband’s NOT A Vampire.

“As far as the law is concerned I am human. And as long as that’s what my medical record says, it’ll stay that way.”

“What, you don’t wish to end up like yours truly?”

“No offense, but if I can avoid it, yes.”

The man twisted his grinder and out rang a crackling buzz that reverberated through the apartment and outbid the TV on audio space.

Once the chattering of dark roast had turned to a steady rumble, he stopped the device and continued the ritual, just in time for the intro to TLC’s latest trashy excuse for entertainment.

-A few years ago BJ had, well let’s say an incident of sorts.

I fell from the fifth story balcony while trying to get pictures of a bird.

Right, right. Sadly the only way to save his life was, well… a vampire happened to see the incident and, well…

But, but I would’ve survived regardless, I’m sure of it! As long as he didn’t really save me, I, I’m not one of them, you know?

We prefer to call him a daywalker, he can still go in the sun, so long as he has the right protection. But that’s everyone, you know?

I chuckled to myself and took another sip of wine.

“I’ve got an interview today,” the man in my kitchen piped up, “English teacher at West Elm.”

“So I’ve heard,” I mumbled and sipped again. I’d heard about his upcoming interview thirteen times that week alone. The man didn’t have many friends in his life, and I assumed he thought of me as one of the few.

I couldn’t say I felt the same. Our relationship was one of desperation, not choice.

“You kept saying they’d never hire a wolf.”

“They don’t know you’re a wolf. Not yet.”

“Thirty-eight years and nobody’s figured it out yet.”

“Except your ex-girlfriend, and your last landlord, and your last boss, and…?”

“Look, real suppression meds are hard to come by. And yoga and handcuffs stopped helping a long time ago.”

“Then get diagnosed already, you’re only delaying the inevitable.”

“I can’t risk my future like that.”

I went to take another sip of my glass only for nothing to fall on my tongue.

Empty.

I rose from the couch to get a refill, smirking at the man in front of me as I waltzed back into the kitchen and chimed, “Suit yourself. You and I both know your fate was sealed the moment you got the urge to howl at your Bar Mitzvah.”

“I’m not about to sit down and give up just because you don’t think people like us have a place in this world.”

I twisted the cap off and contemplated if I should just ditch the glass or savor what’s left of my dignity, “Please, those like us don’t have a place in this world. This world made sure of that.”

“So that just gives you an excuse to never try? Never do anything more just because they say you can’t?”

Fuck my dignity.

I grabbed the bottle and took a swig in front of him, smirked at the thought of squirting it out onto his face.

Be a shame to waste any though.

I gulped the swig and ahh’d at him. “All I’m saying is don’t waste your life running away from disappointment. Better to just accept that this is life and fucking cope.”

“Well, I’m sorry that I want more for my life than you do.”

“I beg your pardon? You think I don’t want more?”

“No, you don’t! Because if you did you’d be doing more.” He had nearly raised his voice to me just to say that, the devilish little fuck.

With finger taut and reaching for the sky, I snapped, “I fought to get to where I was before this happened to me! I already had my career! I had a home, and friends! I was engaged, I was about to start a family! And do you know what happened?”

He stood there a bit awkwardly for a moment, not expecting his prodding could have turned me to the heaving mess I had become. Typically I brushed him off, left the room, did anything to avoid an argument.

Today I was red in the face.

Bright as the blood I drank late last night.

Fueling the fire within me.

Fielder nodded his head. “Yeah. Yeah, I know what happened.”

I shook, my arms as tense as they were on that day. The event replaying in the back of my mind, the screams, the blood, the pain searing through me.

The fear in their eyes as they ran from me. The shock of electricity to the back of my skull.

Then, nothing.

I huffed, tossed my head back and gulped the rest of the wine in one go.

After emptying the bottle, I slammed it on the counter with a clash and fought back a wave of emotion that threatened to drag me with it.

Fielder didn’t speak anymore. He just stood there.

Pitying me.

I hated that.

“Whatever. It’s all shit anyways, isn’t it?”

I began stumbling back to my bedroom. I was half-exhausted, half-drunk, but entirely done with this conversation.

“Sasha, wait,” Fielder called out, and I turned to look at him, “I just wanted to let you know,” he paused, his fingers trying to say something he wasn’t sure his mouth should say, “I might be having… a girl over later.”

I shook my head, nearly chuckling at the conversational whiplash. “I don’t give a shit, just be quiet.”

“I just wanted to know you’d be okay with it.”

I stared at him, then made a huff and turned away as I went into the pitch black bedroom, mumbling, “Have fun. And good luck on your interview thing.”

I shut the door just as he was saying “Thanks,” and collapsed into the mess of sheets and down-filled comforters and pillows.

There wasn’t a single sliver of light in the entire room. Not a smartphone screen, not an alarm clock.

I didn’t need it to be this void of light, but I preferred it this way. The darker it was in here, the lighter it would feel out there.

It was an artificial day-night cycle of sorts.

It brought me some kind of silly comfort, if anything.

Lord knows I needed all the comfort I could get.

I awoke to the slam of a door, followed by the hushing voice of my roommate saying, “Shhhh, my roomie, he works nights.”

“Ohhh, gotcha,” a woman said, and the next sounds I could make out were lips smacking together and throats making obscene noises.

“God, you smell so good,” he said, and I could practically feel him inhaling her in-between words right outside the door.

“It’s a new perfume I’m trying out, you like it?”

“I fucking love it. I love you. I need you.” There was a growl in his tone, and she yelped. I heard them scuffle into his bedroom, the door slammed shut and one of them had the other pinned to the wall with a bang. More moaning, cursing, the sound of clothing being flung into empty bottles and items falling to the floor.

She let out a strained cry and the next thing I heard was rigorous thumping from his headboard against my wall.

Of course at this point I was contemplating going in there and getting my first taste of werewolf blood next, but before I could even gather the energy to scream in frustration, the woman’s persistent cries of pleasure had begun growing unsure.

“Wait, wait stop, what are you, what are you doing?!”

She screamed, bloodcurdling, and there was a crash against the wall.

Fielder’s voice had turned darker and harsher, like his vocal chords were thickening between every breath. There was a bark, a screech, a struggle.

I ran from my bed and opened the door, just in time to see a young woman fleeing from the other room, her shoulder bitten and bleeding, her legs scratched and torn.

“Fielder! What did you…” I turned into the bedroom to see a massive dark beast heaving blood-gurgling breaths in front of me. Its mouth was filled with pearly daggers dressed in crimson. Its ears pointed back so sharply they looked like horns.

His muscles were sharp and defined. His once gentle brown eyes were now red and inflamed with the fires of hell.

Using the voice of the devil himself, he spoke, “I, I didn’t mean to hurt her, I didn’t- argh!” He grabbed at his face, twisted and groaned before lunging at me and quickly trying to stop himself. “Get… out of here!”

“Your medicine, where is it?!” I rushed past him, frantically opening every drawer I could find in the room, looking under furniture and tossing clothes around as he writhed in the corner and breathed ferociously.

“I took it! It’s, it’s not work- argh!” He moved towards me, his hind legs pressed down and ready to pounce, his jaws wide open as his eyes unfocused themselves and his instincts took over.

I dodged when he jumped, falling to the side and covering my face with my arms. Like a catapult he fired through the air, wrapping himself within a curtain as he crashed through the glass and fell three stories down into the street.

It took a moment for the shock to release me from paralysis, I was still in the fetal position on the floor when I heard terrified screams and cars frantically sounding their horns below.

I picked myself up and grabbed a notebook to shield myself from the sun as I ran to the window, and saw him bolting through the road, attacking random civilians and cars one by one before stopping himself and moving on to the next. It didn’t take long for officers to surround him, aim their weapons, and bring him down with a few tasers and a weighted net.

He was sedated and shot up with something to reverse his transformation, and they took his naked human figure away in a cage in the back of a truck.

I shook while watching the sight, unsure of what to do, unsure if there was anything I could or even should do.

It seemed to be over in seconds, but nearly thirty minutes later I was still standing there, still replaying the event in my head, like I was reliving my past from a different perspective.

Suddenly, I was alone.

The city continued to buzz below as though nothing had happened. It would surely be on the news, the latest confirmation that my kind didn’t belong here.

They’d call him a monster, just like they had done to me. His life would be ruined, just as mine had been.

I took myself back into the kitchen.

I opened up another bottle of wine.