Alpha, Strange and Beautiful

Alpha's confused tortured howls become white noise, overpowered by the otherworldly aria of my mounting climax merged in eerie harmony with Gita's hunger and delight. She is about to exact her claim.

She will not wait for me.

Soon the reverberating rattle in Alpha's chest will tell my unspent body to stop fucking him and I will obey.

This is not for me. She won't let my body take without the sacrifice she demands. She has already allowed me far more pleasure than she's ever granted before. She will take what she needs.

I know it is time.

I watch from high above again, dizzy, hanging on the edge of incomplete release. I see Gita's beautiful hands reach in beneath Alpha, feel them take me by the wrists. I cannot stop this. I watch her press my hands together, tight, and direct them downward -- pointed at Alpha's soft sweat-slick belly.

Terrible pressure at my temples. Loud ringing in my ears. Flashes of red and black course behind my eyes again.

I squeeze them shut. I want to disappear. I want to hide.

Red. Everything. Everywhere. Dark red.

Behind my eyes, I see my hands plunging deep into Alpha's open chest. I watch myself take hold of the slippery heat of his fast-beating heart and pull myself inside. I feel a flood of warmth spill over and around, envelop me. I cling to a fetal memory, ball myself up, hug myself tight, and wail. Inside, I feel almost safe. I can almost shut out the horrid shrieks of inhuman laughter and demonic screams echoing through my pounding head. In here, I hide. I hide from Gita, from him, from Alpha, from myself.

Red. Everything. Everywhere. Warm and red.

I hear my own scream riding high above the ceaseless drone of Gita's unnatural whispers, ghostly echoes of Alpha's labored breathing, and a strange unholy choir of tortured moans. A sharp hot pain in my right side slices through the darkness and snaps my eyes open. For a second, I fear that jagged peak of hipbone did finally pierce through my flesh in Alpha's valiant struggle, but I cannot look. I am overcome by a different and all-too-familiar sensation. It feels like all the air is being sucked out of the room.

Life slips away from beneath me.

I feel the warm sticky spread of it flood every available inch, hollow, and crevice between Alpha's still-quivering belly and my own bent body.

A torrent of hot salty tears follow suit, filling Alpha's hands: still open, still pressed flat against my face. Soon, I can expect them to turn cold and the disquieting tremors to subside, because I can already hear that terrible stomach-churning slurp, that satisfied smack of her lips, the unearthly moans of her pleasure... as Gita sucks in another soul.

* * *

Still weeping, I peel Alpha's hands from my face. My eyes sting as I nuzzle against the damp softness of his skin and mix my tears in with the slippery dew of his cooling sweat.

I don't want to look, but I cannot stop myself. I bend to face downward, the top of my head coming to rest in the gentle valley at the center of Alpha's smooth broad chest. I blink away the blinding burn of salt, to find it replaced by a dizzying blur of crimson. The sharp tang of bile rises in my throat and I gag, as a garish gleam (the sizeable pool already congealing in the well of Alpha's soft brown belly) comes into focus.

I see my unsteady fingers, brave scouts, trying to find their way to the sight my eyes don't want to deliver to my brain. His body seems to stir at their wary and tremulous touch. I hear myself gasp and the sound seems to rouse more movement under me, inside me.

My God. He's still inside me.

I feel sick.

My whole body jerks in violent retch-founded spasms, but the shifting beneath me is soft... warm.

I hear a low contented sigh. I feel hands fumbling in my wet matted hair. They are gentle. They are trying to lift my head, coaxing me to look up.

I stare bewildered and blinking into Alpha's soft boyish face.

He is whole and breathing. How can this be? His heart beats an easy human rhythm beneath me. How, why... Why has she spared him?

Joy. I'm overcome by the tenderness I see and feel. Pure joy and deep gratitude fill me. I feel as though my chest might burst. I smile and collapse against his warmth, quaking with unstoppable sobs of relief and quiet rushes of confused delirious laughter, but now Alpha is much more forcefully lifting my face.

I hear his breath catch with a frightful rasp in his throat. I see his kind dark eyes well-up, watering with... alarm, sorrow, concern, fear, pain, terror, sympathy, confusion... what?

His hands are trembling. His lips are parting, "God," it comes in hushed slow pained whispers. "Did I... hurt you?"

Still issuing silent thanks in my head, my response comes through soft breathy laughter. "No. God, no. I thought she'd... I thought I'd..." but I feel my chest deflate, my broad joyous smile falter and slip, as I speak. His expression fills me with fresh dread. He looks queasy, sick, panic-stricken. His words sift, barely audible, through heavy labored breathing.

"Your face..."

The air stills. The ringing returns to my ears.

Reluctant, I straighten, craning my neck to find the mirror. My own face stares back at me. Deep crimson smudges mar my tear-streaked cheeks and neck (distressingly pretty against the ghostly-blue hue of my flesh), haunting... strange and beautiful. Dark wet strands of hair cling in strange ribbon-like lines to make my pallid face look shattered and cracked. Silver-white irises glow like backlit ice from watery coal-lined eyes.

A strained squeak vibrates in my throat. My lips move, but no words come.

Red flashes. Yellow smoke.

I hate this game.

Dark visions crash through my brain: crumbling castle walls, blackened turrets, a kingdom -- ravaged and plundered, pillaged and gutted -- left, empty and burning.

I mother-fucking hate this game.

Alpha is speaking, but I cannot discern it. I do not care what he is saying. I am no longer thankful for his unexpected survival. Fear rips through me.

Frantic, I wipe with both hands at the bloody mess where our bodies meet, but I can find no wound. This brings me no relief. It fuels a fury I can't quite comprehend. My heart begins to race. My head swims. A sudden unwanted wash of understanding quakes through me.

I know why he still breathes. I know what she has taken, in his stead.

Rage rises like hot water, boiling up from an unknown simmer inside me. I curse his words. I curse his breath. This man is nothing to me, disposable. I had been resigned to his fate. I knew the price. I thought I knew... but Gita exacted a price far higher, far greater, than any I knew she aimed to take.

Until this very moment, I had no way of knowing such a precious gift was even here to claim.

* * *

Wordless, I lift myself from Alpha. A pitiless warm torrent leaves the best of me behind.

Mindless of the horror in my wake, I leave this strange bed in this strange room. I move in a blind trance. I trip over spilled scotch glasses. The sharp bite of whiskey reaches my nostrils and I gag. I cover my mouth with both stained hands and rush into the on-suite bath. I struggle with strange taps in a strange shower. I double over. Crumple. Tepid water spills down on me, as I huddle on the cold tiled floor.

I watch dark red ribbons swirl and disappear down the hungry gaping mouth in the center of the floor, disquieted by the part of me that finds strange beauty in the sight.

I weep, hollowed.

I cry out for Gita, knowing she will not come.

I do not know when we were torn, heart from head and soul from body -- Gita and I. I know only that our horrid accord ends here. Yet, somehow, I still long to see her face, feel her loveless arms around me -- to know she is finished tearing me in two, confirm she is sated.

A shadow falls across my bloody feet. I hear a man clear his throat.

I do not know him. Still, I clamor weak-kneed to my feet and attempt an apologetic smile through my tears. It is feeble, thin, and fabricated. There is no part of me that cares what this man thinks or sees or knows or feels, but some sad empty part of me closes my eyes on these unfamiliar surroundings and wills his body forward -- begs his strength to hold and rock me, until the purifying water washes all my cruelest truths away...

But the water cleanses nothing and these arms don't hold me right.

He is not who I need him to be. His is not the chest I cling to, sob against. This substitute embrace brings me no comfort.

This is not my Alpha... And this strange and temporary shelter is not my home.

* * *

I am watching myself from outside my body, once more, as I collect my scattered belongings and try to dress.

I begin a poor, numbed, and clumsy attempt to gather and roll the ruined bedding, but the task is quietly taken from me. Wordlessly, I'm directed out of the room. Softly, the door is closed.

An eerie reverent silence falls over the unfamiliar apartment. Even with the closed door between us, an odd sort of bond forms -- strangers united -- like what I imagine must be felt in the aftermath, the somber group cleanup, of a natural disaster or a battle or a war... and all of it, in spite of myself, is desperately strange and beautiful.

* * *

A strange man is driving me home. I am staring at the unfamiliar hand on the gearshift, blinking blankly at the dark crimson traces between his thumb and forefinger. I am cold, sitting here in this scotch-sodden dress, and filthy: cigar smoke in my hair, the salty-sweet linger of unremembered sex in my throat, dried blood beneath my fingernails.

"You... okay?"

His careful voice invades my protective cloud of numbed isolation.

"Yes, Sir"

I lie. I feel sick. I want to disappear. I want to cease to exist.

A low timid chuckle melts through the chill of my terseness. I feel his hand on mine, his face close to mine, his breath against my cheek. "Did you seriously just call me 'Sir'?" His laughter is sweet, but soft and cautious.

The moist heat of his whisper floods my ear, "I've been inside you."

My heart pounds in my breast, louder and faster than I knew it could, and a shrill painful ringing once again fills my head. "And I, you..." Gita's inhuman purr vibrates inside the car. I gasp for air, as I catch her reflection in the rearview mirror.

She sits, her skin alight, her eyes liquid warmth -- her serene smile stolen from The Madonna -- arms cradling a swaddled scarlet bundle, as mine tremble cold and empty. A pearly drop of milk spills from her bared swollen nipple, but I know no cathartic tug at mine as she bends to him. She is nursing the heir to the throne.

There is a strange hand stroking my hair. "I don't think you should be alone," he says. I realize the car has stopped. I am shaking my head, as much to escape his touch as in answer. "I'm not... I won't be," I whisper soberly, fumbling for the door handle, eyes fixed on the empty backseat reflected in the rearview mirror.

My words thank him for the ride. My mind curses his every breath.

A bitter hollow inward laugh stirs in my chest as I leave the car, reflecting on the name I'd so shamefully bestowed on this man, on this stranger, for the night.

Alpha.

I had no right to do so. Some ugly unforgiving part of me, takes over... and I let it. Some guilty self-loathing part of me, is playing this game to lose.

* * *

The dull sting between my legs seems insufficient penance, as I ascend the steps to our front door.

I hate this game.

A cheerless victory, this: a tragic Homeric homecoming.

Though my war is over, my mortal soul returned to me at last, the casualties were too many, the price far too great. My heart may be beating in human rhythm again, inside my chest where it has not been for far too many long and tortured years, but -- devoid of longing, hope, and promise -- it can serve me no real use.

My key slides into the lock with a quiet familiar click. I no longer fear what awaits me on the other side of this door. What I know for certain, is -- good or bad, hard or simple, better or worse -- it will feel like home.

..................................................................

I do not know when we were torn, heart from head and soul from body -- he and I. I do know that my battle has to end here. I know too, that when his battle is done, he will recognize my face. He will know me, and he will see that I have returned. I will weep against his chest and, once again, I'll find true comfort there. With our bloodied white flags in hand, at long last, we will grieve... knowing we are both, beyond any willful doubt, shamefully to blame. Our kingdom, with its deadened absentee ruler (staining his name, breaking his code) and its restless jaded queen (whoring for scraps, defiling the throne), had not been fit to receive him; its long awaited heir. I know one day, strong again, together we will wash away these... our cruelest truths.

..................................................................

I've come home in a whiskey-soaked dress.

He sits in the kitchen.

There are no questions about my journey. There are no answers about his. His lips are closed. His tongue is silent. His heart is human and beating. His eyes and arms are open.

He is Alpha -- my one, my only -- and he is strange and beautiful.

I cannot deconstruct him, though all the forces of good and evil know how desperately I've tried, but I keep trying because I know I'll find the best of me in and among the pieces.

"Hungry...?"

His voice vibrates inside my chest, instead of being taken in by my ears or processed by my brain. I smile. This one is genuine.

I want to know him, again.

I want to know his name.

* * * *