The Hunger

The party wore on her like last year's wardrobe. Contemptuous, mockingly, she wryly swaggered about the lavish room in her own aura, glowing with all the illumination of a fluorescent bulb. Her stiletto heels sparked tightly, metronomically, against the Italian marble and her diamond teardrops reflecting the prismatic eccentrics of an overhead chandelier.

With her "don't know, don't care, kiss my ass," demeanor of opulence, ensuant of a Thorazine tom collins cocktail. She aimlessly passed about the contagiously boring James Deans and Marilyn Monroe's with chided impudence. Each reveler, playing out their rum -soaked roles before her. Thespians of the inebriated stage, dancing in the limelight of popular pretension while she remained just as content with her soap opera smile and disconcerting glances; all gathered, at the lavish expense of a very affluent, and esoteric benefactor.

The room was immense in design, cerulean circular waves on the ceiling, gave the impression of no beginning or end, broken only by long faced gothic windows draped in cotton sheers: revealing only the unearthly void of darkness. Large graphic murals of angry hounds, and dark-eyed riders astride mighty steeds hung evenly around the room. Storm enslaved colors of reds and blacks clashed with violent brushstrokes as Greek fountains bubbled forth below each.

Hideously graphic, and though she shied away, she found herself drawn into each savage scene. As she stared, she cringed as a chilling stare shivered down her spine and a waning shadow danced across the corner of her eye. A whisper, a blur, vacant of shape or continence, a fleeting specter along the upstairs balcony only to disappear into the shadows.

Unsure of what, or whom she saw, she quickly searched among her diluted audience for confirmation. She was alone. Anxiously, she glanced back up the stairs waiting, watching, though yet unsure if someone was there, until a sliver of shadow dared to reveal itself.

Testing the bounds of her tom collins bravery, she swallowed hard against her apprehension as she dared herself toward the stairway. Intrigued by the seductive intricacies of the shadow, and salivating of an envious hunger, she started up the stairs.

Blue-carpeted treads that wound up the stairway whispered softly beneath her stiletto heels as her tight fit Cavalli dress nervously crept up her thighs. Her dampened palm scrapping along the polished banister roughing the blanched oak with the band of a leftover relationship. Her eyes never wavered from the slim cast shadow until she paused with uncharacteristic reluctance. Stopping on the stairs to look back onto the party as though she were looking for exemption, to continue. Or, a reason not.

The top of the stairs welcomed her to an ominous row of elegantly crafted doors. Each identical to the others. White painted, brass ornate faces staring back at her. Each keeping their own secrets behind well fitted jambs while other long faced, arched gothic windows silently stood guard at each end of the hall. Suddenly, a shiver raced up the backs of her thighs and she turned to the window left open to the cool evening. Cotton cream sheers ebbed lazily with the haunting, incoming breeze in dreamlike pulsations of a hypnotic cadence that held her entranced, as a door at the alternate end of the hall, with a quiet click, whispered ajar,

Believing she had stumbled onto a secret tryst: a wicked smile warmed her. Whom would she capture with whom? The subjective thoughts aroused her, triggering tiny nervous rivulets at the back of her neck as she momentarily hugged herself against an anxious chill. Seductively licking the strawberry rose tease from her under her top lip, she brushed her dress smooth and slithered down the hall.

She stood outside the door for a moment before daring herself to enter. Her ears peaked, straining to hear the tell tale whispers of uninhibited lovers. Then lightly reaching for the knob, and with criminal stealth eased the door open and peered inside.

A tiny bedside lamp glowed quietly on a corner table, but otherwise, to her dismay, the room was empty. She reached around the corner and toggled the main switch filling the room with the revealing white light of intrusion and stood there . . . staring. No ruffled sheets, no empty glasses. No mixed aroma of cologne and sweet ripened sex, no cigarette butts, no sounds . . . empty.

Dejected, incensed, she toggled off the light switch with an angry huff and turned away from the open door, as a haunting voice beckoned from within.

"Angela"

"Who's there," spinning quickly on her heels expecting to catch the trickster?

"Angela," in a voice that slithered through the darkness.

Leaning against the jamb, impatiently staring into the blackness, she awaited for whomever, to show themselves.

"Come inside Angela, and all will be revealed." His voice distant, as though spoken on a phantom wind.

She stepped partway through the threshold, curious, spurned by the magnetic allure of his voice and reached for the light switch, only to this time, find darkness as she toggled the switch several times in nervous frustration. Angry at the lights, impatient with this game, not wishing to attract unwanted attention; "Who's there?"

"Angela," his voice tapering off into the darkness. "I have been waiting for you, Angela."

"Jonathon! Is that you Jonathon?" Forgetting herself, she muffled her voice in her hand as she peered out over the balcony railing, hoping not to have drawn unwanted attention.

" Jonathon, you bastard, show yourself," her whispered challenges falling empty into the darkness!

"Where are you Jonathon," a tremble in her voice? "You pig!" "I'm getting scared," straining to see through into the blackness as a shadow waltzed passed a moonlit window.

"What . . ." she started but a dusty, enveloping chuckle interrupted her. Her heart began to race as his heavy breathing seemed to grow louder, nearer, his warm breath against the nape of her neck, down her shoulder. "Who . .?"

"Close the door, Angela."

His tenor held her consumed, and she felt the door swing closed, behind her.

Standing mute in the darkness, Ice stole her body and she trembled against the cold darkness as the winter chill of death locked her in its shackles against his breath, before he again brought his shadow-cloaked presence into her.

"Angela, come with me and satisfy your hunger."

"No," she trembled, pleading with helpless eyes as she felt the coarseness of his skeletal talon against her hip.

"I have brought you here."

"You?"

"Yes Angela, to know, to taste what you have so long denied yourself."

"Pl . . .ea," she tried but the words were locked in the tension of her body. .

"Angela," "I am the whispers in the night. The dreams you have denied yourself."

She tried to speak, to protest, but could only manage empty whimpers.

"Angela, he growled! "I am your most erotic nightmare . . . I am the hunger," and as he spoke he pulled her tightly against him, tilting her head back in crying agony, spearing the soft flesh under her chin with his angry finger! She could only mouth here crying pleas as she cringed against the pain.

"Feel it Angela." "Feel the hunger burning within!"

Struggling against him, she pressed her palms against his chest and pushed against his ardent, unyielding, grip, his predatory claws digging into her hip.

"Angela!" "Come to me," his sharp claw slowly tearing down along her spine. She cringed, arching herself against him.

Clutching both her wrists, he clasped her hands behind her, torturing her, imprisoning her.

Grimacing in terror, she felt her arm bones grinding, and she sobbed loudly into the empty darkness as her dress loosened across her breasts, gathering at her feet.

"Do not fight, Angela," his sinister voice echoing about her, his eyes lashing across her breasts as she stood lace and garter naked before him. His presence possessing her, his intemperance burning through her flesh, she moaned as he pressed his thigh against her pelvis.

"My power grows stronger, Angela. Surrender unto me."

Riding upon his thigh, she moaned as her body began to pulsate.

"You will be with me Angela, " his eyes pressing hard into hers, "to know the taste, to savor the dark hunger."

The stench of his vile breath suffocated her, asphyxiating her and as a warm, salted trail of mascara bled down her cheek, her doe eyes scoured the blackness for an avenue of escape.

"Feel it growing within you, Angela. The night hunger shall take you to where you have only dreamed."

Rivulets of sweat beads raced down her spine, her body convulsing in spastic waves as his growl penetrated the bone of her skull, bleeding into her mind. She saw only blood, waves of blood washing against the darkness. Blood and blackness melding into a spinning kaleidoscope of terror. She fought to cry, to scream, to resist as he turned her backward to the bed.

"Pl ea . . .se," one last gasp in despair, one last whimpered plea against the agony, the tortured anticipation . . . lost in his throated chuckle.

He pushed her back, and she stumbled in her heels. Reaching back to ward herself of the bed behind her. She bent forward trying to protect herself as he grabbed her arm, twisting it, pulling her into him, then in one violent thrust, he threw her onto the bed.

Writhing in terror, she attempted to free herself as the iron grip of his icy talons pressed her outstretched arms over her head. Her cries, maliciously muffled against his suffocating hand. He straddled her thighs and as she arched against his grotesqueness . . . he licked her.

Her eyes screamed out as though to tear from their sockets. Her breasts rose vehemently, struggling for every breath, as his barbed tongue slithered down her stomach. Her body exhausted, drenched in the oils of her fear, she felt his venomous saliva run quickly over her stomach, mixing with her glistening flesh, his teeth scrapped along her panty line.

Writhing in erotic agony against the gnashing of teeth, shackled into the darkness, impaled onto his bloodlust. A sacrifice. She cringed into submission, only to await the finality of his attack. His attack, his hunger that came suddenly with piercing fangs and the ravenous tearing of soft flesh, her adrenalin shrieking into the night. Instinctive, primal, final.

With a quiet click, the door at the end of the hall opened to the foolish revelers below. She stood seductively alone atop the stairway one leg in front of the other, as she neatly passed a hand through her hair. The other hand, slinking over her hip, smoothing her dress down along her thigh, her eyes playfully feasted down about the crowd, slithering up smooth, satin thighs and relishing upon the velvet fullness of revealing necklines. She could feel their ripened bodies writhing beneath her, glistening with fear, arching in submission. She could taste their flesh, their sweat, their blood. Leaning against the rail, she moaned with a wanton agony that boiled from deep within. The insatiable hunger would not be denied.

As she started down the stairs.