Desires in the Dark Pt. 05

Heather was in one of her favorite places to sit and think, sitting on a bench by the pond in the Houston Arboretum, under the shade just off the boardwalk. The baking summer brightness beat down on the lilypads in front of her, but Heather's mind was wandering back to the darkness of the night and to her strange yet delightful sexual experiences with Cam.

Even hours later, sitting here demurely in a public park, her mind kept drifting back to those incredible, unique sensations. The feel of the tentacles that replaced her legs, exploring and groping around the bed or wrapping around her lover, Cam's hands on her slimy and sensitive breasts, discovering her circular labial ridge and fisting her cunt so deep and hard while they were in the shower. She kept flashing back to sensations from anatomy that she didn't even have right now.

Those memories were compelling, and Heather was scared how much she wanted more. She felt like she should be more scared about the loss of her humanity, about the fact that she kept turning into something monstrous and huge that made sounds like an upset toilet. It made no sense. And yet, she didn't feel so bad. She never felt like she had lost control or been a different person in her mind. Just different in her body, a body full of strange and compelling new sensations. And that was more intriguing to Heather than she felt that she ought to be comfortable with.

The why and how of it was niggling at her too. Why darkness, and why only when she was near her boyfriend? How did she change, and how did she change back? What sort of creature was she anyway? And that brought her back to darkness once again and wondering why her boyfriend made a difference to her body.

Round and round her thinking went, as Heather slowly sweated on her bench. The sun rose high, occasional other Arboretum visitors passed, and the shade of the trees above shifted bit by bit around her bench. She sat, and thought, and kept avoiding the one thing that she knew that she would have to do. Eventually, though, she couldn't avoid it any more and pulled her phone out of her pocket.

Heather dialed her mother's number, an empty nervous feeling gathering up inside her stomach. She didn't know what was going on with her body. But her mother had always made sure she had her night lights. Heather didn't like to think that her mother might have kept some secret from her all her life. But something was going on with her body in the dark, and her mother had always kept her away from darkness.

Her call went to voicemail. But that wasn't odd, and she left her mother a breezy, too-casual "call me" message. And then she sat, uncomfortable and waiting, continuing to think. Soon enough her mother called her back, and Heather chatted pleasantly at first, just talking about her work, the births her mother had recently attended, weather, and really nothing much besides connecting with each other.

Settling her nerves, she finally managed to get on topic. "Mama, I've got to ask you something. Why did you want me to not be in the dark?"

"Oh, Heather," her mother fluttered, "You know why, you're scared of the dark is all, and that's OK, we all have fears and feelings that we can't control."

"No, Mama." She leaned her forehead down against her hand, frustrated. "I don't think that's actually the reason."

There was a pause, and then her mother asked tentatively, "Why not?"

Heather's eyes were closed as she spoke. She didn't want to jump right in and speak about the craziness. Not if her mother didn't know already. "My night light burned out recently. I wasn't scared."

"Oh," her mother said, clearly relieved. "Well, that's OK then. That's all that happened?"

"No," she sighed, "That's not."

"Ah." Her mother waited. Neither seemed to want to start.

Heather gave way first, of course, as always. "Mama, is there something you should tell me? Maybe something you should have told me long ago?"

Her mother's voice was a mix of reluctance and concern. "Did something happen, Heather?"

"Yes, something happened." Her eyes were still tight shut, her hand on her forehead. She couldn't have this conversation. She needed to have this conversation.

"Do you want to tell me about what happened?" Her mother's voice was gentle, understanding.

"Not really. It was strange." Her cheeks were burning with embarassment. "And private."

"Ah." Across the phone, she heard her mother take a long breath in and out. She knows, thought Heather. The next words from her mother's mouth confirmed her guess. "Oh, Heather, I'd hoped that I was just being overly protective. We'd gone so far without anything happening that I was starting to hope that nothing ever would. But I guess that isn't so."

Her mother paused, and Heather urged, "Mama, you have to level with me. What's going on, and why didn't you want me to be in the dark?"

"Oh, Heather, I'm so sorry. I don't know just what's happening for you, but I do think that I know why it's happening. But Heather, I'm worried that you won't believe me when I tell you. But you have to believe me. You have to believe me because even though it will sound crazy, I swear that it's all true."

Heather laughed. "Crazy sounds just about right to me today."

"Heather." She could hear her mother working up her nerve. "Heather, your father was the monster under my bed. I know that sounds impossible, I know..."

She cut her mother off, "Yeah, that makes sense."

"It does?" Her mother sounded relieved to be believed.

"Yeah, being half bed-monster sounds like it would pretty much explain what's going on." She barked with upset laughter. "It's crazy, yeah, but crazy in a way that fits what's going on with me." Her mother seemed to be crying now, and so was Heather too. "Oh, Mama, I wish you'd let me know."

Her mother was crying harder now. "Oh, Heather, oh my baby girl, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I wish that I'd known how to tell you. I tried to protect you but I don't know if that's made things worse. I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

They were both crying together. Sobs wracked Heather's short thin frame and tears soaked in between her fingers. She wasn't ready to deal with this. She needed to. She needed to know. She was angry at her mother, and yet she understood. It all just bounced around inside of her, all the craziness and fear, all just too much.

Her mother was speaking once again, voice soaked with tears. "You have to know," she said, "I'm sorry you have to deal with this, but I'm not sorry that you're here. I'm glad I have you in my life, I'm glad you're here and you exist. You're my one and only precious daughter, and I don't regret that part of things at all. I only wish you didn't have to deal with these complications in your life."

Heather was getting herself back in control as well. "I always wondered about my father, you know. Will you tell me about him now?"

"I will, I will." A pause. "I guess I'd better start by saying that I don't know as much as I would like to. Even at the best of times your father and I could never communicate all that well. But I can tell you what I know, at least.

"Monsters' interactions with people are usually pretty simple. They feed on fear, so they live under the bed or in the closet of a little kid and they scare them by making noises, showing their teeth or tentacles, or dripping slime on things. But monsters disappear in the light, so they're never there when the lights go on. If the kid gets a night light or stops believing in monsters, the monster tries to stay around, because of the bond they form with the person, but over time the monster gets hungry and eventually has to move away to some other house. I don't think there are all that many monsters out there, relatively speaking, but there's enough that a lot of kids have a monster under their bed at some point in their childhood."

"So I guess you had a monster under your bed?" Heather was intrigued, but also rather disturbed by all of this.

"I did. But Heather, I didn't outgrow my monster." Her mother hesitated, then came back sounding embarrassed again. "Monsters can also feed on other emotions. Fear's just how it normally works. But I wasn't a very normal kid. I enjoyed having a monster under my bed. Eventually, when I was a teenager... eventually... I also started having other feelings."

Heather didn't want to know this. She felt uneasy and gross, but also felt like those feelings were unfair considering what was going on in her own sex life right now. She stayed silent, listening.

"Your father and I didn't actually start our relationship until I'd grown up and moved away. But I'd been... thinking about him." Heather read a world of uncomfortable visions into that hesitation. "He'd moved with me, since he was bonded to me still, but I still thought he was just in my imagination. And then I'd broken up with yet another boyfriend and was feeling down, and instead of just watching and listening to him do his thing when he showed up, I reached out and touched and I found out he was real. From there one thing led to another and we started a relationship.

"Your father has always been very tender with me, even though we've never been able to communicate too well. Monsters are smart, you know, just like us, but they're very solitary and they don't talk like people do, so he and I always had to sort of play charades. I taught him a little bit of reading and writing, but it never really stuck with him.

"Anyway, it was a real surprise to both of us when I got pregnant. I sure didn't think that it was possible, so I wasn't taking any precautions. I don't even know if it's ever happened to anybody else before. I mean not many adults even believe in monsters, let alone, well, you know."

Heather knew, but didn't want to think about it. If fact, she'd never really thought about her mother's sex life, since her mother didn't seem to have one. But apparently that wasn't true. She prompted her mother to move things forward. "So then you had me?"

"Well, yes. I was pretty scared, because I didn't know what you would be like. I knew right away that I was pregnant of course, and I knew it had to be your father, since I hadn't been with anybody else for years. So I didn't get any doctors involved, of course, just handled things myself. Once you got moving, it was clear that was a good choice, because your movements were quite different than the other children that I've midwived. Very complicated, and I was sure that you had tentacles, so I arranged to do the birth alone, just me at home."

"That must have been pretty scary for you." Heather thought about how unsettling that must have been for her mother. As a midwife, she knew so much about babies, so she would know for certain that her pregnancy was abnormal, and yet still chose to give birth all alone.

"Oh, well, I know what I'm doing of course." Her mother breezed past it all with decades of retrospective professional confidence. "And then to my surprise, you came out into the light and were just the most precious and normal little baby girl. So I thought about how monsters vanish in the light and decided you would never be in darkness. I hoped that if you grew up without darkness, that maybe your monster half would never come out. I thought it worked. But I guess it didn't after all."

Her mother trailed off, and silence fell between them, Heather still digesting what she had heard. After a little while, she asked, "What was my father like? What's his name? Is he still around? Can I meet him?"

"Oh, I don't think he has a name. Not like you or I have names. Like I said, monsters are intelligent beings like us but they don't socialize the way we do. But they do bond with their mates and they raise their offspring together for a year or so before the little one is ready to go out on its own."

Her mother sighed. "He's never forgiven me for what I did, you know. I cut him off from you with light, and it broke us up as well. I was frightened, he was upset, our relationship was on the rocks, and when I got distant, well, he didn't have enough emotions he could feed on. He had to go then, had to find a kid to frighten so he wouldn't starve to death.

"We got better though. I think that he came to understand why I made the choice I did, and after a few years apart he started visiting me again. He can't come back again, it doesn't work like that I guess, and he can never stay too long, but we get together every month or two."

"Do you know when he'll be back again?" Heather was frightened and excited about the prospect of meeting her other parent, no matter how strange that parent might be.

"I never really know, but I can let you know when he shows up. And I'll try to communicate this to him as well. Like I said, though, it's hard to get things across." Then her mother burst out in tears again and said, "Oh, Heather, I'm so sorry. I didn't just cut him off from you, I cut you off from him as well. Maybe all this would be easier for you if you'd grown up knowing him."

"Or maybe not," she said, "I don't know if I could have handled junior high if I knew that I actually really was a freak."

"Don't say that word!" her mother snapped, just as she had a hundred times when counseling her daughter through her teenage years. Another piece snapped in place for Heather, as she realized where at least part of that vehemence had come from, her mother's fears for her monster-fathered child. She laughed, and then her mother started laughing too, anxiety and tension releasing.

"Oh, Mama, it will be OK," said Heather, "I'm glad you told me and it really helps. At least I know what's going on and why."

"I'm glad, Heather, and I'm sorry too. Is there anything else you want to ask?"

"I'm sure I'll have a lot of questions later. Right now, though, I just want to know a little more about my body. Can you tell me a little about monster anatomy, so I can compare it with what's happening with me?"

"Well," her mother said, in her teaching voice, "Monsters are mostly just a big head on top of a lot of long and stretchy tentacles arranged in a circle around their private parts." Heather got that queasy feeling again, as she contemplated how her mother knew about monster genitals.

"Different monsters have different numbers of tentacles, I guess. They don't have any hair and their skin is smooth and slimy, except on the bottom of the tentacles where they have suckers like an octopus. A monster's mouth is huge and full of lots of pointy teeth that are good for being scary with. Does that all sound familiar to you?"

"Yeah, Mama, but only sort of too. I guess that since I'm only half monster I'm sort of in between." She hesitated. "I'll tell you more another time. Not now. But that was really helpful, thank you." She didn't want to talk about the private stuff, not with her mother, thank you very much.

"Heather..." Her mother sounded sad and worried. "Heather, if there's anything I can do..."

"I'll let you know, Mama. But not right now. Right now I want to go for a walk and think."

"OK, Heather. I know this has got to be a lot to take in, and I'm sorry you have to deal with this."

"I really don't know how I feel right now, but I'm glad I know."

"I love you, Heather. You're always my one and only special child." And that, realized Heather, had always had another hidden layer of meaning too.

"You too, Mama." She cut the call and leaned back on the bench, her feelings wracked by her mother's explanations and the implications spinning out from them.

So she was really half a monster under the bed. And with no other human in the mix, it was no wonder that she and her mother looked so alike. Her poor mother. She didn't know whether to be angry at her or pity her. Or maybe both at once. Why couldn't her mother have told her any of this before? But would she have believed her before this strange shit started happening? Heather felt limp and wrung out with emotion. She wanted to go get drunk and stoned until she forgot that this was even happening.

She didn't, though. Instead, she walked. She walked and walked, her thoughts going slowly back and forth, baking in the sun and blinking in the harsh summer light beneath the city haze. It felt good to walk, to let her legs work hard and tire herself out as the acid reflux of her emotions slowly curdled and waned within. She wasn't done with feelings, that much was sure, but she was reaching a point where she felt in control again at least.

Exhausted and drained at home that night, she begged out of social interactions and took herself to bed early, air conditioner cranked up high. Restless, she swept the space beneath her bed and moved herself down there again, now understanding why she liked it there. Her monster heritage was right at home beneath a bed, her instincts wanting to reach up with tentacles she didn't have right now so she could wave them around and frighten someone.

With her blinds shut and blankets draped from the side of the bed, it was certainly dark enough. But Heather was human still, of course. She remembered her mother talking about monsters bonding, and realized her monster side must be bonded with Cam. Well, that seemed sensible enough. But frustrating. She wanted to fuck her man tonight, but she knew it couldn't happen. Her schedule, his schedule, her roommates close enough to hear, and Monday morning coming up. It just was not the night for it. Tomorrow then. She texted Cam, then set the phone aside, not waiting for him to reply.

She couldn't have him tonight, and she couldn't be a monster either. But she could dream of it. Heather lay beneath her bed, savoring the feeling of the dark, remembering the feel of her tentacles curling and stretching all around. She imagined the sound her mattress would make as Cam sat down, then lay, excitement rising in the slimy cunt that she would have. Her fingers reached down to to her panties and slipped inside, cupping her hairy labia and mons. Her tentacles would stretch, exploring up around the bed. Some would grab his ankles and some his wrists. And two would go into his shorts, one from either side of the bed, one for his cock and one his balls. She imagined the feel of stroking them with slimy tentacles, imagined the noises Cam would make.

Her other hand was on her breast, teasing and tugging at her nipple. He'd be all helpless to resist, he'd hear her growling and feel his body held in place and know that she was going to make him come for her. Her tentacles would lubricate him with her slime, moving his hard cock back and forth, massaging his balls as they drew up in tension and arousal. Her vibrating hand was pounding on her clit. She'd put another tentacle in his mouth for him to suck, and he would love her taste and come, blasting his sperm out of his cock to mix up with her slime. She gasped and shook and felt her cunt clench up in climax, her fantasies of fucking Cam dissolving into incoherence.

Above her on her empty bed, Heather heard her phone make its special ding for texts from Cam. She didn't look, just settled down toward a satiated sleep, looking forward to being with him again for real.