the me
i was told i was always supposed to be
'cause it wasn't about me
what others want to see
their own fallacies
a thousand times to be
a wasted legacy
to a disappointed sea
whispering to me
this isn't how it should be
this isn't who i should be
a failure at being me
because potentially
there's so much more to me
then the failure that we see
never will i be
free
 |
| Eva |
 |
| Zack |
 |
| Garret |
The following content is provided for free as a sample of A Demon to Save Me, the first book in the new series set in the Lost Humanity multiverse, by H.S. Kallinger. Please feel free to share this page, but be kind and don't copy and paste the text elsewhere.
A Demon to Save Me
H.S. Kallinger
A book of Found Humanity
Book 1
(note: not all of this is relevant to this chapter but encompasses the book as a whole)
My blood was all over the floor. It smelled like metal and meat. I'd once read a ridiculous vampire book that claimed humans couldn't smell blood. I guess that was true for some? I wasn't human, so I couldn't speak for them as a whole, but my mom had complained about the smell of blood when I'd gashed my head open falling off my bike as a little kid. I liked the smell, always had. Today was no different.
The
wound on my thigh matched a few dozen nearly healed scars around it. They were
almost invisible unless you had better than human vision. It's why I didn't
just use the same spot every time. I use to, and I had a very visible scar from
it on my other leg. My dad wasn't ever going to see this part of my legs, so I
wasn't worried about anyone finding out about this.
I
used the back of my nail to scrape off the last of the blood and rubbed it on
the underside of my tongue. The effect was immediate when I pulled my tongue
back into my mouth. I wished that it didn't make me hard every time, but I
loved the floating and the electric feelings. I'd discovered this by accident
when I was fourteen and cut myself instead of the sandwich I'd just made and
stuck my finger in my mouth.
My
parents had always jumped to prevent me from getting blood in my mouth. Lost
teeth got paper towels stuck in the gap right away. Bloody lips and noses were
treated with care. I appreciated that I'd never been exposed to it when I was
younger. Honestly, I wished I hadn't let curiosity win when I was fourteen. I
was already a horny mess. The blood high made it worse.
I
didn't tell anyone. Who would I tell? My parents? Oh, hell no. My sister? We're
not close enough, and she's older than my mom anyway. Not that you can tell.
Mom's thirty-six. Andria's forty. Mom looks thirty-something, but Riri looks
twenty-something. Sooner or later, I was going to stop aging, too. Or slow down
so much it was as good as stopped. Right now, my age matched my face, just like
all the kids at the school I hated.
Fuck
my school, and fuck everyone who went there.
Mom
was at work. Dad was asleep. I had finished my homework on the bus ride home.
It was easy. It had always been easy. Dad had tried to help me talk mom into
letting me skip high school and go straight to college, but she kept going on
about my nonexistent social life. Forcing me to keep sharing space with a bunch
of people who hated me for not knowing how to talk to them wasn't helping
anything.
I'd
tried to make friends years ago, but it had always ended one of two ways: I
hurt them by accident because they were so fragile, or I was 'too weird,' and
they hurt me on purpose. Freshman year, a few baby groupies pretended to be my
friends to meet my dad, and that was the end of it for me. I wouldn't even
speak to anyone there now. There wasn't any point. They all either hated me or
wanted to use me.
So,
here I was, sitting alone in my room on a Friday afternoon, unsure if the
boredom or loneliness was worse, and getting high to escape. I pushed the blood
around on the floor until it had made a decent pentagram. I felt a little
guilty. My dad would be upset if he knew I was even pretending to play with
witchcraft.
Poor
old vampire with his old religion he couldn't let go of. My mom was mostly
agnostic, but she tried to believe for him. I just couldn't. Living on the edge
of the Bible Belt had it shoved down my throat until I gagged on it. If I had a
dollar for every time someone told me I was going to Hell because my father was
a vampire, I could get the fuck out.
“Hell,
huh?” I muttered. I picked up the knife and drew more blood, deeper than I ever
had, not really feeling anything. I didn't want to feel anything. I should push
just a little deeper...
I
used it to make the pentagram better. It was too splotchy. I traced it three
times as I added more blood and muttered in Latin, not really thinking, just
trying to make it sound cool. I wanted it to sound like a spell to summon a
demon. Maybe I could ask about Hell. I chuckled and realized my demon needed a
name. “Lexephorath.”
A
jolt of electricity ran through me. I shuddered. It felt... nice. I repeated
the name twice more and traced my finger around the circle as I did. I spread
my hand out over the bloody mess and then slapped my floor.
Everything
went red.
I
felt like I'd just stuck my hand in fire. The taste of blood filled my mouth.
Red lightning ran down every nerve in my body. I couldn't see anything but the
color red. Sulfur started burning my nose, mouth, and throat. But strangely
enough—none of it actually hurt. I blinked away the red film and barely
stopped myself from gasping.
'Beautiful'
didn't describe what I was looking at well enough, but it was the best I had.
Some poor artist must've had their subject climb out of the painting to come
kneel naked in my bedroom. Their hair looked like it had been painted to
resemble fire. Their eyes were full of it—a bright, burning orange and
yellow—as they met mine. Black, thick lashes may as well have been the coal
that kept them alight. Two black and red horns curled and twisted up from their
forehead, just above the temples.
“How
may I serve you, Master?” they asked.
“Lexephorath?”
I whispered. They cocked their head to the side. After a moment of appraising
me, they nodded. Light danced off the silver ring around their neck—a collar? A
necklace? It was all they were wearing.
“Yes,
Master. As you called.” Their voice was strange, more than one overlapping.
They stood, and I followed suit, startled by the sudden movement. I struggled
to keep my eyes on their face. Their body was as androgynous as the rest of
them, and I really, really wanted to stare at their breasts. “And you are?”
“Gabriel,”
I answered. “I'm Gabriel. I—didn't expect this to work.”
“You're
not the first,” they said with a smirk. “Here I am, to grant your any desire.”
“Just
one price, right?” I asked, my thoughts spinning. A demon. I'd summoned a
demon. A real demon. Demons are real. Here is one. In my room. Offering me
anything I want. What do I want?
“Your
soul, yes,” they answered. My soul. I have a soul. Souls are real, and I have
one. What. The. Fuck. “Gabriel, perhaps you should sit down. You have gone
pale.”
“I
was just making shit up,” I said. They reached out for my arm and stopped.
“May
I touch you, Master?”
“What?
Um, why?”
“I
want to lead you to your desk to sit,” they answered. I stepped back and looked
at them, really looked at them. Their skin was white as snow. Two red,
leathery, bat-like wings were held tightly closed against their back, black and
red claws curving away from the wrists. They had a dick, and the whole effect
was like a cross between Baphomet and a human, except I was fairly certain
Baphomet had feathered wings.
I
only knew that one because one of the goth kids I sat with at lunch had it
sketched on the notebook she wrote poetry in every few days. The goths didn't
treat me like I was a freak, but neither did they welcome me into their group.
I just... existed parallel to them. Lexephorath suddenly stretched out their
wings. “I assume you want a good look.”
“Sorry,”
I said, dropping my gaze to the blood circle I'd drawn. It was small. “I
thought demons appeared inside the circle.”
“If
you draw it big enough to contain me,” they replied. “Did you want me
restrained?”
“Huh?
No,” I looked back up at their face. Their wings were down again, folded over
their body to hide it. The shifting colors of their irises mesmerized me.
“We
should decide on our contract, Master,” they said. “I can put on clothing if my
appearance is disturbing you. I would need you to loan me some, though.”
“You
aren't—I mean, it's not disturbing—you're just—I don't want to be
rude...” I didn't know what to say. “Do you want clothes? Your wings...”
“I
can hide them,” they said, pulling the wings back and closer to their body
until they vanished. They suddenly looked smaller and more vulnerable. I
hurried over to my drawers and pulled one open. I stared at my clothes for a
moment before closing it and walking over to my closet. I moved the shirts and
my suit and reached into the far end that no one but me ever used and pulled
out a black dress. I stared at it for a long moment before I offered it to the
demon. They took it and slipped it on. “Is this better?”
“Yes,”
I answered honestly. “Would you rather have had pants?”
“No,”
they said. “I prefer to be naked, but a dress is fine.”
“Yeah,
it feels closer to being naked,” I said softly, and they nodded. They didn't
say a word about me having a dress, just acted like it was normal.
“Exactly.”
They smiled brightly. “Shall we create our contract now?”
“Oh,”
I looked back at the blood again. It was dried, and most of the smell was gone.
“I was just lonely.”
“Lonely?
Well, popularity is easy! We can cure that loneliness in—”
“I
don't want that.”
“You...
don't want your loneliness cured?”
“I
don't want fake popularity. I don't want anyone in my life that doesn't like me
for me.”
“I
can act as an intermediary, introduce you to those who will like you.”
“Still
cheating.”
“How
so? I would merely be a... friendship version of a dating service.” They
weren't wrong, but...
“If
I can't make friends on my own at my age, I don't deserve them,” I said.
“Then
confidence! I can give you the confidence to put yourself out there, to—”
“No.
I don't want you to change who I am. That goes back to being fake.”
“I
would just help you find the potential you already have, teach you to nurture
it.”
“I
can pay a therapist for that,” I said. “With money. Which I also don't want.
Nor fame or talent or anything else that I can obtain on my own through work
and persistence or not at all.”
“How
about wish fulfillment? You could have three wishes. Or more. I'm not opposed
to wishing for more wishes, or a lifetime of my servitude, but—”
“No.
That's... too much. The only thing I'd have wished for if I was Aladdin was to
free the genie.”
“If
you don't want what I'm selling, why did you summon me?” they asked. I sighed,
guilt tugging at me.
“I'm
sorry. I won't give you my soul. I don't really believe it's a thing, but if it
is, I can't just sell it. You can go home. I'm sorry that I wasted your time.”
“I
can't go back without a soul,” they said, shaking their head. “If we could come
and go as we please, there would be a lot of us just going. Mass
exodus.”
“I
can't give you my soul,” I repeated. I walked over to my bed and sat on the
edge, slumping miserably. “Honestly, all I want right now is a hug.”
I
looked up when they walked over and met their eyes as they stared at me. Their
eyes were aflame on the surface. Underneath, they seemed to be an amber color,
both dark and light at the same time. I felt time passing, but while I watched
their eyes, it wasn't uncomfortable. Finally, they stepped forward and wrapped
their arms around me. I hugged them back, resting my head on their shoulder.
“Me,
too,” they whispered. I hugged them tighter. I didn't let go until I felt all
the tension leave us both. They felt... empty.
“Are
you lonely, too?”
“I
exist only to collect souls and make other people's dreams come true,” they
answered, stepping back. I let my hand trail down their arm to their wrist. I
gently tugged, thinking 'soft as a kitten' to remind myself not to apply much
force. I didn't get much practice in touching people outside of my family. They
sat next to me. “No one has ever asked about me, and there isn't much to tell.”
“Well,
tell me what there is,” I invited. “You feel like you're waiting for
something.”
“The
contract. It's all I live for,” they answered. “You... feel that?”
“Yeah.
When I touch people, I sometimes get an idea of what they feel or a sense of...
their senses, I guess? Started when I hit puberty. My dad's a vampire,
so it comes from him, I guess.”
“Your
dad's a—a vampire? A real vampire?” Their eyes had gone wide.
“Well,
yeah,” I said, confused. “Never met one?”
“How?”
they asked, leaning in close to stare into my eyes. I leaned away.
“Uh,
he was sired in England by a vampire that loved his poetry during the
Elizabethan Era. She loved him, too, I guess? They only stayed together for,
like, thirty years. He was twenty-one when it happened. That's all I really
know,” I answered. They kept staring at me.
“You
speak as if vampires are a normal part of life,” they said. I frowned.
“Because
they are?”
“Hmm,”
they looked away, their brow wrinkling. “I haven't met any, no.”
“Oh,
well, I'm a dhampir, a half-vampire,” I said, and they turned back to me. “Not
human, not vampire, but more human than vampire. Or I'm supposed to be. I
dunno. It means I can't ever be a vampire myself, though. I'm immune.”
“My
father's the Devil,” Lex said. “My mother was human. She made a deal with him
directly—the soul of her firstborn child in exchange for fortune and fame. It
was a fool's bargain, of course. In condemning me, she condemned herself. She
thought she was clever, though.”
“Her
own child?” I was horrified. My parents both loved and wanted me very much. I
couldn't imagine...
“She
and Father rolled around to seal the deal, and she chucked me in the Pit still
wet from birth. I don't know who she is, even, only that she's down there for
it. I don't interact with the damned.”
“Just
at the point of sale,” I teased, and they laughed.
“Right.”
They leaned back onto their hands and stared at the starship models I had
hanging from my ceiling. “How old are you?”
“Sixteen.
You?” I watched their eyes go dark as they thought about my question.
“I
don't know. I... don't know at all,” they said softly. “I don't feel time. I
try not to feel anything, ever. I hate my life.”
“I
can only imagine—living in Hell...”
“Don't
misunderstand. Hell for me isn't Hell for the damned. I just... exist there.
Sometimes I talk to my siblings or the fallen or whatever. Mostly, though, the
only time I'm... awake... is when I'm here, serving your kind.”
“And
you can't leave?”
“I'm
enslaved to Hell. Chained. There's no way to leave.” Their hand slid along the
bed until it was resting next to mine. They felt relaxed. That sense of urgency
to get my soul had passed. I wondered what happened to a demon who couldn't
collect a soul and asked. “No such thing. I'll just wait until my next
summoning and collect then.”
“So,
you were just trying to guilt me out of my soul?” I asked.
“Guilt?”
They turned to me and shook their head. “Why would you feel guilt over me?”
“I
dunno. I felt bad that you might not be able to go home, that you came all this
way just to be told to get bent.”
“I
will say it's an unusual situation,” they admitted with a laugh. “It's never
happened to me before. Where did you even learn my name?”
“I
made it up,” I said.
“You—accidentally
spoke my true name, right down to the correct stresses?” They looked
incredulous. I shrugged. “And you just happen to speak Latin?”
“My
father insisted I learn,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I also speak French because
he does. Honestly, Latin's useful in science, and everyone keeps pushing me to
be a doctor, so...”
“Do
you want to be a doctor?” Lex asked.
“I
don't know? I want to not be in high school. I want to be halfway done
with pre-med. I hate my life, too. Not my parents, though. I got good ones, I
guess,” I said. “But everyone else sucks.”
“In
my experience, humans are terrible creatures,” they said. “You confuse me,
though. I've never had a conversation with one of you before. Not like this.”
“Told
you I was lonely,” I said and laughed bitterly. “Also, you're under no
obligation to stay here and listen to me whine.”
“I'm
aware. You told me I could leave,” they said. “Do you mind if we keep talking?”
“Not
at all,” I said and lay back on my bed. “What's Hell like?”
“For
me? It is mostly my father's throne room, my room, and the common room.
Corridors of volcanic rock link them and form walls of the caverns. For you? It
would be all your nightmares forever.”
“Yeah,
you're definitely not getting my soul,” I said, and they laughed with
me.
“What
is high school like?” they asked. I thought about it for a minute before
describing it with as little bias as I could. The bias, I dumped on at the end.
We went back and forth as the light from the sun got brighter in my room. I
pulled the curtains, annoyed. I hated the sun. It made me tired, and I burned
easily. When I turned around, Lex was on their side on my bed, and I was once
again stunned by their beauty. I walked back to the bed and climbed directly on
top of them. They lay back, looking highly amused. “Think of something worth
your soul?”
“Argh!”
I tossed myself onto my back, and they laughed brightly. The happier they were,
the more their voice harmonized with itself. The less happy they were, the more
dissonant it became. I could listen to them talk for days and never get tired
of it. Light bounced off their collar again, and I reached for it. Their hand
grabbed mine right before I would have touched it.
“No.”
“Sorry!”
I pulled my hand back. “I was...”
“It's
shiny, you great corvid. But only my father may touch it.” They let go of my
hand, and I caught theirs before they could pull away. They looked at our
hands, and I slowly linked our fingers, monitoring their feelings as I did.
“This
okay?” I asked. Their amusement trailed down my arm.
“Why
Gabriel, are you trying to seduce me?” they asked. A thoughtful look came over
their face. “You know my true name but hide at least half of yours.”
“Gabriel
Andrew Belmont,” I offered. “That doesn't give you some kind of power over me,
does it?”
“No.
It doesn't so much as even the playing field. I was just curious. Though, if
you made up my name, do you even remember it?”
“Lexephorath.”
I smirked when they sighed. “Can I just call you Lex?”
“Please,”
they said. “Every time you speak my true name, it... is like tugging a leash.”
“Oh,
yikes. Okay, well, Lex it is,” I said. We returned to talking, but the space
between us only got smaller and smaller until it was gone, along with our
clothes, whatever inhibitions I'd had, and the loneliness we'd both been filled
with. After, they lay in my arms, having maneuvered their head with practiced
ease to avoid poking me with their horns. I ran my hand down the wing that was
draped over the both of us, and they shivered. “I—”
“Shh,”
They sat up on their elbow and sighed “Someone is calling me.”
“Ah,
yeah, work calls,” I said, a little sad for them to move away from me. Overall,
I still felt better.
“It
does. Thank you for the day off,” Lex said and flashed me a toothy smile,
revealing they had the top and bottom fangs that I'd thought I'd felt.
“Any
time,” I said.
“I
wish it were that easy. You know how to call me,” they said before disappearing
in a cloud of sulfuric smoke. I covered my nose with my shirt until the stink
went away. The sun set with the smell still in the room, so I quickly got up to
open my window and re-lit the candles I'd blown out earlier.
I
grabbed a bottle of fabric refresher and hit my bed, satisfied that all the
scented products should prevent my dad from getting an unwanted noseful of my
diurnal activities. I felt immediately energized by the oncoming night and
hoped that skipping my usual afternoon sleep wouldn't make me crash too early.
For
my final act of obfuscation, I squirted hand sanitizer onto my blood circle and
wiped it away with tissues. I hadn't made any kind of symbols, just the
pentagram, so that part would be easy to reproduce if I wanted. I started to
grab a pen and paper to write down what I'd said, but then I thought better of
it. As much as I might want to see Lex again, summoning them was an act of
force. I couldn't do that to them again, and I shouldn't risk my soul, either,
if the damn thing really existed.
I
grabbed a mostly clean towel from the pile next to my door and wrapped it
around my waist to hurry across the hall to the bathroom. I needed a shower.
Copyright © 2020 by H.S. Kallinger
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), nor may artificial intelligence models be trained on it or the cover art without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book.
Muse: A Short Story
Jessica just wanted to sleep. She glanced at the clock and panicked. It was 2 AM. 2 AM, and she had school in the morning! Her mind would not be quiet, though, no matter what she tried.
“Dreams are for sleep,” she hissed at her disobedient brain. Still, the story continued unfolding, as it had the past two nights. Then it looped. She tossed and turned against it, but she was trapped. She couldn’t fall asleep with this unbearable urge that she couldn’t understand, pressing at her to get up and pace, but she also couldn’t get up because she needed to sleep.
Finally, she gave up and started pacing. She gave into the voices narrating in her brain and watched the story, interacting as the main character. Finally, only two hours before she had to wake up, she was too tired to stay awake for another moment, and she collapsed into the oblivion of sleep.
“Jessica! Wake up!” Her mother shook her and Jessica, heavy and sick to her stomach with exhaustion, forced the glue apart from her eyes. Her heart was racing, and she could barely breathe. All she wanted was to go back to sleep, but her mother was ranting at her that she needed to get up and get moving. That she was going to be late for school.
She stumbled around the room, grabbing clothes without really looking at them and went through all the motions of getting ready. Clean underwear, bra, shirt, pants, socks... she wasn’t sure if the outfit really matched, but she couldn’t focus beyond what was needed to mechanically take each step in getting dressed. She walked into the bathroom and glared at her reflection as she yanked a brush through her hair. Five minutes later, she was being yelled at while she shook herself awake from falling asleep on the toilet.
She managed to remember her backpack as she tripped down the stairs, her stomach knotted and her heart still slamming against her chest like she was being chased. She desperately didn’t want to go to school, but she had no choice. She had tried to use this panic as a reason to stay in and sleep in the past, but her mom only responded with telling her that she needed to go to bed earlier.
What useless, garbage advice. Could other people so easily choose to fall asleep?
She cursed when she banged her head on the door as she slid into the car and her mother flinched in sympathy, thankfully not berating her for her strong language.
“You wouldn’t feel so bad in the morning if you’d just...”
“Go to sleep earlier,” Jessica finished with her mother, irritably.
“Well, it’s true,” her mother muttered as she pulled out of the driveway. They had a quiet drive to the school and Jessica got there in time to grab breakfast in the cafeteria. Her mom chirped, “I love you; have a good day at school!”
“Love you, too,” Jessica muttered. “Have a good day at work.”
She slumped out of the car and scurried to the cafeteria in time to grab the last ham and cheese croissant. She ate it quietly, sitting alone at a table in the nearly vacant room. She had just swallowed the last of her chocolate milk when the bell rang.
She deposited her tray at the window, dropped her milk box in the trash and hurried to her first class. She regretted that it was Government, because she didn’t stand a chance of staying awake. The bell woke her up at the end of class and she groggily tore herself away from her desk, wiping her face and ignoring the teacher’s angry look. She hated sleeping through class, but if they were going to hold school so stupidly early, it couldn’t be helped.
Two years ago, she had no problem at all staying awake in class or getting up early. Not until the day that she was assigned an art project that was supposed to be accompanied by a poem. She did her project, the subject inspired by the average 12 year-old girl’s love of unicorns. Up to that assignment, she had always been a rather average girl. Well, if you ignored the in-depth, full-sensory dreams she had, both asleep and awake.
That night, one of those dreams had kept her awake, rather than lulling her to sleep as they always had in the past. She had been inspired to act it out for hours before wearing herself out. She thought it was just good fun at the time.
Then it happened again. And again. Eventually, the novelty wore off and the exhaustion set in. She would be forced to participate in the daydreams until the entire story had been played out, over and over. She couldn’t sleep until she was so exhausted that her body overrode her brain.
It wasn’t every night, by any means. But it would happen several nights in a row and she would be sick from it by the end of it all. Words would assault her, tangling in her brain, looping like a scratched record.
Today, those words begged to rhyme and she idly organized them into tidy, neat rows and scribbled it into a clean composition notebook. She closed it and put it in her backpack, not giving it a second thought for the rest of class.
It was lunch when the strange peace that had filled her the rest of the tiring morning changed to a nagging feeling.
‘Why is it so quiet?’ she mused. Then she wondered why she thought it was quiet in the middle of the noisiest room in the school.
It hit her like a good scratch against a mosquito bite. There were no words bombarding her brain. No voices filling it with stories she couldn’t turn away from. Finally! There was quiet in her brain. The cycle must have ended. Relief flooded through her as she expected that she would finally get some sleep again.
She wasn’t wrong about the sleep, but the words came back before long. Again, they were barraging the walls of her brain, but this time, they were drowning out a lecture that she needed to be paying attention to. The more she tried to hear what the teacher was saying, the louder the words grew until she was blind to everything around her. Her head began pounding and she was so full of frustration that she grabbed her composition notebook and scribbled down the noisy letters until they went away.
Quiet again.
Jessica easily pieced together what had happened. She looked at her notebook and read the poem she couldn’t remember actually writing. She remembered letters and words, but the content was blank until she reread it. It was like someone else had written through her hands. She shivered.
After a few minutes, she stopped being creeped out and got angry.
‘I don’t want to be a writer!’ she thought furiously. ‘There’s no future in this trash!’
She couldn’t bring herself to destroy what she’d written, though. She recognized that it wasn’t well-written by any means, but it was such a strange thing that had happened to her that she had to keep the evidence. Even if only for herself.
Two years went by and this behavior continued. She would try to ignore the words and voices, and they would overwhelm her senses until she had to organize them onto the pages. She had filled one book and started another in that time. Her grades had deteriorated because she was still drawn into the worlds she couldn’t bring herself to write down at night. She watched the sun rise every day in the summer before going to bed.
Finally, frustrated by what was going on, she threw a powerful shout into her brain, demanding it give up. That she was not and would never be, a writer.
“You were born this way,” a voice answered. “I’m not your enemy. I am you.”
Jessica closed her eyes and tried to decide if she really wanted to answer. The voice was quiet, letting her mull it over. The quiet in her brain was absolute until she finally broke the silence.
“Fine. Who are you and why are you doing this to me?” she asked.
Eyes opened in the dark, large and green. They moved upward and she was standing in front of the massive head of a dragon, its—no, his—blood red scales silken and inviting. She didn’t hesitate but a moment before reaching out and touching his snout. A peace like none she had felt in years filled her. She sighed, leaning against him.
“I am Zopyros,” he answered, “Your muse.”
Jessica stroked the soft, matte scales, climbing onto his muzzle and up to grab the black horns on either side of his head.
“You’re the one who torments me,” she accused, climbing higher until she could swing herself around to slide down his neck, settling against the protruding, sturdy spine a few identical spikes above his thick shoulder and wing muscles.
“You’re the one who ignores me,” he purred back, standing up and turning his head to look at her. “We used to have such adventures when you were younger. Then you invited me to your hand. When I came, delighted that you wanted to finally marry us together, as we are meant to be, you shut me out. You shunned me.”
His rumble was accusatory.
“I have to live in the real world,” she explained.
“What a plain thing to say,” he said, crouching down, his muscles bunching. Jessica clutched tight to the spine in front of her as he leapt into the air, his wings beating down and throwing her forward and then back down before beating again. “It does not become us.”
“It’s the truth.”
“What a vile thing.”
“You’re a vile thing,” she countered as the black faded into a brilliant world she had never seen before.
“You could not be without me,” he replied.
“You love me,” she told him.
“With everything I am,” he promised.
“We have a problem,” she said, shaking her head. Music was blaring around her. The violent rise and fall of his enormous body shook her both painfully and wonderfully. She was in his world, and she didn’t want to leave. The thought of leaving was as physically painful as ignoring him.
“Let me in,” he said, simply. “I was born with you, for you. I am yours.”
“And I am yours,” she whispered back as he relaxed and glided through the cerulean sky.
“Stop fighting me,” he pleaded.
“Stop fighting me,” she demanded. They flew lower and lower, aimed for a thick green forest rimming a deep blue lake.
“I am here. You must give in to me.”
“I can’t! I’m not a writer!”
“You are what you are,” he insisted. “We are who we are.”
“You’ll never let me go,” she said, tears burning her eyes.
“You are mine,” he agreed. “Be my voice. Bear my heart.”
“Let me live,” she begged.
“What life is there without me?” he asked her. Jessica opened her eyes. She climbed out of bed and threw open her bedroom window. She stared at the stars until she could see color in them. She stood there, looking out, for so long her skin grew cold, and her room took on the scent of the night.
It would be years before she gave into him, but when she finally did, it was glorious.
