by Lizzy Bequin
“Please,” I whimper.
Those vice-like claws release their grip and trace down my arms and along my rib cage as the beast works its way down my body, hot breath ghosting across my soft, twitching, vulnerable abdomen.
My arms are free, but they feel as heavy as two bags of sand now. My legs fall open bonelessly, exposing the raw, wet, aching need that throbs at their juncture.
The beast sniffs me there. My thighs quiver. My moistened sex pulses under those warm exhalations.
“Please…”
With a savage snarl, the beast buries its face between my legs, sucking and nipping and lapping the slick that oozes from my parting. I twist and writhe and arch my back against the forest floor as its rough tongue slathers my crotch with warm wetness. My screams echo through the darkened forest, bouncing between the trees. Even I can’t tell if they are screams of terror or something else.
And somewhere far off, an urgent voice is calling my name.
“Amrita…Amrita…”
My eyes fly open to find Tina’s overly made-up face right in front of mine. She is reaching across the diner counter, tugging at the shoulder of my white and red uniform shirt that looks just like hers.
“Hey, Amrita, wake up,” she chuckles quietly. “You’ve got a customer.”
The sounds and smells of the brightly lit Durbin Diner come rushing in to fill the void left by the fading memory of my dream. The aroma of a fresh brew gurgling in the coffee maker, the clatter of Jerry chopping up hash browns on the sizzling skillet, and the laughter of the few diners tucked in the vinyl-upholstered booths or perched atop stools lining the long counter that runs the length of the retro-styled establishment.
Shit, I’ve fallen asleep on my feet at work again—the second time this week. At least it’s a slow night, and Tina, the other waitress who is working the diner with me tonight, is cool about it. She just grins and teases me.
“Who’s been keeping you up at night?” She giggles, pushing a stray, magenta curl back from her mascara rimmed eyes. “You have a new boyfriend I don’t know about?”
I blush a little and shake my head.
“Just can’t get used to this swing shift, I guess.”
I reach for my white ceramic mug of coffee sitting next to the cash register, and I raise it to my lips.
“Oh, don’t drink that!” Tina half shouts.
But it’s too late. I’ve already taken one big gulp before I realize the coffee is cold and stale-tasting. I wince and stick out my tongue, which makes Tina giggle again. At least the caffeine gives me enough of a kick to force me out of my grogginess.
Then I remember that I was dreaming. The same dream that I always have. A shiver runs through me and something clenches deep in my core as I recall the feeling of humid breath warming my bare skin.
“Seriously, you okay?” Tina asks, fiddling with the pencil she keeps impaled through the loose bun of curls on top of her head.
“Yeah,” I mutter, nodding. “Peachy.”
“Well, you’ve got a customer in your section,” she says, sliding the pencil out of her hair and using it to point to a table in the back. “It’s slow enough, I could have grabbed him for you, but…I figured you’d want his tip.”
Leaning in close, she adds, “Personally I’d like a lot more than just his tip.”
“Tina!” I scold her as I pick up a laminated menu for the customer from the stack behind the counter..
“Just take a look,” Tina says with a naughty smirk, “He’s hot enough to bake cookies on.”
As I’m filling a complimentary glass of ice water to take him, I turn my eyes toward the large, well-dressed man sitting alone in the booth in the corner drumming his fingers on the table. Even at a glance I can tell his sleek midnight blue suit is nicer than what you normally see around a small town like Durbin. But the messy, golden hair on top of his head doesn’t quite seem to match his straight-laced attire. He almost has the look of a little boy that’s been forced to wear a suit for Easter Sunday.
Only this guy is no little boy. He’s huge, with broad shoulders and a thick, powerful neck. The booth looks like an uncomfortably tight squeeze for his massive frame, and though I haven’t seen him standing up, I’m certain he’s well over six feet.
And Tina’s right, as she always is. The guy is handsome. Still, I can’t let her get away without giving her a little shit about it too.
“Hot enough to bake cookies on?” I quirk an incredulous eyebrow at her. “Seriously, Tina?”
“Hey, all I’m saying is he can pop a batch in my oven.”
“Oh my God, Tina!” I hiss under my breath. Then I call to the man. “I’ll be right with you, sir,”
I take another sip of my cold coffee. Even though it’s gross, I need the jolt, and it’s close at hand, but I dump the rest in the sink on my way by. Then I head down the narrow aisle behind the counter, squeezing past Jerry, the cook, his white apron splotched with grease and his hair net jiggling as he violently chops at some sizzling hash browns on the skillet. I step out from behind the counter and walk to the front of the diner
Sidling up to the man’s booth, I get my notepad and pen ready.
“What can I do for you this evening?” I ask, struggling to hide the trace of a yawn in my voice.
“For starters you can look me in the eye.”
My muscles tense. It’s not just the brusque way that this guy is addressing me. It’s his voice. It has a deep, dark timbre that seems to rumble down my very center. My skin heats. Slowly I raise my eyes to meet his.
“Better?” I ask, trying my best to sound sassy and failing miserably. I blow a stray lock of my wheat-blond hair out of my eyes.
“Better.”
From across the room, I didn’t realize just how handsome he was, but now, face-to-face with him, it’s almost overwhelming. His face is masculine but somehow elegant, his features hard and sculptural. A barely-there five o’clock shadow, slightly darker than the dirty blond on his head, lines his angled jaw and accentuates the slight cleft of his square chin.
But what really holds me transfixed are those intense eyes. Dark gray with just the faintest tint of blue like burnished steel. Looking into them is like looking down a pair of gun barrels.
For a moment, I swear he can see straight into my soul, and a brief afterimage of my dream flashes across my mind’s eye.
“Purple,” he says curtly.
“Excuse me?”
“Your eyes.” A faint grin, devoid of kindness, reveals a matching pair of irresistible dimples. “They’re purple.”
The intensity of his glare is almost too much to handle, like staring into the sun—but a very dark sun. An eclipse maybe. My breath catches in my throat, and uninvited warmth spreads under my arms and between my legs, the latter combined with a slippery sensation. Some instinct in the back of my mind is urging me to run, but I stand my ground, trying my best to remain unflustered.
“They’re lavender,” I say flatly.
My eyes have always been a sensitive point for me. I hate them. They’re just one more little detail to remind me that I’m not like everyone else. That I’m different. A freak.
The man in the suit nods, and brazenly rakes his gaze down my body, not even attempting to hide the fact that he’s checking me out. It’s not like there’s much for him to look at. My red and white button-up uniform shirt is about as unflattering as they come. It’s supposed to be retro, but it just looks dorky. My khaki shorts are hardly what you’d call sexy. Nevertheless, the intense man unapologetically drinks me in with his eyes, and I pray he doesn’t see the goosebumps prickling along my bare legs and arms
On their return trip to my face, his eyes catch on my chest, and I’m on the verge of raising my arms to cover myself when he speaks.
“Amrita.”
Oh. Right. My name tag.
I don’t know why I thought he would check out my boobs anyway. Guys never do. Let’s just say they are…less than ample. Hidden underneath this
baggy shirt, they are practically invisible.
“The one and only,” I reply drily, rolling my eyes a little.
The man just smirks, totally unfazed. He sees straight through my snarky bullshit with those steely eyes of his. My heart is hammering so hard inside my rib cage that I almost wonder if he can hear it.
“It’s a pretty name.”
“My mom chose it,” I blurt, instantly wondering why I decided to divulge that pointless little tidbit.
While we’ve been talking, it’s like everything went silent around us, like the entire world shrank down to a small bubble that encapsulated only me and him. But now that bubble pops, and all of the ambient sounds come rushing back in—the clatter of dishes, the sizzle of the skillet, the hum of the fluorescent lights overhead, the voices of the few remaining customers—and I remember that I’m standing in the middle of the diner. I’m supposed to be working.
“Look, mister, can I—“
“Coffee.”
“Okee-dokey,” I say, keeping my voice chipper. “And how—“
“Black. Scalding hot. That’s all.”
His voice has turned as cold as falling sleet all of a sudden, and his jaw is ticking like he’s grinding his teeth. When I glance down at the table, I notice his hands are balled into tight fists.
“Right,” I say in a hushed voice, slowly backing away. “One, uh, black coffee…coming right up.”
Once I get back behind the counter, I breathe a quiet sigh, and my muscles relax, relieved to be out of that man’s field of gravity for a moment. Still, I can feel those intense eyes focused on my back, boring into me as I pour a cup of steaming, dark coffee.
Tina comes bustling toward me.
“Hey Amrita, you’ve got a message,” she says, hiking her thumb toward the register where I left my phone lying on the counter. “I swear I wasn’t spying, but it’s from your dad. Maybe you should check it.”
“Thanks,” I say handing off the full coffee cup to her. “Could you run this over to that guy?”
“Um, hell yeah!” she chirps.
I feel a little bit bad, like maybe I’m throwing her under the bus by making her deal with that man instead of me. But I don’t think I could have gone back over there right now. It’s not that he gives me the creeps. It’s more like when I was standing there looking into his eyes, a dark power was drawing me toward him, like I was being pulled into a black hole that wanted to devour me whole.
Or maybe I’m just being overly dramatic.
I plop back down on the stool behind the register and grab my phone to see what Dad has to say. Yeah right. I already know what the message will be before I even take a look.
DAD: Hey sweetie
DAD: Did you remember to take your medicine
DAD: ?
I send him back a quick “yep” and a smiley face, even though I totally did forget. It’s weird, but even though it’s been a part of my daily routine for years now, I’ve found myself forgetting to take my pills recently.
Digging through the mess in my purse, I fish the bottle out. It’s like an ordinary, transparent orange pill bottle you would get from any pharmacy. However, this bottle doesn’t have a label on it. That has always seemed a bit shady to me.
I can’t help wondering where my dad gets this stuff. Whenever I’ve pressed him on it, all he says is that he has to special order it. But what does that mean? Like…special ordered illegally from Mexico or something?
All I know is that I have to take this stuff three times a day because of my condition. It’s some kind of rare form of epilepsy. I guess the medicine works because I’ve never had a single seizure. Well, according to Dad, I had one when I was twelve, but I don’t remember it at all.
After a brief struggle, I pop the white child-proof cap off and tap two little pink capsules into my hand. I swallow them down with a gulp of water.
Even though I don’t know where the medicine comes from, I’m sure it must be safe. I mean, Dad would never let me take any medicine if he hadn’t checked it out thoroughly. He’s way too protective for that.
In fact, he’s way too protective in almost every area of my life.
I guess it’s because with Mom gone, he feels like he has to do double duty. Or maybe it’s because I’m the only family he has left now. But whatever the reason, he’s always hovering, like an overprotective guardian angel.
In fact, the only reason he was okay with me taking this waitressing job at the diner is because it’s directly across the street from his office, so he can keep a watchful eye on me when he’s working.
And even when he’s not.
I glance out the big floor-to-ceiling window at the front of the diner, at the narrow, two-lane street that runs through the middle of downtown Durbin, a small collection of two and three story brick buildings, restaurants and storefronts. I know full well that the light will be on just across the street, lighting up the painted letters on the front window of my dad’s office:
REESE JACOBSON MD
FAMILY MEDICINE
Even though the lights are still on, Dad’s obviously not open for business. I mean, it’s after eleven o’clock at night. It’s getting close to midnight in fact.
He does this every single night I have to work the swing shift. He says that he has plenty of paperwork at the office to keep himself busy until I get off work, so he can wait for me and drive us both home. But really I know he’s just hanging out over there so he can keep a watchful eye on me. That’s just how he’s always been. I guess maybe it’s because Mom is gone. I’m the only family he has left.
Normally I find his overprotectiveness super annoying. He can be pretty stifling. I mean, I’m twenty years old after all. Going on twenty-one, in fact. However, tonight it’s kind of comforting to know that Dad is close by. Something about the big customer in the suit in the corner booth seems off, and it’s making me way uncomfortable.
Casting a quick glance in the man’s direction, I see the man is now chugging his mug of steaming hot coffee like it was ice water.
I tap another quick message to Dad.
ME: Ill be off soon!
ME: Wanna come have a coffee while you wait?
ME: On the house ;)
Way too quickly, he sends me back a thumbs-up emoji. A moment later I can see the various lights switching off in his office across the street as he locks things up.
I guess he doesn’t have that much paperwork after all.
Meanwhile Tina has finished taking care of her customers. While she’s busing their table, I ring them up for her and watch as they shuffle out, bellies full of pancakes and greasy bacon. When she’s finished, Tina wanders down the bar and parks her butt across from me on one of the cushioned stools, before she starts scrolling through her phone distractedly.
“God, time goes so slow when it’s dead like this,” she groans.
I lean across and speak to her in a hushed voice.
“Hey what’s up with that guy?” I ask.
“Hm?” she says absent mindedly, as she continues swiping her phone screen. “What guy?”
Um, the guy that she just said she wanted to impregnate her literally five minutes ago, I think to myself. That’s classic Tina though. She can remember all of the orders for a group of fifteen people without writing it down, but when it comes to anything else, she’s got the memory of a goldfish.
Out loud, I say, “The guy in the suit.”
“Oh yeah. What about him?”
Tina truly has a fickle heart. She was just swooning over him, and now she couldn’t care less. A quick glance at her phone tells me why. She’s swiping through her dating app. She’s already moved on to her next crush, which, knowing her, will probably last about five minutes as well.
“Don’t you think he’s a little bit, I don’t know…intense?“ I ask.
She just shrugs, eyes still fixed on her phone. Honestly, how many single guys could there be in a small town like Durbin? Everybody basically knows everybody here. She mu
st have her dating app set to a crazy wide radius or something.
“Dunno. Seems nice enough to me,” she replies, her voice trailing off.
Okay. Maybe I just imagined it. Maybe what I felt before when I was talking to the man in the suit was just me being dramatic. I have to admit, I have been feeling a little strange lately. For one thing I’ve been getting sleepy at weird times. For another, there’s my absent-mindedness, like forgetting to take my medicine.
And then there are the dreams.
I’ve had them for years, but they’ve been way more frequent lately. And they’ve been getting more vivid and raw. Now almost every night I wake up with a start, my skin beaded with hot sweat and pulsing with an irresistible urge to straddle my pillow and grind out the throbbing, animal need between my thighs.
I never used to be like that. In fact, I used to hardly ever feel horny at all. I mean, I could recognize if a boy was cute in an aesthetic sense, but it never really did anything to me. Never made me swoon like it did with my girlfriends, even though I would play along like it did.
Sometimes, I think there is something was wrong with me. My best guess has always been that it has to do with my condition. That my disorder also kills my libido. However, in my darker moments I sometimes wonder if it might be the medicine Dad gives me. But if it had side effects like that, he would tell me.
Right?
Whatever the case may be, I’ve tried to be more outgoing when it comes to boys lately. Like they say, fake it till you make it.
“Hey are you going to that party at Chrissy’s house later?” Tina asks, still furiously swiping through her phone.
“Yeah,” I answer, perking up a little at the thought.
“It sucks,” she says, sounding a bit annoyed. “By the time we get over there, everyone is gonna be wasted already. Hey do you need a ride?”
I don’t have a car, and Tina knows my overprotective dad wouldn’t let me take his truck out in the middle of the night to go to a party. He barely lets me drive to the store by myself
“Actually, I’ve got a ride,” I tell her.
My cheeks and ears are already starting to burn.