How to Love a Monster

by Lyssa Dering

  Only two things would make this better: not knowing the bedroom door is locked from the outside and a hot guy. Any guy would do, really, even the man (I should have asked his name).

  If only he weren’t so…creepy. I like a certain level of creepy, or at least, I like interesting. The man is definitely that. But the licking… I shudder just thinking about his tongue slithering all over my face. It was like I’d been abducted by an alien, and he could only learn what I looked like by mapping my face that way.

  How he touched me in the bathtub, though, was delicious. I would have let him go a lot further, but I also would have been down with just more nipple stuff. There’s nothing sexier in the Universe than someone finding what you like and doing it over and over and over again. Reliving that moment now, my nipples harden, and my cock gives a twitch.

  But then my stomach sinks. I don’t have my power anymore. I can’t make myself come with just a thought. I can’t imagine having to get myself off with my hands; it must take forever!

  Suddenly the scrape of a key in a lock sounds, breaking up my before-sleep worries. The lock clicks and hinges squeak as the bedroom door opens. I stare in the direction of the noises, forever programmed to look out for threats in the darkness.

  In the eerie neon glow that seems to permeate in every room in the house—the bedroom’s is red—I make out the smooth silhouette of the man. He’s holding something—a cell phone?

  “Don’t mind me,” the man whispers as he closes the door. “I’m just settling in to sleep.”

  Oh. Is he…nocturnal? I’m pretty sure I caught the beginnings of dawn touching the sky as he carried me inside about an hour ago, and that would explain the lack of windows in every room I’ve been in so far. But so would his intent to keep me and my fellow specials locked up. Maybe he’s here to keep an eye on me.

  I swallow, tamping down the panic that thought induces. This is nothing like the laboratory. I’m in a huge, luxurious bedroom, not a glass-walled cage.

  I expect the man to crawl onto the other side of the bed. Instead, he stalks toward my side. Despite wanting him here before, I stiffen, an involuntary and nonsensical surge of fear making my hair stand on end. I expect him to come at me—kiss me, maybe—but at the last second, he drops to the floor. I sit up. Is he planning to sleep on the bare carpet?

  But he’s gone. Completely gone.

  A familiar feeling skitters down my spine—the one I felt in the concrete cell when I was high on Love. I clench a fist in the furry blanket.

  “Where’d you go?” I ask.

  I prick up my ears, searching for an answer, or even just the rustling of movement, but there’s nothing. The only sounds are the subtle buzzing from the neon strips lining the woodwork, my heartbeat, and my breath.

  This is stupid. Obviously, he’s in the room somewhere, and I just can’t see because of all the shadows. The fact that I don’t have a name to call out makes me crazy, though.

  I get out of the bed, taking the blanket with me (as cumbersome as it is) to cover my naked body. I need light, real light. But I can’t find a light switch anywhere. I run my hand along as much of the walls as I can get to, but all I feel is wallpaper. Maybe there’s a switch in the hallway? I grab the doorknob and twist.

  It’s locked. I’m locked in. I should have expected it, but my panic doesn’t care about logic.

  I pinch the bridge of my nose and think. I’ve just got to find the man! He’ll let me out for a little bit if he knows I’m panicking, won’t he? He’s been nice to me so far.

  I search the room. There aren’t as many shadows as I thought. The man’s not between the dresser and the wall, not behind the bed. There’s another door that probably leads to a closet, but it’s locked, too. When I bang on the door, nobody answers, but I didn’t hear a door close anyway.

  There’s still one place left to look.

  I’m a…twenty-something man, for Universe’s sake. Though my exact age escapes me (it’s not like they wished me happy birthday at the facility), it shouldn’t scare me this much to look under the bed. But my whole body protests. I’m sweating against the blanket’s suddenly oppressive fur, my heart’s thundering in my ears, and I’m breathing so fast now I’m light-headed. Even my temples smart in what must be the start of a stress headache. It’s different from the pain that throbbed through me when I tried to use my power earlier, and I’m not dumb enough to try that again. But oh, how I wish I could command my brain to stop this fight-or-flight bullshit!

  The shadow emanating from beneath the bed seems as vast and as dark as a cavern. The bed’s got to be king-sized, though I’ve never encountered a king-sized bed in real life I could compare it to.

  “Hello?” I try, as I inch my bare feet closer, the soft underside of the blanket tickling my toes. No response. The man has to be under there, at least…if the same logic from Earth applies here.

  I shake my head. General details about how Wish City works don’t matter right now—or at least, it’s impossible for me to know them. And if I don’t figure out where in the hell the man disappeared to, I’ll lose my mind.

  I drop onto my knees, leaning forward on one hand while I keep the blanket clutched around me. From this angle, the shadow under the bed looks just as pitch-black. It’s like the red glow can’t touch it, like the darkness is a solid thing.

  I inch closer still. “Hey…guy?” My voice cracks over the hesitant words. “Look, I just want—”

  Something lunges out of the darkness.

  I retreat. I kick at the floor, but it’s useless, my heels slipping and sliding against the blanket’s layered softness. A set of hands reaches out and grabs me. Their grip is tight and cold against my ankles, yanking my naked body forward like a poltergeist in a horror movie.

  I’m falling—falling! My stomach drops as I descend into the thick blackness.

  I land on something soft and bouncy. There’s a click to my right, and light manifests, glowing yellow from a bedside lamp. Wait—bedside?

  I gasp as someone pushes me back on the mattress.

  “Looking for me?”

  It’s the man! He’s grinning, showing all his white teeth. His hands, heavy against my shoulders, bare most of his weight.

  Abruptly, as if someone’s sending commands to my brain now that I can’t anymore, my abject fear morphs into fury. I shove at the man, bucking in an attempt to get him off me.

  For a slender person, he’s heavy—and powerful. He wrestles my arms down and pins both my wrists under one hand, positioning his forearm under my chin with just enough pressure not to choke me.

  His eerie, white eyes are even more strange and terrifying with anger in them. “You won’t let me keep any secrets, will you?” he hisses.

  I wiggle just to make a point. “You scared the shit out of me!”

  The man laughs. The reaction is so unexpected that I go still, staring at him while his eyes crinkle and he shakes with mirth. “I’m sorry, Seraphim. I sensed your fear, but I couldn’t bear to end it.”

  I squint.

  “Fear is not life-threatening! You’re perfectly safe.”

  “Fuck you.”

  The man’s eyes are lit-up with mischief now. He sticks out his glistening tongue, tightening the muscle so it ends in a soft point, and leans down closer to my face.

  I wince, preparing for a disgusting bath of saliva. But he only licks the very tip of my nose. Instinctively, I try to wipe the moisture away, but the man’s hold on my wrist remains. I turn my head and take in the room.

  It’s cramped, that’s for sure. It’s less of a room and more of a closet, just big enough to hold the bed, which is nowhere near as big as the bed…upstairs? Nervousness flutters in my stomach—not unlike the butterflies from Love, but about a million times weaker—as I force my eyes up.

  I don’t know what I expect to see—darkness, maybe? The bottom of the other bed? But all that’s above us is a normal old ceiling. It’s way closer to us than makes sense for how far I fell, which was
n’t super far, but father than this. I’ve had enough experience jumping out of windows to know that. This is impossible.

  At least my earlier question about Wish City’s logic has been answered: it doesn’t have any. Nothing makes any fucking sense here. Which is a terrifying thought, but also a freeing one.

  I turn my attention back to the man, forcing myself to exhale and relax into the bed even as my stomach turns. “I give up.”

  The man watches me wordlessly for several seconds. He lets go of my wrists and sits back on his heels. “On what?”

  I shrug, ignoring the continued pounding of my adrenaline-fueled heart. “There’s a secret passage under your bed that leads to another bed? Fine. Whatever. I accept that.” Because if I don’t—if I try to find reason in this fucking insanity—the man will have to find me a nice padded room to sleep in. “And you know what? You need to tell me your fucking name.”

  The man blinks. “It’s Fiend.”

  I bark a laugh. Is he kidding me? What kind of drugs was Wish on when he made this guy, anyway? But maybe Wish got captured, and all this bullshit is because of something they did to him in the facility… That’s why Wish City is so completely fucked up. Now that makes a little sense.

  I don’t want to think about Wish getting captured, though. Just the thought of him—a natural leader, graceful and strong—forced into submission by those white-coat-wearing assholes makes me sicker. It’s easier to go back to pretending I have amnesia.

  I glance down to where Fiend is straddling my lap. My cheeks heat in preparation for my words, but a physical distraction sounds perfect right about now, like something to grab onto in a current. “Do you want to have sex with me, Fiend?” The menacing yet oddly adorable name feels strange on my tongue. I don’t think I’ve ever said that word out loud before.

  Fiend stares at me for a long time. He won’t reject me, will he? Not with the way he’s been touching me, and what he did to my chest in the bath. But I’m not certain about a single goddamn thing anymore.

  Eventually, Fiend says, “Yes.” But he pauses, chewing on his bottom lip, and averting his white eyes. “I have to taste you, though. That’s nonnegotiable, Seraphim.”

  Something inside me sinks, but I nod. It’s not like his tongue is going to kill me. “Whatever gets you hard.”

  Fiend chuckles, his expression a little more menacing than I appreciate. “If you knew all the things that make me hard, you wouldn’t be saying that, my darling.”

  4

  Fiend

  Never before have I invited another into my little room under the bed. In Wish’s childhood bedroom, I didn’t have such a place. At night, I was banished to the dusty, hardwood floor littered with tufts of cat hair (and sometimes the cat itself—horror!) with but an inch of wiggle room between my head and the bottom of the box springs when I rested on my forearms. Unlike Wish, who started out small, I was born full-sized. And I was always having to slither out of sight at a moment’s notice to escape discovery by one of Wish’s parents.

  Thank the Universe I don’t have to writhe with Seraphim under there.

  Instead, we have my cozy hideout to play in, with its bedside lamp just like the one from Wish’s bedroom and with a much bigger bed. What’s more, it seems Seraphim has forgiven me for scaring him a few minutes ago.

  I peel my long-sleeved pajama shirt over my head.

  “What do you mean by that?” Seraphim asks, his green eyes piercing me.

  “Hmm?” I’ve already forgotten what we were talking about; my mind is going in all different directions as it tries to grasp onto the fact that I get to have him. Not gagged and cuffed like the first man I learned about sex with, but of his own volition. He even asked me.

  “What other things get you hard?” Except now he’s tense, one of his hands in a fist against his chest like a barrier between me and his heart. Not that I particularly want his heart, but it is the second-most important organ after the brain (but not very tasty, I found out).

  “Oh…well…” Curse my loose lips! I can’t very well explain to Seraphim how the first taste of a brain never fails to confuse my body. Even the ones that aren’t special give me great satisfaction, after all. But he mustn’t know I eat brains! Even my most loyal soldiers, who know I’d never dine on them, grimace when I speak of it.

  Seraphim sucks on his bottom lip. “You don’t have to be embarrassed.”

  I laugh, nerves fluttering all through me. Of course I don’t! This is how I was made; I can’t change the nature of my desires. And yet, I have managed to fit my urges into a structure of sorts. When I first gained freedom and a body that could go anywhere and talk to anyone, I was overcome with the urge to hunt. For the first time, I had access to people slinking through the shadows with brains for the taking in their pretty heads, and I took one! I ended up covered in blood and brain goo and as happy as a pig in mud (as Wish’s father used to say). But now, the only time I lose control is in the presence of a true specimen, or a special Wish has brought from Earth.

  Seraphim is the most sexually tempting specimen I have encountered so far. I wish I didn’t have this annoying desire to prolong my consumption of him.

  “Fiend.”

  “Oh, I know. I still haven’t answered your question.”

  Seraphim puts his hand on mine, and my fingers twitch under the unfamiliar contact. “Maybe just tell me what you want to do to me.”

  I rake my eyes down his naked torso and then back up to his head. The brain hidden under short, light brown hair calls to me. But there are other fascinating places on his body. I pinch the shell of his ear and fondle the earlobe, soft as a flower petal.

  “I wish to taste you here,” I say.

  His expression scrunches just slightly like he’s trying to hide his reaction to the idea. I already know he doesn’t like my tongue, but he’ll learn to like it or suffer through it regardless. The man I cuffed seemed to hate my touch, but he grew erect when I took him in my mouth.

  “What else?” Seraphim asks.

  I slide my hands down his chest, over his ribs. I sit back and spread his legs. His cock is semi-erect and surrounded by curls slightly darker than the hair on his head. Tilting his bent legs back farther exposes a little hair around his asshole, too.

  “You can lick me down there,” Seraphim says with a smirk. “I wouldn’t mind that at all.”

  I raise my brow at him. Of course, he is just like the man I fucked before. “I’m not surprised.”

  “Please?”

  He says the word in what’s obviously a joking tone, but it reminds me sharply of a pitiful Thisbe with tears streaming down her face, begging with her ungagged mouth.

  “Whoa.” Seraphim sits up, suddenly the master of my personal space, his hands on my hot cheeks. I know it’s impossible, even in this nonsensical realm, but I fear he can see Thisbe’s pain in my eyes. He licks his lips. “You like begging, huh?”

  I nod. “Begging, squirming, crying…” Reluctance. Fear. The adult version of Wish’s little body trembling with terror because of the monster in the dark.

  I fear I’ve said too much, but then Seraphim leans closer still, pressing a kiss to my ear.

  I shudder.

  He whispers, “Do you want to rape me?”

  The words don’t make sense. And yet, my body understands them, going hot and cold at the same time as soon as “rape” leaves Seraphim’s full lips. Sweat materializes at the back of my neck, and arousal chokes me. “Seraphim—”

  “Do you have lube somewhere?”

  Yes. When I first found this house, I discovered a closet which held all manner of sexual devices just waiting for me to discover and learn about. Cuffs, gags, paddles, a plastic doll in the shape of a man with a hole to thrust a penis into. The closet housed a big tub of lube, too, and a box of DVDs, each labeled with the name of a man Wish had bedded, each video “shot” from his point of view. I watched all of them, and I watched Seraphim’s multiple times. They helped me through the endless bo
redom before I found my soldiers.

  I pull away from Seraphim to lean off the edge of the bed, groping for the jar I transferred some of the lube into. I screw off the lid and present it to Seraphim.

  “Are there diseases here?” he asks. “I noticed people share needles.”

  “No diseases, no permanent injuries except in rare cases.” Such as the removal of a brain, for instance, and in the case of special specimens’ injuries carried over from Earth, which I know about because I gave Thisbe blue juice, but her brain remained tainted. I can’t tell Seraphim any of this, as it would reveal he isn’t the first specimen. But I know what he’s really asking is if our sex can make him sick.

  Seraphim dips his hand into the lube and rubs it between his fingers. “So here’s what I’m thinking.” He peers up at me with a mischievous gaze. “I’ll prep myself. Then we’ll switch over to me pretending I don’t want you to fuck me, and you can have at it.”

  I tilt my head. “But you do want it. Right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Excitement at the prospect makes me bounce where I sit. “And you will beg me to stop?”

  Seraphim grins. “Sure. But that means we need another word for if I really want you to stop.”

  I squint. “Why would you want that?”

  “It’s just in case. I probably won’t.”

  I pout, briefly considering just tying him up and having my way no matter what he wants. But I might not get the chance to try consensual sex again. “Okay, w-which word?” This new way of doing things makes my cheeks burn hotter; I never knew Wish to discuss a new word for “no,” but I trust Seraphim more than Wish, who would get rid of me if given half a chance.

  Seraphim hums. “How about ‘elephant?’”

  Laughter bubbles up from my throat. I didn’t think he would name an animal! “Elephant?”

  Seraphim laughs with me. “Yes. If I say ‘elephant,’ you stop touching me. Deal?”

  If he says that word in the middle of our game, I’ll have to stop. It will catch me so off guard. “Alright.”

  Seraphim falls onto his back then, legs bent and hole once more exposed. I take the jar of lube from him and put it back under the bed. When I come up again, he’s got two fingers inside himself, pumping in a rhythmic way that has me fascinated. Does he do this to himself a lot?