Dark Thirst

by Angela Allen

  Her features are just as exotic. She can be anyone. Given the right light she can appear Cuban or Ethiopian, Guyanese or Arab. Much of it depends on her mood, the time of day or month or where she decides to call home.

  She sets the brush on the gleaming black mahogany dresser and gazes at the naked reflection that only she can see. Her body is a vision of burnished perfection. Breasts that rise to exquisite fullness. Waist that dips seductively, flaring out to firm round hips and down to the legs of a dancer. She is the dream of every man and woman.

  Her slim fingers drift across her butter-soft flesh. She cups her throbbing breasts in her palms and gently squeezes them, then licks her red lips in sensual delight.

  A glance over her shoulder brings into focus the supine body of a nameless man who she thought could be the one. Again, she is wrong. Wrong and disappointed. She frowns. Her search must continue. One day she will find him.

  Selena sighs. So much trouble to get rid of them afterward. She suddenly hovers over the motionless form on her bed. She stretches out her finger and brushes it across the final trickle of blood that seeps from the deep wounds in his neck. She brings her fingertip to her mouth and licks off what remains of his essence.

  Joe. She thinks she may have said his name during the final throes of his orgasmic release. Selena smiles. Yes. Joe. He was fun while he lasted.

  Effortlessly she wraps the heavy body in the blue satin sheet, ties both ends with cord and carries her bundle to the backyard, where she quickly disposes of it alongside the others.

  “I must plant another rosebush,” she says softly, tossing the last shovelful of dirt onto the mound. The light from the full moon creates eerie shadows of the unworldly work being done in the garden.

  She wipes off her hands and returns inside. She must hurry. If she doesn’t, she will be late for work.

  Even with all the heat she is certain her regular clients will be there for her ministrations. They can’t resist—they’re addicted like junkies to their drugs. If she is lucky, maybe a new face will grace her establishment on this sinfully hot July evening.

  She smiles with anticipation.

  The streets of Manhattan barely crawl with life. Only the die-hard few dare to venture out of doors, even though the blazing sun has set.

  Selena casually strolls down Sixth Avenue in the West Village, intermittently peeking into slender alleys in the hope that she will come upon an unsuspecting soul to stave off her thirst. Her veins throb. The heat has her blood on fire.

  She walks faster. She needs to get indoors. She doesn’t want to take another life—to send another person forever into the abyss of darkness, to prowl the nights for all eternity in search of something they will never find. The only relief Selena will get tonight will be through what she does best. It will cool the thirst. Her little secret.

  The building is up ahead. Discreet. It looks like any other building on the semi-run-down block. But looks can be deceiving.

  Selena walks up the steps of the two-story red brick structure and inserts her key into the battered lock. A cooling breeze greets her when she opens the door and steps inside. She turns on the small shaded lamp that sits in the front window. It’s an indication to her customers that she is now open for business.

  With an unearthly swiftness she moves from room to room, preparing them for the night’s visitors. She lights scented candles and takes out fresh towels and sheets, placing them on the tables along with her array of massage oils. Each one is designed to elicit a variety of sensual pleasures, from soothing to stimulating. Within moments, the heady scents of ylang-ylang, opium and African musk waft through the air.

  Selena enters her private dressing room and changes from her street garments to her work attire. Beneath the near sheer, floor-length off-white gauze dress is nothing but her warm, bare flesh. She works best this way.

  She pads barefoot across the pristine white wood floors to the small kitchen in the back room. She takes three bottles of chilled white wine and brings them to the reception area, placing them strategically on the three round antique tables.

  From the overhead cabinet she removes a tray of crystal glasses and brings them out front. All of her movements are precise, deliberate. She looks around at the flickering lights, inhales the seductive scents, salivates over the bloodred drapes. Ambiance is everything.

  The doorbell rings.

  Ahhh, yes, and so we begin.

  “Charles.” Her smile is brilliant as she welcomes her first guest of the night.

  She’d met Charles six months earlier at a nightclub on the Upper East Side. She’d been in heat, her thirst nearly insatiable for days, her body in desperate need of physical release. She’d been prowling the clubs for hours to find the right one and she’d happened upon him. Charles was an incredible specimen of a man: tall, sleek, muscular, his skin the color of oak. She’d made her way across the floor. His back was to her and she’d brushed her breasts against him. The shock she’d received sent her eyes rolling to the back of her head. She’d bit her lip to keep from crying out. Yes. He was perfect.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she’d said, when he turned to her. “It’s so crowded in here.” Her eyes had changed colors as she smiled. She’d watched his breathing escalate, the pulse in his neck pick up its beat. She extended her hand. “My name is Selena. Selena LeBeau.”

  They’d danced for hours and drank until they could drink no more. And then she took him home. He’d been hers ever since. She knew in her heart he was not the one, but he brought her immeasurable pleasure.

  She takes his hands and reaches up and kisses each of his cheeks, European style. “Come in. You must be exhausted from this unbearable heat. I’ll bring you something cool right away.”

  “As always you’re ravishing and looking as cool as an iceberg.”

  She laughs. “Mind over matter,” she says, leading him by the hand to the sitting room. She gets him settled on the red velvet couch that she’d had imported from France. They say it had once belonged to a king. She’d known him, too.

  “So, how have you been managing in all this heat?” Charles asks, taking a limp handkerchief from his shirt pocket and mopping his brow.

  “Oh, I simply do what they instructed on the radio and television—drink plenty of fluids.” She pours him a glass of wine and hands it to him. Her eyes darken. “Drink up.”

  He raises his glass to her in a toast. “To a lovely evening with a lovely woman.”

  The corner of her mouth lifts in a sly grin.

  They talk casually for a few moments, as is their custom—it’s all a prelude to what they know is to come. Finally she takes his hand and pulls him up from the couch.

  “Come, let me prepare your shower.”

  When Charles emerges from the shower, a towel wrapped around his waist, Selena is waiting for him in the first room. She glances at the towel and it falls to the floor. Charles smiles.

  “I always wonder how you do that.”

  “My little secret.” She turns her back to him and goes over the oils and lotions on her table. “Go on, lie down, relax,” she instructs. She selects several small bottles, puts them on a tray and returns to his side. Charles is on his stomach.

  For an instant, her eyes flame red, then brilliant yellow as she gazes hungrily at the rippling muscles of his back.

  “I’ve prepared something very special for you tonight,” she says in a husky whisper. Her nipples harden to peaks, taunted by the fabric of her gown. She shivers.

  “Hmmm,” he murmurs.

  She rubs the oils into her palms and begins at his neck, administering deep, penetrating strokes, then down the contour of his back, fanning out in broad circular motions. She can hardly breathe. The electric current from his body infuses her and she moans softly as she gives as well as gets pleasure.

  Selena came to realize decades ago that this selective act of touching the right human form had a magical way of quenching her bloodlust. Through the art of touch she was able to satis
fy her carnal needs and spare human souls. Of course, this very sensual pleasure invariably led to hours of scintillating sex that left her and her chosen one weak but sated. An added benefit.

  She had an array of select clientele whom she’d sought out all over the world during her nocturnal sojourns. Only they knew of this special place, The Touch, tucked away in a nondescript building in the middle of Manhattan.

  Effortlessly she turns Charles onto his back. His lids are heavy from the wine and the soothing massage. Her breathing hitches as her eyes trail along his body and settle on the erection that beats only for her.

  Her gown falls from her body to pool around her bare feet. In an instant she hovers over him, holding him captive with her eyes. His mouth opens to speak, but no words come out.

  Reflexively his large hands grip the sides of the massage table as she lowers herself onto him, taking in his length and breadth in agonizingly slow measures. He knows he cannot touch her. That is the rule.

  The cords of his neck strain as she begins to move in circular motions. Selena groans deep in her throat as she grinds her hips hard and steady against him, building in tempo and momentum. The candle lights dance wildly, casting huge, macabre shadows against the walls.

  The beat builds deep in her belly, squeezing him, causing him to tremble uncontrollably. He opens his mouth to cry out, but he cannot. The exquisite torture goes on and on for hours. His life force fills her again and again and again.

  She can’t seem to get enough tonight, enough to quench her thirst, cool her body. She takes a tiny nip from his shoulder, hoping that it will help. It does not. Her head swims and her body churns as she takes him deeper and deeper inside her internal firestorm, praying that he will be able to put out the blaze. But he cannot.

  Hot tears spill from her eyes when she realizes what she must do.

  “Good-bye, my sweet Charles,” she whispers.

  His eyes widen in awe and terror as her mouth opens and her incisors lengthen to deadly peaks.

  The sound is no more than a slight pop as her teeth find their mark. Rich, red blood spurts from his neck and she sucks wildly. She feels release rushing through her as she continues to grind her hips against him. Her insides contract violently, capturing the last of his fluids, drawing them into her for all time.

  Her body cools as Charles lies limp beneath her. His heart slows…then stops.

  Tenderly she lays her head on his chest, strokes his cheek and closes his eyes. She will have to plant a very special rosebush for Charles. Yes, a very special one.

  Selena makes quick work of preparing Charles’s lifeless body. Without straining a muscle, she lifts his deadweight and carries him to the bathroom. Tenderly she places him in the tub of warm water sprinkled with special herbs that will gently evaporate any remaining fluids in his body as well as remove any lingering scents from the flesh. An old trick she’d learned from the ancestors. It will make his body more difficult to find by other hunters who gain pleasure from ravishing human remains.

  “You don’t deserve that kind of end, dear Charles,” she coos as she sponges his limbs.

  While she washes him, Selena reflects on what went wrong tonight. It was not supposed to happen. She and Charles should have had many more human years together. She realizes that her lust has been increasing rapidly, her cooling spells growing shorter in duration, her cravings more intense and her ability to be sexually satisfied almost unattainable.

  For decades she has been able to control her desires through the art of touch. The feel of her hands against warm, human flesh, the sense of their life force pulsing through veins and sinew beneath her fingertips, had the mysterious power to still the heat that sought to consume her. But no more.

  Selena was frightened.

  She was frightened that she would be doomed like her many brethren to walk the night earth seeking not pleasure but sustenance to survive this living hell.

  She’d heard the stories from others who’d become so desperate that they preyed on animals and small children. She would not come to that end.

  Selena lifts Charles from the water and binds him tightly in a sheet. Her next customer will arrive shortly. She hopes he will have better luck than poor Charles.

  A tingle begins to run through her veins as she tucks Charles into a large cedar chest until she can bury him later. The tingle begins to grow warm. A slickness seeps from between her thighs.

  “Noooo,” she cries on a strangled breath as an overpowering rush of desire roars through her, tossing her against the wall with its force.

  Her eyes flash a luminous yellow as her fangs graze her bottom lip. “So hot…so hot…” Tears spill from her eyes.

  Selena’s quest is imperative now. She must find a man to satisfy her, and quickly.

  The doorbell rings.

  In a week’s time, Selena disposes of a half dozen more male bodies. Her garden is magnificent, but her clientele at The Touch has dwindled to a troublingly low number.

  Her lust is almost constant now and she can think of nothing else. Her only relief comes when she sleeps and even then she is plagued with dreams of the hunt. But some nights she doesn’t have the dream; she has a vision.

  In her vision there is a man. Although she cannot see his face, she can tell he is beautiful. He moves with an easy grace and the power of a panther. He comes to her at night to whisper loving words in her ears, promising to touch her in all the tender places. When she is with him, her heart feels at peace. There is joy in her soul and she can feel herself smile—really smile. They talk and laugh, hold hands in the garden and discuss the future—their future. He makes love to her, a gentle love that fills her in a way she has never been filled before. During these visions, for the first time in her unearthly existence, she feels alive. The heat stays cool in his presence. Her desire to devour is in abeyance. She begs to see his face, for him to step into the light. He simply says, “In time, my sweet Selena. In time.”

  Selena awakens. She frantically looks around the room, hoping that she can catch a glimpse of him, grab hold of his scent before he vanishes again. But he is gone. In her heart she knows it is more than a dream. It is real. And she understands what she must do.

  She will not allow herself to succumb to the eternal darkness. Her gift of touch is all that enables her to walk in daylight among the living and is the only thing that keeps her sane. There are many of her kind who envy, even hate, her because of it and she knows she must be careful not to be caught in one of their sinister traps. They would love nothing more than to see her like them. Lifeless. Empty. Condemned never to see the light of day.

  How many agonizing years had she spent hating what had been done to her, taken from her? Until she finally accepted her fate.

  She was only sixteen at the time. A beauty, everyone said. Her wealthy quadroon family doted on her. In the parish of Saint John she was the envy of young girls her age and the desire of every man both young and old.

  Her grandmother, Noelle, warned her repeatedly about walking alone at night in the garden. “There are forces that you do not understand that wait for you. Wait to steal your soul,” the old woman warned.

  “Granny, I will not be afraid to walk in my own garden,” Selena replied with the bravado of youth. “I can take care of myself.”

  Noelle clucked her tongue and shook a long finger at her grandchild.

  “They took your mother and father, chère. They came in the night,” she added in a harsh whisper.

  “Mama and Papa drowned! I will not listen to any more of your wicked stories. You always try to frighten me.”

  “You should be frightened. You must be careful, chère, I can’t bear to lose you too.” She began to weep.

  Selena rushed to her grandmother’s side and knelt down at her feet. She rested her head on the old woman’s lap.

  “You won’t lose me, Granny. I promise to be with you always.”

  Noelle dug inside the heavy folds of her dress and removed a cross that hung on a t
hick gold chain. She pressed it into Selena’s hand.

  “Wear it always.” Her eyes were fierce and intense. “It will protect you.” She closed Selena’s hand around the cross.

  “Protect me from what?”

  “From the vile creatures of the night.”

  Selena chose not to believe the rantings of her grandmother, attributing the old woman’s tales to the ancient folklore that was part of New Orleans history and mystique. She’d always heard about the night crawlers, the dark ones. But they were only folk stories told to children to keep them in line.

  So with the confidence and the naïveté of youth, Selena continued her nightly strolls through the gardens. Most nights she took the cross with her, even though she told herself she didn’t believe her grandmother’s stories.

  However, on this particularly blistering summer night, she’d unwittingly left the charm in the pocket of another dress.

  The house was quiet when she ventured outdoors. Her grandmother and the servants were asleep. This was the time that she enjoyed most, the stillness, the silence, the utter hush of deep twilight. A time when she could think and dream a young girl’s dream of one day having a family and a loving husband.

  While she sat engaged in her fantasy, something as light as a breeze and as unsubstantial as morning mist brushed her cheek. She looked around but saw nothing more than the movement of shadows against the moonlight.

  The unseen thing touched her again along the back of her exposed neck, making her nearly swoon with the electric current that surged through her.

  Her lithe, young body began to feel warm all over and an unfamiliar beat pulsed between her thighs. Inexplicably she felt unseen hands begin to gently explore her body.

  She moaned softly, both frightened and excited by these new sensations. Her name, spoken in a raw, sensuous whisper, floated in the air.

  “Selena…Selena…”