Savage Urges

by Poppy Deveaux

  I meet Abbas. Respecting Anahita’s word, an angry Abbas offers me time till daybreak to make my decision. I inform Dredger. We argue for a longtime until Dredger realizes my mind can’t be changed. After a while, he demands for one parting gift – fresh blood of a living human. That’s the price I have to pay. However, I request Dredger to finish the life, of whichever poor soul I get, quickly and less painfully.

  There’s not enough time left for daybreak. I leave for hunting, but this hunting turns out to be the most difficult one. I come across six humans but I let them go. I can’t find the will to hunt. Exhausted, I sit under a tree for some time. And at that moment I once again feel the kiss and the warmth of the guy, whom I had almost met in the trance – where Anahita had sent me to. One life or my new life? I ask myself.

  Soon, I’m on a tree near a road, waiting for prey. I see a man on a fast-approaching motorcycle. Only a loner could be outside at this hour. No one with loved ones can be out this late, during Christmas – I sell that garbage notion to myself. Nobody likes guilt. I’m no different.

  Soon, the guy reaches my tree. And I attack.

  Minutes later, I’m with Dredger and the rest of the clan. I dump the unconscious man on the ground and refrain from seeing his face. I don’t want to carry any haunting faces into my new life. I turn to leave from there, but Dredger has other plans. He grabs me, and instantly pierces his fangs into my neck. I struggle but he doesn’t let go. My clan observes silently, except for Lucius, my protégé. He tries to reach me but he’s held back by others.

  Within five minutes, Dredge drains out almost all the blood from my body and leaves my lying on the ground.

  “Too ashamed to be one of us, huh? This is your feast, so you take the first bite. Let’s watch you suck your way out of here.” Dredger mocks me.

  I crawl my way to the unconscious man, turn his face the other way, and start sucking his blood.

  “Now, you can get lost.” Dredger kicks me away from the body before I can get enough blood.

  With a trembling body, I limp to get out of there, unbothered about Dredger’s action or about the miserable man’s plight. Lucius comes to hug me goodbye. I hand him the Sanguiser as a gift to remember me by. “You’ve been a great friend to me, Lucius. This thing brought me freedom from darkness. Hope it will do the same for you someday.”

  I keep limping away. After covering a good distance, I pause for a moment and take one last look at my wretched clan and then I leave the place forever. I make it to the Heaven Flyers. Abbas greets me with lifeless Anahita in his arms.

  He speaks to me with a heavy heart. “Anahita was quite fond of you. And, after knowing everything that you’ve done, I’m obliged to grant her last wish. I take you as my own child – something that she and I wished for years. Natása, kneel down and close your eyes.”

  I kneel in front of him and shut my eyes. There’s silence, absolute silence. Then. someone taps the top of my head. I stay still, with eyes shut.

  “Let your life be the divine melody that Anahita wanted it to be. You made your sacrifice and you earned your place. The dark life of Natása is ended. She’s no more. Now, rise. Rise into your new life as Shiera, the daughter of Anahita and Abbas, and take your place among us.”

  I open my eyes and stand up. And I feel my wings for the first time; they are white and bright. I keep rotating my shoulders, adjusting to my new limbs.

  The night ends and the dawn begins. But as the first ray of sunlight showers upon me, my enormous wings transform from white to black. Everyone around, including Abbas, stares at me with mouths wide open.

  In the next few moments, I learn that I am like them but I’m not one of them – not a pure blood. Which means I’m free to take my own path and wander alone for as long as I live… until I run into someone special on a beach right before the dawn.

  THE END

  Oh Holey Night

  Chapter 1

  It was that time of year again, ladies and gentlemen- the Christmas season. Ah yes, the holidays... With the scents wafting constantly through the air making a gradual transition from pumpkin spice to peppermint, and people fighting tooth and nail over the best deal on holiday shopping... Peace on Earth, good will toward men, all that joyful nonsense.

  And okay... Really, I'm not that much of a cynic about Christmas. I know a lot of people who pretend to be, and I think that probably gets me saying these types of things. I actually really love the holidays, and mostly everything about them. Aside from the almost toxic levels of assorted spices in the air around that time of year, it really is a pretty magical season, and for the most part I could still enjoy Christmas and all that came along with it the same way I did when I was just an innocent little girl.

  But these days, I was far, far from innocent...

  Although the holidays themselves weren't a problem for me, I had to admit that this year in particular, I wasn't exactly feeling the holiday spirit. All of the decorations and the artificial cheer all around me were starting to annoy me somewhat, but only due to the fact that my life itself was as much a far cry from where I wanted it to be as you might care to imagine.

  On paper, at least, there wasn't really much that I was lacking. I was in my late twenties, successful at my job and sharing a beautiful apartment with the man I'd fallen in love with and married. And, what was more, my devastating sexiness was showing no signs of diminishing now that I was rounding the corner of my third decade, and I rather savored the knowledge that I could still turn all the boys' heads whenever I walked by, popping my tight booty at them at just the right angle.

  Hell, sometimes I would even mesmerize myself if I looked at my face in the mirror too long. I was, quite frankly, a dark skinned angel, with hypnotic eyes and an almost excessively perfect face. And I don't mean to sound like I'm bragging about that, either. I'm just stating the facts as plainly as I can, and the fact that I'd practically set out on a modeling career only a few years earlier should speak volumes as to the authenticity and appropriateness of my rather high self-esteem.

  But, life had sort of interfered in that plan, and by life, I mean specifically, my prudish mother. It wasn't like I was intent on posing for Playboy or anything, or as though by “modeling” I was secretly saying “having sex with random men in pornos.” No, this was honest to God, real life modeling, for fashion magazines and advertisements, and really high paying work as far as that went. To any rational person, that would have been a perfectly acceptable, even highly sought after career path, given that you had to meet extremely high standards in order to lay claim to real success, and the fact that real modeling agents thought I fit the bill should have been as telling an indication as any that I should have gone for it.

  And these weren't just some scam artists, either, the modeling agents, I mean. I'd done my homework, checked up on the people interested in hiring me, and I made sure that anything I might be getting into would be entirely on the up and up, with no funny business.

  And for a brief, shining moment, I'd thought I was on my way, dipping my toes into the water, and ready to kick up waves in the industry with my uncanny good looks. That is, until my mother came a long, and essentially poked a big gaping hole in my balloon.

  Almost immediately upon sharing my life plans with my mother, she began to fill me with horror stories of what the modeling industry was really like, and by the time she'd said her piece in its entirety, I was fully convinced that at least one, if not more, of her forecasted tragedies would take place if I went through with it against her wishes. Most likely, she said, I would end up becoming anorexic, or possibly strung out on drugs and totally eff up my life. Or, alternatively, I would find out that the industry was a hell of a lot seedier than naïve little me thought it was, and I would be expected to have sex with lowlife agents in exchange for favors in my career. And then there was her theory that modeling and being around all those other bombshells of women would turn me into a lesbian. Now, all of the other possible scenarios at least seem li
ke plausible worries, but I have no idea where she pulled out this last little scare tactic. But, given my conservative religious worldview at the time, you can bet that it did the trick of frightening the bajeezus out of me (I don't hold such worldviews anymore, by the way. I've done a lot of growing since then.)

  All in all, though, the underlying theme in all of my mother's objections was that I was trying to become little more than a painted a whore, tempting men with photos of my nearly naked body, and purchasing myself a straight, one-way ticket to hell if I even thought about going through with all of it.

  And so, sheepishly enough, I backed away from my dream. And although, in retrospect, I can admit that going to college and furthering my education might have been the better route to take, if for entirely different reasons than the terrifying ones she spouted at me.

  Still, though, over the years, I had had my fair share of having men become enamored with me, their eyes following me wherever I went like one of those paintings on the wall. And there's definitely a lot negative to be said about this sort of attention, of course- it's really a fine line, I think. A girl doesn't want to be objectified because of her looks, but at the same time it can definitely be a booster to one's self esteem, as long as the attention received remains respectful and unobtrusive in nature.

  But for me, on a personal level, my perfectly symmetrical face, and my flowing, sumptuous curves, my supple, perky breasts, my tight stomach, and my luscious caboose, all posed their own very particular set of problems.

  As mentioned, I was brought up in an especially old-fashioned household, brought up with strict Christian ideals, and after having had the same old spiel about lusts of the flesh and fornication being a tool of the devil being driven into my head, I'd actually been sort of trapped into thinking my own beauty, as well as my physical (ahem) assets, were something dirty. And the attention I so often received from any heterosexual male with functioning genitals therefore left me almost dizzyingly conflicted, torn between a desire for purity in the eyes of the Lord and a desire to pounce on some ripped hunk of a stud and ride him off into the sunset.

  And I'm not talking about just when I was a teenager or anything, either. This was something that was happening when I was a fully grown adult, living on my own, but the low ceiling of my mother's moral policing causing me to routinely bump my head and end up more confused and repressed than ever.

  I had had boyfriends over the years- a fact which seemed like a miracle in itself given the oppressive eye my mother kept over my every action. But, suffice it to say, the relationships I was in never managed to creep into any sort of physical nature given the restrictions that had been placed over such things all my life, and most of the time after only going so far as letting men hold my hand and kiss me on the cheek after months of dating, the relationship would sort of collapse and vanish, and I would be left right back where I'd started, all on my own.

  And it wasn't like I would have been an unwilling partner, either. I craved sex, dreaming about the day I would have my cherry popped and would know the sheer carnal joys of physical intimacy. But sex, I'd been told all my life, was only for marriage, and even thinking about these sorts of things in my unwed state made me feel dirty and unworthy, not to mention wholly perverse.

  And so, for so long I'd held myself back, “behaving myself” for the sake of my eternal soul, and trying to avoid the almost constant obstacle of sexual temptation and frustration.

  And that was when Bryan had come along...

  He'd shown up one Sunday in church, and had caught my attention almost immediately, tall and studly as he was and, most importantly, lest my attraction to him fall into the forbidden category of sinful physical lust, a member of Christ's holy body.

  But God, talk about holy bodies...

  For starters, he looked dashing in his Sunday attire. Dressed to the nines and fine as hell, wearing a damn suit and everything. I had to squirm in my pew just to avoid the nagging thought of peeling the beautiful bastard from the thing all through services, and my mind raced with what wonderful, juicy features must lie underneath it. I could almost see it, right then and there- his broad chest, with sharp delicate nipples, his sculpted abdomen, thick arms, and whatever the hell sort of cargo he might be packing below the belt... And that ass of his...

  God, it made me sweat just thinking about it, and at one point during communion, he made me spit out the holy sacrament when I caught him looking back in my direction, causing quite the scene, and pissing off my mother to no small end.

  I was smitten from the very start...

  The service that morning seemed to span on forever, which I guess wasn't really all that unusual given how boring our preacher was. At last, though, things drew to a close, and for once in a blue moon I was actually grateful for my mother's penchant for talkativeness after services were over. She was always welcoming new people into the fold whenever she got the chance (or possibly scaring them away, I sometimes thought, but politely avoided saying,) and it was thus that I made my introduction to the man of my dreams.

  Apparently, Bryan's brother and his girlfriend had been coming for a few weeks and had decided to invite him along that Sunday, which I guess later explained away the suit he was wearing as a fluke- our congregation was really not that fancy, and he'd apparently overdressed not knowing exactly how pious the members of our church were or if God expected a certain level of flashiness in his pews. He shook my hand, and I loved the thickness and warmth of his palm closing around mine, so that some pretty dirty fantasies began to swirl around in my head from just that gesture alone.

  The two of us talked for a while, and seemed from the get go to get along quite well. I began to look forward to Sundays now that I had something a little bit more engaging to keep my interest, and after so many conversations after services, he at last asked me out on a date for the first time.

  Before either of us knew it, we were in a relationship, and for me it was the most satisfying connection I'd ever struck with a boy. Or, well, a man really- we were both nineteen at the time, having breached into adulthood, and the temptations each of us presented to the other seemed more severe and irresistible than ever.

  There was one major difference with Bryan compared to pretty much all of the other guys I'd been with, though. Although he hadn't been raised in the same church as me and had come from another denomination, he shared a lot of the same old-fashioned values as I did, seeing chastity as a positive thing, and therefore never asking me to do the nasty with him, regardless of how long the two of us had been dating.

  I could tell he wanted me, though, badly, almost as much as I wanted him, and that turned me on like you wouldn't believe. He would try to conceal hard-ons whenever the two of us held hands, and would get all sweaty anytime I happened to get in too close to him. And Jesus, the sexual tension became almost palpable between the two of us... How the hell the two of us managed to resist biting into that juicy, overripe forbidden fruit for as very long as we did was something close to a miracle to me, and eventually the maddening temptation became entirely too much for either of us to withstand any longer.

  At the fresh young age of twenty years old, I found myself a married woman. Given how very limited my exposure to the world was at that point, I'm sure an outsider would view the decision to wed at that age to be rash and, frankly, desperate. And in hindsight, it probably really was. But, the two of us were quite simply too fed up with waiting for the chance to have sex, and although that factor alone was what led us into entering our supposedly permanent life together at that young age, we told ourselves regardless that it was a holy union, brought together by the Lord God himself, and that our lives would both flourish abundantly for the fact.

  My mother, for her part, wasn't all that thrilled about the fact of the two of us getting married. I mean, reasonably, she should have been fine with it, because the two of us had gone along exactly with what God's plan supposedly was. Her problem, I think, was secretly that Bryan and I were an in
terracial couple- he was white, if I haven't pointed out that fact already, his skin like cream atop my own ebony flesh. I don't think she was openly bigoted in general or anything, it was just that I think she'd envisioned any potential son-in-laws and grandbabies in her life would all share at least a relatively similar skin-tone, but because she didn't really have any scriptural justification for this notion, she didn't overtly say a word about it, and with time I think she adjusted pretty well to the idea of us being together. And at any rate, she doesn't really hold much more of a bearing on the story from here on out aside from her past contributions to my life, so she can probably be left out of it all henceforth.

  At last, after so very long of waiting, Bryan and I's wedding night had come. The night of consummation, dripping with so much pent up sexual angst and carnal want, ready to be detonated, to burst until it rocked the bed frame, and left us so exhausted from smashing our genitals together that the two of us would be left unable to walk for weeks after our honeymoon was over.

  It was actually all pretty awkward...

  Or, well, at first it was at least.

  Because we were both virgins as fresh and as clean as newly fallen snow, neither of us knew what the hell we were supposed to do with one another. Or, well, I mean, obviously we knew the basic mechanics of it all. Even dummies like us had taken sex ed classes in high school and knew where everything went, but that's hardly the same as feeling competent or comfortable with how it's all supposed to go down.