The Need

by Andrew Neiderman

  “‘Nicholas was so upset you left him on the beach,’ she told me. ‘He wanted to spend the day with you, share everything with you.’

  “‘When did you come back?’ I asked her.

  “‘A little while ago,’ she replied.

  “‘Where? On the beach?’ I asked.

  “‘No,’ she said. I heard the hesitation in her voice and realized.”

  “Realized what?” Detective Mayer asked.

  “He had gone on a hunt. We were only thirteen and just discovering what it meant to be physically and emotionally excited. Naturally, I was very curious.

  “‘Tell me,’ I asked her, my voice in a whisper, ‘is it as wonderful as the others say it is?’

  “She hesitated and in that silence, I could hear my heart pounding.

  “‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It is.’

  “That night I fell asleep dreaming about Nicholas, his smile, his soft eyes, the graceful way he walked over the sand. Before I awoke, I envisioned someone beside him. At first, I thought it was me, but as the vision cleared, I saw it was someone else, someone entirely different … another male … for the moment faceless. But even in my sleep I understood that face would soon be my own.”

  I paused. Detective Mayer stared and then sat forward.

  “Would you like a cold drink? I have some Perrier in the fridge.”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  He went out and returned with a tumbler of the sparkling liquid. I watched the bubbles dance and then sipped some. He went to the window again. I liked the way his shoulders pressed against his jacket and I couldn’t help seeing myself stroking him and running the palms of my hands down his chest to the small of his stomach. Was there ever anything as delicious as a man brought to the height of his sexual excitement?

  “Do you want me to go on?” I asked.

  “There’s more?”

  “A great deal more. I’m coming to myself now.”

  “Oh, then by all means,” he said and returned to his seat. He gestured for me to start.

  “It happened one day at school, just the way it happened to ordinary girls. I was sitting in English class, working on an essay assignment when I suddenly felt the warm wetness and knew it had started. I excused myself and went directly to the school nurse’s office. I had been prepared for it, but she gave me a pamphlet about menstruation and let me lie down in one of the small rooms until I felt strong enough to go back to class. I pretended that I couldn’t and she called my mother to fetch me.

  “I ran out to the car. Janice was with Nelson, her agent, another Androgyne, someone I had learned had strange tendencies, preferring male lovers when he was in his male state. When I had first learned about him, I found the idea distasteful, even disgusting, but that was before my first conversion. Afterward, it was just as my mother had predicted: My viewpoints changed and suddenly nothing sexual, no form of passion was distasteful. I could understand and tolerate anything.

  “I got into the back of the blue Mercedes, closing the door quickly behind me. Janice turned to me and reached over the seat to take my hand into hers. For a long moment, we simply stared at one another, her eyes mirrors of my own excitement. I could see how happy she was for me. Nelson laughed nervously.

  “He was tall and thin in his male state, with a peach-tinted rectangularly shaped mustache and sweet potato red hair that he kept long in the back and swept up and then flat in front and on top. Janice called him ‘a dandy.’ He was arrogant, but bright, and she said he was a very good agent, guiding her career carefully.

  “‘The nurse wanted me to return to class,’ I explained, ‘but I just couldn’t do it. My heart won’t stop racing.’

  “‘I know. We’ll take you directly home,’ my mother said.

  “I wanted to know if it would be the same for me as it was for Alison, time-wise that is. She told me it was different for everyone.

  “‘It happened to me the same day,’ Nelson said without turning back. He liked to smoke cigarettes in this long, thin, seashell cigarette holder—only it extended the length of his cigarette so far that it looked absolutely comical. If he smoked and faced someone, he had to stand well back. But it was an heirloom, handed down from generation to generation of Androgyne, beginning somewhere in the early nineteenth century.

  “‘The same day!’ I exclaimed.

  “‘My mother first thought that proved how much I wanted to be in the male state,’ he said. He turned around and winked. ‘Later, she reversed her opinion,’ he added. He liked to joke about himself.

  “But I was terrified, even after hearing Alison’s story. There were also other stories, stories about Androgyne who died during the first conversion—hearts gave out. There was no definitive explanation for it, except to say the excitement overwhelmed them. Of course, I was worried it would happen to me. I couldn’t imagine living through any more excitement than I felt at that moment.

  “Janice told me to relax. She said I was perfectly healthy, strong. Everything was as it should be.

  “I pressed my cheek against the car window and looked out at the scenery rushing by, wondering how the world would change for me. It was one thing to hear it from Alison’s point of view, but another to experience it myself. A thousand questions I had never asked streamed through my mind on an assembly line of curiosity. Would colors change? Shapes? Do men see the whole world differently … see things as harsher, tougher, crueler? Would I be, as Janice liked to say, less intelligent when I was in my male form?”

  “Now just a minute,” Detective Mayer said. “On behalf of all males, I would like to protest.”

  “My mother claimed men were weaker, had less tolerance and perseverance. ‘They can’t endure calamity and hardship as well. You’ll see; you’ll understand,’ she told me.”

  “Well,” Detective Mayer said, “maybe there’s some truth to that, but…”

  “However, once, when I confronted her in her male state as Dimitri, I asked her if she still held these beliefs. Dimitri smiled at me in the same coy way, his eyes sparkling with an impish light, and said, ‘Men pretend to be weaker only to gain a woman’s sympathy and understanding. We like to be babied, held like children in our mother’s arms and protected by the same warmth forever and forever, even when we’re ninety. But it’s a pleasant deceit. Women expect it, want it. Someday you’ll understand all this. It’s instinctive, especially for the Androgyne.’”

  “Smart fellow this Dimitri, who was your mother?”

  “In her male state, yes. Anyway, we arrived at our home and I ran quickly to the front door. Janice said something to Nelson and followed me into the house. I went directly to my room and suddenly looked around distraught. For the first time, my room did not please me. The curtains were too dainty, too frilly; the light pink walls looked pale, weak. My canopy bed seemed too fragile, and although the scents of my colognes and perfumes were still pleasing, there seemed to be too much. It was overwhelming. The posters of some of my favorite rock and movie stars made the room look like the room of a juvenile. I went directly to them and started tearing them from the walls.

  “‘What are you doing?’ my mother asked, as soon as she came to my bedroom door.

  “‘These pictures,’ I told her, ‘it’s so stupid to have so many of them up.’ I tore one after the other from the wall, not even taking care not to rip them. When I turned around, Janice was smiling and shaking her head. ‘Well … they are stupid,’ I insisted.

  “‘Not to Clea,’ she said softly, and I stopped crumpling them in my hands. I looked around the room that I had loved, had felt so comfortable and secure in these past years and then turned back to her. Tears streamed down my face.

  “‘I can’t help it,’ I said. She came to me and embraced me, holding me to her tightly. When her breasts pressed against me, the sensation was different, more interesting. I was more aware of their firmness and the memory of her naked flashed across my eyes, her rose-colored skin turning creamy white as I visually traced the lines of
her neck down over her neck bone to where her delicious bosom began to emerge, the cleavage dark, promising, her breasts perky, the nipples lifting as if to place themselves gently but firmly between the lips of her lover.

  “Even her scent was different. It was stronger and reached places in my mind that had been dark and closed. I felt the light come, the thoughts and reactions stretch and enliven. What I realized was I was experiencing my mother through every sense of my being, something I hadn’t done so completely before. Before this, I would admire her in a new dress or in a new hairdo and concentrate on one thing about her. Now, when I heard her voice, I heard it in the same way I felt her body against mine. There was sensuality in it, and the combining of her scent, her voice, and the touch of her brought a taste to my lips I had never before experienced. I held her longer than I usually did. She brushed the hair from my forehead and guided me to the bed.

  “‘Get undressed,’ she told me. ‘Sleep, rest, wait,’ she said. I stared up at her.

  “‘It’s happening,’ I whispered. ‘Faster, much faster than it happened to Alison.’ I took off my clothing.”

  “This is getting kinky,” Detective Mayer said, but I could see the excitement in his eyes.

  “‘You are beautiful,’ my mother told me and leaned over to kiss my cheek. I wanted to hold her against me forever and ever, but she pulled back and left me. I closed my eyes and envisioned Alison.

  “We were changing for physical education class, putting on our mint green uniforms, the one-piece pleated skirt and blouse. She was beside me, talking. I could hear and see her in my mind as clearly as I could when I was actually beside her. She had opened her locker and was unbuttoning her blouse. She peeled it off her shoulders and her bosom quivered under the firm elasticity of her bra.

  “I watched her lower her skirt and fold it. Then she turned to me in this daydream and said she just hated sweating in her undergarments and then putting them on after a shower.

  “‘Don’t you?’ she asked. Before I could reply, she had reached back and unfastened her bra. Her small, developing bosom seemed to come folding out of her chest, the nipples a rich apricot.

  “I felt like reaching out to touch them. In my mind Alison closed her eyes and brought her hands up behind her head, offering herself to me. I felt a warmth building from my ankles up. It was as if I were being lowered into a warm bath. I brought my own hands up to my face and felt the heat. Then I ran my fingers down my cheeks to my neck, slowly moving over my collar bone to my chest. My emerging bosom was gone, but I didn’t open my eyes in shock. I thought only of Alison standing naked before me.

  “My hands went to the small of my stomach and hesitated. My male organ had come the way a man’s erection builds. Suddenly it was there, hard and throbbing, just the way Alison had described it happening to her. But I did not scream, as she had. I opened my eyes.”

  Detective Mayer’s eyes were bulging. His mouth was wide open.

  “Janice was out in the kitchen,” I continued, “making a pitcher of lemonade. I sat up slowly and looked at the mirror above my vanity table and confronted myself. ‘Richard,’ I thought.”

  “Richard?” Detective Mayer said, recognizing something familiar now. I nodded.

  “It was my first thought. I actually sensed Clea drifting away, falling inside me until the sound of her voice in my thoughts was completely gone and replaced by Richard’s voice and Richard’s thoughts. Clea had been there, but had left.

  “I brushed back my dark brown hair, thinking I could use a trim. I stood up to study my muscularity, the trimness in my waist and the firmness in my hips and thighs. I thought I cut as handsome a figure as Nicholas.

  “Finally, the exploration of my body completed, my narcissistic hunger satiated, I went to the bedroom doorway and looked out at Janice, who had just settled into a chair to thumb through one of her magazines. She looked up and then put the magazine down alongside her glass of lemonade.

  “‘Welcome, my darling,’ she said.

  “‘Richard,’ I told her.

  “‘Richard,’ she replied. ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’ She took my hand and led me to a closet in her room. There, as I always knew, she had clothing stored for me, anticipating my size and shape well. I dressed quickly, anxious now to go out and explore and experience everything from Richard’s point of view. Janice understood.

  “When I gazed at myself in the mirror, I saw the same excitement in my eyes that I had seen in Nicholas’s eyes when we were together on the beach in Santa Monica and I understood why his senses were so heightened. I was like a lion cub anxious to test his new-found strength.

  “‘Be careful,’ Janice told me at the door, ‘you must get used to yourself.’”

  “I’ll bet,” Detective Mayer said.

  “I could barely hold myself back from charging out the door. I took a deep breath, looked back at Janice, who smiled at me with a mother’s pride, and then stepped out into the world, reborn. An Androgyne.”

  TWO

  “EARLIER YOU SAID something about prey,” Detective Mayer said. He leaned back in his chair and I could see that in his mind, he was putting in what he now would consider to be fruitful investigative time. He had no idea yet where this would lead him, but he had come to believe it would lead to an arrest.

  “Yes. Once an Androgyne reaches a mature state, she is driven to feed on the inferiors in her male form.”

  “Feed? What are you, vampires?”

  “Of sorts. We don’t drain people of their blood, however. We drain them of their very essence, their life force. It keeps us young and alive.”

  “Do you live forever and ever like vampires? Are you … the undead?” He couldn’t resist a smile.

  “No. Once we experience change of life, menopause, we cease being Androgyne. Part of what makes us so dangerous, I suppose, is what I told you before—on the surface, there is nothing to distinguish us from you. We don’t come at you with long, sharp teeth and faces as pale as death. We don’t change into bats or wolves. Heaven forbid we couldn’t see our images in mirrors. Our egos wouldn’t survive. I can’t think of anything I’d rather look at than myself.”

  Detective Mayer laughed. He shook his head and grew serious again.

  “So you feed on normal people, steal their life force. How did this start?”

  “According to our theology, this situation did not begin until God became disgusted with people. Their sexual lust made them prime prey and it was ordained that we would forever be their predators. They do not know, but we exist now as part of their eternal punishment for original sin. At least, this is what every young Androgyne is told and it’s what we all believe.”

  “How convenient for you. Somewhat justifies killing, doesn’t it?” he asked. I shrugged. “What if you should have an affair with a so-called normal male? Isn’t that dangerous?” he asked.

  “Not if it’s only an affair,” I said, but I had to look away. Without realizing it, he had struck the heart of my story. Only I wasn’t ready to give him everything just yet. He wouldn’t understand; he wouldn’t appreciate why I was here, confessing.

  “If it’s only an affair?”

  “Yes. You see, it is peculiar to our kind that Androgyne can only become impregnated as a result of lovemaking with another Androgyne. There is absolutely no danger for us in having sexual relations with the inferiors. Supposedly, we cannot fall in love with them. It is something that should be repulsive to us in the same way it would be repulsive for the tiger to fall in love with the lamb or want to protect the lamb against other tigers.”

  He nodded, but stared at me for a moment.

  “I think you have a different story to tell me. Am I right?”

  “Yes.” I was impressed. He was a perceptive man. I reached for the small diary I had taken out of my pocketbook.

  “What’s that?”

  “I told you, I got Richard to write a diary.”

  “It’s in his handwriting?” he asked, unable to contain hi
s excitement over a solid piece of evidence.

  “Yes. I’ll read from it and explain it.”

  “Okay.” He got up from the desk and went to a file cabinet. “You mind if I start to tape a little of this? There’s a lot to remember, and I think you would rather I did this than invite a secretary in to take notes.”

  “Yes, by all means, use a tape recorder.”

  “Thanks.” He produced a small recorder and set it up in front of me on his desk. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said. I looked down at the first page. My fingers trembled so I squeezed the diary harder. Richard had never intended to share his thoughts with anyone but me. In some ways, this was even more of a betrayal than coming here and confessing. I felt him cringe inside me and even thought I heard a hollow “no!” reverberating down the caverns of my soul. But I ignored it and pushed on when I recalled Michael’s broken body.

  I sat back, subtly taking on Richard’s demeanor, sitting as he would sit: straight, arrogant, head up, neck taut. Detective Mayer widened his eyes with interest. My heart began to pound in anticipation.

  “Even from the start, I sensed that there was something about Clea that would make her different,” I began. “She didn’t have the same attitude most Androgyne had about the inferiors, but oh how I came to despise them, to despise them for their vulnerability. Sex overwhelmed them. They had little of our balance and control. Few, if any, could ignore the bait, even if something told them it was part of an entrapment. Young girls ruined their lives by becoming pregnant as teenagers. Grown men violated oaths and hurt the women they loved.

  “They tried desperately to sublimate their insatiable appetites. They put their sexual urges into art and literature, into clothing and films, even into architecture. But all of it only postponed what was often inevitable. The wisdom of age was no antidote either. I have seen elderly men teased, tormented, titillated to the point where they would act like little boys for the favor of a kiss, a touch, a full embrace. Rich men spent lavishly on women to keep them at hand, and women, supposedly wiser, made fools of themselves chasing after younger men.”