Chapter 6 Lick Me Up
Lick Me Up
The blood-red monster with long spindly crab legs, no eyes and frightening grin holds me tight in the air as it scuttles backward under my bed, taking me with it.
My body thrashes in a desperate attempt to break free, but the monster’s grip is unbreakable. With a sinking feeling, I realize I can’t stop it. I am being dragged down by this monstrous force into the unknown depths below.
Bright hot fear hits me as I steel myself for the unimaginable horrors to come.
With an angry hiss and meow, the black cat leaps onto my captor’s face, clawing and biting like a bloodthirsty animal.
I hit the ground. My elbow cracks painfully against the floor.
As I scramble to get away, the red monster’s legs thrash wildly, its sharp tips slicing through my skin. Blood coats my skin and clothes in sticky warmth.
Darkness sweeps through the room, blasting out from under the bed.
A swell of shadow rises even as the red-clawed demon throws the cat across the room.
I bite back a scream as I watch the cat fly.
It miraculously lands on its feet, sending the monster a parting hiss before it scrams out of the bedroom.
The momentary relief over the cat’s safety is short-lived.
Just as the monster turns its attention back to me, the mass of shadow behind the creature opens its eyes, ruby red with murderous rage stamped in them.
Shadow’s darkness swallows the monster whole, so I barely see what’s happening except for the odd kicking spider-like limb. Growls and screeches come from within the pitch-black cloud. Cold sweat coats my skin as I shake against the far wall, helpless except to watch.
I try to control my panicked breathing, but it comes out in rapid gasps.
A bone chilling crack silences the commotion. The darkness falls away, leaving Shadow holding the monster by a horn—the neck now angled at an unnatural degree—as if it were nothing more than a full bag of trash needing to be chucked.
Shadow’s eyes have returned to a misty white as he regards me. "Evie. You’re hurt," he says.
I can’t stop my body from trembling. Shadow releases the creature, and it clatters on the ground in a heap. Warm velvety tendrils wrap around me as I’m lifted from the ground into Shadow’s arms.
"Wha—what was that?" I ask through chattering teeth.
Shadow makes a low raspy sound I recognize as a soothing shush. He carries me to the bed where he lays me down before wrapping his body around mine.
Enveloped in his darkness, I shut my eyes tight. Despite the fear and shock still rocketing through my body, I want to soak in every moment of his presence, his touch.
Once I’m swaddled in soothing dark tentacles, Shadow lowers his head to my arm. Bright red blood oozes from the slash there. I have a little less than a dozen on my arms and legs from being caught in the crossfire of the cat and the monster.
I’ll need to splurge on a bigger can of tuna for the cat and give it extra scritches in thanks the next time I see it.
Small, shallow cuts litter my skin, each one stinging with a sharp prickle. Under Shadow’s intense gaze, they seem to prickle even more, sending waves of discomfort through my body. But then, his long, purple, forked tongue slithers out of his blurred face to delicately lap at one of my cuts.
The unexpected sensation causes me to jerk.
Shivers rattle down my spine. I swallow hard against the intimate touch.
He continues his slow licking, moving up to the cut on my shoulder and repeating the motion with careful precision.
Each swipe of his moist tongue is a soothing balm, calming the sting and bringing a strange sense of comfort.
I have no idea if this is for my benefit or if he simply has a taste for blood, but I keep my mouth shut. The way he holds me is painfully intimate, and I’m terrified that if I move, he’ll stop.
A few scars appear as the wounds begin to close and my heart stutters in my chest.
It continues that way, him smoothing that long purple tongue along my wounds until he lowers himself down to my legs.
The tip of his long tongue flames across my skin like a firebrand, leaving its searing imprint.
I’m hypnotized by the sensation as molten heat builds inside me.
I think about how the forked appendage would feel dancing in other places.
Forbidden pleasure floods through me as I fight the urge to squirm under him.
Yet again when the horror finds me, my monster comes. And when he does, he shields me from the sharpest edges of pain.
Slowly moving back up, his last stop is my upper leg. The edges of my shorts have crawled up until they are little more than a frame against my aching center. I shudder violently as his tongue slides up my bloody thigh. My control snaps. I gasp and arch into his ministration.
His velvet tentacles move with me, always surrounding me. Liquid desire fills me even though the corpse of an unknown monster lays a few feet away.
Then, sick fuck that I am, the knowledge that he’d kill for me only fuels my obsession—a selfish hunger that tightens its grip when I admit how much I crave it.
That he would break a neck for me. For a girl who never belonged to any place or anyone, the feeling is intoxicating, overwhelming, and almost more than I can stand.
Red trickles down to the apex of my legs from one of my cuts. Shadow’s serpentine tongue follows the trail under the hem of my shorts, brushing the sensitive skin there. My breath hitches, and I can’t help but whimper at the sensation as my body shakes with a thrill of pleasure.
I know it’s wrong, but I want more. I need more. I need him.
A fire alarm blares violently, breaking the moment and causing my heart to jettison out of my chest.
The burning stench of charred food fills the air, mixing with the sharp, acrid smell of wires overheating. Angry fists pound at the wall as Elijah yells at me to turn off the goddamn alarm.
In a flash, I’m up and in my kitchen. pulling the smoking, ruined pot of burnt SpaghettiOs off the hot plate. Yanking the power cord from the wall, I’m left bracing myself on the counter, flushed with heat and panting.
Turning back to the bedroom, I find it empty of monsters, dead or otherwise. As if none of it ever happened.
My heart squeezes painfully even as the fire alarm falls silent.
Shadow is gone… again. I have even more questions and no answers. Not to mention a throbbing need between my legs that I know is so very wrong.
Examining my arms and legs, I find only the faintest scars showing where I’d been cut. His tongue healed my wounds.
The possibility that I made it all up flits through my mind, and not for the first time.
Maybe I’ve been held captive by a mental illness with hallucinations all these years?
Maybe I stood here over a pot of SpaghettiOs, and watched it burn while my mind played with monsters?
Meow.
I turn to find the cat pawing at the door, asking to be let out.
And my only witness can’t corroborate which it is.
Crouching down, I scratch the cat’s head until it closes its eyes in bliss and purrs.
"Even if I could afford the meds I need, who has time for that kind of therapy?" I ask the cat, who only pushes up harder into my nails. "Besides, I’m not hurting anyone but myself."
I’m reluctant but grant the cat’s wishes to be let out of the apartment into the blustery cold night.
Hallucination or not, I’m held captive by it, and I plan to court it every night if it lets me. Before I slip into bed, I kneel down to check for monsters—resuming the ritual I did for four years after Shadow abandoned me.
Closing my eyes, I say the words as if they were a prayer and the dark floor was the brightest star I could wish on. "Come back to me."
When I step out of my apartment the next morning, my neighbor is standing on her front stoop, a puffy coat like mine over her robe as she puffs a cigarette. Her short hair is a messy array of curly tufts.
Smoke billows from her dry mouth, blending and fading into another bright ashen morning sky.
Her already suspicious-set eyes, dragged down by heavily lined bags, narrow when they land on me.
"You’re too fucking loud," she croaks without preamble.
"Sorry," I apologize, though I never comment on the knock down drag out fights between her and her husband that the whole street can hear.
"People your age are so fucking classless and rude," she says contemptuously before taking another drag from her cigarette. I’m not sure what she expects me to say.
Thankfully, Helena pulls up then and I dash off, careful not to slip on the ice that formed overnight.
I barely slept, but I feel more invigorated as I clean throughout the day. I start to wonder if Shadow’s tongue had more healing abilities than I first gave it credit.
As I scrub toilets, vacuum floors, and dust other people’s beautiful belongings, I think how he’s in my veins now.
I wish he’d stayed with me until I drifted off to sleep in the safety of his embrace.
I hadn’t felt that in so long.
The memory of his tongue and the sinful way it made me feel also hadn’t left me.
Throughout the day my breath would hitch, legs clamping together as my eyes unfocused.
In my mind, his tongue had traveled further, burrowed under my shorts entirely until it licked up where I wanted it most. Until he filled me and tortured me into a screaming mass of orgasm and flesh.
… I really do need that therapy.
The euphoria of the memory slowly dies over the next several days when the nights yawn long and painfully into the dawns with no trace of Shadow.
By the fourth day, I start to think I really am mad.
That I made it all up only to torture myself.
Maybe during the last four years, my mind had been healthier and only recently taken a decline, bringing back my imaginary savior.
But no, I know better. The way he held my hand in my youth, protected me when I needed it most…
Shadow is real. There is simply no way for me to get to him. I am at the mercy of time and uncertainty. And just like last time, it makes me bitter.
By the end of the week, Helena comes to me during our Friday shift. Despite the intensive labor of our job, her hair is perfectly smoothed back into a dark braid. There aren’t any stains on her tee shirt or jeans, unlike mine.
"Are you on drugs?" she asks bluntly.
"No." I shake my head.
"Are you sick?" she demands next.
"Is there something wrong with my work?" I ask instead.
"No, but you look like hell."
"I’m not sleeping well." It helps when the truth fits.
Helena scrutinizes me as if trying to ferret out what I’m hiding, or if I’m lying. I meet her stare head-on, unflinchingly. The wrinkles in her brown skin are more severe when she’s suspicious.
"My nephew’s birthday party is being held at the rec center tonight. You’re coming."
Before I can even think to protest, she turns on her heel and heads to the kitchen she’ll clean next.
"I’ll pick you up at seven," she says over her shoulder.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in Magic Maids, it’s to never argue with Helena.
Despite the nearly obsessive draw, I have to wait in the corner of my room, watching my bed.
I recognize it’s wearing on me. Slowly but surely, I’m disappearing into that dark realm where hope and paranoia consume me whole.
What could one night out hurt?