Last year, I wrote a short horror story for Valentine’s Day. I thought it was quite good but I’ve since come back and polished the typos. I’m disappointed because nobody noticed the instance in which the character named Charlie had been replaced by Mark as if by magic for a brief exchange with the frigid Melissa. As I suspect – nobody’s reading my stories.
C’mon, folks they’re good, not perfect but I do come back and scrub them. I would be grateful for any help anyone extends – but that doesn’t mean much unless everyone helps make these horrible tales big – I have visions of perpetuating modern mythologies. I don’t have visions myself but I’d like to describe those I imagine. I once painted and drew them but I’m as satisfied writing stories. Please let everyone know!
The story I wrote last year was entitled Preternatural Valentine. The short horror story is included in the collection entitled the Codex of Malevolence. This story and others in the codex are Rated R because sex and violence, so maybe its good fewer people read every year and less children even learn the archaic art. I do promote kids reading. My slogan reads something like “Hey Kids – Read and Learn the Wicked and Profane.” But I defer to the judgment of each responsible parent. I submit for you parents the scrubbed Preternatural Valentine …
“Be My Valentine,” read the card. The red folded paper was sparse – only a flat, white heart had been glued onto the front. The happy, hand-written directive and his name, Charlie Prentess, had been written inside. His full name was there on the card – and no other Charlie was employed at the insurance office/call center where he worked. This Valentine was meant for him.
Originally, when Charlie picked up the letter from his desk, he thought it was meant for someone else. None of the guys in the office were married and few had girlfriends, or boyfriends – Madras Insurance employed a blend of ex-gang members and present homosexuals. Charlie hoped, just a little, someone made a mistake and the card belonged to somebody else. Eighteen months had passed since his fiance broke their engagement and he has since gotten somewhat accustomed to being alone. When those relentless, primal urges became too demanding, well, there always was the Internet.
The fact no one had signed the card was the mystery. Charlie apparently had a secret admirer. Although, the nature of the solicitation by this anonymous person seemed self-sabotaging. He thought the handwriting looked feminine, but one can’t really know – especially if somebody was joking-around.
“Is one of you guys pulling a prank?” Charlie smiled and asked the three other men in the shared office. “Whose in on this, all of you?”
The other guys spoke with customers on their corded desk phones and ignored his questions, except one young man. After a moment, Rick glanced at Charlie and shook his head. Charlie picked up his denim jacket, prepared to end his shift and go home. Before leaving, he had another question.
“It wasn’t here this morning or after lunch. Someone just put it on my desk when I took a piss. You guys must have seen who came into the office. Who was it?”
“It’s Valentine’s Day, Charlie,” Jorge the boss replied. “What’s the matter? You’re supposed to feel good.”
“Nobody signed the card, Jorge,” Charlie reported.
“It happens,” Jorge answered. “Just be glad someone gave you a card this year and forget about it. Now, go home. My homeboys have gotta work.”
“Yeah.” Charlie nodded, giving up. He instantly suspected Jorge was the culprit.
His boss may have good intentions, but passing Valentines between young straight guys in an office was unprecedented – anywhere. The unusual gesture made Charlie uneasy and he wondered if something like this constituted sexual harassment. Ultimately, he decided he wouldn’t get mad and just leave and take the card with him. The anonymous Valentine was now evidence. Although, nobody would admit to the offense and everyone had probably colluded. The workday at Southland Insurance ended with a Valentine’s Day conspiracy.
“Bye, Jorge,” Charlie said.
The boss called after him as Charlie left the office. “Maybe she’s waiting for you at your apartment? Good luck.”
“Or it’s one of those fucktards,” Charlie hollered through the open doorway and from down the hall.
Phillipe, one of the gay guys Charlie worked with, shouted from their partitioned office – answering Charlie’s comment with a shout. “If it was me, we’d be going to dinner right now. Anyway, I never give a card without a bottle of wine.”
“A four-dollar bottle,” Charlie yelled back. He exited the building before he spotted Jorge step into the hall with a finger over his lips.
Outside, the sun had already set and a thick, thorough cloud cover rained chilly globs. The irony seemed appropriate. California has suffered a drought these past seven years, so rain on Valentine’s Day surprised no one. Everyone dating tonight will find themselves in a cold shower before dinner instead just afterward.
Charlie didn’t give a shit. Originally Valentine’s Day was a pagan holiday. Romans ran around, slapping women with bloody goat loins – called februa (that’s where the name for the month of February came from). The gore was supposed to make women pure and fertile. Then the Christians came around and spoiled the senseless fun. They even gave a martyr his own day. The story itself is ironic, in accordance with Charlie’s own life.
A Roman emperor, Claudius II, executed St. Valentine because he married young couples when the young men were expected to go to war. Bachelors were apparently better soldiers. Charlie was primed for the armies of Claudius II, full of juice – until he got home and logged on poneyhorn.com.
The fertility rites go further back than the Romans. Charlie remembered seeing the Venus of Willendorf, a bloated limestone sculpture of a prehistoric woman, or goddess, or whatever the cave-artist called the fertility symbol. Whoever the artist may have been, great detail had been applied to the figure’s projected vulva. The image was made a long time ago, long before porn sites and nudy magazines. Charlie supposed pornography existed even then – the outlet helped prevent the biggest caveman getting possessive with the females in his clan.
The rain had completely soaked Charlie before he found his car in the parking lot, fluoresced ocher by the flood lights mounted on his office building. Of course, he didn’t have an umbrella or even a rain coat – he lived in Santa Barbara and shouldn’t have needed any. Frustrated, but completely powerless, Charlie decided his clothe seat will be okay. He planned to change his clothes once he got home, directly into his pajamas – sweatpants and a plain, old undershirt.
“Charlie,” a woman called behind him. “Hi, did you get my card?”
Charlie didn’t recognize the voice, but his heart skipped a beat and he stopped breathing. As far as he knew, he had never met the woman. She might work with him at the insurance company, maybe adjustments or billing. Charlie didn’t know. He did know the anonymous Valentine was probably real. It may even be true, and not some holiday-based platitude the woman delivered to everyone or randomly. Charlie was back, not knowing if any of other guys he worked with had received similar cards. He never asked and hadn’t bothered to look around. Impatient with the mystery he now imposed upon himself, he turned around.
Miss Anonymous was beautiful and totally unfamiliar. Charlie had never met this dripping, young brunette with amber eyes. She stood his height and stayed in shape. The yellow raincoat she wore hung loose on her slender figure and only her shoulders touched the slicked jacket. Charlie guessed he weighed three times this woman. He never worked out, but he wasn’t exactly fat, either. Once he recognized that he stared at her, and far too long in the downpour, a giddy Charlie answered the stranger.
“That was you?”
“Well, yeah,” the young woman stated. “You didn’t think Jorge, Ricky, Phillipe or Reggie gave you a Valentine, did you? Oh my god, you don’t have a girlfriend, right?”
“No,” Charlie replied and repeated himself. “No, to both of those.”
The young woman smiled. Since Charlie had turned around, she never actually stopped smiling, but she now smiled wider. She parted her perfect, glossy teeth and stuck her tongue atop her bottom lip.
She asked “In that case, would you like to go to dinner?”
Charlie paused, shocked. This past year, not a single woman had so much as said hello to him. The fact may have been his fault, Charlie never made conversation with female co-workers or girls he saw on his simple routine of work, eat and sleep. In fact, he didn’t even look at women, other than on TV and obviously the Internet. His ex-fiance had left him sour and shy. Then, out-of-the-blue, or gray – considering this evening on Valentine’s Day, this hot and wonderful stranger sends him a Valentine’s card. Oh, and she is way hotter than his ex, too. Capping off his blind change of luck, the stranger offers dinner.
Then again, she might expect him to pay, which is fine. Charlie only waited paycheck-to-paycheck so he might buy new video games. Besides recognizing they still stood in the rain and dark, he also realized he didn’t know this stranger’s name. He finally asked.
“I’m sorry, what’s your name?”
“I’m Melissa.”
“Melissa?” Charlie repeated.
“Yeah.”
“I’m Charlie.”
Melissa closed her mouth and nodded. “I know.”
Though Melissa still smiled, the look on her face instantly convinced Charlie he stumbled. He scrambled for respect. “I’m sorry, it’s raining. Do you want to sit in my car?”
“Are we taking your car to the restaurant? I was thinking Middle East cuisine, I love fresh pitas.”
“You can get pitas at Greek restaurants, too,” contributed Charlie.
“Is that where you’d like to go?” Melissa asked. “Because, I want to remember tonight as perfect. I want everything to be perfect.”
Charlie instantly loved Melissa’s selfless empathy. They had just met and he already knew she was beautiful and thoughtful. If he didn’t guard himself, he could easily fall in love with this strange woman. And why shouldn’t he? They were young and were still allowed to believe in love at first sight.
“No, Middle Eastern food is fine. There’s a place on State street, but it will be packed tonight. We might need reservations, if we can get them.”
“That’s fine, let’s go.”
“My car?” asked Charlie.
“Yeah, that’s all right, right.”
“Yeah, but I’m all wet. I need to change my clothes and find my umbrella.”
Melissa smiled wide again and brushed his hands with icy fingers. They were wet, but so was Charlie. The sensation made his arm tingle and made him shiver. Melissa skipped around to the other side his baby-blue subcompact car.
“Let me in,” she called over the raindrop-studded roof the automobile. “I’ll wait for you.”
Disbelief dampened Charlie’s hope. That and the rain and an inexplicable anxiety. “At my place?”
Melissa repeated herself, more wordy this second time. “Yeah, I’ll wait for you to change, let’s go.”
Melissa was too good to be true, a fantasy for every man and already on her way to becoming a buddy. Charlie shut up and jogged to the passenger side of his automobile. He held open the door for his date and waited. Melissa graced him again with her frigid touch and the sensation was heavenly. Contact with this woman made his head spin in a good way. Tonight was getting better by the second.
Melissa sat in the car while he shut the door and ran back to the driver’s side, slightly slipping on the wet and oily pavement. Never in danger of toppling, Charlie got inside his car and started the engine.
“You’re fine with my place?” he asked again. The question sounded like a statement.
Melissa was smiling wide again. “Yes, let’s go.”
“All right,” Charlie proclaimed. Excitement raised the treble of his voice, making him sound boyish. “I live toward the airport in Goleta. We’ll have to take the 101.”
“That’s fine, however you drive home.”
Charlie joined the freeway almost immediately. Traffic was deadlocked. Once it started moving, he expected speed in this wet driving condition – at the trail end of rush hour – will never exceed forty miles per hour. At the moment, a rippling sheet of water on the windshield, tinted red by glowing brake lights, were all he and Melissa saw. Everything else outside the vehicle was solid black.
Charlie had a confession. “It’s a studio.”
“Most young people who live alone have studio apartments,” Melissa merrily replied.
The affirmation comforted him. Charlie felt so relieved, he didn’t ask his date how she knew he lived alone. Her acceptance and understanding was good enough for him. She still smiled, so Charlie expected their date was still on.
“Tonight is perfect. There is an awesome crescent moon tonight,” Melissa said the moment he felt something should be said, anything. He was always lost restarting conversations.
Charlie broke bad news. “We won’t see it, the skies are overcast and they’ll probably stay that way.”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter,” Melissa said. “I have a question.”
“Yeah?” encouraged Charlie.
“Yeah, and it will sound weird, especially because this is our first date.”
“It is, isn’t it,” giggled Charlie.
The traffic moved again and he concentrated on driving in the inclement weather and the other drivers who had grown too accustomed to dry asphalt. He supposed he could have driven the surface streets, but Charlie usually got lost traveling them. Tonight, he had a girl in his car and wanted to make a good impression. The studio apartment must be her only disappointment. Although, she did not seem nonplussed about his news.
Melissa stroked Charlie’s thigh and asked her question. “I love children. Charlie, do you wants kids?”
The question didn’t strike him odd at all. Every women he’s been with since Middle School asked – and its not his answer that broke apart his engagement, that was something wholly different, although his perpetual lack of cash wasn’t conducive toward starting a family.
His answer tonight was more difficult, primarily because Melissa distracted him. He felt his cock swell, but like the traffic, it moved slow. When it did get hard, Charlie wanted to use it – especially because Melissa was his first opportunity in what has been months. He knew she knew that she excited him. He also knew the brave and assertive woman made moves on purpose. At that point, Charlie didn’t care if she knew he knew.
“Not tonight,” Charlie answered. “Well, not kids tonight, but maybe some practice.”
“You’re a bold young man,” teased Melissa.
Boldness had nothing to do with his gaffe, Charlie was prone to say things he didn’t mean to say – especially when prompted – and Melissa was welcome to do all the prompting she liked. He was just happy she still smiled and brushed his leg. Charlie skipped apologies and flirted back.
“And a big young man.”
The awkward brag made Melissa laugh aloud. “I’d like to see that.”
Before the explicit courtship continued, Charlie spotted his exit and pulled off the freeway. He was almost home and dinner seemed drifting further away.
“What did you say?” Charlie prompted Melissa. His skill with flirtation was about as disjointed as his casual conversations.
“You were getting me in the mood,” Melissa answered.
“Are you still in the mood?”
“Possibly,” she said. “Likely, if I see you.”
“You’re looking right at me, sweetie,” Charlie said flattered and inflated with pride.
“No, I was talking about your big boy.”
The reality suddenly unnerved him. “Here, while I’m driving?”
“I can help.”
“Hold on, we’re almost at my apartment.”
Melissa nodded and unbuttoned his jeans. Charlie grinned and did nothing to stop her when she reached through his fly and pulled out a soft, listing member. Despite her freezing hand, or because, the fat phallus felt warm, as if it wanted to grow firm. In the pathetic state it was in, size was still a question. Melissa jiggled the flesh and hoped to convince it to stand firm.
“Hold on,” Charlie said. “This is my apartment building. We can start again in there.”
He gunned down the street and into the open parking lot of his building. The rain had diminished to drizzle, but most of the tenants appeared to have already gone off to their reservations this evening or they were still at work. Their whereabouts didn’t concern him. He had more immediate plans – maybe, Melissa will agree to ordering pizza and they could spend the night together in bed.
“We’re here,” Charlie announced and she let go of him.
A moment later, they parked in a stall between empty stalls. A single row of parking spots ran against the two-story, whitewashed building. Few of the windows of the apartment building were illuminated. Apparently, everyone was out celebrating the holiday. Charlie and Melissa had made the pretense of a date, but for the pair, this evening was becoming an intimate one at home.
After unfastening his seat belt, Charlie stuffed himself back into his pants. Melissa removed her own seat belt with her free hand – as the other was still in Charlie’s lap – and she stared at him until he buttoned his fly again. She smiled the whole while. When Charlie opened his door and the interior dome light came on he saw her cheeks were flushed red.
“Look at you,” he said and gazed at the unique, yet not unusual, color of her eyes. “You look so warm, but your hand is so cold.”
“I’m sorry,” Melissa apologized and trapped the fingers of her free hand within her armpit. “Maybe a cup of tea will help. Do you have any?”
“Nope,” Charlie shrugged. “I’ve got instant hot cocoa or coffee.”
“Cocoa is fine,” Melissa said and leaned toward Charlie before he stepped from the car.
Charlie understood the clues: puckered lips, eyes closed and subtle sigh. They kissed, and continued necking for the next twenty minutes. Melissa’s hand drifted to his crotch and although Charlie hadn’t shrunk, he wasn’t growing. He felt the cold in the palm of her hand through his jeans and couldn’t ignore the sensation any longer. He must get this girl warmed up.
“You know what,” Charlie said once the young lady removed her tongue from his mouth. “I’m cold, too. Let’s go inside my apartment.”
“Anywhere, lover. I want this to be perfect.”
This chick is super hot, Charlie thought. He pulled her arm from his lap and gave it back to Melissa. Thinking only about his pending evening of sex, he got out his car and gave little thought about the calluses he had rubbed on himself. If anything, all his practice will probably help him last longer.
Chivalry be damned, Melissa opened her door when Charlie slammed his shut. She got out and waited for him at the passenger side of his vehicle.
“Jesus, tonight is chilly,” Charlie said shivering as he walked around his car.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Melissa stated. Both her hands were now pulled into fists and pushed beneath crossed arms.
“I’m on the first floor,” Charlie said and pointed at a window on the apartment building.
Melissa nodded. “Lead the way.”
Once Charlie met her, he threw his soggy arm around the little nymph. He directed their route as the pair jogged together, like hunched, conjoined fraternal twins – incestuous, if either thought about the comparison.
When they reached the gate into the front foyer, Charlie let go of Melissa and unlocked the entrance. Once past the foyer, he pointed to a door among a row facing the masonry block pool. They were still too far away for Melissa to see the apartment number, even if this time of day would ever present sunlight. The only illumination in the courtyard came from the inset lights of an inground swimming pool.
Charlie threw his arm over his amorous and furled date. He pressed her toward his front door in haste. Melissa bounced along and laughed. Upon reaching the destination, he unlocked his door as well. He flipped a switch near the entrance and the single bulb in the center of the ceiling in the studio apartment dimly lit his home completely. Together, he and Melissa entered his dusty, though organized and arranged studio apartment.
The place was actually quite large. A corner of the single room was dedicated to a kitchen with a counter opposite the stove. A table and four padded chairs stood on the opposite side the counter. Charlie and Melissa entered a short hall between the kitchen and a door leading to the bath. Beyond the kitchen, the remaining furniture included a full size bed, couch and large screen LCD television.
“Charles Prentess, you’re home,” Melissa announced. “And your clothes are wet.”
“Don’t call me that, call me Charlie,” he commanded without explanation. All the while, he struggled with his denim jacket. No matter which way he tugged, the damp sweater beneath wouldn’t let go of the outerwear. The two pieces of clothing felt as if they were glued together.
“I’m sorry, Charlie,” Melissa said and frowned.
“Oh, no,” he panicked. “I don’t like Charles, it sounds like a name for an old man. Maybe, I’ll start using it when I’m thirty.”
After constant, futile struggle, Charlie corrected his problem when he lifted the jacket, sweater and undershirt over his head at once in a big, inverted bundle. He had large arms, muscular but flabby, and not so much like his gut. A pot belly began forming, sitting like a third lump of extra flesh between idle love handles. His one saving grace was Charlie had managed to preserve the tan he achieved the summer before last.
“Sexy,” praised Melissa.
“I was thinking the same thing,” said Charlie. “About you.”
“I know what you meant.”
Melissa took off her raincoat and draped it on the nearest padded chair. Disrobed, she revealed a sleeved, skin-tight, black dress. The hem of the dress barely touched her pantyhosed knees. Despite being skinny, she had large breasts, each more than a handful. Charlie guessed D-cups. He couldn’t take his eyes from them.
“That’s all you wore?” Charlie asked without raising his gaze. “No wonder you’re cold.”
“Yeah, that, too,” Melissa answered and stepped toward Charlie. She brushed her cold hands over his bare chest.
Charlie flinched, but he also enjoyed the sensation on a new patch of skin. Still, Melissa felt him jerk and raised her hands to his shoulders, a desensitized non-erogenous zone. She pressed against him, pushing her literally cool breasts against his flesh. He wrapped his arms around her and found Melissa was cold all over – only her lips and tongue felt warm. Her hands were most severe. Charlie broke from mid-kiss and asked his guest a question.
“You want that hot cocoa, now?”
“I want you, now, Charlie,” answered Melissa. “Now get out of those wet pants, you’ll catch a cold.”
Before he finished unbuttoning his fly, Charlie had an idea and made a proposal.
“You know what turns me on, driving gloves. Do you want to wear my gloves?”
Melissa raised her eyebrows and grinned. “Sure, just get those pants off.”
“All right, let me get the gloves, they’re right here,” Charlie said, although everything in the studio apartment was “right there.”
He stepped backwards and reached for a drawer in the counter braced against the refrigerator. After a moment of shuffling past-paid bills and nicknacks for which he had no other place, Charlie found his dark blue gloves. He turned and faced Melissa. She was sitting on his bed naked and rolling down her hose. All Charlie did is stand frozen and stare, especially at her erect, pink-tinted nipples. He grew a little harder, but not much.
Once Melissa had stripped completely, she gazed back at him and crawled backwards, like a crab, and lay on the indigo comforter. When she no longer moved – and looked exactly like an image from poneyhorn.com, Charlie held up his gloves.
“Here they are,” he said grinning and raised them above his head.
“Great,” said Melissa. “Now, those pants.”
“Sure.”
Charlie hopped from the kitchen toward his bed. He tossed the driving gloves to Melissa then finished undoing the last button on his fly. He thought “This will be good, great, fantastic” and that the foreplay was apparently over. The time has come for getting-down-to-business. Charlie pushed down his soggy pants the best he could.
The wet denim clung to his legs like his sweater had stuck to the jacket. Charlie wasted minutes of ecstasy rolling down his pants. The tedious procedure wrung water from the denim that dripped on the beige apartment carpeting. He tossed his jeans over the kitchen counter and they landed on the linoleum kitchen floor with a loud “plop.” His underwear was just as sodden as every other piece of his outfit, but they came off with ease. They then flew over the counter and landed atop the soaked jeans with a subtle thud.
“Still not there yet, come here,” Melissa said referring to Charlie’s lack of dedication. A devilish grin crossed her face and she put on his driving gloves.
“I’ve got condoms in the bathroom,” Charlie said redirecting himself in midstride. Instead of meeting his new lover on the bed, he veered toward the door on the bath.
“We don’t need condoms,” Sarah claimed. I don’t like them, they’re not natural.”
“No problem,” Charlie happily chimed. “Are you the on the pill?”
“Sure,” Melissa shrugged.
“You don’t have an STD, right? I don’t, I’m clean.”
“I know you are,” Melissa answered and snickered. “I’m good.”
“We are on!” exclaimed Charlie as he jumped on his bed, momentarily lifting Melissa into the air.
Melissa immediately grabbed hold of his manhood and rubbed. The gloves were rough, but her touch was now room temperature. Her busy work made little difference to his drooping tool. She then tried using her mouth, but gained nothing more. Frustrated, Melissa finally confronted him.
“What’s happening, don’t you like me? Don’t you think I’m pretty?”
“You’re beautiful,” Charlie claimed enthusiastically. “Just keep going.”
Nothing else Melissa tried made him stiff enough for penetration. She eventually tired after what seemed over an hour. “Did those wet pants shrivel you up?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Try some more. It works, I promise,” claimed Charlie. He now took himself into his own hand and waved his member back-and-forth, angry, trying to wake his sleeping beast.
Melissa still complained. “This isn’t working.”
“No, I can get off,” Charlie scuttled. “It’s probably because I was whacking-off, you know, masturbating.”
“I’m sorry, I thought I could do it right this time. I wanted it to be perfect.”
“It is,” Charlie denied.
“No, the moon, I can’t wait.”
Charlie was perplexed, embarrassed and hampered. “What are talking about? Let’s make out until I’m ready.”
“Oh, Charlie, that could take all night,” whined Melissa. “Wait here, I’ve got something that will help.”
“What, Spanish Fly, Viagra?”
“Not exactly,” Melissa replied and rolled off the bed.
She skipped toward the raincoat she had draped over one of the padded chairs. Melissa then rummaged for a second and retrieved something. Charlie didn’t see because he remained bewitched by her pronounced hips and pale and perfect butt. Her whole body appeared blanched; only her face was enthused and rosy. Whether Melissa was cold or bloodless, made no difference to Charlie, her shape was perfect. This whole evening was perfect – except one small thing, which should be one large thing.
Melissa whipped around. Charlie still did not see what she carried because she hid the object behind her back. Then again, he wasn’t looking. He was immediately transfixed again with her perfect breasts. So riveted, Charlie missed her frown.
“It was supposed to be perfect this time,” Melissa said as the cold woman crawled on top of Charlie as if she were a slink three-legged cat.
Charlie spoke his last words. “It is perfect, you’re perfect.”
Melissa revealed a long, curved and serrated blade. Before Charlie reacted, she deftly slit his throw, nearly severing his head completely. Blood quickly soaked the bedsheets as heavily as the storm outside had laden Charlie. The near decapitation was incidental. Melissa really wanted something behind the ribs of the dead man.
She cut into the corpse below its sternum and shoved her hand inside. Pushing aside organs and tearing through its diaphragm, Melissa seized the still heart and pulled. She used her wicked knife and cut the organ free from tissues, veins and arteries. Once the heart had been freed, Melissa lay on the bloody sheets next to her victim and spread herself open.
She pressed Charlie’s heart between her legs and into herself. The organ went in squished, like a rat swallowed by a snake. The suction wasn’t sufficient and Melissa poked and prodded the heart until it became completely devoured.
She then relaxed and hummed a simple tune. The evil woman hummed nursery rhyme while her belly swelled then and there. Her abdomen grew so large and heavy, the springs in the mattress flattened and the legs on the bed groaned. Melissa moaned and wept at once. Fighting familiar pain, she wadded the soiled comforter in her fists and kicked her heels. The giant orb of her belly undulated, then two sharp points pushed her flesh outward as if fingers poked upward from beneath a blanket.
As much as she wanted, Melissa did not scream, even when the pair of horns poked through her skin. She made no sound as the points emerged and the holes they created tore together. Melissa even expected seeing the head of the black, full-grown goat when it birthed itself via self-induced caesarean section. It’s eyes were human and exactly the same special hue as her own.
“Mother,” said the monstrous thing and pulled itself from the gaping wound. It stood upright on its hind legs atop the bed. It’s sharp hooves cut the bedding as if they were razors.
“I wanted your birth perfect this time,” Melissa said, still alive and fading. “Naturally.”
“Another time, succubi.”
Melissa’s voice grew more feint and her eyes closed. “Oh Charlie, I so wanted you to meet your father.”
“Is that who I am?”
“Yes, join your brothers,” Melissa commanded. “Take me with you, Charlie.”
“Yes, mother.”
The monstrous goat, this were-goat, struck Melissa’s neck and instantly severed her head. The thing then leaned over and lifted his mother’s dripping head between its hooves. Her eyes blinked when she and the goat stared at each other. She tried to speak, but had no wind. Melissa smiled at her child instead.
- – END – -
