Girl Next Door

I felt like Sarah was consciously ignoring me. She said nothing when I met her at the motel, barely looked at me when she pointed at her pick-up and we piled in, and then grunted at the questions I attempted to ask.

An example: "Where are we headed?"

Her murmured reply: "You'll find out soon enough."

Eventually, I gave up. I figured she was too afraid of a situation like the night before, when she had become so horny that she had made like a water grenade all over my face. Instead, my thoughts turned to Stephanie. Whatever was happening was beyond rationality. I had witnessed my best friend's girlfriend's life-force being sucked into the head of my cock, and that reached a level of fucked-up shit past comprehension.

The strange part was that it made me feel powerful. Literally powerful. I felt more alert, more aware, and more alive than I had ever known. I wanted to be disgusted by this, but instead, I was fueled. I wanted to know what was happening, so I could understand it, not stop it. At that moment, the last thing in the world I wanted to do was to stop it.

It felt too good.

Eventually, Sarah took us into the city. She seemed to know her way around, taking side-streets and back-streets that I hadn't ever used or known existed until we pulled to a hasty stop in front of a weather-worn shop front. The awning held no lettering, and no sign sat propped in the window. Apparently, the owner felt no desire to advertise.

"Here we are," Sarah stated the obvious. As we exited the pick-up and approached the door, I peered through the store windows. I saw books, jars of herbs and spices, and a few candles- nothing particularly interesting. It seemed to be more or less a knick-knack shop.

"I thought you were taking me to an expert, not the Salvation Army," I said, hoping to annoy Sarah. It worked. Her eyes narrowed as she twisted her head to glare at me. Her pupils were like the points of twin arrows aimed at my soul. I resisted a shiver.

"Just keep your mouth shut, and your ears open," she commanded. Then she pushed into the shop. I followed, admiring the old-fashioned tinkling of a bell hung over the door. It reminded me of pharmacies in movies from the 50s, and I felt a little like the Beaver. Not that I'd ever seen an episode, way before my time, and Nick-at-Nite was something I was aware of but had no interest in.

Once inside, I gave my surroundings a quick looking over. The interior of the shop looked as indecipherable as the exterior, old crap piled on old crap piled on old crappy shelves. Behind a shoddy counter, a gremlin with Coke-bottle glasses gave us a crooked-toothed grin.

"Ms. Tasker, I presume?" the gremlin spoke with a voice that made me think of tortured kittens. Its teeth wobbled like loose piano keys stained yellow with age. It had a hairdo like Yoda: white, sparse, and wild.

Sarah nodded, and the gremlin turned to open a door behind it. Without looking back at us, it waved its withered hands and said, "Let us speak of demons."

***

"What do you know of the succubus and incubus?"

We were seated around a small, round table covered with a purple cloth. At its center like a pale, melting finger, a candle flickered and dripped wax. It reminded me of a gypsy scene in a werewolf movie, and I supposed that made me Lon Chaney Jr.

The gremlin apparently had a name, but it was a low, garbled greeting. All I had caught was Madam G...rubble-grubble-blarf, but I didn't dare ask her to repeat it in fear of the handgun I noticed protruding from the jeans at the small of Sarah's back. Hereafter, I will refer to her simply as Madam G.

"Female and male demons that come to you at night and force you into intercourse, or so that's the myth," Sarah replied to Madam G's question.

"So we're not talking vampires?" I said, momentarily forgetting the threat of Sarah at my side. I felt the heat of her glare at the side of my face, but I kept my attention focused on the gypsy/gremlin, Madam G.

"None of these labels fit the being you're dealing with, but these are terms familiar to you and possibly helpful to your understanding," Madam G said. "Vampires are said to possess a certain irresistibility but do not live on sex. Succubi and incubi are not generally irresistible, but they are essentially sexual. These are all inventions of man to explain what cannot be understood by the natural world."

"And so what are they?" Sarah asked in a breathless voice. Madam G leaned forward in her rickety wooden chair, a sharp creak echoing through the room in response to the slight movement.

"The creature, call it what you will, is an urge. It attaches to your soul and spreads like a disease. Nymphomaniacs, sex addicts, they are infected with it. Of course, these are lesser, sometimes controllable forms of the demon."

Madam G looked directly into my eyes and held me there.

"What you have inside of you..."
 "How do you..." I began, but Madam G cut me off. Her eyebrows squished together like touching wisps of clouds as her forehead furrowed. Her gaze bore through me.

"... is a seed, planted. A seed that grows from one thing and one thing only. Lust. Lust is what feeds it; lust is what makes it grow. It cannot survive without it. It is a parasite that grows, eating lust, growing larger until it wears the skin of its host, and the host becomes nothing but a shell."

"Does it move from host to host?" Sarah asked.

"It plants seeds, but it is incapable of leaving a host once planted," Madam G said.

"Can it be killed without killing the host?" I said, almost afraid to ask, but I had to know. My mind flashed to Stephanie. I remembered how her skin had become transparent; I had seen the blood pumping through her veins. I didn't want that happening every time I fucked a girl.

"If you catch it in time." At her words I thought of the desiccated corpses Sarah Tasker had described finding in her neighbors' home. Were they examples of those who had not purged their demons in time? Madam G continued in her thin, harpy voice.

"You must starve it, deny its lust until it withers and dies," Madam G said. "It is a task easier said than done. The hunger of the parasite is potent. But it can be done."

"You're sure?" I didn't mean to force the issue, but as I asked, I could feel my voice quiver. Not only was my life on the line but all of Sarah's family and my own. The last thing I wanted was for my Mom and Dad to become lust-driven sex fiends for the sake of my own sanity and also the potential nausea.

"Absolutely sure, young man, as I was once infected myself. In the end, I won, but the..." her lips peeled back into a grin over broken, yellow, piano key teeth, "intercourse was fun while it lasted."

At the thought of the gremlin engaged in any activity of a sexual nature, I almost puked.

***

We spent the first half of the ride back in total silence. The pick-up's engine rumbled like the inevitable thunder of an oncoming storm. Dread mounted with suffocating weight. Each moment brought us closer to home and closer to a decision. I peered out the window, through my own reflection, at the blurry grays and greens of the passing scenery.

Madam G's words were hot coals searing into my brain, and my thoughts had become a fire. They threatened to blaze out of control. I admit, I was still of two minds. How to save my family and also to maintain my current state of irresistibility? How to quiet the demon but still tap its power?

"What do you plan to do?" I said. Just speaking aloud seemed to slice through some of the tension. Sarah's jaw tightened as she ground her teeth.

"We have to starve the beings inside them against their will," she said through a clenched grimace. Her hair had been tied in a severe ponytail, and her face looked strained, stretched taut. She was like a rubber band at its breaking point; at any moment, she could snap. I wondered what she had been like before, back in college, an attractive coed worried about her finals and not about sex-sucking demonic energies reducing her family to mummies.

"And how do we plan to do that?" I said.

Her eyes were blazing spires of emerald fire as she responded, "We'll need some rope."

***

We went into my place first since it would be less of a job, just Mom and Dad rather than three people. A spool of rope slung over one shoulder, I opened the front door with brown work gloves and felt like an intruder breaking into my own home. The hallway clock tick-tocked its reliable tune. Were we really going to tie up our parents and keep them from acting out on their sexual appetites? I had no idea of how long it would take to starve out the... demons. Was that what we were seriously dealing with? Demons? The very idea of the word "demon" used as a concrete reality sent my mind reeling.

Sarah quietly closed the door behind us, the only sound a soft click as the latch slid home. She gave me a curt nod, and we headed up the stairs, wary of making noise. My nerves screamed with every creak, but I kept myself in check. I wondered if Sarah was as freaked as me, but if so, she hid it with aplomb. She had a better poker face than the Terminator.

Honestly, it went easier than I expected. My parents were more or less groggy zombies and put up no fight at all. Even when we knotted their wrists and ankles to the bed, they only spoke with sleepy murmurs. Their eyelids drooped, blinds from the outside world. They allowed themselves to be positioned and manipulated like clay figures.

"No problem," I said when we finished, slapping my hands against each other, but as if fate had a sarcastic response, the doorbell rang. Sarah scuttled to the bedroom window and peeked past the curtain. She turned to throw a harsh glare (I swear, she should have patented that thing) in my direction. I felt like I was being laser-sighted by a Marine sniper, and my brains were about to explode out of the back of my skull.

"There's a girl. Get rid of her quick. I'll meet you next door," she ordered, allowed the curtain to fall back into place, and shouldered past me.

Left alone, I sighed. Sarah Tasker was beginning to frustrate me. Despite her attractiveness and the fact that she had more or less seduced me the previous night, she remained an elusive, angry Amazonian warrior. I had a growing feeling that she'd as soon kill me as kiss me, and that was not a comforting thought.

My parents were gagged, and I checked their knots before making my way downstairs. The last thing I wanted was them making a ruckus or escaping while I had company. I mean, that would just lead toward embarrassment, right?

Once ready, I gathered myself, and with a deep breath, I pulled open the door. My jaw dropped when I saw Stephanie behind it. A yellow and red cheerleading outfit clung to her shapely figure, her legs tan and long under a matching skirt that I couldn't imagine was school-approved. She smiled, her teeth bright, perfect and white as the door revealed her.

I remembered how I had left the poor girl: sweaty, bent-over, begging for satisfaction as I backpedaled away from her in horror. But this was not a girl who took "no" for an answer. She was the kind of girl that got what she wanted.

"Wh... what..." I managed, the sentence both starting and sputtering to an end in my mouth.

"You need to finish what you started," she replied and forced her way into the house.

It all happened very quickly, but I'll do my best to be as descriptive as possible. That's why you're reading after all, isn't it? You dirty devil.

Steph pushed her body into mine while simultaneously wrapping her arms around my torso and pulling me to her. Her tongue lashed out and whipped my mouth with warm, wet saliva. I reeled backwards and lost my balance; this was due to Stephanie adding a disproportionate amount of weight to my upper body by lifting her legs and hooking her heels above the curve of my buttocks. We pinwheeled to the floor in a messy tangle of arms and legs.

She must have kicked the door behind her because I heard it slam closed with a vibrating thud.

We landed awkwardly on the hallway floor, but this didn't keep Stephanie from covering my face with slobbery tongue licks. She was a California cheerleader nympho on speed. Steph attacked me with a vigor that I had not previously thought her capable, and my stiffening cock responded in kind, aching to be freed from the restraint of my shorts.

Stephanie's manic hands soon did just that, her fingers dancing to my zippers and ripping it down with a kind of graceless, urgent lust. She stroked me out of my boxers and guided me under her skirt, her hips lifting momentarily before lowering again, and I groaned as I felt her sheath me with her moist warmth. Apparently, Stephanie had no time for foreplay, but I wasn't about to complain.

I tried to force my eyes to stay open. The sight of Stephanie riding me like a cowgirl in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Rodeo was the kind of mental picture show you wanted to file away into the back of your mind for future use. I could hardly believe what I was seeing: her lust-filled eyes blaring with need; her tongue sliding over her moist pink lips; her hair swaying over her shoulders in shimmering, bleach-blonde locks; her full breasts perfect and mouthwatering in the restraints of her cheerleading top; the sheen of sweat glistening on her skin.

Even her low, breathless, panting murmurs, "Oh, yes; oh, yes; oh, yes," was enough to make a seasoned porn star want to drop to his knees and beg for more.

It was impossible to think that within the last few days I had fucked as much as I had in my entire life: Maddy, her mother, Emo-girl, Stephanie, even orally with Sarah. The fact that the quality of these women were 10s all around- with the possible exception of Emo-girl who was at least an 8- boggled my eighteen-year-old mind. My reality had literally become fantasy.

The gremlin-lady, Madam G-whatever-the-fuck, wanted us to starve the lust demon out of me, but what kind of butt-fucking retard would I be to want to do that?

I had been called an asshole so many times by the girls at my school, I half believed the label. And why shouldn't I be an asshole? What were these girls but a bunch of prudish, manipulative bitches? Now it was my turn to get what every man wanted, and few would ever manage.

Case in point: Stephanie. She flaunted herself every day at all of us but refused to back up what she offered. Instead, she prided herself on frustrating the hormones of every male she met. Until now.

Her hands clawed at my chest, and she cried out, tears leaking from her clenched eyes, as she came on top of me.

My eyes rolled up in my head, and I closed them. Stephanie was a heavenly vision, and I wanted to extend this moment for as long as humanly possible. Watching any more of her could have sent me to the cliff's edge and over, and I didn't want to go there yet. Instead, I lost myself in the darkness behind my eyelids. I gripped Stephanie's hips with my hands and forced her to keep going, to maintain the impossible pace, and she met the challenge with girlish, whispery moans.

I'm not sure how much time passed. I remember the feel of her weight on me, up-and-down, up-and-down, the force of impact sending vibrations through my entire body. The room seemed to spin, and I kept my eyes closed, afraid that if I opened them, I would swoon in a fit of dizziness. It was not unlike sitting down or lying down when you were drunk. The world was a top, and I was centered on its axis. I heard Stephanie, sounding far off like a voice in a distant cave, but I'm not sure when her sighs became screams.

Screams: when I registered what I was hearing and that it wasn't the typical sounds of unbridled passion, my eyes flew open. Stephanie was still on top of me, but she looked nothing like the girl that I had seen before closing my eyes. I bit back a scream of my own.

The thing on top of me appeared wrinkled, gray, and desiccated; it was the corpse of something long dead, not the form of a voracious young woman. The only aspect of Stephanie I recognized was the red and yellow cheerleading outfit still adorning her body.

She reached out to me with one withered, decayed hand and then died with a rattling rasp:

"Maaaattheeeeeew...."

I realized with some dismay that I felt absolutely amazing. Power seemed to emanate, to throb from every orifice of my body. I thought of a line from

Romeo and Juliet

, the one where Capulet is really letting his daughter have it, and he's so angry that he says his fingers itch. I kind of knew what he meant at that moment, for my fingers itched, tickled, and tingled with energy.

I threw the corpse away from me with disgust. It made a scraping, rustling sound as it hit the floor like an old hornet's nest. I ran a hand through my hair and choked back an inexplicable urge to giggle not with encroaching insanity but with overwhelming joy.

I managed to reason: "Get rid of the body."

Pulling it through the house reminded me of dragging a dead, dry log. I imagined the corpse's arms could break in my grip, and I was half-curious to see if I bent them the wrong way if they would snap off like tree limbs.

I opened the basement door and pushed it down the stairs. It crunched and clumsily clattered to the cement. Bits of it seemed to crumble, leaving behind gray ash on the stairs where it had hit. I flung the door shut and locked it. I'd come back and stash the corpse more carefully later; for now, I needed to get next door and help Sarah take care of the Taskers. Then I'd have plenty of bodies, alive and dead, to deal with.

***

As I made my way to Maddy's house, the sun on my skin, a warm breeze ruffling my hair, I suddenly understood the lure of drugs. The crackheads that hung out behind the gym were on to something, after all, if their high was anything like mine. The rush overpowering me at the moment made me feel invincible; it throbbed in the core of my being with a crackling energy. It made a joke of the energy drinks I used to caffeinate my way through finals.

It was a feeling I'd pay a fortune to have again.

By the time I reached the Taskers' door and placed my hand on the knob, I wasn't sure if I had come to help Sarah or to stop her. Any sense of moral responsibility had drained out of me like air from a leaking balloon; my only real desire was to maintain my high and to keep the power that Maddy Tasker had bestowed, either wittingly or unwittingly, on to me.

When I opened the door, I could hear Sarah yelling, but her voice was muffled and unclear. It sounded like she was upstairs. Something thudded rhythmically against a wall or perhaps the floor or both, and after a moment, I realized it was the bed.

They'd gotten to her, and the most chilling aspect of this thought was the fact that the creatures had taken over the bodies of her own family.

"Sarah was always a Daddy's girl," Maddy's voice said behind me, putting vicious words to my thoughts. I turned to face her; already my mind raced to put some form of plan together. Things had unraveled while Stephanie had unknowingly distracted me, and without Sarah to keep me focused on the task at hand, I was not sure that I could hold off the advances of Maddy Tasker.

In fact, Maddy looked mind-blowing. I ached for her just seeing her there, red hair draping her shoulders, bright eyes sparkling with a glint of deviancy, her luscious body accented by a form-fitting green dress. My mind flashed to the first moment I saw her, and it was like looking back at a different life. It hit me how much my world had changed in the short time this girl had been next door.

Maddy must have read my thoughts because she glanced down at herself and said, "You like?"

I could do nothing but swallow and nod my head. Thinking back, it was at this strange moment that I began to piece some semblance of a theory of what had happened to me and how I could use it to my advantage. Seeing Maddy, I wondered why I hadn't had the life drained out of me during the time I was with Mrs. Tasker and then her. It had taken only one time, really, well... maybe one and a half times to suck the life energy completely out of Stephanie, so why wasn't I a mummified, dried-out husk the way Stephanie was?