Stal

I felt a tingle of sensation across the back of my neck, the hair rising there and then a spark of something like cold dancing across my breasts like lightning that tightened my nipples as well. I was being stalked. Again. He was around here somewhere, I could feel him. He wasn't your common predator. He wasn't out for the meat of the body, he was after everything. Body, sure, why not. Mind, soul and heart too. No fun if you miss something. He'd have to know he could chew my entire being up like gum and blow a bubble out of me. I'm his prey and that's the way it goes.

In the great circle of life, Simba, the predator always becomes prey, those are the rules of the game. But at least they get their predatoring in first. Prey just get to hide and get et. We're not the top of the food chain, we should get over the idea that we are. We're all gonna be worm food some day, and virus and bacteria munch on us all day long. We're prey to each other, we're prey to anything that can get close enough to take a bite. Might as well get yourself some teeth and have a taste of what it's all about.

I prey on the predators. I stalk muggers, rapists, you name it. I throw out fear and timidity into the ether, it's like hanging a steak on my ass to bring out the dogs, like bleeding into water to bring sharks. Predators are not that difficult to overcome, all you have to do is surprise them once. I'm a walking trap, perfect bait and perfect hook. Then I own their ass. I've castrated men and watched them bleed out. I've fed on the pain of the paingivers for a long time, I'm one of them.

Turning a corner, there was blood. Lots of it. Handwriting.

"Come out and play. You know I miss you."

Fuck.

More blood.

"Murder, rape, pride and vengeance. Four sins for the price of one."

Quadruple fuck. Who punctuates in blood?

A tearing sensation starts at the base of my spine and travels up my nerves at jackhammer speed. Rage, pain, fear, bloodlust from the copper tang in the air, all wrapping around my spinal cord like the caduceus. Kundalini fire and snakes rise until glass starts to shatter in the windows above. My eyes lose focus and with it goes my balance. I hit the brick wall hard and slid into the filth along the alley floor. Shattered glass digs into skin.

My nose was bleeding, my ear was bleeding. I wiped the blood along the sleeve of my jacket and watched the slick black-in-the-moonlight stuff sink into the fabric dispassionately. Pretty. "I do have a temper, don't I?" I started to giggle, and then it slowly turned into something different. I curled up with my arms wrapped around myself on the alley floor and cried in blurred racking sobs.

He was watching. I deserved it, and it was coming. This was just the slow click…click…click of the roller coaster starting to go up. I fucking hate roller coasters.

Footsteps.

I didn't even bother moving. Only flicked a little blood his way off a wave in his general direction.

"Why don't you go beat up some girl scouts or something and leave me alone."

"Girl scouts are my 2:00 appointment."

I laughed. Not a happy laugh, but you get what you get. "You've got style. I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. I am. I don't know how to fix it. I can't be more sorry. I don't know what more to be sorry about, I'm that sorry. What was with the blood? That's a lot of blood. It's melodramatic."

"I had to get your attention. I've been watching you. It was just too much of a temptation. Far be it from me to allow a prison term to go uncelebrated. I have a gift for you."

"You shouldn't have."

"I haven't yet…but I will."

He dragged me up from the alley and pressed me against the wall, his fingertips hard, biting into my chin so he could see my eyes. My head slammed back against the brick and I winced, my lip splitting from the force.

"You look so helpless. I almost buy it." He says with a mock sympathetic voice.

My lashes flutter and I spit blood out. "Well, I don't know, you just swept me off my feet, I've never felt this way about a man befo-"

My head slammed back again and I winced. "Ow."

He watched me and let his eyes drift down to the trickle of blood. With a smile his grip shifted and my hands were pinioned in the glass and grit lining the bricks. His mouth dipped to lick the blood from my lips and then to nibble on them, nuzzling at my throat and whispering in my ear. "There's my girl. You taste good. Try this one."

Vertigo and panic, my strength, my life, my thoughts went rushing the wrong way. My knees started to tremble and gave. If he hadn't been holding me, I would have fallen to my knees. Muscles stripped of strength, neurons stripped of pathways and connections, emotions stripped of context and I was spinning, collapsing in on myself like a star that has lost its last atom of stability and becomes nothing but gravity, crashing in on itself. Everything that was me just wasn't mine any more. It was his. He was pulling everything out of me and he drank it all down slowly. Easy. This was easy for him. I'm so easy for him.

Quadruple fuck on a crutch. "Okay, that's a good one, I didn't see that coming." He smiled and his eyes burned into mine while my head did the wobbly thing. He looked pleased. He looked…stronger. He looked…more. I was weaker, I was less. Heat and power poured off him in waves and my only warmth was what he granted me because I had none of my own any more. He smiles and his face lights up in admiration. I'm at my weakest and he still wants more. "Damn. You're beautiful when you're completely helpless, terrified and confused."

He kissed me hard and I bit at his lips. At this point not to hurt him, that was only a byproduct. I needed to taste him.

He drew back and shifted his weight to slightly less than crushing force. He smiled again and tilted his head, then bit his own lip and smeared the blood with feather light strokes along my split skin, warm and wet over my lips and stinging my tongue. His hands slide up my arms and his body supports mine against the wall. His hands travel up my arms until he hits sleeves, then he growls. Clothes rip cleanly until there's only skin. His hands slide over my arms, my shoulders, to cup my face in his hands as he bends his head. He feeds me just enough blood, just a few drops, to be sure I know what he tastes like.

I was ravenous and I couldn't get enough of him. I'd gone so cold. My hands clawed at him, his clothes, but he stopped me easily. He only allows me to get my hands under his shirt, to pull it from his pants. There's broken glass on my hands and it's digging into my palms and through his skin. He laughs and says "Harder."

He releases his cock from his pants and shoves me back against the wall, driving deep inside me with a hard invasive thrust. My eyes roll back into my head and he secures my legs around his waist so they're locked behind him and my weight is supported. He leans forward and nuzzles my throat gently, but gentle isn't what I want and I'm bucking against him. He holds me there against the wall, not moving. All I can feel is his throbbing heat and my own need clawing at me from the other side.

He leans forward and laughs softly and my spine melts. "Do you belong to me?" He asks.

Panic and ego rise up and I'm pinned but still defiant. I can't bring myself to say the word, so I shake my head from side to side in a desperate "No."

He nods and says "Okay, we'll do this your way."

He takes my glass-embedded hands and crosses them over my breasts, twisting them and tearing skin. "This is what you have to offer yourself. This is all you have to give yourself. This is how you feel."

My eyes close and even panic and ego has given way to pain. Bleeding warmth on my hands and his withdrawal and judgment have broken me and all I feel is shards. My mouth reaches toward his but I'm restrained and my head falls back on the brick. I open my eyes and stare into his and say between ragged breaths "Ask me again."

He looks dubious and I know I have to say more. "Please."

He takes one of my hands and lifts his shirt, placing my palm on his own chest and leaning into my touch. "Give it to me. I can take it, can you?" His eyes hold mine and his heat and throbbing pulse gets harder, more demanding. My body clenches around him hard and I shudder from the pleasure and pain. He says softly "Do you belong to me?"

I won't close my eyes, I can't. All I say is a sincere "Yes."

That was the right answer. His eyes flare with possession and triumph and his hands come up under my ass, kneading and supporting me, driving me back onto the wall hard, helpless and resplendent. No more thought is possible, only the sensation of being fucked hard by a hard man against a hard wall, pain and force and passion with each intense stroke and drive. His strength and power overreach all my bounds and I'm overwhelmed completely, lost.

With his final predatory thrust I scream against his throat and bite at him, shaking, sweat and blood mingling, his strength still holding except for an occasional quiver of his straining thighs, until even they relax and I'm cradled against him. He kisses the top of my head and this moment is the most perfect of all moments.

His hands drew together below my chin and he stares, then steps back and withdraws every inch of support, every mote of warmth, until he has only one finger below my chin and he holds me there with his gaze. My eyes can't focus and he's illustrating again what I am without him.

Cold, cold, cold…

He said softly "The blood on the wall, the blood that you taste…it's mine. There's no extra victim here, love. Just us."

He withdrew his gaze, his will and his hand. I slump and he catches me. I am positioned against his chest by his hands and I hear the beating of his heart. With each moment he gives me back something to replace what he took.

There's a shift and I'm oblivious, but my skin is covered with the warmth of his coat that he places gently around my shoulders and adjusts with attention to every detail.

He slips away from me and I'm left standing, cold, shivering, my eyes closed, tears and blood mingling on my lips. I'm hunched inside a black leather jacket that is my new home. The shoulders are too wide and the sleeves are too long and I never want to take it off.

And then he was gone. Some parts of me collapse even further, not having something that strong to lean on, push against, hold me up…sick. That's the final sick that I want to tear out at the roots. I miss him when he's gone. Slow footsteps tapped away to a rhythm I knew, but I couldn't recognize at first. Then I start to laugh, just as devastating as the crying had been.

On the wind drifts the whistled tune of "Let's Misbehave."

I can't help being me, any more than a knife can help being sharp and cutting when pressed against flesh. I may stumble in the dark, but there's no doubt it's my dark. Anything that bumps gets bumped back. But right now I've been changed. This is new. This is sick. This is taking the strength I have and turning me into a vine that can only grow along the paths he allows. Someone has a sense of humor.

I'm the newest guinea pig in the new, fun, expanding world of soul art. Gosh…you shouldn't have. This isn't evolution. This is a T-Rex grafting the wings of a pterodactyl on its back. Hey, maybe I'll get to fly. Those were my wings that just got ripped off.

I braced myself against the wall and stood back up. So much for melodrama and dying in an alley. That would be too easy. To home and one of those owie, wincing showers that involve foreheads on cool tile and lots of steam.

Time for some guidance, some company. Someone to talk to. I get all cotton comfy (this is a different thing entirely than silk comfy) and lie down in bed. This is my meditation, my phone line, my access. Time to talk to me when I'm not me. Time to go swimming in the ocean of what's out there to catch. Throw the bait and see who comes.

It's not always nice, but it is always informative. I get over the feeling of being schizophrenic by saying firmly to myself "schizophrenics are sick because their voices DON'T talk to each other." This is anything from a way to pass the time to a way to learn profound things I didn't know I knew until I ask.

I close my eyes and there's really no preparation, just something more like a ringing of a bell, sacred space or profane space, doesn't really matter. Just space for new ideas. I think "Okay. That sucked. Someone talk to me."

Whispers and shapes and fleeting rearrangement floods my mind. It's dark, it's always dark in my head. I don't see pictures. I feel. I think words and concepts, but it's not external, it's only a welcoming of other points from which to view. Show me what you see.

I hear a soft chanting voice "Someone's got a boyfriend, someone's got a boyfriend."

I emote displeasure. "Cute. No, that sucked. Really. There are hickey marks from how bad that sucked."

Lifting of emotion into a mental smile "You had fun. You miss him."

Immediately my shoulders tense, but I'm not stupid enough to lie to myself in this place here, I get mocked. I get in enough trouble being stupid just telling my own selfish version of the truth that I know better than to make that mistake AND compound it with lies. Attempts to cover my own ass gets said anatomy whupped. They're smarter than me and they will make me pay. I'm rewarded for honesty in this space. The only place where I've found this to be consistently true.

My shoulders relax and the drama drains out of me. "I do. Am I sick?"

Immediate answer. "Yes" in a serious but teasing voice.

"How sick?" I ask.

Everything spins for a moment and I'm in a different place than where the question started.

"You're not so much sick as stupid."

I scowl. "I'm not stupid."

Quicksilver certain laughter. "Na…na…na…naaaa…naaaaa…naaaa…Can you say…blind spot?"

My lips twist and my teeth bite the inside of my mouth softly. "You're not going to give me a hint, are you?"

More laughter. "Do we ever give hints? Okay, okay…how's this one…" there is a rising of the wind and a great storm, melodrama in large purple swathes "Til Birnam forest come to Dunsinane…" there's a crashing of lightning and then a packing up of props. The stage manager remains asking for a review. "How about that? That's a prophecy for you."

I grab a handful of thought and toss it in the Stage Manager's face. "It sucked. Meanie."

He smiles and flows back into nothing, not balding or smoking anymore. "You know we're too smart to be prophets. You want to try to see the future, you do it." He steps back into the shadows.

I take a deep breath and expand…out…out…out…not too far, just far enough. Start somewhere and end somewhere, too far and it's meaningless, too short and it's not meaningful enough. Not that way. That way. I flow out along time and framework, possibilities, choices and what would be the most interesting. I squint and wince and the bottom drops out of my capacity to comprehend and I'm in free fall. But it's good. This is new air I'm falling through. I'm in new altitudes and there are all sorts of challenges. It hurts. It's going to be fine. This is art. Play it out.

I take a deep breath and smile. "It's gonna suck and it's gonna be okay."

I hear soft clapping and then all faces, thoughts and meaning is gone and there is only me. Not separate from my voices, but full, whole and happy. Countless soft kisses and unspoken murmurs of love and reminders of how connected I am to all things address my brow, hands pass over my heart and I am healed. Sieves pass through my mind and strain out all that could cause me to do myself harm. I drift in Nirvana in good company, myself.

"Thank you" I whisper aloud before I fall asleep.

I hear a ripple of soft laughter and the mental equivalent of having my hair ruffled. "De nada, Chica."

The phone rings and I wake up, rub my eyes and check the caller ID.

Unknown Name.

Oh, what the hell. I pick up the phone yawning. "Yes?"

"What are you wearing, bitch?"

I shrug and lift the sheets. "Cotton comfy stuff. That's a totally different thing than silk comfy stuff, by the way. Have we met?"

There's a slight pause. "Don't fuck with me, I'll come to your house and I will tear you up."

I yawn again. "Cool. Do you have a pen? Here's my address. Wait…first thing, it's embarrassing, but I do have to ask first. Are you a GOOD rapist? I mean, a really GOOD one? How big are you and how long will you last? Bring Gatorade. Bring a towel. My orgasms take a very long time and I have yet to find a rapist that really understands me. I've been disappointed before. Do you have a heart condition? Do you like to cuddle? I don't. When you're done you're just going to have to leave."

Complete stall on the other side. The guy's trying to turn the key and he can't get the motor going. I start to smile. "No, really. Can I call you? What's your number? I have silk, I promise. It tears easy. You don't sound very committed. Do you have…you know…a problem?"

The tone in his voice changes. "You are one fucked up bitch."

My voice sounds sad. "I know. I'm so LONELY."

He hangs up.

I shrug and hang up too. Amateur. Sometimes I'm afraid that all I'm doing is churning out better predators. The guys that can keep up with that are dangerous and I'm only sharpening them. Oh well.

I make breakfast and check my email. Phone rings again.

Unknown Name.

I answer. "Yeeees?"

Same guy.

"You know, I've been thinking. That rape thing, it was out of line. I'm sorry, ma'am."

"Not a problem. Thanks for the call, it was fun. Take it easy, man."

He's stunned. "O…okay. Um…can I call you?"

I shrug. "Sure."

I hang up.

I think about my chosen life's path briefly, but there's really nothing new to me today.

I just think that if I were Jesus, I would have loved to give Pontius Pilate a brain hemorrhage or at least hemorrhoids. Until I figure out why Jesus could have but didn't, I'm missing a part of my puzzle. Some days I think that Jesus did and that Pilate spent the rest of his days uncomfortable on his stone throne. Those days I'm a Christian.

I may be sick, but dammit, it's my sickness. I might as well enjoy it. If other people don't like it, they'll burn me in town square if they catch me. Big if. If God doesn't like it, then let me know. I distinctly hear God laugh at some of my ideas. I think God thinks I'm amusing. But then, there could just be an echo in my brain.

I beat up emotional and physical vampires as a hobby. I know the predator mind. I know the violence, the hunger, the rush. I know it so well, that I consider myself to be a sufficient judge. If not dispassionate, at least informed. This seems to be my path. The dark, twisted paths of the mind as well as the dark, twisted path in the parks that set me up as bait. But I'm a ringer. Ain't no bell rung louder. By the time I finish with these guys, everything they own, inside and out, is bleeding and will scar.

There's a story of Odin and Loki…as father and son they'd walk the earth and encounter mortals. They'd be poor beggars and they'd judge mortals they met and Loki would find fodder for his chaos. If you were mean to Loki and Odin…woe betide your crops. If you were a good host, you'd get a little present. Poor Jesus goes around being nice and he gets tacked up. Loki is the God of Chaos and he finds artistic prey. If I'm ever on a cross, I'm going to EARN it. The sound of my footsteps echoes those of Odin or Loki knocking on your door, looking hungry and frail. It depends completely on you whether or not this moment leads to your crops failing or you finding gold in your cabbage patch.

I can just get inside people. Sometimes that is great. Sometimes that is horrible. Lust is lust, rooted in the body, blossoming in the mind. I understand desire. I understand heat. I know where it lives.