Title: Hunger
Word count: 4,700
Author: Tim Wilkinson
Contact: Tlmntim59.gmail.com
Hunger
Tim Wilkinson
The change, well, it comes easily and swiftly. It isn’t at all like it’s so often portrayed in the cinema or on television. There is no stretching, tearing flesh, no snapping, crackling of elongating and bending bones, no cries of searing, wretched pain or the gnashing of teeth and fang. There is only me, ‘Wayne Wilkes’, myself one moment and the next, ‘Wayne Wilkes’, Werewolf.
It’s a bit like falling in love, I suppose; after all, it is magic, is it not?
Yet in partial defense of Hollywood and the genre of creative writing in general, I feel I must add that they did get it right on two points. One, it all begins with a bite, and two…the hunger. Point one; well that needs no further alliteration. As for point two, the need or the hunger, the word itself so aptly describes the sensation that I fear any further narrative will be moot and redundant. Yet nonetheless, as this is the very point that I wish to convey, I will attempt to define it as best I can.
This hunger of which I speak, simply put, is a burning passion, a honey-sweetened ardor, a cruel obsession and an unwavering pain of exquisite agony, pure and raw. It is a vacuous void impossible to fill, a cleaving, persistent fixation, an urgent and vital calling, a primal craving, useless to resist and impossible to ignore. I can even say, if you will allow me this transgression, that it is more than an emotion, more than a pressing physical or emotional need, more than a desire, lust or compulsion. No, it is a force unto itself, an addiction of immutable persuasion arising from the deepest depths of the inner soul. It is a lusty, delicious drive of undeniable proportions and a desperate, insatiable necessity. It is both pleasure and suffering beyond measure, description or control. It is misery and it is bliss.
To ignore it is to linger, to suffer in sustained agony, to die a slow, inglorious death of starvation and depravity. Yet it is a death without end, a torment, painful, and raw. For unlike the earthly death of mortals and men, the death of this hunger knows no conclusion, finds no peace and hears no silence. It is a million terror-stricken voices, each crying out in fear and woe. It is voluminous, vulgar, cracking ones skull from within. It is an eviscerating nightmare, one from which there is neither awakening nor reprieve.
Yes, it is all of these things and much more, things yet only grimly, incompletely described and portrayed in our literature and cinema. For unlike the media’s depiction, this iniquitous aberration is far more than a mere instinctual blood thirst or some programmed, autonomic appetite or innate lust for fleshy gore. It is much more, more than a mere taste for killing or simply a preference for murderous, depraved perversions brought on by some deficit in the soul or the cascading virulence of a blood born infection. Of this, I can assure you…as while it is all of these things; it is also a passion of intimate, familiar delicacy.
Yes, the appetites of which I speak are true , the emotions, the needs and the desires are real, powerful and heady. Yet while they are all the bundled trademarks of the ill of which I speak, the sickness that infects and leads me, the disease that controls my every waking thought, they also remain the sole source of a sublime, unfettered ecstasy of which I have grown to relish and to crave. For as the starving crave for bread, the lover for kisses and the pervert for sex, so I crave for blood. Yet I crave not just for sustenance, nor only to sate the demented demands of the monster within. For you must see, that while…yes, both need and desire live within this malady, this curse, this gift that trusses me so, I am equally driven by other, less pure yet far more desirous designs.
This brings us to my point. For within the fevered, blighted malaise with which I am stricken, the judgment that condemns me, to which I’m chained, firmly attached and secured, there is contentment. For obliging me to the hungers every purpose and intent, to the insistent need to appease its malevolent, frenzied nature, therein also lays an indescribably, delicate and beautiful indulgence, both succulent and divine.
I have previously alluded to this malady as being akin to love, and so it is, in such infinitely complex and delectable ways. Yet, for as love and lust lead to a hunger for sex and sex to desires for urgent release, so too does this curse, this hunger, lead to more than a simple greed for the flesh. So too does the hunger find its satisfaction, intense and erotic. So too does it seek its own passions and vital release, wholly intermingled and interminably bound in the act, in the fruition of its greed for blood, gore and death. It is therefore, to the extent that I am able to define it, a desire much akin to our deep-seated longings for sex and our endless yearnings for intimacy and touch. It many ways it reflects the sexual act itself. For in its fervor and intent, it too multiplies and magnifies itself in the act of doing. It too builds and rises, manifesting its purpose in a final, surging, bursting release of blinding pleasure and moaning conclusion; and in the rewarding consummation of completion finds its own synthetic orgasm, its own purging, ejaculatory finale, yet without the need of mutuality, shared intent or loving consent.
One has to admit that orgasm, for most humans, is forever a necessary and a pressing, fruitful desire, one that so often and in so many ways guides our steps as its search and allure orders our choices and often even our futures. Similarly, for me at least, is the hunger. It possesses me. It is irresistible, unquenchable and like the opiate, the cocaine filled syringe, the tip of a delicate pink nipple or the slick, satiny reflectivity of supple, wet lips, it offers the numbing forgetfulness of drugs, the glowing release of long held frustrations and the promised satisfaction and satiation of long yearned, pent up longings and desires.
Yet it is the latter I find perhaps most significant, the quest and realization of satiated desires, for like orgasm, this hunger finds fulfillment only in action, its purposes met only in deed. Like the relentless drive for sex, a drive met only in the writhing, groaning ecstasy of passion and the convulsing flesh of muscle and organ, so too does this hunger live and express its appetites. So too is it fulfilled and discharged, realized and appeased only by fervent action and scurrilous, profane deed. Moreover, like lust, it also lives on, never wholly replete, filled or laid to rest, appeased but for the moment, but until next it rears its tireless, lustful and hungry head.
Try to imagine if you can; attempt to recall; reach back into your memory and mind; close your eyes and sense the tightening, rounding skin of peaking, excited testacies, the blood filled tips of nipples or clitoris. Feel the first hint of warm slickness as it builds within your loins, seeking avenue for escape, seeping, dripping. Remember; imagine for only a second that enduring, solitary instant, that initial realization of exhilaration and anticipation. Recapture the emotion, the sensations, the tingling and the growing, the spreading warmth when first touched with excitement, amorous excitement. Evoke if you can that brief, lingering instant when first aware of a sudden, intimate swelling; when lewd imaginings become possible, awkward shyness turns to deliberate and lascivious deeds, randy and vulgar. Imagine and feel the stirrings, the passions within and without, those that touch the depths of ones core and flush the tips of ones fingers, parting the sallow leaf of longing lips. Imagine that moment, those moments when feeling most alive, when organs and flesh, full and flushed, wake and swell, gorged with pooling blood. Feel the rising need to press and squeeze, to push and thrust; conjure the memory of that delicate, elusive instant when flesh demands attention and passions scream for consummation.
That is the sensation of which I speak, that is the moment. That is the pleasure therein, the pleasure that thrives within this unholy, aching affliction. Yes, I can only describe it as being akin to the sensations of arousal, pre-orgasmic, forceful and demanding. Yet imagine that moment, that instant, prolonged, multiplied, endlessly rising and growing without end. It is a pleasure without bounds, intoxicating, luscious and ripe with bliss. Oh how can I ever put into words such wonders as these, such promise, such rushing, screaming power, like a thousand blinding climaxes, balanced and held, bound, restrained, charging and building, poised on the edge of one glorious, spurting explosion.
Yes, it is both, horror and joy. It is a hundred shivering, shuddering sensations urgent and horrid, deadly, lethal and monstrous. It is clinging, unshakable and rending. It is armored claws in white fleshed satin. It is flesh-piercing talons shredding sighing lips. It is frayed hearts spurting crimson rivers of rapture. It is torn and severed groins against ravaged, tattered breasts. It is the stark, limpid ardor of blue, sightless eyes, grateful and lifeless. It is numbing, blank forgetfulness. It is elation and stoned drunken ecstasy. It is an opiate queen, addicting, sensual and talented. It is lovers pink filled mouths and pointed, lashing tongues. It is ecstasy, intense and gratifying. It is the smooth talking harlot with white skinned cleavage, cinnamon thighs and ink black eyes, dreadful to snub, impossible to please. It is a throbbing, swollen erection, a stored up, massive gush awaiting but the slightest touch to set it free. It is a steaming, white sugared flow. It is a restless alien fetus, intimate and bizarre, churning, filling the gut with cramping, twisted desire. It is fang and claw, bleached bone teeth devouring voice. It is mouths filled with dreadful, rendered sighs and aching, jaw grinding moans. It is hard, yet delicate, agony and delight. It is utterly delectable and wonderfully disgusting. It is a swollen organ, eager for the caressing kiss of blood-tainted lips or the heat of a steady, constricted grasp, stroking in deadly rhythm to failing heart and dying breath. It is the soft, featherlike stroking of gore-covered fingers, the soft dampness of severed, silenced tongues. It is the cloying sweetness of a lover’s tepid wetness, lining ones lips, spilling from the ridged, taught edges of hungry, ravenous mouths. It is the instant of release, this hunger, this act of violence, climaxed in eating, tearing, gnashing…Oh if only sex could compare for it is paradise. It is horror. It is love!
Yet knowing all this about the hunger does nothing to alleviate my suffering, on the contrary, for it only creates more, even larger problems. For you see…I do not like to kill, even after the change. Yet perhaps I should be a bit more specific. What I mean is that I have never wanted to kill, and to kill a human, a brother of what I once was, I find unthinkable, even in my monsters skin. Yet fortunately, once again, Hollywood did not get it quite right as I still have control of my faculties even after the change, as least to the extent that any love crazed heroin addict or sex dependent crack whore has control. For even stricken as I am, I still am I and therefore am perfectly able to choose my actions accordingly. Yes, I must feed as the addict must get high or as the pervert or the serial killer must bow to his or her own particular addiction. Yes, I must submit to my blighted soul and feed the inner hunger that thrives on horror and destruction. Yet as they also, the addict and the slut, while trapped with their sickness can choose, so I too possess the ability, the power to choose my drug, to select my victims and to feed, as I will.
Fortunately, for me, I am a city dweller and one of modern ages. For as we all know, modern people have no belief in magic. They have lost the awe and the wonder of their existence, the mystery of their world and its shaded surroundings. The only magic modern people are aware of is the laughable, faker antics of black robed, stage magicians or the ancient mythological accounts of our foreign, distant past. All but fairy tales and legends, quaint little stories for children, fictions that everyone knows are neither real nor relevant. That is all that they can conceive or imagine. Magic, sorcery and miracles, either good or evil are things lost, forgotten, even scorned by the modern man’s heart, mind and soul. Witches, dragons and monsters are but the trappings of legend and lore, nightmares of the weak, dreams of the innocent and naive. Simply put there are none that shiver at the sound of canine baying, in spaces where silence is never heard, where the opaque light of the autumn moon does little to stir the hearts or shaken from slumber long silenced fears. Yes, for the modern soul, moonbeams are but reflections, bats but winged rats, blood but a vehicle for the transfer of sugars and nutrients and the magic of love…little more than sex. Therefore, no one thinks twice when a dog or a cat goes missing.
No, in the cities one fears nothing but the mumbling stranger on darkened street, the unknown tenant next door or the frightful, dark skinned bum of the alley’s, railways and parks. They have replaced all the horror in the world, the shadowy mist shrouded mystery, the macabre and the unknown with but malevolent shadows of themselves. For they have accepted and most often rightly so, that the greatest fear and most present danger is not from some solitary mythical monster from screen and stage, yet from the teeming hatred and horror of their own blackened souls.
As I’ve alluded, the city has plenty of candy for one like me, unguarded pets, coyote, raccoon or the occasional white tailed deer and I make use of them all as I may, to stave my appetites and curb my urges. For although I may choose my victims as I may, killing, cursed as I am, is yet a necessity, not a choice, yet oh what a joy it has become.
So I can honestly say without reservation or onus, that while I was living, feeding so, subsisting solely on the lost or feral animals that the city so plentifully provided, I had no knowledge, no inkling of the shattering, rending bliss of blood bathed, human flesh, that is not until the night I was attacked. Yet I am getting ahead of myself, first let me tell you of Senica, how we met and how I came to be the monster that I am.
It began innocently enough, this curse, this corruption that taints my blood. It was a Saturday night, late in the fall of the year, a night not unlike the hundreds of others I have seen and moved through, unnoticed and unseen. It was a brisk evening, the moon full and bright when I, with a skip in my step and a smile on my heart happened to stop in at one of the many local pubs that adorn my section of the city, for a few cool beers and a bit of free entertainment. Dive would be a much more accurate term for this once thriving relic of the fifties, as in this particular, puke scented establishment, the owner, a graceless, swiftly aging woman in her fifties had ingratiated herself with the local public by her drunken habit of dancing atop the tables, topless. Yes aging, without grace, yet still in possession of two, full and strikingly beautiful, breasts. That is when we met, Senica and me.
Senica looked no more than a few years younger than I, russet haired and green of eye. She stood a few inches shorter than I, very attractive with youthful, feminine curves, sporting slight, shapely breasts and a pair of full, pouty red lips. Her manner was soft and easy, not loud, brash or haughty, moving with the smoothness and grace of one out of place in such tawdry surroundings.
As I watched her dancing and laughing from across the small, tacky, beer spattered floor, I found myself instantly attracted. Yet by the time I gathered enough nerve to speak to her, like most women I have known, she’d had far too much to drink. What I mean is, like most women who are interested and responsive to my advances. Seems I am very likable and even handsome in the foggy eyed gaze of a few too many whiskies, unfortunately, or so it would seem, not so much without them. So yes, it soon became evident to me that she was a bit drunk, yet not sloppily so, just happy, free and gay. We talked a bit, shared a dance or two, and trust me, I am no great dancer any more than I am a great lover. Yet once again, a few whiskies and the complementing cover of deep shadow put rhythm in my step and grace within her lovely eyes of jade.
Yet as is most always the case, all too soon, the clock belched two and the end drew near. That is the part I have always found most distasteful, when the young ladies say goodnight, invariable handing me false telephone numbers and crossed finger promises to call me soon, meaning, never. I, as always in that situation, do my best to act the gentleman, while also finding it all but impossible to actually hide my disappointment and resentment, resentment for having to play such silly, unfruitful games for the false promise of unattainable favors. Yet to my amazement and yes, my great joy, while birthing a renewed sense of optimism and hopeful expectation, Senica surprised me by taking the initiative.
“Wayne,” she began boldly, lifting my heart with her smile. “I had fun tonight; really I did…follow me home, for a cup of coffee?”
Stuttering slightly in wondrous astonishment, I replied, as I suppose you can guess, “Yes! Hell yes!”
“Ok…follow me,” she added.
I paid my tab as she stood beside me, insisting that she pay her own, yet another eye-awakening marvel.
Following close behind as she left the darkened parking lot, I felt my heart stir with newfound happiness and yes, optimistic anticipation. It was a short drive, taking only a few minutes, as she lived just a few miles from the club. Soon after we left she stopped in a small, quaint section of town known as Crown Heights, again to my surprise and delight, as Crown Heights is the same area in which I spent my lonely, wayward youth.
As she pulled into a small driveway, I stopped on the street, parking just before her charming little home. It was a small, attractive house, red bricked, light green shingles adorning the roof. A low, white picket fence bordered the front and one side of the small yard. Looking up I noted a large picture window facing outward towards the street, the room beyond concealed by long, white laced curtains. A single brass lamp step upon a table before the window cast a warm and welcoming glow out into the neatly cut, browning grass.
Standing beside the small steps that led up to the porch she turned towards me, watching as I exited my car, then again as I stood alone in the street, feeling a bit awkward and stalkish. Smiling, she called out, “Come on in…I won’t bite.”
Walking up to the curb, I stepped over the low fence and started eagerly across the lawn as she strode up to the small covered porch. I heard the metallic fumbling of her keys as she opened the door, stood to one side and called again, “Come on pokey, it’s cold...I need a drink.” With that, she entered the house, instantly lost in the blackness beyond as I quickly followed, closing the door behind me. The room was dark, save for the one small lamp and as I turned from the door toward the interior of the house, she met me, confidently pressing her lips to mine.
It began with a no. It ended with a yes.
Placing my hands about her face, I drew her towards me, lightly pressing my lips back against hers. I looked into her open eyes as we kissed, two green pools of shimmering light, swimming with comfort and warmth shown back. Placing a long, impassioned kiss upon her crimson lips, I paused as I heard her lightly say “no!”
Pulling away, she stepped back a few feet, repeating her last word, softer, almost apoplectically, “no…” Turning away from me, she removed her paisley patterned wrap, tossing it to the leather sofa before her and then faced me again. “I’m sorry, Wayne. I should not have asked you here, I… I mean. I do not do things like this. It’s just not me. I just...Well this is not one of my better decisions. It, it’s complicated I’m afraid. I don’t think I am ready for…It’s best, best for you I mean if…”
The disappointment in my eyes must have been evident, as it seemed hers grew suddenly sad, regretful and remorseful. Stepping close to me once again, placing one of her tiny hands to the side of my face, she said, “I’m sorry…I do like…”
I kissed her softly, wrapping my arms gently about her waist, pulling her warm body to mine, pressing her to me. She said “no”…softly, sweetly, opening her mouth to mine, closing her eyes as her neck fell back, limpid and pliable.
As I removed her low cut blouse, she whispered, “no.”
As I slid her thin cotton dress to the floor, she mumbled, “no.”
As I removed her bra and silken white panties, she muttered, “no.”
As my tongue circled the tip of her pink, rounded nipples, swelled with youth and want, she sighed, “no.”
As my eager fingers explored, probed and discovered her soft, warm wetness, she moaned, “no.”
As I entered her, there upon the cool wood floor, she prone on all fours, I just behind, she groaned, “no.”
Soon I felt her shiver, a shudder running the length of her long, slim frame and as I emptied myself inside of her, she cried…”Yes!”
She changed in an instant. Even as I withdrew, spent and flushed. I looked down, seeing the horror before me just as she turned her drooling, fang-filled mouth to mine, and bit me. Why she did not kill me, devour my remains and purge the waste of me in a steaming, putrid pile, I suppose I may never know. Perhaps she found the curse itself enough of a punishment or some sort of sick, vengeful gift requiring no further action or penance. Perhaps she, like I, had no penchant for killing yet only acted out of instinct and impulse, not meaning to harm me. Perhaps I had pleased her, however unlikely. Who can say?
All I know for sure is that I awoke the next morning lying in a slick pool of desiccating blood. Senica was gone. I did not search for her, not then. I only fled, filled with revulsion, fear and confusion. What had happened? Why had this happened and who, no…what was she, were the only thoughts filling my mind, that and escape. I simply knew that I had to get away…and fast. The questions, the doubts and disbelief could and invariably would, come later. Of course, it wasn’t long after that, that I discovered what she had truly given me that night, kneeling upon her hard, oaken planked floor.
I have not seen Senica since, nor have I sought her out. That was over a year ago. Yet my fear and revulsion have since greatly diminished and my anger long since passed, as I have learned of my condition, accepted and grown comfortable in my new role as demon, dweller of the night. Yet my feelings of affection, endearment and longing for the beautiful, lively and passionate girl that I met in the pub that cool autumn night have only grown and blossomed. I know it sounds odd, after what happened, what she has done, done to me, yet…I believe I fell in love with her that night and I am quite sure, even now, that I love her still.
Much has changed for me in the last few weeks as I now know of what I had been denying, forbidding myself from learning, tasting, loving. For you see it was but two weeks ago that I was attacked.
It happened one moonlight night as I walked past a particularly dark section of Memorial Park, an inner city park but a few short blocks from my home where I often strolled and hunted. It happened as I was passing a secluded spot along the gravel trail that surrounded the park, where the red cedars grow thick, fat and close. All I heard were a few harsh words, the rustle of leaves and rushing feet, as before I had the time to turn and see my attacker he had knocked me cold by a blow to the head.
I awoke, bound and trussed, naked and hogtied.
As his tongue circled the tip of my tan, rounded nipples, hardened with cold, swelled and gorged with blood, pinching, twisting and biting, I screamed, “No!”
As his fingers explored, probed and discovered my soft, warm wetness, I yelled, “No!”
As he entered me, there upon the hard, gravel paved path, I prone on all fours, he just behind, I muttered “No!”
Soon I felt him shiver, a shudder running the length of his long, hardened member. As he emptied himself inside of me, I sighed…”Yes!” turned my neck, snapped my bonds and tore the head from his fat, muck encrusted neck.
God it was glorious. After so long, so many nights eating dog, cat and whatever flea bitten animal I could scrounge, I gorged on fresh human flesh. I came and I came, an endless fountain of spurting, crimson manna, purging my gut of long held rivers of delirious, delectable sin. I relished every dank, black spurt of his evil, perverted blood, feasting last on his purulent liver and blackened, hate filled heart.
Tonight, this moment, I sit in my car, parked in front of a small quaint house. It is red bricked with light green shingles on the roof. A low, white picket fence borders the front and one side of the small yard. Looking right I see a large picture window facing outward towards the street, the room beyond, concealed by long, white laced curtains. A single brass lamp sits on a table before the window casting a warm and welcoming, glow out into the neatly cut, browning grass.
Senica is home. I somehow know this. I feel her presence. I too now know the brooding melancholy of utter loneness that drew her to me. I also know now why she did not kill me that night, why she chose instead to smite me with her gift. Yes, I have been smitten, smitten in more ways than one. And as I exit the car, step up onto the curb and walk across the lawn towards the door, my only regret is all the time I have wasted, we have wasted, so many nights spent alone, without her, delaying our inevitable, wondrous union. Yet tonight I have returned to her and as I watch the door slowly open, see her russet hair fluttering in the cool, night breeze and hear her soft, soothing voice say, “Come on in…I won’t bite,” I know she too…has been waiting.
As I said before…It’s a bit like falling in love I suppose; after all, it is magic, is it not?
The End
© 2012, Tim Wilkinson
