Enter the live labyrinth of Asuqi - February Femme Fatale.

February Femmes Fatales -
February 18th 

This second piece of prose from Asuqi perfectly demonstrates her art. She has a unique attitude, studded with astute observation and delivery.

Betrayed thunders through the subject of abuse, at the heart of which is a little Alice lost and ever on the escape yet trapped by affection and loyalty.

For me there's a 1950s feel to Betrayed with deliberate exclamations to contradict the tragedy; unnerving as Sylvia Plath poetry.

Enter the maze; may you follow your own path...

Betrayed by Asuqi

This is a confined space, too narrow to live in or like, but it’s what I’ve got left and in a way, I suppose it suits me.

I lost myself in a labyrinth, the pretty one, in our vast garden. My sisters were snatched away from our lovely childhood by a monster too abhorrent to speak of. Me, I chose the maze.

Try chasing me here! Try finding me! I’m lost, I’m lost, impossible to find!

I spent these long years ensuring the labyrinth’s utter complexity. I recreated the paths, reorganized the hedges. I made a science of intricacy.

I sometimes see my sisters cry, the monster’s shadow heavy on their chests. I turn to lightness then, bend myself backwards and spiral away – I only dance abstract pieces.

The laces I’m wrapped in are my mother’s from a lifetime ago, I think the monster wanted me in them, but I can’t discard them, freedom is not mine to take.

Oh my God! He came for me! Last night in my dreams! Soft brown eyes, wine-scented kisses and his treacherous hands fumbling under my layers of lace.

My heart and my thoughts fluttered endlessly then, like the delicate membranes of a butterfly.

"Someone ought to have saved you," you say, your eyes a glacial sincerity. "Someone should have come for you!"

But there’s no one left, you see! And the softness in my eyes is as brown as his. We’re two of a kind, and this is what holds me secured more than anything; his body so close to mine, our minds entwined, the horrors he performed - are they the tales of my soul?

So I stay here, trapped, between him and myself. If you hear me scream, please go away, if I plead just leave! I´m ruined beyond salvation and if you come from a place of light, your heart pure and sweet, just forget about me, for I will turn my face to you, and I cannot promise my smile won´t be his.

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Bio:
Please accept me as Asuqi. On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. So I go about searching for near-life experiences. I know them when they hit me, they tickle my brain. I only have questions, I am Jack's complete lack of certainty. Yes; "Fight Club". Always.

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Prediction Winner

Goodness gracious; here's a thing. A record number of entries to the Prediction challenge. Let's start with the summaries - I'll try to keep it brief, as it could take a while.

• David Barber promised an assault and boy, did he deliver:
• #1 That bad chat-up line scores our hero a finely-shaped dinner, in Delicious.
• #2 Debbie's dead and Peter's spotted the unnatural killer in In The Shadows.
• #3 Genders twist, abused and controlled in the tragic A Broken Promise.
• #4 A haunted husband and loving father finds the light in The Shape Of An Angel.
• Ellie's Helward gave up the ghost in the face of overwhelming alien attention in Gravity.
• Justice all round as Mimi's slob does his back in taking revenge in Edgewise.
• Me, I went all poetic and wistful this week:
• #1 Carnal Dox sings of pox in the port on the old main drag
• #2 Stellar Song stops the stars from sparkling - but only for a moment, Gods or no Gods.
• Rebecca's soul prowls through primal night, the hunter or the hunted? In The Night Hind.
• Chris's spider bite turns his character's thoughts inside out in his copper-coloured Scratch.
• The guilty turns killer in the reflection of AJ's adulterous Prelude.
• He's gorgeous! Sue's cop in drag drags his heels in the street in Night Shift.
• Aidan has siblings teasing  and toying with Mother's magic in the forestral Half Breeds.
• The agony of betrayal slashes through ravenways' debut in Don't Look Now.
• Melenka's curling entities wrap their shadows around frantic lovers before sucking them dry in Stock In Trade.
• Shape-shifters rule. Antonia's doesn't tolerate inappropriate advances in Mistaken Identity.
• She drags her burden with a smile, does Susan; completely Brazen she is.
• Kook's back, evacuating body and soul in reverence to his unholy visions in William's Revelation.
• More shape-shifters cause havoc in Kim's Appearances can be deceiving - and they don't even make the effort!
• Pixie's fluttering fairy friend says goodbye to the deceiver with a poison arrow in Adieu.

Humble am I in such presence. I truly enjoyed not only every entry but also every comment - as always. Thank you all, for dallying at The Feardom.

David Barber is my winner this week, with the haunting and heart-rending The Shape Of An Angel. Beautifully tragic. Congratulations David.

Aidan's Halfbreeds crept into my skin, and Ellie's Gravity tore my world in two, three, four... Both are runners-up. Well done.

Back in the morn' - with its orange, sun burst sky - for a new Prediction.

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My name is Lily and I'm a... February Femme Fatale.

February Femmes Fatales - February 17th

My third filler piece on the Femmes Fatales showcase is one that is dangerously close to my heart. It has 'done the rounds' but hasn't been quite right for any publication so far.

Sometimes the desire to get it out there is stronger than the need to be paid (please don't quote me on that!) so I'm bringing Birthright out into the light. My protagonist is very dear to me, tortured and divine as she is; she makes me remember...

Please be gentle with her.

Birthright by Lily Childs

There is a child in my belly; in my womb. Yet no-one put it there. No-one I know.

Sixty seven years I have drummed this landscape, dancing and playing around the coasts of this island, but it is a good ten years since a prick thrust its way into my orchard.

Voluptuous was I. “Homely” they said. Vibrant of face and auburn of hair. Breasts to sleep against, curves to wallow in. But I slipped, and I fell, until my inevitable profession became one of passing love, a satisfier of desperate lust - over in an instant. Pregnancy, blissful and joyous, became an occupational hazard. I bore one child. It died. I bore a second – to order, and a third; fees of which I only saw a shilling or two, quickly spent. I could bear it no more; thereafter the back street snippers stole my earnings. By my fortieth year their butchery and the syphilis had taken its toll. No more a mother to be. Yet here I lie, a babe inside.

I am half-blind, toothless. My breasts hang to my knees. I can imagine how aroused you are by my unique beauty. But someone must have been, to have paid to experiment upon me. Someone slit me, opened me, stuffed me with nonsense, chemicals and embryos.

I feel it growing. My hands pulse with its heartbeat as I splay aged fingers across my rounded stomach. The size of it pushing upwards makes it hard to breathe. It means I must lay, propped up, when I need to sleep. The child kicks me, headbutts and beats my insides, making me shit and puke ‘til I faint on the floor. Everything I eat, it consumes. All I drink, it sucks dry.

I question the origins of the thing within me; it’s been two years in gestation. But I feel a mother’s love no less. Even as it eats me from the inside out, I adore it. Where it leaches my every last ounce of energy, I offer up my strength freely.

I lie in no hospital bed. No nurse, quack or doctor cares for me. My apartments are regal and glorious though I cannot tell if I linger in a fairy-tale tower or slumber beneath the ground, staring as I do through gaps and spaces. Windows on high, or subterranean vents - I know only that clawed creatures fly by the spines and vines that crawl with unspeakable insects, illuminated by stars and moonlight at the strangest angles.

Maids dress my suppurations, unseen servants deliver my feasts – for they are feasts, and they are extraordinary. Rare fruits dance across pewter platters with vials of rust-brown liquid peppering the scene. Here is softening laudanum; it dulls my senses, opens the blossom of my creativity, speaks with my soul, makes me cry…

Nothing, they tell me, can stop the progress. ‘Perceived genealogy’ means everything. It matters not that the foetus does not usher from twixt the legs of a Royal. Whatever the babe - miscreant or fully formed - they will nurture it, shape it, form it. It is their tool – political, governmental. A forgery. The princess, as in time immemorial will drop the cushion from beneath her dresses to show the next heir to the masses, and to her king. It is as it has always been.

“My son” the princess shall say. “His Royal Highness.” The crowds will adore their monarch as they have for centuries… And me? I will fade away, quietly, discreetly; a simple vessel for the monster.

I fought against this, my destiny. I knew, you see. Parading my flesh, denying my heritage - it was to no avail. The old blood of England fires through my veins. No Queen am I. A whore, they call me, but my mothers have slept with and comforted the Edwards, the Georges, the Henrys and Charleses. They tended the Annes and the Marys even, though no issue came from those unions. We, we are of ancient dynasties, as old as this land; worshipped ourselves once as deities – as Goddesses for the people. Look how far we have fallen.

Labour. Heavy, agonising labour courses through me. I vomit between screams, dropping in and out of consciousness. Women – women of child-bearing age with child-bearing hips unlike me stand around, deliberately ignoring my plight, waiting only for the birth.

It begins. Raging. Stinging. Even in my slack, flaccid, well-used tunnel the creature gets stuck. It flails around in my entry, causing us harm. But still I push. Hours; brutal, painful hours later the thing slithers from my blistered hole. Finally, I get some attention.

They take it away, expressionless.

It lived, I understand. You will know better than I if it was a girl or a boy. In your generation, or your descendants’ history books they will talk of this king or that, this princess or prince, waiting in turn to serve on the throne whilst the government bows its head in servitude. You will not hear, or read of the women left to bleed, untended until they die, their purposes served, again and again and again. All you will recognise are the tales, wondrous and heroic of your leaders, the Kings and Queens of England.

There is no Prince Charming. No happy and glorious benefactor reigning over us. There is only dominion; a bloody empire that accepts no blame.

Blame me. Blame my mothers and sisters.

Swear at me, tear at me. Point your fingers in accusation and disgust. But I beg you - not too much.

I had no choice. We did it for you.

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Bio:

Lily Childs is a writer of dark fiction and horror. Her stories have been published in several small press anthologies including Their Dark Masters; Extreme Vampire Horror, Daily Bites of Flesh 2011 and Caught By Darkness. You can read more dark fiction and poetry here on her blog Lily Childs' Feardom, where her demons dance in tutus.

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Sue Harding says it's cold outside - a frosty February Femme Fatale

February Femmes Fatales -
February 15th

Sue Harding has a very mischievous side. Her writing is often tinged with a unique humour, and her second Femmes Fatales piece, Frosty Relations is no exception.

I love the matter-of-fact delivery of this story as it unashamedly details Mandy's gruesome acts, making me laugh out loud.

With no further ado, wrap up warm and turn up the heat...


Frosty Relations by Sue Harding

Mandy couldn’t close the freezer. Each time she tried a hand or foot popped out. Exasperated, she snapped them off.

“Damn you, Kevin,” she thought, “Fighting to the last!”

She slammed the freezer lid down defiantly. It popped up again, just an inch or two. Finally on the third attempt it clicked shut and stayed that way.

She heaved a sigh of satisfied relief and waddled out of the garage and back to the kitchen, defiantly turning the key in the lock as if to underline the fact that Kevin was very much a part of her past.

Frizz, the cat, weaved around her ankles, raising a delicate pink nose and sniffing the air. Her eyes were big and bright as a familiar aroma teased at her nostrils. Mandy bent down and gathered the adoring feline to her more than ample bust, sinking her nose into the black, silky fur.

“Hmmm,” she whispered. “I know you’d like to see Daddy again, but it’s just not going to happen!”

She thought back to the last time. She’d been out to the freezer a few hours later to see how Kevin was doing. A few judicious prods had told her that although the body was cold, it wasn’t quite solid. She’d turned aside to pick up the bucket of ice cubes she’d gathered from the domestic freezer in the kitchen, intending to add them to speed up the process and when she’d straightened up she’d seen that Frizz had found her way into the garage. The cat had jumped up into the open freezer and was gently chewing on one of Kevin’s toes.

Holding the cat closely to her, Mandy walked back into the lounge and sat down. That had been six weeks ago. Kevin, minus the last inch or so of one of his left foot toes, was now much more friable, evidenced by the fact that she’d been able to snap off the offending appendages with relative ease.

She’d been putting off the question of what to do with Kevin’s body for a while now. At least storing him in the freezer had taken care of the odour issue, even if it had been a marathon event to manoeuvre his body down the stairs and haul him into his frigid sarcophagus. She’d surprised herself with what she could do when she put her mind, not to mention her own considerable poundage, to removing him from his initial resting place in the bathroom.

His prone position, with his head down the toilet, had made his demise all the easier to achieve. As he’d been bracing himself with his hands on the rim of the toilet bowl, throwing up the delightful meal she’d spent all day carefully preparing, it was not an arduous task for her to push his head down with the toilet lid and then sit on it.

True, his retaliatory bucking had had made for an uncomfortable ride as she’d tried to maintain a balanced posture but his already weakened state, from the debilitating reaction to the emetics she’d concealed in the spicy cuisine, was combined with the physical crushing on his windpipe and all she had to do was sit tight and wait and try not to breathe through her nose.

Finally dragging his body to the top of the stairs, she’d sunk to her massive haunches and sat down with her back braced to the wall. Pushing for all her worth, her feet made contact with the small of Kevin’s back and forced his body forward over the top step. She’d watched as the momentum carried the dead weight of his body to the foot of the stairs, falling over and over like some strange rag doll, to land in an untidy heap by the front door.

From there to the internal door that opened into the garage, it was a matter of pushing, dragging and rolling until she’d managed to reach the freezer. She’d propped him against the tumble dryer, letting the top half of his torso bend over into semi-repose, whilst she opened the freezer and stared briefly into the icy, cavernous opening. It had given her a few seconds to catch her breath, then she’d grabbed hold of a handful of Kevin’s shirt and propelled him sidewards into the waiting cabinet.

Although the disparity between his lean athletic figure and her more rotund curves had been the spark that had ignited the rift had driven them apart in the first place, she’d been glad that he’d slimmed down. Even if he had suffered some sort of mid-life crisis and found her ample figure less appealing as he’d shed several pounds acquired by her good home cooking, it had at least made the job of moving his body a little easier.

Now, as she sat still stroking Frizz, her thoughts came back to the present. Tracking down his ‘bit on the side’, that skinny girl he’d met at the gym, had been difficult. Only when Mandy had finally cracked Kevin’s password was she able to access his emails and there the full treachery of his betrayal was sordidly set out. It had taken her a full twenty-four hours to regain her composure after reading the cruel things he’d said about her. They were more hurtful, it seemed, than the sleazy details of his affair.

However, this was her only way to ensnare Miss Stick Insect and so she had entered into a fabrication, pretending to be Kevin. With email contact substituting for the real thing she’d had to invent a reason for his physical absence from the gym. That had been easy: Mandy simply detailed the same lie she’d fed to inquisitive neighbours – Kevin had undertaken some short term contract work abroad.

She’d strung Miss Waif-like along for a while before finally reeling her in. Yesterday’s email message had announced Kevin’s arrival back in the UK. It was a simple matter for ‘him’ to arrange a quiet, romantic meal for the two of them, especially as his ‘lard-tub’ of a wife was away visiting the dragon, otherwise known as his mother-in-law. So, he’d meet her at the house and they’d go on from there. Or maybe not, depending on how the mood took them. Mandy physically retched as she typed the last words, full of innuendo.

Miss Stick-thin had arrived on cue and having received no answer to her insistent doorbell ringing, had found the key in the planter by the front door as per Kevin’s instructions.

Mandy had lain in wait, concealing herself awkwardly in the folds of the heavy door –curtain. She savoured the startled look of disbelief that met her cold, hard gaze before despatching her love-rival with one of Kevin’s fitness dumbbells. The smack of weighted rubber making contact with teeth and bone had been like music to Mandy’s ears but it was merely the overture to a lengthy performance. It had reached its crescendo when her fury had abated and she’d looked down at the pulverised and eviscerated flesh that lay at her feet. It resembled well-tenderised steak, with a hint of blonde streaked hair splayed out like a rough halo around what had once been a dainty little face with a charming snub-nose and sensuous lips.

Mandy stroked Frizz again, as she recalled how much easier it had been to remove Miss Rake to her final resting place; she supposed there was something to be said for all this dieting lark. Still, it had been quite difficult making room for her. Manipulating Kevin’s limbs had proved awkward, but she’d finally managed to get the lid closed and then left the garage. It had seemed appropriate to let the two lovers have some time together on their own.

Sitting in the lounge with Frizz purring like a little generator on her lap, she lifted the travel brochure from the coffee table beside her and flicked through the pages. A nice long holiday was what she needed. Somewhere nice and warm. After all, she thought, imagining the icy repository in the garage and its occupants, two’s company and three’s most definitely a crowd.

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Bio:
Sue Harding worked in public libraries for eleven years. Her great joy was introducing customers to new books and authors and also discovering them for herself. Having taken early retirement the intention now is to knuckle down to serious writing. Perhaps one day her colleagues will be shelving her books!

Sue blogs at http://irefusetogoquietly.blogspot.com

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She's back - with a vengeance. A.J. Humpage - February Femme Fatale.

February Femmes Fatales - February 15th

A.J. Humpage's second entry in the Femmes Fatales showcase is a demonic little number, which means it's right up my street. Creepy and chilling, tickling all those raw nerve endings with a wicked, probing fear.

And you know what? I have a theory (actually I have more than one). I think this is Ally's reply, or the opposite side to Pixie J. King's Sleeping Shadows. I've asked them, but like the naughty vixens they are, they ain't tellin'! But whether yay or nay, it works perfectly in its own right.

Let A.J. Humpage take you to bed...

Nocturne by A J Humpage

Kate had always suffered bad dreams, for as long as she could remember. The kind that crept into her consciousness each night, fingering and ripping at her nerves like a dirty, eager demonic whore.

She often dreaded sleep. It brought with it the creature that feasted on her fears and sneered at her like a repellent child.

Hypnagogia, the doctors said. The transitional stage between wakefulness and sleep, and the cause of her strange visions. But despite the medication, she still dreamed about the night demon which breached her mind, mocking and pawing and frightening her.

This night was no different, as the drum of her heartbeat echoed around the room, pulling her deep into sleep. So soft and malleable. Vulnerable. Outside, silhouetted shadows of naked, gnarled branches danced as the wind taunted.

Kate drifted towards an empty blackness.

Movement.

Her bedroom door slowly opened to the shadows in the hallway; they sucked out the warmth and left a slicing chill, but Kate remained in slumber, despite the room growing colder. A teasing stream of vapour coiled into the air as she breathed.

The door wavered as though a soft breeze had swept past. The shadow in the corridor lurched, grew black.

Quiet vibrations undulated beneath the floorboards, crept across the room like a rolling bank of fog. The metal bed frame rattled slightly and then fell silent.

Kate’s eyes fluttered open, the blurred line between consciousness and sleep somewhat jaded. She half-listened for a moment; her mind tuning into the peripheral. Sounds in the conscience.

A creak spilled into the chilly air.

She lifted her head, gazed at the darkened doorway and shuddered at the cold pressing against her skin with steel fingertips. She could have sworn she’d closed the door. She got up and closed the door against the blackness, then returned to bed. She drew the sheet up over her shoulders and settled back into the pillows. Perhaps tonight would be her first nightmare free sleep.

Perhaps.

She drifted.

A stilted, oppressive silence descended like a clammy cloud of vapour, clung to the cold air. The darkness brooded; grew thick with each minute and filled the stairs and hallway as though shrouding something from view.

The bedroom door silently swung wide. Like an invitation.

The dark mass in the hallway slithered forward into the chilled room and oozed towards the bed as though seeking out her warmth.

The trees outside stopped moving. Shadows became still.

The bedcovers moved. The sheet slowly slipped down her body.

The bed creaked. An indentation appeared beside her torso, as though something rested against the mattress.

Kate groaned. Through the fog of sleep, she felt pressure on her back and her eyes immediately opened to the greyness.

A rancid smell instantly drifted up her nostrils and slithered down her throat like a hungry serpent. She retched, opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came; her voice stifled by the entity pressing down on her, pushing her into the bedclothes, forceful, angry.

The pressure on her body increased, sharp nails etched into her back.

Muscles stuttered, but she couldn’t move; nothing would work.

Christ! Help!

The sound of her heartbeat became loud and fast in her ears, and her stomach churned, full with a fearful, bilious torrent; the sickly swell instantly filling her veins and numbing her body further into submission.

The wardrobe doors rattled.

God, how she wanted to scream, but raw terror clawed at shredded nerves; no sound could get past her swollen larynx. Fear fizzled at the back of her mind, inching through broken synapses to fill her conscience with the sickly torrent.

Sounds crept in; low and brooding. She knew the demon from her nightmares had perched on her back with a glib, Faustian grin. Sometimes she could almost hear it laughing. Sometimes she could hear it breathe; the rough rattle of its lungs. She would often smell the fetid scent of death drape over her, smothering her, but she knew it would be over soon; the nightmarish episodes never lasted long...the horror would subside and she would slip into a deep sleep once again.

Something gurgled. The weight shifted on her back.

Lungs depleted and instantly filled with air. The stench receded.

A noise finally seeped into the darkness; her voice broke. She lifted her head, eyes wide as she peered over her shoulder, fearful she might catch a glimpse of a demonic creature, but only a shifting darkness stared back at her.

The pressure gradually eased from her and feeling returned to her limbs. She shot out her arm to grab the lamp on the side table, almost knocked it over. And then, at last, light filled the room, sending the shadows into retreat.

She sat up, eyes adjusting to the glow. She gazed at the door. It lay wide open against the baleful blackness that seemed to be squatting near the stairs. Fear crawled beneath her skin like a parasite.

Had she shut the door? Or had she dreamed she had?

She glanced at the wardrobe. The rattling noises had seemed so real. The sense of the demonic imp crushing her into the bed had seemed real, but she knew they were all in her mind, the soupy residue of near sleep, just gossamer strings of her imaginings and fears.

But curiosity drew her from the bed to the wardrobe. She reached out, heartbeat pulsating in her fingertips as she gripped the handle, momentarily resisting the urge to...

...face her fears...

She opened the doors, sighed at the cluttered space in the wardrobe, cursed. You dreamed it, idiot.

She shut the wardrobe, went to the bathroom to get a glass of water, still muttering.

* * * 

Bereft of her warmth, the air in the bedroom quickly cooled again, laced with an arctic hush. The light dimmed.

The wardrobe door slowly swung open.

The stench of rotten flesh oozed into the ether.

A hunched, spidery shadow smothered the wall, entered her bed.

The daemon patiently awaited her return.

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Bio:
A J Humpage has stories published in many anthologies like 6 Sentences, Pill Hill Press, Static Movement and many e-zines. She also writes articles and dispenses writing advice at http://allwritefictionadvice.blogspot.com. She has completed her first novel and some of her stories and poetry can be found at http://ajhumpage.blogspot.com.

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Jodi MacArthur, Femme Fatale - Will she be your Valentine?

February Femmes Fatales - February 14th

Jodi MacArthur breaks  the rules. No, you know what? - breaking means a conscious decision; Jodi writes - as is.  I wholeheartedly  agree and concur. She spasms in and out of earthly reality, sniggering and teasing with probing words.

Me and Jodi lingered about each others' periphery for a while but it was only last year that I suddenly became afraid I had lost her. Her writing is completely unique. I adore the mythology in her work, imbued as it is with eroticism and wildness, plus an extraordinary delivery, that only she can achieve.

Whether she's pirating on the high seas with her Wicked Woman's Booty or questioning the Gods, Jodi MacArthur's fiction is bliss. I want to own it, possess it, hold it in my hands and flick through its pages. It's coming - uh huh - and I want the first signed copy.

Art is a letter of regret, of accusation. Within it, Jodi MacArthur says what is only right.
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Art by Jodi MacArthur 

*Originally published in Full Of Crow October 2009

Dear Saul,

You have no idea how much I've missed our meetings. And although I can't stand you, can't bear to be with you, somewhere, deep inside, I have this sick obsession with the way your eyes crinkle when you smile, the way your hair flops over your ears when you tilt your head to listen. I'd like to say this isn't difficult, but it is. And I don't even have to tell you for you to know that. You sick puppy.

Do you have any idea what it’s like to feel cut up on the inside as well as the outside? Blood blooms on my wrists as I write. Some call it suicide. I call it art. My masterpiece. Each petal, each thorn carved to perfection.

My last painting on canvas, I’d chosen one word and left it dripping in Sepia. I mixed Scarlett with Serpent-Green and swirled them until the word was invisible. At our meeting, I thought you’d be thrilled. Instead you told me the economy was slow and you’d have to let go of the best. I watched your lips lie to me, like I knew they would. The canvas represented you and I, Saul. Why didn’t you see that? The truth is hidden in lies. That is why I chose the word liar.

The truth, dear Saul, is that you couldn’t afford your wife to find out. She’s sitting on a green inheritance. Remember? You told me last fall while we moved against Merlot sheets and October frost.

You want to cut my commission and trash my work? Fine.

People will remember me. They will remember you. Amongst the thorns and perfect slashes on this canvas of skin, I’ve carved your name. My own life’s paint has sacrificed itself in your name.

You disgraced me. And soon, I suspect, your wife will disgrace you.

All The Best,

Amy
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Bio: 

Jodi MacArthur talks to the cactus on her roof under a full moon and then she writes on skin. She wonders if you’ll lend her yours, you can contact or read more at www.jodimacarthur.blogspot.com

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Something wicked comes with Pixie - Sunday's Femme Fatale

February Femmes Fatales - February 13th

Sleeping Shadows is Pixie J. King's second offering to the February Femmes Fatales showcase, and justifies her status as wordsmith.

Beautiful and disturbing... This is so enjoyable I truly have nothing more to say except that this is what darkness is made of.

Sleeping Shadows By Pixie J. King

I lurk in the shadows, silently wait for you. It’s late, and you’re going to bed. You creep up the stairs in the dark, your breath raspy because the blackness terrifies you. I feed on your fear of the gloom around you. You become weak as I become stronger.

But you turn on the light – I recoil back into the darkness, watching, waiting; my hunger becoming deeper for you.

Slowly I lose my patience as you take an eternity to go to bed, and the light burns my eyes, but the hunger burns deeper, bubbling in my stomach, pulsing through my veins and making me ache.

At last, you switch off the light and retreat to your nest. I smile; I know my patience will be rewarded. The darkness gradually calms the madness in my mind like the slow descent of a feather; my goal is clear.

Like a thick veil protected by the black maw, I creep forward, your warmth feeding me, making me stronger. I will suck out your happiness and your calm demeanour and I will feed on your inner fears.

A thick shaft of moonlight pokes from an open curtain. I move closer to you, careful not to let my stench awaken you. I can see the cool paleness of your skin beneath the glare of the moon, almost like an icy reflection. My grin becomes wider as I weigh up your worth. I listen as you snore gently, with your back turned to me, oblivious. Your soft breathing captivates me, your folly evident. There is something about your manner, the calmness as you sleep, that fascinates the sleeping demon inside me.

I place my hand on your bed. I feel your warmth radiate into my sharpened fingertips. I take a gasp and suck in the cool air as something pleasant sweeps through me. But the impulse grows stronger, the hunger becoming insatiable.

No, I have to control it; the anticipation of the wait will make you stronger...

I move my hand to your shoulder; feeling, judging and pricing you up like a precious commodity. My fingers trace a line up to your neck and I feel your pulse. The dark angel inside is screaming for attention now, a ravishing hunger determined to be fed. My eyes turn to black slits, my senses fire up.

I can feel every pore open and awaken as I lean in and sniff your raw scent. Such innocence...I need to feed.

Drawing in the cloak of darkness which shields me from you, I move onto the bed, and gently climb on top of you, chuckling because you didn’t stir, lost in your slumber, your body paralyzed for me. I see through the gloom, sweep hair from your face, tightening a yellow curl around my finger. Your flushed cheeks look strangely alluring against the whiteness of the covers, like an invitation; I lean forward and plant a kiss, my lips like a brand against your skin, but you don’t revive from your deep slumber, you are locked in a deep sleep and my hot, furry tongue glides across your body.

One claw neatly slices the button from your nightshirt and it opens out, revealing your naked bosom.

I peer at your lips, so plump, so round. They part, ready for me. As my lips meet yours, I take in a deep breath and begin to suck as though ripping the breath from your lungs. I can see a stream of myriad colours emerge from your larynx, bringing up your very existence. I feed my desire, and not just my burning hunger. I can feel your body fight against me, even though hypnotised, I can feel the adrenaline pump around your body; it knows I am pressing you into the covers, stealing you.

I place my hands around your neck and squeeze as I climb right into you, desire and death entwined, feeling the life drain from your body until you quiver one last time, and I am satiated.

But I am never truly satisfied, never happy. I’m constantly hungry, constantly filled with lust, I constantly want.

I slink back into the shadows, wipe your juice from my mouth and body.

I am Incubus, and I’m coming for you.

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Bio:

Pixie is a 16 year old student who is trying to balance writing with her college work. She is a full member Fictioneer. Pixie’s work can be found at http://theworksofpixiejking.blogspot.com

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