Matched Set

[This is my first draft at this story. It doesn't really have an ending yet, but I am just looking for feedback. Thanks for any comments.]


         Murky heat crowded my fingers as I touched the face of the soft young thing that followed me into the ally. She was smiling. Pale blond hair floated around the peachy skin of an adorable round face. I took her hand as she tried to move seductively. Tilting her hips toward me, arching backwards. She worked hard to make her thin, curve-less body alluring. I smirked. She flipped her hair and smiled wider, thinking her efforts were working. I almost laughed in her face. Sweat posed as jewels on her arms and neck as she worked her underdeveloped body. She whispered some nonsense into my ear, an invitation maybe or an attempt at verbal seduction. As she spoke, I backed her into the rough, grimy wall. I felt her body tense on impact but she tried to relax. She must of thought I would be one of her frat girl fantasies—sex in a European ally with a handsome stranger. She likely imagined we would meet again in daylight and have a whirlwind romance. I scoffed as she tried to climb my larger frame.
         “Tell me your name,” she whispered. Her overlarge eyes angled at me in a way that probably destroyed other men. I felt my smirk grow a predatory edge. Her hackles were up, but she could not reason how to extract herself from the situation. I ran my hand down her side to feel no tits, no hips. I knew if I felt around, there would be no ass to speak of. No matter. Her repression, her innocence was what I really needed. She was an infant playing a woman’s game. She would be delicious. Even her perspiration smelled like naiveté. Her skin was tightening as I did nothing more than breathe heavily on her neck and ear, pressing her harder and harder into the wall. The brick scraped her skin as she tried to slide away.
         “Tell me you want me,” I chuckled.
         “I—let me go,” her soft voice quivered as she stretched for some ounce of power. None was available to her.
         “No.”
         Her mouth open to scream and I closed my lips over hers. My teeth smashed through her tongue and blood poured into my mouth. Something else, something better followed. I inhaled with more than my lungs, swallowing everything she had to give. She truly struggled now, thrashing about, making gurgling noises as her lungs shriveled. My smile opened as my teeth flattened into a passably human shape, and her body dropped messily to the ground. I was full. Not near my stomach the way my human mother always described. No organ inside of me was overflowing with sustenance. I shivered with the feeling as I arranged the body to look like a messy mugging. Happened all the time in these bars off of La Rambla. No one would even blink. Pleased with my work, I pulled open the back door of the club and returned to my night.
         The dark, humid alley gave way to forced cool air and blinding lights. I pulled a handkerchief out of my jeans pocket and wiped my mouth of any excess blood. Scanning the room one last time, I decided to make my exit. I tried to weave across the dance floor, but I felt a fingers brush my bicep. I turned letting my wolfish smile grow. I would have another delicious meal tonight. Huge green eyes stopped my grin in its track. They were pleading and angry.
         “You have to stop this.” The whisper somehow reached my ears over the pounding bass.
         I laughed and leaned closer, failing to reinstate any sense of sex appeal. Something about this girl was off. “Darlin’, I’m not too sure what you’re talking about?”
         The anger in her eyes just grew. “Please. Stop.” I could more than hear her anguish. I could feel it, like I felt the life filling me back in the alley and countless other times. This girl’s will pressed on my skin, begging entrance. I had never tasted anger before nor was I interested. Ripping my arm from her grip, I stumbled toward the door. My harsh pushing garnered more attention than I wanted, but it got the job done. I was out the door before I could consider what had just happened.
         She felt like me. Maybe I wasn’t alone. Maybe there are other things like me, that could do I did. The thought stopped me. I almost went back to find her. What if she could teach me how to do it more, how to kill better. I shook my head violently. There would be no macabre lessons on stalking prey. I couldn’t even allow the sentimental notion to form. I was alone, born something less than human and it would forever be that way. I ran through the twisting alleyways toward the city center where I could pay for a night in any small hostel and get out of this hot, dirty city in the morning. I stopped again. She was closer than I thought. I, actually, hadn’t noticed she was following me. This was bad.
         “Listen to me” Again not louder than a whisper, but I still wanted to cover my ears.
         “Why? Where are you?” I screamed, unable to reign in my panic. I was never the prey.
         “You don’t need to worry about me. I won’t hurt you.” She stepped out of the shadows, much smaller than I remembered. She stood no taller than five feet with a dark, slim body. She looked like any woman that I would lure into this situation. “And you cannot feed on me.” She said with a smile. “You cannot feed for quite sometime if you want to live.”
         I laughed outright. Didn’t she get it? I watched everyone I know die. I just wasn’t going to. I opened my mouth to say so, but she shook her head.
         “I have said all I can. Stop or die, Austin Reinert. Stop or die.” And she vanished.
         I stood staring at where she had been for close to five minutes, then I burst into laughter.
         “Stop or die” I shouted to myself in a mock spooky voice. “Stop. Or. Die!” I strolled home chuckling. I had to be dreaming.