Unbecoming
You’re looking at me while I stab at my eggs, letting the runny yolk bleed all over my plate. “What?”
Your brows furrow. “Are you scared of me?”
I look up from my breakfast, surprised. Only to blush and look back down at it. I watch the yolk ooze and wind like a river through my potatoes, leaving a glossy shine in its wake. “Why do you ask?”
You mash your food with your fork, pushing it around until it’s a mangled mess. “Because you said that you loved me.”
I nod. “I do.” I love everything about you. The softness of your skin. The strength of your embrace. Your curiosity and candor.
“Those two things can’t be true.”
I look up at you, past your talons, past your horns, past your pointed teeth that dig into your soft lips, meeting your glittering red gaze that stares into my very soul.
Says who?
* * *
I look around, feeling a little dazed. I know this place. It’s the cemetery I pass on my way to work every morning.
But it’s the middle of the night.
What am I doing here?
“You know the answer to that.”
Turning around at that, I rub my chest. I know that voice. In my soul, I recognize it.
I feel you, like a prickle along my spine, as you move in the darkness. I spin, trying to track you, even though I know I can’t.
You are shadow. You are night. If you hide within them, I’ll never find you.
“Do you want to find me?”
I swear I feel your breath, hot and hungry, on the back of my neck but, when I look, you’re not there. I feel the sharp caress of your claws against my arm, my back, my hips, my thighs. But no matter where I look, you’re gone.
“Where are you?” My heart races and my breathing shallows. My head feels dizzy and I trip. As I fall, the scent of earth surrounds me, engulfs me. I land hard, the loose earth giving way beneath me. Struggling, my hands fist in it as I push myself up.
I scuttle back, when I see something slither through the ground. It snakes out and wraps itself around my ankle. I can feel the tree root, rough and strong, as it twines around my leg, pulling me down into the dirt. Another reaches out and twists around my wrist. I flail, trying to escape, but a bony hand plunges out from the earth and grabs my other ankle while another more fleshy one grips my other wrist. Stretched taut against the ground, I’m trapped. Helpless, I look up.
There you are. My beautiful Nightmare. Framed by the grave’s mouth, you stand above me with your hands on your hips. “This is what scares you.” You study me, your red eyes glittering in the dark. “Death.”
You jump down with a balletic grace and land with your knees straddling my waist and your hands spread on either side of my head. Your body, so soft and so strong, over mine, holding me down. You’re smaller than me, almost fragile-looking, but the weight of you on my chest is overwhelming. I feel crushed as my lungs struggle to pull in enough air.
Your face hovers over mine, searching my expression. “No.” You lean in, tucking your face into the crook of my neck, letting me feel the threat of your teeth and horns, and inhale me. “Not quite.” Your tongue flicks out, tasting my fear, my anticipation. “Most people fear dying.” You sit up, settling your weight on my chest. “The pain of it.” Tucking a claw beneath the collar of my shirt, you slice through the cloth before ripping it down the middle. “But not you.” I feel sweat bead on my forehead, imagining what those claws and hands could do to flesh instead of fabric. “You fear the vastness of death. The all-consuming end.”
My breath catches and my body stiffens. The way you say that, the ineffable inevitability of it, falls like divine judgment onto me — echoes through me — and instinctively makes me tense, like some part of me knows what’s coming.
You lean in and whisper into my ear, “This is a dream.” You lick my ear almost tenderly. “You are dreaming.”
I think I knew that. From the start, this all felt too vibrant, too surreal to be waking life. I take a deep breath. I try to keep that thought in my head without thinking about it too much. My mind needs to accept it, but not so much that it ruins the lucid dream. Like a sturdy frame encasing a masterpiece so grand it stuns the soul. I nod.
You nibble the shell of my ear gently, the touch familiar and comforting. Grounding. “What do you do, if you want it to end?”
I swallow. I know this. We’ve practiced this. “I think, ‘I want to—’”
You bite my ear hard enough to cut me off. “Good.” You sit back up, your weight shifting over me. “What you fear most is losing yourself. Of becoming nothing.”
Meeting my gaze, you lick your long, sharp claw. “Of unbecoming you.”
I scream as you pierce my chest with that claw. Not because it hurts. It doesn’t. Not the way waking pain does. It feels… wrong, viscerally so, like the brittle feel of my brain breaking. My heart pounds as my body riots beneath you, but I can’t move beyond a useless struggle. My cries are torn from my throat as you slice me open. I’m terrified to look, afraid I’ll see blood and organs spilling out.
Instead, all I see is nothingness.
My voice breaks as I gasp for air. You split me from navel to neck, your blade-like fingers cutting through skin, flesh, and bone, to reveal an endless abyss, an eternity of gaping black, within me.
I try to yell as you pull me apart, to wade your fingers inside me, those long tips disappearing into the emptiness, but I can’t as the edges of your cut climb to tear my throat open like a seam.
Then I see it. The slightest flicker in your fathomless eyes. Like fear and revulsion as you stare down at what you’ve done.
I’m a monster.
You don’t say it. Your lips, crimson and parted around your fangs, never move, but I can hear your voice — the painful, soulful surety of it — like a scream. I can feel the words spilling, slimy and thick, from your soul like a wound that refuses to heal. You should fear me. Hate me. Run as far and fast as you can from me.
Like everyone else has. Like you’ve learned people always will. Like I know a part of you — no matter what I say or do — is always waiting for me to do.
But I haven’t. And do not plan to. I surge up, begging your gaze to meet mine. To see what I see reflected in my eyes. You. Powerful. Inescapable. Overwhelming. I want you to see what you do to me.
I know you think I’m scared. And I am. But not of you. Not with you.
You look at me and those luscious lips quiver with a wavering want too wary to hope. I feel the world, formed and maintained by your will, begin to quake as it threatens to break. I keep my gaze steady, praying it reaches you. “Don’t stop.”
You blink. As if waking from a dream. I see the memory of us — each kiss, each touch, every word and act and moment we’ve shared — wrap around you, reminding you that I am not everyone else. And here, held in your world, in your grip, I am not running. I am here. With you.
Be with me. I fill myself with the words, begging they find their way to you in the dark. Please.
You swallow. Then nod. Letting yourself trust in me. In yourself. In us. Your other hand reaches down between us and shoves my pants down just enough to free my dick. It’s hard. I feel my face flush hotly as you murmur and stroke it.
I don’t know why I’m like this. Why feeling out of control, pushed to the very edge, is so thrilling. Why being stripped of my reason, my sanity, my very sense of self, makes me feel alive. Like you said, you are not bringing me closer to myself. You are tearing me away to reveal… I don’t know what.
But a part of me really wants to. You may be a monster, but there is something monstrous in me that only you can touch. Find it. Own it. It is — has always been and will eternally be — yours.
So, when you slide my cock inside your wet sex, I soundlessly moan, my body arching up into you, even as your other hand — your wrist and arm — sink deeper into the chasm of my chest. I swear I hear my bones crack as you thrust your other hand inside me, opening my chest like some secret door.
Then you ride me. Your hips are merciless, pounding into mine, even as more of you pushes further into me. I look down. My rib cage almost frames you like a huge maw, devouring you as you writhe over me. It is terrifying. And awesome.
It reminds me of ancient sculptures and paintings, where gods of creation and destruction clashed. As heat and pleasure, disorder and horror, boil and bubble through me, I throw my head back and silently howl. I feel you everywhere, your pussy clenching me inside your incredible heat and your hands fisted somewhere within the heart of me, and it is almost too much.
My body stiffens as my climax unbearably builds. I feel my limbs begin to tear at the strain as that hole inside of me threatens to become the whole of me. Listening to you pant and moan over me, pushing me feverishly further, I feel as if a single twitch or tick from my body could shatter me, tearing me irrevocably apart.
Bitter fear blooms on my tongue, and those words — those magic words — threaten just on the edge of my thoughts.
I want to wake u—
But then I hear you groan, the sound drowning out even the memory of the words. Your sex squeezes mine as your body arches, still undulating over mine. And I can only watch as ecstasy washes over you and the world narrows to all the places — all the inconceivable, sanity-bending ways — we connect.
I follow you. As I always do. Always will do. Releasing all my overwhelming vastness into you with a moan that feels like wordless worship.
* * *
As I blink my eyes open, I feel you holding me close, your arms so tight around my chest as if you’re holding me together. Your head is tucked into my neck, making your horns jab my pillow.
About to sigh contentedly, ready to shake my too tense body into relaxed sleep, I pause when I feel wetness on my neck. My brow furrows and I try to turn so I can see your face. But you cling tighter, hiding yourself against my flesh. I frown. “What is it?”
You’re quiet long enough for me to worry. If something went wrong. If I’d done something wrong. But, when you do speak, your words are muffled into my throat. “Are you scared of me?”
I swallow hard. “Yes.” I can’t lie, not with your tears on my skin and the scent of our sex in the air.
I feel your grip on me loosen and, for a moment, I am terrified you’re about to leave.
Panicked, I roll us over so I’m straddling you, holding you down by your wrists. You’re so small, I worry I’m crushing you. I look into your eyes — that have seen into my soul and witnessed the worst and weakest parts of me — and they look afraid.
Of me.
You shake your head, your tousled hair whipping around your horns. “You can’t love someone who scares you.”
That’s your fear. The unraveling of us. You are terror. You are humanity’s collected fears. And you’ve been taught that that makes you unlovable. That you are destined to be forever alone.
But you’re not.
Even in my worst dream, my most frightening horror, you are there with me. I can face my fear, can sink into and surrender to them, because I know you’re always there beside me. You would never leave me alone in the dark. I stroke your hair from your tear-streaked face, feeling my heart clench. How could you ever think I would leave you?
I stare down at you. My beautiful Nightmare. Who is always strong enough to let me be weak. Who slips inside me in a way no one ever has or could. My grip on your wrists tighten before I lean down and kiss your wet lips. You’re so sure, have been told so many times by so many people, that no one could be scared of you and love you at the same time. But what in the literal Hell do they know? I press my forehead to yours and stare into you, letting you see the strength and conviction of my feelings for you. “Watch me.”
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