My Dark Beloved - onc 2023 Ambassadors Pick-Longlisted

.5

The last of the patrons left an hour ago and Jeremiah, after handing me my third Absolute and telling me I really need to go home soon, excused himself to the backroom to stack the shelves with a new shipment of beer.

My ashen-haired beauty's fingers are tangled in my hair. Their fingers are water serpents weaving through reeds.

My gaze drifts to their eyes. I let myself be pulled under. I feel like that time I told Lux I could stay underwater for three minutes and nearly drowned.

I watch the way they lick their lower lip and everything I have ever known I forget. If they were to lie to me now, I'd believe it. Is the sky green? Of course. Do you love me? Absolutely. I'm hooked something bad. They are more than a flame, they are a fucking inferno – a tempest, the stars above and ground below. I'll send out no SOS. If I'm going to be swallowed by their sea, so be it. I'll let them corrupt me.

"I want to know everything about you," I say. Gawd, I want to tell Lux about them. Hell, I want to brag.

They are standing so close to me, we may as well be one person.

"You don't need to know anything other than the fact that I'm here and into you." Their voice is a melody. Some goddamn symphony created solely for me. They push their glass away and drink me with their eyes. "And I'm about two minutes from going down on you. We both know we're going to eventually end up having sex in some vulgar place."

My heart pounds. The mortal side of me is uncontrollable. I reach out to graze my fingers along their mouth, but I stop. I contain myself. Inside, an animal rages, and the vampire in me reminds me they are a vessel full of delicious blood. "Jer would kick us out. I'd be banned. But right now, the way you're looking at me, I'd risk it. Come on," I say, "Give me something before we end up in bed."

"I will tell you who I am."

I listen carefully. I want to drink in everything that drips from their lips. "Go on."

"I am a cage, in search of a bird."

On my tongue, I taste the harshness of the vodka and whatever is left of their kiss. "You don't look like Franz Kafka."

They bring their lips to my ear. Their hip presses against my dick. "Who do I look like?"

God. Fucking. Damn. I swallow a mouthful of saliva that's pooled around my teeth. "You look like everything I ever wanted."

"A dream?" I feel the tips of their fingers trailing over my hard-on.

"Yeah," I gasp. I'm dying. "And I don't get dreams. I only get shipwrecks."

Outside, the snow falls in absolute confusion. Flakes drop from the sky, burst upwards from the ground, and swirl in miniature tornadoes.

This desire threatens to make me its bitch. "What's your name? I'm Elio Starling."

Their tongue touches my neck, soft and warm and slow and moving upwards – holy hell – it curls around my earlobe before their mouth sucks the tiny bit of flesh in and they softly bite.

"Zillah." They pull back. "No last name...little bird." Their body is too far away but their hand lingers where it shouldn't (oh, who am I kidding? It fucking should be there!).

I can't feel my legs. "Zillah. That's a wicked name for a girl –"

"Or a boy."

Right now, I don't care if they are a pod person under that glorious flesh. "What do you do?"

"Nothing of grand importance."

The room sizzles and the lights dim. "What do you want?"

"I want to bleed your soul dry and mangle your mind, my little bird."

I should have taken their words as a warning, but for me it was foreplay. Some might say they – Zillah – was waving a damned red flag in front of my face, but I've always been drawn to danger. You see, the problem with red flags is that I'm attracted to them. "Violent delights," I whisper.

Zillah smiles.

"Wanna come home with me?" I will sneak Zillah in. Not share a single inch of them with Lux. At least not yet...or maybe never. But I will brag.

Zillah shakes their head and slips into a white fox-fur collared jacket. "Meet me tomorrow at midnight. At the corner. I don't want to come in here. That bartender gives me the creeps." When I hesitate they touch my arm. "Corner, OK? I'll give you what you need then."

"You know what I need?"

Zillah nods and looks toward the window. The sky is pink. "Yes. I know exactly what you need, Elio."

Before I can tell Zillah I don't want them to go, before I can beg them to stay, they blow me a kiss and head out into the hungry maw of the storm.

Words: 828