Jack pushed open the wooden doors of the bookstore and peered inside. Bookcases filled the empty spaces, except for clearing filled with barely comfortable chairs and tables that saw better days decades before. The warm, comfortable smell of musty books and weighted thoughts filled the entire store, along with the undercurrents of incense and leather. He smiled and continued through the door.
Behind the counter, the store owner waved to him as she cradled a phone on her shoulder. Her voice, a distinctive burr, teased his senses, but it felt muted and distant, like much of his other senses. Jack felt the door open behind him and he automatically stepped forward to let the next person in. At the same time, he turned with curiosity.
The woman was in her mid-thirties, with jet-black hair and a smile that made him almost wish he was capable of just enjoying appearances. Her hips were wide, which made the slight bulge of her tummy look somehow perfect for her proportions. He realized his eyes were traveling up her body and he forced them to jump into her eyes. Warm and brown. He found himself smiling and she smiled back, a tiny sparkle of interest dancing on his skin as she looked at him, then slipped around to head into the back of the store. Jack let out a deep breath, enjoying the feel of interest as it slithered through his veins, like a drug.
He opened his eyes and caught his reflection. Even the afterglow of a single smile could only mute the reflection he saw in the glass door. Jack was heavy, bordering on that line of being too large and having his stomach no longer able to support itself. His head had a few fringes of hair, except where the large and unsightly bald spot haunted him. He frowned and rubbed his hand through his hair, looking away from the reflection in disgust.
The store owner, Wendy, gave him a smile but there was no passion, no interest in it. He felt cold from her, distant from the passions in her heart. With a fake smile of his own, he headed into the back of the store, fingers stretching out to trail along paperback bindings and wooden shelves.
In the back, through a pair of tiny doors, a small coffee shop was set up between the poetry and the reference sections. The New Age books dominated the corner with promises of love, magic, and astrology while the Christan section promised the same, in a different manner. Jack trailed over to the poetry, his heart aching as he fingered the bindings and books. At random, he pulled out one and cracked it open, peering down the page. He could read the words, he could understand them, but he almost cried with the effort to feel them.
He couldn’t feel the passion.
As he read, a prickling filled his back. Slowly, he pressed one finger against the book and turned around to look into the coffee shop. There were only four people, the woman who entered, another girl dressed up as a goth, and two guys. The first was gay, judging from the poetry he read, while the other was seeking something through words. Jack’s eyes scanned all four and saw the goth girl’s eyes peeking at him through the dark rings of her makeup. As his eyes settled on her, he could feel the first swirling of sexual interest rising up in her, a prickling along his skin. He felt it in his body, feeding a gnawing hunger that consumed him, day and night. He felt a shiver deep inside and forced himself to look away, unwilling to ruin the tiny essence that fed him.
His eyes glanced down to the book and saw his finger twisting in a manner that no mortal man could do. Frightened, he concentrated on it, whispering words he learned almost ten years before, given by a lover who no longer wanted him. His finger resisted, twisting almost twice over before it relaxed, returning to the position God gave all men. As he regained control over his digit, he realized that the interest from the goth girl was gone.
Not wanting to turn, he did anyways, to peek at her. Instead of the growing interest, there was only fear in her eyes. Jack groaned to himself, she saw him whispering or even saw his finger. It didn’t matter anymore, there was no passion left for him.
Dejected, he closed the book carefully and returned it to the shelf with a sigh. He walked over to the counter to brew himself a cappuccino, dropping five dollars in the jar. As he worked, the gay man joined him.
“Mind making me one?”
“Sure, Tom, I’ll be glad to.”
Jack let himself be caught in his thoughts as he ground the coffee and brewed it. As he steamed the milk, he felt Tom’s interest in him rising, just a delicate, hesitating taste of emotion, feeding him. Jack felt his hand shaking as he poured the brewed coffee into the cup and turned around. Holding it with both hands, not feeling the searing heat, he offered it to Tom who smiled broadly at him and sent an incredible bolt of delicate emotions into Jack.
Tom’s passion, his sexual interest, always felt like a smooth hard liquor, clear but intense. Jack shuddered softly as he felt it filling him for a brief moment with its clarity, then fading away as his spirit consumed it. Tom, just saw the shudder and smiled again, sending another bolt through Jack.
“So, going to read poetry tonight, Jack?”
Jack felt the afterglow of sexual though through his body, but shook his head.
“No poetry.”
“Why not? You come every week, rain or shine. You never read but I know you like it. What do you get out of poetry night?”
“Passion.”
Tom’s interest rose with an arched eyebrow and Jack felt himself hungering for it, a gnawing, desperate ache to take that emotion, to swallow it like a human would feed. He wanted so badly to feed his hunger that mere food could never sate. Instead, he shrugged and forced himself not to reach for it. In the past, Tom always shied away at the last moment, the point where the monster almost escaped its mortal shell.
Jack forced himself to smile warmly, “I love those who can feel it, write about it. For me… it’s just words on a page. But, when spoken, I can almost reach out and touch it. For a brief moment, I can feel it.”
“Cool, why don’t you write about that then?”
Chuckling, Jack shook his head, “I’ll stick to making coffee and listening. My words are flat as is the passion inside me.”
Tom stepped slightly closer, a dance they both knew well. “So, why don’t you do something about it?”
Jack followed his line, “Offering?”
For a moment, Tom hesitated, the passion rising up in both of them but only coming from the gay man. Then, it sputtered as fear of commitment surged up in Tom, an emotion that Jack couldn’t feed off. No words needed, Jack slipped away and left the man standing there, trying to find the words to say no.
Taking his drink, he slipped into the furthest chair and sat down heavily. The metal frame creaked for a moment, then settled down. From the opening of the café, Wendy rushed in.
“Time to start tonight’s poetry reading!”
With only six people in the room, it didn’t take long to get everyone sitting down and silent. Wendy took up her place right next to the counter and beamed out at everyone.
“Well, well, well. We have a newcomer today.” She looked at the black-haired woman. The woman bowed her head and Wendy tsked softly.
“Don’t be shy, most of us show up every week, without fail. Would you like to go first or just watch how other’s do it.”
The new woman blushed a bright red, “Uh… maybe last?”
Wendy laughed, “Don’t worry, soon you’ll be fighting for the top. Tom, why don’t you go first.”
Tom hopped up and stood next to Wendy. The older woman gestured to him. “This is Tom, he’s a sweetie but you are probably the wrong gender for him.”
The gay man shook his head, “Wendy…”
Wendy ignored him, “The pretty goth girl is Cheryl, but I couldn’t tell you how to spell it. The man in the button-down shirt is Chris, he loved the descriptive poems, and the man in the corner is Jack.”
No description, nothing. The raven-haired woman peered around, trying to be friendly. She stopped at Jack and he felt the delicious rise of a hint of interest, but it faded quickly as Tom began to read a poem. It was a piece filled with descriptions, but little passion. Jack couldn’t feel it as the words came across his senses. Cheryl came up next, but her poem was filled with a dark passion that rose up from the room, teasing Jack’s spectral senses. He felt his spirit rising up with it, drawing it into his body, feeding off it. The dark afterglow left him trembling as the next poem came.
They came faster, as soon as one finished a new one would stand up and speak. The new woman finally found the courage and rose up and padded into the front. An expected silence filled the tiny café, as they watched her.
“Um… my name is Phyllis… and… well, I’m new to the area. I moved in from San Fransisco where I used to go through the poetry circles most nights. But, moving here, I found out that there really isn’t any place. Then a friend… well, she told me about this place and I had to try it out.”
Wendy burbled up from her seat, “Well, I can’t wait to see what you have.”
Phyllis cleared her throat, “This is… um.. called ‘Midnight Lover.’”
After a false start, she started to read. It started slow, but built up and Jack felt the passion rising up from her body, a heated mist of new sensations, delicate and powerful and growing stronger with each word. Sexuality mixed in with metaphors and he almost moaned as he felt raw intensity pouring into his veins, feeding the beast. Around him, the passion rose up from the others, even Tom, as they felt her words and their imaginations ran. Jack’s lips parted as he felt the sexual needs rising up, a soup of emotions that he could and did feed from, trying to sate a hunger from too long before.
Too soon, the poem ended and the afterglow faded with a thunderous applause. Jack enjoyed it despite the fact he just wanted to cling to the fading threads of emotions that sustained him. Phyllis blushed deeply and sat down, curls of sexual excitement rolling off her body, teasing Jack.
More poems came, some bland and some with passion, until Jack saw Phyllis standing up again. She came to the front and the others watched her with rapt fascination. She read another piece, “Summer’s Gone,” and once again Jack felt consumed by the incredible emotions that filled him and the room. Sexuality rose and he could feel almost everyone matching the passion with parted lips and hushed breaths. He felt it deep inside, the indescribable pleasures of being able to eat after years of starvation.
It rose up, like an orgasm, inside him and he gasped loudly. Instead of a wave of pleasure, he felt a terrible twisting in his gut. Fear poured into him as he realized his body was reacting, his hidden side twisting to escape, to break free of the mortal shell and take everyone in the room, a primal, inescapable urge to feed.
Biting his lip, he almost threw himself out of his chair and out of the café. The passion still burned through his veins as he felt his stomach bulging, a thick cable of some animated organ pushing against the inner walls. He whimpered and found a corner, whispering the words he remembered over and over again. Tears dripping down his face, green and translucent as his body fought against itself, coils of his natural form twisting and pushing out, deforming his body in an attempt to escape.
Time slowed as he felt every twist, the desperate need to cast away his disguise, to break free of his self-inflicted confinement of a decade. Then, the words began to work and his insides retreated back into the depths of his gut and body, smoothing over his skin. Sweat dappled his brow and he used his sleeve to pat it dry.
“J-Jack, is everything okay?”
It was Phyllis. He felt his body starting to rise up, but the shadow of a spell that contained him handled it. Slowly, he turned around and nodded.
“Yeah… it… it was too much.”
There was concern in her eyes as she reached out with a hand, “Bad food?”
Jack shied away from her, “No… your poetry.”
At the sight of her expression, of a sudden storm of being hurt, he shook his head, “No, no! Your poetry is good!”
She paused, hesitant. He bit his lip and tried again.
“In fact, too good. It… woke things up inside me that didn’t want to be woken.”
Phyllis was obviously confused, but Jack couldn’t explain. He gestured helplessly.
“I-I can’t really explain it. All I can say is, you are the best poet I’ve heard in years, maybe decades.”
She flushed under the compliment, then glanced at her watch.
“Uh… thank you. But, I have to run, I have to get up early tomorrow.”
She turned and walked away. Jack stared at her, admiring her ass and hips and movement for a moment before he called out.
“Uh… Phyllis?”
Stopping, she turned around. “Yes?”
“I… I…” He wanted to ask her out, but he already knew he couldn’t control herself. “Will you be back?”
A slow smile crossed her lips and she nodded.
“Next week.”
“Great.”
As she left, Jack shook his head. “Idiot. You’ve seduced thousands of men and women in your life, why can’t you talk to just one girl?”
No answer came, but he was glad he didn’t hear one. He didn’t need to add voices to his list of growing problems in life. Instead, he rubbed a hand through his bald spot and returned to the poetry. Wendy gave him a hard glare as he sat down, but he ignored it.
The reading went on for another half-hour, filled with delicate and tender passions, but nothing compared to Phyllis’ words. He enjoyed them because he was finally sated, fed on the emotions of sex and passion. Fed for the first time in years.
Jack just smiled.
He was the second-to-last to leave the bookstore. Wendy stopped him at the counter with her hard look.
“Don’t chase her away, Jack.”
Jack gave her a mild stare of his own.
“I never try to scare them away.”
“Yet you do.”
Nodding slowly, Jack couldn’t disagree.
“I don’t mean to, Wendy, it just ends up my nature.”
Wendy sighed with a slight growl, “I hate to say this, Jack, but I don’t want you back.”
“Pardon?”
“You, I don’t want you back at my poetry night. There is… something about you I don’t like. You are a predator, Jack, and I don’t like that.”
She was right but Jack couldn’t disagree. One more venue, the last one he enjoyed, for feeding was being banned from him and he couldn’t find the energy to resist. He closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and opened them to stare at Wendy.
“Then I shall fade away, Wendy.”
“I don’t care. Don’t come back.”
It was like signing his own death order, death by starvation, but Jack understood.
“I won’t.”
Outside, Jack suddenly felt the need not to go home, to the little hole in a wall he called an apartment. So, he picked a random direction and walked down it. Outside, a faint drizzle filled the streets, leaving everything slick and wet. The smell of garbage, urine, and smog rose up around him, mixing in with his own dark thoughts. On both sides of the road, stores turned to houses then into boarded-up houses. The derelicts and skeletons of a once thriving city stood above him, mute and brooding. He didn’t notice as he followed one street, then another.
His thoughts were interrupted when someone shoved a gun into his chest and spoke through vodka-stained breath.
“Your wallet and your phone!”
Stunned, Jack continued walking automatically until the robber punched him hard in the stomach. Though he barely felt it, Jack stepped back twice, finally seeing his assailant clearly. It was a white man, maybe in his thirties, with a rough beard. The smell of sex was strong on him and Jack could feel a rush of sexual power rising up from him. After years of knowing that emotion, he could tell that his robber just took advantage of someone, a rapist. Even the dark and violent emotions from his robber could feed him and he drank in the sensations and intensity, letting it filter through his veins as he contemplated his next move.
The robber waved the gun in his face, repeating his demand. Jack looked at the gun impassively, seeing nothing that would or could truly hurt him. Slowly, he savored the fading sexual glow of a predator and looked deeply into the dazed man. A faint curl crossed Jack’s lips as he watched the high from the rapist fade away, drained by the monster that is Jack.
As the last excitement drained out of the rapist, Jack finally spoke.
“No.”
“Huh?” The robber froze, stunned as he tried to handle a sudden feeling of being drained with the denial of his victim. “What do you mean?”
Jack sighed, “You won’t hurt me, so just get out of my way.”
“Oh yeah!?” The rapist tried to bully him, but Jack just looked around, trying to find the source of his victim. In one of the abandoned buildings to his right, he felt more than heard, the cries of a woman being raped, the hard violent energies that called out to his inner beast. Deep inside, he felt his insides starting to respond, twisting and pulling, getting ready to burst out of his mortal disguise.
The sound of the shot cracked through the air and he felt the bullet punch through his stomach and out his back. Like most bullets, he barely twitched as it exited his body and he turned slowly to face his robber. Inside, he could feel his insides starting to tingle, depleting his precious energy supply to regenerate the minor wounds the projectile left.
The robber gasped, staring in shock at Jack. Jack just shook his head.
“That was stupid.”
Jack’s hand snapped up and grabbed the robber’s face. His disguise started to break as his fingers stretched out, wrapping around the man’s head as his muscles bunched up, lifting the entire man completely off the ground. The gun fired twice more, missing once. Jack shuddered from the bullet, but his body was already healing rapidly.
Jack threw the robber aside. The body flung into the air, crashing into a brick wall and falling limply to the ground. The echo of a broken bone rang out thorough the street, but Jack was already walking toward the energies of the rape in progress. As he walked, he shook his hand and the fingers slide back into place.
His shoes rapped against the stairs up to the building and he forced his face into an impassive expression. Inside, the rape continued and he decided he wanted to join it, to take the woman as the monster he was and feed fully. It was the first time he considered it in many years, the first time he actually wanted to rape again.
Testing the door, he realized it was locked. Shaking his head, he considered looking for the proper entrance, then decided that he wanted to feed again and the rape was calling to him, a lure for a monster.
Shaking the door, he felt where a dead-bolt kept it locked. He pressed his smallest finger against the lock opening. The digit stretched out, thinning as it wormed its way into the lock. He felt the various pins and tumblers. With a deft gesture, he guided his flexible finger to hold them in position as he turned it, unlocking the door in a few seconds.
Pulling his hand back, he watched as his finger ceased to be a tendril and returned to the normal finger shape he used for the last decade. He tried the door again and this time it opened up.
Smells of urine and rotted wood swamped his senses as he stepped forward. A dull light at the end of the hall and the sounds of squeaking gave him a goal and he stepped down the hall, wary for anything. As he drew closer, the wash of energy from the room almost blinded him, sending a growl of hunger through his insides as he stepped in front of the door and looked inside.
There were six men in there, one of them kneeling between the outstretched legs of a woman. A stained mattress squeaked with every movement as the man raped his victim. Jack could see him grabbing both of her breasts, squeezing the bruised flesh as he pounded in and out with wet, slurping noises. Jack’s body groaned in desire as he felt raw sexual power filling the room. He let himself feed on it until he grew almost delirious with the energy of the rape.
The other five were smoking and watching the scene with various expressions of rapists enjoying an afterglow on their faces. Jack looked at each one, then stepped into the room.
His sudden appearance gave him a few moments and he stepped forward again, to look a the victim of the rape. At the first look at her, he froze. Her appearance was starkly different from when she was reading poetry in the bookstore. A leather belt wrapped around her face, acting as a make-shift gag. Tears poured down her bruised and bloody face. One side was swollen almost twice as large, but that didn’t stop the man as he drove his cock in and out of her leaking sex. Her wrists and legs were tied down with short lengths of rope.
She thrashed as the man drove in, then froze as she looked into his eyes. The pleading look was intense, a bitter reminder of the thousands of other gazes he saw over the years.
This one was different.
At that moment, Jack felt something deep inside snap, an unfamiliar emotion bursting out of what he called a heart. The taste of the rape faded into ash and his veins surged with the need to free her, to rescue her.
One of the man finally noticed him.
“Hey! What do you think you are-”
His word ended in a gurgle when Jack pointed his left hand at him. His arm violently twisted around twice, an impossible action for a mere human, then split into four tentacles that plunged into the man’s face, chest, and stomach. Blood splattered on the wall behind him as Jack’s tentacles wrapped around. Straining, Jack twisted his tentacles through the holes in the man to wrap around the rapist’s body. Grunting, he squeezed tightly and the sound of cracking bones filled the room.
The others burst into action as the first man slumped to the ground with a sigh, his spine and skull crushed from the four dripping tentacles that withdrew from his body. Jack stepped back as a gun fired, plunging bullets into his frame. He felt the regeneration starting to respond to the wounds and he released the bindings on his body with a short, three word spell.
His other arm unraveled into four tentacles, which he speared toward one of the other men. They impacted with his chest, cracking his ribs open as he tore the man apart.
Pulling all eight tentacles back to his body, Jack screamed out as he felt his stomach tearing open, the tightly-packed mass of tentacles, some as thick as a body-builder’s leg, burst out from him and dropped to the ground, like spilled intestines. The release of his disgusted left him dazed and more guns fired, punching into his body. He felt the wounds not healing as fast, the speed of his regeneration limited to a constant rate. He gasped as the wracks of the torn spell coursed through his body.
With a struggling effort, he launched his tentacles out at the other three men. He felt the wet crunch of bones, the squish of organs. All three were suspended in the air, with dripping rents across their entire body. With a scream, Jack tore all three apart and dropped the bloody remains to the ground.
It only took a matter of seconds, but five men were dead. He focused his attention on the one between her legs, who was scrambling to his feet. Jack sent one of his thickest tentacles forward. It snapped through with a crack, punching up the man’s ass. The strangled sound of ultimate pain ended in a gurgle as the tentacle burst out of his throat, snapping his head back.
Jack drew him closer, growling deeply.
“You ruined her.”
The man tried to do something, but he could only blink as he shuffled the mortal coil, dying with a wet spasm on Jack’s tentacle. Disgusted, Jack tore the tentacle out of the corpse and flung it aside.
“One of those capable of feeding me and you ruined her.”
The silence of the room was interrupted only by the soft sobs of Phyllis and the dripping of blood that coated the walls and ceiling. Jack looked around, wary of another attacker, but none came. His eyes came to stare at Phyllis and he froze.
She was broken, legs limp, a river of cum dripping out out of the gaping hole of her sex. Another river oozed out of her ass, bright red and abused. He could see the glaze of the men’s rape on her breasts, stomach, and face, mixing in with the tears and blood. A fresh trickle dripped off her forehead, blinding her left eye before pooling on the mattress below.
And Jack had to stop.
The tentacle monster felt an incredible urge to finish it, to ram as many tentacles into every orifice of her body, to rape her until she exploded from his orgasm. He could feel it in his memories and his tentacles shuddered with the thought. Working with his will, they reached out for her, to pluck her from the safety of the mattress, to throw her into the air, and take her with every last breath in her abused body.
With a supreme effort, he halted his tentacles, but his thoughts brought the final one to life. Deep between his legs, he felt it stirring to life, the tentacle he swore not to use a decade before. It ripped out of his pants, a thick and swollen member. It was huge, as thick as her leg but tipped with a wedged head. Tendrils rose up from the end as it pulsed strongly. Green slime dripped along the entire length as it dropped to the ground, stretching out for her pussy.
He could feel it and it ached knowing that he was so close to feeding the monster, to truly feed on the terror and pleasure of rape. His cock-tentacle swelled with the thought, jets of pre-cum splashing out of the tip as the head reached the mattress and slithered up. Jack could feel her heat, the liquid heat from her body and tears formed in his eyes as he wanted so badly to take her.
He didn’t.
Instead, he used some of his tentacles to reach out and undo her binds as another rooted through the remains of her purse and plucked out the cellphone. Using one dripping tendril, he dialed 911 and held it to his ear. It rang three times.
“911, how may I help you.”
Jack cleared his throat and spoke calmly, “Yes, I’m reporting a rape in progress.”
The woman at the other end gasped slightly, the sound of her typing coming across the phone.
“Could you please tell me where-”
“These phones have a GPS system, right? Track it.”
He didn’t mean to snap, but looking at Phyllis’ helpless body sent an ache through his organs. The desire to take her right then and now surging inside. On the phone, the tinny voice of the operator rang out.
“Sir, please-”
Jack dropped the phone on the mattress and stared at Phyllis hard. His tentacles reached for her again and again, only to be yanked back as he swore not to take her. Tears, green and translucent, splashed down his face as he reached for the belt around her mouth. Phyllis shakily sat up as his tentacles released the belt.
A voice broken with screams filled the room, her voice, “W-Who are you?”
He answered gruffly, “No one.”
Turning away from her, he dragged his body toward the door, whispering the words of his spell as he did. The disguise never took on the first use, but he felt the tingle as his tentacles were being drawn back into his body. He felt them knotting, a painful suffering as they twisted and bound into each other, stuffing meters of dripping length into his stomach and chest. His arms intertwined again, squeezing painfully as the magic created flesh around them, mortal flesh.
He whispered the spell again, pausing at the door to look at her one last time. She stared at him with all the hope fragile humans were capable of. He paused, wondering what he was doing as he felt tentacles being sucked up into his belly, the skin beginning to reform. In her, all he could see was a meal, a meal that would feed him for years, being lost. Green tears splashed down his face as he pushed himself out of her sight and staggered down the hall. His lips worked into the words of the spell again and again, forcing his body into the painful appearance of a human.
Jack would starve, but at least he resisted.