Steamy Screams: Anthology of Erotic Horror

SHADOWGIRL KV Taylor

She’s always been there, at the foot of the bed—squatting like she wants to look small, unassuming—ever since I was a little girl. She changed as I grew older, and that’s why I believed them when they said she wasn’t real. At first, she was as dark as the shadows, her eyes glinting red in the glow from my nightlight—a leftover Christmas bulb that bathed my room in a festive, sanguine glow. I tried to get up and run to my parents’ room; back then, I could never remember that when she appeared, it meant I would be frozen to the spot. As I grew older, she became paler or darker than the shadows of my room, with long hair, then bald, with green eyes, then violet, then back to red. Always watching, always waiting.

In high school, I would sometimes wake up with her sitting on my chest, my lungs as frozen as the rest of me. I couldn’t even cry, but the urge always passed quickly. By then, I was old enough to know it would pass. I would fall asleep again, and she would be gone in the morning.

But she never really was. She clung to me like a film, like some oil a hot shower couldn’t dissolve. I was sure they could see her glistening on my skin as I wandered those halls, backpack over one shoulder, heart on my sleeve. I was sure that was why they looked at me like that, like I was some insect in a jar, like I was less human, less real. Why I spent my time in the corners alone, why they never even bothered to make fun of me.

Like I was just a shadowgirl at the end of their world. Uncomfortable and inexplicable. Just a bad dream.

It changed in college—no, it changed when I met Ariel. The party was loud, dark; Ariel lingered in the corner. Something about the way her eyes sparked green in the flashing lights lit me up inside. Her arms and legs, an elongated body pulled in on itself, trying to disappear into the cracking fraternity wallpaper. The shadow she cast was familiar and heart-sickening. I couldn’t stay away.

I went home with her that night. She pressed rum-flavored kisses into my lips, kissed me like a girl, sweet and warm and careful. Her cool, dark hands tugged at my jeans, slipped beneath my shirt, and brought me to life. With her mouth against my neck, open and hot, I wasn’t a shadow anymore.

But that’s wrong, isn’t it? I knew her; I’d known her my whole life. The one who’d been watching me, waiting for me all this time. She didn’t make me real: she was just as unreal as I.

It was our type of real, though. The days flew past, the nights were for us. “May,” she’d tell me, “May, I love you so much.”

And I’d say, “I’ve loved you forever. I’ve loved you since I was five-years-old.”

She’d laugh and kiss me, and we’d fall asleep like that, tangled up.

And then, one night, I woke to find two of her: one at my side, stretched out long and elegant, breathing. I felt the weight of her presence in the dark—though I couldn’t turn my head to look—and knew she was in her place. And the other her was at the foot of my bed, curled in on herself like a coiled snake. Her eyes were amber, that was the difference, and the rest of her still dark as shadow.

She, the Other Ariel, watched. I watched too, because there was nothing else I could do. Frozen as always.

She moved—she had never moved before, not once. Unfurled like a silk scarf, first climbing to her knees, then going down on all fours, stretching out toward me and arching so her backside was high in the air. Catlike. I felt her hands on either side of my calves, making small indentations. I felt Ariel still breathing beside me. My heart thundered so loud I wondered how it didn’t wake her up.

The Other crawled forward, up my indifferent body until she straddled my hips. All shadow, made of shadow, no clothes but no nakedness either, just that sick-familiar face and a pair of eyes I’d known forever, staring down into me. She sank lower—the cool, fleshy inside of her thighs, the place between her legs warm against my belly. Breath on my face, scentless, like barely-there wind.

She lowered her body onto me completely, her mouth met mine. Hard, demanding—

Not like Ariel at all.

But in that moment, I could move again—I could feel—and my hands went instinctively to her sides. Shadowy, yes, but her skin was real and sweet against my hot sweat. Fire started in my blood, racing to my center. I rolled my hips under her, unthinking.

The first sound she’d ever made in almost two decades: a growl deep in her throat. Her tongue found mine and she arched her back again, the heat between her legs increasing, pushing at me, ravenous. She closed off the kiss yet stayed near enough that I could still feel the wetness of her lips on mine and said, “Is this what you wanted?”

Her voice echoed in my head, hollow and insubstantial. Goosebumps broke out all over me in spite of the summer heat.

Ariel breathed beside us, silent and sleeping.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered.

She slid her hand beneath my shirt, franticly. Her fingers searched the round underside of my right breast, then found my nipple. She pinched, and I rolled my hips again, biting back a groan. The soft t-shirt raked against my skin, against the newly hardened tip of my left breast, as I writhed. The sensations were fever-sharp, sending shots of heat and light downward, making me swell.

“You’re mine. You’ve always been mine. You’ll always be mine.” She crushed into my mouth again, squeezing with her thighs and fingers until my blood boiled. “But you’re all grown up now. So I’ll give you what you need, May.”

“But you are her—”

She moved lower, raked her tongue over my nipple, heedless of the shirt and still tweaking the other. Then she closed her lips around it, sucking, using her tongue until my shirt was as wet as my underwear, and I couldn’t stop myself from sighing out loud.

Ariel rolled over to face the wall.

The Other sat up slightly, pushed my shirt up so she could rest one palm flat on my belly. I rolled beneath her, begging, the heat in me overwhelming. “You are her.”

But I was trying to convince myself, not the Other.

She put her free hand between us, inside my underwear, and rubbed at me—not gently, but hard, demanding. I spread my legs, wanting her closer, harder, watching her shadowy elegant body writhe on top of me—the small round breasts that made my mouth water, the roll of her smooth hips, the tightening of her stomach.

The way she swallowed, the moonlight pouring through the window. The way she made me hers.

It happened at least every other night. The Other came, she told me I was hers, she fucked me so completely that it was all I could do not to scream and wake up Ariel. Fucked me so completely that when I looked at Ariel in the light, I felt almost nothing. Affection, but almost motherly, devoid of wanting.

It was a dream, though, all a dream, like my parents used to tell me. There was nothing at the foot of my bed, and shadows aren’t real. I’d done nothing wrong; I couldn’t help what my mind made up in the dark.

But Ariel knew, somehow. It was barely a month before she drifted away, and I didn’t try to keep her. The magic was gone, the thing that made us real together had been shattered. And there was nothing to tie me to the world out there—nothing like the thing that tied me to the bed at night, the thing that made me come alive.

And so it wasn’t her, it was me. It was always me, or maybe the Other, but she can’t help what she is, either. And it wasn’t the doctors here—wasn’t their fault I wouldn’t eat their food or take their medicine, my complete indifference to their white-painted walls and their beige carpet and lulling therapy. It’s not their fault my body is folding under the strain, or that all I can think of is darkness, sleep, her arms, her hands, her thighs, her cunt. If I wanted to give up Ariel for it, the only person I ever recognized, what makes them think I don’t want to give up myself?

She tells me it’s not giving up. That I’ll always have what I want from her. That death is just the beginning, when you belong to someone, to something like her.

I’ve loved her forever—since I was five-years-old. Of course I believe.