Posted by AlOmega on March 31, 2000 at 20:13:26:
FLEAS
by
AlOmega
The quarry swam more for show than efficiency because he knew I was watching. Down the
YMCA pool, then back, seeming to ignore me as I, in tern, seemed to ignore the young swimmer.
Oh he did look good. I reviewed each datum: under thirty, mass well over the forty kilo minimum,
skin tone excellent, plenty of hair. And unless I was mistaken – which I rarely was – he offered
subtle homosexual nuances which might simplify his isolation.
Smiling to myself, I delivered an enormous body-stretching yawn that advertised formidable
biceps, triceps, laterals. The younger man approached swimming; symbolically, I thought, a
breast stroke. Great.
I made a pedal gesture. A joke really since the gay community had developed the language of
the foot for more crowded venues than this. The quarry bared even small teeth in his innocent
approval. Better.
“I could watch you all evening,” I rumbled, adding the necessary lie, “You swim exquisitely.”
“But I can’t go on forever,” the youth replied in tones that were, as I expected, distinctly
unbutchy. “I feel like relaxing.” Treading water, he smiled a plea for precise communication.
Perfect.
“You can come with me,” I said, and swept myself up with an ageless grace. I towered,
masculine and commanding, above the suppliant swimmer. I managed a strong grin as I turned
toward the dressing room. He left the building quickly, then waited.
Invisible in a shop alcove, I enjoyed the quarry’s anxious glances from the elevated platform of
the YMCA’s steps. I strolled out then into the pale light of the streetlamp and the quarry, seeing
me, danced down the steps toward his small destiny.
Later, kneeling beneath tree shadows as my fingers probed the dying throat-pulse, I thought:
All according to formula, to the old books. Really no problem when you have the physical
strength of a mature anaconda. Hell, it wasn’t even much fun for an adult predator like myself. I
chuckled. Adult for several normal life spans I was. Ever since discovering I was a feeder. With
such long practice, self-assurance in the hunt took spice from the kill. Still probing the carotid
artery, I though: Uncertainty is the oregano of pursuit. Hummm. It might work that into a
scholarly paper some day.
I fed.
It was a simple matter for me to feed in a context that police could classify as psychosexual.
Inaccurate, I thought with a silent chuckle, but perhaps not wholly. Survival and sexuality.
Hummm. As my gloved hands guided scalpel and bone saw almost as if by rote, I composed the
sort of trivia that my sophomores would really love.
Research confirms the grimoires’
Ancient sanity;
Predation brings unending lust---
An old causality.
The hypothalamus behind armoring bone, was crucial. I took it all. Adrenal medulla, a strip of
mucous membrane, smear of marrow. Chewing reflectively, I thought: Eye of newt, toe of
frog,. A long way from the real guts of immortality.
I knew another feeder. He was an academic like me. Read so much Huxley he’d tried to
substitute carp viscera for the only true prescription. Silly bastard had nearly died before I
brought him the bloddy requisites in a baggie. Yep, I was one soft-hearted bastard. Too bad
she was one of my best graduate students in over a century.
Sacrifice was one criterion largely ignored by the Darwinists. Oh they prattled so easily of a
species as though the single individual mattered little. But if you are one of a rare subspecies,
feeders whose members are few and camouflaged? A back-burner question. But I could let that
one simmer a bit. With economy of motion, I further vandalized the kill to disguise my motive.
Minutes later I was in my rented sedan, en route back to my small college town. Man did I feel
good!! The seasonal special feeding in its way was always a thing of beauty.
Three months later, I drove my own coupe to another city and left it, before dusk, in a parking lot.
I was overdue to feed but thought it prudent to avoid patters. The city, the time of day, even the
moon phase should be different. If the feeding itself no longer gave joy, at least I could savor its
planning.
Adjusting my turtleneck, I inspected the result. Maybe I’d better shave the beard soon. It was a
damned nuisance anyhow when I fed.
I recalled a student’s sly criticism a couple of days before. When was a beard a symbiote and
when parasitic? Interesting, I’d thought. Turning the question to good use, I sparked a
classroom debate on the definitions of parasite and predator. A damn good debate. Lively. I
cited the German Brown trout, predator on its own kind yet not a parasite. The flea was judged
parasitic; for the hundredth time I grimly smiled trying not to gag at misquoting Dean Swift.:
So, naturalists observe, a flea
Hath smaller fleas that on him prey.
And these have smaller fleas to bite ‘em.
And so proceed, ad infinitum.
Which only prompted the class to define parasites in terms of size. Stupid people. Size didn’t
matter. Chewing on the trout analogy, I cruised the singles bars through their happy hour. I
nurtured my image carefully - a massive gentle bear of a man with graceful hands and
self-deprecating wit. At the third bar I maneuvered, on my right, a pliable file clerk with adenoids
and lovely skin. She pronounced herself simpley thrilled to meet a real, self-admitted traveling
salesman. I found her rather too plump for ideal quarry, but no matter. She would do. I felt pale
stirrings of excitement and honed them, titillated them. Perhaps I would grant her a sexual
encounter before I fed.
Perhaps.
Then I glanced into the mirror behind the bar, and the pliant clerk was instantly, and brutally
forgotten. I siped the bourbon and my mouth was drier than before as I focused on the girl who
had captured the seat to my left.
It was not merely that she was lovely. By all criteria she was also flawless quarry. I fought down
my excitement and smiled my best smile. “I kept your place,” I said with just enough pretended
gruffness.
“Am I all that predictable?” Her voice seemed to vibrate in my belly. I estimated her age at
twenty-seven but, sharing her frank gaze, elevated that estimate a bit.
I wisely denied her predictability, asked where she found earrings of beaten gold koalas, and
learned that she was from Australia. To obtain a small commitment, I said, “The body is a duty,
and duty calls. Will you keep my place?”
The long natural lashes barely flickered, the chin roase and dropped a minute fraction. I made
my needless round-trip to the men’s room, but hesitated on my return. I saw her speak a bit
crossly to a tall, young man who would otherwise have taken my seat. I assessed her fine strong
calves, the fashionable wedge heels cupping voluptuous high insteps. My palms were sweating.
I waited until the younger man had turned away, and reclaimed my seat. After two more drinks I
had her name, Barbara, and her weakness, seafood; and knew that I could claim her as well.
I didn’t need to feign my easy laugh in saying, “Well, now you’ve made me ravenous. I believe
there’s a legendary crab cocktail at a restaurant near the wharf. Feel like exploring?”
She did. It was only a short walk, I explained, silently adding that a taxi was risky. Barbara
happily took my arm. The subtle elbow pressures, her matching of my stride, the increasing
frequency of hip contact were clear messages of desire. When I drew her toward the fortuitous
schoolyard, Barbara purred with pleasure. Moments later, out coats an improvised couch, we
knelt in mutual exploration, then lay together in the silent mottled shadows.
I entered her cautiously, then profoundly, gazing down at her with commingled lust and hunger.
Smiling, she undid her blouse to reveal perfect breasts. She moved against me gently and with
great deliveration, thrust my sweater up from my ribcage. Then she pressed erect nipples
against my body. I cried out once.
When European gentlemen still wore rapiers, I had taken a blade in the shoulder. The memory
flickered past as her nipples, hypodermic-sharp, incredibly elongated, pierced me on lances of
agony.
Skewered above her, I couldn’t move. Indeed, I didn’t lose my erection or my functional virility as
the creature completed her own pleasure and then, grasping my arms, rolled me over without
uncoupling. I felt tendons snap in my forearms but oddly the pain was distant. I could think
clearly at first.
How easily she rends me. She’s manipulating me like a brittle doll.
I felt a warm softening in my guts with a growing anaesthesia. The creature is consuming me
as I watch. A new subspecies? I wondered how often her kind must feed. A very old
subspecies?
She smiled.
Is it possible that she feeds only on feeders? Does she read my thoughts?
“Of course,” she whispered, almost lovingly.
Some meters away, a tiny animal scrabbled in the leaves.
I thought at her... “...and so on, ad infinitum. I wonder what feeds on you....”