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    <h1>Beauty</h1>


    Could monsters be beautiful? Hollywood tells us yes. They tell us that true beauty comes from within, that it is in the eye of the beholder, that even the most hideous of monstrosities may have some sort of hidden beauty inside of their gentle souls. I take that short and simple thought to be an undeniable truth. Obsessions with vanity were simply that, a vapid delusion that kept many glued to the mirrors or taking selfies. There is no such thing as external beauty.


    The being before me laid beyond description. Beautiful was a word, yes, but it was only a stepping stone. If I called my husband, my friend, or my coworkers beautiful, I was correct. But calling this thing beautiful? It was an insult. Beautiful was a soft, gentle, and kind word. The word depicted an unparalleled strength of body, spirit, mind, and a kindness of the soul. (Assuming I used the Hollywood take). However, her skin was not a gentle, normal color. She wasn’t a definable ethnicity, nationality, or creed. Her skin was cold. Paler than pale, as if it had suffered from a dash of purple frostbite. But it was smooth, too. So silky that your every finger convulsed at the sight, every nerve wanted to touch it, just a little bit.


    Her eyes were not a fierce blue or a warm hazel. They were white. Stark and horrifying white. Except there were more than two- there were four. No, my eyes never deceived me. Four eyes, two in each socket, as if they were giant cells trying to split apart in a bout of mitosis. Yet her eyes held an intelligence, a thirst for knowledge. Her hair was jet-black, a flowing gale of shadow locks that flew in the breeze.


    There were other aspects about her that rested just on the cusp of perfection, but no greater- Her ears and nose in particular. But the top of her head caught my eye. Two horns. Magnificently placed upon the top of her brow. They bended backwards, around the curvature of her bump-less skull and were gnarled to sharpened, thick points. They had a constant sheen to them, even in total darkness. Was that makeup on her face? Tattoos? Or, perhaps, they were part of her skin? A single black stripe on her bottom lip, the same under both of her eyelids. They were vertical and simple accents for an already powerful face.


    Even in the dead of night, these features of hers were visible. But the moonlight that ignited her upper body hadn’t revealed her lower one. Was she wearing any clothes? It was difficult to tell in the relative dark. Not even the semi-frequent flashes of lightning revealed her completeness to me, and I wondered if that was her supernatural intent.


    Her stance was statuesque. It was impossible to know her thoughts, her wants, her desires. She opened her mouth. At first, I thought it was to speak, to announce her presence to me. No words came. Her hand rose towards her mouth. She stroked her lips ever so softly. Was it a display, a bid to show herself off to me? Even after she removed her finger, she kept her mouth open for a few precious seconds, staring me down. A tongue emerged. At this point, I already expected something unnatural to come out. It slithered out of


    er mouth like it was alive, or like some vine in the jungle. Thick and wet with some unknown fluids, it swam around her symmetrical form without effort. How long was it? Had it even a length? The drips of some unknown substance, the same delicious purple as her skin, had dotted its trail below her tongue. It was drool, yes, but it was... an amazing smell, all the same. Every few seconds the scent seamlessly changed into something wonderful and unidentifiable. All of them were sweet.


    Her eyes moved to mine. She stared me down. Even the sheets hadn’t protected me from her gaze. She blocked my path out of the room. She knew I was alone, she knew I would be asleep at this time. The clock had stopped working, the animals hadn’t dared walk in. The windows were closed. The alarm was on. Was this a dream? How had she gotten here? Why?


    Her left leg moved forward, and I felt the weight of her body as her knee pushed into the bed. She felt heavier than she gave on. I held my breath. It was dark- maybe hiding remained an option! I felt her other leg come about the bed, and her hand compressed upon the sheets right against my thigh. Sweat furloughed over my brow, my eyes were shut tight, and my toes were curling. I wanted to hide my fear. I tried to hide my fear. But I quivered. My arms shook, and my legs trembled.


    Still, she said nothing. Or, at least, I thought it was a she. This close, and at this angle, her breasts swayed from side to side, a pendulum for my eyes to follow. It wasn’t out of attraction, right? It was out of curiosity, of fear, of scientific inclination. It was impossible she found me attractive, her features were that inhuman. Where was her body heat? Hell, even with the veil of blankets separating our bodies, cold still assaulted me. Finally, her torso was upon mine, her unblinking eyes inches away from my own. I felt their glare, even under my eyelids.


    I shook as her palms touched my cheeks. They were numb to the touch. Her breath hit my ear as she leaned across me. Words came from her throat. The sounds that she made were completely unintelligible, but I knew instantly what she meant.


    “Open your eyes, mewling thing.”


    Of course, I opened them. How else was I to respond? She was more than me, more than anything I could have defended against. Her tongue came out again, and I felt droplets fall onto my blanket, across my neck, and over my head. The moment they came into contact with the barest bit of skin, they steamed a soft sizzle, releasing a purple haze into the air. It wasn’t long, with this constant dribbling of viscous slime, before my vision was clouded.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    “Inhale”.


    Nothing good would have come from it. But even as my oxygen supply under the blanket left me, I desperately attempted to avoid it, somehow. My arms were pinned by hers. I moved my legs, but they betrayed me. They disobeyed my orders, they kept themselves in a death like stillness. Something was on them, holding them down. Something I hadn’t been able to see, yet.


    I held out for as long as I could, but it was of no use. But I felt the call within my chest. I needed to breathe, in order to live! The last thing I wanted was to obey her orders! But, all the same, I had to. I inhaled. It was loud and


    nosy, desperate and sloppy. But she hadn’t cared about any of that. Only that I had done so.


    The pink haze, so thick and full in the room, had replaced the air. Each particle entered my nostril, and for every breath taken, I felt it’s hold upon me. It was a strange feeling, to say the least. My body was heavy, but my mind was...different. I was completely aware, but my senses were heightened, my feelings intensified, and my emotions increased tenfold. And then... a stirring. A stirring below, between my legs. This was a rare occurrence, it had been so long.


    The daemon’s body felt so warm now, under the effects of the haze. Her appearance was ever shifting, too, changing colors and forms. New appendages were added and removed, but her eyes were a constant in the ever-shifting being. But, among this haze, those once beady and horrible eyes seemed beautiful. Where, at one point, it was like a spider: something soulless and lifeless, it was now something wonderful. The addition of life, rather than the reduction of humanity.


    Thus, when she lifted her mouth from my ear, I quickly accepted her lips upon mine. I was more than willing. It was a slow and passionate thing, the kiss. They tasted wonderful, a sweet candy with a dash of frost. As our lips disconnected, I felt what had been holding my legs down. It was curled around my thighs- a powerful, black tail. It was far larger than I thought such a thing could be- but my heightened senses, thanks to the haze, was more than enough to detect its intricacies. A large spine dotted it’s back, and the being above me controlled it without any noticeable effort, as if the tail had a mind of its very own.


    I felt it poke and prod against my skin, doting little things that served to ingratiate itself upon me. I wondered, had she been faking these small gestures? Pretending to know what it was like to have human things, such as emotion? Or was she showing me her side of things? Her genuine ability to play, to seduce, to show intimacy?


    She stared at me as her tail wandered. Her palm was on my cheek, and mine was on hers. I was enthralled, confused, attracted, and scared. A part of me wished to hold this stare forever, but it wouldn’t have been so. She revealed her cards to me all too soon.


    “Your soul... a piece of it as all I require. That is how we will be together.”


    The idea of offering my soul to such a demonic force would normally be outcasted immediately. I would have thought to my husband, my life at home, my weekly trips to church... all of it thrown up as shields against temptation. But I was not myself. I was in a haze, my inhibitions were lowered, and the pull to pleasure was more than I ever handled.


    I shook my head in silence. I wanted to resist... I had to resist, but it was too much! Barely, just barely, I towed the line, unable to move my decision into either direction. Until I felt it. That powerful tail. A single brush was all it took. I felt its thick and powerful form make the lightest of touches against my vaginal folds. They were moistening already, creating a soft pool below


    my legs. My lust was instantly catapulted into overdrive. I felt my lower lips puffing and engorging, eager for a taste of that massive thing.


    Her smile was wider. She was glad- was that a sign of good faith, or simply a marker for her conquest? It hadn’t mattered, though, right? After all, I had already given my consent, I had already signed the contract, our lips had already locked. She knew my lusts. A few precious seconds more of that staring, of those gorgeous eyes.


    She leaned in for another kiss, one I accepted with another burst of happiness. As I drove myself upwards and into her lips, I heard a noise come from the back of her throat. At first, I thought she was moaning, as someone like me might have done. But, again, she surprised me. The words she spoke, like the last, were impossible to decipher. Instead, I felt them enter me, as if her words held some metaphysical force to them. A second later, and she broke her lips off from mine. Her mouth was kept open, and her hands were right on my breasts. She fondled them, and the pleasure was so much that I barely noticed the stream of white that left my mouth, born from the words she injected into me. It flew from mine into hers, and within a few seconds, she had literally consumed a piece of my very soul.


    It was a tiny thing, that loss. Nothing noticeably had changed, no pain or different feelings. My emotions still held, my wants were climbing and my needs were focused completely on desire. I smooshed my breasts against those willing palms of hers, reveling in her aggression, in the forcefulness with which she kneaded my chest. That glorious tail came up again, brushing against my lower folds with more force. A sliver of it finally entered me. I felt a blush rise from one of my ears to the other. My eyes shut in unrepentant bliss, I reared my head back.


    “More!”


    My first word to her, one screamed out into the ceiling and the sky above it. More! More of that glorious insertion! More of her cold skin, those monstrous eyes, and that powerful tail! Steal the entirety of my soul if you must! There was nothing I wouldn’t have given, in that moment, to please her. That single word was all I gave, but she understood me entirely.


    Monsters such as these cannot be beautiful. Monsters like these are more than the word. They take the tropes of beauty we were taught and removes them from the equation. A better word for monsters such as these, then, would be elegance. Like an eagle as it hunts a grub across the dirt. It is a huntress, a powerful creature of temptation. It offers eternal bliss for unknown consequences. However, these consequences catapult beyond the station of the mortal that received them.