Now where did THAT come from?

Lilith
John Collier
1887
(The Atkinson Art Gallery, Southport, England)

 

I use freewriting to loosen things up before I get down to the real work of the writing day. It's like warming up an engine. I don't write well cold. Most times, freewrites just get jammed into a file and forgotten. Sometimes, I go back to them when I'm looking for an idea for a story. Sometimes, I wonder what in the heck was going on in my head. "Hitchhiker" is one of those times.

That said, the lilith has turned up in a couple of stories. In one, she's an invisible faerie creature. In this one, she's much darker and much, much more dangerous.

Hitchhiker 

I sat down to eat and checked my phone. One missed call, a local number but one I didn't recognize. Hoping it might be a new client, I checked my voice mail.

And at the sound of his voice, the vault door in my mind burst open. I dropped the phone, flung my hands over my ears and curled into a ball. My hitchhiker pressed against me, cooing, wanting more, more, more. I could feel it shifting beneath my skin, filling all the spaces, pushing through blood and bone and muscle.

Almost without realizing it, I was picking up the phone, holding it to my ear. I heard the last of the message.

"... later tonight. Bye."

My hitchhiker spun in me, blurring into desire. All I had was the phone in one hand and the fork in the other. Swiftly, not allowing myself to think about it, I jabbed the fork downward into my leg. The briefest moment of nothing and then a red jag of pain. I yelped, but twisted the fork further into my leg. Blood burst and surfaced, pooled around the tines and began to trickle.

"No," I muttered, twisting again. The pain branched and I sobbed with it, tears spilling from my eyes, but it worked. Thank god it worked. The hitchhiker, my parasite, my punishment, dwindled and diminished and was gone back to its prison. I pulled the fork from my leg, my flesh coming up and then sliding off the tines with a sucking sound. I curled over the injury, choking back anger, choking back more tears.

You did it. It's over. Move on.

I got unsteadily to my feet and dropped the bloodied fork in the sink. I took the first aid kit from the cupboard, cleaned my wounds and sprayed them with antiseptic. I was getting low on bandages again.

When I was done I picked up my phone and turned it off. Whoever it was who'd left the message had promised to call back later. It was best if I didn't get that call, not tonight. Once my hitchhiker has a taste of freedom, you see, it takes a while for it to calm down. I have the scars to prove it.

 * * *

I wake most nights to test the handcuffs are still tight. I don't think it knows where I hide the keys, but I worry.

I wonder what it knows.

And on bad nights, I wonder if Matt knows what he did to me that night.

I can't ask it, and I can't ask him.

Knowing won't change anything, anyway.

Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

 Oh, I don't know, they just kind of pop up.

Not always true. One time, I woke up in the middle of the night and typed (I didn't have a computer at the time) a three page synopsis for a story. I have no memory of this. The pages were just sitting on my desk in the morning. And my mother was complaining about the noise I'd made.

One time, a colleague told me about a store she had on Second Life. It was like being hit by a brick.

Sometimes it's a sentence in another book. Sometimes it's a status update. Sometimes it's a picture. Like this one.

You can see the original post for this picture here.

He was telling her something. His lips were moving, and he had that expression about the eyes, the one which said he was in deadly earnest. That what he was saying was important and she had better be listening. She watched him, watched the way his mouth formed the words, lips open and then closed again. His tongue she found eminently satisfying. Soft, pink. Brave, to be flapping in such a way between those rows of white, sharp teeth. Yes, she liked his tongue. She wondered what it tasted like.

So he was yapping away, no doubt some grand, important scheme curling around and around in his brain and leaking out his mouth like that, and she thought she should be listening, really should be paying attention, but God, it was too much effort, and how late was it anyway? She was dying to look at the clock, a quick glance over his shoulder to let her know how long they’d been sitting like this, how long he’d been leaning into her, one hand on her leg, just above the knee, the other hand playing with her hair. Would he never shut up? Maybe it was time she did something. Maybe it was time she took matters into her own hands, ended this bullshit right now, and finally, once and for all and ever letting him know what she really wanted from him.

Just one bite.
 

He leaned back, a toss of his head from the shoulders told her he was laughing. She did, too, though there was not a sound and no sensation to tell her if she’d done it right. She must have. He looked normal, unconcerned, staring distractedly at the smooth fall of the fabric of her blouse, then back to her face as if he was afraid of being caught out. What did she care? She was what she was. She was what he’d made her. She was what he wanted.

Finally he was finished with her. He stood, stretched, smiled down at her and held out his hand. She took it, what else could she do, and he helped her to her feet. He said something, glanced her way, and she could tell by the way he was holding his head that he meant her to lead the way. Such a gentleman. Raised well, so people said. Or so they had said, long ago. She couldn’t hear them anymore.

She walked out the door and into the garden. He shut the door against the night and followed her down the path. They reached the edge of the woods, and there he stopped. She continued. She walked on, into the dark, into the night, and as she changed, she had one, powerful, overwhelming thought:

One bite.