The Red Room Series #2
The Changeling
[Please note that The Red Room Series are all works of fiction. Some of these will be finished and some will not. Thank you.]
I have fallen in love with a mortal man. He gives me everything I need to sustain myself and only ever wants material possessions and drugs in return, never my affections.
…is this a lasting treasure, or just a moment’s pleasure?…
His name is Jeffery Wilder. I’ve been here amongst the humans for a while, posing as one of them. I replaced one of his coworkers some time ago hoping to find a source to sustain me in this strange mortal building they call an office. So far, no one has noticed but I’m afraid the illusion is going to fail sooner rather than later. We ran into each other in the hall one day, purely by accident. When I spotted him, he was the most beautiful and attractive and sexy and handsome man I had ever seen. I couldn’t stop staring at him. I wanted him. I needed him. His life force would be most delectable for me to partake, so I made feeding off him my goal.
…tonight with words unspoken, you say that I'm the only one…
We got to know one another after the run in at the office. He’s divorced, has two kids (Timothy and Charlotte) and an ex wife, Rebecca. Things didn’t work out for them because after their second child was born, Jeffery turned to drugs and alcohol to deal with the stress of raising a family and trying to keep a steady job. Eventually his substance abuse won and he ended up living in his truck for a while after Rebecca took the kids and went to live with her parents and their house was foreclosed upon. Eventually he turned his life around, somewhat, and got this office job where we met. He still drinks from time to time, but his vice evolved into promiscuous sex with other men paired with some drug use. He basically had nothing to hide the first night we went out, spilling everything I didn’t know about him. He said he knew that I was into him from the way I looked at him. I admitted he was right, but I didn’t dare reveal my true nature to him, just that I was interested in him.
We went on several more dates before I finally got the unfiltered version of him; the one that he usually kept behind a mask. Jeffery was a definite freak in the bedroom, dominating me and using me as he saw fit every time we had the chance to be intimate. The first time he allowed me to go down on him, it was like drinking a large glass of the tastiest mead. I couldn’t get enough of him. His essence was intoxicating, just like I knew it would be. After he let me drink from him four times that night, he forced me off him so he could rest. I stayed the night with him in his bed in his mostly empty apartment. I still don’t know if it was genuine or if it was the drugs, but when he told me that he loved me, I could feel a wave of euphoria fill the cavernous expanse of my being and I feared for a moment that I might burst at the seams in front of him.
The third night that I stayed with him, we ordered takeout and stayed in the living room on the couch pretty much all night watching tv and movies. After we ate we made out for a long time before he told me he would be right back. He went to the bathroom and was gone for what seemed like a long time before finally emerging reeking of something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. He was also completely naked and fully erect when he approached me. He grabbed the back of my head and I proceeded to feed off him once more, only this time his essence seemed tainted somehow, yet I couldn’t stop myself from drinking it all the same.
“What did you do?” I asked him after I finished the second time and feeling a little queasy. I explained what I was feeling and he responded “Oh, I must have taken too much happy juice in the bathroom. Sorry bud.” he said, patting me on my shoulder. Taking my hand in his he said “Come to bed, I’m not done with you yet” and escorted me to his bedroom. There on the night stand was a syringe and a bottle full of some sort of purple liquid. “Want some happy juice?” he asked me as he put a little in the syringe and turned to me. “Will it hurt?” I asked him, my voice shaky and palms sweaty. I desperately wanted and needed him to like me so I was willing to do anything to keep him. “No” he said taking hold of my arm and injecting whatever that was in my veins. I watched in equal parts curiosity and horror as I watched the liquid work its way under my skin. The feeling was euphoric, intense, pleasurable but at the same time it felt inherently wrong. I felt equal parts sick and hungry, loved but empty, needed but not wanted. Then the requests started.
…but will my heart be broken, when the night (when the night), meets the morning (meets the morning) sun?…
After the third night he started asking me to borrow money to buy drugs for us or food for his kids or something for his apartment. Being that I was getting what I needed from him, I cared very little about money so in an effort to try to keep him and his affections I said yes to pretty much everything he requested. I was addicted to him without realizing that soon it would be too late and I was about to be used up and left for dead. The drug use and sex became a nightly event and our poor performances at work didn’t go without notice. I felt guilty but I also foolishly felt things would work out as long as I had him.
This particular night, the sex was raw and intense. His essence was a most peculiar flavor but I drank it all the same. I was drunk on his essence and he was high on whatever was in the ‘happy juice’ along with drinking alcohol like tomorrow was never going to come. I begged for one more round after he asked to stop for the night to rest. Eventually he gave in and I fed from him once more. The orgasm was so intense that he collapsed on the bed a sweaty, sticky mess. He did not look good but I was too drunk to notice. We laid down together in his bed and turned off the lights. I didn’t know it at the time, but he had died in that moment. The red lights from the neon signs in the street filled the darkness of the bedroom when I came to. I felt something wet and cold next to me. I turned on the lights to see that the wet and cold thing was Jeffery. His face was all shades of blue and purple, the holes where he had been injecting were black and dripping plasma and blood. I sat there staring at my handiwork with mute horror. I had destroyed this beautiful soul. Not wanting to face what was going to happen next in the mortal world, I took the rest of the ‘happy juice’ in my arm with the same dirty needle we had been using all night. I could feel the effects start to take hold, then intensify, before finally I started to lose consciousness. I could feel the end was coming. I quickly crawled back in bed next to Jeffery’s lifeless body and pulled the blanket up to my neck. I rolled over and told him I was sorry and asked him a question from one of his favorite songs as I felt my body start to die:
…will you still love me tomorrow?
