Happy
Monday! Welcome! This short is from one of my backlisted short stories. Can you
tell me which one? And can you guess which Genre this one falls into?
Enjoy!
~Serenity
Copyright
© 2011 by Serenity King
Short snippet from previously released
short story
Uta
felt uneasy as she sat on her sofa with a blanket wrapped around her, sipping a
glass of red wine and waiting for her friend Nylora to come over with a pizza
from their favorite pizza spot. Ever since a car accident had landed Uta in the
hospital, she’d had problems keeping warm. Her friend Nylora teased her relentlessly
about her needing blood. Even though Uta often laughed along with her friend, she
was starting to wonder if Nylora was right. Maybe she did need blood. Lately
she’d wanted blood. She even liked the smell of it. In fact, some nights she
craved it. Maybe another session with a therapist wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Ever
since that night—a night she had little remembrance of—something seemed
different about her. The only thing Uta remembered about that night was leaving
her office to meet a potential client about decorating an old Victorian home.
That was it. She had no memory at all of the accident. Her therapist called it
suppressed memory. Suppressed or not, she couldn’t remember a damn thing.
Uta felt as if she was being watched all the
time. She’d had these feelings in the hospital and they’d grown stronger since
she’d been released. Her nights were filled with vivid dreams of a lover she
didn’t have.
Yet
the dreams were always so real. So real in fact, that when Uta would waken with
the soft breeze from her bedroom windows caressing her naked form, her bed
covers were always rumpled and pushed to the far side of her bed, her breathing
was heavy, her hair was tousled, and her womanly juices saturated the insides
of her thighs and her bed sheets. Odder still, her gown was always lying in a
silken heap at the foot of her bed.
The
first time it had happened, Uta had been scared shitless that someone had
broken into her apartment and taken advantage of her. In the back of her mind,
she knew that no one had. But her body had tingled all over as if she’d come
off one of the biggest climaxes of her life.
Just
to be certain that no one was in her home, she’d gotten out of bed on very
shaky legs. Hurrying across the room she closed her windows and grabbed her robe
off the settee. Slipping it around her shoulders, she walked out of the bedroom
to look through her apartment. After finding everything in order, she’d made
her way into the bathroom adjoining her bedroom to take a shower.
In the
shower, she’d felt as if someone was watching her. She’d jerked the shower curtain
back to find no one there. Uta finished her shower quickly, put on a nightshirt,
and went back to bed.
She
hadn’t fallen asleep as quickly as she’d have liked, but she had fallen into a
peaceful sleep.
But
the next night, the dreams came back. They had continued until a week ago.
Truth be known, she’d enjoyed every one of the dreams. Each dream held
something different. Some nights she’d wake up and her inner thighs would be
sore. Sometimes her neck ached and tingled so she could’ve sworn she’d have
passion marks. Upon waking up, she’d run to the mirror to check, and to her
extreme disappointment, there was nothing to see.
Her
lover really did exist only in her dreams. Only now she didn’t even dream about
him anymore. She hadn’t had a dream in over a week. She was downcast, weak, and
just outright miserable.
Hence,
the girls night with Nylora.
Uta
was brought out of her reverie by a firm knock at her door. She jumped at the
sound. “Damn, I really have to pull
myself together or Nylora will have me committed,” she said to herself.
Getting
up from her sofa, she made her way across the room to open the door. She smelled
Nylora’s perfume and the pizza—sausage and pepperoni pizza, to be exact. Not
bothering to ask who it was, Uta undid the dead bolt and opened the door.
“Hey
Lady, how many times do I have to tell you about opening your door without
knowing who’s on the other side?” Nylora asked her friend as she walked past
Uta into the apartment.
Uta
stepped aside as Nylora practically Bo-guarded her way inside. Nylora was only
a little over five feet tall, but she liked to boss everyone around. Uta’s
five-nine frame towered over her. Following the petite woman into the room, she
said. “I knew it was you Nylora. I smelled—I smelled the aroma from the pie.” Uta
had almost said, “I smelled your perfume,” but she stopped herself just in
time. The last time she’d told Nylora that she had smelled her perfume from far
away, Nylora had had too many questions. Questions Uta didn’t have answers to.
“Oh,
Lord, you and that smell thing again,” Nylora said, placing the pizza on the
kitchen counter and then turning to face Uta. “And why the hell is it so dark
in here? You didn’t pay your electric or something?”
“Yes I
paid my electric. I’ve been having problems adjusting to the light, that’s all.
I already told you that,” Uta responded.
“Uta,
for the past week you’ve been wearing shades to work. Okay—the light is
miserable, and I can understand it gives you headaches. Hell, I know how I am
about light when I have a migraine. But I didn’t know you actually lived in the dark. Maybe you should
think about going to a neurologist for these migraines and your sensitivity to
light. You’re scaring me,” Nylora said, uncharacteristically serious.
