Hot Blood: Tales of Erotic Horror

that I heard their little voices.

A Nestle's Crunch called me by name; the Cadbury with hazelnuts was trying to crawl into my cart; the M&Ms — plain and peanut — were trying to melt in my mouth, not in my hands. I turned away from the meat counter and went looking for Mr. Goodbar.

I raced home with my bounty and tore into the candy with a voracious desire. Stuffing it into my mouth, where there should have been a surge of sensual satisfaction, a chocolate itch scratched by Godiva, there was only letdown.

It was creamy, rich and sweet… but meaningless. I could take it or leave it. Even though alone, I went pink with embarrassment; it really wasn't worth the hypoglycemic rush I knew I would have to endure. I didn't crave that shit.

I gagged down a salad and washed it down with unfiltered carrot juice.

Yum.

Senses are important to me. I create artificial flavors for the food industry, and my first fear was that the olfactory was acting up, and my career might be jeopardized. But the Chocolate Experience was an isolated one, and it was soon forgotten.

It must have been two weeks later when the sneezes blasted me from slumber at about four in the morning. It was the damned cat. In my sleep it hummed and sputtered in my lap, as I stroked it, loved it, cuddled it as if it were my closest life-long chum.

But I'm allergic to cats.

Okay, I love animals, am a member of Defenders of Wildlife and the Cousteau Society, but I just hate cats. They're sneaky, annoying, leave their hair all over the furniture — which they've clawed to shreds — and make my eyes go red and teary. My deviated septum packs up and explodes when one of the little darlings is near.

So what in the hell am I doing cuddling and cooing Puffin my sleep? And with all deference to the wisdom of my allergies, since when does dreaming of a cat make me sneeze?

Something was going on here that I didn't understand. It struck me that perhaps I was dreaming someone else's dreams.

But it turned out to be more than the purloining of slumber fantasy. What was happening to me was much more than a dream.

One night, while driving home from a particularly tiresome day at the lab, the dream spilled into my waking hours. I was overwhelmed with affection and warmth, overflowing with a rush of romance that would have made the Bronte sisters blush. Somehow, I was a human radio tower, receiving emotions of such depth that I nearly crashed the Mazda.

Here I am on the way home from Consolidated Flavor Enhancement, looking forward to choosing from a variety of at least half a dozen boxes of Lean Cuisine in the freezer, a light beer, and a stroke magazine I hid in the evening Examiner, and I was nearly knocked senseless by this rush of true love so inestimably foreign to me.

I thought I'd been in love a hundred times — I know I told a hundred women I loved them, and I sure meant it at the time — but I'd never known true love. And compared to this experience, I'd never known even a reasonable facsimile. With a crescendo of sudden shame and embarrassment, I realized I didn't know shit about love. I was hit in the face with my shallowness, so incapable of emotional depth that I never knew such feelings existed.

When the transmission ended, it left me drained, and unbelievably sad.

Supposedly you never miss what you've never had, but now that I'd felt this exhilaration, I was left deflated and so depressed that I actually cried on my way home.

Even as a child, I never cried. I used to lie in bed at night, trying to summon up the image of my dead grandfather to make myself feel enough to spill tears, usually without success.

And now, caught in the valley-bound gridlock of rush hour traffic, my anticipation of Pritikin bread and Cookin' Bag chicken was trespassed by the swelling and spilling of heretofore arid tear ducts.

To a newcomer, feeling is pain.

But it was a glorious pain, and once felt, I needed to experience it again. What was happening to me? And why?

Over the ensuing weeks the transmissions were random. Somehow, I was a psychic burglar, stealing someone else's senses. Without warning, I would see through someone else's eyes, taste with their mouth, or — by far the best of all — feel what they were feeling.

But nothing I could do could will the transmissions on. They struck at random, and always alone: smell without sight, touch without hearing, emotions without sight.

However, now that I seemed to understand what was happening, and looked forward to receiving the signals, they were denied me. I wanted to feel the emotions of a true human being, someone who felt deeply and passionately, and seemed to take a proper place on the planet. I felt like a welfare tenant in Hearst Castle, that I deserved to be evicted from the planet for impersonating a human being. I wanted to be allowed to grow.

But days passed, and the only emotions to roll about in my head were, disappointingly, my own. I kept occupied at the lab, made myself so busy that it kept me from wishing for an empathy rush.

Just an ingredient or two from perfecting an imitation honeydew flavor for Jelly Bellies, it struck again. No longer confined to dream infiltrations, the transpositions chose to attack in my waking hours, and usually at the most inopportune of moments.

Like the first time, it began with a smell. It was almost roses. In my business, I knew immediately that it wasn't real roses, but a very good simulation. I've since identified it: tea rose perfume. And then the feeling. I covered myself with my arms, suddenly standing naked in the middle of the lab, toweling myself dry, powdering my body, softly, luxuriously, sensually pampering myself.

It was a woman!

And as swiftly as she was there, she was gone, and the heavenly scent of almost-rose on her skin gave way to the syrupy stink of near-honeydew. A bad bargain, but it left me with a raging erection.

Though I hadn't seen her, I knew she was beautiful, judging her from the inside out. She was filled with love and goodwill, and her abrupt departure was painful. I needed to know her better. I needed to know her at all.

That was the day. From that point on it was all I could do to live my own life. I thought about her endlessly, wondering who she was, where she lived, what could be the sonnet that was her name. What did she look like?

The next phase was paranoia.

Was she receiving me? Was this sensual exchange a two-way circuit, or merely a party line on which I was invited to listen in? And if she were receiving me, she could see how relentlessly superficially my life had been lived. Before finding her, my deepest thought was the perfection of imitation top sirloin, and I was sure she'd found me out. She must know about the men's magazines that littered my bedroom and bathroom… and in turn be aware of the inordinate amount of time spent with my left hand. Even before the divorce. I suddenly felt very lonely, in the most literal sense of the word, knowing that she deserved better than me.

And so did I.

For the most part, what I received from her were the most beautiful and pure thoughts and feelings that I had ever experienced. They were so good, so generous, so giving that I could but envy her. I threw out the beaver books, dusted and vacuumed the house, and even scrubbed the toilet. I even began to make the bed every morning. You never know…

Perhaps my attempts to impress her through the two-way mirror I imagined existed between us were a little overboard, but I had to be my best for her, and thereby for myself. I wrote checks to wildlife organizations; I began to compose hopelessly romantic poems; I had fresh roses around me at all times; I even went so far as to buy a cat. If she knows, it is worth the sneezing and the watery eyes.

I tried not to consider the more likely possibility: that she was blissfully unaware of my existence. I needed