She'd forgotten the exhilaration that comes with a sensual high. When Feral wearied of dancing, he suggested they go outside. The night breeze rapidly cooled the sweat on her body, making her shiver.
As she leaned her back against the wall, Feral tucked his left leg between her thighs and ground himself against her hips. It was an incredibly juvenile, but deeply gratifying, public display.
He kissed her, his tongue probing with expert thrusts. His arms encircled her, locking around the small of her back. She felt like she was in a vise and, for a few brief moments, he lifted her on tiptoe. She could not control her breathing or pulse. Her fingertips vibrated against his skin.
He disengaged himself from their embrace and motioned for her to follow. Feral ducked into the alley that flanked the club, negotiating the garbage-strewn passageway with the grace of a panther. Sina wasn't quite as certain.
'Feral?'
He turned, his eyes glowing in the darkness. He reached out, quick as a snake, and drew her to him, capturing her left wrist and pinning her arm behind her. There was no violence, no struggle; just the sound of their mouths meshing. Feral's free hand explored her body under her blouse, his fingers tracing the curve of her rib cage, squeezing her nipples and rubbing them with the ball of his thumb. She gasped aloud, writhing against him like a cat in heat. His mouth covered hers and she had to remind herself to breathe.
Feral backed her against the wall, plucking at the snaps on her jeans. His erection, lumped in his pants, was nestled against her hip. Feral reached down to pull on his belt buckle, and for the first time since she'd entered the alley, she was afraid.
'No!' She freed her left arm and placed her hand atop his own.
Feral stopped, his blue eyes questioning her. What could she say? That she was scared of fucking? He'd think she was some kind of neurotic cocktease.
'No, Feral. Not here. Not like this.' She nodded to the heaps of reeking garbage that decorated the alley.
He stood there for a second, then nodded. His hand dipped into his pants pocket and handed her a motel key.
'When you're ready, just come on over. I'll be there.'
Sina sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the man she'd once imagined she would spend the rest of her life with. She knew she should feel guilty there was so little remorse to be scavenged from the death of a five- year-old relationship.
She studied Mike's familiar features, now rendered alien by the hollowness inside her. She tried to remember what it had been like, before the tedium and resentment leeched the passion from their lives. Her head began to throb.
She closed her eyes, trying to summon pleasant memories of their life together, but all she could feel was the longing, roiling like a storm cloud inside her.
The years they'd spent together had not been
Yet, although her previous lovers proved to be highly unstable, sex with them had been like walking on live coals and swimming the Arctic Ocean at the same time. She was dismayed to find sex with Mike lacked the delightful friction she'd grown accustomed to. She hoped that as they grew together, their sex drives would adapt accordingly — his increasing while hers decelerated, until they reached a suitable, mutually satisfying compromise.
At the end of two years Sina marveled over how they'd succeeded in reaching a level of stagnation it had taken her parents two decades to attain.
After their fourth anniversary passed without comment or celebration, Sina knew she'd been deluding herself.
It was then that the longing began. At first it was shadowy, ill-formed post-coital dissatisfaction. She no longer made advances toward Mike, preferring to accommodate him whenever he felt the urge, which, thankfully, proved to be infrequently. Sex, once her drug of choice, had become housework.
She knew she was being silly. So what if sex with Mike didn't sparkle? He loved and respected her. He offered her shelter and stability. She forced herself to recall her earlier relationships; the ones that had left her — emotionally bruised and physically battered — on his doorstep in the first place. The memories were sordid, tinged with self-disgust and more than a little sexual excitement. The hunger grew.
It was sheer accident she'd come across the poem.
When she read of the nameless woman, wailing for her demon lover, her face burned with the heat of recognition.
She realized she was mourning the lover she'd gone so long without. The lover she'd pursued in all his varied, imperfect guises for close to a decade.
She knew that the only love her demon was capable of was self-destructive, cruel, vampiric, parasitic, and all the other words her best friends had used to describe Jerry, Alec, Christian, Matt, and the others whose names, faces and genitalia had now blurred together in her memories. They were men incapable of love yet able to inspire suicide threats.
There was something about the love they offered her that friends could never understand, and it was beyond her ability to explain. Despite the unhealthiness of the attraction, Sina had experienced ecstasy with her would-be demon lovers. In order to taste the kind of love the poets rhapsodized about, Sina knew she had to suffer. To love as the immortals do is to know damnation.
At first she'd felt guilty for being unable to transcend the demands of the flesh, but that was soon replaced by resentment of Mike's inability to provide her with what she needed. He could not save her from herself and she hated him for that.
The longing continued to grow. She couldn't close her eyes without seeing disembodied sex organs pumping away like Victorian steam engines.
She was hesitant about taking action. She still remembered Lee and how he'd dislocated her shoulder and blackened both her eyes. She had loved him with a passion that was close to maniacal. She had lost control that time — and it nearly cost her life. It had certainly robbed her of her self-respect.
One evening when Mike was not home, she went out to a bar, intent on screwing the first man who looked at her sideways. Once she got there, she discovered she couldn't settle for just
The older men in their synthetic-fiber suits were ridiculous, if not actively repellent. Sina visualized them naked: paunches overshadowing their erections, their bandy legs white and absurdly hairy compared to their heads.
The younger boys with their acid-washed jeans and silk tour jackets were incapable of appreciating the lyricism of sexuality; all they were interested in was hopping on, getting off, and pulling out.
There'd been no demon lover there to satisfy her. She knew that when she finally found him, the recognition would be immediate. Her heart, soul, and womb would know him the minute she saw him.
She knew Feral was the one she hungered for. She glanced at Mike's slumbering form, his back to her. She promised herself to sleep on it before acting on Feral's offer. She climbed in bed next to Mike, pulling her limbs tight against her body in order to keep from accidentally touching him in her sleep.
She needed to get her head straight and think about what had happened. She had security, a home, and someone who cared for her. She couldn't throw that away.
When she closed her eyes Feral was there, shimmering like an ice sculpture in the Mojave, and she knew what her decision would be.
The motel was every bit as seedy as she'd expected it to be. Men like Feral didn't shack up at the Hilton. The motor court centered around a swimming pool with fungus-dappled tiles and a basin spider-webbed by slippage. An overweight woman in maid's whites pushed a housekeeper's trolley along the second story's promenade. It was hard to tell if the towels on the cart were clean or dirty.
Sina stood outside the door to Feral's room, working the key between her fingers like a rosary. She was
