hello crow
Another time, another happenstance. Same souls.
We caught the same train every day. The crowd was familiar to you as background. You generally refrained from engaging with anyone, and when you fed, you fed lightly, to avoid patterns.
I don’t actually know if I stood out to you. We made eye contact a few times and I certainly remember it. Your expression was always intense, like you were thinking furiously. I’ve learned since that you just have Resting Dom Face.
I wanted to be your friend.
I struck up a conversation with you on the train platform. It probably became instantly apparent I don’t think entirely normally because the first three salvos in the conversation were all mine. “A colleague worked out that this is the least regular service on the line. / Don’t you think it’s strange how no one speaks on platforms? / Oh, I forgot we hadn’t actually spoken. I’m Andrew!”
You looked so surprised and affronted that I laughed, and apologised for intruding. Then you gave me a look—from feet to hands to face—that felt like a sun lamp on my face. Men often do this to be aggressive, but not you. I felt weighed up, and I don’t know how I fared in the accounting.
Where words spilled out of me, you stood taciturn and reserved. I think back to the tiny pause before you extended your hand. With one smooth motion you cut through the frenetic energy of my introduction, established yourself as being in control, and showed a sort of graceful composure I quickly learned was your natural state. “Crow.”
The train pulled in as we clasped hands. That unhurried, deliberate manner carried over to your eye contact. I held it, which was hard to do: though the corners of your eyes crinkled with the faintest smile, your gaze felt like a flamethrower.
I honestly couldn’t tell you if you spoke a word other than “See you” as we parted and entered the train. Even I, willing champion of social awkwardness, felt the need for space and time to think. I stared out of the window as the train pulled out of the station, brows furrowed, still seeing your eyes before me.
I missed the next two days of work, having come down with a mysterious illness that left me drained and unable to get out of bed.
I was still shaky on Monday, but bored enough to force myself out. When I reached the platform I spontaneously remembered our exchange and became nervous. The fact of my nervousness amused me. I realised I had a crush.
When you arrived I couldn’t help but give you a tight smile, like I knew a secret or a joke no one else would get. You nodded hello—again, that slight pause first—gave me a pleasantly neutral smile, and went back to minding your own business. I minded mine.
Maybe we would have continued that way forever, being nodding acquaintances. You are an intensely private and independent person, and I wasn’t about to follow up a surprise crush on a man.
That changed about a fortnight later when by chance I met you outside the station. Not just outside the station. I met you in Quest, the club that played host to that most welcoming of kink events: Euphoria.
Back then the atmosphere was buzzing. In the social area the pool table had been covered and a trans woman tied spread-eagle on top. She made conversation with a couple of friends who casually rested their drinks on her back, making her flinch with the cold but have to stay still to avoid spilling. A spritely shaven-headed man, nude and painted gold, posed like a statue on a table opposite the bar. From deeper in the club wafted sounds of impact, stifled grunts of pain, happy laughter.
Freya, proprietress, bustled up to me, all effusive welcome and hugs. I hugged her back and circulated a while in the lobby. Friends flirted and made propositions and asked after my health. I tried an electric collar for the first time and cursed worse than I have in years—those things suck! Then came time to see what people were up to.
It’s quite common for people to watch people play, especially when that play is spectacular. A crowd had developed around the man with a bullwhip and two red-striped girls, both wearing very little and desperately holding playing cards between tense butt cheeks. Who knows what forfeit awaited the first to drop her card? Fewer watched the people flogging their partners, though a Domme in a latex mask drew admirers for her physique as well as her technique. Quite a few watched a man on a St Andrew’s cross call out as his partner scratched lines into his back with silver claws. In addition to the cross he was further held in place by the neck of a champagne bottle inserted up his back passage.
No one really gave a second glance to the two people deep in conversation near the back. I did, though. I recognised you from behind. Not by your clothes, though you fitted your shirt and waistcoat wonderfully; nor by your hair or any other physical thing; but oddly enough by the smooth, unhurried way you put your hand on her upper arm.
I was thunderstruck: frozen in place as I watched you speak with her. Only speak. She was dressed provocatively in a lacy bodysuit and her white limbs were unmarked. Yet I watched her head bob and her eyes remain heavy-lidded as you spoke to her, a steady stream I could barely make out. She hung on your every word, smiling when you made her smile, distraught when your soft voice willed it. Sometimes you asked her questions and she would answer with heartbreaking sincerity. She never took her eyes off yours. I thought of a rabbit hypnotised by a snake.
The rabbit stood, moving with a slowness I recognise from the drugged or those deep in subspace. You rose with her, enfolded her in your arms, and kissed her neck.
Well, she all but melted. My own breathing caught. I thought you must surely have bitten her but no, after the hug you disengaged, and she walked slightly unsteadily the way of the lobby.
You didn’t watch her go. You were looking at me.
I raised a mute hand in greeting.
Your expression did not alter as you stared at me. Again that weighing look. You will have seen me breathing slightly fast. Perhaps you noticed stiffness in my hands from where instinct half-curled them into fists, ready to protect. Sitting there in your suit, handsome face groomed to perfection, my subconscious labelled you predator and I did not know how to process it.
You half-turned and gestured to the seat so recently vacated. Now it was my turn to hesitate. But I took your invitation.
“Andrew.”
“Crow.”
Even buzzing with fight-or-flight I could feel gratified you’d remembered my name.
“You look concerned.”
“What did you do to her?” I hastily added: “If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Of course not.” You leant forward, causing me to do the same in sympathy. We stared into one another’s eyes. “We talked.”
“That’s all?” There was something wrong with your eyes. Were you getting closer? I could smell your aftershave but it was like your eyes begin to fill my field of view. There were sparks there, in the depths…
“That’s all. Now, what do we do about this? We know one another, after a fashion.”
A myoclonic jerk—a twitch like I was resisting falling asleep—brought me ten percent back to sobriety. Paranoia made me look away, down at your hands. Something wasn’t right. My heart pounded like I was in danger.
“Hmm?”
“I said can I trust you to keep my secret?”
I glanced up at your face again. That same intensity that scoured me the first time we met seemed to burn a hundredfold stronger. My gaze fell to your lips. “Which secret?”
You didn’t answer. Those lips turned down. I wonder now if you sensed I was resisting whatever spell you were trying to weave, but at the time I thought you were just growing impatient with me in my confusion.
It was the glance—a fraction of a second only—at the others in the room that convinced me you really were dangerous. What would you have done with me had we been alone?
“Andrew.” I startled when you took my hand, but did not withdraw it. Your fingers curled lightly around my wrist. “You can trust me. I need to know I can trust you.”
“I won’t tell anyone what you are.” Why did I choose that phrasing?
You studied my face a while, wolfish features sharp. Then all of a sudden you visibly relaxed. Leant back a little, allowed the frown to cloud over with neutrality. “Thank you.”
You kissed my wrist. I think my eyes must have been saucers. I can feel the coolness of your lips now.
Then you were gone. It took a while before I trusted myself to stand.
Kinksters often grab a meal together after events. People showered, clothed welts and bruises with long sleeves, then descended on town.
We ended up at a Japanese restaurant. You weren’t there but the girl you’d been speaking to was, smiling and laughing with the rest of them. Sara, rabbit girl was called. I saw her expression when she thought no one else was looking. Haunted. Wistful. She kept checking her phone, glancing at the time.
We ate bento boxes and the more sensible beat-up people avoided alcohol. I was shyly explaining vore to a friend of a friend when I realised Sara was no longer at the table. Overcome with an unaccountable creeping fear I slapped my credit card down in front of a friend and stumbled out the restaurant’s front door, to the sound of questions fading behind me.
The street was still busy. Sara was rounding a corner. I followed.
She cut a direct course to a park in the lawyer district. Late in the evening, only a few people passed Sara and her unseen tail.
You were waiting there on a park bench, illuminated by a street lamp. I just barely managed to stop myself from stepping out of the cover of an ornate black-painted railing.
She sat on your lap and leaned in to kiss you. Together you shaded your faces from the street lamp, hiding yourselves in darkness. I saw her hand jerk up to your cheek suddenly. Pain? Had you bit her tongue? Whatever you did, she melted immediately after. Well, I guess she was a masochistic, after all.
You stood. I understood how strong you were from how easily you lifted her from that disadvantageous position, going from seated to carrying her in your arms in one motion. She kicked her legs and giggled.
You gracefully set her down and she clamped on to your arm. All signs of melancholy or whatever had haunted Sara were gone. You and she looked like new lovers.
I had to move to keep you both in sight. You guided her in a meandering route to a row of sandstone-fronted offices, tall and grand. Between two you slipped down a ginnel. An enclosed courtyard lay beyond.
There was no way for me to see what was happening without following. I hesitated by the mouth of the ginnel, holding a phone with 999 entered but not dialed.
Fuck it. It was dark. I slipped between the sandstone buildings.
You had her pressed against a wall, head between your hands. I could hear you both breathing heavy in the small courtyard. You kissed like you wanted to eat each other, but I guess that was only half true because you bit again. She moaned and pulled your arse closer: with a lift and a smooth step into her you pinned her between your belly and the wall, grinding yourself between her splayed legs.
You broke the kiss. In one smooth motion I watched you pull aside her head by the hair and sink your teeth into her throat.
She went rigid. She opened her mouth to scream but it cut off with only a strangled gurgle. You continued to press her against the rough stone wall as you drank down blood in great, rapid swallows. The way you adjusted her position—removing your weight and shifting her left to make easier access—made me shiver. If you’d repositioned the straw in a juicebox it wouldn’t have appeared more natural.
I staggered out of the ginnel, heart in turmoil. “Stop!”
You didn’t, taking another hearty swallow, and another, and another. I watched Sara’s wide eyes staring at me as you fed.
Before I’d taken more than a step towards you, you let her drop to her feet and half-turned to face me. The flamethrower intensity of your gaze didn’t reach me in my killing intent. I was measuring the distance to you, picturing the takedown I would attempt, adjusting for the weapons in your mouth. That I would simply be killed did not occur to me. I stalked forward.
“Nng, stop! Stop!”
It was Sara. She sounded in an agony of fear but she was looking right at me. I froze in place and you lowered your free left hand.
“Want this! Let hi—” She coughed to a stop, her struggling system unable to maintain the panicked shout.
I stood, suddenly impotent, hands opening and closing like I was full of energy and the outlet had been stoppered. “What? Sara, he’s going to ki—”
“Mng, let him. I’m his tonight.” She coughed, symptom of a fluttering heart. “Forever.”
All the while you were staring at me. When I met your gaze I was defenceless against you. “What are y—”
“Did you dial?” you asked. Blood lay on the teeth that flashed with your speech.
“Hm?”
“Your phone. Did you dial?”
I lifted my phone into my field of vision rather than look down. 999 sat uninvoked in the ringer.
“… No.”
Red sparks chased one another in your eyes, a bonfire in a far-away place. I stood rooted to the spot. “Then you can stay. Watch.”
Sara laughed in delight. You turned and buried her in a kiss so deep it pushed her down into that space in which you first caught her. A trap? A trick? Did she go willingly? The effect was the same: when your teeth sawed through her tongue and you swallowed it down she merely moaned, so lost in the bliss of your consumption that the pain shorted out.
Her throat blossomed open to you again and you drank pint after pint of her till her fingernails scratched your back then went limp. When her heart stopped beating you had to suck, had to push her against the wall to squeeze every last drop out of her.
You pressed with a stomach full of her Behind a toned abdomen bulged the sign of your feed, taut and straining your shirt. You lay down her corpse not unkindly then burped, covering your mouth with your hand. Only then did you turn to face me.
Your waistcoat was open; your shirt, untucked on one side. Her blood painted one corner of your mouth, and your lips glistened red in the bright white street lighting.
If I’d called the police, I’d be dead. If I hadn’t let Sara die like she’d asked, I’d be dead. I know now your weapons lurked in the shadows. But I’d respected your hunt and I’d acknowledged the role of prey. Your gaze on me was curious. Again I was being weighed up. Measured.
You advanced on me, and I let you come.