In Dark Corners (37 page)

Breath catches in my throat, pulse races through my veins, as another wave of inflamed lust overwhelms my hyper senses. My wings rapidly fan the air into a raging windstorm, and I growl loudly with ferocious passion, snatching her up off the bed with an arm under her back; and we lock a second time, hovering in the air, like two birds of prey mating on the wing. Again it lasts only moments.

Afterward she hangs limply from my arm, her body dangling in the shape of an inverted V, moaning in my grasp. And her face, the beautiful face framed by the unruly auburn ringlets, has an odd look: Features etched with deep grooves of pain and agony. Yet the emerald eyes aglitter joyously and her lips curl up slightly at the corners—a look of pure rapture overwhelming the hurt expression.

Her eyes close.

Sweet, glorious ecstasy.

***

I awaken confused, back in my bed at the hospital, all alone, sitting up and inspecting the skin of my arms, glancing down at my manhood. Everything is as it was yesterday. Obviously no wings, no huge male genitalia. Nothing unusual about my appearance.

No indeed.

Of course, it has all been a dream, I am forced to admit to myself.
Just
a dream. But such a fascinating one. And remarkably, the intense yearning—my molecular sexual hunger—has been satiated, fulfilled by the intensely erotic dream. I feel spent, but completely satisfied by the imaginary dream sex.

I rub the faint
she
smell from my nostrils as I get up.

***

That night, after the overcooked dinner, I am drawn out into the hallway to the source of a nervous energy tingling in the air like just before a thunderstorm, an event that transpires each evening after the wing is locked down for the night—a kind of weird parade.

The main hallway from the front door leads past the mess hall to a double set of swinging doors, and the ward proper—a distance of about a hundred or so feet. The parade ground.

"Henry," I call out, trying to stop this resident who is in the group marching up and down the hall, a guy I know casually from my first day, when he successfully bummed a cigarette from me. He is a tall, thin young man of about thirty or so, with an expression characterized by facial tics and twitches.

"Henry, Henry, stop, I want to ask you something," I say, holding up my hands and trying to partially block his path in the hallway, while staying out of the others' way. He neatly avoids me, juking right then moving to his left into the crowd, as if he were a small NFL running back losing himself among the linemen.

"Sorry," he says, glancing over his shoulder at me, "can't stop now, in a hurry, in a hurry."

I watch him reach the locked front door at the end of the hallway, turn and circle back my way, just shaking his head as he passes me by. Up and down the corridor he goes, with at least a dozen others, marching to the beat of an unheard drummer, creating a palpable tension in the air, all this initiated when one of the techs turns the key in the front door lock. And they will continue to circle the hall for four more hours until lights out, apparently working off the nervous energy that will enable them to finally sleep.

It happens every night. Same parade, same high-strung participants.

Watching them I smile wryly to myself, remembering my dream and thinking there are much better ways to work off nervous energy.

Yes, indeed.

***

As the next few days pass, I notice the demanding hunger in my cells beginning to build again, the same pattern of rising intensity.

But now I know exactly what I need; and I watch for a potential partner, preparing myself for another of the emotionally charged erotic dreams.

***

Early the next morning, staff are on rounds in the dayroom where all the residents are assembled and milling about between the folding chairs—Dr. Jones, Nurse Mel, two psych techs, and a stranger, wearing the white lab coat of a doctor, a psychiatrist. But what a gorgeous stranger: Shoulder-length shiny ebony hair braided into dreadlocks, almond-shaped mahogany eyes, full lips a deep scarlet color.

My nostrils flare as I edge a few steps closer, shouldering past several residents to get a closer view and sample her
she
scent. I stifle a moan of delight. Oh, yeah.

Her nametag reads:

Dr. Keiko Yoshiharo, M.D.

UCSF

"Ah, John Doe," Dr. Jones says, spotting my face and gesturing for me to approach, "Dr. Yoshiharo, visiting from the medical school in the City."

Those residents near me quickly shrink shyly away into the background, leaving me exposed and all alone to deal with the visiting doctor's curious, probing gaze. She does not take her eyes from mine once during the few moments that Dr. Jones explains my brief history, talking over my head as if I were an unaware infant.

"…Unfortunately, he has not recovered any of his memory about his past. Isn't that correct, John?"

I break eye contact with the woman, and reply to Dr. Jones, "Yes, that's right, Doctor. Not even a
tidbit
."

He stares at me a moment or two, as if suspecting that I am mocking him. Then, without saying anything more, Dr. Jones glances at Nurse Mel—who frowns sternly in my direction—and leads the group around the dayroom, stopping now and then for a brief conversation with a resident here and there.

There is a rising nervous tension hanging in the air, as if a storm is coming, or like we have skipped most of the day and it is time for the lockdown parade—Henry and his band of marching fools. But this feeling is being generated by the confined group of sweating residents. Anything out of the ordinary is indeed unsettling to most of them.

I watch Keiko hungrily, as she moves with the group of staff, occasionally nodding attentively at Dr. Jones or asking a question or two herself. As they begin to depart the dayroom, she turns, scans about, picks me out near the T.V., and, I think I detect just the trace of a provocative smile directed at me, before the group disappears into the hall.

"Yes!" I whisper to myself, heart pounding.

I remain in place for a long, long time, trying to regain control of my racing pulse, my nostrils flared wide like a male lion after catching the scent of a female in heat.

It will be an eternity until bedtime.

***

Like the last dream, I am transformed again, winged and flying in a heavy mist, my huge genitalia slapping against the inside of my naked thighs.

Suddenly I spot her, Keiko; but unlike the last dream, she is awake, alert, lying on her bed, a slight smile, and a kind of expectant expression clouding her exotic Asian features. Almost as if she were anticipating my appearance. Her nostrils flare as she catches my male scent, her eyes widening slightly.

She is completely nude, and the sight of her full breasts with large purple aureoles and nipples and her ebony secret hair inflame my lust.

For a moment I hesitate, hovering above her.

But she reaches up, silently beckoning me to her, then clutching me closely against her nakedness, raking my back with her long nails, as we couple. We hammer against each other roughly, scratching and biting; and it is a violent, bloody commingling. In a moment we've finished, pulling apart, backing off, and eying each other, like a pair of wary, bruised boxers after the first round of a championship fight.

As we hover and copulate again, Keiko lies passively in my arms, moaning, her eyes closed as if she is savoring both the agony and rapture etched into her features; and I suck in the last of her energy just before I reach a thunderous orgasm.

Keiko hangs limply.

Sweet, glorious ecstasy.

***

Early the next morning, fully recovered from my dream encounter, I am out in the tiny exercise yard that is enclosed by a wall about nine or ten feet high. We are playing three-on-three basketball, skins and shirts, the other five participants all black and PCRs—penal code residents—who, unlike the other residents, do like to compete.

"Hey, man, we goin' to call ya'll Swoop, 'stead of John," one dude says to me after the first game.

"Why's that?" I ask.

"'Cause ya'll swoop down on the hoop like a big-assed bird, man," he replies, kind of half-seriously, everybody cracking up behind that, because me and this one other little black dude are the only two who
cannot
dunk the basketball.

We play another game to twenty, then take a break.

A new guy, a PCR just in from three days in observation, has brought a chair out into the courtyard and leans back against the wall watching us, his expression kind of dark and detached. Someone says, "You wanta play, man?"

He shakes his head dismissively, gets up, and crosses the court to the building and a drinking fountain. After taking a sip or two, he turns and glances around kind of casually. Then, without any warning, he darts across the court, uses the chair like a springboard, bounds up onto the wall, over, and disappears, while we all stand around with our mouths hanging open.

The psych tech, who is responsible, dashes out of the open door to the ward, shouting, "Hey, hey, you…" Obviously not even knowing the new guy's name. Then the tech turns and runs back into the ward to alert security.

As we all stand around on the court, I laugh and say, "Let's call
him
Swoop."

That cracks up all the PCRs.

***

Later Friday afternoon, I slip away from the co-educational group and manage to watch part of the early newscast on Channel 4, hoping to see myself or hear some kind of revelation about my identity, but it's not my face on the screen.

Instead I see a photo of the familiar face of Dr. Keiko Yoshiharo, catching only the last part of the story.

"…Found apparently battered and sexually assaulted in her
locked
apartment. At the moment investigating authorities are mystified as to how the assailant entered or left the victim's premises, leaving everything sealed from inside…"

At first I am dumbfounded.

Then, staring unseeing at the next story, I realize that I must have actually invaded the apartment by way of Keiko's dream. And the same way in the other woman's dream a few days ago. The sex really happened.

Dream sex…?

Suddenly it dawns on me—my true identity. I'm not just John Doe. No indeed. I know
who
I really am.

Excited, I hurry from the dayroom back to group, not really thinking, just interrupting and blurting out my discovery to the startled faces, "I know who I am!" I grin foolishly. "Yes, I really know now. I do. I am…I am legend…"

I'm brought up short.

Margaret, the spaced-out rocker, is not rocking now, but peering at me intently, her gaze alert and intelligent, a look of severe disappointment animating her normally blank expression. She just shakes her head, as if completely dismissing my partial revelation. Then she stares deeply into my eyes again, her nostrils flaring slightly.

Nurse Mel has called Eugene and Thomas, the on-duty psych techs, who grab me and hustle me out of group, despite my protests; back to my room, where they flip me onto my stomach, jerk down my pants, and jab a hypo painfully into the left cheek of my butt.

Then they roll me back over.

Eugene grins broadly, exposing his shiny gold tooth, and says in his deceptively soft voice, "Sweet Dreams, John."

And indeed, I begin to drift off, blackness rapidly closing down. But I can't rise up from my body this time, or transform myself into my legendary form. I just lie there, slipping into a drug-induced deep sleep with an overwhelming sense of something ominous about to happen.

***

I am staring up into the now familiar swirling mist, seeing nothing much, until a face suddenly appears above me.

Margaret!

But not mousy-looking now with an empty smile.

No indeed.

Leathery wings beat away the fog, and I see she is completely naked. Huge pendulous breasts and a thick, hairy black V…

Then, I catch her
she
scent, a strong, almost overpowering musky smell that instantly inflames a lust in me. And despite a lingering apprehension, I am fully aroused.

She drops down and easily mounts me. Then as I thrust up, she slips her arm under the small of my back and jerks me up off the bed. A sharp pain explodes up my spine, then a growing numbness, that I soon forget. The pleasure is stunning as I quickly climax; but she continues to pump, as I begin to lose consciousness, growing weaker with each of her hammering movements.

Finally, she pauses, arches her back, and sighs. Then she leans close to my ear, whispering, "Yes, you are indeed legend, Incubus, but you unfortunately destroyed your ideal cover here in the new world. And, as it is written in ancient Aramaic on one of the scroll fragments buried in an undiscovered cave near Qumran:
Even a legend must eventually come to an end
. Her gaze is locked on mine now, as she declares hoarsely, "For you see, I, too, am legend; I am
Succubus
."

Then she disengages, and I drop down to the bed with a heavy thud, gasping for air, drained of every ounce of energy, a cast off husk.

I blink.

The she-demon is gone.

And I feel myself weakly slipping into the chilling blackness gathering around me, but with a sense of resigned contentment.

Sweet, glorious ecstasy.