Dark Creatures

by Shinigami

  

He hurt me. Harder than sex with his fisticuffs SLAM across my breasts. So I had to do it. I charmed him. Reached into his core and twisted, making him new, different, changing him from a beast of a man, to a dainty girl that could be considered "cute" if she hadn't retained her atrocious manner from her previous incarnation.

She mocks me still, I know, from darkened corners. "Sheila, the monster girl" she calls me. And sometimes I regret that I didn't alter her further than merely changing her sex, but at the time I had no thoughts of such cruelty.

She used to be quarterback Richard Vines, so big and muscular it seemed he could have ripped the ceiling from the walls and used it as a surfboard were he so moved. He had three girlfriends, none of them possessing a soul worth mentioning, and he walked around in the uniform of his red and blue high school jacket.

I came to Fairfield Heights High last spring, the skin on my small body a midnight black, the fragile wings that are as much a part of me as my heart looking not feathery, like my mother's, but like the wings of a devil. My small fangs and mouth, blood red against the darkness of my face, do little to help my popularity.

Were I larger than my four feet and seven inches I may have been the cause of fear instead of the object of ridicule, but I was not. And I was forbidden, as you know, to use my powers to harm another, even in defense of self.

Yes I knew this full well and I did what I did anyway. But I had to. And I tell you I have not harmed Richard but saved him, even though you may believe me not.

When I came to this place, I was the first Faerie to be integrated into the public school system. We came from the mists of memory not so long ago, for my elders decided that mankind had reached a level of tolerance that allowed our return. Indeed, most accepted me as best they could and some even tried to befriend me. It helped that I had taken a human name and that other than my obvious differences my body wasn't so dissimilar from that of a normal girl's as to mark me as "animal" to an observer. I wear comfortable fashions that allow for my wings either by leaving my back bare, or by being so voluminous as to allow me to fold them underneath the fabric. I've taken to wearing loose, hooded sweat shirts for instance, particularly on days when I wish to appear more normal. I am also a great fan of jeans for their ability to show off the shapeliness of my legs without calling attention to the reflective pitch black skin underneath.

My face has not the shine of the rest of my body and if I endeavor to keep my movements slight and refrain from speaking I can pass as a normal girl of African descent, though my features reveal themselves to be much too angular for the illusion to last under any close scrutiny.

After initial introductions, most people were every bit as understanding and tolerant as our esteemed elders had predicted. I even made a few friends. Anne, with her red hair and freckled, forever-smiling countenance would always sit with me during lunch along with shy, quiet Rachel in her somber black braids. At times talking to them I could almost forget that I was different. And I felt like I could make other friends if I wished it. Although many avoided me, almost no one delivered a cross word in truth. I suppose it isn't always a problem of ignorant masses. It is more often those worthless few...

For me it was Richard and his two friends. Their names were Carl and Mark. They were with him always in the beginning. Both a head or so shorter than the somewhat gangly Richard they were testes to his erect penis. Initially they called me "bat girl" and when I requested they desist, they did then proceed to make further light of my appearance, adding jabs at my manner of speech.

Oh Father! How I wish you hadn't passed! I could have cried into your bosom and you would have explained to me the nature of these miscreants and maybe I would be better for it. But I misunderstood completely. They were lashing out at what they did not understand and I thought when they said "bat girl," "monster girl" "devil lady" that they were ridiculing me because of my apparent sex.

So I told them what long ago you cautioned me not to. That I am in fact male. Smaller and more fragile than the female of our species but sharing much the same physiology. It was pride that made me burn to correct their error, and if I made a mistake than say it was that. For their teasing worsened then, mutated cancerously into outright hatred. Or it least that is how it seemed. They stood towering over me, forcing me into the boys restroom, punching me, taunting me to fight like a real man, and I wanted to. But I was forbidden to use my powers for harm.

This continued for so long, I grew to expect it. I learned to go to Richard first so I could get the day's beating over with. And allow the bruises which could not be detected on my obsidian skin to heal. And slowly I began to feel something shift....

Two of Richard's three girlfriends started going out with his two boyfriends and the other girlfriend had moved to California, leaving him alone. With me. Flitting about through shadows was a rumor that he and I were an item. These events occurred so gradually as to be nigh undetectable and when I was finally confronted with them in the form of Anne's sincere questions over lunch as to whether I was going to take Richard to the prom, you can be certain I was thrown.

But then perhaps there was a nasty truth in the rumor. Was I starting to look forward to my daily beatings? Was I lingering longer and longer around Richard afterwards? Was I...falling in love?

I could tell you now I must have been mistaken, and maybe I'd be right to do so. The mind plays tricks on us, making what we fear reality for a time so much that we begin to seek out our nightmares, to make them solid so that we can better grasp them. I endeavored to rout out the truth from fiction that next day.

I confronted him in the boy's locker room wherein I had grown accustomed to meeting Richard of late to receive my "dues" as he described them.

I kissed him and he kissed back. Our tongues touched, fleetingly. The flicker of a shivering flame.

He broke down then and sat on the bench of the locker room that smelled perpetually like feet. He held his brown curly hair in his hands as he stared at the floor and spoke with an air of astonishment: "I love you."

You know how you told me about Mom once? How she was so strong so powerful, that her skin was a lovely gunmetal gray that made you want to bathe in that color, drown in it forever. That's how I felt just then. And I know it was crazy. I should have hated him for hurting me but it was somehow okay.

Sitting on that bench, Richard continued, "I'm in love with a Faerie. Dad's gonna kick my ass." He got up and came toward me and I had to crane my neck up to see his face. "Punch me," he said. "Please, hit me. I've treated you like crap, why do you just take it?"

And I asked him, "Why do you?"

He just looked at me for a time. Then he closed his eyes and looked to his sneakers. "Is it true?" he asked.

"What?"

"Are you really a man?"

"I would say I'm more woman than man, but that I'm more male than female. The way we reproduce is..."

"Just...just shut up." Richard held a hand in front of my face still looking down. "I don't want to hear it."

"What would you like me to say?"

"I dunno. Some kind of lie. Like you're really some kind of freaky girl that's just pretending to be Faerie to test me or something. It's stupid though. I know what you are." He raised his countenance to mine. His eyes were a bewitching green. "You ever get invited to high council meetings?" he asked.

Still entranced by his eyes, I answered, "I'm not old enough yet but my mother..."I stopped as I realized that Richard was not as ignorant as I had supposed.

"Dad works as their servant.... says they're all uppity bastards. That the Sidhe are all the time thinking they're the ones who are the best, that they don't care about nothing but themselves. He says they all dress like pansies, all frilly with bows and shit like in a ball back in medieval times or something."

I nodded. "Sidhe," the high born Faerie, the brightly glowing, beautiful Faerie that were so often mistaken as Angels during the time of our exile, when humans chanced to peer through the mists that they created in their minds. In reality are not so benevolent as might be supposed from their appearance. Arrogant and demeaning, in their own subtle way they behaved worse to lesser Faerie than even the most vile human. "That's what mother says too but...I've always wanted to go,"

"Me too," Richard said.

There was a pause lasting for the space of a minute wherein we tried to find things to say, thought better of them and opted for more silence. Then finally, with a growl of frustration, Richard punched me hard in the belly.

It hurt, but for some reason it also felt good...then he slammed into my breasts and it came over me, the power. I couldn't stop myself. I reached out and my fingers phased through his shirt, his skin, his flesh. I wrapped my hand around his core and changed him. For a moment, his body was a lifeless cadaver as every cell died and returned to life as something new. It was then that I planted the seed controlled now by base instincts alone. Then her new body awakened and she was more or less as she is now.

I wonder now if he did it on purpose. If he knew, or if I should have insisted on explaining how we reproduce. Through granting wishes...charming...

The two things Richard wanted most of all, the desires that warred in his mind since he first knew of my nature, were to be Faerie, just like me, and to erase the beatings he gave me from his memories. In five years, when she is totally Faerie and the seeds have germinated into new life, maybe she will look on me with fondness again. I still love her...even as I hate her for wanting to forget.

I've taken up martial arts. I get urges at times to lash out in violence and the forms and structure of the Art serve to quell these urges. But father, we are dark creatures. We thrive on pain and suffering. I don't think we can ever be truly happy without those things.

  

  

  

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