by Flynn, Mac
Her shirt was the first victim of the creature's growing impatience. The seams along her short sleeves tore under the strain of the shadows' bulging presence on her skin. Then the side stitching burst open and the tendrils poured out of the rips like a cascading waterfall of dark, thick water. In a few moments her whole shirt fell away and her bra soon slipped from her shoulders and down her arms to the floor. She reveled at the refreshing feeling of the cool air against her bare skin, but the creature was quick to cover the entirety of her upper body in its soft, sensual embraces.
She groaned when she felt her pants button come undone, and the creature slithered into her wet panties. The waistband around her pants bulged out against the welcome intruder's presence while at her ankles the tendrils slithered up her legs. She shifted against the floor when she felt her thickening, expanding hips push up against the sides of her pants, straining for freedom from their confinement. Then the seams along the pants stretched and pulled against the thing's push, and she was grateful when the clothing finally split open. She was now completely naked except for the thin, white panties covering her moist, heated spot.
Amanda leaned back her head and her lips parted in a smile as she felt the tendrils brush through her stiff, dark hair between her legs. A soft cry escaped her panting lips when the creature brushed up against her wet, hot folds. Her tongue flicked out to wetten her mouth at the thought of the delicious, aching pleasure which was nearly in her grasp. Amanda almost wept for joy when the tendrils squirmed and pushed their way inside of her, all the while brushing up against her swollen, sensitive clit.
The band of her panties stretched and tore open, and that pitiful bit of fabric fell to the floor. She was at the full mercy of her dark lover, and she reveled at every touch and tease against her flesh. She leaned over and her enlarged breasts swayed to and fro beneath her, their sweat-soaked skin entirely wrapped in the soft, possessive embrace of the creature. With her entire body joyously trapped within the twisting shadows, Amanda thought she would faint away from the overload of seductive pleasure. Then the thing began to pull out of her folds and push back in with careful, hard strokes, and she knew she wouldn't be satisfied until she'd reached the wonderful heights her shivering body promised her.
Her hips began to rock with the creature's slow, deliberate movements. The pace was painfully slow, but she didn't mind. She wanted to enjoy every feel against her stretched walls, the sensation of every tingle as her tits were pinched and pulled. Her fingers buried themselves into the puddle beneath her and she felt as though she was sinking into the depths of that welcoming abyss which lay just beyond her own world.
The creature must have felt its own pleasure at her fingers kneading its body, for the slick limb pushing into her sped up. Amanda rocked back and forth as fast as she could manage, but her hips were too slow. She couldn't keep the rhythm and the creature grasped her around the waist to firmly hold her to the floor. The soft shaking of her body and the tightening in her stomach told her the promised end was near. She thrashed and pulled against the tendril's restraints as the moment came closer and closer. Her cries echoed off the room in wild ecstasy.
"Oh god. Oh my god! Yes! Oh god, more!"
She leaned back her head and opened her mouth in a silent scream of delight when the orgasm struck. Her body convulsed in large tremors of rapture and she flailed inside her casing of twisting tendrils. The creature kept going, rubbing against her clit again and again. The world around her exploded in more bright lights and her limbs trembled at the sweet rush of pleasure which rippled over her flesh.
The moment of rapture, however, couldn't last forever. Amanda whimpered when she fell from her heights. She never wanted to leave that wonderful place, not back to this plain old existence of mediocre pleasure and horrible, boring reality. The creature retreated back to its prison of stone, and Amanda stretched out her hand as thought she could plead with the tendrils to come back, to return to her. Perhaps one last time, just another chance at the bliss.
Amanda's silent wishes were ignored. The creature's languid movements showed it was tired, drained. In a moment the shadow limbs were gone, reabsorbed into the stone. Amanda sighed, but her brooding was interrupted when her cooling skin shivered against the air in the room. Then she looked down and blushed. There she was on Tony's bedroom floor completely naked. She frantically looked around for her ruined clothes, but they were gone, taken by the creature.
Amanda stumbled to her feet and took off for her bedroom. Thankfully she didn't go in front of any large windows which looked out onto the streets below, and in a few minutes she was dressed. A quick glance at a clock toward her there was only thirty minutes left until Tony came back from work. She'd been engrossed within the creature's embrace for a good half hour. The thought made her blush, but she had other things to worry about. The first was getting that stone out of Tony's bedroom without reawakening the sleeping creature within its walls.
Amanda thought better about touching the stone, fearful the strokes of her fingers would arouse both her and the thing. Instead she used the keyboard to knock it onto the floor, and then she kicked it down the hall and into her bedroom. She shut the door and made sure the knob was secured in the catch, then leaned her back against the entrance. There would be no erotic interruptions while her boyfriend was present.
As Amanda glanced down the hall to the darkened living room, she couldn't help but remember the nightmarish scenario which had taken place before her ecstasy. A shiver of fear rather than pleasure slid down her spine when she recalled the phantasm of the professor, and his words about the creature's interest toward her. His eyes were so dark and creepy, and she wrapped her arms around herself to keep the fear contained. Suddenly the relations she'd just had with the creature weren't as warm and fuzzy as she wanted to admit. However, the clock was ticking away and dinner still needed to be made for her boyfriend.
Amanda pushed off from the door and straightened herself up to her full, short stature. She wouldn't let the dark scare her, and she had the perfect plan for combating the shadows. When Tony returned from work a half hour later, he found the kitchen full of steam from the cooking pasta and the entire place illuminated with a healthy dose of power usage. He didn't want to imagine the bill if this was done every night.
"Got a little spooked?" he asked the chef. Amanda moved out from the billowing cloud of steam and smiled at him. Beside the boiling pot was a sauce pan filled with a mixture of meat, tomato paste and spices. He tried not to drool at the smell of her home-cooked meal.
"Not anymore."
"Especially with me here now, right?" he added. However, Amanda shook her head and nodded at the tv. The volume was low enough he could barely hear the sounds of the commercials, but there was a definite soft murmur gliding through the apartment. "So I'm being replaced by the tv?"
"You will be if you don't take me with you for your little trip." It was meant to be a playful threat, but his face paled. "Is something wrong? What is it?"
"Oh, um, nothing, that just reminded me something I forgot to do at the office, that's all." He plastered a smile on his face that not even a blind person would believe was genuine. "And about that, I'm not sure the paper would want me to have a passenger. You know, liability and all. Besides, I was thinking of driving straight from work to where I need to go. That'd cut down my commute and get me there before it got dark."
"Not even if you snuck me in through the trunk?" The spoon in Amanda's hands quivered and her eyes were a picture fear and pleading. She wanted desperately to go with him, to be with him. The loneliness offered by the darkness scared her nearly out of her mid. She was afraid that in a few days, that future would be fulfilled.
Tony sighed and his face dropped to a frown. He ran his hands through his hair and turned his face away.
"To be honest, I don't think you're going to want to go where I'm going." It was time to face the music. He was never very adept at keeping secrets, anyway. The sweet, false words just neve
r came to him long enough to last even a Christmas season of white-lies. "I was going to go look at that mountain again. You know the one."
Amanda's face paled and the spoon in her hand dropped into the boiling water. The stove top was splattered with the hot liquid and she yelped in pain when several droplets plunged themselves onto the skin of her other hand. She stepped back and clawed at her arm in a desperate move to get those drops of pain off herself. Tony swung around the counter, grabbed his drying towel and wiped it across her skin. The pain dissipated, but not her horror.
She stumbled back away from him until her back hit the counter. Then her hands gripped the edges and she slowly shook her head.
"Why? Just...just why?" Amanda couldn't understand why he had lied to her, and why he wanted to return to that horrible place. "You felt it there, didn't you? I know you did, your face told me that, so why?"
"I just...I just have to know. There's something up there and it could make us both rich-"
"Rich?!" Amanda's voice was a shrill copy of her usual tone. "You think this thing is going to make us money? The only thing it's going to do is kill us, or worse! Look at all those people that disappeared! What happened to them, Tony? Did they just go on some sort of vacation?!"
"Wait, all those people?" he repeated. He glances askew at her and his eyes narrowed. "You've been looking at my computer, haven't you?" She turned her face away from him, as much a sign of assent as any words she could have used. He stepped over and placed his hands on her shoulders. His eyes couldn't captures hers in their accusing stare, but over her she still felt the burn of his disapproval. "Amanda, what the hell is going on with us?"
Amanda would have been in a better spot to be mad at him if he'd only blamed her, but he put them both in the spotlight. However, as was the case she had more secrets kept from him than he from her, though she still felt his intention to inform his paper was grossly worse than her own.
"I-I don't know. I just don't know what's going on anymore. Everything's so confusing."
Amanda knew she was beating around the bush, avoiding what needed to be said. The noise of her inner mind shouting at her to tell him of the secrets inside her was so loud that she clamped her hands over her ears to block out a sound that only she could hear. She squeezed her eyes shut tight and inwardly begged herself for answers. One part of her mind tore at her not to tell him what had happened, while the other shouted into every corner of her head to reveal everything. Tony stepped up to her and gently put his hands on top of hers. She opened her eyes and was relieved to see a smile on his face.
"Come on, Mandy, we're in this together now. Just you and me."
The kindness in his voice melted away the dueling voices in her head. Her hands slipped down but he still held onto her, and clasped their fingers together in between them.
"I...I'm just so confused. I had this waking nightmare while you were gone. It felt so real that when I woke up, I didn't know if it had happened or if I'd dreamed it all."
"About that creature again?" he asked, and she nodded. His lips pursed together and his eyes narrowed in thought. "Damn. What the hell is going on around here?"
"You mean around me," Amanda corrected him. She fully admitted she was the source of all their problems. He didn't see it that way.
"No, I don't mean it's you. You're no more at fault for this happening to you than I am, or that crazy general store guy. This thing is what's to blame, not you."
"But I feel so dirty for letting that creature touch me. I just couldn't stop it." Amanda had to be careful with her wording, as she still hadn't told Tony the full truth with the monster's aphrodisiac abilities. She was jolted from her guilt when he gripped her shoulders and gave her a good shake. The force was so strong that she nearly toppled to the floor. "What in the world are you doing?"
"Trying to shake you from that type of mentality. You're the victim here, remember? That thing attacked you, and there's no way that's your fault, got it?" Amanda's brows furrowed and she partially turned her face away. Her trembling voice was hardly more than a whisper filled with awe and confusion.
"How can you be so sure of me? How can you be so sure of anything after you went up there and felt that...that thing?"
"Because I know what I want to do to find out about this thing, and maybe cause I'm getting out of this apartment. Maybe you need to escape these walls for more than just running to the store. These plain old things are bound to drive anybody insane." Tony glanced around at the bare white walls, more akin to those of an asylum or hospital ward than any place to be stuck in for days on end. "Maybe getting back to work is what you need to do, or just going back to your own apartment for some new scenery. You've got a lot better walls than I do, and they've got pictures on them."
"I don't know what I need to be doing right now." She wrapped her arms around herself to keep away the cold fear. "Everything's just so confusing that I don't know what's left from right, or up from down." She lifted her arm and cradled her forehead in her palm. "Everything's a blur since that day, like I've been living a long nightmare with bits of reality in-between."
"Well, I aim to find out what I can in a few days, so until then you just hold onto me and keep remembering that I'm not a dream." Amanda took in his words with disbelief, and her eyes shot up into his face. He was deadly serious about traveling back up to that horrible cabin.
"You're still going to go up there?"
"Yeah. I think it might help find some answers that reading those old newspaper clippings isn't going to answer. Besides, I have a few more questions I want to ask that old man we met." She grabbed his sleeves and pulled herself against his strong chest. Her face burrowed its way into his shirt and she tried to stifle the sob in her throat.
"Then let me go with you. I'm sure there's some way I can-"
"No." His voice was so firm that she flinched back from his stern tone. He gripped her shoulders and gaze down into her eyes. "I know I haven't been showing it very well lately, but I really do care for you still. That means I don't want you coming with me." She opened her mouth to protest again, but he shut it with a finger placed on her soft lips. "No more arguing. You going back up there just isn't a good idea. I can't explain why I feel so sure about this, but I think your illness or whatever it is would just get worse."
"I...I guess." She hated to admit he was right, but she couldn't deny that even the possibility of interacting with that creature again wouldn't help her sanity. Her mind was already slipping into some sort of oblivion of madness. There was the problem of being left alone. "But I don't want to be left alone."
"It'll only be for one day. I'll probably have to stay overnight at some-"
"Stay overnight? At that place?" Amanda grasped onto his shirt and her shaking fingers dug into the thin cloth. Her soft eyes looked up into his own with a fear that radiated off her entire being. "You don't mean to be up there at night, do you?"
"Not if I can help it, but I might be up there until about sundown. Otherwise it'll be hard to get down that trail without me falling flat on my face." He meant it to be a joke, but she wasn't smiling. Her lips were quivering, and tears were pooling in her eyes. She didn't want him to go so badly that she felt physically ill from the worry. He sighed, switched off the stove and led her over to the couch before she collapsed on him from the strain. They sat down with their bodies half turned toward one another. "It'll be all right, you'll see. I'll get back here in a day and we'll have a good laugh over being scared, all right?" She slowly shook her head, and her voice was so low he had trouble catching the words.
"No, you won't be the same, I just know it. There's no way that thing would let you be up there. You'll end up like the others, like that professor." Her pitch was raising higher and higher as she allowed the fear and panic to increase. "You'll be caught by it and it'll absorb you like it did the others. Then you'll be trapped and do its bidding forever." Tony was having a hard time holding her still. She twisted and turned in his grasp, her eyes large and
wild. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air, but for her there was no air. There was only fear. "Then you'll come back to me, but it won't be you! It'll be that rock! That disgusting rock that won't leave me alone!"
"Amanda! Amanda, knock it off!" Tony ordered. She didn't heed his calling to her until one of his hands let go of her and slapped her across the cheek.
The force wasn't great, for he was careful not to hurt her, but the effect was instantaneous. Her head lolled to the side and her eyes, open and panicked, blinked. The fearful emotions vanished inside herself, but Tony had a bad feeling they were only waiting there beneath the surface for their chance to break out again. Now she was a scared little girl, and she turned her head toward him.
"I'm...I'm so sorry, Tony. I don't know what happened. It's just...it's just too much." The last few words escaped with a sob, and she buried herself into his chest. Her wrapped his arms around her and held her there for a long, quiet moment. Only her sobs broke the silence, but he didn't mind. She needed to get them out.
Amanda was grateful when he rocked her in his strong, firm arms. She felt as though they were the last foundation she could stand on. Everything else was slipping away as though an incessant tidal wave pounded against the footings of her sanity. Tony was her last island to herself, that final bridge she could seek for her composure and calm.
"You understand that I still have to go, right?" he whispered to her. She stiffened, but nodded her head. "Is there anyone you can stay with, or that can stay with you? How about inviting one of your friends over here, or your apartment? You could make it a girl's night out." She let out a snort at his suggestion, but then she froze at his next comment. "And how about I take that rock with me? Since it's bothering you so much I might toss it in that cabin or over a cliff." He was surprised when she pulled away from him and looked into his face to see how earnest were his words. He was perfectly serious and honest.
