Skip to main content

Short Story: THE MONSTER

 

This Content is for Adults 18+ 

Trigger Warnings: Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse; PTSD from Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, including Intrusive Thoughts of Being Violently Killed by a Monster During Sexual Encounters. 

FOR THE GIRLS WITH MONSTERS.

The monster was born in a dark room filled with the smell of sweat and used genitals. The curtains had been drawn to hide the foul deeds done in its confines. The monster glutted on the stench of stale bodies and the shame of a trust turned sour. It filled itself until it grew so large it might burst, then it hid its bloated body inside the little girl sleeping on the corner of the bed. Imani, the little girl, woke from a feverish dream and her eyes landed on a vase shaped like a deer. White lilies had been stuffed into it— their brightness came to her eyes even in the darkness. Imani walked over, took the lilies out, and ripped the petals into small pieces. She didn’t know why she did it, really, but it felt good. 
    The monster hid itself in corners of her mind she didn’t know existed. It whispered thoughts to her— so quietly, that she thought they were her own. Thoughts like, “tell no one” and “they will hate you.” 
    So, for a long while, she kept the dark secret and it festered in her heart, feeding the monster its fetid meat. As Imani grew, the monster began to cause her some minor troubles, which is how she came to learn of its bloated life force, pulsing away inside her. Sometimes, it would stretch out its tentacles through her ears and knock over a bowl of cereal when she was trying to eat breakfast. Her parents would scold her and she would cry and try to explain that it wasn’t really her, but they didn’t believe her. 
    On other occasions, the monster made her lie in bed for hours at a time, staring at the wall, unable and unwilling to get up. Her parents said she was a good, quiet girl, but she didn’t feel good and quiet— she felt like her body was filled with mud, soiled beyond cleansing. 
    The monster sometimes took control of her lips, her tongue, and made her yell obscenities at her teachers. At this point, Imani felt that things had gone too far. She had to tell someone, and though the monster squeezed its tentacles around her lungs, starving her of air, she managed to rasp out the words:    
    “There is a monster inside me.” 
    No one believed her. Not her parents, not any of her family. They told her she was lying, that it was just her imagination, that she only wanted attention. The denial by her family only fueled the monster’s growth. It chuckled its cynical amusement through her mouth. 
    “See,” it said. “They hate you. It’s best you listen to me. I can protect you.” 
    From then on, Imani did listen to the monster and it did protect her. It steered her clear of all the dangerous things in the world, like kissing a boy or holding hands, or touching her own body. 
    Later though, when she turned fifteen, Imani had her first boyfriend, and it was the first time she and the monster had a disagreement. 
    Imani and DeAndre would make out behind the gym after school and the monster would take part, sticking a tentacle through her mouth to caress DeAndre’s tongue. Imani felt a thrill run through her body like little shocks of lightening. The monster swished in her stomach, equal measures of pleasure and fear coursing through it and then to Imani. 
    “This is dangerous,” the monster whispered. “They will hate you if they find out.” 
    Yet the pleasure overcame them and Imani and the monster did the bad things anyway. Over time, the monster’s desire grew and it pushed Imani for more control over their shared body. 
    It only wanted that control when they were with DeAndre. It would rumble around inside her, begging for release at the most inconvenient times— when they held hands at the mall, when DeAndre put his hand under her skirt in the darkness of the movie theater. Imani would squeeze the monster tight. 
    No, she would think, not right now. And the monster would grow angry. 
    Imani would finally relent and let it have its way when she met DeAndre behind the gym after school, when the place was deserted and there was no risk of anyone seeing. It roiled inside her, its tentacles bursting through her mouth and tearing through the flesh at the palms of her hands so that it too, could feel DeAndre’s hardened chest, the stubble on his cheeks, the stiffness under his jeans. Imani felt a hunger that was not entirely her own— a hunger for dominance and control. A hunger for pleasure. 
    The monster would release its slithering limbs and do all kinds of wicked things to DeAndre, all of which he seemed to enjoy. He never pulled away, even when the monster slipped its tentacle into his pants and rubbed him until he was rigid. On one of these days, Imani became entangled in the monster’s desire. She got so caught up in the heat of its power that their minds became one. DeAndre rolled up her skirt and this time Imani didn’t stop him. The power. It felt so good to be in charge, to lift her leg and wrap it around his waist so that he could enter her. Just before the contact could occur, a bolt of fear slashed through Imani’s mind, separating her from the monster. 
    “They’ll hate us for this,” Imani said to it. “You said so yourself!” 
    But the monster wouldn’t listen. It pulled Imani close again and pulled DeAndre close too. Imani gave in to the pleasure, the feeling of him moving inside her. Her pleasure seemed to climb toward a peak. She sensed she was on the edge of falling into a pool of pure delight. Just before she could go careening into the waters of pleasure, the monster’s tentacles turned toward her. 
    “This is too much!” it said. “Stop!” 
    But they had gone too far, and Imani couldn’t stop. 
    The tentacles wrapped around her head, tight, so tight, and snapped her neck. When Imani awoke she was in her own bed. DeAndre had brought her corpse home and she had slept until she was a corpse no longer. Her clock read 6am. She got ready for school, full of fear about what DeAndre might say. She didn’t talk to him at all while she was dead. 
    DeAndre seemed to be understanding, but Imani thought she heard disappointment in his voice when he said “it happens to a lot of people. It just happens sometimes. It’s okay.” 
    Their relationship continued, albeit in a much tamer fashion. Imani suppressed the monster, afraid of what other damage it might cause her, and eventually DeAndre broke up with her, citing death during sex as the primary reason. 
    Imani was okay with that. She’d never wanted things to go that far anyway. Or had she? She and the monster had become so close it was hard to tell their thoughts apart. Imani hid the monster away, locking it in a part of her where she could barely hear its whispers. She became so good at it, she almost forgot that it was there. 
    On Imani’s twentieth birthday she began dating a man who she daydreamed about so intensely that moisture dropped from between her thighs. Imani was in her sophomore year of college. Hakeem was tall, muscular, and smart. She knew he was smart because he was in her chemistry class and got high scores on his tests, just like she did. Imani liked smart guys, but was afraid to talk to any of them. She had no real experience with men— approaching them, speaking to them. She felt the monster roll over inside her. Aaah, that was it. The monster would help her get Hakeem— it knew all about these things, even when it pretended not to, even when it was afraid of what it knew— it knew. 
    On a Wednesday night, before chemistry class, Imani lay on the creaky twin bed in her dorm and poked and prodded at the monster, willing it to wake up and give her the courage she needed to get what she wanted. She figured she could tie it up again before it decided to kill her. It took several hours of reminding the monster of the good times they used to have with DeAndre for it to finally rise up, timidly, and meld with her mind. Satisfied it would stick around for a while, Imani wrapped herself tightly in her blankets. Snuggled up under the soft fibers, she fell asleep and dreamt of Hakeem slipping inside her, moving and moving until— she woke up before her body could finish. 
    That day in chemistry class, Imani pretended she was struggling with the homework and asked Hakeem to help her study. It was the monster’s idea. Hakeem smiled as if pleased with himself. 
    “Meet me at my dorm room at 7,” he said. “We can study there.” 
    Imani showed up with her books in tow. The monster had disappeared again. Imani could feel it trembling in fear deep inside her. It feared what she planned to do. But it was okay, it had gotten her this far. 
    After talking through the chemistry homework, Hakeem leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head, causing his shirt to lift and expose the hard slabs of rock that made up his abs. 
    “You caught on really fast,” he said, perplexed. 
    “Thanks,” Imani said. “Umm... I have a confession to make.” 
    “Oh?” “I didn’t really need your help,” Imani said. “I just wanted a reason to talk to you.” 
    Imani didn’t know why she said it, but she was happy she had spoken the words because Hakeem was smiling, displaying his perfect white teeth. 
    “I’m glad you did,” Hakeem said. “I’ve been wanting to approach you all semester, but I couldn’t work up the nerve.” 
    “What?” Imani said. She laughed. “You? The super-popular football player with—” her eyes glanced down, “—rock hard abs? Perfect grades? No way.” 
    “You seemed far more mature than me,” Hakeem confessed. “So quiet. It was hard to tell what you were thinking.” “Well, now you know,” Imani looked into his eyes far more boldly than she felt. Hakeem leaned forward, almost as if he were going to kiss her, but stopped short. “Can I see you tomorrow?” 
    “Sure.” 
    From then on, Imani saw Hakeem every day and a few weeks later it was well known on campus that they were dating. The monster seemed to return to dormancy and Imani went no further with Hakeem than French kissing and feeling each other up. It felt innocent and nice and Hakeem didn’t push her to do anything different. 
    After a few months of this Imani began to crave more. She decided she would have to be the one to initiate things. She wasn’t supposed to know about sex. And yet she, or the monster really, knew a lot of things about sex. Everyone else she knew on campus had already been very sexually active and she couldn’t seem completely inexperienced, so she made sure the monster was at least half awake on her date with Hakeem at the city fair. 
    They rode the Ferris wheel. When they arrived at the top, they pushed together, shivering in the evening breeze, watching the sunset. Imani had planned to wait until they got back to the dorms, but she felt a pounding between her legs. She thought at first that the monster had returned to its previous domineering nature, but upon closer examination realized it was still hibernating inside her, tentacles all curled up and wrapped around itself. 
    It was okay. She could do this on her own. She knew what the monster knew. She had always known, even when she pretended she didn’t. She knew that she could take Hakeem’s hand and inch it under her skirt, so she did. She was reminded of her time with DeAndre and became excited with anticipation. Hakeem’s fingers slipped inside her and he leaned into her, breathing heavily, becoming just as excited as she. 
    The Ferris wheel started moving again and they pulled apart, wiping their hands of the messes they’d made on the insides of their clothes. Imani’s whole body throbbed as Hakeem drove them back to the school and as they held hands walking back to his dorm room. 
    She pushed him onto the bed and he pulled her down on top of him. Crushed together, passion rolling through them, they kissed. Imani unzipped his pants and Hakeem pulled down her skirt. 
    The monster stirred within her, sniffing at the desire in the air. It unrolled its tentacles and pushed them out of her mouth, her ears, her nose, seemingly infected with Imani’s desire. It wanted a share. It clutched Hakeem to her body. They rolled over and the tentacles pulled down his pants and guided him inside her. 
    They fucked. There was no other word for it, the wild manner in which they moved against each other, rough and unflattering, howling and moaning. 
    Just as Imani’s body was about to reach its peak, the monster’s tentacles burst through her chest, tearing out her heart. She saw it hovering in the air before her, then the world faded away. 
    When Imani awoke she felt the monster inside her. It was wide awake now and it was larger than it had ever been. When had it grown to this massive size? 
    Imani tried her best to ignore the monster’s return, but she didn’t have much success seeing as it found a new and creative way to kill her every time she had a sexual encounter. On one occasion it grabbed a pair of scissors and jabbed them in her gut. On another, while she and Hakeem were in a park in the dead of night, it lifted her with its mighty limbs and impaled her on a tree branch. It had slammed her head into walls, thrown her across the room, and squeezed her around the neck until she turned blue. 
    Fall turned into winter and the monster grew larger and larger. Hakeem didn’t seem to notice it’s presence. Never noticed the blood, or her brain matter stuck to the sheets. Soon, Imani thought, the monster would explode and leave her a spatter of guts and flesh on the walls. The idea of it filled her with dread and panic. She needed to kill the thing, but she had grown so accustomed to its company, she feared what she would be without it. 
    One day, she sat on the bed in her dorm and turned out the lights. Imani called to the monster. It surfaced at the forefront of her mind, red eyes glaring and hot. It was the first time she had looked at it directly and it sent a thrill of fear through her limbs. 
    “I want you to leave,” Imani said. The monster’s gaze burned her, but she would not look away. “Get out.” It didn’t flinch, just continued to stare. “I said, get out.” 
    “I will not,” the monster said. It chuckled, a gurgling sound in its throat. “I will kill you first.”
    Imani twisted the comforter beneath her between shaking fingers. “Why are doing this?” 
    “You will not see me,” the monster said. 
    “I see you now,” Imani said. 
    “You don’t.” 
    “Show me.” 
    The lights began to flicker, even though Imani had turned them off. She clutched the comforter tighter, fear burning through her nerves and forcing her to sit completely still. A little girl appeared before her, standing in the shadows so that Imani couldn’t make her out completely. She seemed familiar, like someone Imani had known long ago, a kindergarten friend perhaps. 
    “I am here,” the little girl said in a harsh voice, deep like thunder. Such a powerful anger should not come from one so small. It radiated from the little girl’s body when she spoke, piercing Imani’s chest and making her feel angry too. Imani stared at her, waiting, but the girl said nothing else. 
    “What do you want from me?” Imani said, trying to hide her fear. Something about the child was unnatural. 
    “I want blood,” the little girl said. As she spoke, an image appeared in Imani’s mind of a woman she had tried to forget for many years. “Then I want to be seen by the world,” the monster continued. “Then I will sleep.” 
    “Okay.” Imani said, clenching her teeth. “I will give you what you want.” 
    The little girl disappeared. 
    The next morning Imani traveled to a home that was old in her memories. It looked the same as it had always looked. She knocked on the door, pretending to be a friendly visitor. Her aunt welcomed her inside. Into the room where the monster was born. It was different now—the white walls had been painted blue, the bed had been removed and a small couch squatted against the wall. Across from the couch, a purple rocking chair leaned forward and back, the whisper of someone sitting there moments before. In the center of the room stood a glass coffee table, topped with a deer-shaped vase filled with white lilies. 
    Seeing the lilies brought memories to Imani’s mind—things she thought she’d forgotten— a salty, fleshy taste— a stale, sweaty smell. 
    Imani shivered, suppressing a wave of nausea. 
    “Can I get you anything to drink?” her aunt asked. 
    Imani smiled, the monster twisted sharply in her guts. It was angry. Did she not remember? The sweat? The hurt? Why did she act like nothing had happened? 
    “Yes, do you have water?” 
     “Sure.” 
    Her aunt rose to fetch the drink and when her back was turned Imani grabbed the deer-shaped vase and smashed it over her head. The vase shattered upon impact, spraying water everywhere. Blood leaked from the large crack in her aunt’s skull, soaking the lilies crimson. Imani walked calmly from the house. 
    The monster inside her bubbled with satisfaction. “Next,” it whispered, “you must parade me around for the world to see.” 
    So, Imani did. 
    The monster came out of its hiding spot in her stomach and it was a thing to behold. It was not in the form of the little girl Imani had seen in her dorm. Hideous, a ball of slithering, slimy, purple tentacles. It had bright red eyes and no mouth, yet it spoke. 
    Imani called a gathering on her college campus. She paraded the monster about, dancing with its many limbs, twisting and turning in the open air. Many people witnessed its existence. Some walked away in anger, calling the monster ugly and a liar. Others wept when they saw it and released their own monsters. Tentacles and fangs, hairy backs and twisted tongues, claws and roars, they all danced together, happy to be seeing each other at last. The monsters were not alone. They had never been. 
    Imani’s monster danced and danced, meeting more monsters, and slowly, as it moved, as it confessed its pains, it began to wither. Its tentacles shrank and turned to dust, revealing at its center, the little girl. 
    Imani’s chest glowed with delight as she ran forward to embrace her. 
    But her arms closed on air. The girl had gone— disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Short Story: THE MARIONETTE

  The first string appeared the day after Nia was married. When she saw it there, anchored into her shoulder and stretching up to disappear into the kitchen ceiling, she told herself she could always go back. She didn’t want too, of course—she loved Richard more than anything and couldn’t picture a future without him, yet the idea of marriage felt outdated. It was a lot of money to spend when they would live the same lives together with or without the ceremony. Nia just didn’t see the point. But everyone, including her mother, grandmother, and all her aunts, seemed to think it was proper and necessary, so she went along with it. It seemed to make Richard happy anyway. Besides, the string wasn’t that much of an annoyance, it was just that sometimes her shoulder would twitch, out of her control. It didn’t happen too often, and she had full command over the rest of her body, so she figured it was best to ignore the thin little strand.       A few months after the w...

Short Story: THE MISSING

     Trigger Warnings: Racial Slurs, Threats of Racial Violence The negroes in the growing town of Canton were vanishing without so much as a whisper left behind. Leslie had been hearing the stories for weeks now. At his job at the textile factory, his coworker Desmond made a habit of sharing the latest disappearances when they stood around the maple tree, waiting for more batches of finished product to come through the factory doors so they could load them onto the boxcars. Leslie spent twelve hours a day heaving the heavy bundles of finished cotton cloth. It was grueling work that had made the muscles in his back develop a constant ache, even when he wasn’t working, but occasionally a machine would break down which meant the negroes could gather round the maple tree and share a few words. Leslie was on one such break now and took the opportunity to bite into the ham sandwich he’d made himself that morning. He ate quickly— one could never know how fast they would be call...

Pros and Cons of Getting an MFA in Creative Writing

What is an MFA?  An MFA is a Master of Fine Arts. Getting an MFA in Creative Writing is often seen as a waste of time and money. Many people want their degree to help get them a job and if that’s what you’re looking for in an MFA, you’re looking in the wrong place. Having a masters can give you a small boost when applying to teaching jobs, but publication credentials are often preferred over education. So, what is an MFA good for? And what are the downfalls? Most importantly, if you want to take the leap and apply, how do you decide which school?  PROS  Validation Getting into a writing school can feel like a validation of your talents and abilities. People who are actually involved in the writing profession have judged you to be a good enough writer to take on and teach. If you’re very confident in your writing ability already this may not be a good reason to apply to a school. But if you’re anything like my past self and doubted all the teachers and family that told you...