The Shade
She was innocent. Perfect and innocent. Like I used to be, clay for the molding. I hoped that she wouldn’t end up like me, given shape by an invisible hand, fired into a form both beautiful and perfect for its intended purpose. You see, I am the thrall of a Shade, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I don’t know exactly when it was that he came to me. Was it possible that he first touched me years ago? But it was the summer before I went off to school that he made me his own. He has many thralls—I can feel their essence mix with mine in him. He comes to me every seven or ten nights, occasionally two nights in a row. The anticipation becomes intense—sometimes I call out to him in the night for the need. It is the need that feeds him, and when he feeds it he only makes it stronger.
The day Clarissa knocked on my door, The Shade had not visited me in five nights. I’d been expecting Clarissa, but I wasn’t pleased at her presence. I’d been on a waiting list for months to get a private room. My previous roommate had transferred to a different double room - The Shade had not liked her dark, unpleasant essence, and so I’d made her life uncomfortable enough that she’d left. Two precious weeks alone, and now Clarissa was hanging her clothes in the closet. I sat on my bed and watched her.
“So where are you moving from?” I asked as I examined her wardrobe, looking for clues to her personality.
“Oh,” she answered, “I was just looking for a spot closer to Biology. My schedule is kind of crazy.”
“Ah,” I replied, “I’m in Music, myself. Which is a bit of a walk, I’ll admit, but it’s good for me, and I hear the food sucks over in Jefferson.”
Clarissa just nodded.
I lay in bed that night listening to her soft breathing. Her breath came slow and easy, and I could feel her essence filling the room. Was it the same as the beacon that had drawn The Shade to me in the first place? Would he come that night, would I listen in as she gasped in her sleep at those wonderful dreams? If he did, would I see him that much less often? Would he pick her over me, would I need him even more than ever? The thought was unbearable. I slept fitfully, dreamed ordinary dreams of anxiety, loss.
That next morning I found myself admiring her body as she dressed. What a soft, feminine, effortlessly perfect physique she had. I found myself imagining her pale, perfect skin against my darker Mediterranean body. I’d never found a thrill in another woman’s body, not like this. This was not envy, this was desire, and it made me shiver. Was this the touch of The Shade? Was this his wish, that I lust not only for his visit but for the thought of this innocent waif, so close to and yet so far from me? Or was this something in myself, emerging unbidden?
That next night was the seventh night. I hoped he would come, that he would grace me with the passionate abandon I needed. He did not. I awoke more frustrated than I knew I should be. I knew he would come when he was ready, and when I was ready, and that he could see straight into my heart to know when I needed him the most.
I watched Clarissa that evening, sitting in her flannel pajamas, painting her toenails and listening to some music on her headphones. Her dark brown hair was pulled back and pinned with a fake ivory stick. I admired the way she arched her body forward with the flexibility of a dancer. She put so much effort into maintaining her appearance. Who did she do it for? Her adornment and her wardrobe were carefully chosen, immaculately maintained. I’d never seen her outside the dorm—did she seek the attention of men? Or did she seek to avoid it with her carefully sculpted vision of purity? She must seem immaculate, unattainable to the rough young men of the college, who looked for other signals, the ones I’d found myself broadcasting.
I suffered another night without a visit. I woke before dawn, trembling with my repressed desire. I couldn’t help but to think of the connection between Clarissa’s arrival and the late visit. Was he even now working his fingers into her slumbering mind? It had taken months before he’d finished with me. Would I have to wait so long before I felt his precious release again?
“I hope it’s not my snoring,” she said as we both dressed that morning.
“Pardon?”
“You look like you haven’t slept well.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. Just a little anxious about my recital next week,” I lied.
“Oh, well let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“You haven’t snored at all,” I felt obliged to say, although I wondered if it was plain from my tone just how much time I’d spent listening to the breath passing over her angelic lips.
“Oh, good,” she said, “I worry sometimes. Is it all right if I come?”
I blinked in shock. “Huh?”
“To the recital. I’d love to hear you play.”
“Oh,” I said, exhaling in relief. “Sure, yeah, I have a free ticket even.”
“That would be nice,” she said.
More nights passed without a visit. I was beginning to feel like a junkie in withdrawal.
“Please,” I heard myself whispering to the night, answered only by the sound of Clarissa’s deep slumber. “Please, I need you.” I wondered whether I was whispering to The Shade at all. Did I really desire her? I’d not felt one shred of desire for any other man or woman since The Shade had touched me. I took the sensation as proof that The Shade was occupied with Clarissa’s overflowing essence, and that I was destined to wait for months for the release I craved.
My desire, whatever its target, began to express itself physically. I woke in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday, feeling that familiar thrill from between my legs which usually came at the start of a visit from my other-worldly lover. But The Shade’s overwhelming presence was nowhere to be found. My body ached for release; I longed to pleasure myself, but I knew that there was no way I could get relief, that the physical act would only tease me to new heights of frustration. I lay silently, steadying my breathing, trying to distract myself. Then I heard Clarissa whisper something. My breath caught; I listened intently. I had almost given up when I heard it again, more clearly.
She was whispering my name.
I could stand no more. I quietly slipped out of bed, picked up my robe and towel, and slipped out into the hallway. I tip-toed down the quiet hall to the common shower room. I shed my clothes, and each sensation over my skin was agony. I slipped into a stall and shut the door, opening the valve to let a torrent of cold water flood over me, through my black hair, down over my creamy-dark skin, over my taut torso, cooling my fires before dripping down my tall legs and pooling around my dark red painted toes. I exhaled deeply and washed my body free of the temptation I could hardly stand.
After a couple of minutes, I was chilled, and so I turned off the water and rubbed myself dry, my skin pinking slightly from the friction. I heard the hallway door swing open, and for some reason I held my breath and stood silently in the wet stall.
The newcomer went directly to the first stall in the row and turned on the water. The air began to fill with steam.
I quietly opened the door of my stall, stepped into my robe, and collected my things. I was walking to the door, but I stopped in mid-stride. Through the tiny gap in the stall door I could see a nude female body facing towards the cascade of steamy water. I watched the water dripping down over perfect shoulders, down the slim back, over heart-shaped hips and trembling legs. I watched as she caressed her sides with her hands, embracing herself. She turned just enough, and I could see Clarissa’s face, her lips parted, her eyes closed.
She fell back against the wall. Her lips moved, silently at first, but then she began to whisper my name to the silent stall, as her hand dipped between her legs.
I stepped back, turned, slipped out the door. I returned to my bed, sure I couldn’t sleep. The room smelled sweetly of arousal—hers or mine, I could not tell. A half hour later, Clarissa returned, and I feigned sleep as she slipped between her own covers. Eventually I did drift into unconsciousness, and I woke to find Clarissa gone.
She didn’t return for the rest of the day, and when she did she was blushing brightly. She gave me a perfunctory smile and gathered some books.
“I’ll be at the library,” was all she said before she left.
That luscious ache between my legs was still there. It was all I could do to sit still while I practiced, my fingers trembling on the strings, the supple curves of the violin’s body reminding me of Clarissa’s shape. The fine finish reminded me of The Shade’s scepter, the vibrations of the thing reverberated into my crotch, and I had to put it down.
That night I woke and I noticed something different. My own essence, depleted as it was by the hunger of The Shade, usually settled over me like a too-small blanket. It took me a moment to realize that the warm feeling settling onto me was not the potent, needful, overpowering essence of The Shade, swelled from the sweet desire of his thralls, but the over-full essence of Clarissa, seeking me out by some other, unfamiliar need.
Most people cannot sense the essence of things like I could once I knew the touch of The Shade. My own essence had only ever held a single purpose, as far as I could remember, so I knew little of how such connections are normally made. I lay transfixed as I felt the soul of Clarissa settling over me, embracing me.
I almost screamed, though, as suddenly the warm essence drew back, and Clarissa jerked upright in bed. She gasped for air.
“What’s wrong?” I gasped, although I didn’t really want to hear the answer, truth or lie.
“Nothing,” rasped Clarissa, but then she started crying uncontrollably.
It felt so natural to slip out of bed, to rush to her side, to comfort her, to embrace her, to let her tears soak into my nightshirt. She melted against me, taking comfort in my presence.
“Want to talk?” I said after a while.
“Not really,” she sniffed.
I just sat there with her in the dark. After a while she spoke.
“Have you ever wanted something so badly it hurt? Something you know you can’t have?”
My heart raced. “Why can’t you have it?”
“Because it’s wrong.”
“Wrong in your heart? Or in someone else’s eyes?”
“What are we talking about?” Whispered Clarissa nervously, her tears stemmed.
“Who can say what’s wrong,” I continued, “if they’ve never felt it before? If nobody’s ever felt it before—if it’s the most amazing feeling in the world, would you kill it just because they didn’t understand?”
Clarissa just swallowed hard. I felt a physical warmth forming between us. I felt her move. I leaned forward, and our lips met, and our essences joined.
I’d never undressed another person, and I’d never imagined touching another woman in that way. Our hands stumbled, and the pressure between us built. In time, our nude bodies pressed together. Our hands explored where our eyes had only danced before. I tasted her skin. My lips burned like the lips of The Shade burned against my skin. I found her sex, and my fingers knew what to do, my lips knew how to touch her tender places just so.
She rocked her hips against my face. The room felt stiflingly hot. In my focus on her, I forgot my own insistent arousal completely. I forgot time as her pants and mews became the measure of my being. Her vocalizations were songs of my glory. Her essence and mine merged, and I felt fuller than I ever had before. From this fullness bubbled forth an orgasm, its waves of pleasure wafting over our souls like the scent of a banquet to a starving woman, complex and wondrous. It didn’t matter that it was her physical body that was pulsing and undulating on the bed, I felt it as truly as if it had been my own. In concentric waves, more and more orgasms came, and they harmonized, resonated off the shores of our passion, became larger than the two of us. The pleasure overwhelmed us, but her mind was not used to such senseless abandon, and after countless long minutes of noisy climax, she shied away, and turned on her side, and succumbed to oblivion as I hugged against her sweaty hips.
I heard the click of the door opening. Right away, I felt the essence of The Shade.
“You have come!” I gushed excitedly, turning. I had never actually heard him come through the door before. Previously, he’d always just been there when I awoke. He was also fully clothed, in regular-looking jeans and a t-shirt, which was unusual.
“Shh,” he whispered, putting something small into his pocket, “you must not wake her.”
I looked to Clarissa’s sleeping form. “Why not? Hasn’t she become your thrall?”
He shook his head. I could make out a faint smile on his face. “No, my dear, she has become yours.”
My jaw dropped.
“And,” he continued, “as you are mine, in time she will become mine as well. But not yet, she is not ready.”
My confusion gave way to a thrill. “Then you have come to use me tonight?”
“Perhaps,” he said casually.
“Please,” I suddenly pleaded, the words potent and unavoidable, “please, ancient one, please take my desire, I am so full of life for you.”
He regarded me in silence, unconvinced. I stood, stepped to him, placed my arms around his neck, pressed my sweaty body against his inconvenient clothing. I could see him more clearly than ever before, in the pre-dawn light.
“Feel my body tremble for you,” I gushed, “feel my sex burn for you.”
He grasped my arm, turned me around, pushed me forward over the edge Clarissa’s bed. I eagerly lifted my backside into the air. I felt his fingers probing against me, and all those days of frustration melted, bringing me to an instant boil.
“Touch me,” I urged, “take my desire, I have saved it all for you.”
I felt my body gushing all over his hand as he fingered me. He paused to undress, and from one of his pockets, he withdrew the scepter, a long, wooden sex totem which held great power. I felt its smooth finish sliding against my labia. Once slicked, it impaled me, the long, thin shaft sliding into my depths. He screwed into me expertly with it, and when my first, inevitable orgasm came, just as always, he withdrew the wooden tool and plunged his powerful, other-worldly penis into me.
He gave me orgasm after orgasm with his thrusting member, more than he ever had before. I felt him squirt his seed inside me, but he barely hesitated, turning me over on my back and using the scepter on me again. The wet sounds of the plunging wood filled the room. He moved; I found his crotch in front of my face. He didn’t miss a beat as my mouth slurped over his deflated member, urging it back to its full size. His sticky shaft tasted more strongly of me than usual. Before long I felt the life surging back into it. Its length, just more than the width of my four fingers, filled my mouth as perfectly as usual, and even as he began to thrust into my mouth I didn’t have any urge to gag.
He moved between my legs and plowed my sex again, then, and I enjoyed the feeling of his thighs pumping, his hanging testicles slapping against our co-mingled sex juices, his belly heaving with his exertion. I gazed up blissfully at his face. It had always seemed so shapeless, but now, in the light, his features began to resolve themselves. They almost looked familiar, although that was probably from previous furtive glimpses in the night. I came again, and my eyes closed as I succumbed to the feelings.
My desire tapped, I was vaguely aware of The Shade continuing to have his way with me. I danced on the edge of sleep, lulled by the rhythmic rocking of my body. Finally I heard him grunting again, felt him filling me, and even as I felt him step back off the bed I drifted off to sleep.
I woke up in the light, laying across Clarissa’s legs, her skin stark in contrast to my naturally-tanned complexion. My thighs and abdomen were as sore as they usually were after a visit from The Shade, and my desire was blissfully sated. I struggled out from under the blanket and slipped into my robe. In the hot shower, I washed myself clean, and I felt like an empty cup, ready to fill with need once more.
When I returned, Clarissa was dressed again. She blushed when our eyes met.
“I’m going to go get some breakfast,” she practically whispered.
“May I join you?” I asked hopefully.
“I’d love that,” she sighed.
We spent that day together, and while I felt a strong connection to her, the chemistry between us was faint, but comfortable, reassuring. I felt a constant urge to hold her hand, but thought better of it. The only acknowledgement of our physical relationship was that night, when we sat on my bed, watching a movie on my laptop, and our hands touched, and there was a brief, undeniable moment of truth between us.
Her company was perfect, familiar. It was almost torture to sleep in the same room as her, to lie there and imagine her warmth filling my arms. When I finally slept, I had a vivid dream. I watched from outside my body as she and I slept in the moonlit room. The door swung open; The Shade entered, and he leaned over Clarissa’s prostrate form, pulling the blanket back, running his hands over her plain cotton pajamas. I watched as my distant body slipped out of the bed, came to my night lover’s side, and began undressing the sleeping girl. Once she was nude, I watched myself kissing her pale breasts, as The Shade leaned down between her legs.
I woke then, feeling the ache growing within me.
When we were alone, Clarissa was happy, relaxed, but uncertain. She did not shy away when I held her hand, and she let me kiss her gently on the cheeks. But the moment I could feel both of us becoming aroused, she would pull away. I was too afraid of our fragile relationship to press any harder. I swore to be patient, even as the need filled me.
Each night the dream repeated. It was always slightly different, and sometimes it would go on to the point where The Shade put his amazing fingers into the shadow between Clarissa’s legs, and she started to breathe heavily and loll her head from side to side. But never did any of us reach satisfaction.
I noticed one morning that Clarissa emerged from her covers reluctantly, a tell-tale flush coloring her ivory cheeks.
“I’ve been having the strangest dreams,” she confessed once she was dressed.
“Want to tell me about them?”
She blushed again. “I... no, not yet.”
I smiled. “Just let me know, sweetie.”
Her blush deepened at the endearment. I pecked her on the cheek and headed off to class.
I didn’t originally major in Classical Music. I had majored in Biology, and the music was elective. It was The Shade who’d first showed me the way playing increased my essence more than anything else. I really loved it more than the prospect of toiling away in a lab, and the fuller I made myself the more often he could come and partake of me. So I’d thrown myself into my playing and it was very satisfying. I felt almost like I’d found a loophole, an outlet for the passion that overwhelmed me day after day.
That night I had a practice session with my ensemble. The four of us had dinner together and then continued on into the night. The school had good practice facilities, and they were supposed to be closed at eight but Lindsey, the clarinetist, knew someone on the staff who had given her a key. It was almost midnight by the time I crossed campus, my ears grateful for the deep silence after a long night of playing.
I crept into our room quietly, and saw right away that Clarissa was fast asleep. I quietly stripped down to my underwear and slid under my covers. For once, I wasn’t obsessing over Clarissa as I felt myself succumb to exhaustion.
Still, the dream came. I watched, rapt, as The Shade uncovered Clarissa’s body yet again. He turned to look at me, and it was only then that I realized that I was watching from my own point of view. He gestured for me to join him.
I felt myself following, as I had each time before, and carefully removing Clarissa’s clothing from her unconscious form. I caressed her smooth skin—this time I could feel it—and watched as his fingers traced the soft skin between her legs, opened her folds, released the scent of her. He reached down to the side of the bed and picked up something—the scepter. He held the wondrous wooden thing in one hand, and produced a bottle of some sort in the other. With practiced ease he poured something over the scepter, and spread it around, and then inserted it carefully into Clarissa’s sex. Brow furrowed in concentration, he pushed it deep inside her. Clarissa moaned, and The Shade quickly withdrew the scepter, and leaned down to my ear. I felt his beard against my cheek.
“Make her come,” he told me, “and then she will be ours.”
I felt a thrill, and leaned down, and started to kiss her on the neck. I crawled on top of her, pressing my body against her, and kissed her to consciousness. Her eyes opened in the dim light.
“This is how the dream ends,” I whispered. She sighed and succumbed to my touch. My hands explored. Her legs opened up around my hips. I felt her warm sex against my tummy, leaving a wet kiss of whatever The Shade had used on the scepter, perhaps mingled with her natural wetness. She captured my lips with hers, her hands danced up and down my back, and she humped against my pelvis, my hips. Then she sat up, pushed against me.
“Let me...” she said, and I didn’t protest as she began, with somewhat less confidence, to kiss and caress my body. She ducked between my legs, and began to experiment, to great effect, and soon I was bucking and panting. I knew, though, that without The Shade I could have no release. I turned on her again; we shared a sticky kiss, and before I could bring myself to move down again, she was humping my thigh again, and we slipped into a magical position where my sex was on her thigh and hers on mine, and I could think of nothing more perfect than to kiss her and hold her while we undulated against each other’s smooth skin. Her sex gaped open, aroused against my leg. Finally I grasped her hips, held her in place, pressed down firmly against her pubic mound with my thigh, and she let out a perfect, gentle, soft orgasm.
I wasn’t done with her, though. As she fell back, my fingers found her, and the next orgasm was more intense. I was so focused on her pleasure, I didn’t even feel The Shade until his throbbing penis was inside me. I came instantly from his contact, trying hard not to stop fingering Clarissa. The Shade also groaned in an almost frustrated way and I felt him spurting inside me, followed moments later by the scepter, pressing as it always did deep inside me.
As The Shade’s magic made me come and come, at some point I was unable to focus on Clarissa any more. When The Shade finally let me be, I opened my eyes and saw Clarissa looking up, wide-eyed. “He’s real,” she whispered, “who is he?”
“He is everything we’ll ever need, and we are his source of life. He is The Shade, and he has brought us together so that we might serve him.”
“Does he... talk?”
I turned to The Shade. “Of course I do,” he declared, “but usually just to tell you my desires.”
“Then tell me,” Clarissa croaked.
“Stimulate my flesh,” he ordered, “so I might consummate my new thrall.”
Clarissa turned to me blankly. “He wants us to suck him hard again,” I told her, “so he can give you more orgasms.”
She nodded timidly, and crept to the edge of the bed in front of The Shade. I settled in next to her, and watched as The Shade eagerly pushed his hips forward. She captured his member confidently between her lips and didn’t shy away when he jammed his slippery length to the back of her mouth. He pulled back and it was my turn to have him thrust boldly into my mouth. He returned to Clarissa and I leaned in, lapping at him, but his length didn’t leave much room between him and Clarissa. Still, in no time at all he was hard as steel.
He pushed Clarissa back and lifted her knees. He fucked into her and in no time at all she was coming. I watched, and touched my overheated body. I counted at least fifteen orgasms she had before he pushed against her and groaned his release.
He stepped back, surveying the scene. I gazed at him longingly. “Clean my seed from her,” he told me at last. I complied, shuddering at how I enjoyed slurping his powerful leavings from inside the panting girl. The Shade reached for the small bottle of liquid and the scepter.
I felt him behind me, and thought he might put the scepter into my sex again, but then I felt the unfamiliar sensation of something cold and wet against my anus. Soon he was impaling my ass with the scepter, and I was shocked to find that I enjoyed the sensation enough that soon I had another orgasm. As soon as my body relaxed, his penis replaced the scepter, and he screwed me senseless with his small, insistent member for long minutes, before he pulled out of me and made a mess all over my butt, which he instructed Clarissa to clean with her tongue.
The Shade had never had more than two orgasms with me, even though he might give me two dozen in that time. He tried for his fourth once again in Clarissa’s vagina, but it was a long, slow process as he seemed to be getting tired, another unfamiliar sight. Once he’d screwed her limp in a dozen positions, and she’d long since stopped orgasming, he returned to me, but my body was as dry and tapped out as Clarissa’s. He poured some lubricant from the small plastic bottle and continued screwing me. The dawn started to grow outside our windows, and I gazed lovingly up at his short, thick beard and balding head.
Finally, he grunted, and he seemed to be done, although I didn’t feel his usual profuse discharge inside me.
“Sleep now,” he croaked. Clarissa had passed out long before.
I blew him a kiss and let my eyes close. The picture of his face, clearer than ever in the morning light, stayed behind my eyes even as I heard the hallway door close behind him.
Clarissa and I both slept clear through classes before I awoke to find her embracing me from behind. A brief kiss was the only acknowledgement of our wild night, before we cleaned up and parted for the rest of the day. That night, once the light was out, she slipped out of her bed and stole away under the covers with me. We held each other all night long, and nothing sexual happened, but I was happier than ever.
The next day after ensemble class I met with my group to apologize for missing a practice. I didn’t even have a chance to make up an excuse.
“It’s okay,” said Lindsey. “We’re doing fine.”
“Oh, goodness,” I exclaimed, “I left my violin in the classroom!” It was a fairly major mistake to forget my most expensive possession - a gift from my grandmother. There had been plenty of instrument theft around the department. We checked the door—it was locked already. The cello player agreed to watch the door, while Lindsey took me to her friend the instrument technician. The door to the office was open. The man inside looked sort of startled to see us. He looked vaguely familiar, although I couldn’t remember seeing him around campus.
“Got a minute?” Asked Lindsey sweetly, “she left her instrument in 207.”
“Oh,” he mumbled, reaching for his keys, which were clipped to belt-loop of his pants, “here, just bring them back when you’re done.”
“That’s your friend, eh?” I asked. He looked sort of familiar.
“Oh,” she replied, “yeah, he’s just a nice old guy. He helped me tune my clarinet. He actually plays pretty well, too.”
Lindsey let me into the classroom, and in a moment I had reclaimed my precious instrument. Lindsey was checking the time on her cell phone. “I’ve got to run,” she said, “would you take the keys back?”
“Sure,” I said, taking them.
Something on the key-chain caught my eye. There were quite a few identical keys that looked exactly like the key to my dorm room. Each one had one or two letters on them. One read “A.K.”—my initials. I retrieved the key from my pocket and compared it—the teeth lined up perfectly.
Of course. It all made sense. I ran onward.
“It’s YOU!” I exclaimed, and he almost jumped out of his chair.
“What? Me?” He said, guilt plain on his face.
“You are him,” I said with a grin, “I know it!”
He looked extremely uneasy. He glanced at the door nervously. “I’m not sure what you’re saying,” he said slowly, his eyes darting onto the collection of keys in my hand.
“I’m saying you’re my night lover, you’re The Shade,” I said matter-of-factly.
His eyes widened. He swallowed hard.
“If you won’t admit it,” I concluded, “there’s one way to be sure.”
I stepped towards him, and my hands went to his belt. He briefly tried to push me back, but soon gave up all pretense. Any doubt I had perished when I saw that perfect little penis, throbbing to life between his chubby thighs.
“What are you doing,” he said, but then the last ounce of his resistance melted away as I sucked the blood down into his crotch.
Ten minutes later, he was re-dressing and looking strangely defeated.
“It’s okay,” I told him, “I know it’s supposed to be secret but this way, this way will be so much better.”
“It will?” He asked uncertainly.
“Yes! I can help you, help you get more thralls.”
“You will?”
“So many you won’t know what to do with them.”
He walked towards the door and I worried he might be ready to send me away. Instead he turned the lock on the knob and turned back to me.
“That’s a great idea,” he said, “now get those clothes off.”
I smiled and started to strip down, my mind racing with ideas for how I could serve him better now that I knew his true form.