Archive-name: Violent/foodchai.mf
Archive-author: Kelly St.Clair  
Archive-title: Adsorbing Passion sequel: Food Chain


Based on a story "Adsorbing Passion" by S. B. Douglass

     It was old.  How old, it didn't know.  Memories faded with time, 
becoming elusive and finally melting into the chaotic sea that was its past.
Its earliest impressions seemed to go back to the middle of this century,
and beyond that nothing.  Its origins were unknown.
     From time to time, it wondered if it was immortal.  It had always
come to the conclusion that it was.
     Cheryl Smith was long gone now, assimilated into the whole with only a
last faint whimper of pleasure and fear.  Roger Stearns, for all his attempts
to stop it, was gone soon thereafter.  As was Jeanne, and Bob, and Theresa,
and Mike...
     Its face and name changed every month, eternally swapping between the
two genders of humanity.  It had tried homosexuality once, years ago, but
grown bored with just being a man.  (Its experiment with the other aspect was
even shorter; the female body, it had discovered, was poorly equipped to bond
properly with another.)  It had been around the world several times, always
moving on before people began to comment on those who disappeared.  The only
constant in its strange existence was the hunger.  The hunger drove it on
despite its bouts of remorse or defiance, keeping it moving in search of the
next host as soon as the last was completely adsorbed. 
     Sometimes, it wept for its former lovers.  It was no pitiless monster.
But the hunger always came at the end of the month.  
     It couldn't use "normal" food, and ate such merely to maintain the
disguise.  All its nourishment came from those it consumed.  One part of it
took a certain pride in its efficiency; it took not only the flesh of its
victims, but their lives, their shapes, their thoughts and memories, their
selves.  Nothing was left, nothing went to waste.
     Some of those it had consumed, during moments of lucidity, had called it
a predator.  Others thought it was a parasite.  Not that it mattered in the
end.  In truth, it was unclassifiable, unique.  At least, it had never met
another of its kind.
     Like a shark, it was very good at what it did.  It had learned to seek
hosts that could keep it secure during the assimilation, and attractive ones
to entice the next victim.  It had the experience of a thousand lovers, some-
times used to entertain the bond-partner and others merely to keep it docile.
It was aided in the latter by the chemicals released through the bond, 
tranquilizers that numbed the will of both while increasing the capacity for
pleasure.  It loved its mates, even as it made them part of itself.
     And now it was time again.  The hunger, driving out any reason or guilt,
had begun scant days after it had finished becoming a man again.  It needed
to take someone else, now.

     His name was unimportant, even though his voice still whispered through
his/its thoughts occasionally.  He had simply been in the wrong place at the
right time, and met what he thought was a charming young woman named Lynn 
with short red-brown hair and just a hint of a Southern accent.  He'd taken
her home, and had the most incredible sex of his life with her.  And then it
had all gone wrong.
     That was a month ago. 
     Now he moved through the party crowd of the club, dressed in the most
stylish of the clothes he had found in his closet.  His black hair was lightly
moussed, his face clean-shaven, his body lightly cologned in certain places.  
He was tall and muscular in a lean way, like a swimmer, and he turned more
than a few heads.  One woman, sitting at a table with a friend, pointed him
out with an appreciative whistle.  "God, he's gorgeous," the other commented.
"And dressed to kill." 
     He knew what he was looking for, what he needed.  He stayed away from
the dance floor for the moment, walking between the tables, cruising the 
shallows with purpose.  A few veterans of the club scene thought they recog-
nized the look in his grey-blue eyes, the desire verging on desperation; but
what drove him on the hunt was on a much deeper level than they knew.  It
was sex and survival, all wrapped up in a package that gnawed at him/it every
waking moment that he spent without the companionship of the bond.  The bond
could keep it away for a time. 
     The humans whose lives it took thought they knew what hunger was, and
desire, and intimacy.  Those words, the second-hand memories, were pale
shadows of what it had lived with for decades.  Maybe longer.  It couldn't 
remember.
     His restless gaze settled on something.  There.  Sitting alone at the
table on the lower level, sunk slightly beneath the dance floor and the rest
of the club.  Sipping at some kind of drink, glancing around.  Looking for
someone.
     He shook his head.  It happened like this, sometimes, when the hunger was
strong.  He was picking up on her body language and a host of other cues on
an almost subliminal level.  Even to a normal person, she would have been
noteworthy sitting by herself.  He began to look at her consciously now as he
glided down the stairs and toward her, looking as practicedly casual as he
could.  She was pretty enough, and young, in her mid-twenties.  Her dark
blonde hair was wavy and shoulder-length.  Her clothes were almost modest
compared to the bright costumes of the people around her:  a loose knit
sweater in ice-blue and white, white slacks, and beige shoes.  The light hues 
made her skin look paler as well, highlighted by tasteful makeup.  No rings
on her fingers. 
     As he came up to her from the side, he had confirmed what his first
sense had told him.  This was a woman with possibilities.
     "Hi there," he said, his voice just loud enough to be heard over the
music on the adjacent dance floor.  "I was standing over there," he gestured
as she looked at him, "and I thought you might like some company.  Mind if I 
sit down?"  It was simple, and honest.  He had found that those worked best,
as long as certain subjects never came up.
     For a moment she just looked at him, a measuring scan up and down his
body.  Then she smiled faintly and nodded, waving him into the other chair
at the small table.
     They talked, while the life of the club swirled around them.  They
exchanged names; hers was Beth.  He determined that she was currently 
single and uninvolved, that she liked motorcycles and puppies, that she went
to this and other night spots a lot, that she lived alone in a loft apartment,
that she believed in keeping her body pure - "no drugs, no alcohol, and only
natural foods" - and, after much careful coaxing, that she found him 
attractive in turn.  By that point he was sure that he had found the perfect
stranger.  Once he nudged her foot with his own, under the table, and she 
smiled.  From there it was only a small step to suggesting they leave 
together. 

     He lay in her bed, naked under the sheets and light blanket.  Soon, he
told the hunger, soon.  His erection made a small bulge in the covers.  He
looked around the small bedroom, wondering what it was going to be like 
being Beth.
     The sound of the bathroom door opening made him look up.  She stood
there in a sheer sleeveless nightdress, falling to mid-thigh.  Framed by the
bathroom light behind her, her hair formed a golden aura around her head,
the gown virtually transparent.  He could see her body through its smoky
fabric, her gentle curves, her pert little breasts with their large aureoles.
Under the gown, around her hips, were lacy black panties.
     "What do you think?" she purred.
     He took a deep breath and let it out.  "Beautiful."
     She made a little curtsey, smiling as she stepped over to the bed and
slipped under the covers with him.  His arms went around her as she bent
over his face and kissed him for the first time.
     "You don't mind that I prefer not to use a condom, do you?" he murmured.
Even that thin latex sheath would have prevented the bond.
     She shook her head, mumbling that she trusted him.  
     Her leg brushed against his erection, and she broke the kiss to grin at
him.  He smiled back, then moaned as she placed her hand on the shaft and 
began to gently stroke up and down.  He closed his eyes as she began to kiss
him again, seeing her face as she nuzzled and licked her way up his jawline
to his ear.  Something... something strange.  That grin...
     Beth blew in his ear, distracting him.  Her tongue traced the folds of
the earlobe as his hands kneaded her back through the nightie, moving down
her back towards her panties.  He wanted them off, wanted to be inside her,
to begin the bond.  But he took his time, exploring her body, giving her a
hint of the shared pleasure that was to come.
     She finished with his ear and moved down his neck, murmuring against
his skin.  His caresses seemed to be having an effect; her body was moving 
against his side, her hand on his shaft increasing its pace.  Her head bobbed
up and down on his neck, making little passionate cries.
     Pain!  An icy pain, cold shock giving way to a warm numbness.  What? 
He felt like he'd been stabbed with an icepick.  Where?  On his neck.  His
head felt fuzzy, like it did when he was adsorbing someone.  He tried to sit
up, but Beth's slight weight pinned him to the bed.  She wasn't stroking his
penis anymore.  She was lying on top of him, her warm silk-clad body holding
him down.  He couldn't feel his legs.  Or his arms.  
     What was happening?  Beth.  His eyes were open, but the room was getting
dark.  He felt like it/he was drifting away into the place where all his old
memories went.  Voices shouted at him, some urging it to get up, to fight,
others screamed in panic.  A few... a few seemed to be laughing at it.  Who?
     As the darkness crept over its vision, it saw again Beth's grin.  And
it knew.  It knew what had been wrong.  

     Beth lay still on the body for a long time after she had finished.  At
last she roused herself, rolling off with a sigh.  Her lips were red, the
same bright red as the stain on the sheets just below her lover's neck.  She
absently wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, looking down at him.
     Pity.  She'd wanted to make love to him before she drank, but when she
had kissed his neck during the weakness of her passion, the hunger had over-
whelmed her.  A cold stickiness between her thighs was all that was left of
the other desire.
     And he'd been cute, too.
     Beth licked the last of his blood from around the tear in the handsome
corpse's neck.  Strange.  When she'd been drinking, she'd noticed the many
subtle variations in flavor; now, there was an odd aftertaste like nothing
she had experienced before.  She wondered if he'd been sick recently, and
needed transfusions.
     She bent to kiss the lifeless lips once more, brushing her hand over
the staring eyes to close them.  With a shrug, she got out of bed and put on
a robe.  The unexpected force of her hunger meant that she would have to 
adjust her schedule, if she wanted to get rid of the body and be back by
daybreak.  

--
