Page 103 of Evil Hearts

All the intimacy Cynthia had withheld, the frustration that built inside him, everything boiled over. Lewis thrust into the slit, his cock grinding against a short length buried within. He didn’t know what he touched, didn’t question what sort of anatomy this creature had. He simply barreled into the embrace.

The creature’s eyes closed into slits barely visible in the shadows and mud of its face. It coiled its body around Lewis’ torso, holding onto him with gnarled arms. Its neck glided between the man’s nape and the pillow, leading the head to rest atop Lewis’ crown. Its legs clamped the back of his thighs. Its tail wound around his ankles. With a groan, Huk’s whole body began flexing.

Were he with another beast, a concern of his impending suffocation or swallowing would have crossed Lewis’ mind. Yet, all he could think about was the blissful hold Huk had on his cock, his entire person. Huk cradled him and devoured him all the same.

He chased the heat, the contact deep inside. His cock pushed into the cavity and Huk gave him more to discover with each thrust. A jerk, a slick of fluid, a firm pocket, a contraction, a quiver, a flare of the nub. Lewis hung his arms around Huk’s shoulders, grasping at the reeds slathered across its back. His pelvis continued to pump, but the encroaching wrap of Huk’s body pressed upon him from all sides.

To Lewis’ chagrin, he teetered on the edge of climax. The compression solidified his want into a molten ball. One more strike of his cock and he burst. Jerks racked his body as he spilled into Huk. The creature clenched him, muffling his paroxysms until it, too, snapped. Huk’s torso swelled in a singular wave cresting at their juncture before breaking into tremulous echoes.

Wave after wave crashed between man and creature, each crest a hug of hot passion. They careened away, falling from the bloom. And though the flashes of fire ebbed, there still lingered a red afterimage.

As their breaths caught up with their bodies, Huk relaxed its hold on Lewis. The man crawled onto an empty spot on the bed that the creature did not occupy with its mass. Returning to a mooring of reality, Lewis’ mind whirred to process what had transpired. His eyes roved down Huk’s form, assessing, while his hands patted his own skin, feeling the sweat and remnants coating him below his waist. He definitely wasn’t still drunk.

“Thank you,” said Huk.

Lewis propped onto his elbows, shooting the creature a quizzical look. As though orgasm was the goal, as though not wanting to overstay the welcome, Huk withdrew from the bed. The man’s lips trembled for words. But what to say to a creature beyond the imagination he had yesterday?

As the dark figure inched away, the lamp illuminated hints of its body. Haunches, ridges, feet, a tail. Still, everything was covered in a layer of river mud that seemed to adhere only to Huk. Lewis watched the hunched creature reach the windowsill. Its whole body seemed to sigh, dejected. Lewis inhaled.

“Wait.”

Huk halted, and turned its head back to the man set against a white tableau that retained none of its presence.

“You’re covered in mud. Maybe you’d like to clean up a little?”

Under a torrent from the old showerhead, the dirt was stripped away. Lewis had no idea how it worked—if Huk was somehow letting go of the mud or if it required water warmer than 60 degrees Fahrenheit to banish the magical muck.

The shower carved out the creature’s form. Steaming streams revealed a dark, twisted shape with a long hunched spine and shrunken chest. Feathers or fur plastered against the crookedframe. The hot water dug hollows between stringy muscle and knobby bones. Even without the muck, the creature appeared as a mass of river debris, like some thrashed driftwood or mangled animal carcass. Had Huk not been so cordial, Lewis would have been quite apprehensive to be in its company.

Huk lifted its head to the flowing water. It looked something like a cross between an eagle, an alligator, and a horse with small antlers. Skin and feathers shone a graphite gray-black. The exact details of its face remained hidden. Lewis was still puzzled as to what sort of cryptid this thing was, but he thought it rude to ask at the moment.

“I do not remember warm water,” mused Huk.

Feeling the sweat from the labor earlier, Lewis’ skin itched. He nodded toward the acrylic wall. “Mind if I—”

Before Lewis suggested sharing the shower, Huk loped its leg over the tub. It stepped out completely, the fresh water refusing to drip onto the grimy tile floor. Lewis’ eyes widened at the continued rebellion against physics.

“You may bathe,” Huk said with a bow of its head. It padded to the threshold of the bathroom door.

The man’s heart thumped in a pang of panic. He was sure no one could see this creature slip back into the river in the middle of the night, or early morning as it was. But that meant the possibility of him not seeing it again as well. Lewis bit his lip.

“Would you like to wait for me in bed? Y-you can stay the night. If you want. I know this room is way different from the river—”

“It would be my pleasure.”

Dawn

The man didn’trealize he had fallen asleep. After his shower, the wedding and the afterparty finally crashed upon him and he lumbered back to bed. He barely registered the dark wall of Huk’s body on the far side of the mattress before his eyes closed.

Lewis awoke to find the space beside him empty and cold. The window was wide open.

He called out, “Huk?”

He shouldn’t have cared if the creature had left, yet he did. It didn’t feel right without a proper goodbye, not after a night he would likely never experience again. Lewis tore himself away from the warm cocoon of the blankets and stepped to the windowsill.

A cold blast of air against his torso sent him shrinking into himself. Dipping his head, he spied a dark mass on the levee trail. Barely perceptible were two pinpricks of amber hidden within the solid shadow. It peered up at him, expectantly. Huk was waiting for him.

Dressed in jeans and two layers of long sleeves beneath his jacket, Lewis braved the dawn cracking across the horizon. As he approached the mass of river debris, it slipped into the black water.

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