“Excuse me.”
It was her last memory as a normal human being. One moment, Diana was in a bar, and like any of us, constantly adrift in a chaotic sea of emotions, expectations, desires, and actions. All her hopes and dreams, all of herself she ever knew of as her life was punctuated by a one single moment where she turned, stepping slightly to arrive at a safe speaking distance from the solicitor of her attention, raising her beautiful greeen eyes to meet his, her eyebrows coming up attentively, her lips drawing back in perfect, staggering symmetry into what, for her, was merely a polite smile with which to greet him.
It was a perfect moment, her curly red hair settling back in place upon turning, framing a glance of breathtaking beauty captured in the invitation of the moment of her response. She might have said something like “yes”. She might have said something mildly charming, friendly, or inquisitive, arising from the decency we extend to each other ever day in our passing. The very second her will was seized – her final act of self-determination and freedom was one of politeness.
His eyes were very different from hers. Where she was radiant, alluring, and soft, his gaze was dark, complex, and striking. Hers was the face of a pristine glade; his was the power and breadth of a mountain in the distance, impossibly large and staggering in its imposition. It was like staring into the face of all the world's knowledge and wisdom. He carried a consummate confidence and power in his countenance, and to meet his eyes was the shuddering experience of importance, as if meeting the eyes of a mourner or priest.
It was in this way that she thought she was simply at a loss for words. But her mundane, practiced mental habit of granting someone attention had suddenly gained momentum, as if her soul was sliding down a precipice, and in that gaze she fell away. Her words left her, the breath she had drawn in anticipation of reply came out in a deep sigh, her eyes lost all expression, and her mouth dropped slightly. She did not notice her lips almost imperceptibly flushing and swelling in a sensuous response. It was as if she had simply melted on the spot in front of him, unable to move, to think, even to experience enough of what was going on to question it. She would remember a feeling of floating, detachment, dullness, as if watching herself from somewhere retreated, deep inside and completely out of control.
He watched the moment with satisfaction, and savored this first direct and deep experience of her, as if with a lover for the first time. He felt her, completely, sharing her experiences and feelings, and smiled at anticipation of the conflict she was not yet aware of. It had been many centuries indeed since he found one with her promise. She was perfect.
He smiled; half smirking at the success of his having dominated her, and half in a genuine and intimate lover's smile of pleasure and hope for what he knew was to come. Although not even aware of herself, she did feel his anticipation, his depth, and some hidden sadness. Were she capable of thinking, Diana would have decided that she found him interesting.
“Let's go,” he murmured, saying the words out loud for the benefit of those nearby, not involved in the exchange. His intentions were so infused in her that such conversation was almost pitifully redundant. He stepped toward the door of the bar, and she drew in after him.
They reached a darkened loft apartment some minutes later, stepping in out of the cool autumn breeze. She followed closely behind him, expression unchanging, as he made his way to a heavy black and white rug in the center of the room. She stopped in the center of the room, and after removing his jacket, he turned to face her. He stood appraisingly, his index finger tracing across his upper lip, as he considered what would happen next.
Diana blinked twice, and began to look around as he released her and her awareness began to snap into focus. Her brow furrowed and her pulse quickened as she began to internalize what had just happened. Before she could speak, however, he pointed suddenly toward her. Her clothing suddenly vanished. Instantly and violently released from the elastic in her underwear, bra, and stockings, her body briefly felt as if it had exploded. Her breasts, suddenly freed of their support, resumed their natural position, pertly bouncing slightly to the outside of where they had been held. She felt as if she had fallen out of her now missing shoes, and the air suddenly rushing in to the apex of her thighs cooled as it came into contact with moisture of which she had previously been unaware. Surprise quickly escalated to shock, and the rising anger and fear of the situation gave rise to panic.
“What the...” Diana began to shout hysterically, but she never finished the sentence. His finger came up from pointing at her chest to her face, and her voice suddenly went silent. She then felt a bunching about the edges of her mouth, as if she were pursing her lips, which was quickly followed by a completely alien sensation, as if her flesh around her mouth was being smoothed out. Her breath came out in panicked hissing from her nostrils as she frantically felt the front of her face for any evidence of her mouth. She found none. Her lips had completely fused together. She wanted to run, to get the away from this insane situation, but she found that the lower half of her body would not obey her commands. Her eyes wild with terror and streaming with tears, she desperately searched around for some escape; some morsel of reality in this nightmare. She looked finally back at him pleadingly, in abject horror, and felt for the first time a dichotomy that would be her torture.
“All you need to know you can learn only through experience.” he said dismissively at her interrupted protestation. He held his hand open outward toward her at the last word, punctuating it with the gesture. At this she felt a tingle, like a wave of power coming over her and knew that something much bigger than anything that happened to her so far was about to occur. The sensation drove her mad with fear.
It began in her hands. She felt a pushing senstation on her fingernails, and threw her hands in front of her to see them begin to draw in to her flesh. As if submerging below a liquid surface, each of her fingernails merged into her fingertips, leaving a featureless surface that seemed to begin to grow up each hand. Each hair and wrinkle subsumed into a growing wave of smoothness marching relentlessly toward her elbows. As it passed her hands seemed to take on an unearthly sheen. Devoid of texture with which to react to anything touched, her sense of touch was dulled. Her eyes dialated with terror, impossibly open in deathly panic as she alternately stared at her horrible transformation, and then at him, who responded only with a gentle, almost mocking smile. She felt the change grow in speed as at reached her shoulders and spread across her back. Her fingers became difficult to bend as they merged with each other to create a single, featureless hand, like the hand of a stylistic mannequin. Her nipples retreated into her breasts, leaving them as smooth, harmonious protrusions like the breasts of a sculpture. She recoiled as she felt her hair begin to draw up from her shoulders as it retreated into her smoothing scalp, trying desperately to hold it in place with her now useless hands. Grief now exploded forth into her inner cacophony of fury and panic:
“How is doing this? What does he want? Is this really happening? What is happening to me? How can I stop him? Who can help me?! Oh please, God, someone help me!”
Compassion stayed his gaze, locking his expression into stoicism. But it did not stop him from clenching his closed fist. He hated this part.
Unable to scream, increasingly unable to move, with only tears and the choked, rapid breathing searing through her nostrils as vent for her emotional agony, she nearly lost her balance as she shuddered in fear at feeling her eyelids begin to draw together. Her pupils flew wildly back and forth as her eyelids fused shut around them, sealing her into total and impenetrable darkness. She felt the skin thicken where her eyelids had been, creating a smooth contour between her temples, cheekbones, and nose. She was shaking voilently when she felt his hand on the back of her neck, dulled and indistinct through the smoothness of her changed skin, and without thinking, she threw her stiff arms around him. Her breath came out in wracking, muffled, voiceless sobs as she clung desperately to him. He gently lowered her to the floor as the wave crossed downward across her body, drawing in all hair in her pubic mound, drawing tight around her knees, pulling them into a gentle bend, and drawing each of her feet into toeless, textureless appendages on which she could no longer stand.
He held her gently, very gently, and spoke soothingly into her mercifully unchanged ears. She felt helpless beyond her most irrational imagings of childhood nightmare, and greedily took in comfort from this man, who to her dulled sense of touch felt as indistinct and featureless as she now was, clinging in desperation to any warmth, any human contact, forgetting any anger in the madness and anguish of her predictament. She was in another world now, beyond the experience of ordinary life and in the presence of things she could not understand. The walls between imagination and what she had known to be real all her life were torn apart, leaving her, in many ways, a defenseless child. And he offered comfort with profound love, holding her tight against him, and speaking to her gently, so gently, as her breathing gradually slowed and her arms unfolded from the drowning death-grasp she had hurled around him just before.
As she relaxed, she became more and more immobile until the only thing that moved was the rythmic rise and fall of her chest and the drumbeat of her still pounding heart. Her arms fell beside her, bent slightly at the elbow, and gradually locked there. If she felt this, she considered it with resignation if not relief at some knowledge that it was all over. As long as she still felt him beside her, nuzzling the perfect smoothness of her cheek, she could withstand this relatively minor indignity.
“I have chosen you.” he said finally, almost jarring her from her reverie back to the knowledge of where she was and what was happening to her.
Again she found herself considering him and her situation in a more settled state of mind, and her anger toward him rose again. Now completely immobile on the floor, however, she could find no release for her rage.
“I will not harm you.” he said again, sensing her mind stiffen against his words. “You will know love as few mortal women in all of eternity”. She found it impossible to doubt his words.
With that he moved his hand down across her midsection, toward the base of her pelvis. It was only now that she realized, as she could make out his touch with more intensity as it approached, that her sex had also been spared the transformation that wracked the rest of her body, and that her folds were warm, soft, open, and agonizingly sensitive to his approach.
Her complete helplessness gave rise to fury and frustration. “Oh, so now this monster; this freak is going to take me, now that he has turned me into a living love doll!?” As his hand clasped gently over the curve of her pubic area, close enough for her to feel the heat of his fingers excruciatingly close to her labia, she was overwhelmed with sexual energy. The only human experience allowed by her current state was surrender, and it threatened to take her soul into the same bottomless void she saw in his eyes earlier that evening. She writhed inside herself in disgust and self-loathing at her desire, and this collided with her anger to ignite a fire within her. The more of either emotion she felt fueled the flames in which her soul burned until desire threatened to explode from within her encasement. Her breathing again became heavy and labored, and her labia and clitoris engorged as the unbridled wetness of her desire streamed out onto the carpet below.
Her arousal became so acute that she actually began to feel her heartbeat in her clitoris, and desperately tried to harness its rhythm in a hopeless attempt to find release. It was then that his hand found its destination. He had cupped around her clitoris, pressing gently on the vaginal opening as he flayed his fingers out gently, spreading the passage open. Her reaction was explosive. Unable to breath for several seconds, she nearly passed out as her desire crystallized into a consuming physical need. All thought of withholding anything from this man passed from her awareness as she strained against her helpless state to will him to touch her again.
The inability to move, to speak, even to see focused and energized her sexual desire as far beyond the boundaries of her experience as had her fear and horror earlier broke forth from those same boundaries. She was now beyond the range of anything she could have ever imagined, and for the first time, she thought about all those people, outside this loft, and outside her transformation, those she had left far behind in the otherworldly and bizarre experiences of this night, and felt pity for them. Hers was beyond any normal human experience. Her frozen and transformed state was no longer a horror and a nightmare, and she began to see herself as some sort of idol on the altar of transcendence, to a plane of existence she could only begin to imagine as he knelt between her legs.
“I am ready”, she sighed in her ensconced soul.