LUST

By Ed Ainsworth

1822, The Port of Plymouth, Great Britain

Kristopher Smithson was little more than a child. Having reached his sixteenth Birthday, he’d already spent much of his young life working for his family, tilling ground and digging up vegetables. He spent much of the last two years riding around with his grandfather selling the produce he had spent his younger years digging up. He worked to make whatever little money he could to help support himself and his family. Despite being only sixteen years of age, Kristopher already had the build of a man. Broad shoulders, complete with thick arm muscles and toned legs. His face seemed thinner than it should by all rights when compared to his body, but his juvenile features and tiny flecks of downy hair gave away his true age.

All that time had been well-spent, however, as his hard graft, determination and strong build had allowed him to become a crew-mate on one of Her Majesty’s most treasured boats. Previously armed to the teeth and sported as one of the thousands of boats employed in England’s marine territory, the HMS Beagle had been retooled in these times of peace and redeployed as a ship of interest, a scouting and hydrographics vessel that would map the oceans and the lands that ran down the Straight of Magellan, a stretch of water that ran between the mainland of South America, and the north of Tierra del Fuego.

Their voyage would be long and arduous. The seas in that part of the world, as well as the body of water that led to it, were treacherous. They were full of potential for foul play, as he had been warned by family and friend alike. Kristopher had heard many stories about young deck hands and crew members, and what happened to them at the wizened hands of old salt dogs during the long months at sea. Men will be men and they have certain needs that cannot be met with limes and salted meats. His father had heard such stories as well. Although, in this instance they relied on the proper nature of the Captain, an Australian man, who had different cultural bearings to the rest of the crew. Yet he still upheld some of the good, British ideals. Kristopher hoped that the Captain wouldn’t tolerate any of that on his vessel.

Launch Day

Kristopher waved to his parents as they stood on the decks of the port of Plymouth, waving their tearful farewell back at him. The other sailors said nothing, casting irritated glances back and forth. There was a newcomer on every voyage and they always had someone to say goodbye to, instead of getting on with the task at hand. There was a reason he was on the rig, to do a job. If he was saying goodbye, then he wasn’t doing his job.

Kristopher knew the life of a sailor. Living on the ocean was one of loss. Every landfall home brought tales of affairs and deaths. Nothing ever survived on land, it seemed. The old sea dogs around him said nothing as they watched with annoyance as the child wept. They watched as the Captain took him to his room and gave him some words of encouragement and care. Kristopher tried to hide his tears from the others, but he was mocked openly by the older men. Kristopher felt alone, more than he had during his entire life.

Johnny Evans, a deckhand who thought he was above his station, swore that he’d teach Kristopher how to become a man. Whispering filthy things to him, giving him a cold, wet feeling in the pit of his stomach. Kristopher knew the other men eyed Johnny with contempt, but he also knew they viewed him as a source of annoyance, and they would for a long time. Kristopher was trying to be as the other sailors, hardworking and focused on their goal, making sure the boat was ready to travel on the ocean.

Two Months In

They weren’t far from their goal now, or at least that’s what deck hand Stephens had told him last night. Kristopher’s homesickness had worn off, and his scolding by the Captain for falling asleep in the crow’s nest had given him a new steely resolve. Kristopher was not a person to be bogged down or have an experience marred by something as simple as a disciplinary action. He took his beating like a man, which earned him points with the other crew mates. Almost as much favour as when he cut Johnny Evans’ finger off when he tried to “visit him” in the night.

There was a reason he carried that damn knife and kept it sharp, and now everyone, including the Captain knew of his advances. They kept him separate. He even spent his nights in the brig – to prevent his advances on others. Kristopher was beginning to feel more at home at sea. He’d found his legs and his place on the boat. He enjoyed the company of most of the other sailors – They were all good, rough as the Earth but kind men. Once you earned your keep and respect they treated you like family. He’d found friends, probably friends who would stay with him throughout his life at sea.

Four Months, Land Fall

The crew had come ashore to find some new supplies. Their supply of heavily salted meats and stale bread was running depressingly low, and they were on the verge of starvation. Supplies hadn’t been planned enough, and two crew members had already died of malnutrition. Kristopher himself, despite being slight of frame, was suffering. He only had one meal a day and could feel his strength waning every day.

He watched as they dropped anchor, the huge piece of rusted metal splashing through the water and digging into the soft sand. The boat lurched for a moment, as anchors from other sides of the boat hit the sediment below, securing its position off shore. Kristopher’s first footfalls onto land were unsteady. As he broke from the ocean’s waves, he looked over his shoulder at the other men, striding through the waves as though they were nothing, while he was buffeted about at their whim. The older crewmen laughed at his unstable movements. It had taken him all that time to get his sea legs, and there he was, wobbling on steady land, carefully placing foot before the other foot trying to maintain his balance.

He noticed the other men swayed as they walked. They knew how to manage being on both land and sea. They knew their own balance and they knew their own bodies. It was something that Kristopher would have to learn – He was a new sailor after all, but more importantly, he was a quick study. After watching a few of the men charge ahead of him, Kristopher began to adopt their walks and was soon emerging and striding through the sands towards their destination.

They were surrounded by a beautiful, pristine environment; fruit grew readily on trees, as well as plentiful supplies of fresh water. It was so clear that Kristopher could see how much his face had changed in such a short period of time. He appeared older, gaunt. His cheek bones were visible through his flesh. As he coughed into his hand and dipped them into the water before him, disturbing the still surface, seemingly activating the animal life within the small pool. Tiny tadpoles swam towards his fingertips, nibbling against them searching for food. He smiled, and retracted his hands.

“Lad! Come look’a this!” The deep, sea-choked rasping voice of Edgar Smithson called. Edgar’s tones were normally, clouded by booze and poor oral hygiene. Kristopher pulled himself away from the waterside and jogged towards the hunched over man.

“What am I to see?” he asked, stopping in his tracks. His gasp was audible as he saw before him a tiny village. House made from woven leaf and twig, walls of mud forged and baked by the sun above them. He placed a hand over his forehead, trying to remove the glare from the sun.

“Lord in heaven,” he said to himself, as the salty dog known as Pug put his hand on Kristopher’s shoulder.

“Boy, I ain’ never seen such a thing before when I was here the first time a’ound, but I tell you, nothing beats living like this. Nothin.”

“Nothing?” He looked up at the bearded man, who smiled a toothless smile. As Edgar moved into view behind him, his grin as equally spacious, but with a more perverse edge to it.

“You ‘ave to live it t’see it, boy,” Pug smiled again, as they walked towards the other sailors within the village.

“Are we going to die? Are we going to kill them?” Kristopher asked, gripping the hilt of his knife, as he walked close to Pug.

“Nae y’mind, boy. We’re not here for Death or anythin’ else. We’re here for one thing and one thing only.”

That Evening

The food was an eclectic mixture of plant matter and exotic animal parts. The liquids they consumed were like nothing the young lad had ever tasted before. Every mouthful dulled the feeling of his extremities, but that was not the reason they were there. The natives were the reason, and their party. What a magnificent party. Kristopher had never seen anything like it. Sitting in silence he took in the events around him. Women, wearing nothing on the top halves of their bodies, danced and swayed their bodies to the powerful beats of the drums that reverberated through his chest. He watched as the dark-skinned men laughed and fed themselves, around their chief.

He sat on a throne adorned with the bones of animals, holding a long, curved stick with a monkey skull attached to it. He waved it with joy, as women danced for him. He was clearly the leader, food and drink and whatever else he asked for – He had no shame in hiding his body’s reaction to the women, and had no shame in acting upon it.

While he drank and ate, women did things to him that Kristopher had never seen before. At least not in London. He had once heard his mother and father doing such things but he had never stopped before to consider the…reality of such an event. The sight before him was both deeply stirring and embarrassing for him. He turned away, as one of the fellow sailors he’d begun to call friends, sat next to him.

“Chief’s a bit of a Jack o’ The Town isn’t it?” The grizzled and wizened man known as Oliver said, continuing the theme the Kristopher’s boat had – That all men were barely functioning, on the edge of decrepit. Oliver was drinking from a wooden bowl. He wiped his lips gently, water hanging from his beard, and a toothless smile matching his face.

“Y’never seen this before have y’boy?” he said, slapping a hand on his shoulder, “I think you’re about to become a man on this island, Kristopher. These women…they don’t care if you’re from here or not. Each an’ every one o’ us is going to be getting some sort of love in these parts.”

He set his bowl down, as Kristopher looked back over at the Chief, his debauchery hypnotising.

“Who is that?” Kristopher said, catching a glimpse of a woman. Sad eyes looked away from the hedonism that was occurring in front of her.

“I dunno, boy. I don’t speak primitive speak, d’ I?” He shook his head and laughed, picking up a piece of semi-charred meat. Kristopher had barely eaten anything.

“She’s…amazing,” He said, his eyes boring holes through the women that now blocked his view.

“She’s also about twenty years y’senior, boy. Y’need to set your sights on someone a bit more attainable, eh? Someone who pro’lly isn’t as wide as the aft side o’ the port,” He laughed to himself, as he tried, in desperation to gum off a piece of hard meat. He stared at the leg for a moment, before putting it down, looking for some sort of tool to hack into it…

“Twenty years?” Kristopher said, turning his head back to face to woman. “I don’t care if it’s a hundred.”

Kristopher watched her across the party for another hour, before the natives, and sailors began to move back to their living areas. Great thatched huts, made from hardened mud and trees. Kristopher was constantly fascinated by everything he saw. These people, with their hair knotted and twisted, like the fronds of a fern, but they were not greasy. They smelt horrendous, but it did not seem to worry them. Most of the men had left now, and he accompanied the few who did not want to engage in the activities the others were participating in, or were simply too drunk to take part. They set up a small camp on the beach shore, lying under a blanket of stars.

Hours passed and he still couldn’t sleep. So he walked. Around the camp, away from the other sailors, wandering towards and then quickly away from the sounds of ecstasy and consummation that should only be allowed for marriage rang through the night. Kristopher rubbed his temples. He was tired, but his mind was on fire, as were his loins, with every thought of the beautiful woman he’d seen.

Her face, while older looking that the other girls, held a definition to it. Cheek bones that sloped down to her mouth, tender and inviting. Her body was lithe, but her fingertips seemed to dance every time she moved her hands. It wasn’t a single thing about her, it was everything. The way the light caught her hair, and highlighted the fringes of her face. She was incredible to every sense he had experienced her with.

“Lord High!” Kristopher shouted, as the woman of his thoughts moved silently through the forest before him. She stopped and placed a single slender fingertip towards her mouth. He stopped dead where he was, his hands hanging, twitching at his sides. He didn’t know what to do, where to run. Surely the chief would have him killed for being so close to his wife, or at least that’s what Kristopher assumed she was, surely she wouldn’t take kindly to someone such as he taking an…interest in her body. Eyes that could bore through stone and granite locked onto each other, as she sauntered towards him. His mouth hung open as she licked her lips, grabbing him by the belt buckle and dropping to her knees.

“Oh, Lord. Oh Mighty…Oh GOD!”

“Oh, my word,” Kristopher said to himself, as he rolled off her naked, glistening body and draped an arm around her front. She said nothing, looking at him with deep, brown eyes. She knew nothing of his words, but she knew everything about every inch of him. His firm body was her altar, and she would pray at it for every night that he was available to her.

Over the coming days, Kristopher and his mistress did what any new lovers did. They made love in every location they could, in every way and style and position and form of fatigue humanly possible. He ducked his responsibilities, feigned illness, and in times when he knew it would get him closer to her, requested extra work. The Captain was confused by his behaviour, as were some of the other sea dogs. After a brief discussion one night, the Captain found the route of Kris’ ailment, even if he did not realise that he was giving away his position.

“You’re in love, boy,” The Captain said. Kris’ face flushed as he fervently denied it, violently shaking his head.

“No, sir. I am not in love, I am not old enough to know what love is,” the boy denied, as the Captain shook his head, leaning in close.

“I know of love, Kristopher, and love is why I sail on the waves of the ocean, not laying at home with my wife. Love is death of resolve and of responsibility. Love is what happens to make men soft.” The Captain’s eyes glinted with darkness, as Kris pulled himself away, his hands shaking from the intensity of the older man’s stare and his imposing physicality. It was only now that Kristopher recognised the lines of age that ran down the sides of his face, the flecks of grey that pushed themselves in strands down his chin. The Captain was a lot older than he appeared.

“I am not in love, sir. I can assure you. I am just…not agreeing whole-heartedly with the island cuisine.”

“Well,” The Captain said, with more than a hint of disbelief, “In that case, you won’t mind that we’re casting off from this place in less than a week. The boys have more than their fair share of relaxing time. We need to get back on track.”

Kristopher nodded as the blood drained from his face. He felt cold, and his heart sank so deep, he swore he could pass it if such a need was required. The young boy turned around and slowly made his way down the rigging towards the water’s surface, casting his mind back away from the pleasures the woman brought him, and towards the secret shame that the Captain had dredged up. He knew that he felt something for her, something that moved past the language barrier, something that moved past her location and station in the village. She was the Chief’s wife, and during the day light hours, they barely looked at each other. This was the nature Kristopher’s shame; he was cheating a man of his wife. Even if in this case a womanising bastard of a man by his standards, but he was a man no-less. He moved with purpose and concern with each footfall. He could see her movements as she left the hut, and headed in the opposite direction to him. He immediately felt the heady trip of love and what was about to occur move from his heart downwards, filling his stomach with heat, that travelled downwards into his loins. Their passions and their desires lead them to return to the place of their first encounter, deep within the forest, where the leaf litter appeared to be stained with their sweat and their love. Where crumpled leaves were moulded into their body shapes.

“…Stopher! Buck up, lad!” came the call of the toothless man to his left. Kristopher’s mind snapped back to reality, no longer caught in his imaginary folds of his lover’s body, but being physically attacked by the spray from the front of the tiny fishing boat that pulled and heaved itself alongside the grey body of a huge leviathan below them.

“Oliver, is that what I think it is?” he asked, pointing towards the barnacle encrusted skin of the beast that blew water and mucus into the sky. It rained down upon the crew, covering them in the stench of rotting fish meat.

“Aye, lad, ’tis the Right Whale,” He said, with a huge gapped grin, “So called ’cause it’s the right one to kill!” He leapt to his feet, apparently alive for the first time in months. This was as animated and physical Kristopher had ever seen Oliver. Usually a tired and shrinking old sailor, he did little on the boat. The Captain mostly had him around for his experience, rather than his ability.

Now, Kristopher could see what his experience actually was. Poised at the edge of the body, he held his spear aloft, as though he were a mighty warrior. He could imagine Oliver in his young days, charging head first into battle. Pointed towards the blow hole of the Whale, he gestured for silence and for preparation of the Men in the boats around them.

“What happens now?” he asked, as Oliver shook his head and drew his lips together as a sign of silence. Kristopher said nothing, and simply watched, as the waved the point of the Spear to several different positions on the Whale. Slowly, the men in the other boats tightened their grip on the hooks they held in their hands.

Kristopher gulped loudly. He knew where this was going, even before he set foot on the boat, but now it became a reality. He looked up at Oliver, doe eyes locking onto the older man’s. He hesitated for a moment, cast back through the years remembering his own first hunt, his Father showing him he correct way to pierce through the whale’s fatty hide.

He shook his head and leaned over the edge of the boat, aiming with a single eye closed, the point of his spear. He let loose an exhalation that sounded a lot like an apology, before plunging it through the only weak point on the whale itself. Through the blowhole.

Kristopher closed his eyes as the creature bellowed under the waves, screaming in agony as the spear pierced its lungs, and the true shot of the hunter embedded the end in the middle of its heart, the shock stopping it immediately.

The crewmen went about their morbid business, digging their hooks into the fatty flesh of the whale, and anchoring the floating corpse to the sides of the boat.

“It was…quick,” Kristopher said, as Oliver sat down next to him, slapping the boy in the face.

“Death always is, Kris. So stop playing with it,” he said, his wizened features sharp in the light of the sun.

“What do you mean?” the boy asked, stunned by the words of the older man before him.

“The Chief’s wised up, boy. He knows about you and your little tryst with his Queen. Y’gonna damn the whole boat load of us if y’don’t keep your distance.”

“Wha?”

Oliver slapped Kris again, harder than before. He felt the tang of iron in his mouth as he looked up to the man before him.

“You know exactly wha I’m talking about, Kristopher. This woman you’re infatuated with. Ain’t nothing more’n Lust. We’ve all known it. Been on a boat with sailors all your young life, it seems, y’need the touch of a woman. Y’wanna become a man. Y’ain’t a man if you’re throwing yourself at the chief’s wife, Kristopher. Y’r a bloody idiot.”

“Oliver…”

He held his hand up.

“We got work to do, Kristopher,” the older man said, moving to the other side of the boat.

Kristopher sat in silence on the shore of the beach, a few feet from the slowly rotting whale carcass. The men, and he, had spent most of the afternoon cutting through the huge fat reserves and into the meat of the animal. Oliver had taken some of the fat and meat back to the village to share with the chief, leaving Kristopher the lug work of carrying huge chunks of meat onto the boat, and salt them for their long journey.

“I do love her,” Kristopher said to himself, a mantra that was repeated over and over, as he hauled the huge pieces of flesh onto the deck of the ship. He sighed, wiping gore and flecks of fat off his shirt, as he turned to continue his job.

She stood before him, the robe she usually wore on the deck of the ship. Naked in the moonlight, she said nothing.

“Lord!” Kristopher yelped, before he focused his desires and attentions on her “We don’t speak the same language, but I do love you. I hope you know this. I know that you feel the same way.”

She walked over to him, tearing his shirt off and immediately setting to her business, kissing along the nape of his neck and nipping at his flesh. He shuddered underneath her. Grabbing her arms, he threw her against the mast, and tore his own trousers down with the culmination of passion and lust.

“You’re mine, and I am yours,” he said, as she nodded, not truly understanding the implications of what he was saying. She knew what she saw before her, and that was all she wanted and needed.

The hot sun beating down on Kristopher’s face was interrupted by shadows slowly covering parts of his naked body. His eyes flickered open, as a smile ran across his face. The Captain and Oliver stood before him, anger on their features, as his sun-dried face slowly drained of blood.

“Oh…”

“Oh don’t even start t’cover it, boy,” Oliver said, hoisting the naked child to his feet, as the other crew mates secured his arms.

“What are you doing? Release me!” Kristopher screamed, as he turned his attention to the Queen who was slowly being led towards the rigging of the boat.

“We’re in love!” Kristopher screamed, as the Captain landed a square punch in the centre of the child’s stomach.

“You’ve nearly cost me my entire voyage, child.”

His features were dark, full of anger and vengeance, “I won’t be losing on my opportunity to finish my job, Kristopher. I’m afraid I’d rather lose a member of my crew than my purpose.”

Kristopher’s eyes widened as he began to realise what was happening to him.

“God. No. Captain please!” He begged. The Captain punched the boy in the stomach again, and pointed towards the edge of the boat.

“I warned you boy! I warned you this was the course you were set on.”

“Please, you can’t let them do this! We could leave, we have superior firearms to them! Can’t we just take her and leave?” Kristopher pleaded. The Captain shook his head.

“You’re suggesting we kill an entire village so that you can be with a woman who doesn’t even understand or care about you?” The Captain shook his head slowly, “And you think I am unreasonable.”

Kristopher felt the red mist descend, as he slipped out from the grip of the sailors, hurling himself into the Captain, his fist hitting the man in the upper corner of his right eye. The larger man fell with the feral form of Kristopher on him, his fists crashing into his face.

“SHE LOVES ME, AND I LOVE HER. I LOVE HER. I LOVE HEER!” Kristopher screamed, as the butt of a pistol cracked him across the side of his head, knocking him off the larger, terrified man and onto the wooden decking, tears and spittle lining his cheeks.

“Get that child OFF my ship!” The Captain screamed, sitting up. His crewmen picked up the exhausted form of the young body and threw him into the sea. He plunged through the surface, coughing and spluttering sea water, before looking up with tear studded eyes at the men he had once shared a bond with.

“I love her,” he said, simply. Desperation and distress in his voice, as the men opened fire at the boy, riddling his body with tiny bullet holes. His final vision wasn’t of the sailors, or of the woman watching on the beach, but of the water around him changing colour, and the feeling draining from his legs.

“Whazza?” One of the huge sailors waved for his crewmates to come over. Since Kristopher’s death they’d had to cut and salt the meat themselves. It was something that they didn’t take particularly well too, but did begrudgingly. The last of the meat was on the boat, and the skeleton and innards had been thrown out to sea as they worked. A mound of bone had gathered and sunk to the sea floor some distance away.

“I don’ see anything, Stephen,” The second sailor said, running a fat encrusted hand over his bald head.

“Out there, it’s like a shadow or summat.”

Andrew shook his head and slapped his friend in the shoulder, almost knocking him off the boat.

“You’re a bloody troublemaker, Stephen. Get some rest or something, I think the salt’s ruining your head.”

“No, no. It’s coming closer!” Stephen said, pointing towards something moving underneath the surface.

After narrowing his eyes a moment, and leaning over the edge of the boat.

“I see summat out there, actually…”

“What IS that…” Andrew asked, casting a hand over his eyes. The water began to bubble as a tiny frame surfaced through the water, tiny fragments of flesh dropping into the water, as a trail of blood and sharks stretched out towards the open ocean.

“God above…what is that thing?”

“Death,” the Skeleton said simply, as its burning form threw itself through the sky. Stephen’s lank hair burst into flames as his brains and fragments of his skull scattered itself across the decks of the boat.

“CHRIST ALMIGHTY!” Andrew screamed, his bald head reflection the fire of the tiny frame before him.

“Nothing to do with Christ, Andrew,” the Skeleton spoke, its skull cocked to one side, as it picked up a piece of Whale flesh, which sizzled and cooked in his metatarsals.

The burning meat hit Andrew in the face, as the Skeleton rammed its hand down the man’s throat, and reached down past its elbow.

“Vengeance.”

When his body had first caught alight, Kristopher had been filled with fear, as everything melted away as his flesh floated up into the mouths of the sharks around him. He felt everything else melt away from his mind, everything except his anger, and his lust and love for the woman.

It gave him focus, it gave him a purpose.

He was to get Vengeance for their actions against him. Against love.

He turned in the water, watching larger chunks float off his body as it began to spark with a blue and yellow flame. He looked across the expanse to see the bones of the whale he’d witnessed the death of.

He swam slowly towards it, knowing that the pair of them were linked. Inexplicably, and for whatever reason he had no comprehension of. All he knew is that both shared the burning need for Vengeance.

His heart burnt with rage, as the huge skeletal structure of the baleen whale beached itself, spraying sand that turned to glass almost instantly across the beach. The sailors and natives that had been sitting on the beach were instantly cut to ribbons by the shards of powdered glass that attacked their skin, stripping it one tiny piece at a time.

They dropped to their knees, or fell backwards into the sand, clawing at their faces and their bare skin, as blood seeped, slowly, from their vaporised pores. They screamed and writhed around, as the flames from the burning whale grew hotter, changing from yellow, through to blue.

Atop the huge burning Whale, the skeletal frame of a boy leapt down landing in the sand with little effort. It cocked its head to one side, and knelt down to one of the sailors, pulling him up by his clothing, his burning hands scorching his flesh. He screamed as he felt the hairs on his chest fill with blood and melted skin, turning his skinned face away from the burning Skeleton before him.

“Do you know who I am?” the Skeleton asked. The man said nothing, his sobbing and simpering took over all that he was. The skeleton dropped him, his burning white toes embedding themselves in his face, as he burned the imprint of his foot through the skin.

The man screamed bloody murder as the life finally left his body.

The Skeleton, casting a glance back towards the burning Whale, made his way through the tree line and into the village, the bush and plant life around him bursting into flames. Smoke and a roaring fire announced his arrival to the village, animal life screaming and charging away from the Spirit of Anger. The villagers themselves, said nothing. Standing in place, or breaking into sprints back into the bush.

They were fearful.

Scared.

They were right to be.

He ignored them for the most part. Despite the ones killed on the beach, he didn’t mean them any harm provided they didn’t get in his way. Moving slowly through the burning undergrowth he headed towards the house of the chief. The memories of his lover’s face and one of their torrid little evenings flooding his mind. Her teeth cutting into the cloth as he stood behind her, sweat dripping off their bodies as the hours of sex cut deep into the early morning light. Her hands bunching cloth together as he desperately fought back the guttural sounds of a man fulfilling his biological purpose.

It wasn’t until he reached the front of the hut, at the first fringes of the thatched roof began to ignite that he realised that the sounds from within, the sound of skin against skin, and hushed grunts, where not from his memory.

They were reality.

In his rage, his burning hands tore the dangling leaves and plant matter that made up the “door” to the hut, and threw it to the ground. He stood, stunned for a moment, as the eyes of the two people within the hut immediately locked onto his burning form.

There, in the exact same position he was only a few nights ago, stood a man, naked and glistening in the light of his flames. He covered his face, trying to focus on what was before them.

“How…could you?” he asked, staring at the woman before them. He had been dead for less than a day and she was already doing exactly what they had been doing with someone else. She cared nothing for him. She was only interested in one thing.

The sex.

He glowered through the burning flames, grabbing hold of her second lover by the scruff of his neck, melting his skin. He watched it flow down the back of his body, effectively forcing him to look up forever, as his molten flesh began to set in place.

He tossed the man backwards, throwing him through the side of the hut and into the world outside, before turning his attention to the woman, who sat, curled in silence. Whimpering and muttering to herself in her native language.

He moved towards her, tearing the bedding away from her hands and throwing it onto the ground.

Love wasn’t what they felt those nights, he knew this now. It was something else. Something far more primitive and evil. It was Lust. The longing in his loins was to feel the soft flesh of a woman, the idea in his head and his genes to plant his seed. This wasn’t some celestial alignment, this was little more than two animals rutting in the forest.

“If that’s all you want…” he said to himself, his eyes glowing red as the stare of penance began to building within his now hollow skull.

He moved towards her, his hands grabbing hold of the back of her head, and pulling her towards his slightly open jaws. She pushed against him, burning her hands and arms, trying to resist his pull, but in the end, she got exactly what she deserved.

The Penance stare, meeting her eyes as her lips met his teeth, gave her exactly what she wanted through her quickly disintegrating soul.

Penetration.