Chapter 20

Each day I wake up, I expect myself to be entirely dead. I know that this might sound scary and intimidating to you, but it is the real and veritable truth. I don't know where I am going anymore. I don't know what will come and be of me in life. It is either I kill—or I get killed. I was only seventeen years old when I first became a prostitute. An underage, you might think right yeah, and I really was immature and babyish then. Being a streetwalker during night is not something I foresaw myself doing and pulling off zealously and laboriously in my forthcoming days; it is something that befall and hit me—suddenly, abruptly, and all out of nowhere.

The night before she made it clear as regards what my life was going to be; Tawny was ravishing and enchanting in a silk brown red dress that streamed and flowed all the way down to her feet. Asides from this, she had her hair curled and done up nicely and attractively. Her skin was flawless, if not irreproachable and guileless; her eyes were brilliantly shining and bedazzling.

"Where are we going tonight mother?" This was my question; quietly-posed, well-spoken out and calmly expressed what's more.

"Tonight you will meet the Secret Order, my love. This is what you were born to become; this is what you have been raised up to be in life. Come with me, and I will show you your truest destiny."

The Secret Order has been existence for nine centuries now. It started somewhere unknown in Europe; its mission and obligation being to undo all the myths and fables that Incubi and Succubae had pulled off and effected about in the very alarmed minds and conscious of the people at this particular time. The supernatural in human disguise; mankind's worst ever enemy. Even humans that were in cooperation and allegiance with them shared their same fate and omen. And rumor is it that a woman called Merlyn Shale founded and discovered the Secret Order itself...

On a warm, bright, and sunny day, Merlyn and her two sisters, Candia and Bridling, sat by the gate and entrance of their small town of Yearling, chatting and conversing and discussing to themselves, when lo, a gentleman; strong, fine-looking, and exceedingly gorgeous; halted and paused by their way to ask for direction and guidance to a lodge where he might hither dwell during his stay in the town. The man was so tremendously handsome and seductive that none of the three sisters could even think possible or even dare to take their eyes off him. He had long, straight, thicket-like golden hair and shiny emerald greenly eyes that were indeed dazzling and overwhelming to look at. As the gentleman, Harris, it is speculated and believed to be his human name, had agreed and consented to reside at the sisters' family inn for two weeks at a very fair and affordable price, the two cutely sisters (apart from Merlyn) became exceedingly happy and even made arrangements and plans to set up circumstances in which they might take turns to sleep and dance sex in his bed.

Not only was Harris sexy and come-hither kiss and lie down with me provocative. He was known to stand and pose naked by the window of the inn high up the street, even sitting on it at times so that the chattering women down there would peek up and glance straight at his buck-unclothed form and shapeliness. He slept with every maiden above twenty-one years old in the town, over a hundred of them, some being married women, some being widowed gentlewomen, and others being nuns or those that were solely known to be the most pious in all of Yearling.

Merlyn and a handful dozen other women refused the invitations offered to them by their sexually gratified friends to come lay down with this most beautiful stranger. Of him, the majority said, "He is like sugar intermingled with honey and cream and sweetest variety of spices all in one piece." Others said, "I have not ever been laid by a man this excellently enjoyable and super awesome." Others still declared, "From his genitalia, to his butts and his bare uncovered chest, he is like a god come down to have sex with us garbed and clothed in flawless human form."

Regardless, one thing about Harris bothered Merlyn. He had intensive and fierce natural hatred for her as much as he wanted to seduce and win her over to himself. Often times, there she would walk into her room to see his robe cast down and lying carelessly on the floor, and there he would be standing facing her, wholly and stark disrobed as he gawped and grinned seductively at her. No matter how sweet and sweeter he nibbled tender and loving words into her ears; notwithstanding how he kissed and caressed and petted her sex desirous and eager self, she did not ever fall or tumble for his lust-purported traps or cherish any endearment for him in her heart like the lion's share other women were thoughtlessly and discreetly doing, including her very own sisters! For that, she was laughed and ridiculed incessantly. Up till the day that Harris vanished out of nowhere and was even nowhere to be seen or sighted. Where exactly had he gone without letting it known to his innumerable lovers? Where precisely?

A month passed ... and then the tragedy immediately struck. All those women he had hammered down naked-style in the comfort and luxury of his bed began to drop dead six at a time, until six hundred and sixty six were unquestionably perished and left lifeless. Why the number six hundred and sixty six: you might wonder? Harris wasn't the only one of his kind in the Olden World then. He is not the only one of his kind in our Newer World now. There are so many of him out here, and it is our duty and obligation to track and chop their lives down ... by killing them in the very same way that they prey on their victims, which is by laying down and having carnal intercourse with them.

My mother, Tawny, introduced me to the Secret Order, and my assignment and task, just like hers, are to seek out and prey on these Harris-self-alike. It is no easy thing. Now Tawny is dead like so many more of our rank and mission; no wonder I feel that some morning I shall only be able to wake up in nothing but my unfortunate lot of eternal death! Death seems to be preying in on me ... for certain...

I can't tell him. No, I cannot do that. I ought supposed not to be doing this. But I have no other choice. As I look straight and deeply into his eyes, I reassure and bolster myself up that I have no other choice than to pull off this. Yes! This is the only way out; I need that money real bad and seriously. I mean it—so, I have to go on with this whether I like it or not.

"You have not told me anything about yourself, or have you? I mean if you by this time had, then I probably was not hearing or paying any attention to you," Doug says this to me, calm and mild faced. Damn it! What exactly do I have to tell him as regards myself? The whole truth? Or mere and sheer and downright lies? Of course, the truth certainly has to do but it must be carefully chosen and weighed up and uncomplicated too.

As I smile fleetingly and brusquely, Doug blankly and expressionlessly glances right at me, serious and tight-lipped. I state out, "My story is a sad and painful one to some degree and extent. But yes, there are some good and sweet things involved in it. Otherwise it will be all a hopeless and horrid case, don't you agree so yourself, mister?"