How to Love a Monster by Lyssa Dering

Author:Lyssa Dering [Dering, Lyssa]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Lyssa Dering
Published: 2017-08-12T04:00:00+00:00

7

Sera

I tell myself I’m manipulating Fiend, getting closer to him so I can butter him up. That’s what the attempted blow job was about, and telling him exactly what gets me heady, and the way I’ve started to reciprocate all his weird pet names with “baby” (and kept it up only because he likes it, obviously).

But this is also beyond pleasant. The air outside seems just as temperature-controlled as the air inside as Fiend leads me down the front steps of his house—tall and imposing with its gray siding and lack of windows—and onto the sidewalk. Having been exhausted and out of it when I arrived, this is the first time I’m noticing that though the house has a little yard with a stone perimeter and even a mailbox out front, everything around it is city brick and steel.

As we leave the house behind, I’m perfectly comfortable in an outfit that looks almost exactly like Fiend’s—all black, t-shirt and jeans, sans the trench coat. I asked him before we left if I needed a jacket, but he said I didn’t. I’m assuming he only wears his to look cool and intimidating (which is sort of cute).

Closing my eyes as I relish a faint breeze, I don’t know what in the Universe to think. On the one hand, I’m supposed to be wary of Fiend, and I am, but seeing him so vulnerable earlier, talking about his past… I hate the fact that Fiend was apparently present during all my humiliating moments with Wish, but I know what it’s like to be born a certain way and suffer because of it. It’s hard to imagine being a monster in someone’s head, yet a monster is what non-specials saw me as; they looked at me like a freak they had to protect themselves from.

On the other hand, Wish has made a lot of mistakes, but he’s always done his best to protect other specials. And he made Fiend. Shouldn’t he know him better than anyone? At least, if he’s not too close to be subjective. If Fiend really is Wish’s bogeyman—which is almost too crazy for me to wrap my head around—it only makes sense Wish would warn people away from him. Bogeymen frighten; it’s what they do, right? I had one, too, and of course, he wasn’t real, but all he ever did was loom. And aren’t parents always right when they say there’s nothing to fear from the monster under the bed?

Right now, Fiend’s holding my hand, thumb stroking over mine, and I want to transform into a puddle he can step into, regardless of how dangerous he might be. There’s a part of me that aches for more sexual pain from him: more choking, maybe something else.

Please, please, Universe, don’t let Fiend hurt me in a way I can’t fix. Let me have something good for longer than one night, even if it all goes to hell in the end.

It’s dusk in Wish City. The sky is a partially

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