She looked at me like I was a ribeye and she’d been on a juice cleanse for a month. I knew better, but God, I didn't care.
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0:000:00
TRANSCRIPT OF RECORDED SESSION
DATE: NOVEMBER 14th
CLIENT: ELIAS VANCE
INTERVIEWER: DR. SARAH ALDERICE
[00:00:12]
ALDERICE: Elias, thank you for coming back. I’d like to pick up where we left off. You were describing the environment. The… ‘shifting’ as you called it.
VANCE: Right. The environment. It was The Onyx. You know the place? No, of course you don’t. It’s the kind of basement in the Village where the air is forty percent gin fumes and sixty percent historical regret. I was sitting there, thirty-four years old, feeling like a pair of shoes that had been through the wash too many times. My ex-wife had just finalized the paperwork on the condo in Savannah—God, I miss that wrap-around porch—and I was in New York trying to pretend I still mattered to the music industry. I’m a scout, Doctor. Or I was. I found talent. I didn’t find things that… well, I didn’t find her.
ALDERICE: Describe her first appearance.
VANCE: (Laughs dryly) You make it sound like a stage cue. I was on my third scotch. Neat. The band was a local trio, decent but uninspired. The bassist was dragging. I was staring at a water stain on the ceiling that looked vaguely like the state of Florida when the temperature in the room just… dropped. Not like an AC unit kicking on. More like when you open a freezer door in the middle of a Georgia August and that white fog rolls over your ankles. I looked toward the door, and there she was.
She wasn't wearing some 'Jessica Rabbit' dress. She was in a charcoal-colored suit, tailored so sharp it could’ve cut the cheese on a charcuterie board. But her eyes, Doctor. People say 'eyes like ice' in those cheap drugstore novels I used to buy for the plane rides, but hers weren't ice. They were the color of the Atlantic right before a hurricane—that weird, bruised purple-grey that tells you to get the hell inland. She didn’t walk. She moved like she was being pulled by a wire. Efficient. Predator-style.
[00:04:45]
ALDERICE: And you felt a physical reaction immediately?
VANCE: I felt my heart do a backflip into my stomach. It wasn't just 'oh, she's hot.' It was a biological imperative. Every hair on my arms stood up. I’ve lived in the South my whole life, I know what it’s like when the air gets heavy before a storm. This was that, but localized in my groin. She scanned the room, bypassed the three guys in Armani at the front, and walked straight to my booth. The back booth. The one where the lightbulb has been flickering since the Bush administration.
She sat down. Didn't ask. Just sat. The smell hit me then. It wasn't perfume. It was crushed mint and ozone. Like a garden after a lightning strike.
'You’re the man who hears the ghosts in the wood,' she said. Her voice was… imagine a cello being played with a bow made of razor wire. Deep. Vibrating in my teeth.
ALDERICE: What did you say?
VANCE: I said something brilliant like, 'I’m the man who needs another drink.' Real smooth, right? I was sweating through a custom-pressed cotton shirt. She leaned forward. The light from the candle on the table caught her face, and that’s when I saw the first… inconsistency. Her pupils. They weren't round. They were vertical slits, just for a second, then they bled back into circles. I told myself it was the scotch. I told myself the lighting in The Onyx was designed to make everyone look like a monster or a saint.
'I have a song for you, Elias Vance,' she whispered. She reached across the table. Her hand was cold. Not cold like a dead thing, but cold like a marble statue that’s been sitting in a draft. She didn't grab my hand. She just laid her palm flat on the table, an inch from mine. I could feel the heat radiating off me and hitting her skin. It was like a magnet. My hand moved on its own. I touched her. Just the tips of my fingers against her knuckles.
It felt like a jolt of pure voltage. My vision blurred for a second. I saw things, Doctor. I saw a forest that hadn’t been touched by a plow in a thousand years. I saw fires on a hill. And then I saw her—naked, drenched in something dark, laughing as she tore a man’s throat out. Then it snapped back. We were in the booth. The bassist was still dragging.
'Did you see it?' she asked. She was smiling now. Her teeth were too white. Too straight.
[00:08:22]
ALDERICE: You didn't run.
VANCE: Run? Doctor, I’m a man who’s been bored since 2012. My life was a series of spreadsheets and alimony payments. She was the first thing that felt *real* in a decade. I didn't want to run. I wanted to see if she had more of that voltage in her.
I slid my hand over hers. Properly this time. Her skin was smoother than a polished pecan shell. 'Who are you?' I asked.
'I’m the thing you’ve been looking for at the bottom of every bottle,' she said. She leaned closer, and I could see the way her suit jacket strained against her chest. She wasn't wearing a bra. I could see the outline of her nipples through the fabric, hard and sharp. The air between us was thick enough to chew.
She didn't wait for a reply. She reached under the table.
[00:10:15]
ALDERICE: (Pause) Go on.
VANCE: She found my thigh. Her fingers were like ice picks through my slacks. She started high, near the knee, and walked her fingers up. Slow. Torturously slow. I tried to take a breath, but my lungs felt like they were full of cotton. Every time her fingertip pressed into the muscle, a wave of heat followed it. By the time she reached the inside of my thigh, I was hard enough to break a window.
She looked me right in the eyes while she did it. No blinking. Just that hurricane-stare. 'You’re so loud,' she whispered. 'Your blood is screaming.'
She reached my fly. Her thumb hooked into the top of the zipper. I heard the metal teeth click as she eased it down an inch. The sound was deafening in that quiet corner. I didn't care who saw. I didn't care if the waitress came by to check on the drinks. I leaned back into the cracked red leather of the booth, my legs spreading of their own volition.
She reached inside.
Her hand wasn't cold anymore. It was burning. The moment her fingers brushed against the head of my cock, I think I actually stopped breathing. She didn't use her whole hand at first. Just the pads of two fingers, circling the tip, catching the bit of moisture that was already there. It was… it was electric. I felt it in the base of my skull.
'Elias,' she groaned, and it wasn't my name anymore. It was an invocation.
She gripped me then. Her palm was rough in a way I didn't expect, like she had tiny, microscopic scales or something. She squeezed, hard, and then slid her hand down to the base, pulling the skin tight. I bit my lip so hard I tasted copper. My hips jerked up, trying to meet her, but she held me still with her other hand, which she’d slammed onto my chest.
'Stay,' she commanded.
And I stayed. I was a dog on a leash. She started to stroke me, a fast, rhythmic motion that felt like she was trying to start a fire. Every slide of her hand sent a jolt of that purple-grey lightning through my gut. I looked down and saw her suit sleeve moving, but her face stayed perfectly composed. She looked like she was discussing a contract, but under the table, she was wringing the soul out of me.
[00:15:40]
ALDERICE: You mentioned a 'shift' in the room’s perception. Did the other patrons notice?
VANCE: That’s the thing. I looked around. The couple two booths over were laughing. The bartender was polishing a glass. It was like we were in a bubble. A pocket of time where she was the only thing that existed.
She leaned in, her mouth inches from my ear. I could feel her breath—it was hot now, smelling like cinnamon and something metallic. 'I can taste your fear,' she whispered. 'It’s sweet. Like peaches in the sun.'
I’m from Georgia, Doctor. I know what a sun-ripened peach tastes like. And let me tell you, when she said that, I felt a drop of sweat run down my spine that felt like a Brand New Testament. She wasn't just talking. She was… she was feeding. Even as she kept her hand moving on me, faster now, her grip tightening until I thought she might actually bruise the bone, I felt a strange drain. My limbs felt heavy. My head lolled back against the booth.
'Give it to me,' she hissed. She wasn't stroking me anymore; she was clawing. Her nails—they were longer than they’d been five minutes ago—scraped against the underside of my shaft. It should have hurt. It *did* hurt. But the pain was just another flavor of the pleasure. It was so intense I felt my vision start to go dark at the edges.
I reached out, my hands fumbling for her, wanting to pull that suit jacket open, wanting to feel whatever she was made of against my skin. I caught her shoulders. They were solid as oak. I pulled her toward me, and for a second, the charcoal fabric parted.
I didn't see skin. Not human skin. I saw… scales? No, that’s not right. It was like iridescent feathers, deep black but shimmering with oil-slick colors. They moved. They pulsed with her heartbeat.
'Don't stop,' I wheezed. I didn't care if she was a lizard or a bird or a demon from the pit. I just needed her to finish what she started.
She laughed, and it was a sound of pure, unadulterated hunger. She shifted her weight, sliding out of her seat and kneeling between my legs in that cramped, dark booth. The suit jacket hit the floor.
She was bare beneath it. Her breasts were heavy, tipped with nipples the color of dark plums, and they were covered in those same shimmering, moving feathers. She didn't use her hand anymore. She used her mouth.
[00:20:12]
ALDERICE: Elias, take a breath. You’re shaking.
VANCE: (Heavy breathing) You would be too. She took me in, and it wasn't like anything I’d ever felt. Her tongue… it was long. Too long. It wrapped around me like a ribbon, vibrating. The suction was immense, like a vacuum trying to pull my very center out through my dick. I screamed, but no sound came out. The music in the club suddenly turned into a roar—a chaotic, beautiful mess of horns and drums that matched the pounding in my ears.
She worked me with a ferocity that was bordering on violent. Her teeth grazed me—sharp, needle-like points that sent sparks of white-hot agony through the pleasure. I was sobbing, Doctor. I was a grown man, six-foot-two, and I was sobbing in the back of a jazz club because some monster was giving me the best head of my life.
Every time I thought I was going to pop, she’d slow down, just enough to bring me back from the edge, her eyes never leaving mine. She was watching the light leave my eyes. She was watching me hollow out.
'More,' I begged. 'Please.'
She pulled back, just an inch. Strands of my own spit and her… whatever she produced… connected us. She looked at me with a hunger that wasn't just sexual. It was existential.
'You want the song, Elias?' she asked. Her voice was dripping with it now.
She didn't wait for an answer. She stood up, grabbed me by the tie, and yanked me toward the back of the club. Toward the service entrance. The 'employees only' sign was hanging by one screw.
I followed her. I would’ve followed her into a woodchipper.
We burst through the door into the service corridor. It was narrow, lit by a single red bulb at the far end. The smell of garbage and rain was thick here, but it was nothing compared to her. She turned, slammed me against the brick wall, and the impact rumbled through my teeth.
'Now,' she said. 'Show me how loud you can scream.'
She reached for her trousers—the suit pants—and they didn't just unzip. They seemed to dissolve, falling away to reveal legs that were too long, too muscular, ending in… well, I didn't see her feet yet. I was too busy looking at what was between her thighs.
[00:25:30]
ALDERICE: And what did you see, Elias?
VANCE: (A long silence) I saw a doorway, Doctor. And I was damn well going to walk through it.
(The recording ends abruptly as the subject stands up, the sound of a chair scraping against the floor.)
[00:25:40]
VANCE: (Sound of a long, shaky exhale) You’ve got that look on your face, Doctor. That clinical, ‘let’s-unpack-the-metaphor’ look. You think I’m talking about a spiritual awakening or some kind of hallucination brought on by the house scotch. I’m not. I was staring at her, and where there should’ve been a patch of hair or just… skin… there was this shimmering, pulsing dark. It wasn't a void. It was more like a geode—black and sharp and glittering with things that didn't have a name in any color wheel I’ve ever seen.
I reached out. I had to. My hands were shaking like a leaf in a New Orleans gale, but I touched her. It wasn't soft. It didn't feel like a woman’s thigh. It felt like warm, wet silk wrapped around a live wire. She didn't flinch. She just stood there against the brick, her legs spread wide, her back arched so hard I heard her spine pop.
‘Walk in, Elias,’ she said.
So I did. I didn’t just enter her; I collided with her. I stepped into that space between her legs and the heat coming off her was enough to singe the hair on my shins. I reached down, grabbed myself—I was so hard it felt like my skin was going to split—and I guided myself into that shimmering dark.
The first inch was like pushing through a layer of warm honey, but then the rest of it… Lord, it was like being swallowed by a star. It wasn't just friction. It was a pressure that started at the tip of my cock and vibrated all the way back to my tailbone. She was tight, Doctor. Not ‘virgin’ tight, but ‘contracting muscle’ tight. Like she was trying to pull the marrow out of my bones through my zipper.
I groaned into the crook of her neck, and she tasted like copper and woodsmoke. My hands were flat against the brick on either side of her head, and I started to move. Just short, shallow stabs at first because I was terrified that if I went all the way in, I’d never come back out.
‘Harder,’ she hissed. She wrapped those long, too-strong legs around my waist and locked her ankles. She pulled me flush against her, and I felt those iridescent feathers on her chest scraping against my shirt, the heat of them burning through the cotton.
[00:30:15]
ALDERICE: You describe the sensation as 'vibrating.' Was it internal?
VANCE: It was everywhere. Every time I thrust into her, the sound in the corridor changed. It wasn't the sound of a man and a woman in a service hallway anymore. It was… it was a cello. A low, distorted note that rang out every time my hips hit hers. That was the song, Doctor. She wasn't singing it with her throat; we were making it with our bodies.
I stopped being careful. I buried myself in her, burying it to the hilt, and she let out a sound that wasn't a moan. It was a roar. A goddamn hunting cry. She bit my shoulder, her teeth sinking through the fabric of my jacket and deep into the meat of my trap. I didn't pull away. I pushed harder. I wanted her to take a piece of me. I wanted to leave a part of myself in that back-alley dark.
The brick was scraping the skin off my knuckles as I gripped the wall for leverage. I was pumping into her with everything I had, my breath coming in ragged, wet hitches. She was so wet, Doctor. But it wasn't just… it wasn't normal. It felt thick, like oil, and it was hot enough to blister. I could feel her inside, shifting. It felt like she had fingers in there, dozens of them, all stroking me at once, pulling me deeper into a place that shouldn't have been big enough to hold me.
‘Give me the ghost,’ she whispered, her mouth pressed against my ear. Her tongue flicked out, and it was long, thin, and rough as sandpaper. She licked the sweat off my temple, and I felt a jolt of pleasure so sharp I thought I’d have a stroke right then and there.
I was blind. My eyes were open, but all I saw was that bruised-purple lightning. I was just a vessel for the rhythm. I grabbed her ass—she was solid, like she was carved out of basalt—and I lifted her off the ground, pinning her higher against the wall. I wanted to be deeper. I wanted to be *all* the way inside whatever she really was.
[00:35:42]
ALDERICE: Did you feel in control of the situation?
VANCE: Control? (Laughs) I was a passenger in my own skin. I was a man who’d spent his life looking for the ‘perfect hook’ in a pop song, and I’d finally found it. It was the sound of my own heart trying to beat its way out of my chest while I fucked a nightmare in a red-lit hallway.
She started to move with me, her hips bucking, her internal muscles pulsing in a rhythm that was faster than mine. It was a counterpoint. We were a symphony of sweat and grit. I felt the climax building, but it wasn't like a normal come. It felt like a dam about to break. It felt like if I let go, I’d dissolve.
‘Now,’ she commanded. She reached down, her hand finding the place where we were joined, her fingers digging into the base of my cock, squeezing so hard I saw stars. ‘Sing for me, Elias.’
I didn't have a choice. I bucked one last time, my hips slamming into her with a force that probably left a bruise on her soul, and I erupted. It wasn't just a release. It was an evacuation. I felt everything—every disappointment, every alimony check, every shitty demo tape I’d ever heard—it all poured out of me into her.
And she drank it. I could feel her throat working, though she wasn't using her mouth. She was absorbing me through the center of her. I screamed. I actually screamed, a long, raw sound that echoed off the brick and probably woke up half the ghosts in Greenwich Village.
My knees buckled. I slumped against her, my forehead resting on her shoulder. I was shaking, my muscles twitching like a dying fish. I felt… empty. Not ‘satisfied’ empty. Not the way you feel after a good Saturday night with a girl you met at a bar. I felt *harvested*.
[00:41:12]
ALDERICE: How long did you stay like that?
VANCE: I don’t know. Time in The Onyx doesn’t move the way it does out here in the world of tax brackets and therapy sessions. When I finally looked up, the red light was still flickering, but she was different.
She was pulling her suit jacket back on. It didn't look like it had dissolved or been on the floor. It was just… there. Perfectly tailored. Her eyes were back to being that hurricane-grey, but the vertical slits were gone. She looked like a high-end lawyer who’d just finished a particularly grueling deposition.
She reached out and adjusted my tie. Her touch was cold again. That marble-statue cold.
‘Thank you for the song, Elias,’ she said. She didn't smile. She didn't lean in for a goodbye kiss. She just turned and walked toward the other end of the corridor, toward the street exit.
‘Wait!’ I called out. My voice was a wreck. I was standing there with my pants around my ankles, shivering in a drafty hallway, looking like a goddamn fool. ‘Who are you? What was that?’
She stopped at the door. The light from the street hit her from behind, turning her into a silhouette. ‘I’m the thing you heard in the music when you were six years old and didn't have the words for it yet,’ she said. ‘I’m the bridge, Elias. And you? You’re just a very loud instrument.’
Then she was gone.
[00:45:30]
ALDERICE: And since then? You haven’t seen her?
VANCE: (Silence for ten seconds) No. I went back. Every night for a month. I sat in that back booth until the bartender started looking at me like I was a suicide risk. I drank enough scotch to preserve a whale. But she never came back.
The thing is, Doctor… everything sounds different now. I can’t listen to the radio. I can’t listen to the bands I’m supposed to be scouting. It all sounds like… tin. Like someone banging on a trash can lid. I’m looking for that note. That low, vibrating cello note we made against the brick.
I’ve lost my job. My ex-wife thinks I’ve had a nervous breakdown because I stopped answering the phone. Maybe I have. But when I close my eyes, I can still feel that heat. I can still feel the way she pulled the life out of me and made it sound like a masterpiece.
(Sound of a lighter clicking, followed by a long drag of a cigarette)
I’m forty-seven years old, Doctor. I’m a divorced man from Georgia who used to think he knew what passion was. I thought it was a girl in a sundress on a porch in Savannah. I thought it was something you could bottle and sell to teenagers in Ohio.
It’s not. It’s a predator in a charcoal suit. It’s a hallway that smells like rain. It’s being hollowed out until there’s nothing left but the echo of a scream.
[00:50:05]
ALDERICE: Elias, do you regret it?
VANCE: (A dry, short laugh) Regret? No. That’s the problem. I’d give everything I have left—the car, the Savannah house, my remaining years—just to hear that song one more time. I’d walk back into that hallway and let her flay the skin off my back if it meant I could feel that… that electricity again.
I don’t want to be ‘well,’ Doctor. I don’t want to be ‘adjusted.’ I want to be loud again.
(The sound of Vance standing up. The chair scrapes. Footsteps move toward the door.)
ALDERICE: Our time is up for today, Elias. Shall we schedule for next Tuesday?
VANCE: (From the doorway) Don’t bother, Sarah. I think I’m going back to The Onyx. I heard a rumor they’re replacing the lightbulbs in the back. I’d hate to miss the show.
[00:53:22]
(Sound of door closing. Recording ends.)
