Flesh Is A Requirement

So this story was inspired by a conversation I was having. They said to me, “When choosing a sexual partner, having flesh is almost a requirement. Almost.” I thought that was hot. It occupied my mind for a while, crawled inside and made itself at home. From that dark nest this was born.

She was beautiful but not the twee kind of beauty that modern women aspired to — she was tall and strong like a ship’s mast. I think that is why I liked her — because I knew that she wasn’t breakable. There was nothing ornamental about her, nothing that asked to be handled gently or admired from a safe distance. She was all sharp intention and quiet defiance, as though the world had tried her and found itself wanting.

To look at her was to feel the faint, thrilling edge of danger; not the fear of being harmed, but the fear of being undone. I could imagine her standing through storms that would splinter others, spine straight, chin lifted, daring the wind to do its worst. And I, absurdly, wanted to lean into that force, to press myself against it and see what parts of me would hold, and what parts would give.

She was holding up the bar when I met her — short hair covering one grey eye. I hadn’t thought she’d even notice me. That is not to say I’m unattractive; I can hold my own. I am more saying that I did not think she would find me attractive.

The room seemed to arrange itself around her without her asking it to; strangers’ conversations dipped and swelled like tides, but she remained constant, an unmoving point that drew the eye back again and again. Her fingers rested against the wood with a kind of idle possession, as if the bar belonged to her simply because she had chosen it.

I lingered a moment longer than necessary, aware of my own body in a way that felt almost adolescent — too conscious of where my hands were, how I stood, the rhythm of my breath. There was a heat in my chest that had nothing to do with the crowded room, a slow, insistent pull that felt less like desire and more like gravity. I moved towards her not out of confidence, but because not moving felt impossible.

She caught my eye as I approached, and in that moment, both my heart and my bravado faltered. Tilting her head to the side, she studied me like I was a curiosity kept behind glass. I was naked under her gaze. I felt the need to run a hand across myself to check I was intact. There was something deliberate in the way she looked — unhurried, unembarrassed — as though she had all the time in the world to decide what I was worth. And yet, beneath the exposure, there was a strange, aching invitation: to be seen like that and not turn away. I became acutely aware of the space between us, how small it was, how charged it felt, as though crossing it would not simply bring me closer, but alter something fundamental — something I would not be able to gather back once given.

I bought her a drink. What else could I do? And that seemed to be all the invitation she required to give me her full attention. I’m a storyteller, that’s what I do. Yet, within minutes of my finest performance beginning, she’d disarmed me with questions that seemed to probe the boundaries of decency. She seemed to circle intimacy without addressing it directly. How old were you? How did it feel? Do you like that? We’d passed, What’s your favourite band? and headed straight for, What does grief feel like for you?

I told her what my pain felt like and, in a moment, realised I’d gone too far. I’d rolled over and exposed my soft underbelly. But she didn’t strike, didn’t sink her talons in. Instead, she seemed to guard that vulnerability; she sheltered me from my own desire to destroy it.

We shared a space in time. I recounted to her a story from my youth and she laughed in all the right places, then she bit her lip as if to quench the noise. Leaning in, I ran my thumb across the back of her hand. She hesitated, her eyes saying more than words.

Desire doesn’t announce itself; it accumulates until resistance feels absurd.

An hour later, we stumbled into my hotel room, messy and unpolished. There was no need for seduction now — public composure had been traded for private urgency. I should have recognised the point of no return, but by then I didn’t want to.

I didn’t have time to hit the light as we came in (which is a shame as I like to watch), and so the room was bathed in a pale orange hue that spilt in from the streetlamps outside. The dim light caressed the curves of her body, disguising the imperfections until she looked like she’d been painted in a kind of lustre.

We did not know this room, and it was obvious — twice I banged my leg on the corner of a table I hadn’t expected. She caught the neck of my shirt in her hand and twisted the fabric, pulling me to her mouth, kissing me, then pushing me away. For a minute, there was only the sound of my laboured breathing as we paused at this threshold, neither of us turning away.

Then I sprang, my arm hooking her waist, turning her as my mouth found her neck. I slid my hands under the fabric of her shirt and pulled down on the cups of her bra to free her nipples. This was deliberate. A choice. The air thickened. She drowned in it, her mouth gasping, her back arching as I twisted the stiff peaks of flesh. She pushed her hips back against the bulge in my jeans, and I allowed one hand to drop under the waistband of her skirt, bending her so I could feel the pressure of her ass against my cock. She wanted me inside her, and I wanted it too.

There was no hesitation now, only the urgent clawing of a primal need. I needed her skin. Our clothes did not resist — not that they were given a choice. I was hungry for her. I wanted to taste her sweat, her heat, her fear.

I covered her mouth with my hand and sank my teeth into her neck. Her body tensed, my cock stiffened. I felt it then — not resistance, not quite — but the dawning understanding of what I was. She twisted in my arms, no longer sensuous but strained. But I only bit down harder. Flesh is tougher than people think; it takes determination to eat someone. I could taste the astringent, bitter taste of her perfume on my tongue — a whore must always make herself seem sweeter.

Her body fought where it had once welcomed. The air between us changed, curdled. What had been heat became effort; what had been desire became something uglier.

Still, I did not stop.

My teeth found her again, not with urgency now, but with purpose. Her screams reverberated against the palm of my hand, but when I pulled my jaws away to chew on the gore she went silent as her hot, flowing life gushed forth. I fucking love a squirter.

She had seemed so unyielding, so certain of herself. I had thought that was what drew me to her — her strength, her stillness, the sense that she could not be undone. But everything can be undone. It is only a matter of where you begin. I dug my fingers into the hole I had made and ripped at her skin till she was fully undressed.

I had been wrong about her. Not because she broke. But because I had believed, even for a moment, that she wouldn’t.

Artist Credit: Steven Fain