Short Story 5: Damiana

An interesting creation of mine. Another one of my early short stories.

Stepping over the empty beer cans I walked into the dimly lit corridor that was the entrance to my building. I walked up the creaking stairs past the painting in the hallway that only has three sides of its frame. The hallway smelled of soggy plaster and cigarette smoke. I unlocked the three locks on my door that worked, leaving the other four there just to server they're purpose of being a pleasent aesthetic to my raunchy little world.

 

I know it's raunchy, I'm not operating out of some sort of dilusion that it's the way normal people live. I open the door and step into my parlor. A stark contrast to the hallway of my building. Clean and proper, the room has a pleasent aroma of cedar. The walls are covered in shelves full of books and there are two antique armchairs in the center of the room facing the windows opposite me. This my trap and sanctuary, noone sees it and lives.

 

I walk to the door on the left side of the room and put my library books on the endtable nearest the door. I push through the wooden door and place the brown paper bag full of groceries that I was carrying onto the marble counter top. I carefully place the milk and eggs in the fridge and leave the rest of the groceries sitting on the counter. I have an urgeant hunger and none of what I was carrying can help this appetite. I turn and walk back through the parlor and into the door opposite the kitchen which leads into a hallway just as magnificently decorated as the parlor with rich wood paneling. I walked down the hallway past all of my cells where I keep the souls I capture. I stop infront of the door at the end of the hall.I enter this room to prepare. Five minites later I emerge ready for my next victim. Dressed to kill, tatoos up my arms and the myriad of piercings. Ready for my next.

 

I walk back down to the street and step out onto the sidewalk. I watch as the passing men stare and comment to their cronies about me. I'll throw alluring glances at some of them but I'm just teasing them. I have as much interest in them as I do in cats, dogs, or even friends. I've never been able to relate with a single soul on this planet, which is why I prey upon them.

 

I step into Kat's lounge, a stripclub a few blocks from my home. The bouncer greets me warmly as he usually does, I give him a polite smile. He's just trying to feed his family and give his daughter a better life.

 

I peruse the faces in the roomand find what I'm looking for. It looks like a banker, o goody, I think to myself. Banker's crocodile tears are my favorite. The look on their faces is usually so empty while they try to bleed me for sympathy. They poor out that empty chalice of their emotion. Sometimes I'll watch as they try to summon tears by thinking about the poor families they've used to engorge their already debaucherous lives. I pull up the stool next to him and order a drink.

 

I remain distant as I gulp down a shot of vodka. I have a polite conversation with one of the girls behind the counter while I watch the words scroll across my neighbors mind,

"I could go nine shots and it'd be cheaper than any of the others, lets do this."  I wait a second so as not to clue him in that I know exactly what he's thinking and give him a provacative smile. He turns his shoulders towards me. He's hooked and I know it now. These scumbags are all the same, a pretty girl throws them a smile and they are done.

 

I linger a while and have another trite conversation about his job and wait for him to inadvertantly spill to me all his dirty little secrets about how he stole this fortune from him and cheated that person out of their home.  I wait for a bit and give him a wink and offer for him to walk me home because I've had too much to drink. He hasn't been watching carefully, of those eight shots he bought me I only drank the first two just to feel the burn to make sure I wasn't asleep or dead.

 

I wait to see if he gives me a furtive smile of agreement to imply some sort of guilt, but he just proceeds unashamedly to lead me out the front door with his wedding band on his left ring finger.

 

He's mine now, there's nothing he can do to escape me now. I lead him up the stairs to my apartment and into my pretty little parlor. I shut the door and turn to him:

      " By the way my name is Damiana." as I think to myself: that's the last name you're going to hear.

Author's Note

Still a draft again, sorry ignore the little mistakes. Let me know what you think about it and if there is anything that I can improve, I just re-read this a few times and it really seems like its pointing to vampires, but that's not what I was shooting for at all. Try to put the idea that Damiana is a vampire out of you're mind when you read this.