First Date

"What?" Henry asked. The other man's words sunk in. Henry realized he had left the apartment without anything on.

He felt a surge of embarrassment, but the feeling was hollow and weak compared to the emotions roiling inside him from the insane turn his evening had taken.

"Where is she?" Henry found himself shouting back at the stranger. "Did you see her?"

"Sandra? Why yes, I did," the man nodded.

"Wha-? How do you know her name?" Henry demanded, taken aback. "Who are you?"

"I'm Rory. Nice to meet you," he replied. Henry thought the man's unfazed demeanor was only making the whole situation seem even more surreal.

"Look, Henry, I'm really sorry about this, but you have to make a choice," said the man who called himself Rory. Henry barely registered that this stranger somehow knew his name. "And you don't have much time to make it, I'm afraid. I can either take you to see Sandra right now, or you can turn around, go back into that apartment, and you'll be able to forget that any of this happened."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Henry demanded. "That doesn't make any sense!" Not that anything was making sense anymore.

One of the other apartment doors along the hallway opened. A middle-aged woman with white-streaked hair, though she was still quite attractive, poked her head out. She was obviously curious about the noise they had been making. Her eyes widened when she saw the two men in the hallway, one fully clothed and the other very much not. She gawked at them without saying a word.

Henry could only stare dumbly back at her. He didn't seem able to try to cover up his nudity. It was though making any move to show his embarrassment would only make the whole situation even worse. Rory, however, only smiled and casually waved.

"Good evening, ma'am." Rory said.

"Good evening," the woman said back. She seemed to be pointedly fixing her eyes away from Henry.

"I'm really sorry about this," Rory said with a shrug. The woman's green eyes twitched and her gaze flicked over to Henry, darting below his waist. Rory seemed to notice her glance. "No, not my companion here. I'm sorry for this."

Rory raised his hand, and his finger flexed into a strange-looking gesture. A faint but distinct bluish radiance played around his fingertips.

The woman's face became blank. She slowly stepped back and quietly closed the apartment door.

"What?" Henry asked, his bewilderment growing even worse. "How...?"

"I've already said, I don't have time to explain things, Henry," Rory told him. "Just like I did with that nice woman, I can make you ignore all of this, if that's what you want. Now if you choose, you can go get your clothes, drive back to your place and as far as you'll ever remember this will just be another date where you screwed things up."

Henry stared at Rory. He had the odd feeling the other man's choice of words were not coincidence. He felt like he was going completely crazy. His mind was reeling at what was happening to him. But there was still one driving thought that made its way through his confusion. One thing that let him focus and stop himself from becoming the babbling maniac that Rory accused him of being. He did not know why he felt it, but he only knew he was filled with an overwhelming need to find Sandra.

"Where is she?" Henry repeated.

Rory simply nodded in return.

"Follow me."

He motioned and started to walk down the hallway. Henry's brow creased down, but he followed after him. They had not gone more than two steps when the hall around him shifted and changed. The night sky appeared overhead, and a view of buildings appeared around him.

Henry realized he was standing on the rooftop of Sandra's apartment when he saw the surrounding streets. The road and sidewalks below were unnaturally empty and silent. Everything had a strange, muted appearance, and the shadows seemed deeper and darker than they should.

Sandra was sitting on a ledge on the other side of the rooftop. She was still naked and hugging her arms around herself, her shoulders shaking. Henry realized she was sobbing, and he was moving toward her before he knew what he was doing.

The sound of his bare feet on the rough rooftop made Sandra lift her head. Henry stopped short when those crimson, demonic eyes fixed on him, but he could see they were laced with tears.

Sandra stood up and gasped.

"Henry!"

In spite of the unsettling sight of her eyes and the horns on her head, Henry was struck by Sandra's glorious, nude figure. He felt an involuntary stirring in his depleted loins. The touch and taste of her lips and full breasts came back to him. His hands itched to feel the smooth skin of her thighs and buttocks, and the stirring of his cock told him told him it was trying get hard again in spite of everything.

Sandra was wiping away tears with the palm of her hand. She gazed up at him with those eerily illuminated eyes.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "I was going to tell you. I really was. After a little while. After we had more time together. But...but I thought I could control myself, I didn't think...I had no idea it would be so...I couldn't help myself...I...I..."

"Sandra, there's one thing I need to ask you," Henry said softly.

He had had not understood why he had felt such a fierce need to find her. Now he knew why.

"I don't know what you are," Henry told her, never taking his eyes from that beautiful face. Those inhuman eyes and horns. "Demon or alien or whatever. You made yourself look...you hid what you were from me.

"I have to know, what else wasn't real? What about...What about all of our talks? All those late night chats? All the things we shared? The conversations and the jokes and the...the things we said we hadn't told anyone else before? Was all that just some kind of illusion too? I need to know, Sandra. Tell me."

She stared at him. Her glowing eyes were like two burning stars in the unnatural dimness, and in their supernatural light, Henry could see them filling with fresh tears.

"What? No. No Henry! That was real!" Sandra insisted. "All if it! I swear it all was! I wouldn't..."

Henry had already crossed the distance between them, taking Sandra in his arms. He kissed her passionately.

Sandra jerked, startled, then melted against him. She twined her arms around his neck to return the kiss. Henry's tongue ran over her sharp fangs, and he was disturbed to realize the tongue she pushed into his mouth was now forked. But it did not matter, she still tasted like she had the first time they had kissed, and his longing desire for her enflamed his cock, making his organ try to swell again. That caused him to wince. It would be a little while longer before he could manage that, and he broke their kiss to nuzzle his face into her hair.

"I've waited this long to finally meet you in person," he said softly. He pushed her back to look down at her face. He brushed a stray strand of her russet hair. "The eyes and horns, they don't make any difference. I don't care even if you sprout wings and a tail."

Tears ran from Sandra's glowing eyes, but they came with a smile. A smile full of those sharp, white fangs. "Really Henry?"

He hugged her close again.

"Er, are you going to sprout wings and a tail?" he heard himself say. "I'm just asking."

He felt her laughter against his chest.

There was movement out of the corner of his eye, and Henry looked to see Rory turning to move as though he was leaving. He had completely forgotten about the black-haired stranger.

"Wait," he called out to the other man. "Who are you? Who are you really?"

Sandra looked over as well, and she seemed to notice Rory for the first time. She let out an oddly adorable yelp and quickly slipped behind Rory, trying to hide herself. Henry automatically took a step to help her behind his nude body.

"I'm just someone who helps with the Somnium chatroom," Rory replied with a shrug. His expression was amused, but he kept his dark eyes respectfully above a neck-line view. "You could say I'm a...facilitator. People like me help individuals in the chat room when they find each other. Very specific individuals like you and Sandra."

"Wait, do you mean...?" Henry turned to look at Sandra. "Are there are others like you?

Sandra nodded.

"There are many others like me in this city," she said.

"Welcome to a larger world, Henry," said Rory. "Sandra can explain the niceties of the Penumbra and its denizens to you. You have quite a bit to learn. In the meantime, I'll do a bit of the clean-up."

"Clean-up?" Henry asked.

"Sandra's neighbor," explained Rory. "That nice lady is going to wake up from a restful nap and think everything she saw in the hallway was a dream. But don't be surprised if she gives you an odd look the next time she sees you."

Henry laughed. "This is nuts."

It was all so crazy, but it did not seem to matter nearly as much as warmth of Sandra's nude body pressed against him. He gazed back at her.

"Is it always going to be like this?" he asked. "All this weird, supernatural stuff?"

"I'm afraid so," Sandra replied, looking at him with concern. "The Penumbra, the world where my kind call home, it's filled with all sort of unnatural things. You have to know Henry, being with me isn't going to be easy."

"Since when are relationship ever easy?" He smiled at her, and she beamed back at him.

"Good to hear you say that," Rory spoke up. Henry felt grateful to the other man for his help the evening, but he was really beginning to wish he would leave. "Because you're part of something larger now. Just remember when it gets weird Henry, you're not alone."

Rory pulled out his cell phone and tapped the screen.

"There are other people who are willing to make their relationship work, no matter how unusual it may be," Rory said as the phone made a strange, unearthly warbling Henry was sure he had never heard come from any piece of electronics.

A swirling darkness suddenly coalesced behind the Rory. Henry only had a moment to gape open-mouthed as the curtain of blackness appeared in the air.

From within the shifting shadow, a woman in a black, hooded cloak floated out of it. She would have been tall even if she had not been levitating through the air. Her pale skin and long, flowing, white hair glowed with a bluish, spectral radiance. The cloak billowed around her revealing an impressive pair of breasts within the cleavage of a very low-cut, black gown.

One of her slim arms reached out and a white hand with wickedly sharp nails cupped Rory's chin. From the shadows of the hood, red lips could be seen curling into a pleased smile.

"I'm happy to see you were able get things to work out," the ghostly woman murmured. Her voice was chilling and reverberated like an echo from a dark cavern. "Next time print out a Google map," she told Rory.

Her head turned to regard Henry and Sandra. Henry thought he saw white, pupil-less eyes gazing out from the hood. "They really are a cute couple, aren't they?" she noted.

"They look like a chilly couple to me," Rory snickered. "Why don't you two get inside before you both catch a cold?"

Henry nodded, and he felt Sandra hug him from behind. Since the appearance of the ghostly, hooded woman, one her hands had slipped down to cover his crotch from any unwanted gazes. Henry found it far from being unpleasant.

But the floating woman did not seem to pay any attention to either of their naked bodies. She took Rory by the hand and began to lead him to the shifting curtain of darkness, her form floating silently through the nighttime air.

"Don't be shy about logging into the chat," Rory told them over his shoulder. He flashed them a grin. "In case, you screw something up."

"I won't screw this up," Henry called back, reaching around to wrap his arm around Sandra's bare shoulder. She looked up at him in the way he had always dreamt of woman looking at him, regardless of the crimson glow of her eyes.

"I don't think you will." Henry heard Rory reply. The ghostly woman's sultry chuckle echoed as they both disappeared into the shadow. The curtain vanished, and Henry and Sandra were left alone on the eerily silent rooftop.

"I'm fucking freezing, how about you?" Henry asked.

Sandra laughed and nodded. She smiled that fanged smile, and Henry thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

The End

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Thanks to Redwings1201 and others for edits.

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RKB_Kirin