The Thing Under The Bed

by Rose B. Thorny © 2008

It lives under the bed.

Sometimes, when I'm feeling especially optimistic, almost carefree, I start to believe it isn't there anymore, but who is ever positive all the time?  Not I, certainly, and that's when I discover that the thing under the bed doesn't ever leave; it just goes still and quiet—possibly sleeping, just as any ordinary creature might—and waits.

It waits until I start to believe it's gone altogether, or even that it never existed in the first place; that it was all a figment of my vivid and childish imagination.

It's very good at waiting.

It rouses itself, or perhaps I awaken it, by making too much noise—laughing, or even weeping, with joy, or bellowing and groaning too vigorously in the throes of ecstasy. Sometimes, I wonder if even a soft moan stirs it.  In any case, sometimes—and I say 'sometimes,' because it isn't consistent at all—it creeps out at the most inopportune times and I want to scream at it to just leave, just get the fuck out of my life, but it simply gazes at me with that smug look, the one that speaks volumes with the lips barely moving, except for that slight upturn at each corner; that studied, symmetrical little smile that stops dead before it reaches the eyes.

It knows how to chill me to the bone.

One of scariest things about it is that even though the mouth stays shut, I can hear its voice.  I don't know if it's telepathy, or not, but it sounds like an echo inside my head.

I'll fix you.

It speaks close to my ear, but from the inside.  Very quiet, very controlled, and it's impossible not to comprehend, with utter clarity, that this is not a random vendetta.  The thing under the bed is mine.  It belongs only to me, a leech that attached itself to some part of me I can't reach, before I ever had any concept of what a leech was.

Or, perhaps, I belong to it.  Maybe, when I was born, it laid its claim on me and it's just a matter of time before it absorbs me just to keep itself alive.  Or, perhaps, even further back.  Perhaps, at the moment of conception, it said, "This is mine and no one else's."

It doesn't show itself to anyone else.  It's all the more maddening and frightening for that, because no one believes it exists.

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© 2008 Rose B. Thorny. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.

Bio: Who is Rose B. Thorny? Read her bio on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association website.

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