This had startled Don out of his stupor. “You will?”
“There’s no need for concern,” she’d soothed. “I don’t have designs on you. All I want is more lessons, and I know how to be discreet. Think of me as a satisfied customer.Verysatisfied.”
Mrs. Smith had met men like Don before. His type couldn’t imagine a woman being left unfulfilled. As long as he’d felt pleasure, he assumed his partner had as well.
The closest equivalent Mrs. Smith had to a human orgasm was the act of devouring a Pure One. And the heights of that gratification were beyond anything such an inferior species could understand.
“Take my car to collect my clothes,” she told Don. He blinked at her stupidly, as if struggling to understand her directive. “That way, you can just leave everything in the Porsche and hurry home afterward with your new suit. No one will be the wiser. When you’re ready to give me my next lesson, just knock on this door.”
She’d slipped into the house before he could reply. She was tired of looking at him and disappointed by his performance.
She required a more explosive coupling. Three minutes of panting wouldn’t suffice. She and her human mate needed to rut like animals. They had to scratch and claw, wrestle and snarl. The human male needed to dominate her. To pin her down and hold her wrists and take her again and again until he was too spent to move.
She would find other men to bed. As many as she could coerce at once, or within a handful of hours. Such a varietywould create competition on a cellular level, lighting up her reproductive system like fireworks.
After Don left, Mrs. Smith had shucked off her shift and stepped into her hot tub. The water didn’t refresh this body like it did her true form, but it was still her element. She’d picked up a random magazine and began flipping through it.
It was last month’s issue ofNew York Homes and Gardens, which Mrs. Smith had yet to peruse. When she came across the title “Do You Live on the Most Beautiful Street in New York?” she’d read the contest rules and smirked.
What did humans know of beauty?
The natural world was spilling over with beauty, which they ignored, corrupted, or bastardized. Humans and their hothouse roses and orchids. Their hybridized corn and wheat. Their grafted trees and artificial turf. Their cemeteries strewn with plastic flowers.
Pushing aside the frayed curtain, Mrs. Smith had glanced out at her backyard. It had been many years since she’d last seen the stone face in the center of the garden. Once, she’d taken great pleasure in knowing that her likeness had been surrounded by toxic plants.
A century ago, her poison garden had been lovingly tended by one of the villagers—a woman who’d been ostracized for having an illegitimate child. Her family had driven her out of their home, tossing a single suitcase and globs of spit in her wake.
The woman had poured all of her anger and bitterness into the poison garden. The foxglove, wolfbane, and lupine she planted were as tall as the fence. She grew thick mounds of jimsonweed, stinging nettle, and water hemlock. She mixed and manipulated the soil, encouraging colonies of deadly mushrooms. She nourished plants with thorns, plants thatoozed sap, and plants with toxic berries. She sang to the poison ivy, the creeping spurge, and the wart weed.
She planted oriental bittersweet along the property line, watching with delight as it grew and spread, grew and spread.
She lured bees to the garden by singing to them. She watched them pollinate the plants and attract birds. After the birds gorged on berries, they’d shit in the villager’s fields, sowing poison into the rich, fertile soil.
The village woman was long dead. But the remnants of her legacy were now being unearthed by the neighbor’s children.
Mrs. Smith liked to watch them work.
She had been watching them since they were infants in their mother’s arms, just as she’d been watching the red-haired boy next door.
Thinking of the redhead made her smile. After all, his party would grant her access to dozens of Pure Ones. In a fortnight, she would consume the boy’s friends, including the Scott child.
Round and ripe, the girl would pop like a grape in Mrs. Smith’s mouth.
Until then, she and her brother would clear the paths and pull weeds. In doing so, there was a chance they’d dig up artifacts from Mrs. Smith’s hunts.
They might find teeth. Metal fillings. Watches. Rings. Things that Mrs. Smith had regurgitated. Things that were hard to digest.
These items would intrigue the children. And possibly frighten them. The girl might run to her mother and beg to be released from her commitment. But Mrs. Smith didn’t think the mother would oblige. Like all humans, the woman was swayed by the promise of cash.
Mrs. Smith had seen the children working in their own garden. She’d heard their mother and father speak to them about saving their allowance. She’d seen the woman’s facewhen she’d retrieved a pile of bills from the mailbox. The pinched look she wore when she thought of money. Mrs. Smith knew that she could sway such a human by offering to pay her children a generous fee in exchange for a little labor.
When the work was done, she would add a gratuity along with a short missive praising the children’s diligence. After this, the Scott woman would no longer view Mrs. Smith as the strange creature who hid from the world, but as a misunderstood benefactor. Hoping her children would be hired for another task, she would try to quell any whispers about her neighbor. Mrs. Smith would gain an ally. And for such a paltry sum.
However, if the girl told the silver-haired woman who drove the yellow car, that might be cause for concern. The mobs who came after Mrs. Smith had always formed because one human—usually a woman—was too observant.
For years, the silver-haired woman had avoided looking in Mrs. Smith’s direction, but today, they had locked eyes. Mrs. Smith had seen fear and surprise in the woman’s glacial-blue gaze. But there’d been something else, too.
The woman had recognized Mrs. Smith.
