Ram couldn’t sleep that night. Try as he might, he just couldn’t enter the realms of quiet dreams. It was denied to him that night as the moon was completely hidden on this side of the earth. It was like a purposeful demon from the great skies had landed in town with a thousand

It was the coldest night so far that month.

She came to him after midnight. He was powerless under her piercing gaze. Her eyes beckoned to him outside under the trees in the cold, dark night. He followed her like a lamb to the slaughter. He was horny, and more than a bit afraid. The reason behind the fear was just out of reach of his love struck mind and body. She turned and beckoned to him with a curved finger. He followed. He was prepared to follow her to the heights of heaven or the depths of hell. So enamored was he with the obviously inviting gesture of her finger and the look in her eye.

And then he woke up sweating and thrashing on the bed, the sheets and pillow drenched in his cold sweat, with no memory of the dream. But he understood in a moment or so that it was just a dream or nightmare.

The glass of water helped. It cleared his mind and wet his parched throat.

He went out for a walk after draping himself with a shawl over his shoulders.

And then she saw her for the first time that night. And it was not a dream, it was for real. She was the most beautiful creature his eyes had ever fallen upon. Her pink sari had mystique sheen and her eyes had a light that brought him to a standstill. She was leaning on a palm tree with the end of the sari straying madly about her in the breeze. Her long straight hair fell almost to the small of her back.

One look at the curve of her stomach peeping by the side of the sari sent litres of blood straight to his head which in turn heightened his manhood to heights hitherto unknown to him. Her lips gleamed faintly with the saliva left over after her casual and provocative licking of her lips with her red tongue.

And then she raised a finger and called out to him. “Come on Ram, you afraid? Come and hold this lonely girl who has waited too long for this eternal moment.”

With a rush of pure lust they both grappled on the dirt under the tree. In no time both their clothes were strewn around and the wind was happy to oblige by scattering them around the huge field.

It was not ram’s first time on the hay. In fact, he considered himself a local czar in passion play.

Both were quite experienced enough to know instinctively that they were perilously near climax. Ram put brought his arms from her shoulders slowly down her naked back. And his arms found nothingness. He tried again and his hands went through her back. In a fit of climax and terror he remembered the “spineless rakshasi story” that was terrorizing nearby villages with tales of seduction, horror and death.

“YOU“, he cried with his last breath as her face changed to the ageless horror that was the real thing with elongated fangs for teeth, rotting flesh and her nails turning to long, sharp talons. One talon swiftly cut through his breast and took out his beating heart in a great gush of fresh blood that painted the ground and tree red.

Note about this story:

This is not an original, but an English adaptation of a long forgotten short story I had read from ‘Varamalar’ the Sunday weekly in Tamil. I was in school at that time and for some reason or the other this story stuck in my mind. I had always wanted to adapt this story in English and at last I have done it.