The glass doors opened, and a young man waved at her. Tessa got a better grip on her suitcase and nervously walked toward the large brick building. An enormous A-frame showed the entire interior of the common rooms, but she couldn’t make much out due to the sun’s glare. White columns lined the concrete porch which bore stains of various shades of brown and purple. With her sunglasses on, she could see the skinny kid waving at her well enough, but he did little to assuage her concerns about her summer lodging. “Are you Matt?”

“Yeah, that’s me, uh, which are you? Sorry, I mean, who are you?” He awkwardly pushed the door open and tried to hold it for her as she passed into the house. She caught the smell of stale beer on him, and he seemed quite disjointed.

“Tessa Walker,” she said with a smile. Matt looked to be a sophomore at best. Why he was left to guard the house and greet its temporary inhabitants, she didn’t know. Nor did she wonder for long as her attention turned to her temporary home. A wide staircase directly across from the door led up into the common room. To either side of it, smaller staircases led down into what seemed to be a dining hall. Matt let the door close behind her and went so far as to turn the bolt on the door, making her stomach flutter with worry. He was a scrawny young man who didn’t look as if he would be the slightest bit threatening even if he’d had a good night’s sleep. Still, she didn’t know who else was occupying the house for the summer.

He noticed her eyes dart to the locked door and smiled nervously, “Oh, I keep it locked. People tend to wander in otherwise. Typically we don’t use the front door during the summer.” He led her over to one of the side staircases and pointed down. “Those open onto the patio around back and there’s a path that lead off to the parking lot. That’s usually how we come and go during the day.” Without warning, he jumped down several of the steps and waved for her to follow. “Oh, you can leave your stuff there. Is that all you brought?”

“No, I have some stuff in the car.”

“Oh sure,” he mumbled, waiting for her at the foot of the steps. “I can help you bring it in if you need it. C’mon, this way.” They crossed the dining room moving parallel to the front door. “The guys leave their tvs in the rooms, so you’ll have that, but if you want to watch a bigger one or something, the rec room is over there.” He gestured to a room adjoining the dining hall. Several large couches sat on makeshift risers across from a large, outdated television with an array of wires and smaller boxes scattered around it. Beyond the couches was a pool table and a larger stereo system built into the wall. The equipment had been updated, but the original speakers remained creating a freakish hybrid of the past and present.

Matt opened a door and led her into a dingy kitchen. “I’m not sure if your room has a mini fridge in it, but you can use this small one if you need to. This whole area is fine to use as long as you clean up after yourself. Normal stove and stuff. There’s some pots and pans. Wash ’em off when you’re done and leave them in the sink. I’ll come through and run the big washer once in a while. Don’t mess with the big stoves and all that. Wouldn’t want the house to blow up or anything. Ice machine there. That’s usually pretty popular. Remember to close the lid or it’ll half melt and then all the way melt and turn into a fucking iceberg. Then we have to drain the whole thing—just, I mean never mind, just remember to close the lid.”

For the first time, Tessa smiled in relief. The house had a bizarre charm, and her temporary landlord was another awkward college kid flustered from talking to her. “Close the lid. Got it.”

He walked through the maze like kitchen and into a large pantry to a door with a porthole window set in it. He opened it and gestured for her to follow him outside. He pointed to a keypad. “Unlocks the door with the code. I have to lock up at ten each night so this is the only door you can get in from the outside. Safety light up there and around that hedge is the parking lot. Thirty seconds at a walk from car to this door. Locks behind you after it’s closed again.” Tessa was used to these demonstrations. When she’d lived on campus, safety was a constantly beaten drum. The program that booked her in an out of use frat house for summer lodging had been keen on selling the idea that it was a perfectly safe place. As he led her back inside Matt continued, “I have keys to the exterior doors, and I know the combo for that lock. It’s changed for the summer so only those of us here know it. I’ll give you your key in a minute. It’s the only one to your room, but I do have a master for the dorm locks in case of emergencies. You’re going to have to trust me on that one.”

They trotted up the stairs, grabbed her suitcase, and continued up to the top floor. “This looks nice,” she said absently. The room was arranged like a standard living room, but much broader. Several sofas stood around a large coffee table that held books about the fraternity and others about the college itself. In the corners, chairs and tables made cozy spots for reading or studying. The backside of the upper floor was glass windows as well, making it a floating platform between two vistas. She made her way over to the far wall and looked down on the back patio and ill kept lawn. An enormous portrait hung over a fake fireplace. The oil painting shimmered in the morning sunlight cascading in from the huge windows. The painting itself showed a large oak door standing in a green field alone. The door and its frame looked as though they had been plucked from a small, English cottage. The door was closed and on its face several symbols were carved into the wood. Despite its odd placement, it looked very old and masterfully done. “What’s that about?” She jabbed her finger at the painting.

Matt rummaged in a metal box attached to the wall beside another door. “Hmm? Oh, the painting. It’s a fraternity thing. Parable of the Door. Here ya go.” He handed her an old metal key with “8” stamped on it. “Over there is the chapter meeting room and the president’s suite if you’re curious. There’s a visitor’s bathroom there as well. And this way to your room.” He pushed through the galley door and headed down a cinder block hallway. They passed doors on the left and right as they made their way down the hall. The numbers on the doors seemed to be entirely arbitrary, but they wound up in front of the one labeled “8”. Matt gestured to the lock and moved to the side. “You’re the first one, but a couple more will arrive later today. Whole upper floor should be full by the end of the week.”

Tessa opened the door and stepped into the fifteen by fifteen square room. At the far side, beside the window, stood a wooden bed with bare mattress. Along the left wall, a pair of dressers sat side by side with a sizable television on top of them. Further down, a small desk with a wooden chair occupied the sliver of space between the bed the wall. On the right wall, an aged, but clean leather couch absorbed the remaining area with a battered coffee table in front of it. The walls were empty except for the tape and nails left behind. Tessa dropped her suitcase on the couch and peered to the right of the door to find an empty closet that was nothing more than a separated space with a lead pipe wedged between two wooden slats. Rustic, but livable. “Honestly, nicer than I expected,” she said with a laugh.

Matt grinned at this. “Oh, well, you should probably see the bathroom before making your mind up.” He waved for her to follow and they stepped back into the hall. He gestured to a door to the right of her room, “That’s the stairwell. Takes you down to the first floor dorm wing. For fire escapes and whatever. I don’t mind you walking through, but I won’t be coming up unless I need to.”

Tessa noted the slightly unhinged door that led to the stairwell, but her eyes went quickly to a small door across from it. It looked to be made exactly as all the others, but was painted white to match the walls. Not just the door, but the handle as well. And not just the handle, but a latch that had been bolted to the door and padlocked to a hook drilled into the concrete beside it. “What’s that?” she blurted out.

Matt followed her gaze. “Oh, I’m not sure, actually. No one has a key to it anymore. We always get drunk and dare each other to come up here and knock the damn thing open, but no one ever does. Would wind up being a pain in the ass no matter what. Alumni joke about it too. Tell us that’s where the dead bodies and stuff are.”

“So what is it really? Someone has to know.”

“Utility stuff, I figure. You forget the thing is there after a while.” Matt waved for her to follow him again, not wanting to spend any longer discussing the door. The truth was that he had forgotten the door. Not in the way the brain forgets about the sight of the nose, but in a way that when Tessa pointed it out, a cold feeling settled in his stomach. The others did joke about it some times, but only very late and very drunk. The door was not right. He was glad for the painted over lock.

In the middle of the hall, yet another galley door swung open at Matt’s insistent push. They stepped into a bathroom of green tile and dank air. Four sinks jutted out from the back wall with four matching urinals across from them. To the right were thin toilet stalls and to the left was a brand new shower curtain hung from a brand new rod. “Uh, I put that up for some moderate privacy. He stepped over to it and pulled it back, filling the air with the smell of new plastic. Beyond was a room about the size of her dorm room, but with shower heads jutting out from the walls and two longer trough like ones running from one end to the other. “The individual ones have their own knobs, and the big ones up top are turned on from here.” He reached around the wall and turned a knob causing water to gush down like rain. “I know it looks rough, but the showers here are actually fucking amazing, especially when you have them to yourself. Most people wear flip-flops or whatever cause it’s communal, but we had it cleaned at the end of the semester.”

“And how many girls are going to be living here?”

Matt swallowed hard and blushed, clearly thinking about the core of Tessa’s question. “Four this week with another three next Monday. It works out most of the time you have it to yourself. People naturally stagger the time, you know.”

(He’s going to watch, you know. He won’t be able to resist. The thought of you lathering soap across those tits will drive him mad. And then, when the others arrive…)

“I’m sorry, what?” Tessa heard the words, she was sure of it, but in the next second she couldn’t pick them out over the sound of the shower. Matt flipped another switch which turned on a big ventilation fan that whirred above them. She reached passed him and shut it off as well as the water. “What did you say?”

Matt peered back with confusion. “That the vent needs to be on or it’ll get swampy in here. That’s all. You can prop the door open too, that helps keep the air moving.” He shuffled past her and headed back out to the hallway. She followed, trying to remember what she’d heard or if she’d heard anything at all.

“Are we the only ones here?”

“Yeah, for a while,” Matt answered. He had the very brief idea that she might flirt with him. And that flirtation might lead to kissing. They wouldn’t bother with her room since it had no furnishing in it. Instead, she’d ask to go see his. No sooner would they pass the door than she would take off her shirt to show off an impressive pair of breasts. From there, he could only imagine a white, calm bliss of touch. The illusion dissipated as he saw her stern eyes looking almost through him. Older women rarely had interest in younger men at their ages, he thought. Though only a year or two separated them, that might as well have been all the miles from where he stood to the moon. Her insistent gaze finally urged him to ask. “Why?”

Tessa’s eyes drifted over her host’s shoulder to the small door. “Just curious,” she answered. “You said you’d help me with my other bags?” She smiled and reached out to touch his arm. Why would I do that?

“No problem. I got nothing else to do.”

“Car’s this way.” She turned on her heel and led him away. Neither thought of the door again for hours.

***

Matt drew the short straw for the summer. Or at least, that’s what they told him. While his fraternity brothers vanished off for summer vacation, not bothering to look behind them, he remained at the house preparing it for camp residents. The corporation that owned the house to keep it in a liability bubble needed to hire someone for the summer as a more or less landlord. Hiring an adult was problematic in the hour requirements and low pay, but hiring a college kid who already lived there was the perfect deal. Matt lived in his same room for free, they paid him two hundred a week on top of that, and, in return, he spent the first two weeks of his summer making sure the house was livable for young women instead of young men.

By the time the third girl arrived, Vicki a slim brunette with ruby red lipstick on while wearing ratty shorts and a faded t-shirt, Matt realized he had wasted most of his time. Tessa’s baggage was light compared to the second two. This theater camp was booked for two weeks, yet Vicki and Jessica, the second girl to arrive, came with all the thunder and bluster of their whole lives. Cases of clothes, bags of makeup, televisions, microwaves, and everything else they could have possibly needed for the rest of their lives, let alone the summer. Matt regretted his offer to help Jessica move her things in, and vowed not to mention it to the fourth girl once he’d finished lugging Vicki’s entire life into her room. That said, he was glad for the opportunity to break the tension with each of his new residents. Jessica’s arrival had been less awkward than Tessa’s. The blonde, plump girl seemed much more approachable than Tessa in the first place, but Matt found a rhythm for his explanations that led him through the paces without the strange, silent pauses.

The fourth girl to arrive surprised him by looking nothing like the other three. Felicia introduced herself while he chastised himself silently for stereotyping at best and being racist at worst. Felicia towered over him, but smiled and laughed easily at the sight of the scrawny white boy fumbling through his introduction. More than the others, Felicia made Matt self conscious about his appearance. He didn’t have a chance to shower or dress properly between each’s arrival, but that was the superficial issue. Through his freshman year, he discovered that students broke into several categories. Some put on the freshmen fifteen, some hit the gym with a bizarre and religious work out schedule, and others went still and didn’t change at all other than to grow a little less themselves, not in weight but seemingly in spirit. Matt fell in this last category, raked thin over time by stress. As he delicately shook Felicia’s hand, he noted the stark contrast between their skin tones, rich brown against a sickly pink. The sun blazing in from the huge windows was foreign to his skin, and he resolved in that moment to get some kind of tan before the summer ended.

With Felicia fully moved in and acquainted with the other girls, he retreated to his lair underneath them. The downstairs hallway lacked the fresh coat of paint and intense cleaning that made the upstairs look welcoming. Dingy walls and scarred tiles led him to his room which, at least, was more homey than the upstairs. He’d draped a red curtain over the sole window that provided a warm light between the cold walls. Like all of the other rooms, he had the same pieces of stock furniture, but his were adorned with the bizarre trophies of his age – a torn down street sign, a variety of empty liquor bottles, school pennants, and strange toys quirky enough to not be considered more childish than nostalgic. Looking at it all, he suddenly hated it. He pulled a garbage can down the hall to his room and tossed out the old liquor bottles. He made sure to drop each silently into the bin rather than have them crash one after the other and draw unwanted attention from upstairs.

As he worked, he wondered what the girls were up to. Before they arrived, he’d largely thought of their arrival like getting house cats. He thought they would periodically intersect with his life, but otherwise meander about their individual lives silently. Laughter echoed down from up above, and he felt like a stranger in his own house. They wouldn’t be going on silently at all, but laughing, talking, singing, playing music, perhaps even bringing others over. Perhaps other guys. That didn’t seem right. This was his home, the home of his fraternity, sacred ground. He thought of going up and explaining some extra rules to prohibit guests, but decided against it. He was tired and hungry. The morning and half the afternoon had sailed by while he helped move in four women that were all way out of his league. He made a litany of mental plans to cook something, to shower, to continue cleaning, but instead of any of that, he shoved the garbage can back into the hall, kicked his door closed, and flopped on his futon. He turned on a television show and shortly drifted off to sleep.

He dreamed. Each of the girls in turn came to his room, in a reverse of their arrival at the house. First Felicia with her dark skin, then Vicki with her ruby lips, then Jessica with her blonde curls, and finally Tessa with her shimmering red hair cropped close. They came to kneel between his legs, their hands running up his thighs as he looked down at them. The dreams happened separately and all at once. Matt wanted to reach for them. He wanted to put his hand against the back of their heads and guide them either up to his own lips or down to the bulge desperate to escape his boxers. Yet he couldn’t. His arms felt tied down. He could barely move his head. The girls leaned back from him and took off their tops. They wriggled out of their shorts, their tight asses waving in the air behind them as they bent at the waist. Matt strained against the invisible bonds harder. He gritted his teeth and felt a shout of frustration tremble on his lips. Then he looked past the girls to where they had each come in. They had not walked through his door, but crawled. And the door was not his. It was half the size it should have been. It was painted white and fragile with age. He ignored the naked women striding toward him, their thighs wet with their own juices. He focused all his thought and will on the latch and the lock. The door started to shake.

(You are a weak vessel. I’ll try not to burst your heart.)

Matt woke. His heart thumped in his chest. His body was covered in a cold sweat. He scrambled in the red light, searching each corner to make sure he wasn’t alone. The world was as it should have been. The house around him was silent, and his television displayed a message asking if he was still there. Within seconds, the dream faded. His heart slowed down to its normal slow beat. He turned his thoughts back to mundane motives. Hangover nightmare, he thought. Shame it was ruined. Could have been an awesome one. He tried to remember what he’d seen of the girls in his mind, but the images vanished back to the dreamworld. Gathering himself up, he headed for the downstairs shower. Towel in hand and clad in flip flops and boxer shorts, he looked down the long hallway to the stairwell door — the stairwell that opened led up to the white, locked room. It swung gently, almost imperceptibly, on its hinges.

***

Vicki bounced on her bed twice, testing the old springs. Her mind immediately wondered how old the mattress was and how many people had fucked on it. She wanted to take a black light to the meager furnishings of her room and see all the spills and stains that had accrued over the years. Even the long line of virgins that tromped through the house would have spilled enough jizz to float Noah’s ark over the years. She smacked on her gum and looked at herself in the skinny mirror beside the closet. Moving in had been simple and getting settled even simpler. She’d made an art of transporting herself with little fuss. The accoutrement that came with her was all ultimately unnecessary. She brought it because she could, but expected to need little of it. What she did need was kept in the duffel bag that was flung over her shoulder as she walked into the house hours earlier. It held nothing secret or special — a few sets of clothes, some toiletries, a blanket, and a small box of makeup.

The girls talked for a while after everything was moved in. Jessica offered to go get dinner as a group, but the other two declined. Vicki answered with a shrug. They promised to do something together later, but Vicki knew their types. Tessa was the alpha bitch who didn’t know it, and Felicia was the alpha bitch who did. They were both beautiful in their respective ways. Vicki expected to see them the next morning looking all the more stunning after a good night’s sleep and some actual effort put into their appearance. Even Jessica had a down to earth appeal to her. It wasn’t threatening or aggressive, simply the passive beauty of a kind person. It wasn’t rare in their small world world of theater, but Vicki still tried to appreciate it when she saw it. For herself, Vicki didn’t think she competed with Tessa or Felicia. Nor did they. She’d spent years cultivating the personality of a quirky outside. She’d indulged it so long that she couldn’t remember if that is who she actually was or if it was a cover to hide her inability to aspire to the pure spotlight for which the two other women vied. In sum, though, Vicki guessed the guy in the basement would have traded his left nut to peek at any one of them in the shower.

She’d thought him to be charming in a foolish way. Her older friends called her a pervert for her daydreams. She swung her legs onto the bed and let her head crash into her pillow. As her eyelids grew heavy in the warm sun, her mind imagined the scrawny boy balancing himself above her, his arms quivering from holding up his own weight as he tried in vain to find the right position to stick it in. Wouldn’t be the first time she’d taken a boy’s virginity. Vicki guessed that between the four of them Jessica would be the only one to give her a competition in that market. They were two sides of the same coin as far as young inexperienced men were concerned. The imaginary Matt leaned down to kiss her lips, feeling such a sign of normal intimacy was necessary before shoving his cock in her pussy lips. He’d last for three pumps before half cumming inside of her and pulling out in a panic to splash the rest on the sheets beneath them. Then came the part that really got her off. He would whimper and mewl and make outlandish promises. His vulnerability would be laid out before her to feast on if she so wished. Instead, she would clean them up and pull him to her chest, letting his lust rekindle as he lingered near her exposed tits.

(I could give you much more than that. I could finally still that need in your cunt.)

The voice cut through her mind like a dagger of ice. She physically winced as she jerked out of the light doze. “Someone there?” Her eyes scanned the room carefully. She’d heard something, a voice, bitter and old. She pressed her clammy palms against her shorts and felt a chill even though the room was near stifling. She swallowed down the knot at the back of her throat. Her skin crawled, and an urge to run seized her. Muscles tensed. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. The room felt occupied. She felt watched. “Hello?”

The feeling passed. Her mind filled in the strange experience with rational explanations. Something odd in her lunch stirred up a dream while she napped in the sun. More of gravy than of grave. She moved from the bed over to the futon that had been left behind. Rummaging in her bag, she pulled out one of her overly worn and dog eared romance novels. She flipped to where she had left off. The shirtless sailor had just carried the heroine to her canopy bed. He wanted to leave but she held him fast. Vicki’s eyes playfully danced down to the page to linger on the word “loins.” She smirked and settled into a more comfortable position.

***

Felicia did not succumb to the languid inclinations of afternoon heat. She kept herself busy from the moment the four girls retreated to their respective rooms. First, she started to clean. She’d brought several sprays and disinfectants with her as well as some spare rags to wipe everything down. She scoured the surfaces thoroughly, but found some relief in the already tidy room. Next she made up her bed, pleased to find the white sheets fit perfectly over the single sized mattress. She hung a curtain over the window and put a small lamp out on the desk that filled the room with artificial white light. With those small improvements done, she moved on to putting away her things. She carefully organized the six drawers into categories. One for shirts, one for shorts and pants, another for towels, a fourth for underwear and socks, the fifth for cosmetics and other supplies, and the sixth for spare blankets and sheets. Felicia was not one to be unprepared. She put everything away with a quick efficiency that Vicki would have identified with had she the chance to observe such behavior. A sight which Felicia had no intention of sharing.

She moved on to the desk and coffee table. She put a candle and several of her drama texts on the table before moving over to the desk where she set up her laptop. Checking the desk drawers, she filled the top with a tray of office supplies that she carted with her from home to home. The theater camp likely would not require any actual written work, but Felicia enrolled in several summer courses, off-major things like low level math. While most of the work was done digitally, she found it helpful to have pen and paper on hand. And of course, she might come across another internship or scholarship she could apply for.

The bottom drawer opened with a grinding noise of wood against wood followed by a thunk as a thin blue book slid forward. Felicia frowned. The room should be clean. Only furniture was to be left. Her hand slipped quickly into the drawer and retrieved the book. “RITUAL” the title read in gold foil. The rest of the cover was blank and well preserved except for some minor tear at the edges. She closed the drawer and thought she should take it down to Matt. Clearly it had something to do with his fraternity. It might be one of the things they pretended to keep secret. At the very least, she thought of taking it out to the common room and telling him of it later. Yet, she hesitated. Curiosity was not one of her normal qualities, but something about the simplicity of the volume intrigued her. She opened it on the desk and turned to a table of contents. She found several expected passages titled “Initiation,” “Alumni,” and “Benediction.” None of these appealed to her, but the last entry caught her eye.

The Parable of the Door. At the end of a long and winding road stood a door. This door blocked the passage through the mountain and to the lands beyond. The other passes were far to the east and to the west. The door was closed and locked. Beside it sat a guard, old and grizzled. One day, a young blacksmith came to the door and asked to pass through. The guard said any man may pass who had the right key. The blacksmith responded by asking what man who travels the world would have the key to this door. The guard answered, “Any man who wishes to pass through it.” The blacksmith inspected the door and tried the lock, but it would not budge. To go around would take many years in either direction. He asked the guard to open the door, but the old man said that it was beyond his power to do so. Frustrated the blacksmith turned around and went home.

Another day, a student came to the door in the mountain. He asked the guard about the door and received the same answer, “Any man who wishes to pass through will have the key.” Confused, but determined, the student examined the door and then the lock. He discovered that the lock was simple. Taking a candle from his pack, he carefully wedged it in the lock, making certain not to clog the hole or jam the tumblers, and made an impression. Withdrawing it, he cleaned away the excess wax and found that he had a rough mold of the key. He went then to a nearby wood and found a strong limb of ash. Cutting it down with a hatchet he carried, he began to carve a replica of the wax. It took several days of fiddling work, but he passed the time with good conversation with the guard who told him many stories of others who had come to the door. Finally, on the fourth day, the student brandished a wooden key in the morning light, carving away the final sliver. He slipped it into the lock and heard the satisfying clicks as it opened with ease. The door swung wide and he saw the beauty of the lands beyond.

“Will you leave the key behind?” the guard asked.

“Any man who wishes to pass through this door will have the key with him. The path is blocked but it is not prevented to the prepared.” With that, he snapped the key and tossed it aside. Giving farewell to the guard, he closed the door behind him and heard the locks snap back into place. With wisdom, he traveled on.

Felicia’s brow furrowed as the short tale came to an end. “Obviously it’s about encountering obstacles,” she said aloud. “The blacksmith likely had all the skill to make a key, but looked for a handout rather than solving the problem himself. The student applied himself to the problem and solved it. Huh. Maybe these dumb frat rituals aren’t all bad. Kind of disappointing if it’s not at least half homoerotic spanking, though.” She turned the page to find something else.

Scrawled in an erratic script: Cast aside your key. The door stays locked.

The words made a cold knot in her stomach. She snapped the book shut and threw it back in the bottom drawer. Felicia tried not to think about it, but she’d seen it in the hall earlier. None of the others wanted to look at it either. She certainly didn’t want to ask about it. At the end of the hall, a small white door with the lock painted over.

***

Jessica spent so much of her life in the shadow women more beautiful than her that she did not realize or appreciate her own appeal. She thought of herself as ugly and plain. Those thoughts echoed in her mind as she sat amongst her still-packed things in the small room of the frat house. If she’d been more aware of her surroundings, she would have heard the other girls rummaging around or even the comings and goings of the guy downstairs. None of this reached her. She sat in a trance on the edge of her unmade bed as the hours ticked by and the sun disappeared from the sky. When she came to, it seemed that only moments before she’d been chatting happily with the others in the hallway. Only moments before had she first seen the door.

(It’s time.)

Jessica daydreamed. She’d sat idle while her friends lost their virginities. At first, she thought it was something special, but as more of her friends recounted the unpleasant tales of drunken fumbling, she lost that illusion. She wanted to be done with it. She wanted to have sex and be free of the societal burden that she alone knew she carried. Perhaps a few of her closer friends suspected, but she sneaked away with enough boys to create doubt.

(The real thing. Hot and thick. Sliding between those cushion thighs.)

She never even used a vibrator until halfway through her freshman year. Buying one under her parents’ roof would have been difficult, but ordering one online and having it delivered to her post office box had been easy. She’d used her fingers plenty of times and even the handle of a hairbrush on occasion. Not knowing what exactly she was getting in to, she bought two. One a small pen like vibrator and the other a fleshy cock shaped one that came with a suction cup. She’d seen the latter used by cam girls, suctioned to the floor so they could fuck the inanimate dick for their masturbating audiences. She’d found her own thrilling enough for its feel and shape, but it was cold and lifeless. The vibrator excited her more in the end, but neither helped with the wait. They gave her a taste of what she’d been missing.

(I’ve waited much, much longer than you.)

Once, she thought of walking up to a guy at a party and offering to fuck him. She didn’t care where or even how. She was willing to let him do whatever to her, even up her ass. Several of the other girls she knew preserved their “real” virginity by letting no small number of guys stretch their assholes. Jessica saw no reason she had to be different in that regard. On the rare occasions she did get male attention it was because of her plump rear. It wouldn’t have been a hard sell to get one of the lookers to stick his cock up her bum. All she had to do was ask, but the asking was the hard part. At her core, she held back from fear. Fear of being looked over yet again. And that rejection would be too wounding, too fatal. Presenting herself, wet and naked, and getting turned down would destroy her. Or so she thought.

(Enough. The key.)

The door. The solution to all her problems. She could hear the voice coming from behind it, a deep resonant baritone that promised her all her wildest dreams. Not empty promises, it showed her. It showed her lording over the other women in the house, making them suck and fuck who she chose and only after she’d had her way with them all. The voice showed her men crawling on their hands and knees for her. The voice showed her people going mad for the chance to touch her. It showed her a bed set in stone in the middle of an open field and surrounded by broken glass and nails. She saw men and women crawling naked across that wasteland to simply see her beauty more closely. Those she granted worthy, the ones with the fattest cocks or the most agile tongues, would be allowed passage through a bridge. A bridge reached by passing through a small white door. The voice showed her these glories and horrors and more. It thrummed through her body, rippling her being with pleasure, driving her closer and closer to release, but never allowing her completion.

(The key, my love. And everything will be yours.)

Jessica stumbled to her feet in the dark room. She went to the closet and grabbed hold of the metal pipe used as a clothes rod. It felt hot in her grip and resisted her efforts to dislodge it. It broke free and clunked against the brick as the weight surprised her. She hefted the weapon in her hand and went to the hall. The other doors were all closed, yellow light from lamps spilling out into the white hallway from cracks under the door. A smell of rotted wood was in the air as Jessica took heavy steps down towards the small door. It looked so simple and unnoticeable. Behind it she could feel the voice waiting, its long patience near its end. She took aim, raised the pipe, and slammed it down with an echoing thunk. The latch did not budge, and she raised the pipe again.

Doors started to open. Dumbly she heard cries and a bellowing yell from the lower floor. Thunk. Thunk. Tessa’s door opened. “Christ, what the hell are you doing? Stop it!”

Vicki urged her on. “Do it! Do it! Oh god yes, can’t you feel it?!” She looked madly at Felicia who stood beside her in the hall placidly watching the insanity play out as though it were a dull puppet show. Thunk.

The stairwell door jerked open and Matt appeared in his boxers and a pair of socks. “Jessica! Stop!”

Thunk. Clink. All of their eyes went to the door and a feeling of revulsion and horror gripped them by the throat.

***

For a few moments, nothing happened. The five of them exchanged panic looks. Jessica came to her senses and dropped the pipe. Tessa squatted beside her door and mouthed “close it” silently to Matt. The young man took a step toward the door, and it burst off its hinges. A galvanic smell of blood and rot filled the air as the long contained entity rushed into Matt. In the flash of an instant, Felicia thought she saw a half goat, half man, but that certainly could not be possible. Ideas of possible and impossible faded away as Matt screamed and dropped to his knees in the hallway. The room doors all slammed shut. Tessa jumped to her feet and ran to the opposite end of the hall, slamming helplessly against the swinging door held still by an unseen force.

Matt’s mind seared with chaotic pain. He was floating in a black abyss, inky fluid filling his lungs and blotting his eyes. Above him loomed a hideous, twisted face that terrified him more than the void swallowing him up. A deep, booming voice full of malice thundered in the blackness, “How long in your years has it been, boy? In this pit, it has been seven thousand years. Seven thousand years rotting in this murky hell. Your filthy kind locked me here.” Matt wanted to scream at the demon that it wasn’t him. He’d had nothing to do with however the beast had wound up in a utility crawlspace. He hadn’t even been born then! “Did you not take their oath?” The massive face grew nearer. “Now, Matt, you have a choice. It will take thousands of years for your life to waste away in this place. Thousands of years spent as seconds tick by in your reality. Or you can take me inside of you. We will walk the earth together, spreading my mark.”

For one brief instant, Matt thought he would be strong enough to resist. He imagined himself languishing in the void, keeping the demon at bay until his body finally died and he received release. That instant passed in the raucous laugh of the incubus. Matt struck the deal and his eyes shot open, staring down the hall at the frightened or numb women. For another ignorant moment, he thought it might have been a dream, but then pain tore through his body. He let out a grating shriek as his body began to transform. Hair spread out over his chest and back as muscle rippled underneath. Supernatural strength coursed through his veins as claws pushed out from under his fingernails, ripping back the thin keratin in small spurts of blood. The black talons raked across the floor as his feet stamped. He no longer felt toes, but the hard dullness of hooves. His teeth turned jagged and blood leaked from cuts on his lips as horns erupted from the top of his head. None of that mattered, though. He reached down and tore away the boxers, revealing a chiseled ass to the women until he finally leaned back. Their eyes all went wide.

His cock had grown thick and long with a pair of balls to match. It stood up as hard as steel. With his transformation finishing, Matt felt the first of what would be many pulses of cum rushing up and out of his cock. The pleasure was more than any mortal could have possibly felt. Dark black cum sprayed out and splattered the ground before him, mingling with his own poisonous blood. A mad cackle slipped from his lips as he scrambled to his feet, cloven hooves clattering on the tiled floor. He looked down the hallway and flexed an invisible muscle. The women quivered as if a physical wave of heat hit them. He set his eyes on Jessica and stepped forward.

She tried to take off her shirt. Jessica could feel a mad need for the monster, fueled by her own base desires. The dark smells dissipated, and a strong musk replaced them, emanating from the creatures massive cock. As Matt reached her, he grabbed her shoulders and spun her around, pushing her forward, a direction she happily obeyed. She felt his hot talons rake against her skin, drawing a thin trickle of blood before he slashed through her shorts, exposing her white ass to the air. She could feel the heat of his cock near her wet pussy, but his hands rubbed the soft flesh of her ass. You wanted to be fucked so much that you’d let any man willing stick his cock in your ass. What about my cock? The fat head of Matt’s inhuman dick pushed against her asshole. Despite her fantasies, she’d never put so much as a finger in her ass before. A pulse of hot cum splashed between her cheeks, coating the puckered hole with corrupting fluid. She gritted her teeth and he shoved forward.

Jessica let out a screeching moan. It felt as though he were tearing her in half. His hands grabbed her hips and jerked her up and down his length. After a moment, she realized the pain wasn’t physical. It was something else. Something weak and small inside of her resisted. She moaned and wiggled her butt back against the invading cock. The thick rod kept pumping the black cum into her ass, but he hadn’t really cum, not yet. She wanted him too. She squeezed her anus around the invading cock and felt the pain go away. The little thing inside of her went silent, and a wild pleasure took its place. Her hands slid underneath them and pushed into her pussy while she urged the demon on in guttural profanity. “Fuck my ass with your huge fucking dick. Ungh. That’s right. Give me my fucking reward. Turn me into your fucking butt slut. Cream my ass with that thick spunk.” Her eyes turned black, and she looked at Vicki. The other girl had her hands down the front of her shorts with at least two fingers in her drenched pussy. “You’re next, slut.”

Matt roared, and Jessica felt the full force of his orgasm. It felt like gallons of the cum flowed into her ass. She bucked back against him, her own pleasure drowning out what was left of her humanity until she slid off his cock, his cum oozing from her stretched asshole. Matt wasted no time and stepped toward Vicki, his cock still hard and coated with a sheen of his cum. “You,” he growled. “Always teasing those boys. Licking up their inexperience while taunting them with those perfect little lips. Come here. Suck my cock.”

Vicki knew it would be wrong. She should drop to her knees in prayer instead, but she didn’t really want to. She wanted to taste his cum more than anything. Finally, she had a man that wasn’t a limp cock dribbling a little stream of cum. Matt could fuck her properly. Starting with her throat. She stretched her jaws wide as she felt her humanity tear away. The fat cock pushed past her ruby lips while she looked up the hairy chest of the demon possessed man. The aroma was intoxicating and her pussy quivered from the feel of his cock head pushing down her throat. Her tongue undulated along the underside of the thick rod as it began dumping another load of cum down into her belly. Her eyes widened in maddened glee as his spunk sloshed in her gut. She grabbed hold of his thighs and pushed her mouth further down on his rod, feeling the length bulge in her throat as he continued to fill her up. More and more of it emptied inside of her until it pushed back up around his cock and started to dribble out of her mouth. He pulled out with a disgusting wet slurp followed by a torrent of his own cum that Vicki tried to keep down. She scrambled onto the floor, licking up any drop that she might miss as he strode forward.

Felicia, ever the efficient one, had stripped down to await her new master. It only seemed right, after all. He was a peak physical specimen that would offer her more opportunities to advance than she’d ever possibly imagined. Her dreams of becoming a successful actress vanished the moment the creature rose up in Matt’s form. He approached gently, letting his claws trace slow outlines around the thick nipples on the black woman’s chest. Despite his other changes, Matt’s face had become more handsome and alluring than she thought possible. She was even seized by the urge to kiss him before he lifted her by the waist.

You’ll make a good brood sow, I think. His wet cock pushed inside her easily. She grunted and realized what the demon meant. He didn’t bother to actually thrust in her. Matt waited for a few seconds, feeling her cunt squeeze him and the futile urge to move her hips prohibited by his powerful grip. Do you want it, whore? Do you want to be the mother of my young? Teats fat with milk, ass round for mating, and a pussy popping out spawn as often as it takes cock. Felicia answered by pulling him hard against her. His cock erupted inside of her pussy. She could feel the pregnancy taking hold immediately and wondered if her children would be born with hooves. She wondered if the demon spawn really would suck milk from her tits, but that answer came sooner than expected. Her own body started to change. The tall lithe figure she’d spent years cultivating rapidly morphed into that of a low rate porn star. Her ass swelled to a ridiculous proportion, kneaded into existence by the demon’s claws. Her breasts swelled against Matt’s chest as black milk leaked from her puffy nipples. Felicia laughed and squeezed her pussy muscles around his cock as his cum started to overflow.

Matt dropped her into his latest puddle of cum and turned his eyes to the one woman left in the hallway. She could feel hot tears rolling down her cheeks, but more importantly, she sensed something bright and defiant in her chest. Matt leaned down near her, his hand gently stroking the side of her cheek. “Even now, you still think you’re better than all of the others.” The bright light in her chest turned to nothing in an instant. Tessa felt everything about herself wash away into nothingness. The door to the common room suddenly gave way and she tumbled away from the monster. Scrambling back, she kicked the door closed behind her and jumped to her feet. She ran to the far staircase and didn’t look back. Taking them two at a time, she reached the landing, but saw that Matt had already locked the door for the night. She kept going down to the bottom floor and sprinted through the kitchen. She reached the back door and stopped, her hand on the doorknob. Mustering up what little sanity she had left, she turned and looked over her shoulder. Matt was there, silhouetted in the dining hall doorway, eyes gleaming red in the shadow. He wanted her to open it.

“Guess you’re not great with locked doors, huh?” Tessa taunted, her pride swelling again. “Not sure I can open it anyway, Matt. Guess I’ll have to settle with you. Besides, you still want the peep show, right? Wouldn’t be proper with only three girls showering for you instead of four.” She stepped away from the door, taking a smug pleasure in sacrificing her humanity to keep the demon locked up. “Now then, pussy first? Or my ass? Or maybe you just want to fuck these fat tits?”

Matt growled at her and then pounced, hot claws sinking into her flesh as he speared forward with his cock, pinning her to the wall. They rutted and fell into peels of laughter. “Stupid cunt. More girls next week, remember.”

“Maybe I get to fuck them first. Now cum in me. Make me your whore.”

***

Report of REDACTED

Case #293

October, 1966

I got called out to speak with Johnny Newsom, head of Newsom construction. They took the contract to rebuild the REDACTED fraternity house. A few of the old alumni funded the project and payed a hefty extra bonus for keeping quiet about it. Newsom told me he planned to go along with it until the assaults began. After the second couple, he went to the police and ultimately it wound up in my lap.

The whole thing started with a door. Nothing too remarkable about it except the damn thing couldn’t be broken. The wall around it, the ground underneath it, and everything else could be torn out, but that door stayed put. The frame, the knob, and the latch keeping it shut. I took a go at it myself with a sledgehammer, didn’t so much as scratch it. As to what’s behind it, the living frat guys don’t know. All of them had to be pressed to even admit the thing existed. In fact, none of them seemed to know about the door until they’re told about. But once you bring it up, they can tell you all about their nightmares.

No one alive knows how the door got there. Nor do any of us know how to break it. As it is, I think the best course of action is to build around it, and make sure it stays locked. Talking with Newsom, he thinks they can incorporate it into the new house in one of the stairwells. For some damnable reason, you can move it about fifty yards before it snaps back to where it was. Can’t bury it or it does the same thing, otherwise I’d have them pour five feet of concrete on the damn thing.

Something is behind it. Something bad that wants out.

I recommend we set up a full investigation and observation. Too much we don’t know about it, but I think it’s incredibly dangerous.

THE END