Somewhat recovered from the fright and composed enough to try some rational thought, Greg made a fresh pot of coffee and tried to figure out the events of the earlier part of the day. He looked at the steak in the sink and felt a tug in his stomach. It was still frozen and he screwed the stopper into the sink and turned on the hot water letting it fill until the steak was covered.

He poured a fresh mug of coffee and stood at the sink watching the meat gradually change colour. The water had grown cold and he refilled it with hot and pushed the steak around in the water. The plastic wrap was turning red from the melting juice and his attention took on a riveted focus. The coffee grew cold in the mug as he watched and when he poked the meat and felt it give softly, he unplugged the sink and tore the wrap off the meat.

He flopped it on the counter and with a knife from the rack, trimmed off all the fat, even cutting it apart to get some of the marbling out. He dropped the knife in the sink and stood staring at the meat, his mouth automatically filling with juices.

Picking it up, he let the warm chunk hang over his fingers for a moment then plunged his face into the mass, ripping and tearing the slippery flesh with his teeth. Animal sounds filled the kitchen as Greg chewed the torn chunks noisily, red juice running down his chin and neck, soaking into the collar of his shirt.

******

He sat in his living room staring morosely at the TV. The steak episode had sickened him when he realized what he had done and he was at a loss as to what had possessed him to do such a thing. He had thrown up after, mostly because of the mental aspect. Oddly he hadn't objected that much to the texture or flavour.

A commercial came on promoting burgers, with shots of beef patties sizzling on a griddle. His stomach began to roil. The idea of the cooked meat seemed to repulse him and he fumbled for the remote, stepping through the channels until he found a soccer game.

Just before quitting time he had called into work and pleaded food poisoning as the reason for his absence, accepting the mild reprimand and promising to get back as soon as possible. How the hell was he going to go to work when he couldn't even leave the house?

He glanced at his skin and was surprised to see it back to normal, albeit still waxy looking. The sound brought him upright on the sofa and he looked around, seeing the woman . . . Vera, standing by the window holding a glass of wine.

"How- where did you get wine?"

She smiled and swished her way across the room toward him.

"Wonderful, Greg, really. You're first thought wasn't even about the changes in you. Now that's progress."

"Prog- listen, I want to know just what the hell is happening to me, and who are you?"

She slid onto the sofa next to him and magically handed him a glass of wine, which he accepted automatically. The juice stains on his collar attracted her attention and she ran a pink tongue slowly over her lips.

"I am your overlord."

"My what? What hell are you talking about, overlord."

"Exactly that, Greg. There is nothing you can do without my allowing it first."

He gaped at her. "Right. So if I decided to jump in my car and take off, you could stop me?"

She smiled. "Go ahead."

Her seeming insouciance was unsettling but he stood and gathered his keys from the dish n the table.

"See you . . . Vera. Make sure you rinse the glass and lock up before you leave." He sniffed and, wearing a smug grin, headed for the garage.

When the car wouldn't start he pounded the steering wheel, blaming the electronics but when the doors all locked and the engine came to life on its own, Greg looked with fear to see Vera, leaning in the doorway to the house, grinning and sipping her wine.

"This isn't happening. It can't be happening." Back inside he was pacing up and down, the fear now a solid mass in his stomach.

He turned and bumped right into Vera. One minute she had been on the sofa and now she was nose to nose with him, the whole of both eyes a pale yellow. He couldn't look away and when she opened her mouth and the canines extended, he just closed his eyes.

The weakness ebbed and he sat up feeling less wobbly. Vera was gone but a note on the counter told him to expect a delivery from the butcher the next morning. He just left it on the counter and headed up to bed. The day flashed past in his mind and the events did not seem to bother him as much as they had. He washed, undressed and climbed into bed.

When he woke he was covered in a sheen of sweat. His dreams - nightmares, had included him eating a live cat that he trapped in an alley and being followed by a man in a cloak with hat pulled down over his face. He wiped his face and started at the appearance of the red scratches on his wrists. The horror of the interpretation sent him reeling to the toilet and afterwards he lay gasping on the cold tiles.

He was losing interest in the coffee. It didn't give him the usual kick start to the day and when the butcher arrived with his delivery, Greg was surprised to find half a dozen bottles of what looked like cranberry juice. He stuck them in the fridge to get cold and unwrapped the package. A large gelatinous mass of liver slid free onto the counter top.

At first he wrinkled his nose, repelled by the look of the pile then as he stood there longer he felt a stirring, something pulling him closer to an act he wished to avoid but could not. Both hands slid into the mass and in a matter of minutes he had devoured the entire delivery.

Fingers slick and sticky wiped at his mouth and he grabbed one of the bottles from the fridge, opening the cap and swigging down the contents. It wasn't cranberry. It wasn't anything he recognized but it was something he felt he needed . . . really needed.

The day passed and Greg woke again in a sweat after having bad dreams. The cloaked man was present again, watching but doing nothing else. Greg threw off the sheet and recoiled with a yelp at the carcass of a dead rat lying in a sticky stain of blood. He jumped from the bed, his body trembling with shivers, and threw the sheet back, wrapping the little corpse in it and dragging it all from the bed and straight downstairs to the garbage pail in the garage.

He grabbed an old jacket from a hook on the garage wall, opened the overhead door and carted the pail out to the curb. Back inside, he lowered the door and took off the coat then went inside. Sitting at the kitchen table was the cloaked man from his dreams. Greg fainted.