Kurt Benson
Character Bio
Name
Kurt Benson
Player
Arkhos
Vampire, doll, Werecreature
Werecreature
Age
Appears 27 (63)
Claimed
N/A
Orientation
Straight
Hair
Sandy blond
Eyes
Green
Height
6'1
Appearance
Kurt stands 6'1”, is decked with lean muscle and a very low body-fat level. He has sandy-blond hair and often does not shave for days on end, not afraid of a little five-day-shadow on his face.He has several tattoos across his body, front and back. Most of them have deep meaning for him, and he is not shy about showing them off when the chance presents itself. Front of body is as pictured above. Along the middle of his back, this scene is tattooed from the base of his neck to about three-quarter's of the way down. He also possesses several piercings: both of his nipples are pierced, he possesses a tongue stud, and his scrotum is strategically pierced, as well. Strangely enough, his ears are not pierced at all. He possesses various scars, most noticeably on his lower abdomen.
Personality
Kurt is a a low-life scoundrel, out for himself, willing to use anyone he can to get what he wants. He has little respect for authority and even less respect for people who can't take care of themselves. Women are sex-toys for him, the elderly are easy targets for him, and everyone else is a potential competitor – or victim. At least, that was the -old- Kurt. The -new- Kurt is trying his best to be something else. Something -more-. One thing is common above all else: children are off limits. Children are sacred. That doesn't mean he LIKES the little bastards, but he will not harm them in any way. Rebuilt and remodeled, there are still a few things about Kurt that have not changed. He loves women. He's a lot more picky now, and he doesn't indulge in their delights quite as easily as he used to. He loves humor. Jokes, stories, comedy – whatever it is, he does enjoy laughing. It's always helped dull the dark ghosts of the past, and he still enjoys it. He is still sly and sneaky, and can be manipulative when necessary. Even though he's trying to be a 'better guy', he -still- possesses the skills he's had for decades: cunning, a sharp mind, army training. Kurt actually -tries- to be helpful now. He's come to realize that, hey, having friends really isn't such a bad deal – unless they come to you constantly for money, drugs, booze, or any combination of the three. Kurt still has a bit of a temper, especially when provoked. He doesn't back-down, and will almost always stand his ground unless given a compelling reason not to. He is not easily intimidated, but he isn't a total moron, either.
Animal
Anaconda
Ons & Offs
Ons: Smaller women, long hair, talking dirty, cum-marking, bondage, slow sex, tattoos, piercings, intense cuddling and skin-on-skin contact. Offs: Men (sexually), men who hit on his partner, bathroom stuff in bed, women who can't keep up with him, anyone who mistreats children.
History
Kurt Benson was born in 1950 in San Diego, California. He never knew either of his parents because his mother abandoned him when he was still an infant. Kurt went into 'the system', being passed from one foster home to the next as he aged, never really fitting in, never really being accepted. As he matured and realized what his life was really made of, seeing real families with real parents caring for and raising their own children, it was easy for him to grow angry and resentful. This was only compounded by foster families who could never really get to know him or get past his 'walls', which of course only made him look even more like an outsider.
Into his early teens, not only did he hit the familiar 'rebellion' stage, but he hit it with a vengeance. Kurt started acting out, purposely giving families reasons to turn him away, returning him to the 'system' until that next family who thought they could 'fix him' took him in for another short stay. He stole, he lied, he disobeyed, her groped a foster-sister (or two) and damaged property. Whether he realized it or not, his actions were a cry for help, a desperate attempt to find someone who would -truly- value him, but that person never came. At age seventeen, he finally ran away from the social services facility he was housed in. He enlisted in the US Army as the draft went into effect and the military was looking for more soldiers to head to Vietnam. Kurt volunteered, lying on his application about his age. He looked old enough, had a solid body and health, and even went so far as to cut his hair off before even visiting the recruiter. Just the kind of solider they wanted: eager and willing to kill Charlie wherever he could.
The military finally provided the 'family' for him that he sought all along. His comrades in arms became his brothers, and for the first time in his life he felt like he 'belonged' to something. This was a pleasant experience – until his unit was finally deployed in the deepest bush north of Saigon. One by one, friends and comrades died, and often in very gruesome ways. It wasn't abnormal for Kurt to wear bits and pieces of his 'brothers' splattered across his face and uniform. That was the nature of this conflict, and for every good memory he had of his 'brothers', he had a dozen terrifying ones to go along with them.
Kurt became a killer. “If it looked like Charlie, if it acted like Charlie, and if there was any doubt – put a bullet in it to be sure.” He and his brothers started keeping track of their kills. Kurt completely lost count after his own score went past fifty. The turning point in his life came just outside a small village Lam Xuan. His unit had just lost two of its most popular members. The remaining men had sour moods, and that included Kurt himself. The village ahead was a suspected VC hideout, and the US soldiers were eager to exact some revenge.
When they entered the village, they quickly found that it was populated only by the elderly and a few young girls. The men were gone to 'fight for the Americans', or so they said. Kurt and his unit were not convinced, and lacking any males to beat-up on, they took their aggression out on the women. Screams and pleas didn't stop them, as a dozen women were brutally. Kurt had chosen his target well, a young girl who looked to be about sixteen with well-developed hips and breasts. Arousal mingled with anger and rage as he chased her past several of the huts into the near-darkness, leaving the rest of his unit behind. He cornered her then in a small clearing surrounded by thick trees cutting off any other escape for her, so she turned to face him, tears streaking her face.
Kurt didn't care as his hands reached down to start unbuckling his belt. What he didn't know was that the girl wasn't crying for herself: she was crying for -him-. Before his eyes, she began to -change-, causing Kurt to freeze. What. The. Fuck?
Had the pressure of all they had been through finally made him crack? The pretty girl changed quickly, and moments later in her place on the jungle floor was an enormous black snake, the biggest he had ever seen. Before he could even -start- to raise his M-16, the creature struck, sinking fangs the size of ball-point pens into his thigh. Kurt screamed, and he screamed -loudly-.
The creature let go as Kurt fell to the ground, and it slithered away with unnatural speed, up into the trees as the sound of some of Kurt's comrades approached. By the time they reached him seconds later, he was suffering the first of many long, painful convulsions as the venom coursed through his body, foam and spittle dribbling from his mouth. The medic was called, torn away from a young woman he had been assaulting, and was dragged to where Kurt lay dying. As the medic tended to him, the enraged comrades, seeing their fallen comrade dying before them, simply -snapped-. The town was torched. Every civilian that could be found was put to the sword.
An air-evac was called, and as fortune had it, there was one in the area. It found the unit easily enough, as the small village burned brightly in the night sky, and within a short while Kurt was rushed onto the Huey, just as he entered a coma.
Kurt woke up five days later. He could barely move, and the veins on his left leg were black and quite visible to the naked eye. Doctors were amazed he had lived, but they also informed him that he would likely lose his leg. Enraged, Kurt demanded a second opinion, from a civilian doctor. His fighting days done, he was honorably discharged and returned state-side. He was a lucky man. He arrived back in San Diego days before the next full moon.
That came the day before his first consultation with a civilian cardiovascular specialist. He was unprepared for it, of course, and even all these years later, he had never forgotten a single second of it. The transformation took placed over several hours. His limbs slowly retreated, taken away from him. Teeth withdrawing into his head, all of his digits 'merging' into his body. The pain was intense because he -tried- to resist it, and as he would quickly learn, simply letting it happen would remove the pain. Or, at least most of it.
The next day, he didn't remember the transformation back – he assumed he had simply blacked-out. Kurt figured it may have just all been a nightmare, until he awoke and saw the condition of the small cheap motel room he had rented. Large sheets of shed snake-skin as well as the remnants of... something... heaped on the floor in a pile of gooey gristle and bone confirmed for him that it -wasn't- a dream. But he also noted something else quite surprising: he was healed. The wound on his leg was gone, as if it had never happened.
Those first few years were tough as he learned, all alone, how to adapt and deal with his transformations. Always on the day of the month with the fullest moon it would happen. As he began to -accept- it, the transformations came easier – quicker, and after a couple years it felt second-nature.
Then, he began to change, of his own free-will, on other days of the month, and once he started putting his mind to it, he discovered he was not limited to his human form or the snake form... Kurt spent years on the road, doing odd-jobs, being comfortable with living a life of solitude. He kept to the southern states, though, where it was warm. He carried with him a small lunar guide he had lifted from a bookstore. With it, he could predict the full moons, and make sure to keep himself away from people. During that one night, he had no choice: he had to accept the change whether he wanted to or not.
Eventually he got tired of living day to day, even being forced sometimes to beg or steal. While traveling through Texas, he hooked up with a biker gang in San Antonio, and descended into a life of darkness and self-destruction. The gang became his 'new family', and he got to the point where he'd do anything for them. It was only by amazing luck that he was never killed or captured by authorities.
He learned other things about his 'affliction'. His aging slowed. As he approached thirty, he still looked twenty. He also healed incredibly fast. Even after bar-fights and more than one knife or shotgun wound, the injury would heal with incredible speed. Disease, poison, even the common cold seemed to avoid him, and he hadn't suffered a day of illness since 'Nam.
When members of his gang began to grow old, retire, turn traitor, or die off, Kurt moved on into other above-the-law pursuits that were a bit less dangerous. He became a skilled con-artist, fleecing people out of their savings, living a high-life that required a substantial income to maintain. Through it all, though, he kept -moving-, never staying in one place for long. Cheap motel rooms were his home, then, and the only 'love' he knew was paid for by the hour.
When Kurt received word through the grapevine that the last surviving member of his Vietnam platoon was dying in the hospital, something inside the man snapped. He made his way to Orlando, Florida, and visited Ray Tucker on his death bed. Ray of course was completely beside himself seeing Kurt, some forty years later – looking barely older than he had when he was put onto that Huey to get away from the warzone.
They talked for hours, getting caught up, though it was pretty much in vain. Ray had terminal cancer and had days left. He couldn't talk too much, so Kurt did more of it than usual to save his friend the effort. Ray sure did laugh, though, as they relived the past.
Then Ray talked about what he had done since the army. He went to college. Ran his own business. Became a self-made business-owner and did well for himself. A wife, four kids, and twelve grand-kids later, here he was. “But I wouldn't trade a second of it for anything in the world,” he wheezed with a smile. “And what about you, Kurt?”
There was a long pause. What could Kurt tell his oldest friend and brother? So he decided to tell him the truth. There had been no wife. No kids. No house with a white picket-fence. No steady job, and definitely no American dream. When he was done, Ray just looked at him for along moment. Any moment Kurt expected to give him the long lecture, the same fuckin' lecture he received every since he could remember about bettering himself, about being somebody, about following the rules and being a good boy. But instead, Ray surprised him, and said words that Kurt would never forget.
“When the end is in sight, Kurt, you'll look back over the breadth of your life and you'll wonder, 'Did I live -well-?'. What do you think your answer to that question would be if today was that day?” Kurt had nearly lost it, then. So long the loneliest guy in a room full of whores and crack-friends, so long looking over his shoulder and living day to day, leaving a trail of broken bodies in his wake, only to end up in the company of an honest man who had lived the kind of life that Kurt had always secretly wanted.
“Apparently, there's time for you yet, Kurt,” Ray had smiled, nodding at him. “You always had that baby face, you know. But... it's never too late,” he said. “It's never to late to -live-.” But it was too late for Ray. He passed he next day, surrounded by his wife, his kids, several of his grand kids, and one old war buddy. He stayed for the funeral, then departed again, vowing to -do something- about the way he lived.
Tossing aside the -shit- and starting over was harder than it looked, though, and various ties to his former life kept trying to drag him back into it. One step forward, two steps back was the tale of his life for those few months after, and he decided that drastic measures needed to be taken. He headed north, the one direction he always wanted to avoid. North meant cold, and cold wasn't his favorite thing. Still, it was the one direction his past wouldn't think to come looking for him. He was running out of options.
Kurt became a truck-driver, and was soon making treks north through the States, into Canada and onto Alaska along the Al-Can highway. Eventually, a position came open for better pay to haul oil in the -far- north. It was good money, and more importantly, it was -honest- money. He knew some things would never change, though, but somethings could, and he decided to take his friend's advice and do his best to -live-. He eventually heard about the small town of Nuiqsut opening up for business, and just like the 'fresh start' that this settlement was starting, he decided he'd make another 'fresh start' of his own and work out of this new town.
