The Black Kiss

"The Black Kiss" is a short story by Robert Bloch and Henry Kuttner, originally published in the June 1937 issue of Weird Tales.
It features Kuttner's occult investigator character Michael Leigh, albeit in a small role.
==Synopsis==
An artist named Graham Dean inherits the house that once belonged to his great-great-grand-aunt Morella Godolfo in San Pedro, California. After moving there, he starts to experience strange dreams in which he swims under the sea, and from which he wakes up exhausted.
Dean soon learns about the local legends concerning Morella Godolfo, who was rumored to practice dark magic and who disappeared one night into the sea in which she was often seen swimming in the company of unknown creatures.
After consulting with his doctor, who dismisses his dreams as the product of stress, Dean receives a telegram from his uncle, the occultist Michael Leigh, who is in Calcutta and has just received the news about Dean inheriting the Godolfo property. Leigh urges Dean to leave the house immediately and to seek help from Leigh's colleague, Dr. Makoto Yamada.
Feeling too tired to follow his uncle's instructions, Dean falls asleep and has a dream in which he sees visions from the ocean, culminating in a cave underneath the seashore cliff on which the house stands, and a serpentine sea creature with white lips who kisses him. As soon as he wakes up, he receives a visit from Dr. Yamada, who has been contacted by Leigh.
Yamada informs Dean of the existence of sea creatures that can mind-swap with humans in order to experience the exotic sensations of a land-based existence, which they find pleasurable. The body of Morella Godolfo had been inhabited by one of these entities, and when her body died, the creature was forced to return to its own. Longing to experience life as a human again, the same creature is now trying to establish a psychic link with Dean, explaining the dreams and the feeling of constant fatigue.
Dean feels drowsy and answers Yamada's questions automatically, as if a voice inside his head instructed him about what to say. Suddenly, he realizes that he's no longer in his house with Yamada, but in the ocean, swimming with the white serpentine creatures that no longer appear strange and repulsive, but perfectly mundane to him. He can understand the beings' language and accompanies them when they find a shipwreck and drag the sailors to the sea depths, which he finds perfectly natural. After that, he finds himself on a seashore and sees his own house on the cliff and two men running towards him, calling out his name.
Dean crawls away so they won't see him, and hides in the same cave where the white creature had kissed him. There, he finally realizes that he is inhabiting the body of the creature, and sees his own body inside the cave, as the creature is accustoming itself to it. Dean realizes that the sea-dweller is planning to impersonate him.
The two men, who turn out to be Leigh and Yamada, enter the cave and see Dean, in the body of the sea-dweller, attacking his human body and tearing out its throat. The death of Dean's body forces the sea-dweller to return to its own and dislodges Dean's consciousness, killing him. The sea-dweller's body is shot to death by Leigh and Yamada moments later. 
==Characters==
*Graham Dean, a painter.
*Dr. Hedwig, a physician who examines Dean.
*Michael Leigh, Dean's uncle, an occult investigator.
*Makoto Yamada, an occult investigator.
Category:Lovecraft Circle Works
Category:Robert Bloch works
Category:Henry Kuttner works