I Know What You Need

"I Know What You Need" is a fantasy/horror short story by American writer Stephen King, first published in the September 1976 issue of Cosmopolitan, and later collected in King's 1978 collection Night Shift.^[1]

Plot summary[]

Told from the perspective of a popular, college-age girl named Elizabeth Rogan, the premise of this story concerns her sudden, unexpected attraction to a social outcast named Ed Hamner, Jr., whose paranormal ability to perceive what will make any person happy has not resulted in his own happiness. Elizabeth's roommate, suspicious of Ed from the start, does research on him and realizes through background checks that he attended the same elementary school as did Elizabeth, and that his low-paying job at a theatre cannot pay for a sports car he owns. She warns Elizabeth repeatedly, but Elizabeth is too enamored with Ed to listen. Her roommate finally tells Elizabeth that Ed is manipulating her, setting up circumstances to make himself seem perfect for her: "That's not love... that's rape." Only gradually do the warnings take hold; Elizabeth finally locates a diary Ed has kept, documenting how he has been secretly craving Elizabeth's love since childhood, and has employed a variety of black magic rituals and charms to murder her aggressive boyfriend and manipulate her emotions.

While this story flirts with casting a sympathetic light on Ed's character (describing his sad childhood, and his inability to please his abusive parents despite his amazing gift, mainly by winning them large gambling jackpots), when his plans are ultimately brought to ruin, he is revealed less as a product of anti-elitism and more as a childish, murderous coward, morally corrupt and self-serving. Knowing that his magic will always keep a (somewhat small) emotional hold on her, Elizabeth crushes his voodoo doll of her, destroying the small amount of pity she still feels for him.

References to other works[]

• Shawn S. Lealos directed a short dollar baby film based on this story under Starving Dogs Productions.^[2]
• One of the books Ed has is the Necronomicon from the Cthulhu Mythos.
• The setting of the story is 1973 to 1974, as the 1973 oil crisis and The Godfather are mentioned.

See also[]

• Stephen King short fiction bibliography

References[]

External links[]

• I Know What You Need at IMDb
• Stephen King Short Movies Trailer

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