Monomaniac

Chapter 6

Ophelia

I OPEN MY EYES brISKLY, as if I myself were one of the departed sensing a fountain of life welling up somewhere nearby.

Something unseen, possessing a force greater than my own, drags me back to reality, flooding my sedated senses while chilling me to the bone.

The sound of my blood rushing in waves throughout my body and pulsing in my throat in an erratic rhythm unsettles me even more, keeping me trapped in that downright eerie sense of foreboding.

Subconsciously, I try to grip onto that arm, seeking that commanding hand from my dream that led me to the surface in a seemingly ancient effort to ground myself in reality.

My fingers reach out into the dark, blindly touching the cold silk sheets, encountering nothing but emptiness and yet, I feel in my bones that someone was here; invading all that I hold sacred with intentions that, even unspoken, crawl up my spine and make a home out of my intrinsic fear of being watched, seen.

Was it just a dream created by my mind trying to make sense of the previous intrusion? Or, worse – was someone here not long ago while I was unconscious?

That warning in my dream mouthed by my own self while bleeding from within and the feeling of being touched by someone at my most vulnerable, reduces me to something still – reminiscent of a lone deer that thinks only of survival as an unknown predator watches from the shadows.

I feel him like a memory I no longer remember, owning my fear as if he once wore my skin, a thousand lives ago.

His whispers still linger in the room swallowed by thunder, breathing down the column of my neck like a sealed secret, along with the echo of a fingernail trailing down the hollow of my neck mimicking a freshly sharpened knife on ripened fruit.

Whether it was a dream licking at my consciousness or reality, I was suffocated, though not by hands. Rather by an essence, a presence that cannot be contained, nor fully understood.

Danger, smoke, the taste of the grave in my mouth. Whoever he is, he was here, not just in the dream; watching me, tasting my skin with his fingers, having…

His gloved hand around my neck.

His breath of smoke on my cupid’s bow.

His dagger resting on my collarbone, soft as a petal.

He came back; I know it because I feel it behind my eyelids. And for the life of me I can’t understand the vague sense of familiarity coiling deep within amongst the dread.

The sound of heavy rain and thunder still invades the air as I get out of bed on weak legs. My own room feels foreign to me for the briefest of seconds, as if the energy has been altered by translucent flames that drown rather than burn, the remnants of him still pulsing faintly in every corner like nefarious signs gathering the darkness.

In an attempt to be as quiet and unnoticed as possible, I take small, deliberate steps as I hold my breath, fearing that his presence might still linger in the shadows – waiting to devour me as soon as I plunge into the unknown of his mouth.

If he were a spirit, I would walk around the house without a hint of fear, demanding answers and my right to privacy in my own space. Knowing a handful of ways to assert myself when it comes to the spectral world comes with the territory, but the invader that lurked the floors of my home while I slept is a living, breathing being. Something even more unpredictable and capable of far more harm than a lost entity seeking a way out of the dark clutches that keep it trapped here.

The ominous sound of my vintage grandfather clock chiming, mixed with the sound of heavy rain, creates an eerie atmosphere throughout the house as I hold tightly the handle of the knife I placed on the nightstand earlier.

Strangely, he chose to leave it there, perhaps wanting to play with my fear and yield it into something to his liking. Or worse, perhaps my overwhelmed mind became a walking trap, leading me down the path my own mother took; the last one she ever did.

No, I'm nothing like her. Not tonight, nor ever.

As I make my way slowly down the narrow corridor, I take advantage of this small window of time to regain a sense of self-control. With every step I take through the darkness that now feels strangely foreign to me, I try to be cautious not to slip on the sharp edges of my mind.

I bite my tongue until blood coats the inside of my mouth, the metallic taste reminding me that I've survived so long for a reason. Whatever comes, I will outlive it somehow.

The turbulent sound of the storm flooding my bedroom grows fainter as I approach the living room, while the grip I have on my knife grows tighter in my clammy palm.

The apparent stillness gives me a false sense of security, causing my painfully tense body to relax; telling me that perhaps my over-stimulated mind has fallen prey to a mirage that I will dissect in the morning.

I couldn't have been more dreadfully wrong in my assumption.

The potent smell of tobacco enters my lungs with the force of a whip, slicing me from the inside out, while the sound of a glass clinking on the wooden kitchen table seals my fate.

He is here. In my home.

In a state of deep trance and no longer inhabiting my body, I let an unknown force move my limbs towards the one who has chosen to make himself known so openly.

The amber light kissing the carved details of the archway has never seemed more premonitory as I let my eyes travel over the carved cherubs holding plump grapes to their chests. In a fear-induced stupor, I ignore reality and instead admire their intricate features, perhaps for the last time, before I step into the kitchen with airy feet, trusting that I am protected, despite of it all; even in the presence of someone that now threatens my very being.

With transfixed eyes, I find him the moment I enter the narrow room, the mere glimpse reducing me to a stranger who no longer inhabits my body but lives outside its walls.

The searing sight steals the air from my lungs, with no remorse or precedent, as if all the dread I've experienced throughout my life was just a small dose meant to get me used to the reality of this man.

Dark, the darkest shadow my eyes have ever caught, if I were arrogant enough to believe that was ever the case.

He is sitting at my kitchen table as if he built it himself, and now the time has finally come to feast on its uneven surface. As if some unknown power had given him this right.

With a lone finger he circles the rim of one of my chipped crystal glasses. Half of its contents are filled with bourbon from a dusty bottle I use exclusively for Caroline's birthday cake every year, which currently rests like an integral piece on the dead nature he spread out on the table before me.

Lethal, elegant fingers grasp a cigarette in reverse, with the flaming cherry pointed towards him as he lazily twirls it in his leather-gloved fingers. Lowered eyes are shadowed, remaining a silent witness to the clouds of smoke billowing towards the ceiling and into the absolute.

Powerful, long legs are spread wide apart and covered in faded coal cargo pants, bottoms tucked into well-worn leather combat boots; a hoodie hidden by a coat obscuring his visibly deadly body.

The unreserved stranger is tall both in height and in his aura that invades the small space. It reminds me that one does not have to shout in order to command, nor to intimidate with sudden, harsh actions for another to cower before him. No, his power radiates in such a potent way that it speaks for itself.

My eyes continue to travel back and forth, from his fingers splayed across his bent knee like a spider preparing to envelop its prey, to the sharp planes of his pale face.

Of all things, a sense of frustration grows inside me as I let my gaze roam over the black mask that covers his entire lower face, concealing a mouth that's still exhaling nicotine, ribbons of smoke seeping like a myth beneath the cotton edges.

His wavy, medium length hair reminds me of ravens and their plume, with strands falling into his overcast eyes framed by thick lashes. Their hooded shape is the only visible surface on the pale canvas of his face illuminated by the soft glow of the candle, creating the false impression of warmth on his cutting masculine features.

There's this slow pulsing perfume around him, one I've known all my life. It’s the unmistakable sweet scent of death – the kind that announces itself only through torment and gradually decays the soul. The sort reminiscent of a bottomless abyss, which if I were to approach, I'm certain, would only lead to my demise.

He is undoubtedly the most terrifyingly beautiful sight my eyes have ever witnessed, the embodiment of utterly undiluted darkness; his existence alone creating a sense of mournful absence, with no hint of respite in his vicinity.

My heart lurches in my chest when he halts my perusal, his fingers knocking once on the table, the sound reverberating and crashing into the kitchen walls. He does it as if he's decided I've taken enough time to acclimate to his presence in my home, and implicitly in my life .

Eyes, entrapping, hypnotizing, magnetic meet mine.

I can't breathe. I can't speak. I can't think.

Not with him touching me so deeply from afar, in places no one has ever dared to look, with such buttery ease. I can't, not with the silent power pouring from him in waves like smoke under closed doors, spilling out at my feet.

I can only dissolve into being.

His onyx irises, dark pools of an intensity beyond containment peek at me from beneath his dark wavy tendrils, leaving no space for me to exist beyond their call.

A lone involuntary tear reaches my trembling mouth while the rest of my body experiences a tremor greater than at my first sight of a shadow incarnate, witnessed when I was far too young to understand their existence among us.

As if fascinated, he tilts his head to one side at my emotional display, drinking in my compulsive reaction to him with unmasked thirst; lapping at my fear, as if extracting any kind of response from me gives him life. Be it rotten or otherwise.

I feel Coblina's bare tail brushing my ankle. She settles for a moment between the two of us, seeming undecided in whose arms or lap to make a temporary home.

This man has been here before; who knows for how many times, doing God knows what. The realization leaves me cold while layers upon layers of thickened ice now rest on top of my chest, restricting my airway.

Thankfully, the sight of her draws me out of the few seconds I've stood completely trapped in his torturous fields.

He carefully observes the change in me, his eyes pinning mine with a fire that almost nails me to the floor, digging deep into my bones until there's no escaping it.

It's apparent he wants my undivided attention. He craves it –uninterrupted and devoted to him only, wordlessly demanding it from me as if it were his birthright.

Who are you? You frighten me.

And yet why does a part of me...want it?

I am well aware that reaction is power, and that is all I have on him at the moment. So I gather my fear into a tight bundle and swallow it whole, chanting ancient truths in my mind that remind me of who I am and what I am capable of.

"Will you harm me?" I ask in a steady voice, cold and detached from the current reality.

He straightens a fraction, eyes intrigued; probably having expected me to resist, to beg, to scream. But my nature is not of this variety.

My kind slips through this world like blood through a stream.

Undetected and resilient. Forever changing.

In response, he taps his leather-covered fingers on the wooden table, his lips not betraying a sound and remaining perfectly still behind the thick covering of the mask. However, his eyes speak plenty, but I am too overwhelmed by him as a whole to listen.

"I am not beyond using it if you come near me," I say, raising the knife and pointing the blade in his direction. My words are trenchant; my hand gripping the heavy handle tightly as my sharp stiletto nails draw blood the deeper I sink them into my cold palm.

He raises an eyebrow in response to my warning, provoking me further, as if he wants me to come closer to him of my own accord and make good on that threat.

I'm terrified, but strangely, not of him per se.

There is this metallic fear that settles like a snake in my womb, crawling under my skin until there is no escape but to face it. It reminds me of the maddening call to step into the void and see once and for all what is hidden inside.

I fear his grip on me, which has nothing to do with the fact that he is a stranger who has crept into my house in the middle of the night.

Long fingers resting on his thigh draw what I imagine to be serpents eating their own tails, his eyes holding me captive in their rampant intensity.

"I called the police, they're on their way," I lie through my teeth for the third time today, biting my tongue with frustration at my sleep-fogged mind. My phone is probably in his pocket as we speak.

The man doesn't utter a word, crossing his arms unhurriedly over his broad chest and resting his ankle on the opposite knee, as if he has all the time in the world to observe his effect on my being; savoring the torment, the depth of emotion he continues to dig into the soil of me with every trace of his eyes caressing my body.

His total control feels like a liquid fire burning me from the inside out, making even my tongue want to hide deeper into the back of my mouth and take refuge from him.

The air around us becomes sparse, the need to escape pounding in my temples like ominous cathedral bells warning me to get away from him and his intrusion into both my home and mind.

I become both blind and all-seeing to everything around me, looking for a cave of infinite depth in which I can hide. Instead, I abandon all thought and run as through the fog to my bedroom flooded with thunder and the promise of shelter.

Firm steps follow me the moment my feet touch the Persian carpet in the living room. Steps I can barely hear over the loud pounding in my ears.

Guided by a tunnel vision, I step towards the edge, needing to lean my body over it and allow myself to float into the nothingness waiting for me below. Away, as far as my feet can carry me, somewhere in my mind where no one can find me.

I know there's no escaping him, but I try regardless. As I always do when I feel cornered, whether by emotions, people, or ultimately life.

The void calls to me as a fissure spreads across my chest, the feel of his pulsing heat against my back breaking something deep inside me the closer he gets.

This feels nothing like a week ago, when that madman was chasing me. No, this feels like…inevitability. I fear it.

Resembling a hound from hell, ravenous for the sinner rather than the chase, he follows me into the dark. I feel him at my back and although he could easily reach out and pull me to his chest, he refrains for some unknown reason.

Before I can even manage to lock myself in the bedroom, he's already got his foot in the door, standing before me like an unstoppable force at the gates of the underworld.

His intoxicating scent of smoke and wicked mystery envelops my senses like a vice. Our proximity leaves me too shaken to lift my gaze and face him, choosing instead to keep it fixed on his boots that almost touch my bare feet.

I know with certainty that if I survive the night, he will haunt me in both nightmares and dreams; his silent eeriness – an echo of my personal purgatory for many lives to come.

We both breathe heavily, but he doesn't take hold of me, at least not physically. The way he reads me like a dead language under his moonlit gaze is unsettling; it leaves me feeling drowned under the vast depths of his waves.

Wordlessly, he gestures with his left hand towards the hallway, motioning for me to follow him.

Confused and not daring to move a muscle, I unconsciously lift my eyes to his in question, needing to read his intentions. Coal orbs that remind me of my many sleepless nights are impossibly more piercing up close – gripping me, wounding me, bathing me in the essence of all that is painful and sinfully arresting.

Someday I'd like to die in them.

The thought sends a shiver down my spine and I immediately retract it somewhere even I couldn't find it, but I fear it's already too late.

He has already seen it; the way he looks at me now leaving no room for interpretation. He won't rest until that forbidden idea that just thundered through me will live on my lips like a mantra.

Time stands still as he slowly raises his hand and touches my chin with his index finger, directing me with authority towards the living room. And strangely enough, behind the firmness I can clearly sense patience, in abundance. Still, it burns, it ghosts.

Who are you?

Taking a deep breath, I swallow my own fear and uncertainty, brushing blindly past him and walking backwards down the narrow corridor, since he refuses to let go of my gaze. I take each step with him following me closely, our energy fields merging without ever breaking contact.

It's a slow dance whose final pirouette could mean death, that could lead to something even darker and yet I can't stop; having him so close makes me feel as if I have immunity.

I cannot explain it and neither do I know what to do about it when all logic tells me to run as far as my legs will carry me. But I don't. I don't.

The deep seated intensity of his gaze eats me alive, trapping my ether in a tornado that seems to be heading towards hysteria. A plague that bleeds the inside of my mouth, leaving me wanting and frightened.

I can't escape him, his presence in itself forces me into being; resurrecting me with his magnifying vibrations from the rootless ground I've buried myself into in order to survive this bruising world.

Before I know it, I'm cornered against the cold surface of the living room wall, the realization constricting the air in my lungs.

In retrospect, I can clearly see how he silently orchestrated the execution of this deadly play, coordinating my steps exactly where he wanted me.

He steals a piece of my sanity, confining me without having to lift a finger as his inebriating energy leaves me feeling trapped in its unforgiving hold. How does he manage to touch the unattainable?

"If you kill me, I swear I will haunt you. I know from experience the finest ways to drive you into madness until you join me in death by your own hand. Even then, I'll find you and you'll beg for it all to be over, but it'll be too late. Eternity has no end and neither do I."

There rests a dead solemnity in my voice, trying to make him realize how serious I am. Yet, something dark shifts in his eyes despite my words, leading me to believe he hears or rather sees one thing only.

The truth hidden beneath it all.

The burning, the need to have him in my most selfish form – to bite into his flesh, to have his blood rouging my lips, to make him beg for dominion at my feet as a consequence for invading my holy terrain. For him to bring me to the point of doing the same in his name, no questions asked.

He sees me…the other me. The one in the shadows.

And to my utter disbelief, he doesn’t look away. On the contrary.

For the first time in my life, another soul looks me in the eye and doesn't see a wandering ghost but a woman, raw and wounded. Feral in part.

The pretense has fallen away and I am left bare before him, wearing only nuances of black and white. Neither good nor bad – only a being like all others, like no other. How can he contain the sight?

With him as my only witness, I let those soul-consuming thoughts pour over me in their skinned form, his eyes darkening even more at the sight; making him appear inhuman, possessed.

We linger in that space between the animalistic and divine as our breaths grow heavier, the energy between us cracking like dry wood in the throes of hellfire.

And despite all that is sane and sensible, I welcome it.

The power of it intimidates and yet I do nothing but take root before him. Not because I feel entrapped, but simply because I want to.

It's as if, by acknowledging my power, he gives it back to me tenfold, making us equals.

However, I still fear this painfully familiar soul, because I sense the potential for him to destroy everything I've worked for a lifetime. Walls are not built easily or without reason, and mine were created through blood and rivers of tears. I can't allow him to invade me any further.

He is so tall and grand, making me feel small and smelling of fear laced with arousal. His eyes find me again, watching my features, telling me something I can't fully decipher, but I can taste. Need.

A dagger comes in my line of view, which I only now realize he's pulled from inside his coat. He points the tip at the hollow spot where my collarbone and neck meet, distorting time and reality into dust particles as he rests it there.

Lost in a trance-like state, he begins to trace the delicate skin with the sharp, cold tip, forming a word that leaves goosebumps in its wake.

Promise?

He is out of his mind. And in this moment, so am I.

"Oh, God," I gasp, my voice shaking with both cold fear and an unfathomable lust for a man who seems to speak my language.

He touches his forehead to mine, the contact so intimate, so intense, so strangely...nostalgic.

Our pull deepens as his lips descend over mine, drawing our mouths a hair's breadth apart. His warm bourbon breath, amplified by his mask, leaves me weak and trembling helplessly for him.

Feverish eyes drink and speak with a thirst that surpasses life and death, the secret act allowing me to lose myself in the touch of his skin, his heat, the air our mouths share.

This is lunacy. Pure, undiluted delirium.

I want to eat him alive, to bathe in his darkness, to sink into him until I drown in his depths.

He brought me to this state with his eyes alone.

I fear to experience him fully – with his face uncovered and hands bared, with words like thorns and the flick of his tongue on my bare shoulder.

One second of him living inside me would ruin me for life.

Unshackled, I look into the depths of his being, and my core heats to a burning simmer, wetting the insides of my bare thighs beneath the robe. I close my eyes, letting it all wash away.

What are you doing to me?

In an instant, I feel his body cage me fully, with his arms on either side of my head. We stay like this for a moment lost in time, which seems to expand and contract, both elastic and coiled like a snake ready to strike at the first appearance of vulnerability. Ready to consume.

In the infinite stretch of that second, the weight of the knife I'd forgotten all about becomes heavier, almost slipping out my hand. I've almost forgotten its purpose, the reason I've held onto it until this moment, other than pure, unadulterated fear of the unknown.

I can no longer feel his.

There is something lurking in his secretive presence, a calculated danger behind his every move. He is not a simple man driven by impulse or possessing a singular nature. This I know with crystal clarity, just by experiencing him alone. And how deep it cuts me...

Touch me, hurt me, make me feel something of yours , I want to scream just before sinking my teeth into the tight tendons of his neck. Instead, I lay still and wait.

At the apparition of these insidious thoughts, something bursts inside me, reducing me to instinct.

Beyond my needs and foreign desires, I feel the truth staining us both. I know he won't harm me, even if not a word of reassurance or even a beautiful lie for our mutual benefit has left his lips.

Energy cannot be diluted. He wants me. Desperately.

Like an animal that has hungered to the point of starvation, like a myth looking for a mouth to spread it wide and far.

He won't attack me, won't take anything until I offer him a seat at my table, along with my cutlery and napkins – feasting on me with his hands and hungry mouth.

This enigmatic man is nothing if not patient, his smoldering eyes offering me a thorny shelter behind their lethal quality.

I refrain, though there is this heady urge to run my tongue along the contours of his visibly open, but covered mouth. My senses demand to feel the cursive texture. Just once.

Instead, I choose to play with both fire and faith, standing on my tiptoes as I plant the tip of my knife against his chest.

This walking enigma of a man doesn't move an inch, not even a muscle, his dilated pupils reveling how visibly pleased he is.

He trusts me. Disturbed, that’s what he is and so bad it hurts.

Out of sheer instinct and with a mind made up, I flatten it out and rest it on his chest; giving him full power, even though I am acutely aware that in this macabre dance of ours I never had it in the first place.

I lower my eyes, fearing both myself and what he will do next, now that I have ceased fighting.

The vulnerable position he has placed himself in leaves me breathless and suspended under the need to offer myself to him as a sacrifice.

On a hushed breath, I let the knife slip through my fingers, the heavy sound of metal hitting the wooden floor echoing throughout the house like a warning.

He inches closer, the tips of his boots touching my bare toes as the distance between us becomes nonexistent with every passing second. If it weren't for the mask, his lips would find mine, but his eyes already do without the carnal element at play.

How I want you , they say.

And how I melt under them.

He surprises me by resting his head on my shoulder, the weight feeling so right while his curls caress my still sensitive face. They're so soft, making my bare hands hungry with the need to bury themselves in them.

I let him rest. For I feel his pain, lying dormant beneath the lingering danger. Because I recognize and I identify it with those moments when everyone looks away, pretending the blood was never there to begin with. That it must be wiped clean and forgotten, all because acknowledging someone else's suffering makes them aware of their own misery. And who wants to endure it when it's easier to just stay asleep?

I refuse to be that for this man, who reduced me to feeling without saying a word.

At this juncture I do not care about his motivation for being here, his identity or deeds; be they good or bad. Nor do I feel the ingrained need to withdraw into myself out of fear. All I know, the more I let him in, is deprivation and understanding.

There is a desperate need, a desire to hold him as I have never held another to my aching chest, but I abstain since he has yet to earn my trust. I need more from him to be able to give, to nurture. All I can offer at the moment is a shoulder, but as it seems, that's more than enough for him.

In these minutes of silence, I can almost see the heavy coat of his internal fight falling at our feet.

Slowly, he raises his head as if pondering something, seeming to sense my conflicting emotions as I struggle with my own cold war.

Wordlessly, he leans his head in the direction of the kitchen, the dim light of my rose candle flickering in the dark room as if she herself senses the tremors of an impending monsoon between us.

I feel a chilling wave washing over me the second he takes a step back, my head barely reaching his collarbone now that he's standing at his full height.

With trembling legs I leave the knife behind, moving like a shadow of my former self before he entered my life; his imposing silhouette following me close behind. I shiver as I feel his breath on the back of my neck, relentless in his pursuit to be near me.

Does he know? Does he understand that he has stolen my volatile equilibrium and that I am now sinking into depths I know nothing of?

It is unknown to me why he wanted us back here as he moves my chair and silently tells me to have a seat. I find myself swallowing a tender response to the intimacy of the act as his fingers linger on my neck while his other hand remains planted at the back of the chair.

It burns, it stains. I want more.

He peels them off one by one, then moves to the original spot I found him in, resting his powerful body into my favorite spot in the house, save for the bed.

The peacock rattan chair, grand and imposing in its dark bohemian accents, with lace trim and a velvet cushion seems oddly eerie with his towering form now occupying it. Nevertheless, he somehow blends perfectly into the frame.

I regard him in the dim light of the early morning, realizing that beyond his intrusion and strangeness, I am not at all afraid. In fact, deep down, I don't think I've ever feared him; at least not when I've truly saw beyond the unforeseen.

I don't know whether I should take refuge in this fact or be concerned about my conclusion regarding this unusual evolution.

In the end, fate will decide, no matter how hard I try to reason or fight it. And most of all, I'm tired.

Coblina didn't leave the kitchen window throughout our silent conversation and now that we're finally seated, she moves from the cushion where she usually watches the birds dancing among the linden trees lined up behind our street.

I get déjà vu as I observe her standing between us once again, like a knife balancing on a wound – not knowing when to pierce or whom to choose between the two of us.

Having experienced him with my own eyes, I am neither incredulous nor surprised to see her dark, skeletal body clawing its way into his lap, as if it were her resting place from before she was born.

Another layer of trust settles in my bones at the sight. My sphynx has an akin sense when it comes to people and their energies. If she chose him, be it now or earlier in the day when he paid me a visit, it is enough for me to know that I can further relax in his presence.

The way he holds her head in his big palm, cradling it as she nibbles his leather-clad finger, shows me he can be gentle, attentive, caring.

The whole time that I watch him patting her, I feel his eyes relentlessly hunting mine, as if wanting to say: See? This will soon be you, and there's no stopping it. I'm going to find you and make you feel, make you purr for me.

And I see it clearly. What I'm witnessing is a testament of what will become of me at his hands, and I don't know how to feel about this sudden intensity that I cannot place anywhere.

He considers me carefully, pausing at the way I hug my knees to my chest as if to guard a stack of old letters containing secrets that would be better left forgotten in an attic until they rot and become dust at someone's feet. Letters bursting at the seams from the tight confines of a thread that refuses to come undone.

At this early morning hour, when the world is undecided and unbound by the pragmatic light of day, I wish I were the smoke that lives within his mouth before the last drag of his cigarette; to exist under his tongue, just so I could hear his voice as he speaks quietly to himself.

He extends his hand, passing me the cigarette he just lit. Our fingers are a second away from meeting before he stands up, the kitchen seeming infinitely smaller with him in it.

Attuned to his every move, I turn my head in his direction, counting all seven steps he takes towards the fridge. He pulls out a bottle of wine I opened the day I returned home as if it were a regular night for us after a long day.

"Why are you here?" I ask, unafraid. We're past that.

One glance and I knew he was perfectly sane and insane for being in my kitchen in the middle of the night; for choosing to come into my life in such a way, but I need more. Preferably from his mouth.

He studies me, just the look on his face telling me I should already know the answer before he comes to my right and pours me half a glass.

Resuming his seat, he flicks open his lighter, the comforting scent of untouched tobacco blanketing the small space as if it were its own entity. I take a long, calming drag and exhale into the taciturn sphere he has created for us.

As if it were the most natural thing, he raises his hand to my face, with fingers that I feel capable of doing unspeakable things, the leather smelling of death and fatigue. It's comforting.

When I feel them, I can't resist closing my eyes at the raw sensation. His touch feels like a feather on my cheek, settling with unexpected tenderness over the scar where my skin had split that night. My breath hitches at the memory, but somehow, under his hand, the echo of what had been doesn't pierce me as deeply.

Experiencing him heals and burns all at once, leaving me wanting to curl into a ball of nothingness and forget everything that makes me feel desolate in my own life.

"Did that man send you to finish the job?" I ask impulsively, regretting the question at once because I already know the answer. However, not far from the surface, I still hope that it will elicit a reaction, a clue as to why he is here.

He locks his jaw as he wraps his fingers around my neck, cupping my fear in the steely touch of his hand as his eyes burn with an answer I can't decrypt.

"Why won't you talk to me? Is it because you can't?" I press further, with eyes half-closed, intoxicated by the way he touches me so fleetingly, soothingly.

He moves his elegant fingers over my parted mouth, leaving behind a burning trail of desire in their wake. He shakes his head almost imperceptibly, tapping his index on my lower lip twice.

"Silent for me only? Why?" I ask, relishing the feeling of him opening up to me.

He reaches my chin, caressing it with an affection bordering on adoration – an action my confused mind cannot comprehend, especially coming from a stranger.

I find my hand in his before he plants a small glass jar containing something clinking inside. I feel the cold weight, but when I move my hand to study it, he stops me, not letting me further inspect its contents.

After taking my breath away, he withdraws, giving me those eyes that could start wars and abolish famine if he so desired.

Abruptly, just as he appeared out of nowhere, he disappears; turning his back and leaving me adrift amidst a sliver of earth where his footsteps are so silent that it should be an impossibility given his heavy footwear.

The door closes with a click behind him, followed by the clandestine sound of the lock.

I look around in a state of utter confusion, wondering for a few seconds if what had just unfolded was a mere figment of my frenzied mind still coming to terms with the events that had deeply scarred my psyche. It might as well be a possibility, if it weren't for the miniature jar in my hand that he had so carefully given me.

I raise it to my eye level, a foreboding feeling ringing in my ears and warning me to be prepared for what I might uncover.

The moment I see the contents displayed in the glass, I don't react, though a silent cry creeps into my throat as my knees go weak, trying to make sense of the gruesome contents.

'A tooth for every minute he made you suffer', is written in the same elegant and unmistakable handwriting that came with the dead roses a few days prior.

I find myself reading the short message again and again, rearranging the words until finally understanding… and my blood runs cold.