Bianca
Iwatched him. My eyes were always on him, craving the times he would change me back until I could breathe the air again, touch him, and worship him. I hated him when he left me in the darkness, cold and alone. It suffocated me, but I always forgave him when he held me.
The bell tinkled. The door opened, but I barely glanced at the elderly woman who entered the antique shop.
William was sitting back in his chair, smoking his pipe. I didn’t know how many years had passed, but he never aged. He promised me immortality but never explained the cost.
The old woman came close to me. She looked familiar. It couldn’t be the woman who almost bought Melissa at the car boot sale—the day that was my beginning and my end. She lifted her hand towards me, but William was there, gripping it.
“She is not for sale,” he said, his voice icy and persistent.
The woman was at least twenty years older since I last saw her. I cried, screamed and sobbed inside. A titter echoed in my mind, and I glanced at Melissa, the cracked old bitch in the cabinet opposite me. His first doll, but she couldn’t transform into a human like me. I felt her hatred.
The bell tinkled.
The woman left.
William’s fingers were thick and unyielding. They wrapped around my throat, lifting me effortlessly.
“Let’s have a long lunch today, darling,” he murmured, turning the shop key in the lock.
I dangled from his grip, my body swaying like a pendulum.
Upstairs, the apartment waited.
The bed.
The altar.
The place where I would kneel and worship him.
The place where I forgot that I was ever anything but his.
I smiled.