Monomaniac

Chapter 16

Dante

BEHOLD HER, so utterly enthralled by her own hands shuffling the tarot cards. Such refinement can only take a man's breath away, along with the kind of elegance that can solely be woven with quiet power and mastery.

My Ophelia – at once lost and found in the thin crevice between worlds into which she so loves to disappear when the walls are silent and the shadows are hers alone.

Darkness is my witness; there has never been a more beautiful sight than this woman haunting my very life at three in the morning. Dressed in her floor-length robe and abusing her lip, she suddenly turns her head and looks at me as if she’s seen a ghost wearing a human suit.

Of all people I am lucky in that regard. If death will reach me sooner than I can outrun it, I would still be in her kitchen, even in the afterlife. I’d make sure of that.

"What happened to you?" she cries, her feet sliding as if on a sheet of water until they reach my own. Misty eyes become saturated with anxiety as she takes my jaw in her delicate hands, pale fingers trembling over my cold cheeks.

How I adore her, how I’ve missed her. Not just in the last few days, but in each and every one that has passed in all these unforgiving years since life cruelly separated us.

"Nothing out of the ordinary, tesoro," I smile pensively as I savor the emotion in her eyes.

"Your hand," she says, her voice shaking as she grips it so tenderly that I inwardly bow at her feet and worship her for making me feel worthy enough of her care.

"Did you miss me?" I ask her quietly, my index finger caressing the contours of her mouth before I lift her chin and ghost my lips over her blood rose ones.

"What? That’s what you’re worried about?" she asks, looking at me incredulously before she rests her forehead on my chest, slowly shaking her head.

"Shh, I am alright tesorina. I came back like I promised, haven’t I?" I say, running my lips along her hairline.

"You look like you’ve taken a bath in a barrel filled to the brim with blood and your hand…God," she says, my heart softening on the spot when I see her eyes filling with unshed tears.

"Then let’s go clean it. Would that please you?" I whisper into her temple.

I feel myself growing hard at the feel of her trembling at my words and the seductive sight of her mouthwatering nipples as she instinctively presses her heavy breasts into my chest.

She takes a deep breath, as if trying to regain some control over herself and meets my eyes. Before I can relish and devour that alluring gaze, revealing all of her unlived sins, she raises her head and leaves me speechless without saying a word.

Like a ghost, she’s between my fingers, in my scalp, under my skin, taking a hold of my heart and squeezing it until all the life in me flows into her. A tongue made of silk meets mine, teeth biting my starved mouth as her vampiric nails trail a path of burning temptation down my heated spine.

The want to devour her has converted into a scorching need as my unharmed hand owns the holy terrain of her waist, traveling further down her valleys until I grip the sensual curves of her ass.

She moans into my mouth as I anchor her to me, my teeth biting softly along that delicate jawline before I lick my way back to her lips.

"Dirty and immoral it is," I answer for both of us, running my fingers over my lips and gathering our saliva before feeding them into her waiting mouth, which receives each one with lavish greed.

"I’d want you even while hiding in a fresh carcass, but let's get you cleaned up first, since there's running water nearby," she says breathlessly, looking at me through lowered eyes while keeping my much larger hand between her smaller ones.

God, by what miracle have I endured a lifetime without her looking at me like that?

She laces our fingers and leads the way towards her en-suite bathroom that also happens to be my favorite room of the house. This is not only due to the fact that I saw her naked and wet while bathing in the black waters of the night; that was a decadent treat to my mortal eyes.

What I feel for this woman surpasses what this world considers to be lust or carnal need. My splintered, thieving heart wants her more than I ever wanted anything beyond skin, flesh and bone.

I prefer these cold walls because when in here, Ophelia is quiet and withdrawn from our rotten world; her hands don't tremble like a feather in the wind, her breath is still as a lake, the tempest in her eyes fades to a mere breeze long after she reopens them.

In this brass bathtub, she undresses herself of all that’s hidden under thickly woven layers, embracing the scarred woman concealed deep within. Tired from what has been, as I am.

Silently, she lowers the toilet lid and sits me there as if I'm not a six feet four man who just ended someone’s life less than two hours ago; but simply a soul, beaten down and wounded that she needs to heal.

This woman. Beloved woman. My woman.

"For the love of God, Dante! You need stiches," she says brimming with worry while removing the shirt I used to stop some of the bleeding.

"Say my name again," I hum in a low voice, catching her hand in mine before she could leave my side.

"I’ll scream it later," she whispers in my ear, distracting me long enough for her to take a wooden box from the cabinet.

"Time is relative," I learned this truth the hard way with the two of us being so far apart, yet always closer than anything I’ve ever touched.

She licks her lips, deep in thought, as she settles between my open legs, right where I need her. Filled with a renewed inner calm, I encircle her waist and bury my face in her stomach, kissing her navel.

Everything I do, I do for you.

"Let me stich that skin back in place, love. Don’t you want to hold me tighter by this time tomorrow?" Lord, have mercy on my soul.

"You know you can do whatever you want to me," I say looking up at her, my fingers playing with the tips of her waist long hair.

"I want you safe. I want you nourished. I want you unharmed," she says before lowering her succulent lips to my ear. "I want you to grip my neck with that no longer bleeding hand while you make me yours and drive us both home. So please stand still."

Fuck. She’s so mine it hurts and I never loved the masochistic taste of pain more.

"I can smell she missed me too," I whisper heatedly as I spread aside her robe and push my face between her thighs before flattening my tongue over the satin of her lingerie; already dripping and calling for me. "So much."

She whimpers, yet remains silent, keeping her desire a half opened envelope as she raises her leg and rests it on the bidet to my left.

"What are you trying to distract me from?" she asks, taking my hand over her bent knee and meeting my eyes before pouring antiseptic over the fresh cut.

Doesn’t she know? Above all else, I need for her to have faith in me, to trust that I will always have her highest interest in mind. Even above myself.

"I’m not trying anything. I was just torn by your absence on my skin, under my eyes, over my mouth," I say with open vulnerability, the way no one else has ever made me feel, as I graze my lips along her thigh.

"Dante," she sighs, all tender, taking my face into her hands and kissing both my eyelids. "My Dante, how I missed you, my love," she breathes and I am home.

I need to show her, so I kiss her pubic bone once, twice meeting her eyes as I let my teeth and lips reveal to her everything words will always fail to.

"Stitch it all together, tesoro," I say before I move the scrap of material aside and spread her open with my tongue.

"God," she moans, driving her hips into my face while her hand grips my hair and tugs it with unhurried desire.

"What havoc have these hands of mine created this time, hmm?" she moans the question, fluctuating between rubbing my tense shoulders and sinking her sharp nails into them for support.

"Protected you, just like they always will," I breathe down her hip, my eyes angling toward the altar of her face, where I can do nothing but pray that she ’ ll meet me in the middle.

My Ombra exhales deeply, her whole being appearing to gain a sense of clarity as she caresses my nape and runs her fingers through my hair.

"If you’re hungry, eat my love. I’ll take care of you," she says, never once leaving my eyes as she takes the suture thread and sterilizes it.

I swear, after hearing these words, I feel suspended in the air by a nameless force; my damned soul liquefying into an unknown matter for her hands to wash away deliriums, fervors and aches – the kind she never dared face on her own.

"You, mia ombra, are the soul of my doomed world and your existence is the only reason it hasn’t evaporated into the ether yet."

"And you…you are my skeleton that keeps me rooted to the earth," she whimpers the words between moans, my tongue fighting against itself to remain still and give her the time to prepare the suture thread.

Fuck, how I need to bury myself in her until she’ll live inside of me like a disease I’ll nurture to the very end.

Desire is nothing compared to hunger, to the need to consume further than the skin, deeper than the wet warmth of the flesh. What lies between us is a sacred grail – rotten and holy, held between razor sharp teeth.

I also know that I won’t find rest until we’ll let ourselves be consumed by our shared need, until it will ultimately kill us, drop by soul binding drop.

"Are we damned ourselves? That’s why we’re here?" I ask, running my nose over her hip and inhaling deeply.

"I know nothing but…just take – take me away," she pleads, surrendering her fears and giving them to me. I will shelter them all, if need be, at the cost of my own.

She doesn’t need to ask, not now nor ever. My hand will always hold her through the darkest of nights and the murkiest of waters.

So I give her a door through which she can escape, because I want her content, serene, at ease; because what will follow when real life will find us will be grotesque and the furthest notion from peace.

But for now, let us dream.

Waves of pleasure wash over her face as I plunge two fingers deep inside her aching desire, before I drag her down into my lap. Her arms circle my shoulders, our hips meeting desperately with every thrust as her lips tasting of pomegranates and rebirth meet mine. Frenzied, they bite and kiss their way from my jaw to my neck before she hides her eyes into my shoulder, frantically seeking herself into me.

"So beautiful, my ethereal shadow," I say as I hit that honeyed spot with drunken reverence, her nails sinking into my back as her voice cries for me to not let go at her most vulnerable.

What bliss, what torture – to feel, see, smell Ophelia touch the unbound wrists of pleasure all over my fingers. I could live inside this moment with no food or water for lifetimes on end.

When she comes down, our eyes meet as she gently caresses my cheeks that were carved before we were born with only her hands in mind.

"We are not damned, this is just…life. I was so lost, until you found me and gave me a freedom I thought impossible for a woman like me," she says with misted eyes.

"I will create our own patch of land, and we’ll leave it all behind. I promise this to you, tesoro mio," I say as I kiss her temple and rest her head against my chest as she softly nods.

"Let's take care of your wound and have a smoke, God knows I need one," she says, her lips brushing tiredly over my neck before taking the needle driver she left on the edge of the sink.

I close my eyes, so damn drained and in dire need to hold her close as we fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

The familiarity of each tug and sting as the thread pierces raw skin is a welcome distraction from the mind, allowing me to fall into nothingness. And I am grateful for that, all the more so because she is the one who gives me a smooth descent to healing.

Perhaps this is the reason I spent dozens of hours lying on a table with an ink-covered needle piercing my skin until it went numb. After all, therapy is just a conversation with the self; the means are just pathways that lead to the same answers, the only difference being their intensity and comfort level once they slap you in the face.

After my refined healer ties the thread with a knot and applies an herbal ointment, she looks all the way down into my soul and rests for a second there.

"Take a shower, I’ll make you something to eat," she says before briefly taking my bottom lip between hers and closing the door.

What a day. I would repeat it a thousand times if I had even the vaguest feeling that she would be here, waiting for me.

The water is lukewarm; her soap lathers my skin and the blood that cascades down my body turns a blush color once it slithers down the drain. And the world keeps on moving, weather our souls are heavy or not. So it is and will always be.

When I get out of the tub, I find the duffel bag I brought with me from the car and inevitably smile at her talent of being virtually undetectable when she wants to; at the fact that even to my adept ears she can be taciturn as a phantasm.

After putting on a shirt and sweatpants I leave the blood behind.

Barefoot and hungry for something infused with life’s substance – namely her , I make my way towards the kitchen.

Coblina digs her claws into my pants and clings to my chest before I even got the chance to see her. No wonder, considering my eyes will always seek out my shadow in any room before anyone or anything else.

I settle into her black rattan chair, taking great pleasure in knowing that even though this spot is hers, she lets me occupy it anyway. Still, all I want to do is drag her into my lap and have us both share it.

This is where I found her sitting when I came in earlier, the table being filled with a variety of candles and dried herbs, on the cherry wood surface laying a tarot deck and three cards spread in a fan.

The Tower, The Devil, Death. How fitting.

"I killed a man today," I say, running my fingers over the warm skin on Coblina's head.

Ophelia doesn't stop her chopping on the wooden board, but she does turn her head slowly and meets my eyes, casting me a look that brings me to my knees.

Trust. Pure, unconditional acceptance.

When faced with something of this magnitude, what's a condemned man such as myself to do? How can I shape what I’ve been forced to become into something worthy of my one and only, when the very object of her acceptance is so vile in its essence?

If sacrificing my life would be enough I would do it, but in the meantime, selfish and wretched as I am, I’ll have to find a fitting alternative.

"The day of the funeral, when that man saw you looking at him, I knew your fate was sealed. We both realized on the spot what he was, so I took the necessary measures to protect you and find him myself," I say as she slices cherry tomatoes and arranges them on a platter.

Suddenly, her phone buzzes on the counter, interrupting the silence that has fallen after my confession. A message notification appears on the screen and once she sees the name of the sender, she pauses and reads it.

In an instant, she's standing between my legs, her soulful eyes looking at me as if I were both a mad man and a worthy one of her arms that now hold me close to her chest.

"You saved her...but how?" she looks at me in disbelief before walking backwards towards the counter and resting her hands on the edge, as if trying to center herself.

"What does the message say?" I ask instead, as Coblina tucks her head under my chin before leaping from my arms as if sensing the darkness looming ahead.

"Detective Logan just informed me, unofficially, that Riley Foster has been found. And not an hour ago you walked in, covered from head to toe in blood. How on earth did you figure out his location?"

"From the beginning?" I ask and she nods with trusting eyes.

I don't spare an ounce of detail, of blood, of the ugliness that took place on that isolated patch of land.

Over a French platter of Provence cheese, cured prosciutto and aged red wine , I tell her about Riley; of her resilience and how she reminded me of my sister. About the devil we almost caught and ultimately failed to. My Ophelia is patient, deeply absorbed in my words and unflinching in her ability to endure their viciousness. I admire that, although I wish it were a natural trait of hers rather than a result.

She chews slowly, sipping wine from my glass instead of hers, ever thirsty for more details.

The feeling of sharing myself with her so openly is incredibly liberating. As for the fact that she accepts me so deeply under all the thorns – at last, only someone who has not felt understood for a lifetime could fully grasp the warmth I feel now.

I find no pleasure in the pursuit of belligerence in itself, my acts of cruelty being motivated neither by an inflated ego nor by a desire for gratuitous violence. What I am is a creature that simply faces life in the eye for what it is, gritting my teeth in remembrance and being detached from the means as long as the result is total justice – moral or otherwise.

And by some miracle she embraces me, as I am.

Beyond carnal lust, our cavernous minds and dark souls complement each other perfectly like a mosaic of shards that have been cut by a careful hand in such a way that they always align.

Relaxed in the chair next to me, with her feet planted in my lap, she sips pensively as she watches the amber flicker of the candle reflect on the tiles.

"I had never known a man like you and I believe another will never exist again. Not in an alternate past, not in the future," she says as I take her ankles into my hands and rub the soft skin.

"Ombra…"I say, looking at her with all the worship that cannot be contained in words. How can she think so highly of me when all I do is bloody my hands and continue on a path that ultimately took everything from me?

"Opium," she says, her eyes eating me whole as she curls her toes in my palm like a feline. Like my own.

"From now on we have to tread with caution. He may lay low for a while or be reckless enough to want retribution, even with the police breathing down his neck," I say, chewing on some brie cheese.

"What do you have on him?" she asks in a voice that unsettles a part of me in a good way; a facet I had yet to address when it comes to her. She could be so calm, cold and calculated when she gets in that headspace and it fascinates my anarchistic side with no margins.

"His name is Jack Travers; he's forty-eight years old, and an anesthetist at a private clinic downtown. He’s got a rap sheet for violent outbursts that started in high school and ended all of a sudden in his second year of residency. My guess is that he just learned to hide it better. In his senior year he ripped his aunt's ear off with his bare teeth for a reason unknown to this day. She didn’t press charges," I say, running my knuckles over her knee.

"Childhood?" she asks, spreading some honey over a piece of blue cheese and placing it in my mouth, her syrupy fingers brushing over my lips. Delicious.

"There’s little known about it. Other than the fact that his mother abandoned him and his father when she ran away with a prison guard from her work place, his early years seem uneventful. He has a simple routine, keeps to himself and had never been in a serious relationship to date. It’s apparent he has a fixation considering his pattern and the way he chooses to torment his victims before he ends their lives," I say through clenched teeth, remembering the neglect and bruises.

Ophelia looks pensively at my bent knee, giving me the impression that she is far away in the maze of information I have placed in her lap.

"What are you thinking about?" I ask, seeking to reach the strings of her mind without drawing her out of her thoughts.

"I’m trying to find the reason behind the attacks. His last victim, Penelope, didn't explicitly show me what really happened in those days when she was held captive, but only a few clues that might lead me in the right direction."

"Has she actively participated in your search so far?" I ask, full of intrigue and a thirst to delve deeper into her world that is inaccessible to me.

"Spirits are mostly unreliable; they choose to remain stranded here on earth for individual reasons, deliberately denying the light. Often, these motivations are subjective and emotionally driven rather than rational. They seek revenge, closure or in this case justice. However, they can't experience our world as they did before passing. Days may seem like mere seconds to them, while places are perceived as an energy field based on their memories or person occupying them," she pauses, lost in thought.

"So Penelope is your ticket to his method or a hint of where he might be now," I state, quietly observing her.

"Yes, but if she continues to keep silent, I'm afraid we have nothing until he slips up. Unfortunately for us all, an autopsy only touches the surface and it might help find answers in the present case, but he’s still out there. Even while recovering he might look for another victim, therefore finding his hiding place while he is still vulnerable is imperative if we want to end this once and for all," she adds, her sharp nail rubbing at the delicate skin of her under eye.

"What are your theories?" I ask, massaging the inside of her wrist.

"He’s been systematically hurt by a woman in his family, considering he takes his time with his victims, yet he doesn’t touch them in a sexual manner, not at first at least. It’s also unsettling how similar the pattern is in terms of looks. It could mean they remind him of someone who harmed him in the past. Perhaps it’s rooted in an unrequited fixation, a punishment for the sudden departure of his mother, or a repeat of the first kill. In any case, there’s hatred toward women rooted in what might be rejection, betrayal or abuse of some kind."

"Or he could just be a man with a sadistic strike, having an affinity for light haired women. Selfishness and absurdity often go hand in hand," I add, not because I give a damn about profiling that piece of trash but because I adore the light in her eyes as she maps endless possibilities.

"It’s bizarre, nonetheless," she says, worrying her bottom lip I so crave to bite myself.

"Tesoro, I need you to be careful. The man is deranged and knows what he's doing, even though he's been sloppy lately. We need to think before we act. I know you’re instinctual and intuitive, but there’s no place for chance in this scenario," I say as I press our foreheads together and bury my fingers in her long hair.

"We’ll be together, therefore we’ll be alright. With my sight out there and yours here, this nightmare will find its end," she says, rubbing her thumb over my cheek, although I can feel she’s still far away.

"Come back to me," I whisper into her palm.

"What?" she asks, fully present for the first time in the last hour.

"Let’s put this aside for the moment. The girl is safe and the night is ours," I say, leaning back against the wall and lighting a cigarette while enjoying the way she looks at me with that mesmerized gleam in her eyes.

"And in this moment we are eternal," she adds, giving me an affectionate smile, the kind that incites questions that rarely find an answer that could be easily voiced.

"Talk me through it. I want to meet you deeper," I say leaning my head towards her tarot cards.

My breath grows heavier as she silently looks at me with that fixed stare of hers that seems to reach the edge of the world and beyond.

"How much do you know of my work?" my Ombra asks, her posture reminding me of a solitary swan looking for danger before she can relax and spread her wings.

"I familiarized myself with your public persona then dug a little deeper. Nothing too dramatic, but there are plenty of blank spaces to be filled," I say unashamed of my proclivities as her eyes linger on my jawline that she somehow always pauses on when relaxed and deep in thought.

"They’re empty for a reason, but not when it comes to you," she says as she lights a cigarette with a red stick candle.

I adore that about her. There is an unmatched freedom in being honest with another, knowing that judgment is not in the books with the one you’re sharing yourself with. What could ever possibly be more intimate between a woman and a man than understanding with no prejudice?

"Does it bother you? That I know far more than has ever left your mouth?" I ask, massaging her calves that feel like the softest of satins against my rough fingers that held for years little else other than cold metal and dirty banknotes.

"If you were any other person, yes. My life, both here and on the other side is sacred in everything it entails. I don’t like people passing my threshold, even the ones with clean feet. Having you in my kitchen, sitting at my table, touching me, is a rare anomaly. The only difference is that you are the one doing all of the above and that has always felt…right, natural, when others could have crossed oceans and it would have never been enough," she says tenderly while playing with my fingers.

At a loss for words, I am content to observe her in the act of opening up with the stirring force of a cellar that has been barricaded for centuries, waiting patiently for the right key.

"Over the years, some curious people have uncovered a pinch worth of my secrets; simple details that, in truth, have little to do with who I really am. In reality, they had just peeled back only the first layer," she says as she wraps her lips around the cigarette and barely inhales, a trail of smoke spilling out of her mouth like morning fog.

This image, right here, is the myth of her. A side few if any got to know. That’s the hidden facet of my Ophelia and it drives me fucking feral with the need to unleash it to its full potential while she lays bare underneath me with nothing holding us back.

She’s a saint and a sinner in equal measure. Both thick mist and a peak of melting ice under my cold hands, because where it matters most we are one the same; this has been our undeniable truth since the very beginning.

"I’m your exception," I state, as I refill our empty glasses, my eyes lingering on hers – for I am starved, and only she can ever sate me.

"My only one," she murmurs as she pulls closer, the smoke filtering through her lips merging with mine like a ghostly presence.

"The death of me," I whisper against her lips.

"My very tomb," she says, drunk on the amber liquor of the gods while I myself, am drunk on her.

"Give me your truth," I say, imagining her mind under my teeth as I chew slowly, tasting the valances and depths of her.

"I am a medium. I have lived, to some extent, on the other side for most of my life and that part of me will never die. How do you feel about that?" she asks, tracing my fingers still lingering on her ankle.

"To be honest, I've never taken an interest in the unseen. I’m a pragmatic man that has been plagued mostly by an existentialist view for the majority of his life, until a few years back when I’ve found some meaning in stoicism. I’ve seen too much of the grotesque and absurd. What lies beyond has always been an afterthought for me, given all the blood that has festered at my feet."

"And yet you see and want me, for what I really am. How come?"

"How could I not? I want to explore what I've never experienced, because that's a large part of who you are. Naturally, I want to uncover and meet you there," I say as I let the tip of the knife I just used on a cherry tomato dance sensually on her arm, tracing the blue veins of her wrist as if it were my nail.

"Dante, Dante…" she murmurs with a knowing smile, shaking her head in both incredulity and wonder.

Silence settles over us, her eyes traveling worlds away as if sifting through lifetimes of buried memories until they finally find their resting place on my clavicle.

"You've read the articles, haven't you?" she asks, lightly pushing her thumb on the tip of the knife, a dot of blood materializing like a beacon inviting us to sin before the morning light comes.

"I want to hear everything from your own mouth. Give me your beginning," and all your endings .

I take her thumb in my mouth and taste her, my other hand gripping her ankle tighter at the small drop of life on my tongue – in part, the very same one running through my veins.

When it comes to the foundation of my hunger, I want to drink her whole until there’s nothing left and replace her blood with my own, thus making us symbiotic, with no end or dawn.

A snake eating its own tail into eternity – our destiny.

"I was born into a family who taught me to smile through the tears created by their sickness, to accept the cold while trees burned in our backyard and our souls lay on the floor," she says, struggling to swallow the pain of the past.

My shattered, beloved girl.

"My father was a closeted alcoholic who thankfully didn’t take his aggression on either of us, but hid it in the walls of our home, between the broken windows and frameless beds. My mother had a delusional disorder that she rarely discussed with a professional. It dominated her mind until all that was left was to succumb to the inner torment turning her into a stranger, while my younger brother and I eventually became the final consequence of it," she says heavily, lighting another cigarette with trembling fingers.

Even though I want nothing more than to hold and protect her from a past that is far too cruel, I know she has to do it on her own because I have first-hand experience of how deep it cuts.

"Have you seen the frame on my vanity?" she asks, her eyes filled with unanswered questions.

"The boy in the photo is your brother, isn't he?" I ask quietly, remembering how struck I was by their resemblance and shared purity hidden in plain sight that is impossible to preserve in a world like the one we have been forced to live in.

"When he was born, her condition worsened, the paranoia and need to escape out of her skin becoming unbearable with each passing day," she recounts while rubbing her temples at the no doubt, distressing memories.

"Breathe," I say as I touch her cheek, the look in her eyes when she does open them bringing me to my knees. There is so much pain begging to come out at the feet of someone who would embrace her willingly and not let her fall once she lets herself be held.

And in this moment I swear I’ll be her armored refuge, night and day.

I nod with patient understanding, silently gesturing for her to take her time with her anguish and pour it all out in any way she can, because I have the strength to bear the weight.

"I was sixteen. It was a regular day when I came home from school, starved and bruised after some boys tried to fondle me in the bathroom. Seconds after walking in, I knew that…that something was wrong. Our walls were painted white, but all I could see was black rot," she shivers, swiping her tongue over her teeth all empty eyed and blue.

"I’ll need names," I demand darkly, struggling to keep my pulse under control at the thought of some little fuckers touching and tormenting her. Especially that day.

"You’ll have them," she says, letting me glimpse the coldness hidden in the farthest depths of her eyes, though it is muted by the intense undertones of her sorrow.

"There was an eerie silence throughout the house, while the pungent scent of gas and death could be felt rather than smelt in the stale air. Then she came, my mother…with this paralyzing look in her eyes as she burned with condemnation from the threshold. 'Come take a walk with me, your brother is waiting', she said in an unnerving calm voice, unearthing a deep-seated fear throughout my whole body," she pauses, her right hand covering her face as she relieves the memory. "I followed her, not because I wanted to, but out of a…I needed to protect him – Victor, from another one of her episodes, which had become more violent lately."

Distraught at the sight of Ophelia in such a wounded state, I lean her against me and rest her head in my lap. This way, she can evade, hide, simply be without the demand for her to be present – seen. My brave, sweet girl.

"I…I followed her to the pond behind the house. She said it would be lovely to feed the wild geese that had made a home there recently. Before I realized what was happening, her hand was in-in my hair as she tried to drag my head underwater. By some divine intervention, I struggled hard enough to get out of her grasp, the sudden jolt, causing us both to fall. Then–" she whimpers, with nails digging into my thighs, as if trying to crawl back from that grievous day.

"I saw him. Face down…his smooth chestnut hair was dump and matted, his clothes drenched and tangled in algae. Shivering to the marrow, I found my mother's eyes again – a harsh red, full of paranoia and limbs outstretched towards me, ready to strike again. And I–I...he was missing a shoe."

I can’t bear to see her suffer, not now, nor ever. With tears of my own, I gather her trembling body to my chest, hugging her to me and wishing, begging the sky to let me absorb her pain and make it mine.

Her teeth sink into my shoulder, fighting to hold back the sobs as I hold her head there, far away from anything that could ever hurt her again.

"I crawled out of there, leaving both my former skin and her behind. I did not care if she would follow and end me too because I was already dying with every step I took until I reached him. I kneeled down, touched his cold, blue as sea foam forehead, before taking him in my arms and running with legs that felt like they might collapse at any time. And I-I heard splashing behind me, but I didn’t look back," she sobs quietly, as I rock her back and forth, back and forth…

"Somehow, through the haze of agony and shock, I found myself dropping to my knees with my brother in my arms in front of our neighbor's door. Since that moment, I can’t recall anything before they ripped my brother away from me or when they removed my mother from the house on a stretcher, limp and no longer breathing. All I remember is a yellow blanket a policeman covered me with, how wet my clothes were from the water my brother had been drowned in and my bleeding nails from the attack I’ve suffered earlier in the day," she says in a quiet, somber voice that slowly punctures my heart.

"That day, a part of me died too, never to be seen again," she continues as she grips me so tight that I can hardly breathe. But who needs air when the love of my existence needs me to breathe herself.

God, she's been through hell and back, experiencing one of the most brutal and unforgiving things a person can endure – being harmed by the one who should protect you at all costs. And yet, she doesn't go into hysterics, as she should, but simply breathes deeply through the memories and lets them seep between her ribs.

My Ombra's strength is staggering, but she needs to release herself from that moment if she is to move forward and draw some sort of closure from her own suffering, rather than ignoring it in an attempt to escape it. Otherwise, she will drown at some point and that I refuse to accept.

"Do you ever talk about it?" I ask, rubbing her back as she slowly faces me.

"Many have tried, but I've only made a brief report to one officer on the scene. I was aware therapy was effective but I also knew no one else would truly understand, even though on paper what happened is not that uncommon with her untreated condition. I simply chose to stay with my pain, to accept it for its brutal reality and let it consume me. It made me stronger, wiser…it hurts just the same to this day," she says with endurance, resting her head on my shoulder as I rock us in an effort to soothe her because I do know how she feels.

"How did she get in such a bad state and nobody intervened earlier?"

"Ever since she was a child, she fought it as best she could and, over the years, was stable enough to even hold a job. But after Victor's birth, she had suffered severe postpartum depression, refusing to take her medication and eventually abusing alcohol. My grandmother was our pillar, given my father's habit and her illness, but after a while her paranoia became so severe that she isolated us completely and refused outside help. Maybe if I took Victor away and–"

"No, you were just a child, amore – caught in a very dangerous and vulnerable position."

"It’s too late for regrets now; nothing will bring them back."

That I know, but how I wish she wouldn't.

"Why did you tell me?" I ask, running my fingers through her hair.

"Because we are made from the same cloth, ripped in two and stained with blood, but not our own. How could I not share myself with my soul's only balm?" she asks, her face mere inches from mine, yet I feel her in my veins.

How I love her. So deeply that I can barely take another breath.

"Thank you," I say as I close my eyes, letting my lips hover over hers before I taste them in a kiss that is neither passionate nor possessive but rather a simple press of the lips, like a wax seal over the soul. One that binds us forever in love, suffering and death.

This is it. This is the moment cementing us into something honest and unbreakable.

"Now that you've let it all out, how does it feel, tesorina?" I whisper in her ear before brushing my lips over her temple.

"I don’t feel alone in the world anymore. Thank you, my love," she murmurs, locking her contemplative eyes with mine.

"Let’s run you a bath," I say, holding her tightly to my chest as I head for the bathroom.

With her still clinging to me, I turn on the water and walk over to the window, opening it and letting her feet touch the floor. I wrap my arms around her, my much larger body engulfing hers from behind as we share a cigarette and listen to the white noise of the city in the dead of night.

"Tell me about your grandmother. What happened after she took you in?" I ask, resting my head in the crook of her neck.

"These are my favorite," she says while I place the cigarette between her lips.

"What?" I ask, drawing her even closer as I settle between her thighs, feeling so at home near her warmth.

"These kind of conversations. Invasive as you are, I love that you took the time to discover bits and pieces of who I am. You already know what I’m thinking, how I’m feeling, my story before I have to say a word. It’s as if we are the same coin, just different facets, depending on where the light of the moon decides to dance on the penny," she says, as she extends her neck on my shoulder and watches my profile intently.

"Hmm," words, she gets me hard just with a few words and it’s fucking beautiful, on the verge of being terrifying.

"My grandmother was a peculiar character for most, an idea rather than just a woman. She took me under her wing after my father decided it would be best to forget about what little life was left here. The last I heard of him was from distant relatives who mentioned that he continued his drunken ways, roaming the streets and harassing people for money. That was more or less a decade ago."

I can sense, sifting through her tone, that their history has been washed away over the years by other troubles and life in general. Yet I can’t help but want to make him suffer for abandoning her when she needed him most.

"She was a woman who lived by the rules of the unseen, yet died a human death, her most vital organ failing her in the end," she exhales pensively. "I still remember vividly some of the faces of the people who knocked at her door at three in the morning. How panicked they were, begging her to ease their minds about their daily struggles and intimate miseries, paying large sums of money to see further than their limited sights could. Of course, they were among those with pitchforks later on, since the memory of the crowd rarely lasts."

"Did she know the time and place of her own death, considering her insight?" I ask both fascinated by the way life slowly pours back into her eyes and trying to refrain from delving into another painful chapter of her story. There will be more nights.

"I recall asking her once, how come she was never curious to know the precise details of her last moments, bearing in mind that she had all the resources and capacities to find out," Ophelia pauses, shaking her head before continuing. "She gazed at me with those wise, piercing eyes and told me that she has died many times throughout her life, like many of us do. That her last one will simply be her human costume hitting the floor, so why should she care about specifics when life as she wanted to experience it was her sole priority?" her eyes hold mine. "After all, that was the reason why she was here in the first place – to live."

"Wise woman," I remark, grateful that she had someone that both mentored and offered her the care her own parents didn’t.

"With her by my side, the abilities I was born with became sharper, clearer. I understood and firmly grasped what was under my control, accepting the hard lesson of letting go, both of my pain and that of others. I've learned the craft, though these days I barely practice it, apart from tarot, which is more of a habit to quench my mind's thirst for tangible answers," she says, gathering all of her hair on her right shoulder and pressing her delicious curves into me.

"And how did you find yourself helping spirits cross over?" I ask lowly, needing her again as I massage her hip.

"Being a psychic had always come naturally to me. My grandmother gave me the courage to follow my instinct, to communicate and distinct clearly the truth from the illusion, the call of the beyond from harmful energies. And of course, most of all, to protect myself and to know when it would be wisest to retreat from the abode of the dead when my instincts tell me to do so."

"Will you show me?" I hiss when she plants her arm behind her, taking hold of my thigh and pushing against me, tempting all my senses with the plea to give in for the hundredth time today.

"What?" she moans softly as I cup her with a tender hand, drawing her closer.

"Your sorcery," I rasp, even though I’ve experienced her power already in so many ways I’ve lost count.

"It can be dangerous, my love," she says, dragging her nails over the length of my arm around her waist.

"I don’t care what happens to me if it’s by your hand," I say, thrusting my hips into her, our breaths getting heavier by the second.

"I’m not a witch; I don’t delve into black magic either. I’m just a woman who sees further than…others – God!" she moans, her fingers gripping the windowsill when my hand wraps around her neck tightly.

"You are unique to the last cell in your body, no one could possibly replicate you, not even marginally," I whisper in her ear, as I glide my fingers into her robe and squeeze her breast.

"All other men…are defunct compared to you," she says as her pulse burns under my fingers.

"Let’s not drag others into this conversation. Defunct or not, I will not share you even in thought with anyone else, ever. Understood, Ombra?" I ask before I turn her around and knot her hair in a tight fist.

"Yes my opium, but…but if I am yours why don’t you act on it? You are killing us both," she moans the words as I raise her leg against my hip and settle between her legs.

"Think about it, you already know the answer," I say as I open her robe slowly and let it fall to the floor. Her bewitching body remains covered only by a scrap of lace, a matching waist garter and my vial of blood around her neck.

Temptress. There isn’t a greater torturer than this woman.

Ophelia's gaze momentarily leaves behind its lustful haze, while her whole body begins to tremble for entirely different reasons than the ones before. Fighting tears, she collapses into my arms with every unspoken word between us.

Now she understands. Love is, after all, what it all comes down to.

Beyond everything, this extraordinary woman has been my world since the very beginning. I respect, admire and honor her with everything I have.

So what could a man who has known the darkest forms humanity can take want, but for the one he loves to have him – however broken and tainted, and love him anyway?

I need her to feel me in the blood. That is all.

Like a pact, what lies ahead will be written in it, and hues of grey will never be enough for me, not when my world is made of nothing but black and white.

"Dante…" she mouths, trying to form flooding thoughts into words as she holds my face between her hands.

I smile down at her because I know. However, we both need more time to digest and chew this rare thing between us.

A solitary tear falls down her pale cheek as I slowly remove her garter, followed by her lingerie before tracing the curve of her spine and licking the salt coated in emotion found there.

"Shh, whether I am inside of you or not, I already live there, aren’t I?" I ask as I taste her bottom lip and take her in my arms.

"When I was around twelve, a reader told me I was destined to have a man who will burn the world for me, wearing the stain of death on his face. 'Black eyes', she told me, will never leave me; that his arms will place me on his throne and lay skulls filled with dead flowers at my feet. Until this moment I had forgotten all about it," she says as I help her in the bathtub that is now filled with onyx tinted water to the brim.

"The prophecy has been fulfilled then. What had reminded you of it?" I ask as I rest my tired bones on the floor and lean my arms against the edge of the tub.

"The woman told me that you will be my home, that I will live my days in you and you will live your nights in me. Though I believe in one aspect she was slightly wrong," she says while gathering a few wet petals and placing them on her nipples, which I’ll just have to taste soon or otherwise I’ll lose it.

"What was it?" I ask lowly as she takes my hand in hers.

"There is no day and night when it comes to us. You are the everlasting vibration of my soul, inhabiting it with no sense of time or place," she says while running her tongue over my thumb and dissolving me slowly with those ancient eyes.

Death – death is nothing compared to what she does to me and there’s immense bliss in having the privilege of experiencing that.

Amore, it. n. love.