That’s why he’s here now. That’s why his presence presses against me like heat from an invisible fire.
It goes beyond mere liking or attraction. It is an obsession sculpted into precision. He’s digging deeper, reaching for the places no one else has touched, meticulously giving me exactly what I want.
The silence stretches between us, thick and electric, humming with a weight I can feel pressing in from all sides. Myown breath fractures it, becoming quick, shallow—a rhythm too jagged to be ignored. I can almost feel the heat of his gaze tracing the lines of my skin.
A sharp inhale pulls me back, and the perfume coils around me again, clinging like a second skin. Each note carrieshim, a whisper of presence that threads itself through my senses. And beneath it, I recognize the truth I can’t deny.
These gifts aren’t mere gestures. They are a control dressed up in the guise of thoughtfulness. He has chosen each detail with precision. Every element is a tether, an invisible hand resting lightly on my shoulder, guiding, nudging, weaving me into a pattern I cannot escape.
He is not suffocating me.
He isleadingme.
Watching and waiting. Keeping just enough distance to make me feel safe while ensuring I never truly am.
A storm builds low in my stomach, twisted and beautiful. I don’t understand why this connection feels so magnetic, why the thought of him woven into everything around me feels…comforting.
Maybe it’s because, for the first time in a long while, I don’t feel alone.
My fingers tremble as I finally begin to type, each tap of the screen echoing through the room like a drumline in an empty hall.
ME:
I’m surprised at how long you’ve been able to suppress the control freak inside you.
The message flies off my screen, the letters dissolving into glowing dust before vanishing completely, like grains of sand scattered by the wind.
Seconds later, the reply comes.
UNKNOWN:
Just lending a hand. Also, I need your opinion on my taste.
A soft laugh escapes me, light and quick, swallowed by the hollow stillness of the apartment. It’s strange how easily he pulls this out of me, as if he always knows the exact frequency of my nerves.
I remember what I promised him—that one day I’ll take him out on a real shopping trip. After this, that promise feels less like a tease and more like a craving.
ME:
I’m almost never so pleasantly surprised. To truly grasp it, you’d have to be here, feel it yourself.
The three dots appear, lingering for a while before they vanish. I stare at the phone, my pulse loud in the silence, the tip of my tongue pressed against the roof of my mouth as something restless coils in my chest. I shift from one foot to the other, impatience ballooning until it feels like my skin can’t contain it.
When I finally tear my eyes away from the phone, I glance out the window again. The street lies empty, motionless. But the longer I look, the more I feel the weight of unseen eyes tracing the lines of my body.
It’s absurd. I know it is.
And yet, the sensation doesn’t fade.
It seeps through the cracks of reason, through every wall I build inside myself, until it settles low in my stomach. Then it rises, pushing up through my chest until my heartbeat aches beneath its pressure.
The phone vibrates suddenly in my damp palm, nearly slipping through my fingers.
UNKNOWN:
Do you want me to be there?
My breath catches. The words blur for a moment before the message vanishes, leaving nothing but the ghost of it in my mind.
