Tracking down Bennett Johnson wasn’t difficult. According to his schedule, his lectures have ended for the day. I close my umbrella with a sharp snap, flicking the rain off its edges before taking in the damp sprawl of London around me.
The city breathes in grayscale. Students hurry past, shoulders hunched beneath umbrellas and raincoats, their movements a rhythm to the low growl of traffic that thrums through the mist. A distant clock tower chimes, its sound cutting cleanly through the drizzle.
There’s an odd kind of electricity in the air, a static born of intellect and decay, ambition and fatigue. Books are clutched to chests like shields, breaths turn to ghosts in the cold, and every hurried step slaps against the slick cobblestones, echoing off centuries-old stone.
This is London in its truest form—a city of secrets and intellect, of rain-streaked windows and minds too heavy with thought. For a moment, I feel as though I’ve stepped into a scene from Sherlock.
Turning away from the street, I press my palm to the heavy door and push it open. Warm, dry air greets me, faintly scented with paper and polish. I wipe my feet on the worn brown mat, my fingers tying the umbrella into a knot and looping it loosely around my wrist before I lift my gaze.
Inside, the university feels like a place caught between eras, an institution suspended in amber. The corridors are long and reverberant, lined with portraits whose painted eyes seem to follow every movement.
Light spills through stained glass in muted shards of blue and gold, tinting the world in a kind of quiet solemnity. Coffee cups, half-full and forgotten, sit like tiny monuments to exhaustion beside stacks of open books.
I move through the labyrinth of hallways toward the psychology wing, rehearsing my lines under my breath. My approach was spontaneous, but I’ve learned that impulse can often mimic authenticity better than any script.
When I first reached out to Bennett, I played the part perfectly—a passionate, obsessive researcher with a fixation onthe precise areas of psychology he’s known for. It hadn’t taken much to convince him. After all, I’ve always been skilled at sounding like a lunatic when I need to.
The man lives and breathes his work. Every second of his life seems consumed by it, devoured by a hunger only obsession could feed. He has no family, and if he does have friends, I’m willing to bet they don’t exist outside the confines of this university. The small portion of his free time goes into the same cycle of plotting, researching, and building on his private fascinations.
It’s not passion. It’s compulsion. That kind of extreme, single-minded dedication always borders on psychosis.
There’s a strong chance that when he realizes the real reason I’ve arranged this meeting, he’ll tell me to fuck off.
I’ve thought of a plan B.
But I’d rather not use it. I want this handled quietly, cleanly, with no theatrics, no unnecessary noise. Not because I’m tired, and not because I’ve lost interest.
It’s because I’m overstimulated, and that, in my case, is far more dangerous.
After my call with Estella ended, I sat there, staring at the darkened screen, its glow fading into black. I must have spent an hour like that—frozen, hollowed out, my pulse a steady drumbeat of want. The silence was unbearable. She lingered in my mind, warm, feverish, and impossible to ignore.
Then, I repeated what I did while we talked.
And again.
And again.
And fuckingagain.
I’ve lost count of how many times, but I don’t need the number. I feel it in every part of me, the aftermath still clawing through my body—I’m wrung out, my palms throbbing fromhow hard I rubbed them against my dick. Right now, I’m the clearest symptom of the madness she’s awakened in me.
I feel like a fucking teenager again—restless, reckless, unable to control the flood of want. A grown man, undone by a dangerous obsession that’s dug its teeth too deep to pull out now.
This trip doesn’t make it any easier.
There were moments when I almost canceled the flight to London entirely—moments when the thought of Barcelona, of her, clawed at my chest so hard I nearly gave in. I could see it so clearly: walking into her space, touching her, doing exactly what she’s been daring me to.
But I forced that urge down. Bent it. Contained it.
First, London. The professor. The meeting.
Then, when all of that’s done, I’ll go to Barcelona.
A small part of me keeps trying to be rational, to find something positive in this distance. It’s a dim light, flickering and fragile, but it’s there. Maybe it’s good that we’re both forced to wait.
The craving keeps evolving, turning meaner, sharper, more insistent with every minute that slips by.
That hunger is its own twisted paradox—pain laced with pleasure, a slow, intoxicating torture neither of us intends to outrun.
