I walk to the bus. There’s still one left to go, but it won’t run for a while. The later it gets, the fewer there are. On a night like tonight, a car would be convenient.
I stand up against the shelter and try to read my book, but I keep getting that eerie feeling of being watched. My stalker is out there in the dark somewhere. I’m sure of it.
I wonder who he is. I wonder how I’m going to find out. I have to in order to bring him to justice. I’ll probably have to give the money back if I turn him over to the police, but he can’t keep just breaking into my house and fucking me. What he’s doing is wrong. Even if it is hot.
I try not to notice the tingle between my legs and the slightly cool breeze that’s more noticeable than usual thanks to my lack of underwear. I tell myself not to be excited about any of this.
I have that feeling he’s closer than usual. I can’t say why. It’s just a hunch. I can sort of feel him, I think. Maybe my senses will start to get better the longer I’m stalked. Maybe I’ll get a second sense of when someone is going to…
A hand closes around my arm and yanks me out of the shelter.
“Oh, not in public!” I gasp.
“Give me your money, bitch.”
It’s not him. He’s never called me a name, and as much as he’s taken control of me, he’s never held me so roughly it feels like I’ll bruise. The man holding me is a little shorter, and a lot wider. He’s wearing a pink hat with eyes cut out of it.
Whoever this is starts dragging me away from the bus stop, toward an alley between two buildings. I start screaming, but nobody comes to help. Most of the people at the restaurant drive. I could have been driving too, if I hadn’t sold the car I couldn’t afford to run or own.
This is the one time my stalker isn’t watching me, I guess. Maybe he’s already in my apartment lurking in the closet or something. Maybe he’s planning some other twisted punishment for me while another man attacks me. Maybe he’s beating the shit out of Dave.
Wherever he is, I am obviously on my own. The idea that I could die out here on my own in a completely senseless attack from some asshole who thought I looked like an easy target just fills me with rage.
I fight back, yanking at my bag and kicking at the man. He punches me hard enough to make my head ring, and I lose it. I blank completely, go feral, start fighting for all I am worth.
Blam!
The sound of a gunshot and a splatter of warm liquid across my face happen almost simultaneously. The man trying to assault me is killed instantly. I know this because his head isn’t there anymore. His body crumples in front of me, a confused tangle of limbs that don’t know where they’re supposed to be anymore. It’s very fucked up.
“This is why I wanted you to have a car,” my stalker says, pulling me into a comforting embrace. I hide my face in his shirt, but there’s so much blood on both of us it doesn’t feel like a hug should. It’s far too coppery and lubricated for my liking.
He carries me off to what must be his car and puts me in the back of it. I try to remember his license plate, but I can’t think of anything. I am on auto-pilot right now. My body has been in flight or fight mode so often the last few days I’m not sure it has anything left to freak out with. My adrenaline reserves are on zero.
I don’t even pay attention to where we are going. I let him take me somewhere. Anywhere. Does it even matter anymore? I keep hearing the loud discharge of the gun, and then feeling the spray of blood. The inside of people is warm. I guess that’s why they call it body temperature.
Will he leave the scene to be found by police, or will whatever little elves came along and cleaned up my apartment before the cops got there come along and absolve us of all these horrors?
Next thing I know, I am in a bath and my stalker is washing me off. He’s rubbing shampoo into my hair and running the water over my hair and down my back. This is as intimate as anything I have ever experienced. I wish I had access to my feelings, but I’m still just mostly numb for now.
“Is the water too hot?”
“No,” I mumble. “It’s good.”
He tops up the water a little more with hotter water, and it does feel better. My teeth were chattering. Maybe I was cold.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I should have been watching you more closely.”
I snort with laughter that turns into a slightly hysterical pealing amusement. I don’t know how to react. Someone was trying to hurt me and he stopped them, but he did it in the most violent way possible, and now I’m pretty sure I might be party to a murder? But also I’m not sure the world is any worse off as a result.
He finishes bathing me, gets me to step out, and dries me off with kind and thorough hands. He pats my hair dry, which tells me he knows something about how women work. Men in my experience dry themselves as if they’re trying to remove their skin completely.
He’s still wearing a mask, a balaclava that is thin for indoor use. It’s silly. I find myself giggling again at the dark absurdity of the situation. A man wearing a white shirt with his sleeves rolled up and a balaclava just looks silly. At some point he’s got to take it off, right? Maybe not. I imagine him as an old man, still wearing it. I imagine him going grocery shopping wearing it. I imagine him with it on in the shower, basically waterboarding himself.
“You are so overwhelmed,” he says, not taking my giggling seriously.
“You look silly in your mask,” I say as he wraps me up in his arms and holds me close.
“Nothing bad is ever going to happen to you again,” he promises. “I’m going to make sure of it.”
