I should stop this. But I don’t want to. I am hungry; I want to devour.
Anguish seems to understand. As if he can read the goose bumps on my flesh, as if he’s counting my heartbeats and draws meaning from them, he does exactly what I want. He drags his hands all over my body; he slides long fingers under the hem of my underdress, delicately brushing my skin, gripping at my thighs.
He kisses me until I’m lightheaded, his mouth working a dark spell over my senses. He holds me against him, rolling slow hips against mine, his arousal sparking a need so acute that it feels like pain. His shadows envelop me. Caressing, cold and hot, soft and harsh, so that I am always at the edge of arousal and shock, gasping when he rolls a thumb over my nipple; when he caresses my core; when he puts his mouth between my legs. It’s as if he has a dozen hands, all of shadow, all deftly working me to a slow climax.
But he is in no hurry. It seems he wants every nerve in my body to be on fire, desperate for release. He wantsme begging before he gives me true ecstasy. So I let him overtake me. I close my eyes and imagine that he drinks me whole. I imagine that I am drawn into his orbit, undone by his gravity, pulled apart by the atom, until we become one singular being.
I burn. My cunt is the center of the universe. My skin sings with the voice of the stars. And as he takes me there against the balcony of this impossible citadel, filling me to the brim as my orgasm nears, I transcend my human body.
This joining was meant to be.
It was written in the stars.
And for a moment I am just like him. I’m a goddess, a potent and desirous creature, a being traversing the universe in search of more. More pleasure, more power, more ofhim. But I don’t need to search for him; he’s here. He is inside me, he is woven into my sinews.
In that breathless moment, I really believe he was created for me, and I for him.
But as the height of my rapture fades, as reason comes slowly back to me, the world fades into focus. I blink away hot tears. He gazes down at me, flames licking from his eyes. He is nothing but darkness, shapeless black smoke. He’s still inside me. I feel him, full and pulsing.
I grip the balcony railing with both hands. It bites into my lower back, hard enough to bruise. I don’t wantto let go of this, even if it is an illusion. Even if he is a monster, making me pliant before the kill. I want to remain in this impossible dream for as long as I can.
‘Tell me more about us,’ I murmur, closing my eyes. ‘Our star.’
He sighs into my neck. I shiver at the human feel of his breath, at the cosmic embrace of his undulating shadows. ‘I will tell you everything,’ he replies. ‘Let me show you.’
He leads me again through his citadel, sometimes holding my hand, sometimes wrapping an arm around me, but always touching me. Like he’s afraid to let go for fear I’ll bolt, never to return. I’m grateful for it. I need anchoring; I need solidity.
When we return to his throne room, he takes me to the center of the massive space. The roof arches above us for what seems like miles, and impossibly, I can see the sky from here. More than the sky, I see galaxies swirling across the dark. I see the births and deaths of stars. I see entire civilizations rising and falling. I seeeverything. ‘Is this real?’
His voice reverberates through my bones. ‘Yes. You are seeing through my eyes. I can see much of the world. There are very few things I cannot see, or feel, if I try.’
If not a god, then he is as close as it gets. I don’t voice the thought aloud, but it grips my throat and won’t let go. He’s not just some monster living in a castle on themountain. Anguish is beyond anything I’ve ever known, beyond my understanding.
‘But …’ This is something I can’t refrain from voicing, a question I need to know the answer to. ‘Can’t I see you for what you truly are?’
‘What I truly am?’ He smiles sadly. ‘I am something you should run from.’
‘You haven’t hurt me.’Yet, is the unspoken word. Because even after sex, he vibrates with hunger. When I turn to look at him, the fire of want in his eyes strikes me to my core. He is insatiable.
‘And I don’t want to.’
But I might. I can read between the lines. I take a step back. ‘Just tell me. If we’re truly meant for each other, then I deserve to know the truth.’ I hold out my hands to indicate the citadel around us. ‘I deserve to know what you are, what this is. I deserve to know everything.’
For a moment I think he won’t respond. That he has revealed all that he ever will, that he’ll remain a cosmic mystery for the rest of my life – however long that may be.
Then he grows impossibly dark, a gathering storm, until his human form is gone completely. He roils like impending thunder, his form expanding to fill the entire room. Darkness expands all around me until I can’t see inches in front of me. I stumble, turning slowly, trying to reorient myself.
With an explosion of light and sound, the room is awash in red. The walls are drenched, thick with gore. Blood and tissue slop down the walls, landing in foamy piles on the floor. All over the walls, pink and swollen and fleshy, are dozens of eyelids of varying sizes. Slowly, each pair opens to reveal milky white eyes, with no iris or pupil. The eyes all seem to stare at me, unblinking.
I spin. The eyes are all around me, intently watching, penning me in.
Anguish’s voice rumbles through the room like thunder. I flinch at the sound, and fall to my knees, reaching up to cover my ears at the sound.
THIS IS WHO I REALLY AM.
The white, staring eyes slide down the wall to join the piles of slick gore on the floor. They sink into the red, rotting before my eyes, until they disappear. Then an enormous tongue, thick and red and forked, licks out from the nearest wall. Teeth follow, gleaming white, exploding from the blood-wet stone, until a great maw hangs open before me. For a split second it seems I’m floating in space, and there’s nothing but the stars around me, and this mouth is bigger than the sky, bigger than the world, and it threatens to swallow the entire universe.
THIS IS WHO I REALLY AM.
