DELICIOUS

She quickens her steps, perhaps sensing me. I know she can’t see me, but I let her put some distance between us, just in case. She turns left, hunching down further into her wool coat. I drift around the corner, stop in the lee of a doorway. I watch her carefully, note when she glances behind her. She is afraid. I can smell it, feel it, taste it.
Delicious.

I shiver with anticipation. I can tell she’s close to home now, she’s nearly running, fumbling in her oversized purse for keys. She thinks home means safety. She will slam the thin hollow door of her apartment and turn the lock, attach the chain, breathe a sigh of relief. She might even check her windows. Then she will brew some tea, curl up on her threadbare couch and read a thick book until she falls asleep.

I know her patterns now. Night after night, I follow her home from the dingy bar where she serves watery beer to leering drunks. I come just close enough for her to sense me. She never sees me, but she can feel me. She gets gooseflesh when I’m close, her lovely pale skin pimples, the fine hairs on her neck stand up, her liquid brown eyes widen. She knows she is not alone. I breathe in the intoxicating scent of her fear. I’m close enough to touch her and her breath is shallow and quick and panting, nearly gasping, her chest is heaving, she’s darting furtive glances around her, whirling in place, looking for the single scuffed step she heard, for the brush against her sleeve, the laughing male voice from an alley just behind.

Her brownstone apartment building is in front of her now, and she is up the steps and into her apartment. I wait on the landing and listen to her locking and latching. I’m in front of her door now and I hear the sigh of relief. I bump against the door and she puts an eye to the peephole. Of course, she sees nothing. I am trembling, nearly unable to contain my excitement. Her nightmares have been full of red eyes and shadowy figures following her, she tosses and turns and sweats, the sheets stick to her body and she wakes with her long auburn locks tousled and she is visibly terrified, alone in her apartment with the nightmares fresh behind her eyes.
I am watching her now, from the fire escape. She is changing, letting stained work jeans fall to the floor in a heap, along with the shirt and underclothes. I want to go through the window and brush against her, but I control myself, make myself wait for the perfect moment. She puts on a long t-shirt and curls up in her favorite spot on the couch with a blanket on her knees. The door is locked, she has checked all the windows. She is safe. She sips her tea and reads, falls asleep.
I slip through the window slowly, careful not to rattle the glass. I keep away from the sharp line of light slicing between door and frame, watch her sleeping. I slide through the narrow gap and creep close. A picture frame rattles as I pass by. She stirs, but doesn’t wake. I am above her now, she can feel me, even past the oblivion of slumber; her skin pimples, she shudders and pulls the blanket higher. I let out a long sigh that knocks over the mug and rustles the pages of a magazine. She hears it, this time. Her eyelids twitch and flutter open. Freshly woken, the filters of perception haven’t blinded her yet. She sees me. For a moment she is too startled and confused to react, then she pulls in a lungful of air and screams and the dulcet delicious sound of her terror ripples through me, a bolt of pure pleasure. I swirl in circles, moan in ecstasy, shiver like a wave-distorted reflection. I swell through the dimensions from the influx of her fear and she screams yet louder. I course around her in uncontrollable paroxysms and she is scrambling off the couch and crawling across the floor, t-shirt rucked up around her hips. I follow her, wait for her to close her bedroom door, push through it, laughing and howling. She is huddled between bed and wall, staring at me through her tears.

“What do you want?” She asks me, voice tremulous.

I do not answer. I writhe closer, brush against her, feel the warmth of her. I stretch around her, absorb her heat, her terror.

“What do you want?” She asks again, shrill and panicked.

I do not answer. I plunge forward and down in through her open mouth and I am in, I am here, I have taken her now, possessed her, and I swell burgeon and boil into every smallest space of her soul. She shrieks as she feels me filling her up like bile, feels me welling up within her in an inexorable surging that she cannot stem and the shrieking is changing, turning into a moan, a gasp, a denial, a desperate refusal to accept that she likes this, she wants this, oh yes, she wants this but she doesn’t want to want it, she hates the desire. I can feel her thinking now, her thoughts run over the surface of our mind, she is casting last glances around as she slowly relinquishes control to me like drowning She sees a crucifix and I panic just a little as she reaches for it. I delve deeper into her will and twist, just so, bring forth pleasure, bring forth heat in just the places, in the just the right amount. She writhes and forgets the crucifix, collapses to the floor and abandons herself to me. Her choked moans are equal parts terror, ecstasy and desperation. She is sobbing and heaving and moaning, and she is mine, all mine.

Delicious.