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1. She watched him over the rim of her book. Perhaps he was aware of it, perhaps not.
He moved with precise, clipped movements: practiced and luxuriant in their smoothness. That was him all over – practiced, smooth, precise.
He moved from the sink to the stovetop, his back still to her, and she had a blinding moment of clarity about him, her and the hole within her. She watched with covetous eyes how his broad shoulders curved into his trim torso and then contracted into an impossibly modest waist. She closed her eyes and remembered the first time that she had discovered that territory with her hands, how she had yearned to possess it completely. She remembered the struggle to get there, the tests, the endless doubts and the madness of the forbidden that had driven her onwards.
He had made it difficult. He had made her crawl to him. He was so wonderful in some ways, but he could be so cold, so unforgiving. And then there was the intimacy; he could be churlish, easily shocked like a Victorian governess.
He turned and caught her staring. He cocked his mask to one side with amusement and walked to the table to pour her more tea. She watched him with rapt attention to every detail, not knowing how to avoid the truth of her satori moment. He clasped his hands in front of him, waiting expectantly for her to tell him something delightful.
“What are you thinking, my dear?” He murmured.
She raised the steaming tea to her lips and paused just long enough to utter her truth to him.
“I love you less, now that I know you.” She said as she watched him crumble like Ozymandias in the desert; eyes fixed on the heavens forever asking ‘why’.
The Dress by Blonde Redhead
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2. His hands shook as he reached for the door.
Dammit! Stage jitters…
How many times had he alighted the boards for more commanding performances than this – why tonight of all nights? His hands never tarried before a kill, and surely that was harder. No, killing is easy, anyone can do it. But tonight, the play was the thing. He had to win their hearts and minds in one performance – no dress rehearsals, no second acts – he would never have another chance to tell them how he felt. And with no face to show them empathy, no eyes to fill with tears of resistance, he would have to rely on his voice alone to carry his cry forward and beyond him to the future.
I will charm, I will slice, I will dazzle them with my wit. He must, he had no alternative. Being a ridiculous footnote hidden under the dusty jacket of history was not acceptable. Not that he would live to experience the shame of it.
He gripped the explosives strapped to his torso for reassurance and offered up a silent prayer overhead.
Tonight make me unstoppable! He reached for the door again…
The Prayer by Bloc Party
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3. 10:47pm, the day before she came…
Traffic is light in the streets. Cars speed by too fast, hurrying home without a care. A light rain begins to fall. Cab drivers grumble at the loss of business and huddle deep in their seats hoping that their block heaters will fight off the damp chill. Lights bathe the streets in a sulfur glow that reaches up into the overcast gloom with steaming, green tendrils.
In a room below the city, forgotten and warm – nearer to the base of all things – a man walks slowly from couch to study, reading a battered tome with interest.
In a single room apartment across town, a girl made old before her time, fingers a scrap of paper with a number scrawled across it in a possessive script. She wonders if she will be safer or more at risk if she sacrifices herself to that number. She folds the paper and carefully places it inside her bra, and quietly damns her life for forcing her to make these choices. She gets up and walks to her closet trying to decide what to wear tomorrow.
Across the city, lovers sigh in each others embrace, people drink alone, men creep about in the dark looking for victims, children toss in their beds dreaming of birthdays, plans are hatched, decisions are finalized, and death comes swiftly and without consideration.
The man below stands in his study, his weight balanced on one leg, and slips a scrap of paper between the pages of his book. He takes note of the passage, commits it to memory, and sighs as he closes the book. Tomorrow will be perfect, he thinks as he absently hums the first few bars of the music that he has chosen. He has no idea why he reads as much love poetry as he does.
It is 10:57pm, and the rain stops as suddenly as it began.
For Raymond by Dark Globe feat. Julie Thompson
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4. They were happy that he was home again. They worried so when he went out. There was nothing to do but wait in the indigo twilight until his figure of light and dark swept through their atmosphere again. He refracted heat, if not light, out towards them, and though they were made of stone and steel and locks and hinges, they bent to caress him. Welcome back! We missed you so!
Sometimes he sang to them. Sometimes he played music or read aloud – oh, to hear his voice reverberating off their skins! Sometimes he sat and watched old movies with them, and they cradled him trying to keep him quiet and still. They wanted to tell him how much they adored him, how they loved to protect him and how they worried for his loneliness. If only they had hands to touch with or lips to speak from, he would never have a reason to cry out in the night, afraid of his own singularity.
He would know that he was loved.
From Off To On – by The Knife
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5. The shades were drawn and there was nothing left in the world but blue light, the taste of bourbon on his lips and the warm silhouette before him. His hands shook as he reached for the face that he loved and pulled it close. Breath warmed his cheek as their foreheads touched. His hands clenched, desperately pleading for what he knew he should not want, while his mind tried to pull him away. His lips grazed another’s and he could not help himself. He pulled in a firm lower lip and sucked gently. In the dark he heard groans that he had only dreamed of before, and he was not certain that he was awake now. Strong hands gripped his waist and pulled him closer. He drew back in shock, his breath coming out in ragged bursts.
“This is wrong.” He husked.
“Too late to turn back now, Eric.” Dominic whispered, brushing Eric’s cheek with his lips and holding him unmercifully close. “Kiss me like that again or I’ll shoot you.”
Walkin’ After Midnight by Cowboy Junkies
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6. She bucked against him furiously as he raised her out of the tub of ice water for the third time. She clawed and spat and choked, but still she put every single ounce of herself into fighting him. That’s it, my love! Don’t submit to me ever! Not EVER!
His sole purpose was to break her and rebuild her from the inside out, but the fight in her constantly roused him. It never went out, no matter how much he hurt her. Part of him prayed that he would fail. He wanted her to fight him until the end. He loved her so hard – yes, hard - in these moments. He had been at this for 3 weeks and each day he hoped that she would break and that he could end it, but was secretly elated that she wouldn’t. He was physically aroused by her constant battling too, but this impulse was too dark and sordid for him to stomach so he pushed it away and only wondered vaguely how he could get an erection from the sight of a skeletal human who smelled like her own shit.
“Where is Codename V?!” He bellowed.
“F-fuck y-you!” She coughed, nearly choking. “What more c-can you do to me if I r-refuse?”
He grabbed her by the neck and the groin, lifting her from the cell floor as he brutally inserted a middle finger into her unguarded center.
“There are plenty of things that I haven’t tried yet, honey.” He growled.
“Do it then, you m-miserable cocksucker! What more can you take b-but my b-body!” She trembled in his grip. “Bet you’re built like a toothpick a-anyway…”
He throbbed as he held her; he wanted her – her fear and her defiance. He moaned menacingly and threw her face down into the water tub until she almost blacked out. He dragged her by the scruff of her coverall into her cell and watched as she lolled on the cell floor before him semi-conscious. Her covering was hiked up over her hips and he stood transfixed by the sight of her.
“Toothpick.” She breathed and then she passed out.
He roared and slammed the door, sliding down its face helplessly as he fought to swallow his sobs.
Fight with fire, and we all get burned , he thought.
This Language by Stateless
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7. “Witch!”
She’s not coming. I should have foreseen it, he thought. She promised but one taste of life away from here and she left him to rot. He should have locked her up and tossed the key. He should have kept her safe and cowed in the darkness – close to him and away from temptation. He should have broken her so thoroughly that it did not matter if she left because she would have been less than human. He should have taken her and used her like the craven-hearted villain that he was.
He ached at her betrayal. He was burning away inside that just one last look meant so much to him. He hated that he needed anything this much.
The jukebox came to life in the next room and he rose to follow his heart that had leapt from his chest at the first note. She stood over the glowing box and turned to face him, smiling warily.
His rage and self-loathing engulfed him like a condemned man on a pyre, until nothing remained but eddies of ash floating in the air around him. He smiled as he cried behind the mask: how could he love something that he could not understand?
Troy by Sinead O’Connor
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8. I’m losing myself, she thought absently. She believed everything that he said. She accepted his actions despite how they made her ethics twitch frantically. She listened, she absorbed, she learned; like sitting at the foot of Aristotle, she questioned nothing about his wisdom.
Another woman was alive inside her. So strange to feel this alien being using her limbs, possessing her eyes, using her voice – but not her. Was this love? She was so fully immersed in him that she could not feel herself anymore. And he hadn’t so much as held her hand…
Delorian by Atomica
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9. Blood pooled around her. It seeped through her coat from above and soaked her socks from below. His breathing was becoming short and wet. His chest heaved mightily to keep himself there for just a few more seconds. He had mentioned roses. He had mentioned love and a future for all, but she heard none of it.
An insistent beat thrummed through her and soothed the fluttering, panicked bird of her heart. She felt the warmth of his blood on her and she felt as if she never wanted to wash it off. She curled her fingers into his and squeezed, catching his drifting attention. She bent over his face as she held him in her lap, and kissed the lips of his mask reverently: like kissing the lips of a holy icon.
“I’ve found the one I’ve waited for.” She breathed in his ear.
His breath caught in his throat, the mask turning to face her, and he squeezed her hand fiercely before going limp and silent.
Gorecki by Lamb
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10. The sun rose magnificently that morning. He could not remember the last time he had taken the time to watch a sunrise completely. He was quiet and motionless. He did not have anywhere to be today. The virgin rays struck him and he was suddenly possessed by the desire to have the sun on his face. He unbuckled the straps and let the mask fall, not caring where it ended up. Warmth spread over him but it was not from the sun’s heat. He closed his eyes and smiled, enjoying a moment of just being without reflection or analysis. He was weightless and almost giddy with released emotion. He opened his eyes and looked off to the south where the ruin of Parliament still smoldered in the dawn’s new light. How glorious!
Voices below him dragged him back into the present as he watched Inspector Finch offer his coat to Evey. With a ruined finger, V traced her body’s outline in the air before him, wishing for a moment that he had been Finch in that instant. Finch and Evey turned and headed back inside the building to the lift directly underneath him. She would be fine – better than fine. He had done right by her.
“How glorious.” It was a long time before he realized that he had said it aloud.
Hayling by FC Kahuna