1)

   The air doesn’t feel right as I walk down the street. The air has hands and they are all over me, touching me, brushing their unseen fingers through my hair. I try to bat the hands away from me but they continue to wander across me, insatiable, exploring the shape of my breasts, the inner contours of my thighs. Used, used, I am used by nature, to give the air its strange pleasures. I shield my face, my eyes, begging for them to go away.

   People look at me, at times. These looks are half knowing, half confused, some contradiction that my being brings to people. A juxtaposition. I kneel to the pavement, a man almost trips over me as I do so. He says nothing, just looks, looks with big brown eyes. He cannot hold his anger for long. I lean down now to the puddle, and scoop some of the water up onto my face, it is cold but dirty.

   Now I begin to drink some of it, refreshing me with its writhing touch down my throat. A pigeon too comes to stand by me, making its curious noise, purring almost like a cat. Their eyes are remarkably blank, teddy bear black eyes, and I wonder if you could just pluck them off, if the pigeon would even notice, perhaps it couldn’t feel in its simple world. I reach a hand towards it but it flies away, as if reading my intents. My mind is open, it is open to this roaming animal, and it is open to all of those around me. At times I can feel them peering in, unwanted visitors pushing through my hair and scalp and skull to delve within it, to take my thoughts and play with them , to turn them and twist them with their hateful hands. Sometimes

   Sometimes I try to stop them lurking there but all it can become is static, a thousand voices just filtering into one and I cannot pick out the words, the words are lost and I feel them

   Pleading to come, to come in, but it is a white noise plea and it hurts

   It hurts my ears, the sound just grows louder and louder as they gather until I am unable to withstand it, my eardrums begin to split and my ears begin to bleed

   I feel the blood coming, coming from them in great spurts, gushing around me, blending into the filthy brown of the puddle and and and

   And still they look at me, wishing to deform my thoughts with their grubby hands and I can’t take the pain any more and I break, the door breaks, breaks down

   And I lay, suffering each

   invasive…

2)

   ‘Hey, are you alright?’ The voice is unfamiliar and it is now I open my eyes to look up. It is a man there, his eyes convey a compassion, coloured green in his gaze.

   ‘Am I alright?’ I ask, not knowing an answer to give him. ‘Well, you were laying here in the middle of the floor. I thought you had passed out or something.’

   ‘No, no. It’s just…’ I pause, hesitating to tell him. People do not like me telling them, I have grown to know this much. ‘It’s just…what?’ His voice is kind, somehow musical in its expressiveness. ‘Nothing. It’s nothing.’

   ‘Well, look do you want a coffee or something? It’s freezing out here.’

   ‘Coffee? Coffee…yes.’

   ‘Great. Let me give you a hand getting up.’ He grabs my arm, his grip is powerful, and with a minimal effort I am on my feet again. I cannot remember falling but I must have.

   I spend a couple of minutes, allowing my hands to absorb the warmth of the coffee cup. I can see it bursting from it, its shade is red-orange and it courses into my skin hungrily. My body accepts it, welcomes it. The café seems to be very quiet and there are no eyes looking at me, no seeking glances. Only his, and his seem to be different. They do not invade, but seem to invite me. ’So…are you homeless?’

   ‘Yes. I have been for a while.’

   ‘It’s a pity. How come?’

   ‘It’s…difficult to explain.’

   ‘Alright. I’m not going to pry. How do you like this place?’

   ‘It’s nice. I like things to be quiet.’

   ‘Well this place is a bit of a secret. I like the quiet too.’

   ‘Really?’

   ‘Yeah, that’s why I come here. Things are so busy these days.’

   We leave, I don’t know how long later. He leads me by the hand and his touch is gentle, caring, unlike any I have felt before. I look over his form, his short black hair, the slightly muscled shape of his torso beneath his grey shirt, the toned length of his arms. There is something about him that I am unaccustomed to, he is almost protective of me, this stranger. The streets rush by in a haze of memory and the air does not want to touch me any more.

3)

   The door to his flat swings open, and I feel the lust building up within him. It emanates from him, held within the growing heat of his body. I wonder if he sees this growing in me too, if he sees things the way I do. He kisses me, his lips are slightly cold but still pleasurable upon my own, his tongue is exploring me, driving down, pulsing and growing, sliding its bulbous length beyond my mouth, down to my throat, beyond, towards my stomach, flailing in its acid-laden depths, delighting me with its inner touch….

   The bedroom. He pulls of my shirt, begins to kiss my pale breasts, arousing me with the gentle brush of his lips. He plays his fingers down my stomach, tender, and pushes his hand into my trousers. His touch is expert and I almost fall at the pleasure of his touch, his thumb pressing hard against my clitoris, another finger dipping into my moist opening. His desire begins to control him and he leans back, undoes his flies as I stand near-naked before him. His erection is immense, a foot long, covered in bizarre etchings, black tattoos of line-drawn shapes, heiroglyphic. He looks up to me, smiling and I kneel before him, place the end of his penis in my mouth, working my tongue across it as I move around him. He lets out a little moan and I look downwards and see that the tattoos have come alive, and they begin to crawl, heading towards my mouth, some slither across my cheeks, their touch is squirming and insidious and all the while he holds my head in its place and the tiny creatures crawl onto my tongue, biting into it and some clamber downwards onto my neck and slide into the thick veins there, I want to move and I cannot breathe and I begin to cough, heaving dryly and finally he moves his hand and I recoil from him, trying hard to spit out the delicate monsters but they won’t relinquish their vampiric grip…

   ‘What? What is it?’ He looks down to me again, concerned and scared at once, juxtaposed. I can see his large member, still pulsing with blood, and his unusual drawings remain there. I put my hand to my tongue, bring it back, thee is no redness there. ‘I…I’m sorry. There was…’

   ‘What? What was there? What did I do wrong?’

   ‘No, it’s okay. Please.’ I lean my head to his swollen member again, still wanting him to want me the same. He responds to my touch, still the pleasure is there for him.

   He lifts me to the bed and now he is within me, so deeply, and I am open to him. His desire does not die as the night wears on but grows, his touch is at once forceful and kind and the daybreak tears the horizon when he ejaculates into me one final time, exhausted, holding me close to him. We breathe, heavily, as one.

4)

   I awaken, and there is a little darkness within the room. I can see the sun outside of the window but it somehow does not seem to penetrate that glass layer. Now he returns to the room, and I ask him ’Does it seem dark in here?’ He holds in his hand two large glasses.

   ‘No, seems just fine. I made you a drink.’

   ‘What is it?’

   ‘I made it specially. It’s a surprise.’

   ‘Okay.’ He hands it to me, and its colour is something like the night in the corners of his room. He smiles to me and I smile back.

   ‘A drink…to the shadows.’ I am unable to understand what he means, but allow my glass to clash with his and say ‘To the shadows.’ The drink itself is extremely thick, syrupy, not unpleasant tasting. It slides down easily enough despite its viscosity. He smiles to me and says ‘Thank you for the wonderful night.’ He plants a kiss upon my forehead before saying. ‘I have to go to work. I’ll be back later, I’d like you to stay here.’

   ‘Sure. It’s a lot better than outside.’

   ‘Great. I’ll see you later.’ He places his drink on the bedside table before he leaves, untouched.

   The flat itself is fairly small, but it has a pleasant kitchen and I begin to prepare myself something to eat. The fridge is fairly well stocked and soon enough I have a simple plate of eggs, toast and cold meats. It takes me a few moments to find a fork but soon enough I begin to eat and the food tastes good, my first for several days. Having eaten I decide to take a shower, the simple human pleasures usually denied to me. After this I luxuriate for a while in the warmth of his bed, remembering the exquisite pleasures we shared there.

5)

   I awaken, surprised that I have even been able to sleep. Usually sleep is fitful, but I feel a new comfort in this place. The sun seems to have vanished outside, and the room is drowned in thick dark. I look out of the window only to see that the sun is at its zenith, shining a luminescent yellow. I cannot understand why its touch does not seem to leak into the room, and rise, disturbed by this fact, moving towards the door. However something is slowing me down, it feels as though I am moving through a thick liquid. There is the faintest of noises, rumbling beyond the doorway but I am unable to reach it and I fall and there

   There again is the dizzying static and the voices, each one reaching into me, but there are no people here, no greedy hands to manipulate my mind, how can this be

   The fingers are different though more insistent and they delve deeper, penetrative as if they can take each part of my thoughts and break them down and reconstitute them into a language that I cannot even understand, to tear each idea of mine apart and reshape them so that they are beyond

   My comprehension, fading away

   The black shadows contain these voices, each one laughing, laughing, a deafening laughing that seems to be from nowhere

   My ears are bleeding, bleeding again but it is not my blood, as though somebody else’s

   And I feel my eyes pushing forwards, as though they are trying to burst from their sockets and I hold my hands before them trying to keep them in their place but the same unfamiliar blood pours from them and I cannot even figure out the hurt, a sensation that I cannot word

   There are no words any more, and my tongue has begun to contract and my eyes finally are forced from my head, I feel their oval shapes in my palm, slick and disgusting and

   And I cannot see any more

   But the shadows are writhing and they seem to be breathing, I feel the heat of their breath upon me, it is filled with a perverse hunger there

   The liquidic darkness begins to reach into me, into the emptied sockets of my eyes, into my tongue less mouth, pouring itself into me and I am choking

   Choking on the night, and with every vile arm that lowers its way into me I am gone, I am gone, gone

   Melting into the shadows

   Becoming nothing

   The tendrils of night

   Take

   Over, it’s over

6)

   A few hours later, he returns and enters the bedroom. She is laid upon the floor, her skin is now black where it once was white. Her face is eyeless, without expression. He leans down to her, placing a hand upon her benighted flesh and the rush of garbled words that pour into his mind cause him to retract. These are the million speakers in the dark, the whispers she came so close to understanding. Now she will lay forever, cloaked beneath this palpable black, the outlet for the unheard.

   He gives a little smile, kisses where her lips would be and says ‘To the shadows’.