The room was full of fog. A heated mist that swam drunkenly from wall to wall. A strange miasma only he could see, or - more accurately - only he could feel, as he anxiously awaited the arrival of his prey to this opulent trap, located on a floor above the tenth.
Walls once mauve, now crimson. A glowing hue that was slowly oozing. He'd made them such. Candles control color. Darkness changes things. Darkness had changed him. He looked the same, he thought, as he peered through the fog at his reflection in the large, ornate mirror. Yet here, in this hotel room and under the spell of this fog, he was something he could not fathom. Never taking his eyes from his own, he slowly stepped backward until he found himself sitting on the edge of the massive bed. He neither fantasized nor thought realistically about what was to transpire in this room. He just thought.
Temptress. She had invited this, he assured himself. She beckoned danger, if only secretly; if only in her thoughts. It was her nature. Her mind wandered into places it should not. And he was the only one in the world who knew this.
He'd made the discovery as a young boy, perhaps of eleven years. He'd made the discovery at a time when his child mind was unusually consumed by adult desires, the nature of which he could not come close to understanding, yet which devoured him, nonetheless. She, at the time, was a young woman of eighteen years. Her form already carrying the burden of buxom beauty generally befitting that of a woman several years her senior. Together and without words nor explanations, they would secretly probe and prowl the forbidden alleys of a dark and sophisticated thrill that somehow haunted them mutually. Pretty nightgowns and kitchen knives. Rope-burned wrists and kissing whips. Naked shoulders and hungry hands. What he did to her thickened her breath, shivered her skin, and caused her eyes closed to see that which was not there. Her secret was safe with him: the boy would never admit to this sin.
CHAPTER TWO
More than two decades had passed since their sins. She was now well into her forties, married and with three children. He was in his mid-thirties and had spent most of the time since in gotham before returning to a willowy hometown six months prior. The two had even less in common now than they had twenty years ago. The exception was this that was to bring them together that afternoon.
Arrangements had been made electronically. Instantaneous and faceless missives sent to one another late in the evenings - small and scattered black markings against an ice-white surface that bled languid lust and fueled forgotten fires. This had been the method used for all of their exchanges of this nature. He had chosen his words carefully: She could not know the identity of her pursuer. He had chosen his words skillfully: She must be seduced and not scared. He had succeeded.
He had evoked that in her which he knew had laid dormant for so many years. His dark lust had not dwindled; nor had hers, he convinced himself. The twisting tumult of a demon urge that smelled of roses - it surely still existed. That she was intrigued by the vague words of a mysterious predator was testament. That she ultimately began to beg him for more was proof.
Though it had begun as a difficult courtship. Responses few and brief, mostly skeptical and often dismissive - relentless reminders that she was a happily married woman who had little interest in his peculiar provocations. Yet he persevered. Picking through the vast volumes of memories from their lurid childhood encounters, he selected the perfect tools by which to manipulate her secret soul. Things he had learned. Bizarrely bestowed with the acumen of a grown man, the child had been acutely aware of the mysteries of womanhood. He had learned how to read her reactions. He knew what it was that she uniquely craved and when she craved it. Her neck and shoulders bared and touched. Wicked words whispered into her ear. Equal parts threat and sensuality. Dark intentions laced with lustful need. To be a princess in the clutches of a villain. These were the hints delivered to her in his anonymous letters. These were the desires no other knew.
She never confessed in her letters. Merely that she responded to his words was admission. A woman in her station did not admit to interests unusual, not even to her husband. Perhaps not even to herself. Hence, he provided her with a seemingly safe means by which to venture into the dark areas that stirred something sacred within. They were just words. Words no one else would read, it was promised. Though he knew he had never completely earned her trust as the faceless stranger who hungered for her, one more aware of her desires than she, herself, he also knew it was that element of fear and danger that compelled her to continue.
CHAPTER THREE
The flickering candles perfumed the fog, turning it into a sultry serpent that gracefully slithered as it hypnotized. He was hypnotized, in a sense. Otherwise, he would not have been where he was. He never intended to be there. He never thought it would come to this that was so forbidden. He'd begun to seduce her with words without consideration of the consequences. What he did was born from a restlessness brought about by a life that lacked the thrill to which he had become accustomed. He had found minor refuge in the idea of seducing her. It entertained him in its perversity, it challenged him in its impossibility, and it aroused him in its ability to re-awaken a forgotten history of beautiful filth and vile eroticism.
He enjoyed composing the letters and, even more, he thrilled at her replies. When he had commenced with this scandalous endeavor, he was manipulating her with icy precision. However, he soon found himself, too, seduced, not only by the bizarre set of circumstances but also by her curious responses.
"Whoever you are, you are taking me someplace I do not want to go," she had once written well into their month-long discourse. "Please take me deeper into that place. Much deeper." Words hardly profound, yet a masterpiece when considering their author. For a middle-aged society wife with a sunny disposition and tendency toward conformity, betraying such a darkly suggestive fascination was to compromise all. The loot from this crime had exceeded his expectations. Though, like any criminal, he could not resist his greed for more.
And yet it was she who had first proposed a rendezvous, though not of the scandalous nature that now awaited them. Coffee, she suggested. Lunch. Indiscretion and was not in her nature. Nor was tempting it, prior to his pursuit. Now she desperately longed to place a face to these words that had begun to affect her in such a strange and unexpected manner. He knew that she would have done almost anything for such an opportunity. This, he exploited. Toying with her delicate disposition. Tearing at her sumptuous femininity in the same way he had once done. She obeyed him, far more so than when he was but a boy. With words alone, he had gained control of the loose jewels of her lust. Divine treasures she possessed without knowing until he did show her. Surrender, she must. To whomever he was, she would not care, so long as he delivered her into some sublime realm.
Or so had been his distant hope, once agreeing to their unholy liaison. Alas, it was unlikely. The damnation of better judgement would no doubt prevail, which would lead to catastrophic results. He cared not, however, intoxicated by the same nefarious trance that undoubtedly controlled her.
Nonetheless, the fog suddenly began to clear the room. He stood. She knocked on the door.
CHAPTER FOUR
He peered through the peephole and out into the plush hallway. Flesh, fur and jewels, she stood, heavy perfume wafting under the door. She'd never been this before. Without her knowing, was this now for him. She was this now for it. Darkness, danger painted her elegant and turned pretty day into sultry night.
A second series of knocks trembled against his door-pressed cheek. She longed, persistently and desperately, and would not flee timidly. The fog enveloped him. "Go away," he whispered to himself, film of sweat across his brow. Then he witnessed glass-red nails being checked and exposed shoulders inspected. No longer the tall maiden with a sheet of cascading dark chocolate silk flowing down her back. No longer did her body curve like a gentle hourglass. Thick contours of ample shape and loosened lines of supple form made her the woman she once was not. A lady awaited. She now labored to allure. Efforts to entice a demon's lust conjured the woman she craved to be. In her sensual vulnerability came her sublime feminine beauty. It existed now, perhaps for the first time in twenty years.
"Very well," he thought when she knocked a third. He reluctantly loosened bolts and slowly pulled the door toward him, feeling the shadow crawl from over his features. He revealed the face of her phantom.
A clang of bracelets shattered his wits as she brought her hand to her mouth in silent repulsion. Paralyzed, she stood. Her mind overwhelmed and toiled. Zombie-like guided, he brought her in, softly, and positioned her in a stiff armchair associated with the fine desk, the fog full of sparks but not seducing. Not yet. With ghost-like frailty, the door behind clicked to a close on its own volition, sealing the two within the vapored room.
