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Melpomene (melpomene@graffiti.net)
Putting Out Thy Light
She was absorbed in her book not noticing his hard, weighted stare. Her feet tucked under her in an engulfing library armchair. One hand strayed to push back red hair as the other turned the page and with the turning he caught a glimpse of butterflies fluttering through them. Such fragile but vibrant beauty, he mused, quite appropriate. The book fell, as he took her in his arms; its many brilliant beauties fading to black in the darkness between the closed pages. He held her close to better catch the unique scent of her that perfumed her hair and skin. It wasn't the same as before but he could pretend. "Willow," he breathed before he drove his mouth against hers, forcing his tongue between her teeth. Her lips weren't as soft as he'd imagined her mouth not as pliant as he'd hoped. "Don't be afraid, surely it is something to have been the best beloved for a little while, to have walked hand in hand with love, and seen his purple wings flit once over thy smile." He was whispering as he looked into darting, green eyes that pleaded with him before he sank his teeth into her creamy-skinned neck. None of the differences mattered for she still tasted the way she was supposed to, like nectar made from the pulped petals of the mystic rose. As his hands tangled in her hair, the deep blue of his nails were chipped, littering speckles of darkness through the brightness. All too soon he had to let her go and she staggered back bringing down the curtains as she fell. And as her life ebbed away there was no trace of it, the blood indistinguishable from the dark red of the velvet she lay knotted in. * * * The girl lay in the bed, one hand curled around a soft toy, another with a book in its grasp. Willow picked up the book. She knew his patterns well enough by now to know what the title would be. "The Collector" by John Fowles, she'd been reading it the night before and had fallen asleep lying there just like the corpse before her. Memory made flesh. A band was there on the dead girl's wrist. How he had managed to fashion it out of his hair she didn't know, but she knew it was his hair. It was the same soft fineness, the same unnatural white. She took the band off the girl and pushed the husk of what once housed a personality off her bed, lying down just as it had, to hold to her breast his bright hair. Later it would join her other blonde gifts but for now she just closed her eyes. She could almost feel his pale hands lacing through her hair, dark fingernails hidden amongst the tresses.
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