Black cloven hooves stepped beside me. One lifted, pulling my sticky blood with it as it stepped closer to me. A deep sigh filled my ears then it felt like time stood still. My heart beat slower—A good few seconds between each strangled beat.

Then everything changed.

I no longer lay naked on cold white tiles, but on warm black ones, so shiny they reflected me. There were no walls, no ceiling, no bathroom fixtures. My blood no longer pooled around me, but the smell of sulfur burned my nose. My head even cleared. I sat up and looked around. It was nothingness and warmth. It wasn’t a dark room but well lit right above me with the light filtering softer as it reached outward, eventually fading to pitch.

A man knelt in front of me. A tall man with long wavy black hair and piercing green eyes. He smiled and held his hand out to me. I took it. As I rose to my feet, I looked around, confused.

“Do you feel better?” he asked, his voice quiet but deep.

I nodded.

“What hurt so much?” He began to circle me and I followed his movement.

I tried to speak but found I had no voice.

He reached his hand out, running his thumb along my lips then cupped my jaw in his hand before lowering his lips to mine, “Try now,” he said once our lips parted.

“My heart,” I said without hesitation. It surprised me. My hand went to my lips. I had the hardest time expressing myself and being open and honest about my feelings. I repressed and hid until it destroyed me inside. I only let it out in words on a page which I burned after.

His head dipped as he made a full rotation around me. He wore jeans and a T-shirt. Everything about him looked like an average college kid. Though, his regal posture belied his casual appearance.

“Tell me what happened?” His lips remained close to mine as he spoke.

“I loved someone I shouldn’t have,” my narrowed eyes lifted to meet his gaze.

A smile formed on his lips as he looked away from me, “Loved?”

“He wasn’t what he seemed,” I said in a defensive tone.

His head tipped to the side, “Wasn’t I?”

“You tricked me.”

“You wanted tricks,” his hand ran down the side of my cheek.

“I wanted love.”

“Did I not love you? Many times beneath the heavens?”

“Love is more than sex.”

“Sex is the best kind of love,” he retorted.

My eyes shifted to the ground, “Would you even care if I died?”

“I’m here aren’t I?”

I stood and moved over to him, my hand on his chest, my head tipped to the side, “For a final ride?”

He took my hand and twirled me in front of him until my back was against his chest, “If you insist.”

I pulled free of him and he grasped my wrist again, pulling me to him and whispering, “A repeat of our first time?”

He snapped his fingers and I lay in a red spattered bed, my legs spread with him knelt between them. His tongue, much too long, entered me as I gasped. My hands tightened on the metal spokes on my headboard as my heartbeat quickened. The need to orgasm rose within me. With so little effort I was there, arched and trembling with his kiss.

Sitting up, he smiled, “Such a sensitive girl.”

He pulled me over and onto his cock, a pleasured sigh escaped him. “The perfect girl,” he whispered. His hands grasped my hips and pulled me. My neck scorched as his lips cascaded from my ear to my clavicle. “I slowed time for you.”

I winced at the warmth of his touch and the depth of his penetration, “Because I’m dying.”

“How is that not love?”

“I’m still dying,” his hands grasped my hips and I moaned, “and you’re choosing this over saving me.”

“You chose to die.”

“Am I dead?”

“Do you want to die?”

“How would I know?”

“You already answered. You aren’t there yet,” he smiled and pushed me away.

My eyes opened, a dark-haired man knelt beside me, putting pressure on my wounds with a towel. He had piercing green eyes, “I’m not collecting you,” he whispered.

“One of these times you’ll have to,” I said as he lifted me into his arms.

“You got my attention this time, love.”

Sulfur always lingers.

THE END