I lie still, listening, but in the black, my senses always play tricks on me. Getting up, I move carefully, one hand out in front of me, trying to visualize the location of the bathroom door. I find the far wall and pass my hand lightly along it until I find the opening. Inside, there’s a strange burnt smell that I don’t recognise.
Trailing my hand along the countertop, I make it to the toilet and smile to myself at making it this far without bumping into anything. When I finish, I don’t flush. I half smile to myself. I’m not helpless in the dark, after all.
I pat my hand across the counter for the tap, turn it on low, and lean over to drink and splash water on my face.
I wonder then, if Elizabeth is sleeping peacefully, or is she afraid of the dark, too? But I realise I’m not so afraid anymore. There’s beauty in the dark. Without pain, you can’t see it, feel it, but it’s there, in the darkest corner, where Shepherd and I are on fire.
As I fumble for a towel, some hot, wet thing grabs my calf, making me jump. A little hiccup of fear escapes me and then I hear that wicked, booming laugh.
‘Nice view from here,’ Shepherd says. ‘Hand me that lighter, will you?’
I turn, easing my leg out of his grasp, and see his shimmering eyes. They glow in the dark.
Shivers run down my spine. He’s been there all along, like a dragon in a cave, reclining in the tub.
‘So is the honeymoon over that you come in to take a piss without even knocking while I'm in the bath?’
My cheeks sizzle and grow like pink bubbles. ‘If you weren't always playing your monster in the dark game, I would have knocked. I didn’t know you were in here,’ I say, with my heart thumping in my throat.
‘The lighter,’ he prompts.
Unnerved, I sweep my hand along the counter, find other things, but nothing that feels like a lighter.
‘Crap. You can't see it,’ he says. He rises with a loud slosh, steps out of the tub, dripping water down my back as he leans over me.
The lighter flares and for a few seconds reveals the strange scene. He holds the lighter to a cigar clamped in his mouth, his face cast in red from the flame, his eyes closed tight against it.
His beauty is so dark, and it turns my heart to a dust muchness.
Muchness? Is that a word? No, mushiness.
On the counter lies a bar of soap, a straight razor, a can of shaving cream, an ashtray, nail clippers, toothbrush, toothpaste, some mechanical thing I don’t recognize. Probably uses it to sharpen his claws and fangs.
Then the lighter dies, leaving me with nothing but the burning after image on my retinas. Behind me, he steps back into the tub. I turn toward him uncertainly, watching as he puffs on the cigar. It glows, revealing his face for a moment before he takes it out of his mouth. The hand that holds the cigar comes to rest on the edge of the tub.
His eyes are like beacons on me. Pressed against the edge of the sink, I debate my options. Go back to the bedroom and wait for him? Or . . . stay and join him in the bath?
‘You have nice tits,’ he says, out of the blue. No, not out of the blue for him. I’m standing there naked in front of him, with my arms crossed under them. ‘Not big or anything, just the perfect shape. They look good. Feel fucking amazing.’
‘Uh, thanks, I guess.’ I drop my arms self-consciously, then just as self-consciously bring them back up, this time to cover my breasts.
‘That how it works? I compliment your tits and you cover them up?’
I drop my arms again, knowing he can see me blush. I hate that he still has the power to embarrass me, like I’m a silly blushing teenager again.
Feeling toward the door, I say, ‘I'm going back to bed.’
‘Come back here,’ he answers in a low voice. I should leave, but as always, my body ignores what my brain wants me to do — not do. I return to my position at the sink.
‘Get in,’ he says. He clamps the cigar in his mouth and then his hands are on me, guiding me as I step blindly into the tub. As I’m trying to figure out where to sit, he pulls me down on top of him in a slippery heap.
‘That's hot water,’ I gasp as it laps over me. Or I think it’s the water that’s volcanically hot.
‘Because that's the only way to get rid of bad things. You burn them.’
Sitting up, Shepherd pulls me into his lap and uses his hands to pour water over my hair. He smoothes it down my back and twists it into a wet rope that he ties around my neck. Then he begins to work his hands over my breasts, soaping them in slow circles.
‘Stand up,’ the dragon says, exhaling smoke into my face. I obey and he soaps up between my thighs. Only then, with one hand, he begins stroking between my legs and one hand lingers on my buttocks.
‘You afraid of drowning?’ he says. The cigar ember doesn’t provide enough light to read his handsome face.
‘No,’ I say cautiously, exploring the floor of the tub with my foot until I find the plug. I clasp the chain in my toes and pull. The water begins to go with a glug. He jumps up and grabs me, lifts me off my feet.
‘Shepherd,’
