Dimitri

I needed to end things with Ivan quickly because of another reason. Him not being alone in this complex game of souls. Dimitri could have come in at any moment and the walk to the car, getting the supplies and then coming back wouldn’t take so long. And it didn’t as I heard him close the front door and go directly upstairs to Liza to give her whatever the baby needed.

I had to make sure that nothing seemed suspicious to him. Especially not Ivan’s sudden absence.

Quietly, I closed the door to the living room behind me and walked back to the kitchen, and stood exactly at the spot where he last saw me, with the exact expression of utter fear and shock smeared all over myself.

His slow steps reverberated in the upper hallway, but it never came down the stairs. Instead, they stayed still until the creak of the door to my room made me realize that he just walked into my room. This was definitely not in the plan. Well, I didn’t have a blueprint plan before they barged into the house, but this was not in my improvised plan. It definitely managed to rattle me as I scrambled to decide my next course of action.

Perhaps it is best that he didn’t come downstairs. Through the innumerable possibilities, he could have easily found Ivan’s dead body. Let alone the fact that a missing Ivan would have definitely made him start collecting the pieces of the puzzle. So I also needed to make sure that he didn’t make it downstairs.

My steps up the staircase were anything but quiet, as the old wooden planks creaked more loudly than they ever have. The darkness was not much of a help but I didn’t need the light either to walk through the house which once used to be my safe haven. Things had completely flipped over now.

The door was almost closed shut with just the smallest bit of opening, too small to let me in but big enough for me to peek inside and scale the surroundings before I made my move.

My room was also left dark with the lights turned off but brighter still as the moonlight from the night struggled to enter the room through the white satin windows, bellowing in the wind. And there he was, standing in front of my bed. Staring at something that only he could see.

“It’s your room. Come in.” I didn’t know that my heart could beat as fast as it did when he spoke up so nonchalantly. He knew exactly where I was and that further sowed the disturbing thought that he might also know what I did.

“What are you looking at?” I was genuinely curious and instead of trying to distract him, for some very odd reason I actually wanted to know what was going on in his mind.

“When you moved here and started living with Liza, I used to watch you sleep.” The chill I felt, froze my whole being. Making it impossible for me to breathe as I stood there still, waiting for him to talk about more of this horrifying reality that I was completely oblivious too.

“As a matter of fact, I was here before you even moved in. Such a shame that there were no houses nearby where I could live, but instead I had to drive all the way from the city every night so that I could see you, be close to you.” He turned around, his dark figure looking at me with crystal green eyes. “It was worth it every time.” I could feel the anxiety brewing in me like hot bubbling poison, and I couldn’t afford to be possessed by it. Being in control was of utmost importance, so I did what I had to.

My feet moved forward even before I could even fully complete the thought of the idea of what I was about to do. I crashed into him and so did my lips. Moving, quick and rough, while he stood still like a dead statue.

He wasn’t shocked, and that I was sure of because his arms were wound around my body, holding me close to him, making sure that there was no room for even the slightest breath of air in between us. And yet his lips didn’t move the slightest bit. That’s when it hit me, the crushing weight of embarrassment and utter horror of what I was doing. The thought itself made me want to pull away, but Dimitri was quick to study me as his grip on me got tighter and after being unabashedly unresponsive, he kissed me back with such fervour that I couldn’t even begin to match it.

I tried to keep up but failed as my hands dug into his lush soft hair while he stepped towards the bed, guiding me towards the same, and so I did. I was too preoccupied trying to be the one who dominated, not the one submitting. I had to win after losing so many times. I had to.

We dropped on the bed with him on top of me and my hands pushed down by his. I could barely breathe, struggling to inhale for the split second that our lips separated. Eyes closed, fighting not to escape but to be in charge.

Finally, Dimitri let go of my hands and grazed my body instead. His hands roaming with an intent of slow display of an emotion he didn’t understand completely. Love. But it was too late.

A lone tear rolled down my cheek as I came to terms with the things that I will face later, the tormenting memory that will haunt me forever, but there was no other escape. Better that than this. And with that last echo in my mind, I started moving.

It was not easy, shouldn’t have been, with him being so much taller and stronger than me, for me to be able to flip him so that he was underneath, and I was on top. He let me. He liked it when I took in charge. So contradicting to what g believed before. Such fate, that made him decide to let me do so in a moment so perfect. I couldn't have got a better chance to do what I needed to do.

I put both of my hands on his shoulders and looked at him. His eyes glistening, as if smiling with the hope of something ominous. And it lasted so long that I thought we would never stop as I grazed his face with my thumb one last time and really saw him one last time.

The small freckles that hid so well until now, his cold lips ragged from neglect and lastly his hypnotising green eyes, murky with mystery and secrets. One last time before I got painted by him.

Red was not powerful enough to subdue the green, as that’s all that I could see while the sputtering fountain that was him, drenched me whole and drowned me in for what was definitely the last time. Once crossed the bridge, forever gone.

I was not pushed off, thrown across the room or even moved a bit as I sat on top of him still until his hands grabbed my face and pulled me closer. The metallic taste on my lips against his, moving so slowly, matching his rhythm. He was getting weaker by the moment but did nothing to stop and when. His hands dropped from my face, but his lips still moved, even if the slightest bit, even when he couldn’t even breathe any more. Or perhaps it was just my imagination.

I got up from him and sat beside on the bed. The small pocket knife still in my hand as I kept looking at him. Eyes open, looking up where I was, with a small slither of a smile on his lips.