Dear diary,
I love her. She's so sweet, so rapturous.
Divine.
I see her at the party, and I want to dance with her but I am shy. Or maybe it is fear that I am feeling.
I offer her a drink, "What's your poison?" I ask, a cocky smile on my lips."
"You know perfectly well," she gushes, and I hand her the drink I’d already gotten. "You are so kind. I was parched, standing here alone, lit only by the shimmers of light from the mirror ball."
"What the hell?" I am angered by her arrogance, "Who the hell talks like that? Are you trying to seduce me? You think me a fool?"
"Honey!" she cries, taken aback, looking shocked in her black dress of death,
"Honey! What’s come over you? I thought we would dance. You've been flirting with me. A long distance love affair punctuated by brief moments of near-intimacy, before you shy away, pull away. This flirtation..."
She puts her hand on my shoulder and pulls me close, kissing me before I can pull away. It burns deep inside me. "A single kiss from her burns for a lifetime". The quote echoes in my mind and wakes me from the trance. I throw her hand off my shoulder with a strangled cry and a forced smile. I tip my drink onto the floor before her toes, though it’s too late for these games now.
I motion to the frosty glass in her hand, "Enjoy! Drink it down slow. Make it last", mocking her with her own words, the ones she uttered under breath when she first saw me gazing at her, entranced by the bright darkness that seemed to radiate from within her sexy form.
I turn and clamber out to the car park, tripping over my own feet and throwing up onto the dirty concrete at his feet.
“Too bitter sweet?” he asks, without so much as a grimace, "Or too much of a kick to it?"
He grins as he puts his foot to my shoulder and pushes me back, bending me backwards over my twisted legs beneath me. He swiftly slips his hand into my pocket and removes the letter. "Thanks, bud. Now here's your reward" and he deposits my prize in my left jacket pocket, above my slowly beating heart. I don’t want it; it feels dirty, burning though the cheap polyester lining. Scarring my skin. Searing my soul. But it’s too late for buyer’s remorse now. He helps me up and leads me to the shiny black van parked behind the building. Only the caterers are back here, smoking and eating leftover vegetarian meals before the dessert course begins and they have to hurry back through the steaming kitchen to indulge the room full of dancing souls intoxicated on love and laughter. He opens the back door and pushes me. I fall heels over head. I watch from the grass as he climbs into the front, and she slips out of the dark towards the van. He starts the engine and she has a look around before sliding open the side door. Her black dress of death shimmers in the moonlight and the stars seem to dance in her smiling eyes as she raises herself into black cavity before her.
I watch through the glass as she finds me in the dark and devours me, her proverbial sickle and gown strewn over the front seat. He turns his headlights off at the end of the road and the van disappears into the night.
