Page 10 of Monsters of Desire and Nightmares of Passion

Maybe my diagnosis was right. I am a maniacally psychotic person with an inclination towards self-harm and suicide. Each time I think about it, I feel the scars on my arms burn. I can’t recall hurting myself, but the scars are there to prove it.

My surroundings become a blur. My feet know their way home, allowing me to focus on my thoughts and inner dialog. There’s no one else I can talk to about all this. I decided a while ago that, whoever I was before I lost my memory, that person is gone and not coming back.

As I push open the door and enter my tiny studio apartment on the top floor of an old house without an elevator, a familiar weight lands on my back.

“Hey, you rascal. Did you miss me?”

Powder purrs, rubbing his face against the back of my neck before landing on the floor with a thud.

I hang up my black jacket and try to walk without stumbling over Powder, who thinks my legs are somehow made for his entertainment.

“You hungry, baby?”

I found Powder a few days after I moved into this building and started working as a nurse. He was a kitten that had been thrown into a dumpster. I listened to the desperate meowing and found him, hungry and dirty. We’re just two lost souls that needed someone to love, so who said we can’t love each other and care for one another?

I open a fresh can of cat food and put it into his bowl.

Powder is a black cat, but I named him Powder because he was covered in some sort of white, powdery stuff when I found him inside the garbage bin. I don’t know to this day if it was flour, sugar, or God knows what.

With Powder eating happily, I drop my ass into my favorite reading chair. I place the tea and croissant on a small saucer next to it and watch the trees sway in the wind outside my window. The light drizzle turns into a full-blown rain. I’m happy to be inside.

I have nothing against rainy days. I love them, but only if I can watch them from the window inside my place. Rainy days are perfect for reading. My wall is covered with a huge bookshelf. If I can’t remember my own life, I can live hundreds of others instead. Fun, wild, erotic stories made up for what I felt was lacking inside my own existence. Or maybe it wasn’t lacking. I push away good things, like Dr. Martin.

He's nice.

“Powder, what do you think of Dr. Martin?”

Powder ignores me. He eats and purrs, leaving me alone with my questions.

The first sip of a warm, sweet, milky tea on a rainy morning is the most beautiful feeling there is.

Just as I’m about to turn on my Kindle and lean against the back of my chair, that sentence popped into my mind again.

“Ivy, they are real, and they’re never going to give up.”

It’s what one of the monsters that follow me in my dreams tells me each time he sees me. He says, “We are real, and we’re not going to give up on you. You belong to us.”

Just thinking about it sends a shiver of panic through me.

There’s no such thing as monsters, I tell myself.

I put the book aside and pick up my journal from the small coffee table. I got into the habit of keeping a journal during the months of therapy. Dr. Fawler used to say, “Write it down. That way, you free your memory of a burden that it feels it has to hold on to.”

A smile creeps over my face as I remember Dr. Fawler.

This diary is my most recent. I filled a few notebooks with stories that even I feel too embarrassed to read a second time. Stories that make me feel as if the things that happened in my dreams were real. But they can’t be real. Or can they?

My journal opens to a page where I made a drawing of Draw. He’s the leader. He never said as much, but he has that certain alpha energy about him. I close the notebook fast. They don’t look the same in each dream. But I always know who they are and what they want from me.

They want me.

They want my body.

They want to push my body beyond the limits of lust and passion.

“No, I won’t go there. This is crazy.” I chastise myself and look at my chocolate croissant.

Powder jumps into my lap and purrs. “Powder, I think I have low blood sugar.”

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