Page 10 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7
There is the sense of a shadow drawing close, then his breath is warm against my cheekbone, his voice dropped low. “I watched you from my room, not so close you’d see me if you ever looked up, but close enough to catch you laugh and smile and flirt on our street. Sunshine, but you’d tip your head over your shoulder too, glancing back. Atmyhouse.” He slowly slides his hand lower, slipping his fingers over the bones along my hips.
There is nothing between us.
Nothing.
Alarm bells ring inside of my mind, crawling and scratching and embedding themselves into my brain, but my body does not react. I try to open my eyes and it is useless. Every part of me is heavy and tired and still.
“Rats and snakes and lifeless bats pinned by their wings. That was around me when I saw you. My bedroom’s decor. I wasn’t a place for you then. But sometimes I imagined it, when Stein was away. I wrapped my hand around myself and closed my eyes and it was you there. Kneeling for me. Waiting. No one ever touched me like I did myself, but in my head it wasn’t me. And no one ever touched me… like you.”
“Sullen.”It comes out clumsy. I’m not sure I say it at all.
But he brushes his lips against my skin and goosebumps rise across my chest, and while my breasts feel full and heavy, something is very wrong.
“Do you shave? Are you bare?” He pulls at my lobe with his teeth, fingertips dancing over my low belly. “I don’t want you to be. I want everything how it’s meant.”
My cheeks flame hot, and I’m not waxed but I do trim and I’m wondering if he’ll love or hate it and I’m scared of wondering the wrong things because what does any of that matter when I don't know what he's going to do to me and—
This is a dream.
It's so clear to me, all at once.
This is not real.
I don't have time to play with the thought before my sleep continues, so vivid and borderline horrific with the sound of his voice.
“Let your knees fall to the side. Stop being so tense. You’re as rigid as a corpse. I thought I gave you enough…” He kisses my ear then and his hand goes lower.
In my mind, my spine curves and arches off whatever soft surface I am lying upon, but in reality, I do not move as he flickers his touch over my pubic bone.
But no lower.
He is teasing me.
I am dreaming. I am growing wet for him.
“Sullen,”I try again because this is not real. There was no Cosmo. No meeting I was not invited to. There were no years in which I dreamt of the devil of Writhe. Or perhaps, the devil’s only son. Worse than the father; he knows all the tricks.
His breath warms my mouth. He is looming over me now as his thumb draws circles on my low belly. The green lighting is dimmed behind my closed lids, blocked by his presence alone. “You cannot stop it, you know.I never could.”
I have no idea what he means, but there seems to be a world of sadness and grief and hatred for himself in those words.
Then he presses his palm flat, on my low belly, directly in the center. The pressure is firm, nearly painful, as if he wants to squeeze my organs out.
“I wonder what I could make this do.” He speaks as if I am an experiment. Not a person, only a body.
“Sullen.”My pulse is rapid now, but I still cannot see or move or scream. I try again, though, with my words. “Where did you go?” My breath hitches, my voice breaks. I do not know if I am being clear.
But he stops trying to crush me and instead lets his hand relax.
I greedily drink in air. I try to survive the dream despite the fact I am still rendered motionless.
Then I sense him move away, as if he is straightening, sitting up, but he doesn’t stop touching me.
He is silent.
A soft hum moves through the green-tinted room. I do not know what it is; like a fan turned on low. But it disguises my heartbeats from my own ears.
“Sullen?” I can’t stop saying it. It’s like a prayer on my lips, a hope for the hopeless because this may be a dream, but Sullen Rule is always unreachable, in sleep or wakefulness.
