Tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap... The double click of his footsteps echoed faintly down the hall outside my room. The sound was heavy with the promise of conflict, anger, pain... and ultimately unquestionable desire. My eyes flicked toward the door, carefully composed into a black expression, mirroring the emptiness of my little prison.

Shhh... The door hissed open, swinging back fluidly on its hinges. His dark haired head poked in the door, his eyes blue eyes clamping onto mine. Despite myself I could feel my heart speeding up. Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump... A feral smile crept onto my lips at this. It was a thrill, the promise of a hunt, a kill. The thrill of pleasure and disaster. I stood up slowly, the first time I had moved from my little mat in hours. The muscles in my legs screamed in protest, but the pain was nothing to me... I enjoyed it. I crept toward him as he slipped inside, my legs only slightly shaky beneath me. The door clicked shut and then there was silence; nothing but my stealthy stride across the room.

He regarded me evenly, his back pressed against the smooth surface of the door. He was trying to appear calm, relaxed, but there was tension in his jaw, strain in his eyes. This made me laugh, and the air echoed with the sound, a dark noise from the back of my throat. I saw him wince slightly as my laughter scratched at his skin, but he fought to stare back at me evenly, pretending as though nothing had happened... But his eyes were like glass, clear, shining, a window into him, and he could not close them to me. I scared him and exhilerated him, pushed him away, yet lured him all the closer. He hated me and loved me... and I couldn't get enough of him. His inner battled was like sweet wine to me... Something I craved, something I longed for... Something one just couldnt get enough of until you were sick with it, dizzy and lying on the floor wishing you had never indulged yourself.

I was in front of him now, close enough to reach out and touch him, but still far enough that I made him wonder. It was agonizing yet, oh, so tempting. I could feel his heart pounding in my chest, his breath quicken in my lungs. My arms stretched out, barely grazing his fragile flesh, and I took another step forward. My hands were on his arms, my palms drinking in his warmth, sliding down over his skin, feeling every movement of his muscles, the creak and shift of his bones. Then... my fingers were clamped around his wrist. His blood was thrumming beneath my fingers, singing through my veins, and his pulse... oh his pulse was like thunder rolling through him, deafening me. My mouth tasted sour with his fear, the adrenaline that rode its course through him. I clamped down harder, relishing the feeling, hating the sick pleasure I got from this torture.

My body slammed forward, crashing into him, pinning him to the door that had once been his form of sanctuary, a secure spot. His breath was hot and rough on my cheek, shaking violently, just like his hands. The coarse air sent chills of enjoyment down my spine and provoked me even further.

"Whats the matter?" I murmured, my voice a deadly purr. He swallowed hard like there was a rock in his throat, and I grinned wildly. I loved making him feel this way, and hated myself for it, but his terror was such and addiction. His revulsion and his undeniable longing were like the perfect drug to me.

"Do I scare you?" I whispered, and felt him stiffen. "Make you tremble?" He made a strange noise in the back of his throat. I could feel the heat of him enveloping me... I could feel it in my breasts, my stomach, my legs... It was swimming through me, drowning me from the inside out. His breath was mine, his heartbeat, mine, the quake and twitching in each of his muscles, my own. HIs thoughts screamed in my head, a noiseless cacophany, boiling my brain in its own fluids.

"I hurt you dont I? Make your heart ache, tears rise in your eyes?" My voice felt strangled, his throat constricted like mine. I struggled to swallow, my body filled with his pain, my head swimming with his unshed tears, and still I could not understand why he kept returning; why he never stayed away when I tortured him so...

"No," he choked out the word. "I don't care... I don't feel for you..." he wanted so desperately to believe what he was saying. He wanted terribly to shut his eyes, to look away from me, but he couldn't. The glass was breaking. I could see the flood beginning. I could feel the aching behind his eyes, but I couldn't stop myself.

"Then why are you shaking, hmm? Why is there pain in your eyes? You say you dont care... then tell me why your heart starts pounding at the sight of me? Why does your throat tighten and your body ache to come closer, to feel me, hold me... Why baby? Why?"

Suddenly pain exploded in the side of my head, catching me off guard and silencing anything else I could have said. There was a roar in my ears and I was falling, falling. My body crumpled to the floor, and I could feel him anymore, and panic arose. Everything was black, I was blinded by the blow, and could hear nothing but a distant ringing and the rush of blood in my skull.

He rolled me onto my back, crouching over me, pinning my wrists to the floor. "SHUT UP!" He screamed, water rushing in great torrents from his eyes. "Just SHUT UP! God damn you! You're so sick! You drive me crazy! You're like a fucking parasite that I can't and won't get rid of!" His voice was dropping now to an angry murmur, like he was trying to get himself back in control. He didnt want to give me the satisfaction of seeing him react it seemed, but that was the last thing from my mind... "I love you so damn much, but I hate what you're doing! I hate how you read me so easily!" His hands shifted, and he gripped the back of my head now, pulling my face close to his so that my skull was suspended by his grip alone.

"I hate how I cant stay away from this pain!" He was just sobbing now, all anger gone from him, the spark of his rage fading, lying dead within him. The buzz in my own flesh was dying, the thrill of his fear gone, replaced with a hollow longing. "I hate what you do to me..." he whispered, shutting his eyes, "But for whatever reason I still love you.." His pain was creeping into me, agony crawling into my veins with razor sharp claws, digging its way into my brain. Now I wanted to hold him, to sooth away his fear, his sorrow. His tears were pouring from my eyes and my body shook like his as he stratled me, as he held my head from the floor. I began to cry my own tears mixed with his, and they burned my skin like acid, poisoned with the sin that lived inside me. I despised this horrid gift, the evil that survived in my flesh.

"Dont cry.." My hand reached up to touch his twist, his arm, his neck, his cheek. He hestitated, flinching away from me, afraid I would start up again, but when nothing happened, he gratefully pressed his cheek into my palm. His tears rushed all the harder as he brought his lips to my wrist, to my neck, tracing a line up to my jaw. His kisses burned my flesh, a mix of pain and pleasure. When his lips pressed to mine it was an inferno. I was on fire and his kisses seared my lips, filling by body with the raging flames, roasting me from the inside out. I was fused to him, our bodies pressed together tightly, moulded into one while his fire tore through me.

He was killing me, burning me alive in ecstacy. I lay writhing beneath him, crying in pain, fighting him off and pulling him closer, not wanting him to leave, not wanting him to stop. The sheer pleasure of his skin against mine, his mouth on mine was unbearable, but I felt as if I couldn't live without it. My mind said to push him away, but instead my fingers gripped him tighter, grasping around his neck, holding him to me, allowing the fire to burn and burn and burn...

I was in agony lying beneath him, having his body so close to mine, but he pulled his mouth away, ceased the flow of the raging inferno. We stayed together, crying and touching, holding one another for this short moment of peace. He knew it would not stay, he knew I would desire his pain again as the pleasure that fed my horrid gift. He knew this but would not leave, he simply stayed and held me, waiting for my body to turn on me again... I think he could not leave me alone at this point... not simply would not.

The curse would rise again, there was no doubt. The curse would run free within me, prowling in my flesh like a psychotic animal. Rare were the moments when this was not true, for the cycle always ran full circle in the end, and I would become the curse once again... For I was the Saint of Syn, and would bear this gift until another took it away.

As I looked into his eyes, I sighed and brought my lips to his again, once again subjecting myself to the excruciating ecstacy.

My poor love... will he never escape me?...