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They're not taught about Love.
Instead, they imagine and tell stories. Love––what is Love to you? Is Love between a boy and a girl, in a kiss; is Love the way they write about it in fairytales? The Happily Ever After? Or, is Love nothing special? Is Love an ordinary feeling? Merely a right of passage––something we grow out of? What is Love to you? A fantasy? A myth? Something Humans pursue but never truly possess?
Love is for children. Love is cruel. Love is what slowly drives you mad. Love is weak. Love is spiteful. Love is toxic. Love is what wakes you up at dawn, and pushes you away from the bed. Love is your many nights: the men and women who have been tainted by your sweet fingertips. The women always kiss you with such softness you forget how to breathe. They adore you, yearn your body on theirs, and, when it gets too much, when the tears start to pour and they confess––I need you. That's where Love starts to play. Ah, Love. So manipulative and hurtful.
It is an external thing, is Love.
Your monster.
Love is your weapon, and your darling weapon is lethal.
Your bite stings. It infects its host, eats away at its precious, awfully fragile heart, until there's nothing left but a Person fallen to their knees, wiping away the tears. It hurts, oh, it hurts, for you to break their silly, silly hearts. You are no Lover. You are a Devil. Horrid and cold. Everything you touch withers and dies, and you, once again, find yourself standing alone. They call you Widow. A Widow, unloved and abandoned––a woman with no one to hold onto, no one to touch, no one to kiss, no one to wrap your thighs around and claim as your own.
In The Red Room, they're never taught about Love. Love is nothing more than an inconvenience. Love is what makes things difficult and tricky and ugly. Love is what keeps you up in the early morning, the sheets chilly, your naked body aching to be felt. Love is your nightmare. Love is your destruction; your very end. You hate, hate Love and how it sends you wild. You loathe how easy it is to love her, how effortless it is to love him. How painful it must be to be stuck in this dizzying motion. To think, people stay in love.
They stay in love. They stay in that torture.
How truly odd Humans are, you realise, and how truly Inhumane you have become.
The woman's fits of distress are a painting in your mind. Each throw of her limbs, the clenched jaw, eyes wide and breaking with angry tears, her urgency to hate you for disappearing again and again. The man's yells echo in your ears, except he doesn't cry until you've gone out of the door. The women respect you too much, and the men are too proud. They can be so terribly weak. It's always startling that you are able to conjure such aggressive emotions, so aggressive even their bodies tumble to the floor; they've lost the will to live.
Love is a dance; a balance. You lead them over, always. You guide the man, the woman, whoever takes your fancy. Your tiny feet are gentle, delicate, as they touch the ground. You're excellent, magnificent, seductive and breathless, and it is so very, very easy to fall in love with what you are. Your confidence, the strength in your torso, the hold of your back, the pale, elegant length of your neck. The Satanic, sinful locks of your hair are like a waterfall over your bare shoulders, down your back––red hair.
Red.
The colour of Vengeance. The colour of Lust. The colour of Anger. The colour of Love.
Sometimes, you're asked again:
What is Love to you, Natalia?
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author's note: How outrageous of me to be writing when I'm in the middle of my exams. Oops. I've always, always wanted to write a Natasha oneshot without involving any other characters, and here we are. I guess I'm just trying to analyse her character, and understand her in my own way, but if you enjoyed it, then that makes it even better for me. Thank you very much for reading.