The first time he met her, he knew he had to have her. She was lying there on the street, completely defenseless, a little shell of a child with her fingers wrapped around her feet in a fetal position. Her face was pale despite the dirt-streaks that soiled her skin; it was almost like porcelain in texture. Her fingernails were encrusted with black from having been unwashed for so long, and the soles of her bare feet were dark with grime. She had nothing on but a tattered white dress with the fabric ripped near her breast as if she had just recently been in a danger of being raped. When he stopped in front of her, she shrank back, blond hair covering her face like a curtain. Nevertheless, he saw those blue eyes peeking out from the spaces where her blond hair didn't overshadow her face. He appraised her for a moment before bending down and tipping her chin up to make her look him in the face.
He liked how she trembled; he liked how easy it was to scare her into submission and cause a reaction by just a simple touch. He knew he had to have her; he wouldn't leave without her. Scooping his hands under her, he pulled her over his shoulder and cradled her in his arms. By then she was so frightened by shock, she had already passed out.
He watched her chest rise up and down in slumber; her nimble fingers clench and unclench as if she was in a terrible dream. He looked over her closely, monitoring those little movements, and all the while, feeling his obsession for her grow and grow until he had to have her; he had to have her all for himself – this fragile little child in front of him. He pressed both of his index fingers on her cheekbones and kissed those bluish pale lips until like Snow White, she awakened to his command.
But his ecstasy was cut off short when she started screaming, realizing that this wasn't all a dream. She was in some stranger's apartment, in someone's bed with the covers drawn across her. Her body thrashed around, throwing the bedsheets to the ground and upsetting a lamp nearby.
He frowned, and tried to take control of the situation and make this poor pitiful child stop screaming because it was starting to hurt his ears. Her voice was shrill and piercing, and it gave him a headache. Thrusting her back to the headboard, he pulled the sheets over her and laid next to her, enveloping her into an unbreakable embrace, shushing her with little whispers until she finally slackened in his grip. He felt her little heart beating so fast in fear that she fainted once more. Above her, he felt his breath coming out in short and quick gasps, his groin stiffening below him as his fingers crossed over her porcelain skin, pressing them until the first spots of black and blue bloomed upon the white surface.
She lived with him for a good number of days, and slowly, she was beginning to get used to his presence even though she did not talk. Sometimes, he would spend whole days, sitting in front of her, watching the shadows of her face wax and wane with the sun. She would stare back at him with listless blue eyes, careful not to make a sudden movement in case he reacted. He didn't mind, because he liked to look at her.
And when he got tired of this constant staring game, he would gather him up in his arms again and press her head to his chest, enjoying the gratification she gave him, the feel of her skin beneath the fabric of her tattered dress. And all the while, she said nothing like a mute child.
He knew that he was an artist from the way her fingers traced invisible markings on the floor when he wasn't looking, so one day, he went to the nearest Office Max and bought her a sketchbook and a small set of paints. When he got home, he found her by the window, legs propped up before her still body like a little insect that refused to move to evade a predator. Setting these new gifts before her, he left the room and poured himself a drink in the kitchen. By the time he finished his fourth glass, she was already painting away at that little notebook of hers. It was the first time he had seen her smile, even if he happened to be drunk.
It was also around that time when she started to speak. At first, she spoke of nothing but short sentences, and he would spend hours trying to engage her into a conversation. But always, when she spoke past her limits, her body would seem to sink into the ground as if even speech exhausted her.
He talked to her about the weather, the roses he had seen while passing by a flower shop, the colors of the world beyond his apartment. He talked about art, about Picasso and Michelangelo. The more he talked, the more she seemed to emerge out of her cold shell until he began to see the girl she once was.
And as quickly as this change had occurred, it stopped. Winter rolled by in the form of grey clouds and birds migrating west. Her voice faded all together, and she had resumed back to the old days of curling up in a fetal position near the window. This time, he saw tears wet her white skin, making her blue eyes seem oddly brighter than they were.
When he couldn't take her crying, little spasms of anguish, he would carry her into his bed and make her feel loved. He indulged her with little kisses at the mouth, fingers trailing down her white throat and neck. He would wipe away the tears with the pad of his thumb, often bruising her from the pressure he exerted. He didn't want to hurt her, but she was so fragile, it seemed the slightest touch might shatter her.
Yet these little acts of love, were often rewarded by her laugh gurgling from between sobs. Her skin was sensitive, and his lips gracing across the surface tickled her. It was love and pain, intermixing.
He waited until the right moment when he decided to ask her. Why was she such a sad being? Why was she crying all the time? He was afraid that he might cause her to break down into more fits of weeping until her body gave up before her tears did, but surprisingly, she answered in a calm and composed voice that seemed odd to him after so many days of her depression.
"Where I used to live," she said, chin at her bent knees. "I would sit near the ports where the boats would return from a long journey out to see. I would paint their entrance, their white sails whipping from the breeze that carried them in. The ocean would undulate under me and nip my feet in a loving gesture. In the morning, I woke up to the ocean calling me; and at night, I slept with the ocean's murmurs pulling me to slumber. I miss these things, and I despair how I am a thousand miles away from the ocean, and not being able to hear its rhythm in my ears, the song of my childhood."
He had to have her; he had to make him hers. Half-crazed in desperation, trying to save her from herself, he took her out to a little village near the shores of France's Atlantic, and decided that they all needed a vacation – away from the city lights of Paris, away from the despair that surrounded her in an impenetrable fog. Only when she was reunited with the ocean did that fog lift. She was happy now. She painted near the window of the cottage he had rented out for the occasion. She went out on cold days to dip her feet into the ocean waters. It was almost as if she was a child again, instead of a little shell of a woman that was beginning to emerge out of her.
They ended up staying for longer than he had anticipated. He grew roses outside of the cottage until they climbed the walls in vines. He would take her outside in the twilight under the fragrant smell of roses and kiss her passionately just when the stars were beginning to blink into the night sky. He had to have her; he had to have her.
It was summer, the crickets were singing in the shadows, and the fireflies danced near his roses. With a sad thought, he knew that he couldn't stay here for very long, because he had to return to his life in Paris. The Organization was getting fed up with his long departure; they wanted him back. He had received word of it a few days ago, but he didn't tell her because he didn't want her to be unhappy.
He knew he had to leave the next day, but she was able to stay for as long as she wanted to – with the comfort of painting and being near her ocean, her little strip of beach that was all to herself. Her own little paradise. He knew that he'll find a way to pay off the rent; all he wanted was her happiness. She belongs here, he thought, where the ocean would lull and bring her out of sleep at every sunset and sunrise. Where she could paint the colors that have been so dull in her life.
When he looked out at the ocean for what might be the last time, he saw nothing but darkness except for the shimmering lights that glowed within the ocean, reflecting the surface of the moon. He took one last look before he pulled back the curtains and shielded this sight away from view. The room was dark again.
He slid into the bed with her, kissing her gently on her mouth. She woke up like he wanted her to, like the first time he had taken her into his apartment. Moving gently against her, he slid off the white nightgown she had on, and proceeded to making this night last for as long as he could make it.
When he remembered the events of last night, he could only remember them in little pieces. His mouth slanting over hers. Her arms on his back, pulling him towards her. The sharp thrust, and the moan of victory from having broken through her walls and her innocence. His whispers, "I have to have you, I have to have you." And more kisses at the base of her neck until her back arched up against him.
"You already have me," he had remembered her murmuring before she fell asleep against his arms, blond hair at her shoulders, getting into his fingers and snagging onto his teeth. His heart had swelled.
He would live the rest of his life, haunted by those memories, yet unable to go back to its source. The first of the reasons why he couldn't see her was because of his line of work; the Organization forbade him from such desertion again. The second was his own shame and guilt for having left her hanging after that spiraling night of passion. The third was a bit more complicated; the more time that passed, the more he dreaded to see her, because he was afraid she might have changed into someone he didn't even know anymore.
For years, he violently abused the women he had gotten into a relationship with because it was the only way he could stop her face from emerging into his conscience. Every time he raped and killed them after satisfying his sick pleasures, another sin would be added to his conscience, warding off her memory – at least for a little while until they returned and he had to find something to get her off her mind again.
But when he finally decided to go back to the cottage where he had spent the short blissful months with her, he found it empty. He was almost relieved of it. What if she knew of the horrible things he had done, of the terrible way he had treated those around him? He was afraid that he would lash out at her too, and strike her to the ground like he had done to the many women he got involved with.
Perhaps she was so anguished that she had walked straight into the ocean's inviting arms because it was the only thing left to love. Maybe another man had swept her away, and took her as his own. Or maybe she was still living here – not making a sudden movement until she resembled more like a statue, forever waiting for his return. He swiveled on his feet and called out her name, only to hear silence answer him. He was desperate now; he overturned the cabinets and smashed the already broken clock on the wall. What a terrible mistake he had made to leave her! And he needed her; he had to have her. He knelt to the ground and slammed his fists down on the floor, crackling the hardwood. Where she might have stood, he prostrated himself at.
A breeze fluttered into the room and drifted a lone paper onto the ground. It stopped right in front of him, and written right on the surface were words.
"I have to have you right now, so I'm going to where I think you are." He did not realize that it was written in blood, until he found a trail of red leading him out to door and into the open space before him. The ocean.
He knew what to do. He had to have her, and the thirst was almost unquenchable. Slashing both of his wrists like she might have done, he started walking straight in front of him, ignoring the cold numbness at his knees where the waters soaked through his clothes. Whatever blood streamed down his arms, seemed to gather into a small pool of red below him until even this was swept away by the waves. Was she crying for him? Was she the ocean now? Were his sins forgiven?
His vision blurred, and he fell to his knees from loss of blood. A wave crashed over his head, and when everything turned black, his body was drifted somewhere off to sea.
I have to have you.
And now I do.