We had just started dating a month or two ago. So we were still deep in the throes of the honeymoon phase. You know how it is. Just couldn’t get enough of each other, always making excuses to spend more time with each other. Finding fun new things to do together, laughing at everything. Any red flags that might be present were so far down the road, that neither of us could imagine not wanting to spend every waking moment together.
After about a month or so we confessed our love for each other, which I know is pretty quick but hey, that’s how young love works right? Didn’t take long before we started spending the night at each other’s place. I had gotten so used to her company that I didn’t think twice about letting her crash at my place when her apartment needed renovations. I was just surprised that a landlord was willing to pay for renovations.
At first, it was such a dream, waking up and falling asleep with Ashley right next to me. Hearing her tell me goodnight, she’d shimmy into my arms and I would hold her so tight was surprised she could still breathe. Whenever I tried to loosen my grip thought she would snuggle in closer. She said it made her feel safe. With a few nights under our belt though, I did notice, boy, she was a sweaty sleeper. She must run hot during the night but always insisted we kept the blanket on.
Despite it being winter I tried for a lighter blanket, something more breathable you know but she would sweat all the same. I didn’t mind, Waking up with a bit of sweat on me wasn’t such a big deal. I always hop right in the shower after waking up anyways and never went more than a week between cleaning the bedding. Chalked it up to a little quirk.
Though some mornings, it felt like my skin was sticking to her. The way your exposed back clings to a leather chair in the summer. Some mornings would be more noticeable than others, either a quick pull like old tape or something more firm like velcro. She even seemed concerned about it at points. The way she would incredulously look at her arm or legs after I pulled away, though neither of us brought it up to the other.
I can’t pinpoint the moment that it reached the point of no return, just a few instances where I should’ve been more troubled than I was. One morning, there was a particularly funky smell, so I decided to clean the sheets that day. As I rose out of bed to get my day started, her hand stayed clasped with mine. At first, I thought she was playfully reaching out, insisting I not leave the bed. But when I looked at her face I could tell she was still sleeping.
Confusion rattled my nerves as I pulled my arm back and still our hands didn’t release, as if we were both experiencing rigor mortis. Eventually, I was able to pry my hand away but I could almost hear the sound of the out skin separating, like the tearing of paper. Her voice softly offered concern as I stood, staring at my hand. I waved it off as nothing, my body just taking longer than usual to wake up and I carried on with the day.
Who could blame me though? Or, us, I suppose. How could either of us have guessed how things were going to turn out? It’s not a thing that happens, you couldn’t expect this outcome so it naturally never crossed our minds. Now though, it was right there the whole time, we could’ve stopped it I’m sure. But it felt so good, to fall asleep with her in my arms or laying across my chest. It was my favorite place to me. To just lay and talk about the future. We were getting so much closer to each other, if only I had known just how literal “Close” was.
Rolling over one night I felt a sudden sharp pain on the shoulder that Ashley had been laying on. Pressing my finger to the pain, I thought she had just drooled on my chest, but using the moonlight, I could observe a bead of red on my fingertip. I rationalized that maybe while moving one of her canines had inadvertently scratched me. But the part of my flesh that hurt, wasn’t scratched. I could feel it, it was more like someone had taken a chunk of the skin out. A small chunk, but noticeable.
Again it was ignored, when I looked at Ashley, I couldn’t see any of the flesh that recently vacated my body, so I passed it off as just not being aware of an injury I had. No big deal right? Well, the next day, it became much harder to ignore the brewing storm. I woke up to her nudging me, she was sitting up. “Let go of my hair.” She said, soft but stern. Looking at my hand I could see I had somehow balled my first around a clump of her hair during the night.
With a giggle I opened my hand, releasing her hair and she started to pull away. As her hair went taut she stopped and winced, offering a exhale of pain. Confused, I brushed her hair off of my hand and watched as most of it fell loose to the bed… Most of it. There were, excuse the word choice, a handful of strands that didn’t brush away. We both kind of just stared at the hair for a minute. A few strings of blonde punctuated by the rising sun. They were pulled tight and still hung onto my hand. Her hair was past shoulder length but the hairs stuck to my hand were too short. Pinching one of the strands on my palms I pulled, gently.
We both watched, and though I can’t speak for Ashely at that moment, I felt my stomach churn watching my skin rise. The hair pulled at the surface of my palm causing the skin to tent up like I was a marionette. I could feel it, my heart was sinking as my nerves sent out the sensation of pulling hair. Just as if I was pulling it from atop my head, it felt just like that. Quickly I grasped the other strands with a quick swipe and severed the golden threads of fate, killing a handful of Hercules.
I hated how the strands of hair looked hanging loosely from my palm like they were always there. Like they hadn’t just invaded my body. I pondered if something as small as a strand of hair could just accidentally poke into your pores and cling there. But that’s completely ridiculous. Either way, things changed that morning. I dragged a razor across the palm of my hands feeling the gold from me. But that night, for the first time, we faced away from each other on the bed. Not touching.
Both of us could feel something was wrong but the words never came to the surface, what would either of us have to say about it? No, we ignored the problem, that is what most couples do right? Each night was spent not touching each other, no matter how much I missed her body pressed against mine. We hardly even held hands during the day despite never sticking to each other when we did.
Then it was my birthday. We went out and I introduced her to my friends. We hung out at the bar and all had drinks. Everyone was getting along so well and I got so lost in the night. So when we got home, drunk and horny our clothing was stripped off before we made it to bed. I had missed the way she felt, I wasn’t thinking about anything other than her breath on my neck. We were wasted and before I knew it, with my head buzzing the sun welcomed me to the morning.
I lay there for a moment, just appreciating the feeling of her laying on me, feeling her head move as my chest rose and sank like a boat on the timid seas. Hell, even the smell of her sweat was a welcomed one. But the liquor in my body had already worked its way through and if I spent any longer in bed, sweat wouldn’t be the only liquid we were soaked in. So I started shifting to get up and felt that familiar skin pulling, but as I continued to move it became painful. Her head jerked towards me, still laying on my chest. I tried to lightly push her head off of me but it wouldn’t budge.
I wonder if she could feel my heartbeat starting to race. When she opened her slowly opened her eyes, for some reason that’s when it set in. I couldn’t pull away from her, our half-naked bodies pressed together. She could feel my attempts to pull away and she started to conduct her own. “Stop stop stop.” She pleaded as I started trying harder, I knew, it was hurting her just as it was hurting me.
“We need to see,” I replied. And she took a moment before nodding and we both took a deep breath and shifted our weight away from each other. My skin tugged feeling like it was about to rip, the sensation of hot pokers pressing all over me. Looking down at what should have been the space between us, we could see. There was no space it was just her skin and mine, connected and pulling. We were indistinguishable from one another.
Neither of us reacted, both trying to process what we were looking at. I wonder if her brain was desperately trying to rationalize too. Staring at the lump of flesh connecting us, I could feel my heart race when the skin seemed to move. There was a noise that I first thought was my stomach growling but it was more like a dog about to bark. The skin that connected us vibrated and then I felt such intense pain, all I could do was lean over, towards her. I could see our skin molding together further, eating away at each other.
Desperate, I turned away as far as I could, she was screaming and I don’t blame her, trying to pull at the skin too far was like throwing razor blades around my insides. The pain was enough to drown out the soreness in my jaw as my teeth bunched so tight together I thought they too would melt. On my nightstand was a box cutter. I use them for work and always forget them so I just toss them on the nightstand.
She started freaking out as soon as I retrieved it. Like our minds were linked my thoughts swam into her and in return, I got her dread. Her desperation and all her confusion swelled into my mind and overwhelmed me. At first, I thought I was just understanding that she was afraid but it was more than that. I could feel it, the more she panicked, the more my heart sank, and the more my thoughts were drenched in hers.
In such a short time, the moment it took me to grab the box cutter our bodies had pulled even closer together, less of our individual, more of one. With her thoughts fighting to shut mine out I didn’t have time to think. All I could do was perform my very surface-level instinct for survival. Grasping the cutter my fist closed propping out the blade. As I pressed the knife to our connecting tissue a flurry of emotions swirled. I had to push through them.
Pressing the blade down, my whole body wretched, I hadn’t even cut the skin yet it felt like I had just crawled out of a flipped car. The pain only made my fist tighter, ten men couldn’t have pried the box cutter from my hand. She wanted it to stop so badly, she was feeling the same pain I was. But as I watched the skin ungulate and squirm pulling us closer together, all I wanted was to sever us.
So I pushed through, I pushed through the ungodly heat that emitted from my opening wounds. I pushed through the red and sticky mess I was creating as I pulled the zipper connecting me and her. Was I screaming or was that sensation from her? My stomach turned a thousand times and if it weren’t for how locked my jaw and throat were, I surely would have thrown up.
If I had vomited, would I see the contents of both our stomachs? Even as I cut it continued to progress, seemingly closing up and reconnecting the flesh as I cut it. I tried to separate it but when the light shined just right on the wound, I stopped. It was too late, I had gotten a quick glimpse inside, like peering through the holes of swiss cheese. Beyond the ripples of cartoon pizza being pulled apart. I saw an organ, a beige-purple mass thriving, and pumping, my stomach was connected to her. My nerves had melded with hers. It was all becoming one.
Even though I had stopped, she tried to fight back and put her hands on my chest to try and push me away. I couldn’t stop looking at her hands. I observed small strings of her flesh reach out and connect to mine. They looked like little hairs at first but collected into a plush mass that began to connect us more. Before too long, despite her protest, her fingers dipped into my body like I was a liquid.
It hurt, our merging hurt. Every time our skin connected more I could feel a mind-numbing agony. It was as if the nerves in our bodies were the things reaching out and when they connected the pain was amplified. All either of us could do was writhe. With all that pain it somehow hurts more to resist it. She was pulled into me deeper and deeper and I just wanted it to stop. I figured if we were one, it would be over.
So just like I had done so many nights before. I wrapped my arms around her and pushed her head onto my chest. Her screaming, her begging me not to do it, I was surprised I could hear any of it. Surprised, I could feel her tears on my chest and my tears running down my cheek. Her mouth vibrated, howling as much as she could until only her head produced the vibration, her throat had become part of me.
The last few bits were the hardest, seeing her like that, head bobbing just above the surface of my flesh. For a few moments, I think our optic nerves connected and I was able to see what she saw at the same time processing my own vision. I had never seen that angle of myself, a genuine outside perspective. At that moment I looked horrid, drenched in sweat and blood. Hair raged and expression dropped a real monster.
I don’t know how long all of this went on, time became such a little thing while we were merging. All I know is the relief I felt, watching the final small bits of her vanishing, knowing that it would all be over soon. It was comical, watching her long hair being pulled into me like my pores were slurping some angel hair pasta. And when the last noddle was gone, I felt the most satisfying plume of air hit our lungs. It rushed into us and revitalized my entire body almost instantly washing away all the pain.
There was a long period where I just didn’t move, appreciating that it was finally over. Something that stretched on forever vanished in a snap. I stared at the blood stain on the bed sheets, slick with sweat. Crawling out of bed, not sure how to process any of the morning’s events, I went through my chores. Cleaning the bedsheets first obviously. Then it just became a normal day. A normal day drifting through my thoughts, revisiting the torture in my mind.
You’d think I would miss her right? That I would be devastated that she was gone, someone that I loved that intensely taken from me in such a graphic manner. But the truth is, I can’t stand her. I hate her because she’s not gone. No, she’s more “with me” than she ever was. But she doesn’t call me cute pet names. She doesn’t tell me she loves me or goes on about her day. Do you want to know what she does? The only thing she does?
She just screams that’s it. Her consciousness desperately reaches out to be heard with no agency so it’s all she can do. No matter how hard I try to respond to her, whether it’s through thoughts or speaking out loud. No matter how much I beg her to stop. It’s just a constant whine that gets louder and shrill the more it goes on. I took her body, but she is stealing my mind because the howl is all I can hear. It’s all I can think, everything else is drowned out.
It’s safe to say the honeymoon is over. It’s going to be one hell of a breakup.