Chapter 1

☁

It was raining again. Patter, patter, and a particularly long session of hard rapping hail that eventually calmed into more lazy-weathered pleats.

The day’s encounter followed the languid pattern of its forebears ‒ the torpid mill of society, filtering in and out of the cosy coffeehouse at the edge of a dreary street named Lamberg. Monday, the dreaded square on the calendar month. A day that drew in the weary and slouched-shouldered, the beverage addicts and the students who didn’t mind walking the distance from campus, if only to escape the congested atmosphere in turn for the hazy, rainy reprieve that was the 1870’s Coffeehouse.

It was a day for avoiding puddles, for shifting aside as vehicles passed lest one was doused in a spray of dirtied water. Such was life in the city. A routine of stepping aside, dodging, hurrying and ducking. Sporadically choreographed, though never entirely unpleasant.

Her satchel created a squelch against her side, bouncing droplets here and there as she swerved and stepped towards her goal. Usually, following a three hour class she would have returned to her apartment and bundled beneath the blankets, attempting to warm herself and forget about the outside world. A video game called, a series of cookery videos enticed, a session of browsing infographics tempted.

There was only one place that offered a greater pull than home. A beautiful building, one which she knew from her studies would be difficult to replicate with the knowledge of today. Where blocks could be pieced together like Lego bricks, cubes and cuboids, living within the modular. She dwelled within one herself, cheap, efficient, a blank canvas that was easily customised within but did not possess the charm of these old buildings.

How curious, she had been told by one professor, that an architecture student cared more for old fashioned intricacy than efficiency. Did she not care that there was a housing crisis? Blocks could be placed upon blocks quickly and cheaply! There was little need for buildings like the 1870’s Coffeehouse.

It was little wonder that she was failing. She could hardly see herself lasting another semester, but it was simply the way of the world.

Things, be they people, trends, buildings, were often not as good as they were before.

Take the noise that sounded whenever she entered her three usual haunts: home, university, and the coffeeshop. The doors leading to the apartment lobby gave a single ‘beep’. The two slim security devices that framed the entrance to the architecture department bleeped twice, though malfunctioned enough and omitted the most offensive alarm known to mankind. At least half the students and faculty members had nail bombs, knives and guns on their person each day according to those machines. It was a department of terrorists.

Entering the 1870’s Coffeehouse was a different matter entirely. Greeted by a single ‘ping’, an old fashioned bell above the door that one often saw and heard when watching old films. A similar bell was stationed on the counter, which could be sounded if one was ever in need of service, though it was rarely necessary.

When stepping inside the apartment lobby or the university building following a flurry of rain, Kitty would usually tap her feet twice or three times upon the worn mat, and trudge wet footprints through the halls as everyone else was fond of doing. Here, on the contrary, she saw fit to give her boots a thorough wipe upon the mat, for it would be an utter shame, not to mention a great disrespect to dirty the floor of such a lovely establishment.

The chivalrous arm of the coat rack beckoned from the peripheral, accepting the rain-drenched material with ease among the others. A berth of heat sidled in close from the vents above that were always open wide, battling off the leeching drought from the opening and closing of the entrance door. The place catered to its Monday business patrons, those speckles of men towards the rear, each taking up a booth of their own. Couples huddled within the shop’s alcove, the stretch of the window arching in a delicate curve that curled over the row of tables so that raindrops made a scene of dramatised descent. Above, Willie Nelson serenaded from the rasp of speakers, begging one to walk with him.

The counter was around waist height, most likely an antique though upon it were a variety of domes, perfectly clean though not at all sterile, housing various cakes and pastries. The promise of delicious calories that could do no harm once or even twice a week, though it was typically something she wished to save for her Friday visits. Of course, there were the complementary sherbets and chocolates beside the register in a little crystalised holder.

Kitty felt the burn of self-consciousness when she presented herself at the counter before the figure she had come to regard as a lively and lovely piece of furniture: a clock, shaped like an owl with large, watchful eyes and the hands of time on its belly, for the shop owner kept everything ticking within. A fleck of water trailed and dripped from her tousled hair, and created a splodge upon the dark grey marl of her turtleneck. There was no need to glance at the menu. She knew it well enough. Regardless, she was able to offer a smile to the man behind the counter.

“At least it’s dry in here,” she said instead of a greeting. “And warm.”

Simund’s lips pulled into the barest smile, though he knew it didn’t reach his eyes. Here in his coffeeshop, there was a world of emotions he donned for the public eye, emotions that helped him blend into that kind, unsuspecting shop owner the female across from him thought him to be. “You could have been drier had you brought your umbrella.”

The town had been receiving an uncanny deluge of rain for the past week. Flash floods, roadblocks and news alerts on clockwork. Though in a place so near to the city’s main University, no amount of disastrous weather would keep a student from their coffee and elite shop setting. With such being the case and with this female being such a frequent customer, it had become habit for Simund to request she bring an umbrella. Which she always failed to do for one reason or another.

Her shoulders hunched forward as she gave a smile that children tended to wear when they knew they were in the wrong. Rightly so, when she had forgotten such an essential tool. “I have the memory of a goldfish,” she confessed with a fleeting giggle. “And even when I do remember, my umbrellas always turn inside out in the wind.”

That was today’s excuse. And yesterday’s.

His eyes roamed the scene of the parlour. Faces meandered about‒faces that meant nothing to him. Not quite like that of this female’s. The giggle that poured from her lips would have been something to admire and adore, were it not a product of her disobedience.

He had to take a deep breath and remind himself she was not in her right mind. She did not remember him any more than she remembered who she truly was. The proper young lady she’d been before she’d left him.

His smile was feeling much like plastic now as he asked, “And are you going to have the usual today?”

“Yes please,” she said quickly as she considered that if she had the memory of a goldish, then he must have one of an elephant, though it was hardly something she could say to him out of fear of seeming impolite. Regardless, she felt the need to convey that she was impressed. “You’re really good at remembering orders. I can barely remember what day it is but you always remember what I have.”

Of course he did. A medium vanilla latte and chocolate twist, likely the only components of her breakfast and lunch. Likely the culprit for why it was she was so meek of frame, her cheeks of rose-potential, pale with cold, and who knew to what extent girls her age were wont to starve themselves.

Simund complied no less, signalling one the nearest baristas and ensuring haste was shown for the order. When the two of them were as alone as the parlour could allow once more, Simund crossed his arms casually and enquired with a pitch of nonchalance, “Have your architecture classes been going well?”

Her lips parted slightly as she stared for a couple of seconds at most. He really did remember everything. Even she could not recall if she had dropped the information regarding her course in conversation, or he had picked it up from a textbook she might have placed upon the counter while juggling her belongings.

Kitty gave a short laugh and shrugged. “Well, let’s just say that they haven’t kicked me out just yet. But thanks for asking all the same.”

He returned the laugh as was only right. As was only expected in this sociable atmosphere with this girl who recalled so little about him outside of the menial title of shop owner. He had to remind himself it was not his place to disapprove of the disrespect she placed over her own education through laughter and dismissal.

The latte and pastry arrived, sparing him an adequate response.

Simund held up a halting hand, declining her method of payment. “Not to worry, it’s on the house.”

Her hand lingered in the shape of a claw over the pocket in her jeans as she held his gaze. Each and every time she had come in here he always insisted that her order was on the house. It did not take a business student to realise that it was not an effective way to run an establishment and if he did this frequently to all his regulars he would soon be closing down.

“Are you sure? You said that last time.”

A smirk came. “Perhaps you can pay by showing more effort in your studies.”

There was something in his words and tone that reminded her of her father. It would be of no benefit to the man before her if she suddenly became a model student. Neither would it matter if she failed and was removed from the course of study. Did he care about her? Beyond a customer service perspective?

“I don’t want you to go out of business. Honestly, this is the only place I come to.”

“Then allow me to express how honoured I am to have made your very short list by treating you.” He nudged the latte closer, his gaze pressuring her into acceptance.

She wondered what they must look like. This man staring at her and she returning the look in kind as a blush flooded her cheeks. She was usually as cool as a cucumber and prided herself on it, but never had she really been treated by anyone that was not a member of her immediate family before.

Her fingers reached for the cup and she tried not to flinch when she sensed that strange air of getting closer to someone. As if he was filling the air around her, even though they were not physically touching.

“I’ll work my way up to city architect and ban all those horrible boxy buildings. Only buildings with great character and pretty exteriors from now on. You can open a franchise in city hall upon my recommendation.”

The notion was endearing to him ‒ and vaguely insulting. “Had I a want to expand into those ‘horrible boxy buildings’ as you call them, I’d sooner purchase the property than wait on recommendation, but your confidence in your eventual success is admittedly intriguing.” Of course, did she truly expect to excel beyond her minimalistic lifestyle with the attitude she harboured currently?

Simund sighed and leaned against the inner bar’s counter. He couldn’t quite understand it, how she could have left his home ‒ a place of safety and routine and certainty ‒ for ... for this. University. An absurd wardrobe that went against all they’d once worked on. And her hair ... While they were the inky, soft lay of feathers he recalled, the length was all wrong, the fringe too long at the outer edges.

She gave a nervous laugh as she realised that she had perhaps put her point across in the wrong way. Never did she expect him to be happy to expand his business into a cool, clinical, modern building that would look outdated a decade later. She would have elaborated on her meaning if she did not feel his eyes bore into her and seem to be interested in each part of her exterior. He was not looking at her in a way that men might do when they had a purely sexual interest in a woman. Rather, he was looking at all the components of her, she was certain of it.

“Are you here all week? Even on days I’m not here. I’ve never not seen you here when I’ve visited.”

Some sort of small talk was needed, but the question posed sounded incredibly stupid, especially in her faux confident and perky tone. She would not have asked the question to anyone else. What made him so special?

However, Simund knew she wasn’t wrong to ask it of him for one reason alone: he only ever showed his face in his own shop on the days he knew her to make her routinely pegged coffee breaks. Was he to answer truthfully? Certainly not. Lie? Such a rotten feeling to bear inside.

A vague chuckle sufficed. “The bills must be paid somehow.” He shrugged. “And I do love this shop. It’s all I really have left to remember my father by, so being here as frequently as I am could be interpreted as paying my respects.”

She felt her lips curl as she nodded along to his explanation. Briefly, she thought of her own father who perhaps she did not call as often as she should. There was really no excuse for it, with the variation of methods of communication available in the modern age. Perhaps she would arrange for them to video call over the weekend when they were both available.

“That’s nice. It’s a special place, that’s for sure,” she hesitated briefly before allowing the smile to widen. “Do you have kids yourself?”

He felt his gaze sober as he watched her, the word exiting softly beyond his lips. “Someday.”

Someday he would have her recall all in which they’d once been. Someday it would be as though today and yesterday had never occurred. “But that is neither here nor there. I should leave you to enjoy your food and drink, and I suppose I’ll see you another time?” An infinite time.

“Sometime this week for sure,” she replied, Wednesday most likely, as it always was. Class finished around the time she required food and she would not dream of getting a coffee or bite to eat from any other establishment. After bundling the pastry away in her satchel, Kitty offered him a gentle smile. “Thanks again. I’ll see you soon.”

Her smile stayed with him, teeth the way he remembered, rose-tinted lips curving like the fragile corners of a budded petal. The smile buzzed through him and pulled at his groin. His last bid was a tempered whisper that somehow stretched to her ears alone. “Be safe.”

Soon she’d be in the safest place imaginable: his possession.

~~ ☂ ~~

Day 01

The red line teased her as it grew slimmer and slimmer until it was nothing but a pathetic slither upon the screen. From 32%, to low, to critically low. And it had to happen on this day of all days when it seemed likely that she would find herself in an emergency. Katherine sighed. Her phone was but a useless, mocking piece of machinery that grew gradually darker as the screen deteriorated with its depleting lifeforce.

“They said to bring an umbrella when you went out, so I thought it would be kind of bad. Not this bad though,” she muttered as she stared at the fluff of foam within the mug she had nursed for the past half hour. Unlike other days, Kitty had chosen a seat at the counter, feeling strangely compelled to be closer to him.

The same as the other days, she had forgotten to arrange change for payment, and instead had offered her card and had found it refused yet again. She would be sure to leave a pile of coins somewhere close to the tip jar when the shop owner was not looking.

“And I did by the way, this time around. It’s more inside out than its predecessor so it’s in the bin outside the university gym. It’s a five minute walk from the architecture building. The thing’s destined to be with its friend in the umbrella afterlife.”

Kitty tucked her hands into the sleeves of her sweater, a baggy burgundy turtleneck she wore over the same pair of jeans as Monday. Cuffs tucked into socks, which were in turn tucked into a pair of military style boots which were scuffed in the not-so-fashionable sense.

“I should bring a coat next time.”

He nodded absently.

When Simund had slipped the little white pill into her beverage, he too hadn’t thought the storm would be this bad. He had thought as the faulty weatherman had led them all to believe, that the downpour would lighten up into something redolent of Monday’s deluge. Fate wasn’t a contender here, because fate was a myth bred by those of empty hearts and wanting to draw meaning from dust. This was a convenience, nothing more.

It almost‒ almost ‒ reconciled her third failure to bring an umbrella during her trek here, her excuse as poor as the previous ones.

A surprising calm washed through his chest, more tranquil than the raging patter of rain outdoors; a pinch of exhilaration. Never again. That naive insolence would be flushed from her, the rot burned away from the inside out, and finally, finally, those welts of torment would sooth.

Outside a sleek SUV’s headlights brimmed in through the shimmered curtain of rain, and that spelled the last of the patrons and workers he’d sent home, save for him and her.

The knowledge moved him to taste his own heartbeat on his tongue, though his mouth tugged down in a fashion of dismay to her words as he watched the vehicle pull off. “I have a coat of mine you’re more than welcome to have ‒ if you promise to always bring an umbrella with you in the future.” There would be no future mirroring this present.

“It’s your coat,” she replied softly as she pondered, as she so often did following their encounters, why he seemed to care so much for her wellbeing. He cared for his staff, certainly, but she doubted he was like this with every customer. “You’ll get wet yourself. It’s not fair for you to catch a cold because I’m too cheap to buy decent umbrellas.”

The flash that may as well have come from a camera, considering how bright it was, reminded her that the storm was only set to worsen. Leave it any longer and she might be caught in the depths of it and would regret not departing sooner. “I should go. I don’t want to leave it until it’s dark outside.” The day had made her tired, more so than usual, though she put it down to the change in temperature she had endured throughout the day, not to mention the awkward lighting created by the storm, along with the taxing work of her course.

“I have an umbrella.” The answer was formidable but flat. Spikes resting beneath it like the shadows beneath his eyes, that nimbus bolt of lightning clawing its talons across his features.

The words didn’t brush her ears the way he’d hoped, as she prattled and worried on, threatening to leave out into the hazardous weather. You’ll never make it home in time. “It’s dangerous to walk in all of that rain. The area is no stranger to floods and you can hardly see in front of you.” You’ll stumble and you’ll fall. “How ... how about I take you home? ‒ It’s not out of the way at all.” Your head’ll get stuffy when that medicine hits your core. Your heart’ll get jumpy. “Yes?” And rain like that’ll swallow you whole.

His offer was met with a blank expression before her pale grey eyes softened and the usual little smile returned. There were horror stories about these sorts of offers. Men appearing polite and gallant, yet only to take advantage of the woman they were assisting when the time suited them. Kitty did not presume this to be such a case, but she did not want to put him out. “That’s very kind but I would hate to be a bother. It’s not too far a walk.”

He’d been waiting with his breath in his lungs, face set with a trusting concern, as that was the true premise at its base, no matter what sort of thorns and briers folded into the larger scope.

The rejection came, but inside his mind, it went. Did she have a choice? When already those asinine chemicals were bonding and making a home in her bloodstream? Still, having her go out and get drenched unnecessarily remained a haunting concern. He tsked his tongue on the roof of his mouth and shook his head, openly disapproving. “It’s not a safe walk no matter the distance.”

She smirked then and shook her head. “I guess I can run?”

You can try. “Can you?” he asked, something twisting in the way in which the question was proposed, craning it out to sound more along the lines of ‘I dare you’.

With a sigh she nodded. “I hate feeling like I’m putting anyone out. It’s kind of you, like I said, but it’s such a short walk and you have to pay for fuel and everything with your car‒”

“I did say it was along the way, didn’t I? I can’t recall.”

“Do you drive past the uni dorms? The new complex?”

“All of the dorms are in close proximity, if I remember correctly. I haven’t seen the new ones but I doubt they constructed it too far off.” His huey gaze had stared up at the structure only perhaps fifty or so times. Who was counting?

Any other day she’d have got her beverage and either consumed it here or taken it to her little living hole she considered home. Originally, that had been the plan, had it not been storming as severely as it was presently. The scenario would have played smoothly as thus: she arrives to her boxed apartment, drenched from her failure to heed his and the weatherman’s caution with a more appropriate umbrella. She’s shrugging from that little raincoat she put her arms through every morning and she peruses her closet for the coat hanger, when then she begins to wonder when they’d all begun to look the same. And these hangers, were they turning? Spinning into a singular shade? No, not them ‒ the room ‒ her. And she would collapse then and lay in a puddle of her unconsciousness, waiting patiently for him to make his appearance and take her to her true home. The one she’d long forgotten.

But the storm had extended her time within the coffeeshop, with him, with his gift to her, and it would be a wonder if she lasted another five minutes before the world around her began to distort with creeping nets of dark sedation.

“Well,” she spoke through a yawn she attempted to conceal. Manners were important, she got that. Yawning in his face would only make her feel more pathetic. He likely considered her to be the rude girl who came in for freebies. “They are pretty close together.”

While it was the case, and the dorms were not too far from the coffeeshop, it still did not dismiss the fact that she would get wet, cold, uncomfortable. Perhaps she would regret opting to walk when she was drenched through and each step was an ungraceful and unsure shuffle as she was too weary to lift her boots from the ground.

“Okay, please, if you’re sure,” she stated as she hooked her satchel over her shoulder. “Okay, yeah.”

There was no smile that could truly capture the depths of his satisfaction. Compliance, acceptance, two invigorating qualities she was embracing early on. The stifle of a yawn was a sight to be celebrated, a state to encourage, and as the rain outside continued to pound horrendously against the glass and the settling of the heater could be heard, the shop owner wondered vaguely. Such a frequent patron, the memory of her engraved into the seat in which she sat, when would be the next time she graced it? Would the coffeeshop have a big, gaping hole in its body when she was no more‒or would he? When the searching gaze landed in that spot and there, sitting, was but a ghost...

He would have the true reward waiting for him at the end of the day.

“Wise decision,” he said, coming from around the counter. All of the lights were off save for the LED over the coffee machines, eerie fingers reaching across the lobby in stuffy violet hues. And then the grey stormlight, seeping through the windows dimly. “I’ll just retrieve my coat and umbrella and ‒ if you don’t mind, we usually flip the stools onto the bar in closing. You’re welcome to wait for me at the booth?” Falling onto cushion would be much more preferable to the floor. No bruises, medicine.

She nodded as she clutched the strap of her satchel, for she felt the urge to suddenly hold onto something. A cold, perhaps, it had to be. She had caught one through her own negligence, her own lack of care surrounding her person.

“Can I help?” she offered while nodding towards one of the stools. “I can at least do something useful?”

“No, please, just sit.” There were only three of the portable seats at the arm of the bar, but the kindness wasn’t lost. Displaced, certainly.

Her lips parted to mutter her compliance, yet she found that all she could do was nod. Speaking seemed like an effort all of a sudden. Perhaps it was her body telling her something, sending her a message that she had best reserve her voice for something truly necessary. A nod could be an easy replacement for the affirmative. ‘Thank you’ had to be spoken.

She made her way, in a shuffle that she had adopted once before, sometime recently, she thought. A night of video gaming, the awkward move towards the bathroom in the early hours of the morning. Tiredness. Suddenly so very ... tired.

She was sitting down in the booth, but she did not feel the seat, nor the cushion which she was certain had once been pleasant to sit upon. The usual plushness she enjoyed, that was worthy of brief mental regard was unacknowledged, even though she knew she should have thought it.

A quick check to her phone brought the discovery that there was no light on the screen. Lifeless. Temporarily dead.

“Erm?” she found herself muttering. “Can I...” What? She wanted to ask him something, to make a request, but it was gone, but she needed it. She knew she needed it.

Water? Food? Help? It was suddenly dark, not the sort of darkness everyone felt today, but something else. Black borders, pitchy in the corners of her eyes, edging inwards both gradually and at an alarming speed. Did it matter really? The help? The phone? That she had not left the hidden tip somewhere?

Did it matter that she now had her chin resting upon her chest?

Did it matter that her body had slumped against the cushions?

Why should she care?

She did not have to care about anything.

And never would again, because finally Simund had succeeded with her.

All the while, he could feel his own curdling, intoxicated gaze latching to her every movement, drinking the actions in with a demented hunger, those lips breaking apart to make way for the shallow breaths sucking in and staggering out. Something was in his chest, tight and winding, suffocating and pulling. Triumph? Happiness?

The sensation could have been the storm. It could have been self-congratulations. Or a quivering, deep vibration of satisfaction at finally, after all of these years, being able to return her to the place she belonged. Oh, this time would not turn into a mountain of regret.

Applying the final touches to closing was a slow-moving task, a savouring delay; lock the front door, put up the stools, retrieve his briefcase, long black coat and umbrella from the office, lock that door, and only when standing in the glum lighting of the shop’s lobby, did those eyes consent the luxury of scrawling over the slumped figure in the rear of the shop.

Long overdue.

Dredging near to her was similar to approaching cut livewire on a day of falling rain. The surge of energy and need and desperation flailed beneath the skin, an itch unreachable, a maddening piece of forgotten memory, scratching at the surface. By the time the tall figure loomed over the slumbering mass, his heart sledged at his ribcage loudly enough to rival the sudden split of thunder to rattle the city.

All these years.

Her breaths, papery wisps of wind exiting from plastic lungs. Ink locks stroked down her pale cheekbones. Ahhh ‒pain, too much. Too soon. All these years... ! She looked as fragile as May’s field of poppies, her cheeks seeming to be stained as though lying in them. The lines of her body beneath the clothing ... Somewhere under all of her flaws was what he needed.

Sinking down onto the seat beside her came with rigidity, the coat, brief and umbrella resting on the table. Originally, weaving his arms beneath the svelte contours of her body, lifting her with effortless swiftness to his chest and donning her in his coat, had been meant to be kept efficient and quick. Impossible. The instant the girl was lifted into his arms, those voices of reason and proficiency went dead quiet.

Her warmth was going to end him. Here and now. He was sure. It poured into his body and touched something that’d been left cold and extinguished for too long ‒ and then it made the mistake of prodding something more.

Need ... Craving ... Trembling hands lifted her with deft care, to where she sat upright on his legs, her head sagged forward like an old couch doll’s. He needed ... just one thing...

His face inched forward, hand closing in on the side of her limp head, slow, maddening increments, as though using each space of time to permanently press this moment into his memory. And then his hand was in her hair, just before a hiss lashed in through his teeth because despite its wet texture, there was a sinfulness about the softness melting into the palm of his hand. But nothing ‒ absolutely nothing ‒ compared to when he guided her head towards him ... and buried his face in the crook of her neck, where he found a tortuous, twisted rendition of paradise in the scent of her. The decadent, sweet, nostalgic scent of her. This was home. She was home.