Page 24 of Devil Inside

He is free.

This world has given him so little and yet, see how he shines. Such a lost soul, burning bright with the darkest light. He must still feel torn between this life and what’s beyond.

There are milk crates containing records—more music—but that’s all he has.

Wait. There is one belonging. One totem to his life. What is it?

Parts and pieces of dented equipment suspend themselves from the wall. Metal. Chains. Wheels. Is it a torture device? Is there a shade of darkness, a current of perversion, to this one that we didn’t pick up on? Didn’t sense? Wouldn’t that be such a lovely surprise...

What would he do to us?

No, it’s not that. Not like that at all. There is something wounded to this artwork on the wall. There’s loss seeped into steel. A mournful sculpture. A totem, like a wounded god.

A bicycle frame. It hangs from a pair of hooks, battered and bent.

This is his. His life. All he has to show for himself, his only possession in this world.

A bike, all broken. Mangled and misshapen.

He’ll never ride it again.

How heartbreaking. We find it sad, somehow, seeing it suspended from the wall. A dented metal skeleton. Crucified. Nothing left but the bones, still dangling from their nails.

“Can I get you something to drink?”

Yes, he will do.

There is little resistance between us once we reach his bed.

We take his hand. Hold it in our own.

He is trying to be polite. Cordial. All we want is to take him. Open him. Taste him.

So we push.

His body offers no struggle. No resistance whatsoever. Only his stare. His gray eyes keep their hold on our own. He is searching, desperate to understand us. Who we are.

Does he see us? Through these eyes?

Seeme?

There is a saltiness to his skin. All that sweat, a desert of life now dried across his skin. It tastes delicious, this wasteland. The tundra of his body is ours to cross.

We lick his neck. All these reservoirs of sweat. The abandoned brine of his life.

He takes hold of our chin and kisses us.

We bite his bottom lip once more, harder this time. He pulls back, but we don’t let go. Not until we have drawn blood. Just the faintest break in his skin.

His lower lip has gone red.

The blood. His blood. A blissful ripple, seeping out. Slickening his lips.

We dive in. Kiss him. Taste it.

These hands find his chest and we begin to divest him of his clothes. First, we pull at his shirt, clinging to his skin with his own sweat like a layer of flesh, until he takes it off for us.

Now his body is laid bare for us to see. We cannot help but gasp.