Page 94 of Letters From A Stalker

A startled laugh escapes me before I can stop it. I immediately cover my mouth with one hand.

“Oh my God.”

He saw that. I can remember the exact moment. Tessa attacking the dough like it had personally insulted her ancestors while I tried desperately not to interfere because she had already accused me twice of being controlling. He had been watching then too. The laugh disappears almost as quickly as it came. That should not be funny. Nothing about a stranger standing outside my house watching girls’ night qualifies as comedy, except apparently he has a sense of humor. That feels dangerously humanizing.

My eyes move to the next paragraph.

And I watched you last night.

Something low in my stomach tightens before I have any idea why. Then I remember Sunday. The movie. The blanket. My hand. Everything inside me goes very still.

“No.”

I almost folded the letter back up and shoved it right back in the envelope. Almost. Instead, I keep reading because apparently there is no version of this in which I develop good judgment midway through.

You thought you were alone.

Heat climbs slowly from my chest toward my face.

I know the ache in your body when you press your hand against your core, wishing someone else would.

My breath catches. There it is. The sentence I should never have to read from someone I have never invited into my home. My entire face burns. I lower the page for a second and stare at the opposite wall. He saw me. Not theoretically, moving around the house or eating dinner or falling asleep on the sofa. He watched me touch myself. The violation of that lands sharply enough that for several seconds there is no excitement at all. Only anger.

“Fucking creep.” The words come out louder than I intend.

I should stop reading. I know that with perfect clarity. Instead, I look down again.

The blanket hid almost everything from me, but your face told me enough.

That somehow makes it worse, and better. No, not better.Less horrifying, perhaps, because he hadn’t seen what my brain initially imagined he had seen. Still, he watched my face while I came. Heat spreads lower now, mixed with humiliation and something far more dangerous.

I watched the way your breathing changed and the way you closed your eyes when pleasure finally caught up with you. I watched the tension leave your body, and then I watched you look at the television afterward as though your own hands had disappointed you.

I blink once. Then again. The bastard. Because that is exactly what happened. The orgasm had been fine, technically. It was… functional. My body had wanted release, I gave it one and afterward I felt almost exactly the same as before, only sleepier and mildly annoyed by the fact that desire sometimes demands attention without offering anything particularly memorable in return. I hadn’t expected anyone else to notice. I certainly hadn’t expected someone hiding outside my fucking house to notice.

The next lines make my pulse change again.

You wanted relief, Little Ember. What you got was an answer to a physical question. Those are not always the same thing.

I stare at the words. That one gets under my skin, not because it’s sexual but because it sounds like something Kai might say. The thought arrives so suddenly that I almost laugh. Apparently therapy has officially colonized my vocabulary.

I keep reading.

I wondered what would happen if you knew someone was watching.

My grip tightens slightly on the page.

Would you have stopped? Would you have closed the blinds that aren’t there, turned away from the window and hidden where nobody could see you?

The question settles into me slowly. He knows there are no curtains, of course he does, he has been watching the house. I swallow and continue.

Or would knowing I was there have made you feel it differently?

My thighs press together before I can stop them.

“Absolutely not.”

My body remains unmoved by criticism and the letter continues.