AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Trine
Idon’t see any of them again.
Even though the one at the foot of the bed gave me a card and told me that he would call me for a debrief, he never has, and I almost forget about him until I go to sleep, his card right next to my vibrator.
Mikheil M.
Demonhunter.
Not that it does me any fucking good. His name is ungooglable and his card doesn’t even have a phone number or an email, so it’s truly pointless.
Not that I haven’t tried. But asking people "where can I find the exorcism guys" only made them laugh or side-eye me, and the only thing I’ve gotten from it is a reputation for ill-timed attempts at comedy.
The last three years—the ones since the exorcism, and it’s still weird to think about it like that—have been a blur.
I try to keep my head down and live my life, but there’s a clear line dividing my life, pre-exorcism and post-exorcism. I can hardly remember what I was like before it happened, and the three years since melt into each other; one long, interminable day.
I meet a guy. He’s nice, and smart, and respectful. I dream of an unnaturally tall man with marble-white skin and midnight black eyes, rolled back sleeves, black tattoo lines coiling around the place where his pulse should be on his neck, disappearing into his jet-black hair.
We–my Very Nice Guy, not the devil from my dreams–sit on a bench in a park together, share a joint and a fifth, and he inches closer to me until his hand on my knee, his fingers sliding up my thigh until I wake up.
The guy I’m seeing, he’s respectful when we have sex. He’s kind, he looks into my eyes, and tells me how beautiful I am. After I have the dream, I want him to choke me until I can’t breathe, I want him to bite the inside of my legs until he draws blood. He gets an offer for a big tech job in San Francisco, and I tell him I can’t afford to go with him. Not that he asks. It’s not that serious.
When he leaves, I think the dreams are going to stop.
They don’t.
They get worse.
The man in my dreams, who I’m sure I’ve never seen before, only gets clearer with every dream. I can see the outline of his jaw, the way his muscles look solid and his skin soft under his clothes. At least I think his skin is soft, but I don’t get to touch him. I never get to touch him.
He splays his fingers on my thigh and I tilt my head back, his fingertips burning like fire against me, and I open my legs to give him access, but he never goes up much further, no matter how pointedly I look down at my own body.
Ican’ttell him I want more. In the dream, I can’t ever speak.
It’s weird. Pre-exorcism, I never had recurring dreams. Now I can’t shake this, and while I get some respite sometimes, this always comes back. He always comes back.
It’s frustrating. Waking up and having to touch myself with my expensive—because it was really fucking expensive—vibe because I’m thinking about this dream which never resolves is hardly ideal.
I’m thinking about it when my phone rings, vibrating on the wrinkled sheet around my legs, startling me out of my thoughts.
No one ever calls me unless something’s gone seriously wrong, so I always have to fight the urge to silence my phone and send the caller to voicemail. I’m not sure why, but this feels important.
"Hello?"
"Hello," a familiar voice says, and instantly, the hair on the back of my neck stands on end. "Is this Catherine Lange?"
"Speaking," I say, working very hard to keep my voice neutral. No one calls me by my full name. Not since my dad died.
"Ms. Lange," the caller says. "I apologize for calling you so early in the morning, but my team and I are unexpectedly going to be in Orlando next week, and we’re hoping you have time for an informal interview."
"Your…your team," I repeat, unsure if I’ve heard him correctly. "It’s…are you…"
"Mikhail," he says, and I can hear laughter in his voice. "My friends call me Misha."
I’m not calling this man Misha. I’m not his friend. "Demonhunter?" I ask.
"Right," he says. "Seems like you remember me."
