Prologue
***
Would it break if I touched it or fly away if I blew on it?
“I don’t wish to be treated that way.”
The woman, who had been lying like a still life on the desk, finally propped herself up on her elbows.
She had never wished for grand favors before.
“Who made me listen? Who showed it to me, who made me feel it?”
The sunset that filled the silence in the room was as red as ever.
“Who made me laugh, who made me cry?”
The man did not answer the sobbing from her shaky voice.
“Please say it. Tell me that you love me, that you loved me for a moment……”
That was all she wanted. Even if it was a lie.
The man held the woman standing there like a broken doll and placed her on the desk.
He wiped the tears from her eyes, kissed her and swallowed her lips.
The hand that lifted her skirt and opened her knees was indifferent. He untied his pants with a face that could not contain anything.
He was no longer devoted to her body.
“I love you, I still love you.”
Eyes as foolish as the dull mouth, the tears that spilled from them warmed and fled.
Her cheeks were cold and waiting for the man’s warmth, but all that was painted over them was an uncaught twilight.
The woman closed her eyes and repeated the same words. Asked him to love her, asked him for warmth again.
In the end, everything was a lie.
The spell Sasha had taught her, the promise that the dawn would come when the darkness receded, were all just lies.
The man’s hand invaded between her open thighs, and the place where he was soothing with soft lips and wet tongues was filled with his long fingers instead of kisses.
The woman felt it as he entered, squeezing her dry skin. She bit her molars, not even trying to let out a mundane breath.
Her thighs trembled with each squishy, harsh sound, and her eyes on him shook with them. Her flower dripped out thick nectar was as red as her bloodshot eyes, and the man finally pushed his hard member in.
He gripped her, unable to resist, and crushed her swollen flesh, thrusting himself deeper toward the end.
A hot mass surged into her stomach. Every last bit came in and filled the cavity.
She slowly brought her spread legs together, wrapped them around his waist, and laid her tired body down.
A tight sensation hit her belly but she didn’t care.
It was a familiar sensation.
The feeling of floating was ecstatic. She liked the sense of fullness that filled the empty space completely, the satisfaction she received only from him.
The blue eyes of the man looking down at her glowed with a mysterious color, blurred by the setting sun.
She liked that light too. She liked that scent that spread thickly whenever they mixed flesh.
She liked everything about it that she couldn’t have anymore.
The man raised his hand and covered the woman’s eyes. The thickness and temperature against her eyelids was the same as before.
Then the darkness slowly came, and the invisible senses awakened one by one. The woman put a little more pressure on her legs and pulled the man closer.
The closer the distance between them became, the clearer the pulsations that buzzed like breath in that deep place became.
When the woman’s head snapped back in place, she whispered with her relaxed lips.
“More.”
She wanted more of him.
“Stronger.”
She said, wanting him with an unquenchable thirst.
“Stronger like back then. It hurts more.”
So he could fill her up.
The man grabbed her neck. He placed his forehead on her forehead and thrust deeper and harder.
Whenever the overlapping body shook like a wave, the thin braided hair was scattered and broken like foam.
“Leo.”
His thrust became even stronger at the voice calling him.
With each thrust, the flesh cried out, making a weak, slapping, squishy sound.
“My Leo.”
Once the air around him turned to light, when all the scenery around them faded away and only he and her remained.
When the scent of roses wafting from him was all she had.
“Tell me. Why am I not qualified?”
She asked, her face a mixture of tears and joy.
The man turned his head, and the silence replaced his answer.
Removing their overlapping bodies, the man pushed her legs away from his waist. He forcefully lifted her up and turned her around.
“Lily, my marionette, my doll.”
His throat rustled. It was a long awaited voice.
The woman smiled faintly.
It was the twilight that fell on her face, the color he loved the most, the color he had waited the longest for.
“You’re a flower. To some you’re a little bird, to others you’re a shining star.”
The woman’s small, thin jaw kept falling and rising, and finally collapsed at an angle on the desk.
“I said love. It’s…it’s love.”
She was now sobbing in short breaths to match his savage thrusting from behind. Lily reached out and grabbed the corner of the desk.
At each thrust, she smelled the familiar scent of roses. The scent of blue roses that she tried to forget but could not.
She knew it, too.
The man had never taught her to love. She just made a move.
For her, he was a masterpiece to be remembered forever, he himself was nothing more, nothing less.
“Where did it go wrong? There was a time when we whispered that we loved each other. When we were drunk on each other, drowned in pleasure, and shared our views…”
They were somehow twisted, somehow broken.
They scratched and bit at each other constantly, knowing they would break and crack.
Every time they cried, shook, and moaned, they poured themselves into each other. All the while deceiving themselves that it was love. That was how they believed it while they did it.
Love.
An immutable name. A blind cause.
The absolute truth that twisted all the ugliness of the world with sublimity.
The woman referred to herself as a flower.
But a beautiful flower will eventually wither, and a beautiful jewel will eventually be dull.
Love. It was a fever that passed in an instant.
The man said.
“You were a flower that could not bloom, a bird that could not cry, a star that could not shine because it did not rise high.”
He wiped her damp buttocks and straightened her posture. Lily held her breath at the pressure that followed. The pain was intense as she gasped for breath at the thrust coming and going.
Along with the recoil, her neck snapped and her back bent.
The view of the garden through the glass window was blurred and cloudy.
The roses in full bloom swayed here and there in the sunset. The petals that fell beneath them were still the beautiful red color that Lily remembered.
“Leo, do you remember the day it rained?”
It was a day when the scent of roses was very strong. The sound of the water in the fountain was particularly clear.
Lily was lost in the maze-like garden.
“I didn’t know where to go, so I followed your clapping hand. I followed the voice you called me and walked and walked again ….”
Her head hung low before she could finish her words.
As if to etch the warmth and scent of the day, a few tears fell with it, leaving marks on the desk. It cracked like a splinter and stabbed the man in the chest.
“Leonard, where did we get lost?”
“….”
“Why did it go wrong?”
“…”
“I want to go back. Can you let me go back? Just like you did. Can you call me back?”
“Lily, stop.”
Leo exhaled as he nuzzled his lips against her neck.
“Stop it now.”
A faint feeling of heat wet her shoulder.
Like the heat that quickly evaporated, it was a moment that would fade away again.
Slamming his face into her long, scattered hair, Leo was searching for something.
Urgently and nervously.
To catch or discard something that was being forgotten.
He wrapped his arms around her body and trampled himself to the point of breaking.
Lily closed her eyes as they were. Their breathing became increasingly ragged as they exhaled, and their overlapping bodies convulsed, ready to end their journey.
It was a familiar tremor.
It reached its peak with its waist raised high. They slumped their heads like prey with a bite on its neck and waited for the shiver to pass.
Where pleasure has retreated will be filled with emptiness, and where love and hate have been drained, farewell will soon be planted.
The word emptiness cannot contain all this aftermath.
But in the end, this was the end.
Lily stood up with her stiff back and looked straight at him.
She opened her desk drawer and pulled out her diary, not bothering to wipe the looseness from her thighs.
“I’m sorry. I should have returned it sooner.”
She swept the old leather once and presented it to him.
Leo didn’t answer. He just grabbed his coat that was hanging on the couch and got ready to go out.
Lily looked at the back of the man with a peculiarly slow gaze.
“I…I was nothing.”
“…”
“Nothing to you. I wasn’t anything.”
The man didn’t love her. He just lusted.
Still, his hands were as beautiful as ever as he fixed the drooping silk cravat around his neck.
“Please let me go now. Stop sending me.”
The hands that were tying the knot stopped. But he didn’t look back until the end. A momentary silence flowed.
“Leave. Whenever you wish.”
Lily didn’t see that his unclasped hands were trembling slightly.
“Is it the end? Is this the end for you and me? Is this… a farewell for me?
Leaving her behind, Leo opened the door.
As the sun swirled through the open gap, the man slowly moved away as if he was swept away by the waves.
Where did it go wrong? Where did they get off track?
Perhaps the twisted possessiveness and an unknown sense of deja vu that he had been playing with dolls.
No, that was all there was to this terrible game.
“When you ran away from me. That’s when I wanted you.”
Leo said.
“I’ll let you go. I’m going to give you the freedom you wanted so badly. By letting you go, I will remain here alone again to put an end to our foolish games.”
The sound of tempered soles echoed regularly along the endless corridor.
His clenched fingers trembled as his nails dug into them, but he didn’t waver or look back.
The setting sun shone through the window. It was as red as ever.