Enshrined — Chapter 03
By Mythical Traveller
Simon awoke to the feeling of cold air upon his naked skin. He felt strange. He realized that his calves were dropped down over the edge of the bed; his feet were touching the floor. He was uncovered as well! This wasn’t how he normally slept!
It didn’t take him long to remember his whirlwind hook-up with Chaarvi and he sighed deeply, as a broad grin spread across his face. He checked both sides of the mattress around him, hoping for the best. But alas, she was nowhere to be seen.
He lifted his head to check the carpet between the bed and the door. His clothes were still messily scattered about, but there was no trace of hers. Chaarvi was gone.
“Damn!” he silently cursed with a huff. “I wish you were still here, sweetheart,” he thought to himself.
He was disappointed, but not surprised. Chaarvi had given him pretty clear signals that she only wanted a casual fling; the sort of thing that people tend to make a quick, discreet exit from, once they’ve gotten ‘the itch’ out of their system.
Still, as far as Simon was concerned, it wasn’t just some random screw; it was far and away the best time he’d ever had! He hoped that Chaarvi had similar feelings, which was why it was disappointing that she hadn’t stuck around.
“My god, Chaarvi... Girl, you are dynamite with a capital ‘D’!” Simon mused, as he blissfully reminisced about the way she had ridden him. “...A pair of capital ‘D’s, as a matter of fact,” he thought, chuckling at his own adolescent wit.
He lifted his arm to check his watch. The time was 8.16. Well, that wasn’t... wait...
8.16 AM???
“That can’t be right!” Simon thought, “Surely...”
But as he looked around his apartment, his disbelief slowly turned into astonishment. The apartment was on the south-eastern side of the building. The sun only ever shone in through the kitchenette window like that in the early morning.
There was no doubt about it; he’d slept through the whole night!
“Holy fuck!” he loudly laughed. “Oh my god, Chaarvi, what did you do to me last night?”
As amazing as the orgasm had been, he could scarcely believe that it had knocked him out for sixteen hours.
He laid in bed for another minute or so, grinning, before sucking up the initiative to get up and retrieve his pants from the floor. He didn’t bother to put on a shirt.
With his little lay-in, he was running late. He didn’t want to spoil his good mood by tearing around his home in a panic, trying to get ready. So he figured he would just have a quick breakfast, skip his shower, go heavy on the deodorant, and cross his fingers that nobody in class would notice.
Simon held out hope that he might find a note from Chaarvi; something along the lines of, ”I had fun last night. Call me some time!” But as he made his way around his apartment, that hope quickly faded. Chaarvi had left no trace of herself behind.
He tried to be optimistic, reminding himself that he would see Chaarvi around campus sooner or later, and might be able to arrange another liaison with her. But deep down, Simon feared that his first afternoon of passion with Chaarvi would also be his last. He was worldly enough to know that random one-night-stands typically didn’t lead anywhere; especially when the girl disappears immediately afterwards.
His Pop Tarts had only just finished toasting when he heard four firm knocks on the door.
“Hold on!” he called, as he crossed the single-room dwelling.
“Maybe Chaarvi left something behind,” he mused to himself, half-joking.
But he was genuinely surprised to discover her standing before him when he opened the door.
“Chaarvi!” he greeted her with delight.
Chaarvi’s response was far less cordial.
“What the hell am I doing back here?” She demanded in an acidic voice.
“I... I’m sorry?” Simon uttered in shock.
In the most superficial sense, this girl certainly looked like the Chaarvi he’d occasionally spotted slinking around campus. She was wearing the same dowdy ensemble, complete with ugly glasses. The fact that her collar was unbuttoned and her lush hair hung loose and messy behind her back was unusual, but not remarkable.
However, the fury burning in her eyes was a world removed from the shrinking violet he knew from college; not to mention the horny fox she had transformed into in his apartment yesterday.
She extended her index finger in an accusatory manner and pressed it into the center of Simon’s chest, firmly enough to cause him pain.
“You heard me!” Chaarvi snapped, practically yelling. “Why did I come back here?” She repeated as she barged into Simon’s home, forcing him to retreat several steps.
“I... I don’t know! What the fuck are you talking about?” he stammered nervously.
“You made me come back here, somehow! Didn’t you?” she demanded.
“‘Made you’? What... What the fuck do you mean? How the fuck could I ‘make you’ come here?” Simon protested.
“Calm down, you crazy bitch!” Simon thought to himself. With the red rage burning in Chaarvi’s eyes, he never would’ve dared say it to her out loud.
Then, bizarrely, that rage seemed to evaporate in an instant.
Chaarvi released her finger from his sternum and withdrew her hand. The sweet gentleness returned to her features, as the tension faded from her face.
As she drew back, her eyes panned from one side of the room to the other, as if she suddenly felt lost and was trying to figure out where she was.
“Whoa... that’s odd,” she quietly remarked to herself.
“You just... of course!” she gasped, as if some massive revelation had just come to her. “You don’t understand what’s happened at all, do you?” she asked Simon in a gentle voice.
It took Simon a second to respond. He was still recoiling away from her, his body unwilling to relax in case she underwent another dramatic mood swing.
“No! No, I don’t have the slightest fucking idea what’s going on here!” Simon replied indignantly. It was a stupid question, after all. Her questions and accusations weren’t just confusing, they were completely irrational! What hope did he have of understanding her bizarre behavior?
“I wish you’d damn well explain it to me, though!” he thought.
He could see the cogs turning in Chaarvi’s mind as she stared at him with analytical eyes. Her gaze was strong and focused, but completely devoid of emotion. There wasn’t even the slightest trace of the rage that had burned in them mere seconds ago.
“Yes... I see that now,” she humbly replied. “I’m sorry for barging in here; lashing out at you like that. I made a mis...take...” she hesitated, before raising her left hand to her temple and closing her eyes as if she’d just been struck with a powerful headache.
“I...” she winced.
“Are you okay?” Simon asked, with suspicious concern.
“I have to tell you about the channel...” Chaarvi said with obvious reluctance. “About... everything...
“But I... don’t want...” she staggered, before groaning loudly in frustration.
“I suspect that you’ve gained the ability to control me. To control my mind, to be specific,” she stated, in a calm, casual voice that hardly seemed to fit with the incredible claim. Chaarvi’s body language quickly relaxed, as if whatever internal argument she’d been having with herself had instantly been resolved.
“C... control your mind?” Simon repeated in disbelief.
“Yes,” Chaarvi nodded. “It makes sense, now that I think about it. I shouldn’t be telling you about the link we share; but I am! It’s because you commanded me to tell you what’s going on, didn’t you? You were confused when I barged in here, and you wanted to know what I’m doing here! So you mentally wished for me to explain this all to you. You gave me an order, with your mind! Now I can’t help myself.
“And I’m willing to bet that’s why I came back here in the first place!” she continued, seemingly oblivious to Simon’s stunned silence. “You wanted me to come back, didn’t you? You willed me to return, didn’t you, master?” she asked him, without even the slightest hint of accusation or scorn in her voice.
“Did she just call me ‘master’?” Simon thought to himself.
It took a couple moments for Chaarvi’s insane claims to fully register in his mind. At first, the eerie truth in her words made his stomach sink. He had wished she was back in his apartment! He had wished for her to explain her bizarre accusations to him just now! It was like she could read his mind.
But it didn’t take him long to figure out how her little ruse worked.
After the incredible ride she had given him yesterday, it was only natural that he’d woken up wishing that she had stuck around for breakfast. And when a woman bursts into your home snarling angry gibberish at you, of course you are going to want her to calm down and tell you what her fucking problem is!
The only thing that Chaarvi had just demonstrated was that she had basic intuition. But that still didn’t explain her behavior. What was she doing here? Why was she playing these mind games with him?
“You’re not serious,” Simon dismissed her claims. It was just as much a question as a statement.
“I wish she’d just stop fucking with me and tell me the truth,” he thought to himself.
“I realize how far-fetched all of this must seem,” Chaarvi conceded, looking at him with immensely sympathetic eyes. “There’s a lot of background you’ll need to know.
“I guess I should start by explaining that I’m not entirely human.”
Simon’s eyes practically popped right out of their sockets upon hearing those words.
“I’m actually partly divine. My paternal grandmother is an apsara; more or less a minor Hindu goddess,” Chaarvi explained in a calm, confident voice, that suggested she couldn’t hear the madness of her words.
“Oh, sweet Jesus! Please tell me she’s not a lunatic!” Simon thought, as he began to sweat. A vision of his future flashed through his mind, like a gothic horror slideshow: stalking, restraining order, looking over his shoulder, all culminating in a news headline about a murder-suicide between some poor dumb college kid and the mentally unbalanced loner he’d had a single ill-advised one-night-stand with.
“I’m not crazy,” Chaarvi said reflexively, interrupting herself mid-sentence.
“Okay, that... was weird,” Simon thought, noting how timely it was for Chaarvi to assert that she wasn’t crazy, immediately after he had privately wished for some sign that she wasn’t.
Chaarvi continued right where she had left off, almost as if she wasn’t even conscious of the brief interruption, “...because of my heritage, I have an unusually potent soul. Which means my presence can have a seriously disruptive effect on the surrounding environment. I destabilize things—the minds, the emotions of the people around me.
“But I can dampen those effects significantly, by drawing upon a cosmic force called Kundalini. It... Well, it brings order to the chaos. It stabilizes my own energy enough to make my impact on the world around me negligible.
“And that’s just as important for me as it is for everybody else.
“You see, without that moderating influence, the divine power I’ve inherited would overwhelm me. I’d lose all sense of who I am. I’d go mad... psychotic! And then eventually, my soul would burn right out of my body and probably hurl itself into Naraka—sort of a Hindu hell.
“Basically, I need the Kundalini to survive,” she summarized. She paused to give Simon an opportunity to ask questions, but none came.
Simon simply stared at her in befuddled silence. He didn’t know what to make of what he was hearing. On one hand, it was plainly ludicrous. But on the other...
She seemed so earnest. Every word was relaxed and casual. Up until now, it felt like every moment he’d spent with Chaarvi was wrapped up in either boiling emotion, or some sort of pretense. But now here she was, talking to him like a regular human being. For the first time, Simon believed he was seeing the real Chaarvi. If that were true, then that would have to mean that, at the very least, Chaarvi believed the claims she was making.
So was she crazy? That would’ve been the logical conclusion.
But Simon was impressed by how composed and coherent she was. Everything about her; not only the way she spoke, but also the way she stood, conveyed not just lucidity, but also an air of wisdom.
His brain was telling him that she was off her nut. But his heart told him that he should at least hear her out.
“Normally, I receive the Kundalini I need from a special shrine,” Chaarvi continued, “a shrine built for a single purpose: to serve as my own personal Earthly conduit to the essence of the goddess Shakti.
“But a couple of weeks ago, my last shrine was vandalized, desecrated. The link was broken immediately. I stopped receiving the energy I need.
“So I had to build a new shrine. And I did.
“I was all set to go back to life as normal, when, just as I was about to complete the Kumbhabhishekham—the, um... consecration ceremony—you wandered in to the boundaries of the shrine and disturbed it,” Chaarvi said, staring at him through her glasses with gentle accusation in her eyes.
A chill of guilt settled within Simon’s gut. With everything that had been happening in the past few hours, he’d completely forgotten about the shrine on the roof!
So it was her shrine!
“Yes. I was up there that night,” Chaarvi continued. “I don’t think you saw me, did you? But I saw you.”
It was the softest rap across the knuckles Simon could’ve imagined. There was no bitterness, nor condemnation hidden within Chaarvi’s mild manner. She merely spoke the plain truth. Simon’s conscience did the rest.
It’d occurred to him, not long after the fact, that he’d been disrespectful in disturbing another person’s religious shrine. Up until now, he felt like he’d gotten away with it; that the owner would never know and there’d be no harm, no foul.
But now, looking into Chaarvi’s eyes, his delusions of innocence were shattered.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized.
“What’s done is done,” Chaarvi shook her head. Her tone was oddly upbeat, indicating she had no interest in dwelling on the past.
“No, really. I shouldn’t have... I had no business being up there,” Simon humbly insisted.
Chaarvi didn’t argue.
“Um, look... Come take a seat!” Simon said, gesturing over towards his modest breakfast setting. He suddenly felt the need to be a gracious host. It was the least he could do.
“Thanks!” Chaarvi chimed with a warm smile, as she followed his direction.
“Can I get you some coffee?” Simon offered.
“Oh, that would be lovely, thank you,” Chaarvi accepted.
“Hmm. You haven’t had it yet,” Simon chuckled. Chaarvi smiled broadly at the lame joke.
He went over to the counter and started opening the cupboards hunting for a second mug. He was sure he kept one around here somewhere.
Once he’d found it, he started pouring. He wasn’t sure he had enough in the pot for two people, so he decided to fill Chaarvi’s mug first and just settle for whatever was left over for himself. Only once he began pouring did he notice his breakfast sticking out of the top of his toaster.
They were probably cold by now, but they’d still be edible.
“Can I get you something to eat?” he offered his guest. “I’ve got Pop Tarts and... Pop Tarts,” he added unenthusiastically.
“No, thanks. The coffee will be fine,” Chaarvi politely declined.
“Yeah, here’s hoping...” Simon muttered under his breath.
He placed the mug down on the table in front of her, receiving a gracious, “Thanks,” before he turned back to the counter to fetch his own mug and plate his lukewarm breakfast.
“Sorry, but you caught me in the middle of breakfast,” he apologized as he sat down opposite her, “Do you mind if I...”
“No, please!” Chaarvi consented.
Simon watched her keenly as she took her first sip of the coffee. She responded with a flawlessly polite smile, but Simon suspected that she didn’t really care for the drink. He wasn’t surprised; he couldn’t make a decent coffee if his life depended on it.
“So, um... your shrine,” Simon solemnly began, “I’m sorry, of course. I hope I didn’t do any serious damage?”
Chaarvi furrowed her eyebrows in a way that made him feel as if he’d just said something incredibly stupid.
“Damage? No, I wouldn’t put it that way,” she replied, gently shaking her head, “But it’s made things a lot more complicated.
“When the stars aligned that night, the Kumbhabhishekham did take place; a channel of cosmic energy was opened—just not upon the shrine I had built.
“Because you were in the middle of that sacred space, the channel of Kundalini appeared within you! You became my shrine, m... master.”
Simon was stunned; partly because he didn’t fully understand what Chaarvi meant.
“I... I’m sorry, but why do you keep doing that? Calling me ‘master’?” he asked with mild annoyance. Just when she was starting to feel like an ordinary person, that bizarre tic reminded him how disturbed her behavior had been that morning.
Chaarvi shrugged and shook her head lightly, as if she didn’t even know the answer herself.
“I guess because I’m devoted to you, master. You are my shrine! You’re holy now—to me, at least. I have to humble myself before you,” she explained.
Simon considered her words with a raised eyebrow. He still didn’t know what to make of her. But being called “master” made him uncomfortable. Her other delusions may have been relatively harmless, but when she used that word, she worried him.
“Okay, so you think I’m your shrine...” Simon began, not really sure how he was going to finish the sentence. He just wanted to prompt Chaarvi for some more information, hoping it would help him figure out what was going on inside her head.
“You are my shrine, master,” she gently, but confidently corrected him. She didn’t seem to take any offence at his skepticism.
“Right. Sorry,” Simon apologized. “So I’m your shrine now because I got the blessing that was intended for your actual shrine...”
Chaarvi nodded in confirmation.
“...and because I got that blessing... you’re saying I have mind control powers, now?” he asked.
This time Chaarvi shook her head, “No, not exactly.
“The Kumbha... the consecration...” she corrected herself, likely deducing that Simon would follow the conversation better if she kept the Hindu terminology to a minimum. “...isn’t the final stage of the process.
”Once the channel of cosmic energy has been opened within the shrine, I need to draw upon it. Otherwise I won’t actually get the Kundalini I need.
“Now normally, when the shrine is actually a shrine, all I need to do for this last step is to pray at the shrine and I will feel the Kundalini beginning to flow into me. But it seems that, when the shrine is a person, the rules are very different.
“I tried praying before you yesterday, in the library, but nothing happened. That was quite scary, to be honest; discovering that I couldn’t draw any Kundalini from you,” she confessed, with a tense glance. “I realized that I was going to have to figure out a new way.
“Fortunately, there is one sure-fire way to get a man to release his transcendent energies,” Chaarvi remarked with a smirk and a suggestive tone. “Not as discrete as I would’ve liked, but it got the job done.”
“Wait...” Simon jumped in as she paused to take a sip of coffee. “You’re saying that the reason you had sex with me...”
“...was to draw upon your cosmic energy, yes,” Chaarvi confirmed with shameless candor.
That claim made Simon a little nervous. He had just begun to feel comfortable, chatting with Chaarvi over coffee. But hearing that she’d slept with him because she felt some religious mandate to do so instantly rekindled the dangerous stalker vibes he’d picked up from her earlier.
“And that’s where things get complicated,” Chaarvi continued, leaving Simon little time to dwell on his concerns. “Because you aren’t just some inanimate structure. You’re a human being. You have a will of your own. And, I’m guessing, that will of yours is leaking in to the Kundalini stream.
“So, now that I’ve connected myself to that flow of Kundalini, your will—your thoughts and desires—are coming to me through that stream and are influencing my actions.”
Simon stared at her in silence, still struggling to form a judgement about her. The things she was telling him were clearly absurd. But he remained mesmerized by how lucid and coherent she was. If she had been any more eloquent, she could’ve halfway persuaded him to believe it.
He was troubled by the previous instances that morning where he had seemingly dictated her behavior through sheer will alone. Even though he had deduced a rational explanation for those incidents, there was still something about them that felt a little extraordinary.
“But it’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” he privately reminded himself. “I mean, if I really do have mind control over her then... why don’t you make bunny ears?” he sarcastically ‘willed’ her with his thoughts, maintaining a calm poker face and direct eye contact so as not to give her any subconscious hints about what he was thinking.
“Okay, so... what happens now? Can’t you just redo your ceremony at the shrine, so you can get your ‘Kundalini’ from it, instead?” Simon prompted, largely to conceal his private little experiment.
“No,” Chaarvi replied bluntly, after swallowing a sip of coffee. “You’remy shrine now, master. I have a sacred allegiance to you.”
As she spoke she laid the coffee mug down upon the table in a smooth, uncanny motion that seemed almost robotic. Then she lifted her hands up behind her ears, making soft fists with them while extending her index fingers up to protrude from the tops of her ears like bunny ears. She began to wiggle them playfully up and down, as if she were trying to amuse a baby. All the while, she continued talking normally, seemingly oblivious to what her hands were doing.
Simon’s blood ran ice cold as he stared at the spectacle before him. There was no possible way she could’ve guessed what he’d been thinking!
“I can’t just defect to another shrine just because there are... complications with the one I have,” Chaarvi continued. “I’m bound to you forever. Or until you are... destroyed,” she explained, in a lighthearted tone that tried to deflect the awkwardness of discussing his death.
Only then did she seem to notice the look of wide-eyed shock on Simon’s face.
“Are you...” she began, before pausing for a moment to try and figure out what was distressing him. As soon as she realized she was doing something silly with her hands, she turned her gaze back to Simon. Her brow furrowed as she humorlessly stared at him in a way that begged, “Seriously?”
“Holy shit!” Simon exclaimed, beginning to hyperventilate. “This is really real!”
“Yeah. I guess we’re both having a fucked-up morning,” Chaarvi dryly responded. She lowered her hands and flexed them one at a time before her eyes, to check that she had regained control of them.
“I really just did...” Simon excitedly babbled, making incoherent gestures with his hands towards her. “I mean, I really can control you! Which means you really are... you really are...!” Simon stopped mid-sentence. If Chaarvi’s unlikely claim about him having mind control powers was true, then the odds were that all her other fantastic claims were likely to be true as well. She really was part-goddess!
Chaarvi offered him a sympathetic smile and gently nodded in confirmation.
“Wow!” was all Simon could softly sigh, as his entire concept of reality began to crumble down around him.
“I guess this must all be pretty overwhelming from your point of view,” Chaarvi observed. “I hadn’t thought about that.
“But there’s really nothing to be anxious about.”
Despite Chaarvi’s reassurance, an awkward silence descended upon the room and lingered for some time.
“So...” Simon eventually muttered, “What happens now?”
Chaarvi swallowed uncomfortably and her gaze dropped to the table top.
“Ordinarily, once I’ve connected with a source of Kundalini, I go back to living my life as normal. So long as the shrine remains intact, it will continue to sustain me.
“But in this case, the ball appears to be in your court, master. You seem to be in complete control of me. So I suppose that ‘what happens now’ is entirely up to you.”
Simon didn’t know what to make of Chaarvi. With her deadpan expression, she appeared remarkably resigned to this strange, unexpected fate which had befallen her. But as he studied her closely, Simon could see apprehension in her eyes.
Earlier, while she had been aggressively chewing him out, he had mentally commanded her to calm down. He wondered if she was still sedated by that command; if it was sparing her the full weight of her current predicament.
Chaarvi’s words echoed in Simon’s mind.
“The ball’s in your court... What happens now?”
It was a damned good question. Here, he had a woman who was completely under his control... an incredibly beautiful woman, at that.
A blissful smirk curled on to Simon’s face as he contemplated the possibilities of his newfound powers.
He remembered what an insatiable minx Chaarvi had been yesterday. He remembered how gorgeous she was beneath those dowdy, loose clothes she insisted on wearing. How he would’ve loved to get another good look at those magnificent tits of hers; to play with them for a little while, even.
No sooner had that thought crossed his mind then Chaarvi’s hands rose up and began unbuttoning her blouse.
Adrenaline flooded into Simon’s bloodstream; his heart began to race. This was a dream come true!
But a split second later, it dawned on him that the only reason Chaarvi was stripping for him was because she couldn’t resist his mental suggestion to do so.
“STOP!” Simon snapped.
Chaarvi obeyed immediately. The command clearly startled her. Simon got the distinct impression that she hadn’t even realized she’d been undressing until he ordered her to stop.
He sighed as he watched Chaarvi look down in confusion at her partially-unbuttoned blouse and wayward hands. This was wrong. He was taking advantage of her, forcing her to do things she didn’t want to do.
Yet the temptation was unbearable. Here he was, sitting only a few feet across from the most stunning babe he had ever laid eyes upon; a woman who would literally do whatever he told her to. If he told her to sleep with him right now, she would do it, without the slightest hesitation.
He could do it. Just once. Just one round of heaven, to appease the infuriating desire that was burning in his loins. He knew it would be the most satisfying experience of his life. How could he pass up such an incredible opportunity?
While Chaarvi waited for Simon to decide her fate, she unconsciously brushed her rich, raven-black hair away from her graceful feminine features.
Simon sighed; deeper than before. He wanted a drop-dead gorgeous, red-hot sex machine girlfriend like Chaarvi, more than anything in the world. But not like this. Not with her held captive against her will.
For a moment, he mused on the idea of taking things slow. Perhaps meeting Chaarvi for lunch later, and seeing where things went?
But then he flashed back to that image of Chaarvi bursting in through his apartment door, fury burning in her eyes, outraged by the fact that he had inadvertently dragged her back to him. That was the real Chaarvi; the real woman, with her real attitude toward him laid bare, before he’d subdued her into her present complacency.
Inviting her to lunch might seem innocent enough. But she would only attend because he wanted her to. And if he was able to make his peace with that, then where would he draw the line? How many ‘little steps’ would he compel Chaarvi to take, before he realized he’d gone too far?
It was evident that Chaarvi had always intended to make a clean break with Simon, as soon as she’d completed her ‘ritual’ with him. His only ethical choice was to respect that.
“You wish all this had never happened, don’t you?” Simon asked her softly. “You want to move on as if I wasn’t tangled up in this at all, don’t you?”
The question surprised Chaarvi. She hesitated a moment before answering solemnly, “Yes, master, I guess so.”
Simon nodded softly.
“So, what happens to me, now?” he asked after a thoughtful pause. “I mean, now that I’ve got this ‘energy channel’ stuck inside me...
“Kundalini is a beneficial force, master,” Chaarvi answered with confidence. “Although, it is also subtle.
“It won’t do you any harm. More than likely, I suspect you won’t notice any effects at all.”
Simon forced a smile.
“Good to know,” he responded absently. It was a reassuring answer. But he was still left with a bitter pill to swallow.
“Then... I guess we should probably say, ‘Goodbye,’” he declared sadly.
Chaarvi was visibly shocked.
“Master?”
“This was all just some stupid accident. And all because I stuck my nose in where it didn’t belong. You shouldn’t have to suffer for that.
“We can just go our separate ways. I’ll stay out of your life, as best I can,” he promised. “Is that okay for you?”
Chaarvi was lost for words.
“I... It’s... It’s a relief to hear you say that, master,” she eventually responded.
In a strange way, it was also a relief for Simon. Although it was painful, surrendering his chance to get to know this absolute babe better—much less to relive that fantastic sexual encounter, he could feel a weight lifting from conscience, now that he had resolved to leave her alone. He was doing the right thing, and that gave him comfort.
“But all this... It’s a lot to process,” Simon remarked, as they both stood. “I can’t promise I won’t have more questions. If I do...”
“...You know how to call me,” Chaarvi concluded with a smirk.
Simon chuckled, eventually. Her humor had caught him off-guard. She certainly wasn’t making this goodbye any easier on him, with her dry, charming wit. It was such a pity they hadn’t met under more normal circumstances.
“Goodbye, Chaarvi,” said Simon, concealing his sorrow behind a brave smile.
“Goodbye, master,” Chaarvi warmly replied.
Simon extended his hand, without really thinking about it. Chaarvi grasped it gently and shook his hand ‘farewell’.
After their passionate tryst the previous afternoon, it seemed such a shame to Simon that they weren’t parting with a goodbye kiss. He almost leaned in, before he realized that this was the same slippery slope he had just resolved not to venture down.
He let go of her hand. Chaarvi’s friendly smile never faltered as she turned silently and made her way to the door. Upon reaching the door, she turned her head, offering him one final grateful smile, before stepping out of his apartment—and life—for good.
As the door closed with an unceremonious “thud”, Simon buried his face in his hands with a quiet moan of anguish. Why did doing the right thing have to be so fucking painful? And lonely?
She was, by far, the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes upon. Why’d she have to be under some fucked-up magical spell that crippled her free will? Why couldn’t she have been normal?
“If she was normal, she never would have slept with you in the first place,” he coldly quipped to himself.