Page 10 of Scent Of Obsession
Me, by a particular man and his cursed flower.
Back inside, I faced an exuberant circus—the overwhelming dancing, the ebbing laughter similar to the sneer of clowns, toasts served by acrobats, the air charged with whiffs of grandiosity, the symphony of the orchestra like a wicked vampire ball. If its owner was the Monster, I certainly was the guinea pig.
“Dance with me?” Adonis’s grin was irresistible. Women had their eyes stuck on him. He had the looks and the money, a dangerous combination where just a sign from him would convey their adoration into devotion.
“Are you sure?” A malicious smile on my face, I raised an eyebrow in the direction of the predatory woman next to us. “I think Marie Antoinette over there would enjoy it very much.”
“I want to dance with the most beautiful woman in the room.” It was needless to talk about how smooth and charming he was. He had the gift of words.
I shook my head sideways. A part of me wanted to hide in a corner for the rest of the night, but lightning struck again. The man who was himself an inferno found his way back to me. At the opposite side of the room, we were back to our staring game, his eyes surrounded by shadows latching onto me.
Freaks among freaks.
It felt like everything was spiraling around us.
Usually, you see the face of a man first. But me, I met the man first. He was incontestably menacing with the power of invisibility. Except for me. My eyes were wide open. I was seeing Radcliff, the glimpse of his impenetrable conflict underneath, not the superficial show he was delivering.
Half ghost. Half monster. What about his humanity?
“Fine, I’ll dance with you.” I needed to save myself from Radcliff’s attempt to capture my soul.
I took Adonis’s hand as he led me to the middle of the room, where people were giving themselves lavishly to the pleasures of their bodies, using dancing as the love language of Eros. Adonis seized my waist to press our bodies flush together in an Argentine tango, transporting us to a simpler time.
My dress fluttered against his costume, its movements as light as a veil, unlike the other women’s dresses, which looked like circus tents rotating like spinning tops. They formed a barrier in front of Radcliff, sneering and making me feel dizzy. I clung to Adonis, and even his lavender scent couldn’t bring me back to normality. My mind played tricks on me. Dresses became clowns. Servers took the shape of skeletons. Laughter became demonic.
I abandoned myself to each note of the dark and enthralling music, taking part in this circus. It was getting harder to breathe. I couldn’t escape my mixed feelings. The memory of Radcliff under the moonlight, his scent mixed with the corpse flower filled my lungs, overshadowing the one of Adonis. I spun around, my heartbeat hammering like a volcano about to erupt.
He haunted my mind, overclouding this dance. The craziness from this moment cloaked him to perfection, until he eclipsed this carnival of guests into an invisible fog, and only he and I seemed to remain. I felt as if the dark mirth in his gaze had entrapped me to his carousel, where we were spinning endlessly.
My face became a firestorm; the death in his eyes nestled me in his darkness. My eyebrows dipped, my mind going into delirium, to a point I couldn’t tell what was real and what was illusion.
Unsmiling. Unwelcoming. Unyielding Radcliff.
The red hellfire color that tarnished a part of his right eye.
The hint of the disgraceful scar.
The glimpse of the red veins on the sclera of his right eye.
I saw it all.
As fright crept through my spine, Adonis reeled me around. My back was facing his torso, his breath so close to my neck. The hot smoke of his breath was nothing compared to the boiling temperature of my body. I was high on dopamine.
My mind was an exquisite form of self-destruction.
My lips parted, and some strands of my hair fell messily onto my face. A drop of sweat drifted from my collarbone to inside my corset. Captured in the moment, I was compelled by an unknown force to look at the man representing the sins, the chills, and the ugly. His soul was holding the gates of hell when his eyes dipped down and lingered on my body, observing each of my moves and curves.
The strength of his stare was menacing, an intensity that would break anyone. Goose bumps rushed over my naked arms. I couldn’t hold his stare any longer; it was like looking directly at burning sunlight. Another drop of sweat slipped.
The dull pain in my chest was a warning I should stop. But I couldn’t. The music rose higher. My feet graced the floor seductively in a half circle, Adonis’s fingers skimming over my legs.
I was dancing between two men, stuck between terror and arousal.
Caught endlessly in a triangle between the soul and the head.
My head craved the light, the easy, while my soul was governed by a dark obsession. I was a tornado fighting two extremes tempting me toward different sins and desires. The music became a dark lullaby. Each note was a sign of fate to choose a path.
The witch, the devil, and the prince.
