#dark devotion

The house smelled the same. Old wood and dust, the faintest trace of your Nana’s rosewater perfume still clinging to the wallpaper, as though her memory refused to fade. You stood in the doorway with the keys dangling from your hand, luggage by your side, heart heavy with grief but lighter for being back on familiar ground.

The neighborhood hadn’t changed much. Same cracked sidewalks, same sagging fences. Even the trees seemed untouched by time. What you didn’t notice—couldn’t notice—was the pair of eyes watching from across the street.

Steve Kemp had never really left.

Not after high school, not after you moved away, not when the world forgot his name but he couldn’t forget yours.

You’d been the girl with laughter like sunlight, who shared her notes when he forgot his, who once sat beside him at lunch when everyone else had looked away. You probably forgot that moment. He never had. That single kindness had carved itself into him like scripture. He’d replayed it for years, every word, every smile, until it became something more than memory—until it became obsession.

Now you were here again. Back in the orbit he’d never stopped dreaming of.

___/

The first week back was a blur. Boxes piled high in the living room, the air thick with the scent of mothballs and cedar. You told yourself the creaks in the hallway were just the house settling. You told yourself the shadows under your bedroom door were tricks of the light.

Steve became a constant. Not in a way that felt suffocating—at least not yet. He had a knack for appearing at just the right time.

When the faucet sputtered and groaned, he showed up with a wrench.

When your car refused to start, he happened to be walking by, jumper cables already in hand.

When loneliness curled its cold fingers around you at night, he knocked on the door with a bottle of wine and an easy smile.

“You’ve changed,” you said one evening, watching him lean against your kitchen counter, sleeves rolled to his elbows. He was broader now, his shoulders filling the space in a way that unsettled and comforted you all at once.

He tilted his head. “Good different, I hope?”

You laughed softly. “Yeah. Good different.”

And maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was the fact that grief had left you raw and open, but you found yourself grateful for him—for his presence, for the way he seemed to carry some of the weight you didn’t know you were holding.

What you didn’t see were the notebooks hidden in his apartment across town. Dozens of them, filled with sketches of your face from memory, your name written over and over in his looping hand. Or the way he walked the perimeter of your house after you fell asleep, checking doors, windows, testing the locks.

You were home again. And Steve?

Steve was finally home with you.

He made it look casual, the way he “happened” to be walking down your street the next afternoon. He looked different now—broader, sharper, more confident than the awkward boy you remembered. Time had been kind to him in ways you wouldn’t have expected.

“Y/N?” His voice carried a kind of easy charm, smooth like he’d practiced it.

You looked up from the boxes in your trunk and blinked, surprised. “Steve? Steve Kemp?”

His smile was polite, just shy of boyish. “Yeah. Wow. I can’t believe it’s really you.”

And just like that, you were pulled into conversation—about the town, about your Nana, about how strange it felt to be back. He offered to help with the heavier boxes, and though part of you hesitated, he seemed… normal. Warm. Changed. So you let him.

What you didn’t know was that he’d already been inside the house the night before, slipping through the back door like he belonged there, fingers brushing your things, memorizing the rhythm of your breathing as you slept upstairs.

You thought you were reconnecting with an old face from your past.

Steve thought he was finally stepping into the life he’d always imagined—with you at the center.

You thought isolation would have arrived like a slammed door — sudden, loud, irreversible.

Instead it came like knitting: a soft, patient looping of yarn that smelled like cologne and warm bread, a scarf wrapped around your neck until it felt natural, then necessary.

It began with small conveniences, the sort that taste like mercy. Steve learned your rhythms and timed himself to them — the bus you missed, the dentist appointment you forgot, the Saturday morning you kept meaning to use for unpacking but never did. He was there, smiling, smoothing the edges of life that had become ragged overnight.

“Come on,” he’d say, hand already on the back of your chair. “Let me pick that up for you.”

“Don’t be silly, you don’t have to—”

“I want to.”

His wants were gentle commands; they felt like favors. He was attentive in the kindest ways: remembering names of the neighbors you couldn’t place, bringing a casserole on evenings you couldn’t face the stove, offering to take the trash because your knees hurt from kneeling among boxes. You told yourself you were grateful. You told yourself you owed him nothing for kindness. You also answered his texts faster than anyone else’s.

Then came the little omissions that were easy to forgive. An invite that “must’ve fallen through” when your childhood friend called about coffee; a group chat that you “weren’t added to” though you swore the thread existed; a message about a funeral reception hidden behind a notification bubble you didn’t see because your phone had “just acted up.” Each absence hovered like a moth in the light — trivial on its own, but when collected, a pattern.

“You should go,” Steve said once, after you’d read and re-read a text about a neighbor’s bake sale. “But if you need me, I’ll be here. I’ll come with you.”

You nodding became routine. You noticed, later, that the people who used to orbit your life — coworkers who once pulled you into plans without asking, college friends who showed up at midnight with board games and laughing— stopped doing so as often. They didn’t vanish with a dramatic scene; they were edged out by convenience. When you missed a call because you were napping in the sunlight on Nana’s quilt, Steve would call them back for you and “handle it,” leaving them a polite voicemail that sounded a little too rehearsed. Invitations dwindled. Rain checks lengthened into nothing.

At first you told yourself grief made you tired. You told yourself you were honoring Nana by lingering in the house, not running around town. These explanations were true, and they were not the whole truth.

He cultivated an intimacy that felt like a secret garden he alone knew how to navigate. He listened — really listened — and then he catalogued the small fractures in your life: a sister who always asked for money, a college roommate who’d once borrowed and never returned a ring, a barista who made a joke you found bruising. He would bring these things up not to wound you, but to wrap an explanation around what might otherwise have been annoying.

“People get busy,” Steve would say, watching you while you chewed on the corner of a sympathy card. “They don’t mean to drift. It doesn’t mean they don’t care.”

“But it felt like… I don’t know, like I was just background noise.”

“You’re not. You never were.”

Praise was his trade. He gave it lavishly and at exactly the moments when your defenses softened. He praised your hands when they fumbled with old keys, the way the sun pooled in your hair in the afternoons, how well you’d kept Nana’s kitchen despite everything. Compliments sized themselves like stepping stones across your uncertainty; you found you were more willing to step.

And then, like a gardener pruning for shape, he trimmed the edges of your independence without mentioning the shears. When your car conked twice and the mechanic was “busy,” Steve’s dad-friend popped up with a used sedan at a price that made your stomach clench with gratitude. When a neighbor offered to help you paint the fence, Steve suggested waiting until a weekend when you could “really do it right together.” He had a way of turning group efforts into private ones, of making the world small enough that his presence felt more efficient than chaos.

You began to rely on his calendar. Your habit of saying yes to him first — to coffee, to errands, to staying for ten more minutes because the night felt good — knitted you closer. The net around you was subtle: an exclusivity assumed through convenience.

There were, occasionally, slivers of discomfort. Once, while looking for Nana’s locket, your fingers paused over an odd crease in the quilt. You remembered Nana’s old pins: one usually sat near the seam, a bronze moth with a mottled wing. The pin was gone, and on the bedside table, where Nana always kept small things, you saw a hairline scratch that hadn’t been there before.

You mentioned it, casual, to Steve when he came by with another casserole. “Did Nana ever misplace things?” you asked, tracing the stitch with the tip of your thumb. He blinked, then took the quilt from you and smoothed it with a tenderness that prickled.

“She used to keep everything,” he said. “But things get moved. People clean. Don’t worry about it.”

His hand lingered on your wrist, not possessive, not yet. Just a touch like a promise. Your heart forgot it was taking note.

You told yourself you were safe. You told yourself the house was fuller with him in it, not emptier because of him. You told yourself the shrinking of your world was simply the sensible thing, the comfortable thing.

He was, wonderfully, wonderfully there — and that was what love, or what looked like it, did at the start. It filled the room. It made you feel luminous, desired, protected.

It also made the doors easier to close, one at a time.

It was late, the kind of quiet evening where cicadas hummed outside and the house smelled faintly of lemon polish and dust. You and Steve sat on the porch, your mugs cooling between you, the air carrying that edge of summer’s end.

You laughed at something he said—a dry, self-deprecating comment about high school—and the sound lingered, softer than you expected, almost fragile. You caught him watching you, not in an overbearing way, but like you’d just reminded him of something he didn’t know he’d lost.

The silence stretched, warm and deliberate.

“I missed this,” you said, softer now.

“What’s that?” His voice dipped, gentle, coaxing.

“Being… known, I guess. Having someone who remembers the old me.” You glanced away quickly, embarrassed at how honest it sounded.

His lips twitched, the faintest suggestion of a smile. “I never forgot you.”

Something in your chest fluttered—an ache, a nostalgia, a want you hadn’t expected to surface so soon. You shifted in your chair, turned just enough to face him fully. His eyes didn’t move, didn’t demand. They only waited.

The thought slid in uninvited: What if I kissed him?

Your pulse jumped at the audacity of it. But the idea grew stronger as you looked at him—steady, patient, not leaning closer, not pressing forward. He was letting you choose. He was good now. Different. Confident, yes, but restrained.

The first lean was yours. Tentative, a test. His breath hitched but he didn’t close the space. He let it be yours.

“Can I?” you asked, surprised at your own boldness.

He smiled then, soft and triumphant all at once. “If you want to.”

You did. And when your lips brushed his, light as moth wings, the kiss felt like your idea—your risk, your desire. He kissed you back with a careful precision, just enough pressure to ground you, not enough to overwhelm.

When you finally pulled back, cheeks warm, you laughed nervously. “I don’t know why I did that.”

But Steve knew. He’d been waiting years for that moment.

And because you’d made the first move, it felt like your choice—which only bound you tighter to him.

The kiss didn’t break you apart—it stitched something invisible between you. After that night on the porch, Steve’s presence grew warmer, more familiar, like the steady glow of a lamp you forgot you’d turned on.

You texted more often. Small things at first—funny signs in town, an old photo you’d unearthed from a box. He always replied quickly, as though he’d been waiting for you to reach out.

He brought you flowers one morning—wild, not store-bought, their stems wrapped in twine. “From the field by the tracks,” he said, scratching the back of his neck like it was nothing. You pressed them into a jar and laughed when the petals drooped, but you didn’t throw them away.

Days blurred in a sweetness you hadn’t expected. You made him dinner once—burned garlic, overcooked pasta—and he ate it anyway, grinning like it was five stars. He taught you to patch the screen door, you teased him for how seriously he took it. The easy domesticity of it all made you feel less like a grieving woman in an old house, and more like a girl again—light, desired, seen.

And oh, how he saw you. The way his eyes softened when you walked into a room. The way he kissed you—slow at first, then more certain, as though relearning the taste of something he’d been starved of.

You told yourself you were lucky to have run into him again.

But luck has edges.

It was small at first—things you almost didn’t notice.

One evening you mentioned you might go out with an old classmate you’d run into at the store. Steve tilted his head, smile easy.

“That guy? The one who used to call you ‘Sunshine’? He’s not worth your time.”

You laughed it off, because Steve wasn’t wrong. That classmate had been flaky, a show-off. Still, the dismissal left a faint sting.

Another time, when you said you might drive out to the city for the weekend, he leaned back in his chair, swirling his drink.

“By yourself? Roads get rough out there. Wouldn’t be much fun without me.”

The implication hung heavy, unspoken: why go, when you could stay here—with him?

The red flags were soft, almost pink. Easy to brush aside. He was protective, maybe a little too honest. You’d been hurt before by people who didn’t care enough. Wasn’t it better, this time, to have someone who did?

One night you woke to find the porch light glowing though you were certain you’d switched it off before bed. Your chest tightened, unease pricking at the edges. The next morning, Steve showed up with coffee.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he said. “Thought you might like company.”

You smiled, clutching the warm cup. And the thought fluttered through your mind—what would I do without him?—before you could even question it.

By the time autumn set in, your life felt rewritten in softer ink. You and Steve had a rhythm: dinners together more often than apart, evenings curled on the couch, kisses that deepened with familiarity. He fit so seamlessly into the spaces of your day that sometimes you wondered if he’d always been there.

But shadows live in seams.

It began with the fridge. One night you opened it to grab milk and paused at the back, eyeing a small package wrapped tightly in butcher’s paper. It wasn’t yours. You didn’t remember buying it. When you asked, Steve’s hand closed the door before you could get a better look.

“Just some cuts a buddy at work gave me. Nothing fancy.” His voice was smooth, practiced, but his eyes flickered.

You nodded, smiling like it was nothing. But later, lying in bed, you kept hearing the soft thump of the fridge door shutting again in your memory.

Then there was the smell. You’d stopped by unexpectedly one afternoon, and the house smelled metallic, sharp—like pennies rubbed raw. Steve came out of the kitchen with damp hair and rolled sleeves, grinning as though nothing was amiss.

“Wanted to surprise you. Was trying a new recipe.”

But the counters were scrubbed too clean. The trash bag was knotted too tight.

Another night, you teased him about his appetite—how he never seemed to touch the pasta or bread but devoured the meat like a man starved. He laughed, easy and deep, but when you said, “You act like you could live off it,” he tilted his head and answered, almost thoughtful:

“I could.”

You laughed it off, but your stomach twisted.

Chapter Eight: Pretending Not to See

You began to collect these fragments, quietly, like beads on a string.

The way his freezer was always stocked with two different packages for when he cooked for her

The sharpness in his tone if you reached for his basement door when she spent the night at his place

The notebooks you glimpsed once, pages filled with neat handwriting—recipes, but the ingredients blurred before you could process them.

One evening, you found a small stain on the cuff of his shirt. Dark, dried, rust-colored. He noticed your stare before you could mask it.

“Cut myself,” he said, with a grin too quick. “Clumsy, huh?”

You smiled back, lips trembling at the edges.

A saner woman might have asked. Might have pressed harder. But by then, Steve was so entwined in your days, in your grief, in your very routines, that pushing too hard felt like tearing your own skin. You wanted him. You needed him.

And so you pretended not to notice. Pretended you believed. Pretended that when he kissed you, his hands weren’t a little too firm at the back of your neck.

You told yourself everyone has secrets. You told yourself he deserved the benefit of the doubt. You told yourself love was about acceptance.

Even when a dream jolted you awake one night—the sound of bones cracking, the taste of copper on your tongue—you lay beside him, his breath steady, his arm draped over your waist, and whispered to the dark:

“I don’t want to know.”

But Steve smiled in his sleep. Because that was the point—he wanted you close enough to notice, and too bound to ever look away.

It was a rainy Sunday, the kind of day where the house seemed to hum with silence. Steve had gone out “to run errands,” and you found yourself wandering through his place for the first time while waiting for him.

He’d never told you not to snoop. He never had to. His confidence was enough to lull you into believing he had nothing to hide.

But curiosity is a cruel thing.

The study door was ajar. Inside, the air was cooler, sharper. The desk looked ordinary enough—neat, organized—but the bottom drawer snagged when you tugged. And maybe that should’ve been your warning to stop.

You didn’t.

Inside were photographs. Hundreds, maybe more, stacked neatly in folders. Some yellowed with age, some glossy and recent. All of them were you. At high school football games, laughing in the background. At a gas station years later, unaware. Through the window of your Nana’s house just last week, your silhouette softened by curtain lace.

Your breath hitched as your fingers trembled over another stack: notes. Pieces of paper torn from spiral notebooks, filled with your name, your smile, fragments of overheard conversations. Drawings too—your face sketched again and again, each one more precise, more worshipful, more consuming.

At the bottom, tucked beneath the pile, was something worse: your Nana’s moth-shaped pin. You’d searched the house for weeks, assuming it lost. It sat in his drawer like a relic. Like proof that he’d been in your home before you even knew.

You should’ve screamed. You should’ve run. Every instinct in you shouted danger.

But what crawled through your chest instead was… heat. A terrible, shameful heat. The kind that spread low in your belly as realization struck: he had been watching you for years. He had wanted you with a hunger no one else ever had.

And God help you—you felt safe. Safe because his obsession was absolute. Safe because he had already proven he’d never let anyone else close. Safe in the most twisted, terrifying way.

Your reflection in the darkened window startled you—the flush on your cheeks, the way your chest rose too fast. You pressed a hand to your lips, shivering at your own betrayal of logic.

The front door opened downstairs. His voice carried, warm and casual. “Sweetheart? You here?”

You shoved the drawer shut, heart pounding. When he came into the room, smiling like he’d only left minutes ago, you didn’t confront him. You didn’t confess.

Instead, you kissed him first. Hard. Desperate.

Because what scared you more than his obsession was the truth blooming inside you...

You liked it.

You kissed him first—hard, messy, too urgent to be casual. He froze only a second before giving in, hands open at his sides as though to prove he wasn’t forcing, wasn’t taking—just letting you.

It was you who pushed him back onto the couch. You who straddled his lap, your weight sinking into him until he groaned low in his chest. His hands hovered at your thighs, trembling with restraint, but you grabbed his wrists and planted them firmly on your hips.

“Touch me,” you whispered. And he did—gripping as though he’d been waiting for permission all his life.

Your hips rocked, testing, pressing down against the hard line straining in his jeans. He cursed softly, eyes dark, but he didn’t move to flip you, didn’t seize control. He let you set the pace, let you take.

The part of you that should’ve been horrified by the shrine in his drawer was instead burning with need. Every photo, every note, every stolen trinket whispered of devotion so absolute it left you trembling.

You ground down harder, lips at his ear. “I saw it, Steve.”

His body tensed beneath you. “Saw… what?”

“The pictures. The notebooks. Nana’s pin.” Your voice cracked on a breathless laugh. “Tell me it’s true. Tell me you’ve been watching me. Wanting me.”

His eyes searched yours, frantic, as though ready for you to pull away in disgust. But when you rolled your hips, slow and deliberate, his restraint snapped.

“Yes,” he growled, finally gripping you fully, possessive now. “Yes. Always. Since we were kids. You’ve always been mine.”

The words should have broken you. Instead, they made you wetter, a flood of heat between your thighs as you fumbled at his belt.

He helped you, shoving his jeans down just far enough. You freed him, thick and aching, and guided him to your slick entrance, sinking down onto him with a gasp that stole the air from your lungs.

“Fuck, sweetheart,” he groaned, head tipping back against the couch, knuckles white on your hips. “Take what you want. Take all of me.”

You rode him slow at first, savoring the stretch, the obscene slide. His eyes never left your face—hungry, reverent, as if he’d starved on visions of this for years.

When your pace faltered, his grip steadied you, urging, but never stealing control. You set the rhythm, bouncing harder, chasing the friction that made stars burst behind your eyelids.

“Say it again,” you begged, nails digging into his shoulders. “Tell me the truth.”

His voice was ragged, but certain. “I’ve watched you. Dreamed of you. Touched myself to every thought of you. You don’t know what I’d do to keep you.”

And instead of fear, pleasure surged hot and brutal. Your walls clenched around him, and his sharp inhale told you he felt it—knew what it meant.

“You like it,” he whispered, a dangerous smile tugging at his lips. “God, you like it.”

Your cry broke into a sob as you came on top of him, trembling, overwhelmed, your body betraying every protest your mind should’ve had.

And Steve, watching you unravel, finally allowed himself to smile fully. Because in that moment, he knew he wouldn’t lose you—not ever.

You were still trembling on his lap, clenching around him in the aftermath of your orgasm, when Steve’s mouth found your jaw, your throat, your ear. His voice was hoarse, ragged with restraint.

“You don’t understand,” he panted, thrusting up into you slow, deliberate, making your oversensitive body twitch. “I’ve kept everything from you. Years of secrets. You want the truth? I’ll give it to you.”

You whimpered, shaking your head—but not to say no. It was too much, too raw, and still your body rocked down against him, chasing the pain-laced pleasure.

“I’ve broken into your house,” he whispered, thrusts harder now, timed with each confession. “Watched you sleep. I took your clothes—kept them, smelled them, fucked my fist with them clutched in my hand. You don’t know how many nights I—” his groan cut him off, hips stuttering before he regained control. “How many nights I couldn’t stop.”

Your nails dug into his shoulders, hips snapping faster, needing it, needing him. His confession should’ve shattered you—but instead it pulled another orgasm from you, sharp and shocking, your cry muffled against his neck.

He didn’t slow. His pace grew savage, chasing his own high, but holding back, refusing to break before he dragged you down with him again. His thumb pressed to your clit, merciless circles until your thighs shook.

“Steve—please—I can’t—”

“You can,” he growled, lips at your ear, breath hot. “You will. You’ll take everything, because you’re mine. You always have been.”

You shattered again, convulsing around him, sobbing with pleasure, your body too raw, too full. He held you through it, gripping your hips so tightly you knew you’d bruise.

Only then—when you were limp, wrecked, marked by every truth he’d spilled—did Steve finally let himself go. With a guttural sound, he drove deep, spilling into you, hips jerking as though he could bury his obsession inside your body, make it part of you forever.

After, he held you close, pressing kisses to your damp temple, rocking you slowly while your chest heaved. His words were softer now, but still edged with the same hunger:

“I told you everything. And you’re still here. That means you’re mine, sweetheart. Forever. No matter what I am.”

You should’ve been terrified.

But lying there, boneless and ruined, you felt only the warm, terrible truth:

You wanted it.

It was the silence that drove you to it. Steve had left earlier than usual that morning, saying something about a delivery at the clinic. The house felt too still without him, like it had been holding its breath.

You’d promised yourself you wouldn’t snoop again. But promises were fragile things in a place like this. The basement door drew you like gravity. It was locked, as always—but when you pressed your hand against the frame, you realized the bolt hadn’t clicked shut.

The air was colder down there, damp with the tang of sterile and something thicker, metallic. You gripped the railing, descending one creaking step at a time, heart pounding harder with each breath.

At the bottom, the light was dim.the lights illuminated the carpeted floor… and cells that lined the wall.

Your mind refused to name what you saw at first. Refused to make sense of the pale legs curled against the floor, the bruises painting arms that gripped the bars.

Then a face lifted. A woman’s face—gaunt, wide-eyed, lips cracked. Her voice scraped out of her like rusted hinges:

“Help… please—”

Another voice, softer, broken, joined hers from the next cell. “Don’t let him take more—please—”

You staggered back, bile rising in your throat. Behind the women, shadows moved. Not all of them were whole. One had a bandaged stump where her leg should’ve been. Another’s bandages were soaked through with blood that had dried to brown.

And then you saw it—on a table at the far end. Surgical tools laid out in careful rows.

Your stomach lurched. Your knees buckled. The women’s hands reached through the bars, trembling, desperate.

“He’ll hear us,” one whispered, tugging at your sleeve. “You have to go. You have to run.”

But you couldn’t move. You couldn’t even breathe. Because for the first time since you’d found his drawer, since you’d kissed him with his secrets still on your tongue, you felt real fear.

And above you, the basement door groaned open.

“Sweetheart?” Steve’s voice called down, warm, calm, as if nothing at all were wrong. “What are you doing down there?”

You froze, torn between fight, flight—

And the shameful, terrible truth that part of you still wanted him.

You didn’t run. You couldn’t. The stairwell framed Steve as he descended, his boots slow and deliberate on the steps, that same easy smile curving his lips. He looked like he always did — handsome, composed, as if you were still sitting on the porch drinking coffee together.

But the cells. The women. The tools.

The whole truth bared itself under lights, and your heart tried to climb out of your throat.

He stopped three steps from the bottom, hands open, palms up, like a priest. His voice was soft.

“I was going to tell you. Not like this. Not yet.”

You opened your mouth, but no sound came. One of the women whimpered. Steve didn’t look at her. His eyes stayed on you, steady, green and sharp.

“I’ve never lied about how much I wanted you,” he said. “Never. I only ever kept back what I knew would scare you too soon. But you’re not like them.”

Something inside you flinched at the word them. But another part — the part still raw from every confession he’d whispered into your ear — leaned forward. He wasn’t lying. You knew it instantly. His calm wasn’t a performance; it was belief.

“You’re different,” he said. “You’ve always been different. I take what I need from them. But you? You’re the one I’ve built everything for.”

The room tilted. Your vision narrowed. You slid down the wall until you were crouched on the floor, arms wrapped around your knees. A high ringing filled your ears. He kept talking, low and steady, as if soothing a startled animal.

“I’ll protect you. Always. No one touches you. No one even looks at you without my permission. You will never go hungry, never be hurt, never be lost. Not you. Not my girl.”

You shut down. For two hours — maybe more — you didn’t speak. You didn’t move. You heard the women whispering behind the bars, felt their eyes burning into your back, but you couldn’t respond. Your mind replayed every kiss, every “accidentally” missed call, every wrapped package in his fridge, until the pattern was a mural you couldn’t unsee.

And yet… when you finally raised your head, he was still there. Kneeling in front of you now, hands resting on his thighs, waiting. Not touching you. Not pushing.

“I should be afraid,” you whispered, the words brittle. “I should run.”

“You’re safe,” he said, and it wasn’t a plea — it was a promise.

Something cracked inside you then. The horror was still there, yes, but it slid under a heavier weight: inevitability. His obsession was a cage, but it was a cage built around you long before you stepped inside this basement.

Your body betrayed you first — your breathing slowed, your muscles unwound. You looked at him and nodded, once. A small, slow motion.

His smile bloomed, not triumphant but tender. He reached up, brushed your hair back from your face, and whispered, “Good girl.”

And in the pit of your stomach, where fear should have been, there was only a dark, molten acceptance.

You didn’t say yes. You didn’t say no.

But you didn’t leave.

The women called after you when Steve guided you upstairs, their voices hoarse and ragged, pleading. You didn’t turn back. You couldn’t. Each word felt like it would shatter the fragile stillness you were clinging to, the strange calm that wrapped itself around your heart like a shroud.

The basement door shut with a low, decisive click. The sound should have gutted you. Instead, it almost felt… relieving. The horrors below were sealed away, out of sight, the same way you sealed away truths you couldn’t carry.

Steve didn’t touch you at first. He only hovered close, watching with hawk-like patience as you sat at his kitchen table, staring at your hands. Minutes stretched into hours. He busied himself quietly, making tea, laying out a blanket across your shoulders. He hummed sometimes, low and tuneless, like he was grounding you with his presence.

Finally, you looked up. His eyes softened the second yours found his.

“I should hate you,” you whispered, voice rough.

His smile curved slow, like he’d expected this moment. “But you don’t.”

You shook your head. It wasn’t defiance. It wasn’t surrender. It was truth.

He moved then, sinking to his knees beside your chair. His hands found your thighs, gentle, reverent. “I knew you’d understand. You’re not like them. You’ve never been like anyone else.”

Tears pricked at your eyes, but not from fear. From relief. The dark secret was out, bared and undeniable, and he hadn’t turned away from you. If anything, you were closer now. His obsession wasn’t something he could hide anymore — and you weren’t pretending not to see.

“I can keep you safe,” he said, leaning forward, resting his head against your lap. “Always. I’ll do the ugly things so you never have to. You don’t even have to look.”

Your fingers moved on their own, threading through his hair, stroking once. The sound he made — a low, broken hum — curled heat low in your stomach, shameful and wrong and right.

“You’ll never leave me?” Your voice was small, almost childlike.

“Never,” he vowed, fierce now. He lifted his head, eyes blazing with something both holy and monstrous. “Not even death could make me.”

A shudder passed through you — terror and desire twined so tightly they were indistinguishable. And in that moment, you knew the truth: the world outside was gone. Steve was the only gravity you had left.

Later, when he carried you to bed, you didn’t resist. You clung to him, burying your face against his throat as though he was the safest place in a world that had turned inside out.

Downstairs, the women still whispered for rescue. But upstairs, in Steve’s arms, you found yourself whispering something different.

“Don’t stop.”

And he didn’t.

Days blurred into weeks. The house, once filled with grief and dust, began to feel like a home again — though not the way you ever imagined. Steve slipped into every corner of your routine, not as an intruder, but as if he’d been waiting for the chance to build this life with you all along.

In the mornings, you woke to the smell of coffee. He always brewed it just the way you liked, the mug already waiting for your hand before you sat down. He’d press a kiss to the top of your head, murmur something soft like good girl or my sunshine, and you found yourself melting into it, no matter how wrong it was.

The basement was never mentioned. The key hung on a hook by the fridge now, plain as anything. He didn’t hide it from you — he didn’t need to. You’d seen the truth, and you’d chosen to stay. That was enough for him. That was proof.

Sometimes you’d catch him cooking late at night, the hiss of a pan, the metallic tang riding under the smell of garlic and oil. He never offered you those dishes. Instead, he’d plate something else for you, tender and careful, watching you eat with a hunger that had nothing to do with the food.

“You take care of me,” you told him once, half-dazed from the warmth in your chest.

He smiled, brushing your cheek with his thumb. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

And you believed him.

He kept flowers in the kitchen now — not the wild kind he used to pluck, but roses, bought in bulk, replaced before they could wilt.

He drew baths for you when you looked tired, sitting on the floor while you soaked, eyes never leaving you.

He started leaving little notes around the house: Beautiful. Mine. Forever.

You should have been unnerved. You should have run. Instead, you folded those notes into a box you kept in your nightstand, fingers lingering on them before you fell asleep.

Still, the edges bled through. Some nights you’d hear muffled cries from below, the clink of metal on metal, the sound of the basement door opening and closing long after midnight.

Once, you asked him directly. “Do they suffer?”

His eyes darkened, but his voice was calm. “Not like you think. I keep them alive as long as I can. But they aren’t you. They’ll never be you.”

Your stomach twisted, but you didn’t press. Instead, you let him draw you into his lap, his hands gentle as he kissed your temple, his whispers painting promises of safety and forever.

And somehow, impossibly, you felt… safe.

The house became its own universe: a place where Steve’s obsession was the law of gravity, where your world narrowed down to his smile, his arms, his touch.

The world outside receded. The horror below became background noise. And in its place, you found yourself playing the role you swore you never would: his partner, his confidante, his beloved.

You belonged to him now.

And worse — you wanted to.

The house was hushed, the kind of silence that hummed with anticipation. You lay sprawled across the couch, breath already ragged, Steve’s body caging yours in. He’d been taking his time all night, dragging you higher and higher, refusing to let you settle.

“Look at you,” he murmured, voice thick with hunger as his fingers dug bruises into your thighs. “Fucking ruined already, and I’m just getting started.”

Your hips bucked helplessly against him, chasing friction. His cock pressed against your entrance, thick and hot, but he held still, making you squirm. You tried to beg — please, Steve, please — but the words tangled in your throat.

“Mine,” he whispered, like a prayer. Then louder, rougher: “Say it.”

“Yours,” you gasped, arching as he thrust into you in one brutal stroke. The stretch burned, made your eyes roll back, but you clung to him, nails raking across his back as he set a relentless pace.

Each snap of his hips drove you closer to the edge, but he didn’t soften. His thrusts were brutal, claiming, as though he meant to bury himself in you so deep you’d never shake him out.

And then you felt it — cold metal grazing your skin just below your collarbone. Your eyes snapped open.

In his fist, a small blade gleamed in the low lamplight.

“Steve—” you choked, panic flashing bright for the first time in weeks.

He pressed his lips to your ear, voice tender even as he drove into you harder, deeper. “Shh. I’m not hurting you. I’m keeping you.”

The blade bit shallow at first, just enough to sting. Then he carved, deliberate and slow, his initials searing themselves into your flesh. Your body trembled violently, caught between terror and overwhelming heat as his breath ghosted against your throat.

“Mine forever,” he rasped, blood smearing against his fingers as he pressed them into the cut, marking you with him.

The pain blurred into the pleasure — every thrust forced a cry from you, every sting at your collarbone sent sparks shooting straight to your core. You shattered around him, screaming his name, your climax tearing through you so violently it left you sobbing.

He didn’t stop. He fucked you through it, harder, rougher, chasing his own high.

“Look at you,” he growled, biting your shoulder as he finally spilled inside you, grinding deep until you felt full, marked, owned. “You wear me now. No one will ever look at you without knowing who you belong to.”

When he finally pulled back, sweat dripping down his temples, he stared at the raw, red letters carved into your skin with something close to awe. Then he bent down and kissed them, slow and reverent, as though they were the holiest scripture he’d ever written.

“You’re perfect,” he whispered. “My masterpiece.”

And though tears streaked your cheeks, your body betrayed you — you felt safe. You felt wanted. You felt his.

Forever.

You were still shaking, the burn of his initials seared into your skin, when Steve pressed his palm flat against the fresh wound. His thrusts slowed but didn’t stop, dragging you down onto him over and over, forcing you to take all of him while your body throbbed with pain and aftershocks.

He lifted his hand. Crimson smeared across his fingers. He held them up between you, watching the way your blood caught the light.

“Beautiful,” he whispered, almost reverent.

Before you could speak, his tongue darted out, licking the red from his skin, his eyes rolling back with a groan. The sight made your stomach lurch—and your core clench tight around him.

“Oh, sweetheart…” His voice was ragged, worshipful. He leaned down, dragging his tongue along the raw cut he’d made, tasting directly from your skin. The sting made you cry out, your back arching, and he seized the moment to drive himself deeper, grinding into your cervix.

The mixture of sharp pain and brutal pleasure tangled until you couldn’t separate them. Every time his hips snapped forward, his tongue lapped at the wound, spreading warmth and fire through your nerves.

“You bleed for me,” Steve moaned against your skin, his cock pulsing inside you. “You come for me. You live for me. There’s nothing purer than this.”

Your body convulsed, another orgasm ripping through you without warning, your walls clenching so hard he groaned, biting at your collarbone to drink in both your cries and your taste.

He didn’t stop. He rode you through it, licking greedily, rutting into you like an animal until you were trembling, ruined, unable to even beg.

And when he finally came, spilling hot and deep inside you, he smeared the blood from your wound across your chest and throat, marking you with it. His voice was low, almost tender, as he collapsed against you:

“Now you’re mine in every way. Marked, filled, and bound. No one will ever touch you—not without tasting me first.”

The words should have broken you.

Bio!

Name: Model JU-714-N (Julian)

Works as a local engineer, overdramatic, arrogant, Robot, Male

Likes: technology, cartoons, capes, lists, bright colors

Dislikes: high-pitched noises, people making fun of him, water, being reminded that he's technically not alive due to being programmed