“Hey. What’s wrong?”
Kronii’s words pull your attention out of the mental void and towards her.
“Who says something’s wrong?” you ask.
“Your eyes. Your silence. That untouched plate. You, in general, implicitly, for like a week now.”
She’s… not entirely wrong. Your eyes return to your full dinner plate. The ravioli is no longer steaming. The image is motionless. Nevertheless, you try to imagine it breathing.
You try to imagine the cute little pasta puffs she prepared sleeping happily together. The psychotic mayhem you could sow among them by devouring them one at a time. The sadistic pleasure you could take in the massacre.
But the operative word is try. Your imagination fails you, just as it has for a while now. It is locked into a single state, one absent sadism and desire. One that fails to motivate you to any action other than reclusion.
A state of pure dread.
You see in this ravioli a fleeting memory; a brief warmth that will inevitably turn to shit, just like everything else does when subject to the flow of time.
In your glass of mid-priced Cabernet Sauvignon you see a catalyst for rash decisions, a leering chemical that threatens to direct your love or hers elsewhere in a fit of hot blindness if given the opportunity.
And in her you see all of time itself, as far as you’re concerned. How it began. All the terrible ways it could end. You try not to look at her nowadays, because even just that raises a whirlwind of thoughts.
What did you do to deserve her?
When will she realise she can do better?
What will you do if she leaves?
It hurts just to see her, no matter how she looks. When she smiles, you know it’s only temporary. When she frowns, you fear it’s a sign.
It makes you want to scream, or cry, or throw whatever furniture happens to be closest. Maybe all at once.
But that desire has no will to support it. Your voice remains down, your face dry, and the room tidy.
You’ve tried to clear your mind. Kronii’s seraphic looks always used to revert you a few evolutionary stages when you first met, so maybe they could inspire a factory reset.
Unfortunately, at best, the moments spent staring at her full breasts in an attempt to reignite the passion bring to mind a time where you’d be ravaging each other multiple times a day - a time that now feels like it was only taught to you in an ancient history class.
Pleasant memories for sure, but still ones that you lack the energy to re-enact.
”Hey.”
Your eyes weakly drift up to her. She’s patiently smiling god fucking damn it why does her smile have to be so beautifullllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
”You need some time?”
Yes. All of it. Please. Let the world stop around you and wait for you to catch up. Wait for you to return to the race as who you once were.
…
No. This ends now.
You open your mouth to speak. To your own surprise, words actually come out. Lots of them. You lose track of each sentence, rambling mindlessly about all the things you’ve been thinking.
Eventually, the running verbal faucet is reduced to a drip. Hoping everything was conveyed, you shut the gate and wait for a response.
”Can you look at me please?”
You’d rather not, but it’s hard to say no to that voice, especially when it’s being this gentle.
You lock eyes with her. Your gaze holds onto those blue beacons for dear life.
“When you go quiet on me like this, I start to worry. I’m… not the best at reaching out, so I didn’t wanna intrude if you just have a lot of work to focus on or something, but…
”I worry that it’s something I did. I get scared you’re starting to hate me or something.”
Your mouth opens instantly, even before you’ve formed the words needed to quell that fear, but it seems she predicted that response.
“Hey, don’t worry about me. There might have been a past Kronii who’d see you acting like this, assume the worst without asking, and close off. I’m better than that now. And by what you’ve told me I know it’s not the case.
”You know, a lot of what you just said sounds familiar. It sounds a lot like a younger me. Thoughts like that, they don’t go away easily. Or without a fight.”
She rises from her chair and moves around the table. Her hand daintily drifts across your neck as she comes to stand behind you. Her fingers dig into your shoulders, plucking out any tension they can find. You slowly begin to relax into her touch, and her voice.
”I’m not a professional at… well, any kind of therapy. We’ll have to look for a long term solution to your little brain demons together.”
Her lips descend to hover by your left ear. Her whispers deliver shivers throughout your body.
”But I think I can try a couple methods of short term relief tonight.”
Leaning over your shoulder, she runs her hands down your chest. She twists her head to place a soft kiss on your neck. And another.
Her lips mark your neck as theirs, the kisses becoming increasingly wet and loud as they move from one side to the other.
And then, once she’s reached the far side, they stop, only to be replaced by a long, slow upwards lick. Her tastebuds slide over your goosebumps, and as her tongue retreats from your flesh it grazes the bottom tip of your ear.
You hear a tiny, husky chuckle from her before her lips make their return journey, ending with another lick.
From there, she slides around you to sit facing you on your lap. She stares deep into you.
“Do you want me to continue?”
No words come forth from your mouth. She takes the hot, shivering breath that takes their place as a substitute for yes, and smiles.
She twists around to grab a piece of ravioli from your plate. She judges it a bit, determines hasn’t gone completely cold, and faces you again.
”Now don’t choke, okay? Remember to chew.”
With that, she places the ravioli between her lips, and leans in.
Your mouth instinctually opens to receive the food, taking care to chew as instructed while Kronii lavishes attention on your lips with her own. Every corner, every asymmetrical jut, none of it escapes her love.
The pasta sufficiently chewed, you gulp it down, and she gives you a couple more kisses before pulling back.
”Mmm, well done. Okay, again.”
She grabs another piece, and does as before. This one’s a bit chewier than the last, you note, so it takes a little longer to go down.
But this time, even once you swallow, she does not stop. If anything, she just takes it as a vacancy sign, sliding her tongue in to fill the now empty mouth.
Her tongue wrestles yours into submission; her hips rock back and forth against you; her nails trace against the sides of your neck.
And just when you gain the spirit needed to bring your hands up to grip her waist, she retreats.
It’s been a long time since she’s looked this smug.
“Well, I can tell at least one part of you doesn’t hate me.”
Her voice is deeper and slower than usual. God, she can be so sultry when she wants to be. She’s not quite a good enough actor to keep you from realising it’s a facade, but fortunately she is good enough to make you not care.
She climbs off your lap and grabs you by the collar, gently dragging you towards the bedroom and smirking all the way.
”Come on. Now that you know how to chew with your mouth closed, I have some… other manners I’d like to teach you.”
You begin a half-hearted protest about leaving the rest of the ravioli on the table. She laughs. It’s a strange laugh for her. Not cute, not manic, just… confident. And a little menacing. And very arousing.
”We’ll just heat it up when we need a break. For now, this is more important.”
She swings you through the bedroom door, pushes you slowly back onto the bed, and climbs on top. Her hands slide under your shirt, steadily removing it from your body.
“Oh, and you realise you’re not gonna be sleeping tonight, right?”
”Or for much of tomorrow…” she adds in a whisper.
The dread will almost certainly come back. Hell, it might be back within a few days.
But for now, she seems willing to do what she can to push it away.
Whatever the voices want to say tonight, they’ll be drowned out by her moans.