One Silver Coin For a Pound of Demon

Chapter 26

Draft
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As a result, you never moved back to your own room.

Lemuel would always seduce you at bedtime, when you're hugging each other and stumbling towards the bed, it's hard to think of things like "this isn't your room", and afterwards, it doesn't feel right to leave. Most of the time you still take showers (and pull Lemuel up to also take a shower). You let him go into the bathroom, change the sheets, and wash yourself when he comes out. Lemuel's eyes are always open when you leave the bathroom.

He's sitting or lying on the bed, facing the bathroom door, opening his eyes once you come out. He looks at you, you say goodnight, he says goodnight, and he keeps looking at you. You think of some of the pigeons you've fed that don't want to fly away, you think of a lady in a phone booth across the street calling her lover, "Goodbye, love you, come back soon. Goodbye!" She smiles, but still don't go off the telephone, "Goodbye, dear, goodbye!" she said. She holds the telephone like this for several minutes, laughing non-stop, she doesn't hang up and neither does her lover.

You want to watch Lemuel fall asleep, you want to make sure he's sleeping well before bed, not struggling with nightmares or kicking the blanket to the ground. But he always stayed awake, even when visibly lethargic. You stand outside the bathroom, wondering if it's time to say goodnight again, and then you realize, perhaps like you, that he wants to watch you before bed.

You go to him on a whim. He yawns, moving aside, and fell asleep on the side of the bed.

"Good night," You say, turning off the light.

"Good night," He says, closing his eyes.

You can have sex several times a day, and you can not do it for days, it depends on how busy you are, the weather, or whatever. It's hard to come up with a standard, it's more of a... intuition? Tacit agreement? A bad description. On the days when you're not having sex, Lemuel would open the door to the guest bedroom for you, he'll stand there, holding the doorknob, waiting for you to come in like you're supposed to sleep in his room. When he walks ahead and looks back at you, your feet walk towards him like they have a mind of their own- he's waiting for you, he shouldn't be kept waiting.

The biggest advantage of sleeping together is that when Lemuel's plagued by nightmares again, you'll be the first to notice without delay. He sleeps right next to you, you can push him awake before turning on the lights. Many times you can't leave to turn on the light, Lemuel grabs your hand tightly after being woken up by you, like grasping at life-saving straws.

At one point, Lemuel let out a silent scream and jumped when you touched him. You thought he was awake, but he wasn't. He shoved you onto the bed, strangling you by the neck and nearly crushing your throat. You smell blood on the back of your tongue and black specks run across your retinas, you grab his hand, hesitant. Lemuel let go of his hand after a few seconds, panting violently and falling into a ball. The next moment he scrambles to you in a hurry, patting your cheek and breathing to you. "Enoch?" He asks, his hands shaking violently.

You finally get your breath back and cough. Your throat must be swollen, and you won't be able to speak for a while. Neither of you said a word, you can only hear your heavy breathing ringing in the dull room.

"Why not pray?" Lemuel asks. "Why not? You don't need to be careful... I almost, I almost..."

His voice trembled like his hands, and you almost doubt whether you heard a cry.

Lemuel was having a nightmare, he was frightened, and frightened people should be comforted, just as the sick and wounded need treatment and medicine, not further hurt. You want to answer this, but you feel that explanation is too long. "If you didn't let go, I would've used it." You soothe your neck and say, "Don't be afraid, it's alright."