Temporary Housemate

Chapter Nine

Please comment on how you feel about this story – is it too blasé? Not descriptive enough? Confusing? Let me know. Also, just in case you hadn’t, please re-read the last chapter as it now makes a lot more sense. Thanks, Enjoy.

“Dreams are the touchstones of our character.”

–        Henry David Thoreau.

So. It wasn’t enough for him to invade my dreams, but now he was actually outside with me, and I was locked out of the house meaning I had no escape. ‘Brilliant’ my sarcastic inner voice snarled with contempt. Swirling around as quickly as I could, I gazed towards where the voice had come from. Unfortunately, I had only been able to make out the outline of the house via the flickering street light in front of it and worked my way towards the door from there. Turning around, all I could see was blackness, reflecting the bleakness of this predicament. Why couldn’t I just have a normal stalker? ‘What’s up Char? You’re not scared of him are you?’ my inner sadistic voice piped up. Shaking my head, I looked towards where I thought I’d heard his voice again, choosing to ignore my aside, and thought I had just made out a slightly darker shade of black in my line of vision when I felt breathing by my neck.

I instinctively forced my elbow behind me in an attempt to injure the person. I hadn’t a clue who it was as Vince was in front of me and I couldn’t help my reaction. The person behind me made an ‘ooomff’ sound but grabbed me around the waist to prevent further injury. However that only forced me to retaliate harder. I lunged my body forwards at speed and using his own weight to my advantage, I propelled the intruder over my shoulders, during which time I heard a surprised gasp and felt, rather than saw, hands trying to grip my hair, shoulders, anything, but I had already ducked and in the next instance I felt the deck reverberating and heard a pained grunt as he made impact.

Trying to formulate a plan I made a further dash for the door and desperately attempted to find Vince. Whispering so quietly that I barely recognised my own voice, I quickly called, “Vince. Vince. Where are you?” Although it came out as more of a hiss, but I was too petrified to really notice.

To my complete and utter surprise, after a quick groan which made me even more frantic in my search for Vince, I then heard a snide remark of, “Here Buffy.” From the direction of where I had catapulted that intruder, I heard a further grunt and then the creaking of the deck as weight shifted on it, “Sadly you seemed to think beating up the love of your life was a good idea! Lord knows why.”

Relief flooded my system for a brief second in conjunction with the glamorous revelation that I had at least got the upper hand on Vince, as well as possibly caused him injury and all without my eyesight. My reprieve lasted until the cogs in my brain started to clunk, “Hang on, if you were behind me, then who was in front of me? I thought that was you because you’re voice sounded from that direction.” My voice died down to a quiet murmur. “Who else is out here?” Hysteria was slowly taking over my sanity, “Vince do you have a key? We really need to get back inside.” Panic was working its way into my bones and settling there for the umpteenth time in just a couple of days.

“Relax Char, there was no-one else out here when I arrived.” Even though I couldn’t see him, the texture of his voice seemed to take on that hypnotic quality it had in my dream and I unconsciously started to relax, at the same time though he sounded smug. “The only sounds I heard when I arrived were of some idiot taking a walk at the bottom of the yard and branches snapping in quick succession from said idiot.” He continued casually, “Besides if anyone were out here I would protect you, although I doubt that you would need it judging from my heavy bruising.” I couldn’t help the cathartic smile that spread across my lips from that knowledge and yet again failed to notice that as he spoke I had been moving closer to the sound of his voice. It was when I felt myself brush up again cloth that I recoiled and realised what I had been doing. My body currently had a mind of its own and seemed drawn to Vince, but I wouldn’t let my body win this fight. Walking around him to sit on the swing bench outside, I felt around until the solid wood of the seat was underneath me and proceeded to swing my legs up to prevent Vince from sitting down as well – just a precaution.