Suddenly an idea dawned on her that the young man probably hadn’t gone any business trip but sent a man to put the fear of God into his girl. But no. That was too much and unreal. It was more unreal than a real man appearing in her flat. No. she couldn’t believe! Could she be out of her mind?

The girl was blinking, trying to drive away that intrusive image, but it proved very difficult. He was standing without moving, gazing into her eyes and his look was so terrifying and cold that Vic was more afraid that it could be possible.

The man was silent, and his eyes burned into her. He was sullen, maybe even angry. Being in a stupor of dismay she perceived his face to be very handsome. His amber-brown eyes burned into the girl’s face and eyes. His mouth was screwed up and there was no hint at a hidden smile. He had black hair and his fringe was long, hung down about his eyes but didn’t stop him from destroying the girl with his heavy stare… He was too attractive and at the same time her forehead broke out in a cold sweat.

The terrible agony of fear consumed her, as Victoria realized: it was something before her. Was it alive? What kind of substance was it? How to accept the creature? An animal? A human?

‘What are you?’ she whispered not wanting to ask anything.

The man was like a stone sculpture. Was he capable of speaking? What if he had a special alien language? The girl kept on sitting under the table and built the guesses.

‘Whom have you conjured up?’ he asked in a low but secure tone.

‘Me?’ her voice trembled. ‘No one. I’ve conjured no one.’

‘Kharon!’ he said loudly.

‘Kharon?’ the girl re-asked, got surprised as if she had heard the name for the first time.

The man smiled, with impressive walk he came up to the girl, sitting on the floor, took her hand and clasped in his arms, held her close.

‘You don’t know whom you’ve conjured up, do you, Victoria?’ he whispered in her ear.

The girl was captured by a strange feeling. She had never felt before. Something was embracing her, touching her, speaking with her but the primal instinct to be feared was gone. She suddenly became so light and easy. She just wanted him to go on holding her closer to him… Idiot!

‘No’ Vic said softly.

She didn’t know what was going on with her, why she became flabby like a washed handkerchief, in some demonic creature’s arms.

‘Oh, Victoria’ he said, pulling her closer to him, ‘An incubus is in your flat and you seem to have no idea what you’ve done, girl, have you?’

She shook her head, but the fear wasn’t coming back for some reason. In the embrace of the man she felt so peacefully. The creature smelled of sex…

‘You’ve called a demon to you, Victoria… With your blood. Why?’

‘With my blood?’ like being high Vic re-asked without understanding anything.

She didn’t cut her veins and let the blood run. Could the demon miss the flat?

He let her go and followed her leg with his eyes. There was a cold single track of blood on her ankle. Where was it from? Victoria exactly remembered not to cut there… Suddenly she got why the blood was there. While she was taking a shower, she could cut with the razor by accident and didn’t even notice it.

‘You don’t remember why the blood is there?’ he asked slyly.

Then Kharon appeared near her. All it took was one soft, but rapid hand movement and the girl turned out to be in bed. The demon stroked her leg, rained kisses upon her inner side of thigh. Vic was hardly capable of managing invading emotions.

‘…Victoria…That was the steel…the sharp one…Cut your little leg when you were in the bath’

The man touched the cut with his lips. She could read a craving in his eyes, but the girl didn’t understand the craving for what? She wanted to wave him away, but her hands didn’t listen to her. On the contrary they embraced the man, wanted to be touched. The warmth of his lips touching went through her body like electricity with a minimum voltage.

But Kharon stopped. Having gazed the girl with cloudy eyes he got up and stared at her again. He was serious.

‘I can take your life for one millisecond’ he grabbed the girl and she slung in his hands like a kitten. ‘Do you need your life?’

Fear came back imminently. Her body was numb, horror paralyzed her mind. The girl stopped getting what was going on: firstly, she was starving with an idiotic desire to bed with the mystic man, secondly, she was in cold sweat because of fear.

‘Yes, I do’ she answered under breath.

‘Do you?’ he whispered being surprised.

His face expression was changing and frightened her, Victoria couldn’t follow up any exact emotion. She got the feeling that Kharon didn’t know how to rule his face as if he put on masks and observe his body and mimic abilities.

‘If your life is so precious then why did you read the text on the paper?’

‘I didn’t believe…I didn’t know you…You exist. That you would come’

‘You? Me?’ Kharon laughed.

He let the girl go and walked around the room, casting treacherous glances at Victoria.

‘Have I frightened you, human child?’ Kharon came up and took the girl’s hand. ‘You should not be afraid of me. I’ve been created to bring great pleasure… at a price. Are you ready to pay me?’

Kharon gently kissed the girl, investigating every inch of her neck with his lips. Vic closed her eyes and left the reality again. The demon didn’t stop driving her crazy, burning her skin, charming with his words. She was almost choke because of unexpected pleasure and enjoyment which the creature was bringing to her, when Kharon stopped.

‘Are you ready to pay me?’ he asked the question again. ‘I shall keep on… I shall show you these things none of men will be ready to show you. I shall open the arras into light-hearted enjoyment, that you will never be able to come up from. I shall present you a light and shining which will never leave your mind. There will be no pain, fear and melancholy… Only the desire… Unrestrained, full of madness, destructive, drying and reckless one… The desire which you will be spluttered in and accept it with all the gratefulness in life. You will get a hidden part of your consciousness, look at yourself in a different way… Are you ready to pay?’

Kharon stopped, took his hand out of her shorts. Victoria opened her eyes and amazingly stared at the man. She couldn’t understand why she allowed him to do what he was doing.

‘Pay you?’ she re-asked without getting what was going on in her crazy head.

‘A night costs your life’ he smiled.

‘Are you sure that it’s worth it?’ Vic spewed out with no thinking.

‘Worth it?’ Kharon fluently looked at the street and then shifted his gaze on the girl again.

Her hair was in badly messed batch, there was a frustration in her eyes, her clothes were wrinkled, and her naughty hand was smoothing out the shorts. There was fear and misunderstanding on her lips and a wild desire to be kissed by a part of hell. She had a vandalizing love to life, saying “run”. The girl was in prostration.

Kharon lowered towards her, snapped his fingers before her nose and Victoria shuddered.

‘No, no, no. Don’t do. I don’t wanna anything’

‘Lying to the demon…oh, that’s so bad. Well, you know how to find me. I’m not saying farewell. We shall see… Victoria’

The man kissed her cheek and disappeared.

Victoria was sitting like a statue for a long time trying to find out what had happened in her flat. But she couldn’t get her own feelings and emotions.

On the one hand she was scared catastrophically. She couldn’t still believe that the real mysterious creature had visited her house. Her scepticism became a silent cropper. Vic didn’t even try to get a little part of it back.

All that she had believed for twenty years now was gone. Demons? Witches? Vampires? Could it really exist? Living in secret from people, from their minds and perception… Maybe it wasn’t a secret. Maybe people were so interested in their own stormy lives that even during breaks between identical hours they didn’t see what was happening before their eyes. Perhaps, today all the supernatural creatures didn’t have to hide. Because now, living in the modern world you could stand among crowd during rush hour, plaintively crying in voice not your own because of pain, calling for help and in response you would be pushed away and someone would say: ‘why the fuck are you standing on the road, freak?’ Sliding around people, like a snake in grass, a demon, of course, in a human shape, would be unnoticed. The girl was shocked, having realized how many things were unnoticed and lost in that world.