I’m sitting at my desk, lost in a world I have no name for. A demon, a minor demon, is pinning me there, fucking with my head. ‘Ophelia’, she says, ‘I’m Ophelia, the demon of lies and deceit. So, what do you want to know about lies, my dear?’ I’m not a liar, I tell her, as I try to rise to my feet. But she pushes me back down. This time I’m flayed, splayed. I can feel myself screaming. ‘I’ll tell you about lies,’ she says. ‘There are white lies and black lies and many shades of grey lies. Some lies are justified. Lies told out of kindness, lies that preserve dignity, lies that spare pain… Everybody’s a liar, my love,’
She smirks, her black lips curling. She bares those viciously white teeth. I’m not a liar, I repeat. My voice scratches my throat raw. She just laughs. It’s not lying, I explain. My voice hushed by her mere presence. She reaches out with those white fingers. I shiver. There’s a difference between lies and keepings secrets, I whisper to her. Her nails painted black drag across my skin. Searching for an answer. I cringe at her touch. I stare into her eyes and lose myself in those depthless black holes. She says nothing. She doesn’t have to say anything. She can hear the lack of conviction. She can see the doubt eat away at my hushed words. It’s different, I say again. Lies are a distortion of truth. Secrets withhold the truth.
‘Really?’ she says, amused. ‘Justify the means all you want, my love. The end is the same.’ I struggle, but it is futile. She has me trapped and I can’t think. Something is wrong with my insides. They have vanished. I don’t know where to find them. ‘When are you going to own up to it all?’ she asks me. Her fingers dig into my skin. ‘I don’t know,’ I whisper. And the sound is pitiful. It reaches my ears. And I want to cover them. Did I say that? Was I really so weak? But then it tears out of my throat. It slips through my bruised lips. I cannot move. My body has betrayed me. I cannot get rid of her. Her hands are inside me. She is inside me. Her fingers are curling, twisting, exhausting. They’re scraping me away layer by layer. Until there’s nothing left but the secret-lie-truth she wants me to admit. I close my eyes. Grit my teeth. Muscles clenched so tight I stop feeling. ‘Stop fucking with me,’ I plead. She rips it all away. Reaches my heart. It is so cold it burns. She plunges through it too. And breaks my soul. I cannot make her leave. But she does. And then she looks at me with my life in the palm of her hands. I want her to just go away. Just leave me alone. But then she leans close. Her beauty and devotion for me to behold. I can see it in her eyes. What she’s telling me. No. I beg her. Let me go. She smiles. There’s no distance left. Her lips are on my skin. Her breath on my cheek.
‘But I love you,’ she says.