Lady Solitude

A romantic mystery flash fiction

This is a surprise flash fiction, a prize to

John Brown

for his answer to the mini contest I held on Notes. His request was a romantic mystery/cliffhanger. I was inspired by the title of a song I love.

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“Please, don’t leave! Stay just a bit longer…” he begged, while she was already slipping away from his embrace. 
“I can’t stay,” she replied softly. 
His lover was a secret he feared to share even with himself. Or rather he was afraid she wasn’t real. 
Loneliness had choked him ever since he moved into this old house. After his fianceé dumped him, after he lost his job and was forced to leave the big city lights, the silence of this small town poisoned his mind until it made him sick. 
He was ready to end his pathetic life, when one evening a month ago she turned up in his bed. She appeared to have materialized from the loneliness itself. She never told her name, and he never asked. To him, she was Lady Solitude, a black-haired beauty with warm skin, round curves and sweet lips. She gave herself to him with the lightness of a short, hot summer’s night, always leaving too soon. She was perfect - passionate and gentle. The few words they spoke were always the ones he needed to hear. Except when she was leaving. Her farewell stung his heart with the cruelty of the sharp rays of the morning sun. She was the night, his Lady Solitude, his refuge and his only friend. 

He did not fear ghosts, never had. A strange boy who loved ghost stories grew up to be a strange, lonely man. He wouldn’t mind her being a ghost, yet her warmth and the reality of her touch puzzled him. He felt deep scars on her wrists as he caressed her skin. One morning he woke with cut marks on his own wrists. He hadn’t seen those since his teen years. Did he cut himself at night? All he remembered was Lady Solitude’s nearness, her body responding to him eagerly, while he kissed every inch of her.

He grew restless, so he went to the local library and dug through the archives. No wonder the rent was so cheap! He found old newspaper clippings - a serial killer lived and died there in his house. A woman, who drugged and kidnaped men to torture them for weeks, then cut them to death. She killed herself by cutting her wrists after police found her five victims buried in the old garden behind the house. He shivered. It all added up. Except, the woman in the photo looked nothing like his Lady Solitude…
Was she living only in his head? If so, he didn’t wish the dream to stop, even if it would become a nightmare. 

Lady Solitude  appeared out of nowhere as usual. He didn’t ask questions. After they made love, he felt a cold blade touching his wrist.
“I love you. I don’t care what you are or what you do to me. Just don’t leave me,” he whispered, as she smiled down on him in the dark.