You've never known so many stars in the sky... it seems almost like some sort of cosmic joke to have a night like this be so beautiful. This is the weather you should have had [[that night|Wedding Night]], when everything should have been perfect and ethereal, even the sky itself. Perhaps you should have taken the darkness as an omen.\n\nNow the whole room is illuminated by that cool, blue light, not enough to chase away the shadows, but enough to outline [[her|Woman]] on the [[bed|Bed]]. The curves you know so well are glowing in the dark, as if the light wishes to touch her //like everyone else//.\n\n\n[[You close your eyes to shut them out.|Room]]
<<set $read_the_text = $read_the_text + 1>>\nHow? How can something so beautiful and perfect be something so disgusting and mired in sticky, awful reality?\n\nHow can the same act between you and her be so tender, so passionate, so unbelievably //right// that you wanted to sing it out to the world, without shame?\n\nOne change of actor, and it's all wrong, some sort of creeping vile mess that stained the [[bed|Bed]] and the walls and her dress and his friendship with you and her so-called love and everything that ever meant anything to you.\n\nAll because of one different man.\n\n[[Ugh. Fuck it.|Room]]
<<set $read_the_text = $read_the_text + 1>>\nNo no NO NO NO.\n\nYou can't think about it. \n\nYou liked it better when she was just some marble statue, dry as a bone, with none of that seamy wetness.\n\nThere was a brief time - [[perhaps six hours|Wedding Night]], you're not sure - when you were oddly delighted by it, by the way it came at your command, at your touch, slick beneath your palm. You were stupider then.\n\nNow all you can think of is the rank smell, a damp and festering bed, the offensive fluids gushing from her like some sort of filthy wellspring.\n\nIt's still clinging to you even now, //clinging to everyone, everything, the whole fucking camp drowning in her body fluids.//\n\nThere's [[his|The Man]], too, his all over her, all over you too. And in turn, you realize with something like horror, your own sweat is all over him, pressed onto his skin by the flesh of a whore.\n\nBecause yes, you sweated too.\n\n[[You're going to throw up if you think about this any more.|Room]]
Who's there?\n\n[[Othello?|True Ending 3]]\n
<<set $read_the_text = $read_the_text + 1>>\nHer skin has always fascinated you, both to look at and to touch. You know now how it feels beneath your fingers, how smooth and silken and slightly cool against your own fevered flesh. And so pale, like fresh snow... if you didn't know any better, you'd say she looked like some sort of marble effigy, laying on her bier.\n\nNo scars, you promise yourself. You wouldn't want to mar or stain that perfect skin of hers. There are other ways to do it.\n\n[[You resist the urge to touch it one last time...|Woman]]
FIN\n\n//It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.\nLet me not name it to you, you chaste stars,\n\nPut out the light, and then put out the light.//
<<silently>>\n<<set $light = "on">>\n<<set $read_the_text = 0>>\n<<set $kisses = 0>>\n<<endsilently>>\n\n//Please note: this story contains instances of domestic abuse, misogyny, explicit sexual content and violence.//\n\n[[Continue|Real Start]]\n\n\n
<<set $light = "out">>\nWith a gesture that is almost tender, you cup the flame with your hand, like a lover's hand at the nape of a neck.\n\nA single breath, quiet and quick, and the flame is extinguished, only a soft curl of smoke heralding its existence. \n\nThe room is plunged into darkness.\n\n<<display 'Dark Room'>>
[[Who's there?|True Ending 2]]\n\n
<<if $light eq "on">>\n<<display 'Stars Light'>>\n<<else>>\n<<display 'Stars No Light'>>\n<<endif>>
Who's there?\n\nOthello?\n\n*//Ay, [[Desdemona.|True Ending 4]]//\n\n\n\n
<<set $read_the_text = $read_the_text + 1>>\nIt's surprisingly hard to look at her. You'd always prided yourself on your resolve, on doing what needed to be done, and yet, seeing her lying here, it's much harder than you expected.\n\nIt doesn't help that she looks so [[beautiful|Her Beauty]].\n\nIt's the little things that undo you the most. The small dimple on her cheek, the way her hair spills out over the pillow, the slight redness under her eyes that bodes weeping. And her [[skin|Her Skin]]... you have never met a woman with more perfect skin, flawless to the touch and the eye. You want it to always look like that.\n\nIf you're not careful, you can remember that face, that hair, that skin, in [[other moments|Wedding Night]], more unguarded... arched in happiness, eyes closed, lips forming your name.\n\nBut you know [[what you have to do|Her Fate]]. She brought this on herself, after all. And you have to do this before she ends up screwing over [[some other poor sap.|Betray Men]]\n\nBut oh god, does it have to hurt so much? Does she have to be so perfect?\n\nDo you have to love her so much?\n\n[[You can't look at her anymore.|Room]]\n\n
<<if $light eq "on">>\n<<display 'Woman Light'>>\n<<else>>\n<<display 'Woman No Light'>>\n<<endif>>\n\n\n
<<set $read_the_text = $read_the_text + 1>>\nFUCK HIM \n\nFUCK THAT ASSHOLE\n\nFUCK THAT LYING, TRAITOROUS PIECE OF SHIT\n\nHe was your best friend, //your best friend//, and he...\n\nAnd she...\n\nTogether, they were...\n\nIn this [[bed...|Bed]]\n\n[[You can't even think about it.|Room]]
<<set $read_the_text = $read_the_text + 1>>\nYour wedding night was the sort of experience where nothing can prepare you for it... no gentle words of advice, no bawdy jokes in taverns, no lurid encounters in back-alleys or brothels or in the cold cot of a tent.\n\nYou kept the [[candle|Candle]] lit, at least at first. It was a dark and overcast night, after all, and you wanted to see each other. For some reason. //what she saw, you will never understand //\n\nOf all the images that will stay with you, the one burnt into your brain is the one of [[her face|Woman]], thrown back, features slack with ecstasy. At the time, you felt like a conquering hero. Now it makes you want to [[throw up|Cheating]].\n\nThat is the vision. The rest is all sound and sense, the cloying film of [[sweat|The Sweat]] still clinging to you even now.\n\n[[No more. You don't want to remember.|Room]]
<<set $read_the_text = $read_the_text + 1>>\n<<if $kisses eq 0>>\n<<display 'First Kiss'>>\n<<else>><<if $kisses eq 1>>\n<<display 'Once More'>>\n<<else>><<if $kisses eq 2>>\n<<display 'The Last'>>\n<<else>>\n<<display 'No More'>>\n<<endif>><<endif>><<endif>>
It's midnight.\n\nIt's time.\n\nYou grip a guttering candle tightly as you push open the door to your bedroom. The warm, red glow of the flame illuminates four white walls, a few sticks of furniture, large chests and boxes still not emptied since your arrival... possibly never to be emptied again. And then the bed, the monument of white and curtains and dirty sw-//ohgodohgod//, rising in the center of the room like some sort of obscene altar, its single sacrifice splayed upon it in quiet repose.\n\n<<display 'Lit Room'>>
.passage .title { display: none }\n.passage .toolbar { display: none }\na { color: red !important }
No. No, not again. One more, and you'd change your mind. Either that, or die.\n\n[[Don't be tempted. Look away.|Room]]
<<set $kisses = $kisses + 1>>\nHer breath beckons you down, down down, until your lips meet hers, and //oh...//\n\nYou half expect to feel blood trickling out of your mouth, your eyes, your heart. Surely no human can feel this intensity of emotion, this purest blend of love and hate, and still live. You taste the salt of your tears in the kiss, mingled with the sweetness of her breath, and you wonder if it would be so bad to die now.\n\nIt is killing you, and you never want to pull away. Yet somehow, you manage to part your lips slightly, edge away just so that your pants comingle with her even breaths, the warmth of her lips a mere touch away.\n\n\n[[One more kiss.|Once More]]\n\n[[No, no, pull away while you still can.|Woman]]
<<set $read_the_text = $read_the_text + 1>>\nOn closer inspection, you recognize these sheets. The white crispness, the laced pattern down the side, the slightly lopsided corner where she stitched a D in the fabric.\n\nWedding sheets.\n\nOnce so welcoming, now they only infuriate you in their cleanness. Where's the stain, damnit! Where's the fucking stain? Could it have come out so easily? Was it even there in the first place? \n\n//you don't remember, it didn't even occur to you to look afterwards, you were so happy and trusting and and and//\n\n[[Goddamnit.|Room]]
The Light
The shadows have engulfed it, and what was once a clean, boxy whiteness is now a darkened mass of shadows and rumpled cloth.\n\nIt doesn't matter. You remember the feeling of fine cotton on your skin. You remember what you [[did|Wedding Night]] in it. \n\nThe rest is... unimportant.\n\n[[Forget about it.|Room]]
<<set $read_the_text = $read_the_text + 1>>\nYou are unabashedly weeping by now, and were you not trying to be quiet and not wake her, you would be howling at the [[stars|Stars]], those cool little pinpricks that seem so far away and uncaring and above your petty concerns like grief and heartbreak and regret.\n\nYou know this is right, you //know// it's right, and yet something so just and honorable should not feel like sliding the knife in to the hilt under your neck.\n\nThis must be what God felt like in all those Old Testament tales, punishing and tormenting the very people he loved with all his heart, punishing them //because// he loved them. \n\nThe tears on your cheek are cruel, but they are honest, unlike [[her|Woman]].\n\nOh, what if your grief drowns your rage? What if that faint soft [[breath|Her Breath]] of hers confuses you, convinces you to put the knife's edge back in its sheathe? What if you listened to all those whispers of temptation in your ears, in your soul, and...\n\nAnd what? Let her laugh behind your back, spread her legs for... No, this is the only course.\n\nIt will destroy you utterly, but this is the only course.\n\n[[Resolve yourself.|Room]]
You do not need light to see her.\n\nYou know her body, her [[beauty|Her Beauty]], almost as well as you know your own. You know it in your pores, your lungs, your whole being. You could close your eyes and she would still be clear, shining, pure and lovely as she lay sleeping on the bed.\n\n//lying bitch//\n\nYou [[feel|Soul]] like you're dying, like your whole being is being ripped out with razor hooks, like that shadowed form on the bed was tenderly reaching into your throat and shredding your insides with her talons. But you will be strong.\n\nBut you cannot resist the urge to drink her in now, in this last moment, while her rose is still blooming on the tree. The scent of her [[breath|Her Breath]] overwhelms you, sweet and beckoning like the finest flower. You could suffocate in it.\n\nSomething this perfect should never be so poisonous.\n\nAnd yet, you would drink that poison again, one more time, [[your lips to hers...|Kiss Her]]\n\n[[You should pull away.|Room]]\n
<<set $read_the_text = $read_the_text + 1>>\nYou don't want to think about it.\n\nWell, that's not true. You've been thinking about it for the past twenty four hours, so often that it's burnt grooves into your brain and left you running in circles.\n\nBut you don't want to say it aloud. Not any more. You've already expended enough words on [[her|Woman]]...\n\n//fucking whore, how could she, how could she after the two of you...//\n\nIt's too horrible to put a name to, too horrible to say aloud. You can't admit it to anything, not to the [[lonely stars|Stars]], not to [[yourself|Soul]].\n
<<set $read_the_text = $read_the_text + 1>>\nWait, now you're worried about her hurting //other// men?\n\nIsn't it a bit late for that? Hasn't she already infected enough?\n\n//fucked a hundred men, fucked the whole camp, fucked [[my best friend|The Man]], fucking fucking whore//\n\nYou want to believe you're doing this to save other men from the pain you feel.\n\nYou do a very, very good job of almost convincing yourself.\n\n[[Damn her.|Woman]]
<<if $light eq "on">>\n<<display 'Lit Room'>>\n<<else>>\n<<display 'Dark Room'>>\n<<endif>>
<<set $read_the_text = $read_the_text + 1>>\nThe wick is cooling rapidly, only the dullest orange glow where once a flame licked and danced. You don't have anything handy to relight it...\n\nBut you could relight it, if you really wanted to. You could leave the room, find some fireplace or lamp somewhere and set it aflame again, should you have... second thoughts about snuffing it out.\n\nNot everything snuffed out can be relit.\n\nThere are things in the world with a fire you can't see, a light inside you can't even understand. Those are fires that no one knows how to relight.\n\nCertainly you don't, at least.\n\nOnce [[her|Woman]] fire is put out, it cannot be rekindled.\n\nIf you have second thoughts...\n\nBut no, [[there can be no second thoughts.|The Cause]]\n\n\n[[Enough. That way lies madness.|Room]]\n\n
<<set $read_the_text = $read_the_text + 1>>\nIt's a peculiarly clear night this evening, not like [[last night|Wedding Night]], when the clouds from the morning's storm still covered the sky. Now, the stars fill the heavens, winking at you as if in on the monstrous cosmic joke.\n\nThe night sky glows with cool, blue light, utterly unlike the warmth of the [[candle|Candle]]. You always hear people describe the stars as women, as cold, aloof, chaste ice princesses out of reach of the hand of man.\n\n//do you hear people say that? Or is that just what you always thought? Well, now you know otherwise, now you know that she...\n\nno no no nonono//\n\nYour [[heart|Soul]] is full, but you cannot speak. Not to them. No, you can't tell them [[the reason|The Cause]] for it all, can't name it aloud and give it words. //pleasedon'tmakeyoudoit// They would blush and turn away in horror.\n\nAt [[her|Woman]].\n\n//not at you//\n//your cause is just//\n//never at you//\n\n[[You can't look at them any more.|Room]]
<<if $light eq "on">>\n<<display 'Soul Light'>>\n<<else>>\n<<display 'Soul No Light'>>\n<<endif>>\n\n
<<if $light eq "on">>\n<<display 'Bed Light'>>\n<<else>>\n<<display 'Bed No Light'>>\n<<endif>>\n
<<if $light eq "on">>\n<<display 'Wedding Night Light'>>\n<<else>>\n<<display 'Wedding Night No Light'>>\n<<endif>>
Michelle Clough
Without the [[candle|Candle]], only the [[stars|Stars]] provide any sort of light. It is still enough to see by, but you would not need them anyway... you do not need eyes to see [[this bed|Bed]] and [[this woman|Woman]].\n\nYour [[soul|Soul]] is screaming like it will never stop. \n\n[[Put out the light.|Put Out the Light 2]]
<<set $read_the_text = $read_the_text + 1>>\nYou don't think she's ever been more lovely than she is right now, in this moment before the plunge. It's almost sick, really, the difference between this pretty, sweet face on her pretty, sweet body, and... [[what she did.|Cheating]]\n\nYou wonder if she will be this beautiful when she is dead. You hope so. Then you could just love her when everything is finished and over, when nothing can ruin it. When everything could be perfect.\n\n//Please be like this forever//, you almost whisper over her, and it's like a knife in your eyes, your throat, your chest. Your vision swims, but it doesn't matter... you know what she is in the dark.\n\n[[She is beautiful.|Woman]]
<<set $kisses = $kisses + 1>>\n\nYou are weeping unabashedly now, but there is cruelty in these tears, even as you feel your chest rip open. This kiss is sweeter, sweeter than the last, sweeter than any other you and she have ever shared.\n\nAnd it is the last one you ever will.\n\nYou sob as your lips part, the grief strangling you, strangling her like fingers around her windpipe. The sweetest things are often poison, and this is no exception. You cannot breathe.\n\n[[OH GOD OH GOD PLEASE MAKE IT STOP PULL AWAY|Room]]
<<set $read_the_text = $read_the_text + 1>>\nYou keep telling yourself.\n\nYou keep reminding yourself again and again [[the reason why.|The Cause]] \n\nYou shouldn't have to. You thought you'd made up your mind hours ago. You were so certain, so //certain//.\n\nAnd now you keep saying it to yourself again and again and again, rubbing your own nose in the truth of [[her|Woman]], of [[what she did|Cheating]]. \n\nOdd that it doesn't ease the pain, only make it worse. Your throat feels tight and raw. You try to slip the cold mask over your face but the wetness betrays you, and part of you just wants to curl up beside her or on some distant rock on the shore and never, ever stop crying. \n\nSay it one more time, vomit out the words. Spray the filth to the [[stars|Stars]], spew it out over [[the bed|Bed]], the [[sheets|Sheets]], [[her|Woman]]. \n\nMaybe that will make your stomach stop churning.\n\n[[Or maybe not.|Room]]\n
<<set $read_the_text = $read_the_text + 1>>\nWhen you both came back to bed after... after the incident, you didn't bother with the candle. You didn't bother with light or sight at all.\n\nYou remember [[her|Woman]] reaching for you out of the blackness, her small hand insistent on yours as she pulled you to her, all eager and wanton and //yours, you thought she was yours, it was all right, damnit// and you went to her just as eagerly.\n\nYou remember panting in her arms, above her, inside her, listening to those beautiful //whorish// moans of hers, the gasps and cries... they tear at you now, make you think of [[other times|Cheating]] she made them, but at the time, they were the most beautiful thing you'd ever heard.\n\nYou remember the feel of her, of her [[skin|Her Skin]] against yours, of her hair tangled in your fingers, of [[the sweat|The Sweat]] slick against your chest. \n\nYou also remember that, in the dark, you could put your hand against her breast and not be reminded of what you were, what she was, what rules of nature here were overthrown.\n\n[[Some reminders are too cruel to dwell on.|Room]]
<<set $kisses = $kisses + 1>>\n\nAgain.\n\nYour cheeks are wet, your lashes matted together with tears. You close your eyes to focus on the sensation. You want to remember this - you HAVE to remember this, even as you have to forget if you wish to remain sane. \n\nRemember the soft texture of her lips, the little mole at the corner. Remember the way your stomach lurches and sings at this simple gesture, remember the way her eyelashes used to flutter.\n\nRemember.\n\n[[One last time.|The Last]]\n\n[[No, you must resist.|Woman]]
\nThere is only the [[stars|Stars]], the [[candle|Candle]], the [[bed|Bed]], the [[woman|Woman]], and [[you|Soul]].\n\n[[Put out the light.|Put Out The Light 1]]
<<set $read_the_text = $read_the_text + 1>>\n<<if $kisses eq 3>>\nYou can't. You can't... think about it.\n\nJust one more ghost of her breath, and you won't be able to help yourself, won't be able to resist leaning down again and...\n\n[[Pull away.|Woman]]\n<<else>>\nOh god, her breath is so soft on your face... and the scent! You always thought the hyperbole of breath being sweet was something the poets came up with just to ramble endlessly about their women, but with her, it's true... the faintest scent of cloves and mint, plus a nameless something that is so uniquely HER.\n\nYou breathe it in, savoring the scent, knowing that you will never smell or taste it again. Just like the flower picked from the bush loses its sweetness, so too will she once...\n\nNo. Enjoy this now. But not too much. It's almost enough to make you change your mind, to prevent justice from being done. Moderation in all things... moderation...\n\nOh god, it's enough to make you weep.\n\n[[You want more...|Kiss Her]]\n\n[[But you should pull away|Woman]]\n\n<<endif>>
<<set $read_the_text = $read_the_text + 1>>\nYou know what you must do.\n\nYou know what you must do, [[and why.|The Cause]]\n\nYou're not happy about it... in fact, it's reasonable to say that you are the opposite of happy... but your course is clear.\n\nIt's the price she must pay for... [[that|Cheating]].\n\n[[Try to put that out of your mind for now.|Woman]]
She stirs.\n\nShe opens bleary eyes, still reddened from tears, and blinks for a moment before her gaze falls on you.\n\nAnd for a moment, everything melts.\n\n<<if $read_the_text gte 10>>\n[[She speaks.|True Ending 1]]\n<<else>>\nShe whispers your name.\n\nYou know what you have to do.\n\nFIN.\n<<endif>>\n\n
\n<<if $light eq "on">>\n<<display 'Candle Alight'>>\n<<else>>\n<<display 'Candle Out'>>\n<<endif>>\n
<<set $read_the_text = $read_the_text + 1>>\nIt's a large bed, cloaked in the finest [[cotton sheets|Sheets]]. You remember because this bed was your playground mere nights ago, your [[wedding bed|Wedding Night]], a place of discovery and joy and [[sweat|The Sweat]]...\n\nNo. Don't think about it. Don't think about [[her|Woman]]. Don't think about how she looked like when you touched her, when she arched her back.\n\nThis isn't what you thought it was. It's not some sort of wonderland of love and tenderness. It's a nasty, seamy sty of honeying and making love, a festering swamp of dampness and stink and horrors. \n\n[[Ugh. Look away.|Room]]
<<set $read_the_text = $read_the_text + 1>>\nIt's an unremarkable candle, really, but you cannot escape the idea that, in this place and this moment, it has real power. It keeps the darkness away, keeps the moment lasting. When it goes out, it will be the end of something, the point of no return... even if you could simply go and light it again.\n\nRight now, it burns. Right now, it delays the inevitable. Right now, it holds the entire world still.\n\nStrange, then, that something so powerful could be so fragile...\n\nThe golden light gilds the [[woman|Woman]] on the bed, makes her glow. You remember [[another night|Wedding Night]] when it did so.\n\nIt went out then. It will go out tonight too.\n\n[[Don't think about it. Don't think about it.|Room]]