The first thing he'd noticed were her eyes. A warm brown, flecked with gold. Clear and bright. They smiled, even when she didn't. Above one eye was a small scar, the memento of a childhood scrap perhaps? Her forehead was speckled with tiny pimples; she could do with a facial mask, or a scrub. He smiled at the thought. He imagined her washing her face, the water dripping from her hands, splashing against her skin. Running down her neck. He moved closer to the television, until her image dissolved into pointillist static. He laid his face against the screen, breathing in the light. He closed his eyes. The glass was cold at first, and dusty, but it warmed quickly from the close contact. His lips tingled with static electricity and desire. He relaxed into the one-sided embrace.
"I put a spell on you
Because you're mine."
His knee started aching first, always the same one, the left one. He unwound himself from where he was wrapped around the television, staggering backwards slightly as he stood. He clicked the TV off, reluctantly, and sagged backwards into the ageing sofa. His back was slick with sweat; he'd turned the central heating up to full earlier. The colourful throw on the sofa, one of his apartment's few concessions to decoration, felt cool against his skin. He was naked, sweaty and exhausted. Adoring from afar was very hard work.
He couldn't remember the day he'd first started loving her. True, she'd caught his eye years before, playing bit parts in minor films, but it wasn't love. Not then. That had come over time. First on video, blurry VHS, then on DVD, now on Internet downloads, he'd seen her mature into the star he knew she was, the star she was destined to be. True, she had no starring roles, not yet, but that had to be just a matter of time. Love had crept up on him, cautiously at first, hesitant, afreaid. He didn't rush into love, not anymore, not even for a pretty young actress who had caught his eye. Not even for her. But, slow as it had been, it was sure. By the time he had even begun to acknowledge his feelings, love had snared him. Trapped him. No escape. Marilyn shrieked on the stereo, singing of loss and desperation.
"I can't stand the things that you do.
No, no, no, I'm not lying."
He loved music. Not as much as he loved her, because that would be silly, a person was much better than music, even if music lasted for ever and people didn't. He liked to play music that fitted his moods. As a boy he'd made mix tapes, but now he had an Ipod, filled to capacity. On it he'd set up dozens of custom song play-lists, each on a theme, each named simply, usually with a single word.
Loss. Hope. Pain. Rapture.
Agony. Mercy. Loneliness. Justice.
Today he was playing "Despair" and it was on repeat. Nick, Marilyn, Patsy and the others filled his small apartment, painting the air with sound. He breathed it in.
"I don't care if you don't want me,
But I'm yours, yours, yours anyhow."
He almost switched the TV back on then, but he exercised restraint. People to do, things to see. The beer beside the sofa was still half full, or half empty, depending on your disposition. He smiled wanly and glugged it back. It was hard to look on the bright side when Despair was playing, but sometimes it was worth the effort. Another glug. Ah. Good beer. he liked his beer, but he knew he wasn't an alcoholic. Alcoholics were selfish. They passed out in their own shit and vomit, then made their children clean it up. They beat their children, beat them until the bruises broke open. They locked their children in the cellar, then had their buddies come around to fuck them in the ass while burning them with cigarette ends. Alcoholics would drink anything, even bleach and drain-cleaner, if it was poured into a whiskey bottle.
He didn't have any children, but he knew he definitely wasn't an alcoholic.
"I love you, I love you.
I love you, I love you."
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Short Fiction 
