To Color Your Life

Kelly grimaced and barely opened her eyes. Her head was buzzing, her body was aching, as if a tractor had driven back and forth over it.

God, Ohara, what were you doing yesterday?

She closed her eyes, pulling the covers up to her head.

Why is it so cold? Maybe mom came into her room and forgot to turn off the air conditioner? Although she knows very well that Kelly hates cold air while sleeping. After all, she's not a snake, is she?

Snake…

The girl snapped open her eyes and stared in front of her.

Expensive wallpaper with gold embossing, blackout curtains of dark burgundy velvet. It was not at all like her modest room in the apartment where she and her mother lived.

Kelly closed her eyes, counted to five and opened them again. The interior remained the same.

With malevolent malice, like a spiteful stepmother for poor Cinderella, her memory began tossing pictures of yesterday evening, smoothly flowing into a stormy night.

Lord, where is your heavenly punishment when I need it so much?

The girl slowly, trying not to make a sound, turned her head.

The man lay with his back to her, the blanket covered only his thighs and legs to the knees, unlike Kelly, who wrapped herself up almost in a cocoon.

Most of his back was tattooed. It started from the sacrum and went up, expanding and grasping the shoulders. It was like a magical funnel, one glance at which was pulling you into the unknown.

Kelly stared at the tattoo for a couple of minutes, trying to figure out the intricate pattern. Her gaze froze on the man's shoulder blades, noticing the symmetrical scratches.

She looked at her nails. Then onto the man's back. Back on her nails.

Oh shit... SHIT SHIT SHIT!!!

Like a frightened rabbit that suddenly found itself in a burrow of a boa constrictor, she crawled back, not thinking that the bed was not endless.

"Ugh!" The meeting with the floor was quite natural.

Kelly picked up the blanket that had slipped along with her and tried to get up but immediately fell back. Knees could not hold her, her legs and back were aching as hell. She felt something slippery on the floor with her hand.

She picked up an unfamiliar object and barely contained a groan. The used condom finally returned her to reality.

She had sex with Barkens. And more than once. And more than twice. Actually, more than...

This is the end…

Kelly never held a puritanical view, but one night stands were banned.

And now, she was sitting on the floor in the man's room after a hot night, which even she is ashamed to remember.

"I prefer to be on top, you stupid idiot... What more did you want to say... And who pulled you by the tongue, stupid Ohara?" Cursing herself and those five glasses of wine she had drunk the day before, the girl got up from the floor and backed away towards the door, where she assumed the bathroom should have been.

Barkens didn't even budge. Kelly was lucky that the man was in his deep sleep. And it was unlucky that she pulled off the blanket with her, which somehow hid his naked body.

Now he was lying on the bed completely naked. He couldn't boast of tough muscles. On the contrary, Barkens could have passed for the Andragine model. But where the hell is there so much energy in this body?! Did he swallow the Hulk?!

Because considering what this monster did to Kelly last night, there could not be any better explanation other than paranormal abilities. He's definitely a black sorcerer!

Having stumbled a couple of times on the clothes scattered on the floor, the girl almost took down the floor lamp with her butt but managed to pick it up in time. The retreat to the bathroom looked more and more like a desperate escape from the battlefield.

Barkens stirred.

"Sleep... I beg you, sleep...," she begged either to a man or to God. To meet Gregor's eyes after what they had, she was not ready.

Kelly froze on the spot, watching as the man's hand moved to his thigh. He scratched his leg and continued to sleep.

She almost breathed a sigh of relief and was already reaching for the bathroom handle when the next second Barkens rolled onto his back.

Male physiology in the morning has its own characteristics. And this very feature was now invitingly standing and twitched a couple of times as if winking at the girl, "Well, do you remember me, babe?"

Kelly yanked the bathroom handle and instantly disappeared behind the door, not noticing how the corners of the man's lips twitched upward. 

"Damn, damn, damn!!!" Ohara opened her mouth and let out a silent scream. Her heart was pounding like crazy. She was not so nervous even when her mother found an adult magazine in her school backpack. And the girl was only nine then!

"What have I done, what have I done..." Kelly went to the mirror and dropped the coverlet on the floor. Her neck, chest and all the places where her gaze fell were covered with red spots. She was ready to bet two hundred bucks that there were sucks on her back.

"This is not a man, this is a monster..." The girl looked sympathetically at her own reflection, but the reflection grinned back.

Whom is she kidding?

Whoever Gregor Barkens is - a monster, a vampire, a werewolf, a sorcerer, an alien... Hell, even gay! The truth was obvious - she had the best sex of her life that night.

"He definitely cursed me." Insolent Barkens was damn right. The size doesn't matter at all. What she knew before in theory has now been confirmed in practice.

"Lord, I wish it is all a dream and I am about to wake up now." The girl had a good memory and no less excellent imagination. And the more she looked at the evidence of the night's madness, the brighter the scenes played in her head, as it was.

The bathroom was very spacious. A glass partition separated the shower area. There was a separate jacuzzi bath and even a small steam room. This bathroom was twice as large as her bedroom!

Barkens did not skimp on renting a room. Probably only the presidential suite was cooler, where the newlyweds stayed.

"He said he didn't care about comfort," Kelly remembered saying Mr. I-love-all-black. As far as she noticed, Gregor was indifferent to brands and expensive things, although he was well versed in all this.

Kelly still remembered with bitterness their first bet, where they were supposed to write reviews of the styles of the main characters of several popular novels. She then lost to Barkens with a crushing review score, and he was promoted to editor-in-chief.

Was it not at that moment that their confrontation began? What happened before that? How did they communicate the month before, when Evans first opened Pharaoh magazine?

"To hell. The less you think, the less problems you have," Kelly sighed and turned on the shower. Warm streams of water rolled down her shoulders, relaxing her body.

She put her face under the water and closed her eyes.

Bliss.

"My lady, do you want me to wash your back?"