I am exactly three quarters, finished with my book, when I hear him step across the threshold of my room. However, I don't look up. Instead, I turn the page and keep my eyes drawn to the text, despite my inability to focus on the words. The dynamics seemed to be changing. Inside, I felt a slight surge of excitement, but I'm not precisely certain as to why this would occur. Nothing happened to cause this flutter. Yet, there it was, just the same. Now, while I would ordinarily strive to either summon strength in order to conceal it, until I could contemplate its source or push it away and deny it, till I convinced myself that it wasn't real, I let it linger and did nothing whatsoever, in either preconceived notion. Mostly because I had the strange sensation that I wasn't the only one experiencing this new awareness. Although, maybe that was my pride and personal desires, doing their very best to mask reality and hide the truth. Could a man like Dillinger D'Marco, carry the ability to wield this sort of sentiment? A man who as far as I could tell, was incapable of most emotions or feelings, save for the ones he wore as a facade so well, while beneath the surface, the dark, empty canvas, sat in its easel, forever untouched by the true colors of life. I didn't know. Sociopaths, especially the murderous kind, happened to be unknown waters for this enchantress. By all rights, I shouldn't even risk the idea of such a treacherous swim. However, the longer he was around and the more I got to know him and see the man, inside the monster, so to speak. The more I was compelled to dive in, to make the plunge into the depths of his ocean, despite the risk of drowning. Though, the foreboding casualty of my own demise, should have been a chance that I wasn't willing to take. There was a stronger urge, to toss the dice and make the gamble. To witness what might happen, if I just let go and gave in to deadly, temptation. There was something wickedly, satisfying about that option, that clouded my judgement. It's also what drifted a smirk across my lips as I felt him drop onto my bed. He was becoming comfortable with our arrangement. Interesting. What other doors might this comfort push the both of us towards and what would be revealed, when we opened those locked doors?


"Guess what I did today?"


The scent of smoke drifted into the air as I heard him light a cigarette and take a pull from it. He was looking at me and I felt his eyes tarry upon my form as my smirk persisted and claimed residency to my face.


"Did it involve a body count?"


I asked, slightly amused with my own question.


"Surprisingly, no. I did do something that will definitely call for future acts of violence though."


He exhaled a cloud of smoke and with his free hand, pushed my book down, flat against my legs.


"Was that a big enough hint?"


Blinking, I removed my glasses and tilted my head, his words should have been triggering a response, yet nothing revealed itself. Perhaps, this newfound growing fondness towards my friend the killer, was making me stupid. Oh, don't tell me I am going to start becoming like every girl, who's ever had a crush, now. Wait. Crush? Was I really undertaking this journey into the unknown and full on embracing it?


"Come on! You all but begged me to do this the other night and now, you're looking at me like you don't have a fucking clue, when it comes to what I'm talking about."


He laughed and took a drag from his cigarette, exhaling through his nostrils as he shook his head in mock dismay. Something I all but begged him to do. Oh snap. Oh no, he didn't. Wait. Did I just really think the words... oh snap and oh no, he didn't? Okay this increasing infatuation was doing terrible things to my mind now. Whatever. This was momentarily irrelevant cause I figured it out. Inside my head a very ecstatic, yet darkly dressed, tiny cartoon version of myself, let out a squee of joy, while I also simultaneously died a little inside for letting that happen. Oh brain, you seriously need to stop this roller coaster ride, before I get sick and internally hurl, all over the interior of my skull. I was willing to venture into realms less traveled, not allow myself to completely get overwhelmed and devoured in the process. I refuse to be transformed in the wake of my recent inner revelations. Still, I mentioned something and he went and actually, followed through with it. He did the thing that I suggested. How cool is that? Fuck. I am not going to be able to look myself in the eye, when I'm using the mirror... by morning, the way this keeps up.


"Did you get your job back with the XWF?"


"Do you always ask completely obvious questions?"


"Only when I'm intentionally trying to get someone to say the thing that I want to hear out loud."


"Alright. Then yes, I got myself rehired by the XWF and I even signed up for a match, for the next edition of Warfare. Your alien buddy apparently signed up for the same show. Maybe we'll even finally meet. Won't that be a mindfuck for all the adoring wrestling fans."


"He's not my 'buddy'".


I roll my eyes and release a semi-annoyed sigh.


"No? I figured since you asked about him, he was possibly a friend?"


"No way."


"You did call him one of the most powerful beings in the universe."


"You watched my latest promo?"


"It was airing on every television set, in the main XWF building when I went there, I couldn't have avoided it, if I tried. So let me get this straight, you don't like this guy? This spaceman?"


"I don't know. I never really thought about it. I mean I stole the Bombshell title from him and I sort of use that as my claim to fame. And I..."


"And you what?"


"I used magic on him, and it worked and I keep expecting a backlash from that but instead, he just discredits the fact that I did anything and says he let me get away with it. That he basically allowed it to happen."


"I see, so you're disappointed that he didn't take note of how awesome and powerful you were, in that moment."


Dying out his cigarette on the bottom of his boot, Dillinger scanned around for a garbage tin and when he couldn't find one, he shrugged and incinerated the butt to nothingness. Burned it beyond ash.


"Sounds like you're seeking his approval."


"I am not."


I was not.


"Okay, you can lie to yourself, if that's your thing but I prefer to see shit for what it really is and you, reek of an overpowering stench of need. You want him to acknowledge you and say what you did, was extraordinary. That he's never encountered such an amazing phenomenon. You need his validation."


"I do not need his validation. Alright. I might hold a tinge of respect for him and the things he's done and it would be nice, if he noticed that I could be a potential threat to him. That I could actually be a worthy adversary but instead, he brushes it all off, like what I did to him was nothing. It's annoying."


"In other words. I'm right."


"Fine. Maybe slightly."


I felt myself deflate. He was right and it sickened me. All this time I thought I conquered the spaceman and in reality, even though I walked away with the title, he defeated me. How pathetic is that.


"Hey, a lot of people meet their heroes, only to find out, they're not what they seem. It is the perfect set-up. Role models that are appreciated from afar, are doomed to fail. Usually because expectation, rarely matches up with reality. That's why I don't have heroes. Also, it's kind of hard to idealize someone when you spent most of your life, growing up in a psych ward."


Slightly chuckling, he turned his head and watched as I slumped backwards, onto my bed. My head softly thudding against the pillow.


"Chin up though, at least you get to beat the shit out of Jessalyn Hart, again."


"Ugh. Don't remind me. I had to watch another one of her promos today. I honestly think this woman has a serious learning disability. I say things and she responds like she can only understand certain parts of what I say. Or maybe she has a hearing problem. Whatever it is, it's most definitely an enormous obstacle that completely hinders her already, extremely low comprehension skills, tenfold. She says I'm mad, when she's the one that gets in an uproar because I didn't reciprocate her pleasantries. Please. She's so fake she could be made entirely from plastic. I saw that unbearable bête noire, for what she really is the first time I faced her. All talk and no real substance. Weak. She might have the X-treme title now, but she'll lose it. First time, she has to really get out there and defend it, she'll lose it. It'll get taken right off her, snatched up by the very first bidder, with barely a struggle to show for it. This is not only my prediction, I forsee this as truth. For it is the only likely destiny that she's capable of having. Failure. There's no way that wretched, misbegotten, waste of oxygen carries the title, for six weeks. No way. Maybe in whatever land of delusions that she lives in, she's tough shit but out here, in the real world, she's nothing. And that's what she will always be, till the day she dies. I suggest she do the world a favor and stick her head in the oven, while it's on and kill herself, Sylvia Plath style. Or fill her coat pockets with stones and off herself, like Virginia Woolf did. Fucking, worthless cunt."


Before I even realized what was happening, I felt him kiss me. I didn't expect it. Literally, it came out of nowhere, but I went with it as I pulled him downward, closer to me. Till I felt the warmth of his body, almost on top of mine. I suppose I was taking that trip through the looking glass, after all. I wonder what I'll uncover on the other side? And once I'm there, will I want to stay there or find out that it's not what I expected, only to discover that there's no way back?