She knocked on his door in the same 16^th tempo as the heart that drummed in her chest. So this was his house, a tiny little two-story home that fit so neatly on this square patch of land. The miniscule lawn was browning with indifference and the trash cans were overflowing by the one-car garage. The windows looked shamefully down and the whole place like it was frowning.

He opened the door with a smirk. Mischief never left his caramel gaze for a second. “Hey there, stranger.” He always called her that, and although it bothered her, she never verbalized her discontent.

“Hey there, friend,” she returned.

His smirk curdled. He thought “friend” was an ugly word for someone you slept with.

She stepped inside. Her first thought was that the place looked like a dead body, and a particularly gory one at that. The blood red walls were an open wound. The brown stains in the carpet and holes covered in plaster were soaked in violence. The clothes, dishes, tech, and various knick-knacks were organs strewn about the shocking crime scene. What he said next was even more disturbing.

“I cleaned.”

“I see that.” The skepticism in her voice was unmistakable.

Her skin twitched on her body. Her hands grew slick with silicone-like sweat. She did not belong here.

He did not show her around the house. He did not let her quietly get acquainted to each part of this violated body. He did not let her mourn for this victim of crime. Instead, he ripped her away from the doorway and planted her in his bedroom. He laid on the bed while she stood awkwardly by the wall. He lit a cigarette and patted the spot where he expected her to lay next to him. She obeyed, but her body clunked around like a screw that was forced into a bolt that it didn’t actually fit in. She did not touch him. He did not notice.

He blew smoke into the air and she tried to hold in a cough but failed miserably. Her hacking shook the bed and he laughed, “Yeah, I know. I should really quit these things. Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” she lied. “I’m fine,” she lied again.

He turned on the TV, which was poorly mounted on the wall and put on some comedy show that she had never heard of before and she quickly found it distasteful. He didn’t laugh at any of the jokes, just stared with a glazed expression, like he wasn’t watching it at all. With nothing better to do, she closed her eyes and fell asleep.

She awoke later to find him knocked out beyond belief. His mouth a perfect “O” as he snored himself into oblivion. She plucked herself off of his bed and looked at his obnoxiously sprawled and lumpy form. Why did she even come here? Because he asked her to? Why didn’t she just tell him “no?”

In the glow of sporadic electronics, she hunted. What her prey was, she did not know, but the tips of her toes and the ends of her body hair sensed something to be discovered about this strange place. She started first in the kitchen and family room, places that were not sealed behind doors. There was not much of interest. Old food wrappers, videogames, and a few empty bottles of beer, remnants from a boy trapped in a man’s body. But when she started to open drawers and doors, a story came into place.

It started with a kid’s spoon, much too small for an adult man and with Sesame Street characters on the handle. She thought at first that someone must have left this here. His best friend had kids after all. She opened more drawers in the kitchen. It was mostly just typical kitchen supplies until she came to the bottom most drawer. It was stuffed with mostly junk mail, some of it still unopened. But there were a few items of interest, particularly a few Happy Birthday cards all signed by someone named “Kelly” and a sketchbook filled to the brim with a child’s scribbles. These were signs of another life that she had no business being in. And though she knew she was crossing some kind of line, curiosity had her by the throat. She started going in room after room, finally finding a torn-up room painted pink instead of red. A butterfly mobile still hung over an invisible crib.

She did not belong here.