Deal with the Devil (18+)

02| Not-So-Secret Morning Secrets

The female black widow spider eats her mate during sex. The hungry spider can consume as many as 20 lovers in a single day.

Evelyn's p.o.v

I can't experience true fear... yes, you read that correctly.

During an orgasm, the parts of the brain that process fear shut down. The area in charge of your logical reasoning skills temporarily goes on vacation and several areas specially responsible for pain are active.

Although, for me, it was as though the part of my brain that was supposed to respond to fear had gotten permanently lost under the carpet; I just couldn't perceive it. Feeling like an outsider in your own skin wasn't an alien concept to me as I had always felt different, and maybe that was why I craved confirmation in the form of human touch? Intimacy.

If life had thrown me down a path of cliff diving, extreme sports or coal dancing, then maybe my lack of fear might've come in handy. However, when my preferred occupation consisted of small talk while dishing out questionable coffee at a small café in Amsterdam, it only served as a hindrance. As for my night time side-job as a call girl, well I guess it helped out there.

If only I didn't fear early mornings... Just the mere thought of working at such an ungodly hour had me wanting to crawl into bed, curl up in a small ball and never be seen again. So basically any other morning.

9:15am. Crap, I only had fifteen minutes.

I didn't want Adam to know I had spent yet another night at some random man's apartment, so I decided to round our small, third floor apartment, climb up the ivy ladders and crawl through my bedroom window. Despite my belief system surrounding the whole bullshit walk of shame, I only broke up with Adam a measly month ago and wasn't yet ready for that type of encounter before 10am.

The ivy was as easy to climb as ever and as I scaled the wall, full on monkey-style, I began to realize how much I depended on this window. Not only was it useful for the frequent occasions when I forgot my key, but also for sneaking in at the early hours of the morning or escaping to the roof at the dead of night to stargaze with a glass of wine... or three, who was counting?

While most people are afraid of the dark and wish the night away, sleeping patiently in hope of the dawn, I have nyctophilia. A love of darkness or the night; finding comfort in the darkness and feeling as though you belong in the dark.

I love how the night is alive, the sky crowded with millions of distant planets. Stars are much like us. They are born, they live for a certain amount of time, and then they die. Some fade away without making a fuss, while others explode in spectacular fashion, taking other planets with them. But in the end, like us, they are mortal. They can fall from grace. And so I love the night, for it is so very much alive.

However, as I climbed higher, I only hoped that no one was currently walking along the canal street below as I would be giving them a right show in this tiny dress. No point in visiting the red light district when Evelyn Rose Scott was giving away free thong displays left, right and centre while attempting to scale her apartment. I should put out a bucket for donations; kill two birds with one stone and get my rent payed while I'm at it.

I squeezed through the unlocked window, my hair momentarily getting stuck on one of the thorns and I cursed the dark strand. Why does hair have to hurt so much when it gets pulled out? I've got enough of the damn stuff, surely I can afford to lose a little to the thorns.

Clambering into my bedroom with all the grace of a blind rhinoceros, I pulled out my phone only to realise that all the missed messages were from work and there was actually only two non-work related voice messages. It was a rather depressing sight but I decided not to dwell on it, preferring to have only a few real friends, rather than lots of fake ones. Swiping across the screen, I double tapped on Alicia's name to hear what she had to say.