I got us opera tickets a while back and have been insufferable since. As the date drew nearer I began spontaneously singing snippets of songs from Carmen and telling you about this one show where the eponymous heroine first appeared on stage in a gorilla suit and did a strip-tease. Even last week I saw you laugh or smile or sing along in response to my joking around, but recently you’ve been more distant, a little sharper.

You stir awake. A noise? Did you hear a noise? I’m next to you in your bed, back snuggled up to you. No matter which orientation we start in, I always wake up facing away. I tell you I’m guarding you, or overheating, depending on how serious I’m being at the time. The noise again. I make a noise like I’m clearing my throat, and then shivering. Almost a whimper. I’ve been having them more frequently lately, after the mishap with the grimoire.

“Your eyes are beautiful.” I’ve told you this before, and I’m telling you now. The light is off in your room but you wouldn’t know it. Today I brought thirty candles, a lighter, an honest-to-God brass candle snuffer that made you laugh for a solid thirty seconds, it was so typically me, and an actual miniature fire extinguisher. When I asked why you didn’t laugh at me when I brought that one out of my bag you looked at me with such fondness in your eyes, saying, “I don’t know, your obsession with safety is cute.

You can’t tell if it’s warm in your room or if the heat is coming from inside you. Digestion is an energy-intensive process and your body has been putting in the energy for four hours now. The cute red-headed woman who is the unfortunate recipient of this attention has long since stopped struggling. Your chest is feeling less constricted: especially plump or plentiful prey will sit high in your middle and compress your lungs.

“Raven.” You sit upright. Something about my voice sounded off. You look beside you in your bed then remember I wasn’t staying over tonight. You’re too certain about what you heard to just chalk it up to sleep, and so you check your phone for the time. 3am. You’re considering calling. The blood feast from the night before has given you a palpable current of vitality and a tingling all under your belly button suggests a midnight snack would be fun.

It’s three in the morning when I shake you gently awake. You look up, shaking off vague dreams of building a house with tall walls, and it takes a little while to orient yourself. “Bluh? What’s the matter?” I’m doing that thing where I’m looking at you like I’m the luckiest man in the world again. At least you think I am. Your eyes are not quite focusing despite your excellent night vision, and you can feel that your hair is sticking at right angles where you slept on it.

I’ve been quiet all morning. We had a wild night last night. You saw my primal side trot out to play and your backside is still tender to the touch. We cuddled in bed, remonstrated about the state in which we left the kitchen, living room and bedroom, and kissed as the rush hour traffic died down outside. But I’m quiet at the sink, mechanically washing up in my accustomed order: glass, plates, ironware, pots, the water starting off so hot the first items on the draining board are dry in seconds.

Earlier… We’re watching television, sprawled across the couch with your feet in my lap. I’m rubbing your feet and you keep apologising and blushing because the youth from Burnsall is making himself known. The burps have stopped—he’s too far gone for that. “Don’t apologise. I find it cute.” You stare at me sceptically over a belly whose mound is lower, more diffuse. “You did not just say that.” “It’s all— it’s all part of the process.

Do you remember our first date? We’d got talking after noticing one another for a solid week at the train station. I’ve always been able to talk to anyone and not take a stranger’s rejection personally. It’s a good thing, too. If I had shit on your shoes, I don’t think I could have provoked a more puzzled, disgusted, annoyed expression from you. All I’d said was that the universe was clearly hinting we should meet.

I’m actually trying to draw you. We’re both a bit drunk, though the takeaway is soaking up a bit of the alcohol. You are lounging on your bed with a dramatic hand to your forehead and a two-takeaway swell to your tummy. “Paint me like one of your French girls,” you say, for the eleventh time today, since it only seems to get funnier to you. I’ve long since stopped reacting but you laugh so hard you get hiccups.