Sometimes you stop me flying away. You recognise the signs. Normally I’m calm, cogent, clever. I look you in the eye and there’s a smile in my body language, if not on my face. When it happens, you listen to me and help me. I think back to one time: I was trying to articulate how the world feels wrong, how nothing builds to anything, how loneliness feels like a Ponzi scheme built into us by an unkind designer.

Olivia is drunk and giggly, hanging arm-in-arm between Amelie on the one side and Erika on the next. Erika’s coldness seems to have melted away as the evening progressed and the three are thick as thieves as they stumble into the lift. Amelie reaches for your hand and pulls you in after them. Your weight sways the box and the others are made to stand so close they brush your belly.

The afternoon and evening are spent in a delirium of exploration of Amelie’s new body. Everything is new to her, from the weight to the ache inside her pelvic cradle where her virgin guts are being pressed down like they’ve never been pressed before. You see everything fresh through her eyes, even though your practiced body readily and roughly is sucking the marrow from your breakfast while hers sits almost whole in her stomach.

Another time, another place. This was the first time I’d ever seen you gain significantly. The ins and outs of your diet were at that time a mystery to me—still are, though I’m a little better acquainted with the “outs” now. You woke with the heat and pleasure of a stomach full of meat, freshly sloughed off the bones of a uni student you got talking to on a bus. She’d had interesting things to say about America’s place on the global stage, and once you’d had your fill of conversation you switched to discussing her own place in the world.

You check your phone in the early hours. Amelie is asleep beside you. When she sleeps on her back she snores, quiet and regular. You hold the phone so it doesn’t throw light on her, just your face. There’s a message from me: “Hi Rey, hope you are having a good time. I can’t wait to see you again. Missing you brutally.” You smile slightly in the darkness. You tap out “Told you you couldn’t go the whole week without texting me” and send.

Amelie bought the beach towel with the tree of life on it and sunbathed on it by the pool for the rest of the afternoon. Most of the branches and roots have to be tucked under the sunlounger so that she can lie on the trunk, over the figure of the woman in the centre. As a joke you wrap it around her while distracting her with a long kiss. When she realises what you’re doing she begins to struggle, shrieking and looking for all the world like someone resisting being thrown against their will into a pool.

You stroke Amelie’s hair back from her pale face. Her eyes flicker open. When she first sees you she smiles. The part of you that was tense relaxes. She doesn’t fear or hate you instinctively. Another part ravens. It would have been an excuse to gobble her up right now. You watch doubt and fear and vulnerability chase one another across her sculpted features. She shivers, open as an injured child.

I’ve been in the shower for a little while. You’ve checked your phone, checked yourself out in the mirror, and are now just plain confused about what I could be up to in there. “Do you trust me?” I had asked. Well, yes, but is this what I meant? Suddenly impatient, you jump to your feet. I’d better have a good reason for keeping you waiting. You knock on the bathroom door but there’s no answer.

Freya struggled, melted, poured into your intestines, desiccated inside your colon. Each stage we tracked, both of us fascinated by the mysterious process that converts a living, breathing human being into— well, I have to make assumptions, having never borne witness to the whole of the end result. I’ve certainly seen where some of them goes. You spent a slightly hungover day playing videogames. Over the course of twelve hours Freya ceased to be a distinct lump and dissipated into a diffuse spongy fullness within the whole of your abdomen.

Today is also the day. And tonight. And today. It’s days before putting in the fangs doesn’t make you excited beyond restraint. You strut naked through the house, you dance, you write, you paint. You slip out into the night, doing I don’t know what. I wonder if you’re hunting for the transfixed woman. I picture you taking other prey and cherish the jealousy it arouses in me. I wake at midnight to find your lips on my upper arm, framing your sharpened fangs.

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.

… We pass police cars as we drive out of Burnsall. You’re not worried, telling me no one even believes what it is you do. I put my hand on your belly, wedged between your spine and the dashboard, and feel the powerful muscles of your stomach rhythmically contract, breaking down the youth I dared to jump. The vibration of the engine helps the process. The body is almost slop when I choose to pull us over by a tea room in a little village.

This cuddle is in a pillow fort. Fuck the outside world. We have hung fairy lights inside some sheets thrown over the backs of a settee and a couple of chairs. Cushions everywhere, and a bottle of Bailey’s. You’re sitting on my lap on the floor and have been curled into my shoulder for fully five minutes, my arms around you, just taking a break.

Regardless, please take a moment to visualise this good-morning cuddle from me. Nothing fancy: Two arms wrapping around you, snug and warm, doing their best to grab each others’ elbows. Cheek snuggled in against the side of your jaw and shoulder presented for snuggling back if you like. Deep breath, signalling content and caring, which incidentally makes the hug tighter for a few moments. It goes on for as long as you like, wherever you like.

Okay, sit yourself up so I can slip between you and the headboard. The massive spill of your doughy flanks becomes framed by warm thighs. I squeeze my legs together, making the flesh at the edges of your belly ruck up, removing any tension from the skin around your belly button and making that flesh achingly soft, like a warm, silky marshmallow. Wiggling my hips to get comfy, I lean forwards against your back, giving you a broad, warm leaning post.

Like, maybe you’ve gone out and wound up getting a bit drunk, having a good time meeting people. Problems happened when a couple who were interested in you went past flirting into heavy suggestion. Maybe you were interested, but they didn’t know that your appetites are linked. By the time I pull up the man has long since been crushed into submission, his meat sloughing from his bones into the pit inside you.