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After my dare I say manly approach coaxed the pale queen into relinquishing her phone digits, I left Elena to stew in the silence of our severed banter for a full day. The next evening I sent her two songs: first, The Stone Roses’ “This Is the One,” a track that smells like sun-bleached cassette tapes and drowsy nineties daydreams. Then, Car Seat Headrest’s “Unforgiving Girl (She’s Not an),” a song that acknowledges the shittiness of the world, but wraps its self-deprecating nihilism in snark. Elena clobbered me with Chelsea Wolfe’s “Survive,” Depeche Mode’s “In Your Room,” and Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer.” I imagined Elena wading endlessly through a howling, swirling darkness, her writing a flickering halo against the abyss. I pictured the twisted, churning black fire of an obsession that left nothing but scorched earth in its wake. I understood she’d rather lose herself in bodily heat, or live vicariously through someone else’s skin, than be trapped within the prison of her hostile mind.

Why recount this exchange instead of dramatizing it? Didn’t I violate the unspoken covenant between writer and reader? Elena and I shared links over text, and commented on each other’s tastes. Nothing worth staging. You don’t need a transcript of Elena’s every utterance.

She suggested we meet up the following day so I could read more of her stories. I picked the place: Bar Palace, a downtown coffee shop that catered to the well-heeled crowd. The building, built centuries ago, had offered refuge to European bigwigs whose bones have long since turned to dust. A polished dark-wood bar stood against thick stone walls adorned with vintage photographs of Irún, framed in tarnished brass, depicting a town that didn’t exist anymore.

I ordered a decaf coffee, served in a glass, and sat outside in a synthetic rattan chair, facing the spiked Victorian fence’s gate. The clean, cool scent of the overcast sky mingled with the bitter aroma of fresh coffee. The patio was paved with irregular tiles, and a low stone edging hemmed in manicured boxwoods and sago palm fronds. Beyond the patio, towering pines formed a living wall. In short, this place announced: Stay away, peasants.

I took sips of my warm coffee as Nine Inch Nail’s “Closer” played on repeat through my earbuds. The patio’s isolation almost tricked me into believing I’d been whisked away from my working-class dump of a hometown to some aristocratic estate. Behind me, I spotted an opening in the stone wall, barred with rusted iron grilles like the ones in medieval dungeons. To my right, beyond the gnarled stems of shrubs, the steps leading down to a storage room were lined with silver beer barrels. They reminded me of explosive containers scattered around in videogame stages. I pictured myself pulling out a gun and firing at the barrels. The blasts would send a dozen patrons ragdolling across the patio.

A gritty rhythm throbbed through my skull like an industrial heartbeat as Trent Reznor turned fucking into a sacrament. Elena hovered at the spiked fence’s entrance. Those sagging eyelids and parted lips suggested that she ached to slide back under the sheets. Her eyes darted in sharp glances, taking in the scene like a recently released prisoner unsure where to go. Her almond-blonde hair fell just past her shoulders, tousled at the ends and parted slightly off-center to frame her pale, oval face. Over her gray sweatshirt, she had thrown on a lightweight, dark-brown leather jacket. Its metallic zipper caught the light like a knife’s edge. Dark-wash jeans, worn and ripped at the knees, clung to her slender legs. She shifted a blue folder under her arm. I wanna fuck you like an animal, I wanna feel you from the inside. What kind of woman sends a song like this to a guy she barely knows?

Elena’s gaze locked onto me. She approached my table with measured steps, as if navigating a foreign land. While I pulled out my earbuds, my gaze threatened to stray toward her thigh gap. Noise rushed in: the hum of traffic from beyond the patio, the disjointed chatter of patrons. Elena settled stiffly onto the rattan chair opposite me, and placed her folder on the table. The scent of honey wafted toward me, maybe from her shampoo. Those pale-blue irises, intense and weary, were glacial shards in the sun. Her rose-tinted lips parted to speak, but only a faint croak escaped. She cleared her throat and tried again.

“So this is what passes for fancy around here? I guess even decay looks prettier when you dress it up in Victorian aesthetics. Almost makes you forget we’re all just pretending to be civilized. It’s not really my kind of place, though. I feel like a rat that crawled in through the sewers.”

I chuckled.

“No way, Elena. You look more like a cat.”

“I’ve been called worse things. Does that make you my scratching post?”

“If that’s how you want to interpret it. I’ve been curious about how your nails would feel raking down my back. Regarding my chosen setting, I rarely come here, but its posh style dissuades the riff-raff from wandering in. Besides, speaking of human vermin, the tables are distanced enough that you won’t end up with some shithead poisoning your air with smoke while blabbing about football.”

“I have to wonder what category I fall into, showing up here like a trained monkey with printouts of my stories. But yeah, at least there’s a bit of breathing room. By the way, those songs you sent me… they had a certain sincerity to them.”

“Yours also affected me. I’ve been playing NIN’s ‘Closer’ for most of the afternoon.”

Elena’s tired face glowed with a hint of pride.

“Soundtracking my arrival with one of Reznor’s odes to self-hate? Sometimes, when I can’t forget that this world is fucking horrifying and so are people, I wish to embrace the horror and indulge in my filthiest, most visceral urges. The cathartic ones that reduce you to raw nerve endings, that save you from having to think, or write, by degrading you to a bestial level.”

“I admit the song is a banger. And we’re animals, Elena, no matter how many layers we put on.”

“We’re also delusional, and everything that comes out of our mouths is bullshit in one form or another. The only sincere actions are the ones taken to survive. Or to die. I sent you those songs because I wanted to know if you could handle them. But let’s not pretend we’re here to trade songs like teenagers passing notes. I brought you something more personal.”

I sat up straight and rubbed my hands together.

“Oh, I’ve been looking forward to this. Can’t wait to delve deeper into your peculiar mind.”

“Excerpts from two novellas. Go ahead and dig through my brain all the way down to the spinal cord. You’re out for a real bloodbath, huh?”

Elena flipped open the folder, pulled out two sheaves of stapled printouts, and handed the first of them over. Its top page was filled with dense, single-spaced text. A swarm of words buzzing around like trapped wasps.

I started reading. The narrator woke to the first rays of sunlight filtering through a brooding, slate-gray sky. They reached for the opposite side of the bed, only to find a cold, crumpled sheet. The narrator wandered through the house, searching for a woman named Siobhan. An easel bore a half-finished painting of a spectral ship adrift on a charcoal sea. Had Siobhan set out for the lighthouse?

A waiter paused at our table. Slicked-back hair, tawny-brown skin. He wore a fitted black polo and slacks, the uniform clinging to his lean frame. Elena’s shoulders tensed under the jacket.

“Can I bring you anything?” the waiter asked in a melodic South American accent.

She glanced between me and the interloper with barely concealed discomfort.

“Something tells me that even the water in this place costs more than what my entire wardrobe is worth. Just… get me whatever passes for black coffee here. No sugar, no cream, no fancy Italian names that mean nothing. Thank you.”

The waiter nodded and walked away. When he pushed open the sliding door that led inside, the smokey aroma of roasted beans drifted out. Elena’s attention snapped back to me.

“A bit hard to focus on beverage choices when you’re holding what amounts to a chunk of my soul vivisected on paper. By the way, you’ve got the longest eyelashes I’ve seen on a guy.”

“Quite random.”

“And I don’t have the money to go on these outings regularly.”

“I’m the one who coaxed you into this nonsense, so I’ll keep treating you.”

“Yeah, you were such an insistent bastard that I had no choice but to indulge you. Are you seriously going to bankroll me every time?”

“I’ll cover all the drinks and snacks. And if you want a raise, I’ll throw in lunch and dinner. I’d rather not let money worries intrude on our meetings. That’s what the rest of the world is for.”

“Fuck. I’m not going to turn down free food.”

“Just don’t be an asshole and order the most expensive thing on the menu.”

“I’ve gotten used to being a parasite, so I’m okay with this.”

“Am I right in assuming you’re lacking in sources of income?”

Elena’s pale-blue irises gleamed like the heart of an iceberg. Her lips parted, revealing the tips of her teeth. The kind of smile that would make a child cry.

“Oh, I do work full-time. Overtime, even. No sick days. No holidays.”

“Writing?”

“No, I do that for joy. And love. My job consists of guarding a monster so that it doesn’t hurt anyone else. Sadly a thankless, unpaid position. A permanent internship, if you will. But keep reading. We’ll see if you start getting a clue about the nature of said beast.”

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Author’s note: today’s song is “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails.