I was in front of her door five minutes early. I fretfully tapped thrice before I tried to turn the knob. The door sprung open with a dull creak. Inside, all the lights were off.

I came in, shut the door gently before I began groping on the walls for a light switch. The kitchen light flickered and flooded its area dimly. Beside the sink stood Sin with her legs crossed and arms folded, an impatient look in her face. In front of her was a girl, lips plastered with a strip of duct tape and hands tied to her back. She had gone pale, and her eyes were locked to a stupor fogging her lids, her neck and arms stained with blotches and bite marks. When she saw me, it took time for her to register the instance of a stranger walking into her plight.

“What’s going on?” I asked. I stared at the girl, perhaps not more than eighteen with scrawny arms, dressed in a tight, black dress. She forced out faint, muffled screams from suppressed lips and began to slide her feet forward like pendulums scraping the floor. I turned my gaze to Sin, anxiously demanding an explanation.

“I was at the docks.” Sin said.

I stepped closer. “You figured it out.  One instance they could walk by that place I referred to. They were fishing for vulnerable victims.”

She nodded, then went on. “There were several of them, women, girls, waiting for some oversexed men coming from a long trip to have a taste of city hookers flashing their legs and taking them by the arm to lead them somewhere. This one. This particular one had company. She let a man to a far corner where her friends could follow her, armed with knives. It didn’t seem to go peacefully, they had to stab the man to death.”

Sin gently peeled the tape off her lips like a fresh, overgrown scab, far enough for her to speak freely. “How many have you killed?” she asked her.

The girl whimpered and forced a faint reply. “Four.”

Sin gave her a tap on the shoulder. “And, did you watch them, while those men bled to their deaths?”

“Yes,” the girl managed to emit from her lips.

Sin closed her eyes, plastered her lips back gently and securely. She bent down on her knees, gently placed her hands on the girl’s thighs and unfurled the moist, puckered skin between them, and turned to me, the way one bestows to a starved waif some gorgeously garnished carved meat on a platter. “I guess she wants you, too,” she said, “we can share, while she’s breathing.”

I shook my head fearfully. “No,” I said, “This isn’t what I meant. Not like this.”

She rolled her eyes, trailed her fingers down elevated bone of her pelvis to her upper thigh, to trembling lips between her thighs on which she slipped two fingers between them. The girl, half-dazed and hurling into unconsciousness, groaned to the elevating warmth of her nether-area while Sin slipped a hand on the hem of her dress, lifting it up to her shoulder blade to lift her head on her nipple.

My legs have wilted, a coagulated mess collapsing under my weight. I fell down, still trembling, revolted and enraged. “Stop, “I uttered from the restricting stridor, “stop, stop… STOP!”

“WHAT?!” Sin’s voice thundered across the room.

“You want to prove a point?” I retorted, “You want me to take something for granted? You want me to take your shit? She’s dragged into a syndicate! She could even be victim and you fuck with her like she’s good as dead!”

Sin flung towards me, a looming beast of prey, her hands locked on the sides of my head and her face close to mine. “Because that is what they are,” she hissed, “Every single one of them, hurting and destroying lives and finding no remorse, slowly turning into the monsters they are. Every moment I fall for someone as much as I want to devour them. Every moment, this intimacy, this feeling of grafting into someone like me. This world where we find ourselves, one taking the life of the other. And here you are thinking this is just a game.”

She pulled me close, pressed her forehead against mine, her crushing hands and face suddenly placated and dismayed, her voice inflected.  “But it’s not,” she went on, “It’s nature. You justify it, try to mollify it, but it’s there. Theirs and mine.” She let go and stood, loosened the girl’s wrists and dragged her to the ground. She kicked, screamed, as long as desperation and vitality could still allow her to move her legs like lashing livewires. I heard her muffled screams, saw the unbridled fear while Sin loomed over her from behind the table.

My breath was shuddering, as though I’ve swallowed a sputtering rudder that began badgering in a small space between my lungs. How have I become so agitated by this? I’ve watched her kill. I have seen her draining lives several times. Is it jealousy? Have I been so resentful to have those men dead before my very eyes and this one, I suddenly saw how indifferent I’ve become?

The girl’s legs gradually slackened, then dropped on the floor irregularly gnarled, like overlapped tree roots. I composed myself, stood on my feet and marched outside. The sky was still dark, the streets portentously uninhabited. I slowed down, looked back at the single, gaping door at the foot of the apartment.

Sin stood on her porch, lips stained, a blood-smeared rag dangling from her hand. She stared with wide-eyed, lips-parted agitation, the way a child vacillates at the precise moment of crossing the street.

Lights flooded. A car halted to a screech and proceeded to an unnecessary blare of its horn while I shielded my hand from its headlights. I knew by then she wouldn’t take a step off her porch. She would seem to call me, but not a word came from her.

I shot a glare, heated and intrepid from what she was trying to impose, then turned away and flipped the hood of my jacket over my head. I couldn’t tell if she detested it, if I insulted her. I didn’t look back.