Cold Case Love

Prologue: The Murder


I was at wit's end. There was nothing else I could do, I had to come to this point. The building up to this climax was perfectly natural- if you counted the totally supernatural and psychotic natural. The toiling emotions within me were finally settling down, falling back to earth, into a pit of dark calamity that was just as accepting of them as they were of the fate I had brought forth.

The dark decor of the room was perfect, the epitome of a crime scene. The stench of blood stirred with dust, as well as the vain little fragrance of Euphoria, by Calvin Klein. There was another essence here, but it was so very faint that I could barely recognize it. But it nagged me a bit- if there was anything I disliked strongly, it was not knowing something. Knowing that the space was not empty, but knowing not what filled it.

In the center of the lavish bedroom suit of pale colors, violet, and black, was a shadow. Silhouetted by the light from the moon outside cutting inside via long thin rectangles from the blinds. Her body rested there, limp, cold, and lifeless. Blood was soaked into the white shag carpet, creating that soft squishing underneath my boots when I walked past the body. I was careful, avoiding stepping onto her oddly positioned figure and limbs, as well as her short dark chocolate hair that was strewn haphazardly about her face. And watching her like this, there was something so beautifully inviting about her. The way her dark reddish-violet nails glittered with tiny speckles of diamond nail-polish in the streams of moonlight. The sequins on her minidress, the sparkle to her glossy lips. The glow to her skin.

I hated her. That's why I killed her. Because she was ruining my life, and hell, even now my life might be too far down the shitter because of her. What if I couldn't recover what had become of things? It didn't matter, I'd taken her out. From here, I'd have to start over, or remedy the mess that lay in my hands. Staring down at her like this, I was glad. No regrets. It would definitely have some repercussions, but what didn't these days? I've got quite a story to tell you if you've got the time to listen.

I walk by her one last time, and I kneel down. Without daring to touch any of the damp shag carpet to my jeans, I tenderly reach into her pocket and slide out her wallet. I flip it open, and I stare at the ID and cards within. All of them, suited to one Aster Maelen. Well, it was officially done, I thought, slipping the wallet into my pocket.

I'd killed myself.

Chapter 1: The Married Man: Part 1
~Two Weeks Ago~

I was sitting in a royal looking chair, with red leather stapled to the chair by black buttons, with a black oak frame etched with designs of hummingbirds and flora that was gracious and definitely hand-crafted. The world was a mess. My heart hurt, I was confused, and I didn't know where to go or what to do. I had nowhere, no home with my lover. The man who had my love was now trapped in the web of lies woven by her. I had nowhere else to go. Nowhere else, this was it. I had no place.

I keep telling myself this over and over, as if it'll make me feel better about being here.

But it won't. I knew what would happen before I got here, and now it's going to happen.

I sat in this chair in the corner of the living room conjoined with the bedroom. Attire included a black tank top underneath a gray jacket, and a pair of boot-cut jeans over closed-toe heels. My hair was down for once, falling in dark waves around my shoulders and ending just above my breasts. My eyes peered out from my glasses, and I was feeling my heartbeat in every inch of me. In my temples, my throat, my ears, my eyes, my wrists, my thighs. It was then I heard him.

"I wondered when it would happen, when he would give up the best thing he ever had- you." A slow music played in the background with his melodic and intoxicating voice. The man stepped out from around the bend of his doorway arch, leading into the kitchen and a hall that took on into a TV room and the other littler rooms attached to his condo.

I gnawed my lower lip, swallowing though my throat felt so dry I didn't know if saliva still existed in the desert where my tongue laid. He was an amazingly handsome man, and it was hard to say if he competed with the beauty of my true love. True love though, it was true, but my life and fate were two things so far from true that I had to accept that my life was crumbling in my hands. If I'm going to crash, I might as well burn too, right? He adorned a button up gray shirt with a pair of jeans and a black leather belt and a pair of nice jeans that fell over a pair of black Lugz. He had eyes that glowed blue-green in the darkness and could hit me like a spear to the chest. Stepping closer, he came up to me.

His legs brushed against my knees, and I felt a weak surrender like a withering curl into fetal failure set in. My knees parted as he shifted his legs, stepping closer until his legs were only kept from the cushion of my thighs by the edge of the chair. My arms locked onto the arms of the chair, and I sucked in an inhale as his breath poured down my shoulder, his hand rising to peel the neck of my jacket away. He unveiled my shoulder and I couldn't help but shudder. His room was cool, but his touch and breath was warm. And God, I had been cold so long now, since this whole thing had started. His other hand lifted my right, as his lips fell on the inside of my throat. I shuddered again. Forgive me Father, for this is not my smartest move.

My fingers shook as he slid them into his hair, that blond mess of silk conforming to fit the shape of my digits. I guess feeling my hand along the back of his head and my fingernails rolling over his scalp was something he liked, because he dipped his head deeper into the crook of my neck. His hands fell to my waist, where he pushed up my tank top along my abdomen before halting his thumbs just underneath my breasts.

"What has she done this time?" He whispered in my ear, before his tongue slipped forth from his lips to graze the lobe there, shifting my dangling wing-shaped earring around his hot taste buds.

"Sh-she..." I took a deep breath, swallowing down the even dryer knot of crime and lonesome. "She went to Leo, and she's fighting with him. I can't come near, or she disappears. And she leaves things in s-such dis... dis... dismay..." My eyelids fell over my dark eyes and my lips trembled as my head leaned back, my neck fitting the plush curve of the red leather back, while his kisses tenderly trekked down my throat, to the top of my chest. Along my clavicle, and just lower to the point where he was pressing his tender lips over the cross pendant that rested just along top of my breasts. His aquatic eyes of naive sin met my own, and he gestured for me to continue. Another deep breath was needed first though.

"That when I go home to Leo, all we do is fight. And I'm done. She's having sex with him, she's taking my place. And he... he.... thinks... h-he thinks..." I caught my lower lip between my teeth as his fingers glided along the outside of my thighs, down to the edges of my knees. My nostrils flared and my heart was pounding.

"What else Aster." He commanded quietly. Rueben always had that power over me. He was the one I could confess too. The one I could give my secrets too. And he was the only one who believed me about the ordeal about the other Aster. He was also madly in love with me, and wanted nothing more than to have me.

"He thinks... she is me... So he lets it take him down, he lets it ruin his impression of me. And now she is ruining the... relationship... I took so long to build with my fiancé." Rueben knelt down, to the point that the tip of his nose was grazing my shirt, before he pushed his arms outward and pushed the cloth of my jacket off of my body. I wrapped my arms around the front of my chest before he took my wrists into his fingertips and gestured me out of the chair. Oh, but I am safe in that chair.

And no longer safe, as soon as I am standing.

My legs tremble, and I feel like the heels need to go before I fall. But I know what is going to happen, and the bed isn't that far away. The bass of the R&B music gives me a rhythm in which to slowly plan steps towards his King-sized bed, draped in a rich burgundy comforter and hazed sea-colored pillows with unique prints upon them. I reach the edge, and take a seat, and shakily slip off my heels. I then look up, seeing him. Rueben, crawling onto the bed right on top of me.

I am an animal, trapped. I can't escape, and I'm starting to lose focus of whether I want to or not. So I lay back, I let my body press into the sheets. He kneels over me, like a predator, but a nurturing one. He gracefully caresses my cheek with the back of his hand.

"What are you going to do about the other Aster?" Rueben whispered, as he soon came to his knees over me, unbuttoning the shirt he wore. Bit by bit, his chest was unveiled to me, the smooth plane of tan skin making me sink.

"I... I don't... know..."

"You are just going to let her ruin your life?" He whispered.

"Are you complaining? If not for her... I... I wouldn't be here, without the man of my dreams, in the bed of a married man no less."

"Shhhh..." Rueben grinned darkly. He leaned in, and began to push my shirt up, until it was up and over my head, leaving my chest only covered by a teal and black bra. I felt like my lungs were drying up, and I watched him with heavy, labored breaths. I was a ragdoll in his bed, and I knew it was only a little more work before Rueben unlocked me like the master lock-pick he was. And then it came, then he said what did it for me.

"Kiss me Aster, and I'll keep you warm tonight. I know the real you, even if the rest of the world is blind to it."

I felt myself shatter, snapping and breaking. I reached up, grasping his face in my hands. My lips met his, crashing in slow, intimate measures of perfect song. His tongue met mine, a taste of total bliss that intoxicated me and took away the scare and fear of my problems, as well as the toxic little problem that was the other Aster, her, the.... the other me...

As he pulled back the sheets and invited me into his bed, invited me to his body, I stopped. For a moment my mind flickered clear, and I reached up. I pushed my fingers through my dark brown hair, and unhooked the gold chain there. Slowly my arm extended away from the bed, and I hung my cross necklace on the nearby lamp.

Forgive me Father. I am a monster in metamorphosis.