A kiss was what she had promised me it would be, a dark kiss goodnight. I remember how she looked at me so coolly, such a placid stare as if she weren’t looking at me, but through me. The burn of hunger in her eyes staring at me from across the room wasn’t a burn of lust, but an actual insatiable hunger as a lion would gaze at a piece of meat, its kill for the day. She had found me drunken walking from the tavern in the midst of the small village that laid just outside of the castle walls.

On occasion, I would sneak from the protection of those walls, and take my chances on the streets of the callous land that I ruled after the strange disappearance of my brother, the former emperor, Andrei.  Since his disappearance, I had felt queer whenever alone, feeling eyes on me at numerous times of the night. At times I thought I could see his doppelganger floating just outside of the window to my bed chambers, but as I lit a candle, his face would disappear altogether, haunting me, taunting me as he did when he was within the castle and sat upon his throne. We long had assumed he met an untimely demise without the security of the castle to protect him, but it still felt like his presence graced me every so often.

When I came across the young woman, such a painting of a perfection laid sprawled across her face. She was pure beauty and a demoness of seduction. Her creamy skin called out to my manhood as her velvety, blue eyes gazed intently into mine. The flutter of her movements left me yearning for her virginal apparition. I wished to caress her breasts within my hands and stake her virtue as mine as I walked through the narrow alley way that led to the back entrance of the fortress of solitude I had been barred within.

Her laughter filled my head with a melancholic melody as she slowly took my arm and looped hers through it. As easy as it was to swindle her away from the doorway she stood within made me immediately suspect her as a whore, a prostitute wishing to steal my jewels, but as I gazed into her sultry eyes, I saw naught what was evidence of how truly manipulative her eyes could be. I swooned on my feet as communication passed silently from her eyes to mine.

I snaked her through the hidden passageways of the castle to my bed chamber. Once in the room, she pounced on me, kissing me, licking my ear, taunting me with her sexual charisma. She lifted her dress from her body and wrapped her arms around my neck, pressing her naked body against mine. Her body was luminescent within the glow of the candle light. She undressed me in such precision and haste, it was within seconds I stood naked before her as well. I lifted her up and she straddled my body, forcing myself into her. We hastened our pace, and within minutes, I had delivered her a final thrust, culminating an intense sigh of pleasure. I dropped onto the bed with me still inside, and she planted her mouth on my neck.

“I have a gift for you, my lover,” she whispered into my ear. Lover, as if this had been a nightly routine between the two of us, yet even as the words trickled from her breath, I knew I was enamored with her beauty and grace. “It shall be my parting gift to you, a kiss.” I went to speak, telling her she had shared her mouth already with my body, her tongue still burning into mine. She put a finger to her lips to quiet me from speaking. “It’s not an ordinary kiss, and quite a gift it shall be.” She drew closer to my ear and barely breathed, “A dark kiss goodnight.”