Elim and Lila

He knew he ought to leave. The passing over into the fluid new dimension he inhabited these days had occurred long ago, though it felt like no time had passed at all.

He wished he'd known the small trouble of dying had naught to do with ceasing to exist in that initial stage of "life." If only he'd known things would only get better! Still, as he traversed grounds and lands he couldn't afford to wander before the passing, there were a few things he should have done then. Things he couldn't do after that part of life had pushed him into this new state of being.

But it didn't matter. He was coming to terms with accepting it, and that he would have to make do with what he had now. And it was a lot. Things took on new light and shadow, new gilts and silvers; new scents and delicate tastes. He knew he was drifting from all he held on to when he immersed himself in the newness. But the shock of all this turned out to be that he could go anywhere in the Universe, with his own will and need of mind, but Earth was his perpetual playground, so to speak.

It was good. Death had been nothing to him.

Solitude was nothing. Loneliness had been his middle name in "life" and he was nothing in life. Another leech grabbing petty cash and climbing invisible ladders to achieve false heights of grandeur. To think he'd been successful in that world... he shuddered as he studied the purpled mountainside, remote shades of green foreshadowing the horizon with the sky-blue stretching above and beyond.

Avoiding the other movements, the minds, the multitude of spirits flitting about and all the blinded alive humans around them was too easy. Experienced a lot in this new form, he had, but there was more he'd missed for so many decades of pretending the death had never happened, so it meant he had to keep away from other souls.

Time to leave, to go back to the places he knew and see if there was anything there for him. Perhaps he could try something new; something "living life" hadn't ever bestowed upon him in chance.

***

Lila was troubled. Recollections of the shadowy type that had been stalking her (and she was sure it had been a stalker) mingled with the dreary drowsiness of the onset of sleep.

Much as she tried to tell herself she was so afraid that she couldn't sleep, she did eventually fall into quiet stillness. Her dreams were her anxiety manifested. Darkness shot through the grey and distorted figures twisted through her mind until she felt a coldness wringing around her body.

Awake again - a quarter-hour past midnight.

The cold air was unusual, Lila thought. It was summer and summer tended to bring on the most humid nights. Always a struggle to gain any sleep or comfort in bed unless one slept naked and without bed sheets. Lila never did either of these, however much it would ease the efforts for sleep.

It was not a fear of being caught, so vulnerable, in her bedroom if ever a burglar or potential rapist broke into the house. It really was her self-consciousness. Whenever she'd tried to at least take off her bra - the air engulfing her bare nipples, without fail, would pull them tight and hard, and she struggled to suppress the sudden errant desires aroused in her.

Her problem, she mused in tired, wearied frustration, was that her senses were always on alert. Especially since she'd moved away from home a month ago, a little after her twentieth birthday. With no one familiar around to look out for Lila, she was forced to be more aware of everything around her. It led to what probably were paranoid fears about that stalker type she thought she saw following her this afternoon, on her way home having hopped off the bus from university.

It was more than that. Every noise she heard at night, a step of the dog outside or the tap of a twig against her window, caused her a minor heart attack. She lay paralysed in fear, waiting for silence to reign long enough to convince her brain that no one was in the house, waiting to ravish and destroy her.

But the stalker - simply a dark shadow, a soul yearning for human warmth and compassion - was with her every night, evading her taut senses.

He hid in the corner, concentrating himself into invisibility. He was becoming skilled at this. He watched her when she left the house and when she came back. He would watched in admiration whenever she changed out of her dressy clothes into messy sweats, feeling her animosity towards having to see herself naked radiate outwards and feeling horrible for violating her, even if she never knew it.

He called himself Elim now. It often happened this way. When he became so fixated on something of this dimension, he built himself around it, so that the details of his true self in the other place, so close to this one, ended up forgotten. It didn't matter. He had forever to reinvent himself, countless times over.

Elim was the name chosen as he'd happened across the word in her swimming mind as she dreamt. He longed to know what it meant to her. However, it was simply another random stringing of symbols together that appeared in her dreaming - she soon forgot it. But he kept it, deciding it was a good title.

And her dreams... Lila's dreams. He tried not to overdo them. The first week she was here, he had the nerve to enter them only once. He couldn't resist. He'd been exploring this town, for he arrived searching the land for something new. And this house was one that, by some strange pull of luck, he'd nosed through just as Lila herself was moving in and settling down.

Her overall darkness on the outside gave way to the many shades of dark lingering inside her. Elim saw it instantly. She was depressed, and it lent to her demeanour a blue-ish sort of midnight. She was lonely, and she had grey written all over. Shadows and gloom were there, and there was sinister black covering up rosy-red darkness and a purpled-pink glimmer tinting everywhere within - all her deepest urges in the darkest dreams. She believed no one could discover these facets lying inside her.

What Elim ached for was to peel away these wrappings - to fulfil her dreams so completely that Lila would give herself to him. He had sensed the purest flicker of light in her beating heart and wanted it to engulf him, and for that light to become her. That first week of observing her, he had challenged himself to this, realising he'd loved her as anyone of his spirit could love a human.

And he hated this manipulative side of it all, but dreams were the only way to lead her gently to his love. Elim hadn't overdone the first dream - simply sweet images of making love on the bed, sheets tangled, pillows awry, nothing but closeness of skin and soft meshing of lips and tongues.

The second week - he'd let himself get carried away. He barrelled through her mind, luring her to give in to him in steamed up showers, out in icy cold mountainsides, and on stages for audiences to watch.

That was the week he'd started following her. It all added up to her general wariness and heightened senses.

Last week, he'd only given her one softly erotic dream. He had looked at what she'd been doing as she sat with her laptop. Usually she was reading and studying. That night, she was perusing sites for what looked to be a holiday overseas. It made no sense: she had no money and he sensed she wasn't planning on letting herself enjoy anything for a while. The look of sadness on her face confirmed this.

Elim had been unsure of himself, but he pulled her into a place of solitude, where she saw him in the bright light, for the first time. The spa they luxuriated in was a hollow right under the sun and she was happy, truly happy. She wasn't afraid in this dream, not this time. She wanted him, responding deeply as he pressed her against the ledge of the spa; so deeply that her hips rocked slightly in her sleep, such was the strength of the dream Elim drew.

Elim had to assume that Lila sensed his presence more than he had known before. As he watched her stare up at the ceiling tonight, he recalled the past week. He'd been withdrawn 'til last night. Not knowing how to follow up the happiness he'd given her (which had lasted her through the weekend) he decided that all the deep sexual urges he knew were there in her needed to be explored.

So he gave his more beastly side a workout. He'd thrown her against a wall, made himself invisible to Lila to give the thrill that added, mysterious effect, and banged her good and hard for an hour, stretching her limbs into contortions that should have been painful but brought her to more apexes of pleasure than she'd ever dreamed of, let alone experienced.

But Lila was late that morning, and unsure of everything around her. Elim was full of regret. He'd made it too real and now she really knew something was up. That pleasure had been too tangible.

And tonight... he'd waited. She fell asleep, and while he entered her dreaming mind, he let her go her own way. It was turbulent and a reflection of her inner conflict at where she was now, and what she knew was happening, even if she couldn't piece it together and put a label on it.

Elim couldn't bear not helping her, not letting her have the pleasure she'd known, at least in her mind, now. He left her dream and let himself become corporeal, a relief to give up on forcing invisibility. But while watching Lila's troubled face twist at her dream, his attraction grew tenfold. He let his hands slide delicately over the soft curves edging under the duvet.

And he let them uncover her, to reveal the flimsy black bra and panties that covered her most sensitive spots. The cold had pulled her back to consciousness in the moments that he'd hesitated to let his hand warm her skin during her sleep for the first time.

Just the thought that he could have so easily had her, right then, if only he hadn't thwarted himself by letting her grow cold, was enough to incite irritation in Elim. He sighed aloud.

Lila shot up. The noise - a breath? - had been too close for comfort.

"Oh!" she gasped.

There, in the corner made up of the wall opposite her bed and the wardrobe, was a tall, lean, shadowy figure. Lurking, facing her, silhouetted sinisterly. Lila's breath caught in her throat, and she sputtered.

Elim was almost as paralysed with anxiety. Seeing his love in such shock drove him crazy, so out of the corner he came, silently cursing himself for forgetting to push himself back into the dimension of invisibility.

"Oh! Ple-please – I – ach ... " Lila's voice trailed into a little series of whimpers and frightened gasps. She waited for the looming figure to stand right over her and silence her, perhaps committing some horrible act before or after.

But that wasn't going to happen. Elim knew the only way to fix this would be to let Lila see him, fully and without manipulation, in order to calm her down and allow her to move past this panic quickly and wholly. If he disappeared now, she'd panic nonstop and Elim couldn't do that to her.

"Shh... shh. It's okay – you're alright. I won't hurt you."

Elim walked forward, feeling pained as he watched Lila press herself back into the bed, staring up at his darkness in heightened fright. He turned her lamp on, bracing himself for her potential frightened lashing out.

***

Next part to this story coming shortly. This is my first submission, so constructive critique is most welcomed.