I Am A Light And The Dark Is Afraid of Me

Nothing good ever happens in the dark, except sex. No, wait — sex is even better in the light. However, too many weird things happen in the dark — to me, anyway. Everything from stubbing my toe to falling backwards down a flight of stairs, so I always have many lights on in several areas of my house ever since the latter happened. Lights keep me safe.

Writers for scary movies know how to do everything in the dark. Wherever it may be, the person in the darkened room never turns on a light. They always shout out, 'Hello,' which makes a great location finder for the intruder or perhaps a monster.

In real life, I leave lights on when I leave the house, and always turn on many more lights as soon as I come home. Oh yeah, and if I think somebody is in the house, I don’t just stay there in the dark, shout out 'Hello,' and investigate to find the hidden person or monster. Except for tonight.

Fortunately there are no intruders to greet with a ‘Hello,’ because today I’m in a hurry and running late. It was about 2:45pm when I left and I was certain I’d be home before dark. I didn’t get home until well after dark because of a man I met. I’m no slut. Except, for tonight with one caveat. Well, let me tell you the story of how tonight was… different.

All I really had to do was go get my teeth cleaned and come right back home. Since it was only around 3:45pm when I left my dentist’s office, I decided to go to a shopping mall for some probable impulse buying. I always start these excursions with harmless window shopping and the occasional entering of certain stores that look interesting. An interesting store hardly describes this find. I was lured into a store by it's name, 'Sleep With Me' which had on display some very unusual hand-crafted beds and one incredibly hot man standing at the cash register. You know the looks — tall, well built, dark features, and piercing eyes like the most handsome prince in Dubai.

The store was either too small for the beds or there were too many beds crammed into it. Every one of them was unique and all were built by the handsome prince. Each bed evoked a different feeling and fantasy. As I maneuvered around each bed, his eyes never left me. After approximately ten minutes, I was admiring a wrought iron, Art Nouveau bed and the prince spoke. “You have great taste. That’s the best bed I’ve ever made.” I was right. His voice had a middle-eastern accent because it was very deep and throaty.

“You made this? That’s truly incredible. You’re very talented at your craft,” I said trying to impress him with my deep knowledge of bed construction. The beautifully hand-written calligraphy price tag hanging from the canopy read: $6,195.00. I gasped and he laughed. “The duvet and pillows are included,” he explained, somehow trying to convince me that made the bed a steal. “The bed is spectacular, and the duvet set is perfect with it, but I’m in the wrong store.”

“I am, as well,” he laughed. “Let’s get out of here.”

“So, you want to close your shop early? You want to go somewhere with me?”

“Yes, to both questions. You are both perceptive and beautiful,” he replied quickly and definitively.

“Won’t you lose money if you close your shop now?”

“You’re my only customer and the bed is too expensive for you. I’m not losing anything. Opening again tomorrow is easy. Letting you disappear right now — disastrous.”

He grabbed the keys and an odd-looking bag from a shelf somewhere under the cash register, twirled the keys around his index finger, and said “Let’s go!” Still twirling the keys, as soon as he got next to me, his arm clutched my shoulders and escorted me out. He was even taller than he looked behind the counter. Outside his shop, he rolled down the safety gate and locked it. “My name is Sami, what’s yours?”

Still shocked by this impulsive behavior, I muttered “Sophia. I can’t go anywhere with you. I don’t know you.” “Well, let’s go to the food court and then you’ll know me.” Sami was right. He told me everything about him, or perhaps everything he wanted me to know about him. Then he stared seductively at me and said, “Your turn.” I stared at the most handsome man I’d ever seen and felt bizarrely uncomfortable about that opportunity. So, I looked at my phone to check the time and came up with a response. I was shocked to see it was 8:47. I’d been listening intently to him tell me every detail of his life for almost five hours. He was so enthralling and enchanting to look at, I was apparently mesmerized and didn’t even notice darkness had fallen.

“It’s almost closing time for the mall. I’ll have to tell you my life story some other time, Sami.”

“Okay. This makes me sad, but you must let me walk you to your car. I don’t trust anyone. A woman as beautiful as yourself simply cannot be allowed to walk alone to her car in the dark.”

“No worries about that. I always park under a light post. The dark is my nemesis because I’m a klutz, among other things.” He started laughing and added, “C’mon, Klutz, let’s go to your brightly lit car and I’ll catch you if you fall!”

The walk to my car was not a simple point-A-to-point-B-efficient trip. Sami begged me to let him come to my house so we could talk more because I still owed him my life story, after all. “C’mon, Sophia, you said you didn’t know me. Now you do, but I don’t know you, except that you’re afraid of the dark. Now, it’s my turn to say, I don’t know you.”

There it is again, the term always associated with me — ‘afraid of the dark.’ That is when I noticed the parking lot was empty. Clearly, we had been engaged in something other than walking to my car, because it was getting very late.

“I only know what you told me, Sami. Besides, I really can’t, because I need to get in bed. I’m an industrial interior lighting designer and I must get up early for a very lucrative lighting design presentation to that new five-star hotel going up a few blocks away. Here’s my phone number. Call me tomorrow afternoon.”

“Ahhh, plot twist! You do need to get in bed with me!” This works out perfectly!”

“Nice try, Sami, but it’s not happening tonight.”

Sami looked dejected as I fastened my seat belt. He shut the door on my recently new ‘Vette, bent down, planted his lips up against the window making a hilarious face, and smudging up the window as I started the car. I mouthed the words, 'call me tomorrow.' Sami backed away from my car and feigned crying as I slowly started driving away.

Driving home, I recounted everything he told me about himself. Nobody is that perfect, are they? There were also some inconsistencies and gaps, so I was pleased I made it out of the mall. Ahhh, my beautiful house at last. It was brightly lit, inside and out, as usual. The garage door opened quietly thanks to some recent garage renovation. Then, a new, beautiful bright garage light just installed flooded the garage with the brightest white lights the installer offered. Basking in that bright light for a few moments before going into the house made me feel extremely safe. It still felt too dark in my house, though, so more light switches were flipped on.

As an expert interior lighting designer, preparing the lighting design for a new five-star hotel was necessary even though it was after 11:00pm. If only I hadn’t sat in the food court with Sami for so long, I’d have been finished and getting plenty of sleep right now. At around 2:20am, I finally completed my presentation. The budget the hotel allocated for lighting was exorbitant and I used every penny for the finest industrial and cosmetic lighting including over one hundred Chihuly chandeliers and ceiling fixtures. Light is my life and that’s why I always get the biggest contracts. The guests staying at this five-star hotel expect the grandeur with room rates starting at $3,500 a night. I was exhausted, now, but I still wanted a shower before going to bed because I’ll sleep so much better.

*******

Sami rolled his Lambo to a silent stop in front of the brightly lit house. He noticed not only was the garage door wide open, but the brightest light he’d ever seen before was on. He double checked the address against the app he used to find her address from her phone number.

He knew he could find her so easily when she gave him her phone number. He was an expert at tracking women down because he had done it so many times in the past. He grabbed the odd-shaped bag he took from the shelf under the cash register at his bed shop, ‘Sleep With Me,’ with familiar alacrity. He quietly closed the Lambo door. Sami quickened his steps trying to stay out of the bright lights, but the pocket of his jacket caught the edge of a big cardboard box on a garage shelf. The cacophony of sound froze him in the bright light of the garage.

I had just reached the halfway point of my spiral staircase when suddenly it erupted with obvious sounds that an intruder was in my garage or house. I never thought I would shout out, ‘Hello,’ like the helpless victim in every scary movie, but I actually said “Hello.” In my defense, I was not in the dark. Then, I thought maybe I’m not as smart as I think I am. Did I really leave my garage door open? The new bright light in my garage must have put me in a trance with its beauty and I neglected to press the button to close it. I quickly looked down the staircase in the direction of the door leading to the garage. Sami burst in, yelling “Damn, Sophia, that’s a bright fucking light you’ve got there in your garage. You know you just left it wide open, right? Any maniac could’ve gotten in here. Good thing I decided to pay you a surprise visit using your phone number to find your address. Lights don’t seem to be protecting you now, am I right?” he said while laughing hysterically.

“It’s not funny, Sami. Get out of my house! You have no right to be here after 2:00 in the morning, especially when you just broke in!”

“I did not break in. You gave everybody an open invitation, Sophia. I’m not leaving until I see your bed. I’m curious to see how sturdy your bed is. You know the old saying. I showed you mine. Now, you show me yours!”

Sami, now laughing demonically, started running up the stairs towards me. Screaming and running towards my bedroom was my intent, but Sami was faster than me and seemed possessed by the idea of doing whatever he wanted. Tackled right before I got to my bedroom, he kept me captive by holding me down. Well, that’s the other thing victims always do wrong in the movies — run upstairs to their bedrooms. However, it was either that or jump off the stairs and land on the hard, marble floor below.

“Are you drunk or on drugs, Sami? Why are you acting this way? You’re a completely different person than the man I met at the mall.”

“Yeah. This is the real me I didn’t tell you about. I sorta left out this part. So, now how about I just show you?”

“Stay the fuck away from me!” I screamed while trying to push him off me.

“I’d rather fuck and stay with you! Look what I have, Sophia. Remember the bag I grabbed with the keys to lock up the shop?”

He unzipped the bag and out tumbled a pair of handcuffs, rope, ball gag, an anal plug, and surgical gloves. “Don’t worry; there’s some other fun things in there, but we’ll just let those be another surprise!”

“Stop right now. Just leave. This is not going to end well, Sami!”

“Oh, I think I’m going to have a happy ending. I can make you have one too, if you let me!”

“Don’t you dare touch me. Now, I can see you’re not handsome at all. You’re the ugliest man I’ve ever seen. Get the fuck out of my house!”

Of course, my phone was in my purse and that was still in my office, downstairs. The next thing I knew he picked me up and roughly threw on my bed.

“Here’s the rules. You do what I say, when I say to do it, and how I say to do it. That’s simple, right? I try my best to keep it simple. If you don’t follow my rules, I’ll strangle you until you do. Got it? Here’s hoping you cooperate before I’ve strangled you for too long! Too bad there’s no champagne here right now for a toast to that.”

*******

Apparently, I didn’t cooperate enough for him, because when I regained consciousness, my throat and larynx hurt. My arms and legs were spread wide open to the four corners of my bed. They were also handcuffed and tied with rough ropes. My vagina felt sore, and a butt plug was still inside me. He had savagely raped me. At least he left all the lights on. I don’t ever want to go back to that dark place. Nothing he could do would ever be as horrifying as total darkness.

Sami kicked the bedroom door open and sauntered in chomping on a sandwich like it was a reward for a job well done. “Oh, look at you! You’re alive! I wasn’t sure if you were going to make it. I’m glad you did, though because your body would never fit in my Lambo or your ‘Vette, unless I chopped you up into little pieces. I looked around and you don’t have anything in the house I could use to do that messy job. Plus, all the hardware stores are closed, and it looks a little suspicious buying tools that can chop up a human body, am I right? Now, thankfully, I can have even more fun, but damn, girl, you wore me out. I need a little nap before I take you on again. You have so many lights on. Whhhyyy??? What is wrong with you? I can’t sleep with all these lights on. I’m going to turn all these fucking lights off.”

“Sami, please do not turn off a single light!”

“Wow! Is Sophia scared of the dark?” he laughed and turned off the heavy lead crystal lamps on the end tables on each side of the bed.

I could feel the darkness on my naked body and the darkness creeping deep inside me. I can’t go back there.

The clicking sound of the wall switch for the overhead bedroom chandelier being flipped off exploded in my head like an atom bomb. It might as well have been. I was now engulfed in the what I feared most — I entered the realm of absolute darkness.

“What sounds were those, Sophia? Are you getting excited for me?” Sami’s footsteps echoed as he walked towards the bed. Little did he know I wasn’t in bed anymore.

“Hey, Sophia, where are you? Where did you go? How the hell did you get out of the cuffs and ropes?”

*******

Laughter filled the room. My laughter, not Sami’s. Suddenly, a hideous primordial growling emerged from that realm. My growling, not Sami’s. The old familiar feelings of bones breaking, flesh being ripped off sinew, and warm blood saturating everything, came back so easily. Sami was feeling intractable pain but could only moan faintly this close to his death. He really should have already been dead as irreparably damaged as he was. I could feel how much blood he was losing. Deciding to be merciful or to shut him up, I grabbed a now-darkened table lamp I begged Sami not to turn off, and smashed his head in. At last, there was a dead silence.

When I was sure it was over, I noticed dawn was embracing the window shades. I was safe now. I turned on the chandelier to survey my handiwork. I had returned to my ‘normal’ self once the lights were back on, albeit covered in Sami’s blood and flesh. I told him this is not going to end well.

“I warned him many times, just like I warned them all before — leave the light on.”