Each time he sat shivering in the dark he would think of her.

She wasn’t always easy to get along with. Often times her shyness prevented her from warming up to him and he would grow tired of the ordeal and give up halfway through.

Yet in the times he was patient she always paid it back tenfold and her warmth would unfurl in such a way that always beckoned him closer.

Sometimes he wanted nothing more in the world than to touch her but then he would remember her ravenous appetite, always garnished by her taste for a certain level of perilous playfulness. She was always hungry it was true, but something about being touched seemed to spark a deeper kind of hunger, one that sent her into a single-minded frenzy that threatened everything. He knew enough now to never leave her alone again, not after the last incident.

He had been at the old cabin, nursing his ego late one night after another unsuccessful hunt when that moment of weakness overtook him. A piercing throb of loneliness drove him to seek her out and finally after much coaxing she came to him. When she saw how heavy-handed his desperation had made him she tried to hide, and it had taken hours of gentle pleading to make her comfortable again. He had fed her until she glowed with contentment and started dancing in place, that comforting waltz she knew he loved.

When she was like this they both knew her power over him was immense. He would sit hypnotized, eyes drinking in each movement, each radiant curve and edge of her deceptively delicate form. That night he had stepped away from her to relieve himself against a tree, back turned but for a moment. That was all it took.

He walked back and then stopped, eyes suddenly as wide as saucers. She had leaped to the side of the cabin and was busy climbing to the roof and his fearful cries for her to stop had no effect. She only grinned and danced around his attempts to shoo her off, snapping and roaring at him each time he moved closer. In an instant the roof collapsed and she tumbled inside. Long weakened by termites gorged bellies, the brittle walls of the cabin could do little to contain her mood. He had crashed through the door in a vain attempt to capture her and much exertion followed while he calmed her down. Yet it was already too late, nearly everything was destroyed. The cabin stripped to just a hollow shell of memories and lessons.

He never kidded himself again that she truly needed him and he sits tending her now, cautious yearning supplanting that once naïve excitement. She gazes at him seductively, waiting for the moment when she can again spring out and strike a trail of lustfully frenetic havoc across his life. He feeds her only enough to survive, only enough that he can stare but never be blindsided.

She enthralls him and he asks for more. He needs her. She knows it.

He can’t live without her.