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…And it’s not just that. Experimental remedy? What the fuck is that meant to mean? You don’t even know what the fucking kook of a doctor put him on. It could be placebos for all we know. For Christ’s sake, I don’t even feel safe sleeping in my own bed, I just picture him looming over me at night. I know he’s your brother but…

And as Ben laid there, trying hard to block out her words, the doubt had began to creep in.
What were the pills he was on? Surely they weren’t placebos. Surely they wouldn’t have let him out if they were. Slavia knew more than the cops had. The Red Room had been revealed to him in the therapy sessions. Surely he wouldn’t have…
But even as he’d worked hard to convince himself otherwise, Slavia’s last words to him had continually played through his mind.

Now this will only work if you want it to.

And as he lit up a smoke and stared down at the scaly jism on his front, they played through his mind once more.

Now this will only work if you want it to.

* * * * *

Rachel lent back against the graffiti-streaked side of the general store, resenting the group of schoolkids congregated around the tram stop bench. As she stood, willing the tram to arrive before the already substantial crowd swelled even further, Rachel glowered at the kids. Even though they themselves were not using the bench, they were blocking it so no-one else could either. She knew her resentment was ridiculous, that the kids probably weren’t even aware of it and that if she just asked them they’d probably happily move away but at the moment she didn’t care.

She was feeling decidedly seedy and the hastily sculled coffee and brisk walk through the cool morning air to the tram-stop had done nothing to improve her condition since she’d peeled back her eyelids that morning. Even passing the fenced-in building site hadn’t cheered her like it normally did. The bottle of wine had been a bad idea last night and as she stood, her cheeks numbed by the cold, Rachel was not looking forward to her eight hour shift one iota.

Her mood hadn’t been helped at all by the icy-cold shower she’d had to endure that morning thanks to the fucking hot water service conking out moments after she turned the tap. And she wasn’t looking forward to calling the landlord to get it fixed once she got to work. Sleazy was the most appropriate word to describe the man but his cousin - who he insisted on calling in to fix any breakdowns - was infinitely worse. Last time he’d been in to fix the stove he’d addressed all his questions and conversation to her breasts and whenever she’d looked up from her book, she found him staring at her, a slight grin on his face. He’d made absolutely no attempt to hide his clear erection and when she complained to the landlord, he’d laughed and fobbed her off:
That Henry, he’s quite the ladies man!

And to top off the killer start to the morning, it now looked like the 8:13 tram was a no show and consequently she was going to be late for work and boy was that going to get that bitch Maree going…
And the tram would be packed… And that would just piss her off for the start of her shift… Then she’d have to deal with all those picky fucking diners with their picky fucking requests… And…

And…

Was that her neighbour?

The man caught Rachel’s attention as he shuffled across at the lights, head down, occasionally snatching furtive puffs on the cigarette wedged between his thumb and forefinger, cupped protectively in his palm.

It was too.

She was studying the far away look in his eyes and wondering whether she should say hello when he looked up and saw her. For a second, he looked truly terrified, like he was about to turn and flee. But it was only a brief flicker that left Rachel wondering whether she’d really seen it or not. He gave her a bit of a shy smile and a nod and halted a good five metres away, making a show of reading the tram timetable.

Fair enough, shy one,
she thought and peered down the road, hoping to glimpse a tram on the horizon. All she saw was gridlocked traffic and before she knew it, her eyes were drifting back to him again.

There was something she definitely found intriguing about him but she just couldn’t quite place it.

Rachel caught the faintest of jerks in his neck as she looked over. It was as though he’d been staring at her but had turned away when he saw her head moving. Yes, there was something very familiar about him… Even more so when she saw him in profile…
Of course, it was fucking Jacob he reminded her of. That American twat friend of Mary’s.
Rachel had made the mistake of getting briefly involved with him a few years back. They had the same sort of look going on: the dishevelled chic sort of thing. Although in Jacob’s case it had all seemed a little forced; after all, he was a painter.
He had to maintain his image.

She almost laughed out loud as she remembered the way he used to preen in front of the mirror in the morning only to emerge an hour later, looking like he’d just woken up. The laughter died instantly though as she remembered how he used to cheat on her all the time as well; remembered how embarrassed she’d been when she found out…

Somehow she couldn’t imagine this guy preening though – cheating yes; it was all too easy for her to imagine him cheating – but the more she looked at him, the more it looked like he was on some sort of medication. There was a weird spaciness in his eyes as he slowly scanned the area in front of him. And there was definitely something about the way his gaze would stop short that told her he was desperate to look at her but not while she was watching.

Did he fancy her?

Wow, someone’s full of herself,
she thought as the tram finally made an appearance and she was nearly bowled over in the rush to get on board. When she saw how packed it was though, she decided it just wasn’t worth it.
Fuck Maree, she wasn’t going to spend the journey pressed between a group of sweaty commuters.

Fortunately as the first tram ground away, another appeared on the horizon.
Shouldn’t be a long wait,
she thought as she glanced back and saw that her neighbour was still there. This time she caught him staring.
Okay now that’s getting a little creepy.

She glanced back at the tram but it was still halfway up the hill, stuck behind traffic. Only a smattering of other passengers had vetoed the packed tram.
Finally some good luck,
she thought.

She looked back and saw the man look away again.
Okay that was getting fucking irritating now.

Before she even really thought about it, Rachel walked across, holding out her hand.

‘Hi, I’m Rachel. I think you just moved in next door…’

* * * * *

Okay, so he’s not the talkative type,
Rachel thought as she took her seat and he strode straight past the empty bay in front of her and lodged himself in a stairwell.
No law against that.

At least he’d seemed friendly enough when he’d introduced himself as Ben. He’d smiled at her and appeared willing to talk but had clearly been uncomfortable. His answers to the few general questions she’d squeezed in before the tram pulled up had been unhelpful, monosyllabic grunts and his actions on boarding the tram showed that he clearly had no interest in continuing the conversation.

You should be happy,
the voice told her
, it’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? A neighbour who is nice and quiet; keeps to himself.

Well that’s true,
she thought,
but there was still something slightly off about him.

Just as long as he keeps in line,
she decided, trying to resist the urge to turn around for a look.

She could feel eyes boring into her.

* * * * *

Ben stroked frantically at his cock as the walls of the Red Room formed again: the red flowing down and across, fleshing out more of its features this time.
A hint of bare floorboards. The low bench up against the right hand wall, piled with his tools. The row of meathooks lining the left side; the silhouettes hanging off them, still buried in shadow.

He began kneading his scrotum as the table formed in the middle of the room and groaned aloud as he ejaculated all over his stomach. It only added to the scaly mess already in place and it did nothing to relieve the throbbing. His erection didn’t subside at all and as the shadows started to pull back and he recognised the figure strapped on the table, he couldn’t help it, he began rubbing his slimy penis again.

He’d been wanking constantly since his encounter with the lady on the tram but it was doing little to relieve the pressure building in him:
the urges and desires
. When she’d talked to him, he barely heard her words. He’d been too awe-struck by the red walls that started closing around them and the way her features had morphed until her vague likeness was transformed into a mirror image of
her
. And he’d almost cringed away, catching himself at the last moment before he could cower.

He had known right then that the rest of the day would be a write-off. That it would be futile to look for work. That he wouldn’t be able to focus at all. Instead he’d followed her for a bit and discovered she worked at a café down Swanston St. He’d watched her through the glass for a while: saw a brief altercation with an older woman; saw her bustle between the tables; saw her smile…

… But the smile had started to split into a seductive scream and he’d felt his cock pressing against the glass and some small part of him had known it was very dangerous what he was doing; that she had made him see the Red Room twice now and he knew what happened to the ones who made him see the Red Room. The ones who looked like her and would take her place for the revenge he’d never been able to have…

…Ben had slipped away home but the images had stayed with him through the whole tram trip and when he’d realised he’d forgotten his pills he’d wondered how he could have been so thoughtless. Wondered whether maybe, just maybe, he’d done it a little on purpose.

He knew he should probably take some now. It was the first thought he’d had as he stormed back into his flat but the pressure had already been building and building. In his mind, the roof had already been in place and it was just so beautiful and his worries had faded away and he’d just wanted to slip on the leather apron and now they were coming back again, the shadows slipping away one by one to reveal their simultaneously terrifying and beautiful visages and even though he knew he should take his pills, another idea was forming now and it just excited him so much…

It’s not a good idea.

But he needed to do some research.

He’d get caught.

But he needed to know more…

… Like whether she has a boyfriend…

… But why did he need to know that?

… Just take a quick look…

… Just a quick look couldn’t hurt…

* * * * *

Ben carefully eased himself over the fence and dropped onto the cracked concrete of the courtyard next door. He breathed evenly in and out for a moment, calming himself as the adrenaline spiked through his body. He forced himself to be still as he crouched, listening intently. The strange jittery feeling that he’d felt as he’d daydreamed under the bridge was flowing through him and even though he knew what he was doing was wrong – that it was stupid, that it wouldn’t help anything – he seemed powerless to stop himself.

When he’d calmed down sufficiently and was certain that his entry into the neighbour’s yard hadn’t been detected, Ben stood up and drank in his surroundings. Unconsciously he rubbed at his still erect penis as he studied the clothes fluttering on the retractable line that stretched across the small enclosed space.

He couldn’t have asked for more appropriate backyards than the ones this block of flats offered. High wooden fences; perfect for covering any prowling.

Ben’s hand was shaking slightly as he reached out and rubbed at a pair of silken panties strung between a pair of tracksuit pants and a T-shirt. In his mind, he could see her strapped down, lying there immobile, as he slid them down ever so slowly…
Don’t think about it…
He saw the tender flesh revealed…
She’s not her…
saw the tuft of hair…
She’s not her…
and then the glorious wound and before he knew it, her figure was cast in a red hue and he was stumbling over to the small table and chair set, almost scattering the pot plants, trying to push it out of his mind.
He couldn’t afford to go to the Red Room now; he had to keep his wits about him. It was stupid to have come here.

He sat breathing heavily for a moment, calming himself down until the red filter disappeared from his vision. When he stood, he fully intended to walk straight to the fence, climb back over and return to his flat. Instead he found himself with his eye pressed to the blind in front of him. He couldn’t see much but what he saw instantly told him the flat was far better appointed than his own. There was a glimpse of smooth, beige walls; another world compared to the garishness of his own next door and he could see the edge of a sink with a wine glass perched on it. Although it wasn’t much, he took the solitary glass as a good sign and moved along, past an impenetrable frosted pane over to another window whose blind, he saw with growing excitement, was half-raised.