Still Beautiful

Journal - June 22, 2004. 6:29 AM.

I've killed again. I didn't mean it, but I just... had to... I saw him there, after we'd made love in my bed. He was so beautiful - too beautiful for me; I couldn't let him live if I couldn't keep him...

So, even now as I write this, I wonder if he would have let me keep him. But no, I was just a one night stand to him. One night of sex and drinking and then we were done. No, he was done. I wasn't. He's number seventeen on a list that is sure to become longer.

Since we'd been drinking, there are large portions of the evening I don't remember. I do remember lacing his drink in the pub, and I do remember offering to carry him up to my apartment where he could sleep for the night as he couldn't walk very well. I remember laying him down on my bed... I vaguely remember starting to kiss him...

From there I can only assume that as I kissed him, one of hands found its way up the front of his shirt, my fingers playing softly over his stomach. Maybe my other hand undid the buttons on his jeans. Maybe.. maybe...

But no, journal, I won't speculate on things that I can't be sure of. All of this took place just hours ago - he's still on my bed. If you looked at him, just a glance, you couldn't tell he was dead. He looks like he's asleep. Just sleeping. He's on his back, his legs spread apart. Naked and drenched in sweat, both his and my own. Still beautiful.

What I do remember, very clearly remember, is me tightening that cord around his neck. I remember.. the sound of him strugging to breathe... struggling to push me away. He tried. He failed. Obviously, he failed. If he had succeeded, it might be me laying there on my bed.

Yes, journal, it could have been me laying there with that length of cord pulled around my neck, choking the very life out of me. But journal, it wasn't, it was him.

I remember...

I felt tired and he was asleep.. it's from this that I draw the conclusion that any sex we had was tiring and therefore very good. Pity, I'll never know.. he may have been the best I ever had.

I was laying next to him, my arm draped over his stomach and my head leaning on his, my lips pressed to his shoulder. I wouldn't allow myself to sleep. If I slept, he might leave me. I couldn't let him leave me.

That's when I knew I had to do it, journal. I had to kill this man. Just like I had the others. This time it was different. I felt truly disgusted by what I was about to do. I lifted my head from his shoulder and softly kissed his lips, watching him sleep. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I could just stay awake. When he woke, I could just ask him not to leave. It seemed so simple.. so easy... too easy.

I sighed, journal, a heavy, heavy sigh, knowing what I was about to do. I stood, pulled his boxers over my legs, leaving my own somewhere on the floor. Left them where he'd tossed them I'm still not sure where.

I then crossed to my dresser from which I withdrew a length of rope. As I held it in my hands I paused. Can I really do this to him?

Yes, I decided. Yes. Not a matter of 'could I', but a matter of 'I have to'. If I didn't, he'd leave me. There I stood, my mind running over everything that we'd done together - I could remember it then, journal, but I can't remember it now.. I will forever be haunted by memories I don't have and things that I'd rather forget.

I crossed the floor and got back onto the bed. He shifted his position just slightly; he faced the other way, still on his back, and his arm fell from his stomach. It was almost inviting me to lay next to him so he could pull me close. How I wanted to give into that unconscious invitation. But no, journal, I couldn't do that.

I crawled over him, straddling him. Again, I leaned forward, touching my lips softly to his. Not really a kiss, more of a weak goodbye. Part of me wanted to wake him - to tell him to run while he still could. But no - him running would be him leaving me.

By then I was obsessed with keeping him, journal. I had to have him. Look at him, even now he's still beautiful. Eyes you could just get lost in, journal.

He woke up when I pulled my lips away. His arm raised from the bed and weakly touched my wrist as if to say he wanted me to kiss him again. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to touch him and feel him.. but I couldn't. As long as he lived, he could leave.

Now journal, let me tell you, once I start feeling like that, it's all over for someone. I can't explain it, but this feeling of being pushed away and unwanted rushes over me and takes over.

Now, as I moved my hands forward to place this piece of rope around his neck, he slept on. It wasn't until I started to tighten it did he wake up. I felt my skin growing hot, flushing, even, as I felt his eyes on me,. panic growing in them.

They were brilliantly green, his eyes were. That was the first time I took notice of that.

He tried to scream, but no - the cord that was growing ever tighter around his throat stopped him from yelling. He couldn't yell, couldn't talk... couldn't breathe.

How long that lasted, I am not quite sure. I just remember leaning forward to kiss his forehead after he stopped breathing. I just left him there, came over here to write this.

Journal, this is the only account of murder I will ever write in you, even though there were 16 before and will surely be more after Harry Potter. Maybe someone will find this someday, find out what I did... hopefully I'll be long gone by then.

Now, excuse me, please... I have to find something to do with this body. It's a shame to have to bury him, he's still so beautiful....

-Draco Malfoy