Written back in college when I thought good writing had to sound flowery and imagery was more important than story. I was wrong on both counts. I can’t help noticing, looking over this collection, how many stories of mine have some sort of religious foundation or overtones. That’s what happens when you’re raised Catholic.

She comes at night.

I push the rocking chair to the balcony so I may watch her, antique cherry that squeaks and protests much like my old bones. This affords me a towering view of my back yard; the hedges trimmed to lollipops, the fountain cherub eternally spitting water, the ocean in the distance.

The sun takes a lazy bow and exits, raking orange and purple fingers across my acres of thick lawn. Years ago, it was champagne cocktails and croquet. Now, I can’t even recall the last time I walked the grounds. An acquaintance, deceased like most, once described men as fine single malt — fiery and immature when young, mellowing with age.

I am finally palatable.

The portrait of my younger self hangs above the fireplace, stern face and eyebrows tempered with resolve. Eyebrows that have grown gray and bushy and without direction.

Once, I would settle for nothing less than crushing all opposition.

Now, I’ll settle for some honey in my tea.

I watch as the mist arrives, a soft, ethereal blanket, glowing in my yard lights.

She always comes with the mist, and I feel my pulse quicken, warming me. I drop the blanket from my lap — I don’t need it anymore.

The first sight of her is magic. Awe and wonder, feelings known only to the young and to me. Worth more than I have ever earned. She is clothed in translucent blue, the color of the moon, a robe that moves like silk. Her face is always peaceful, her movements sure, and I am both enthralled and pacified. Her dance is nature and life, ebb and flow. Slow, languid turns and comfortable poses, arms always beckoning, the tune known only to her.

Beneath my balcony she stops and smiles, as she has for many years.

“Dance with me.”

Tonight I shall.

I grip the armrests of my rocker with gnarled hands and tremble to my feet. The thousand pains that plague my days, the gagging pills that keep me beating, the nights of disquiet — all nullified by my resolve. I finally have the strength to know I have none left. The hand has been played, and folded.

Legs shaky, a yearling, knock-kneed and wide-eyed, I lean over the railing. Into her arms I fall, and break…

And then I am free. I bow to my Lady, and take her hand. “May I have this dance?”

The music is crisp in my ears, light and airy. I embrace her, and we waltz on the mist, above my lawn, away from my empty prison. Through the cherub and the hedges, across the beach, over the sea to chase the sun.

Her mouth flutters closer to mine, soft lips parting.

Black teeth. Sharp.

I cry out, my voice muffled by her hungry kiss, ripping at my face, peeling, pulling.

I gaze up at her through lidless eyes, milky with red.

Her maw finds my soft belly, bites, probes deep.

I am tugged into the ground by looping coils of innards.

Down.

Down.

Down to heat so strong the very air sears, baking raw flesh without ever killing nerves.

We dance again on rusty nails, on white coals and fish hooks, my bowels roping us together for eternity.

For another dance.

And another dance.