She

Jovic swirled ticklishly around her large room and faced the mirror for the sixth time this evening. She was excited. She turned her lips up. Stretched her mouth again with teeth showing. But weirdly, it was only her upper teeth which showed. Was that the right way to smile? Opened her mouth wider as she stretched, her thirty-two on display and dimmed her eyes. It looked like she was in a zoo, over the cage. She tried it over and over until it had been ingested by her brain.

Wearing a green floor length chivon dress with transparent full sleeves that hugged her body well, she challenged the thought of going gothic in her makeup. People already looked at her with apprehension, they would run for the hills if she entertained them more. The innocent look will work today, after all, she will be going to Seaside lounge. It was a date. Yah.

Jovic haven't been out on dates in a while. And it wasn't for her lack of trying or that she was not beautiful. Call it arrogance or self-awareness, she knew, she was god-damned beautiful. The rumors were to blame. People looked at her in dread and mummured as she walked by. It was just baseless rumors that half the city were privileged to know.

Rumors that made grown men walk in straight line, made faces change route faster than one can blink. One of those rumors was she hunted at night. Seduced men with her beauty. That she was a witch. Imagine that? When those rumors found their way to her, rage, that all she could see. "Who did something like that?'' she'd seethed.

In all her rage and destructive tendencies, excitement slithered it's way through her body. It was more electrifying than the rage. Her friends may crawl back to their igloo, the world may turn its back and all may be raging. Nothing will beat that excitement.

Everyone wants to feel that excitement and it has nothing to do with being a sadist. The excitement that courses through one's body and one is high on life. The excitement of being feared.

Jovic at first felt that excitement as she studied those nameless faces sweeping pass her, the scrunching of their faces, the weariness of their eyes, the fast movement of their mouths to whisper open secrets to their companion; their horrified gasps. Wings began sprouting from her back. Wings that can't be clipped. It doesn't bring a smiles and rainbows, but what's genuine? The tingles made up for it in more ways.

Those tingles that zaps through the whole body holding it bound in an explosive feel and leaving it shattering. The excitement often times evaporates when she's stays long in the confines of her mansion. In its wake, loneliness rears its pretty head, coiling around her body and squeezing. Like a chameleon, it comes in different shades, destroying the hedges. Those times, she screams and thrashes her surroundings, it echoes as she's all alone.

Jovic has found an adequate way to deal with such severe loneliness. It has become a popular trend witches has hopped on. Kind of like bathing with children's blood to look younger but more sinister. Enchantment.

To enchant is to control the body, the mind to do your binding. Powerful magic that a low class witch will not dare trifle with as it will backfire painfully. Jovic though is not some low class scum of a witch. Her magic have never been low class. Her ancestry being fourth generational power and she was born a prodigy.

Powers birthrighted to her, she wields such with wicked glee, commands absolute respect from the top hierarchy to backward alleys in the witches community.

So to exercise her strength, toys are made. Toys are made in the form of human beings. It soothe the soul to hear some form of noise around the house or to see faces that agree with you. Prolonged silence calms. It gives its own peace of mind but it also forms a craze. The kind where only your thoughts bangs heavily across the skull creating its own rhythm, unaware of the pain it's inflicting. The physical pain, the pulling of the hair, scraping the hands through the scalp in the most ugly way. It's bearable. The emotional isn't.

Jovic had had reasons to lash out. The scars that marred her mind are more than absolute reasons, like the rotation of the earth. Lash out on anyone.

Today though, she agreed with a inner beast: no lashing out. This week was good, today will be memorable.

William called a few days back, speaking to her in his monotonous voice. He was the first of her friends to flee when the whole witch rumors began to circulate. Three years passed and suddenly, he calls, evading the past completely in his talks about carrying a torch on her behalf. Ending his long proclamations of lies and love on the phone, he asked her out.

'He has finally crawled out from his igloo.' She will give him a second chance, maybe he will beg and all will forgiven but never forgotten.

She prepped her dry light brown-skin with a high-quality moisturizer. Squeezing a small amount of primer into her makeup brush, applying in the center of her face and slowly working it out towards her cheeks, forehead and chin. She used her fingers to lightly apply her foundation liquid before using her concealer to reduce the appearance of dark under-eye circle. Jovic applied her foundation powder, a little blush before going bold in her eye-shadow and lip gloss. Going to her closet she pulled out the first pair of shoes that matched her outfit –a pair of transparent peep-toe ankle booties with a dark black zipper at the front. Looked at the mirror, her locs sitting on her head in perfect array, completing the whole look, and when positively sure that she was set, she walked out of her room and downstairs.

The assigned driver pulled the car to the side door. He got out and held the rear door for her. Elvish. Her very first toy.

Human touch, feelings, laughter, smiles, long talks, joy, friendship, love and family. When all these flee to faraway lands and the only things left are bottomless pit of toe-curling sadness that drains the body, one is forced to be cuddled in by other things. Elvish gives her some form of comfort. The kind you find when there is a blackout, but a single candle burns by a corner, just for you not to trip and fall.

He was her first success. After four embarrassing attempts, he was the fifth. The fifth trial was the charm in her case.

Three years ago came about her first human enchantment.

*****

Three years ago, at an almost dilapidated club house, she saw him. As she sat nursing a glass of vodka in an elusive corner, her eyes roamed, searching for anything and nothing. Another victim to participate in her failed enchantments. It was the perfect place to prey without the the consequences of a bark or the bite.

Normally, this establishment clients were chronic severe drunks and abusers. If they disappear, the world wouldn't blink. When their gone, no protest, no world war. After a few months, they're forgotten.

There he was, Elvish. Brutish. Big. Bald. Red-faced. Gulping down glass after glass of the hard stuff like a freaking camel. Jovic grimaced, his actions hurting her throat figuratively.

She bobbled.

She had decided. Another trial will be on him, she thought. Constant failure was no motivator.

Jovic reluctantly got to work, retrieving a chalk from her Hermes, she drew an upside down cross on the service table, she bit down on her thumb hard,drawing blood,which was used to draw a circle around the cross.

Staring at his back from her corner, she exhaled, taking in as much air that will allow her to fight the fear and nervousness screaming at her to quit while she was ahead. To accept her failures. She fought her cramped muscles and came out to be the bigger person. She began whispering. ''Astute arisam quickim." Jovic surroundings crackled as she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Eje Igwulube Okodu nne mulu m'...ega buru ikem tata, oge adie!"

Her eyes bloated, head thumbed hard and she held herself to avoid blacking out.

Suddenly, there was a blackout. The lights came on in a minute and there he was, Elvish, brutish big Elvish, staring at her intensely from across the bar.

He smiled at her with his goofy browning teeth and she returned it with a smirk.