Where the Heart Is

“Well,” I said, noisily unlocking the door and pushing it open, “this is home.”

 

“Home is where the hearts are,” he said brightly.

 

“Don’t you mean, ‘where the heart is’?” I returned, holding the door for him.

 

“Depends on how many people live here, doesn’t it?” he answered, “You said you share the place with a flatmate, right?”

 

“I suppose so. I’ve never thought about it like that.” I felt for the light switch and swiftly bathed the tiny living room with pale electric light. “She’s out, by the way, my roommate,” I added as an afterthought. “We have the whole two hundred square meters of prime real estate to ourselves until 8 tomorrow morning. Coffee?”

 

“Please.”

 

I watched him lower himself gracefully into the squalid sofa, sprawling across the threadbare nylon like a sheik holding court, showing off that lupine grace again. I was never the sort of person to pick up strangers at a club, hell, I wasn’t normally the sort of person to go clubbing at all, but Marcus at work had insisted I go out with his little gang that night, and from the instant I walked in, the creature that now lounged on the couch caught my eye. There was something… unusual about him. Something that drew me continually toward him, until I found myself inviting him home.

 

We sipped coffee and talked about very little for nearly an hour before the enticing combination of alcohol and attraction lead us from the brilliant light of the living room to the semi-darkness of the bedroom. The steady creak of bedsprings and the flicker of candlelit shadows spanned the early hours until, when the candles burned low and the shadows grew high, the blue light of dawn squeezing around the edges of my badly-made curtains.

 

His skin seemed almost to glow in the dim morning light, he was so pale. He told me he didn’t get out a lot, and of course I made some silly joke but his expression grew sad, distant and I hastily changed the subject back to all the trivial nonsense. Eventually I ran out of small talk and simply lay in silence, listening to him breathe.

 

“God, you’re pulse is faint!” I noticed at last.

 

He glanced down at his wrist as though surprised he should have a pulse at all. “Yeah, it’s a condition. It means I have weak circulation. It’s hereditary,” he added miserably.

 

“Sorry,” I mumbled. I felt increasingly awkward, but he didn’t seem to mind. He smiled again and asked me something about nothing. We chattered on intermittently until he decided it was time he should go, so we said our goodbyes and he disappeared down the stairwell.

 

I assumed that would be the last I’d see of him. No numbers were exchanged, no email addresses left, he just slipped out of the apartment block, onto a bus and away into suburban London. I didn’t even know his name. But two weeks later he appeared at my side at a bar. It was during another of my inept attempts to socialise with workmates, reawakening that nagging urge to find another job, but my nameless acquaintance appeared again like some guardian angel saving me from the tedium of office gossip.

 

“Funny seeing you here,” he said, perching on a stool at my elbow and ordering me another drink. “Realised on the bus I never got your number. Let’s rectify that now, eh?” He fished a sleek, brand-new mobile phone from his pocket, his fingers dancing across the illuminated plastic as he typed in my details.

 

He asked how I was and why I was here, all the usual things. Conversation rattled on and glasses chinked and refilled for an hour or two, my work-friends waved their farewells and the hands of the clock spiralled round and around, closer and closer to closing time. When finally the bell above the bar rang and the barmaid’s glances became ever more pointed, my mysterious companion offered to take me back to his place. His “where the heart is”. Of course I agreed, and ten minutes on the bus later I was standing in the porch of an elegant Edwardian semi. Inside it was dark, the house had never been designed to accommodate electricity, but it was atmospheric. And as he poured me another glass of expensive brandy, snuggling together on furniture which looked suspiciously like antique, plans to turn our little fling into a long-term thing fluttered in the back of my mind. By the second glass, all plans were forgotten, and by the third we were sauntering up the stairs with only lascivious thoughts between us.

 

It was already quite light when I awoke; my head spinning with the wake of the evening’s drinking. I had a desperate urge for a drink. Creeping out of bed and out onto the landing I searched in vain for a bathroom, then suddenly remembered passing a kitchen on the way up. I slunk down the stairs, flinching at every creak of the old timbers for fear of waking my sleeping lover. The kitchen was old-fashioned and ill-fitted, a squat, black stove sat where a shiny electric oven really ought to have been, but a yellowed fridge stood in one corner. I found a chipped mug in one of the otherwise-empty cupboards and reached screwed at the taps but to no avail. The pipes rattled and clunk but no water came out. I swore under my breath. Funny that a man with such a beautiful house and such good taste would keep such a shabby looking kitchen. Maybe that’s how he could afford all this, I mused; he just didn’t pay his water bills.

 

I suppressed a snort of laughter, sighed and heaved open the door of the decrepit fridge. There were a few bottles of mineral water skulking at the back of the top shelf so I took one and poured myself some. The rest of the fridge was empty save for an ominous shape in the pinkish-coloured bottom drawer. I was just about to pour another glass, when I heard a thump coming from below. Not a loud noise, but strange and distinct. I paused, looked around and shrugged. Must have been something outside.

 

Ba-dump. There is was again. I looked around again but again saw nothing. Ba-dump. There! It seemed to be coming from the fridge.

 

I peered at it. Still nothing. But then I head it again, slightly louder this time. It was coming from the bottom drawer. As I reached for it, I heard the noise again. There was a definite rhythm. Steady, pulsating… almost musical.

 

I pulled open the drawer and instantly staggered back. The inside of the drawer was inch deep n a thick, dark liquid, staining the sides of the yellowed plastic a deep, visceral red. Blood. Thick, half-congealed blood with cold lumps of flesh floating on the surface and the spaghetti shapes of vessels collecting at the bottom. But worst of all was the fist-sized mass of chilled meat squatting in the centre of the drawer: a heart. Thick, hose-like arteries spewed out from the ghastly tissue, some sticking into the air like some awful fountain, others spilling into the layer of gore that surrounded it.

 

I told myself it must be some animal’s heart, the remains of some gory meal. He must have bought it from a butcher’s shop. It’s only in the blood to keep it fresh. Yes, that was the only possible….

 

I stopped dead, my blood turning icy cold in my veins. The heart beat. It pulsed grotesquely, sending a little spurt of freshly chilled gore into the air, sending ripples through the half-clotted red gunk. My hand flew to my mouth, I stared at it spellbound, horrified, watching it beating rhythmically in the bottom of the old refrigerator. When I finally managed to compose myself enough to hear my own thoughts, my mind was filled with one word: escape. I needed to get out. Whatever this was, this wasn’t right. I needed to be out of this house, away from this man. I took a few bewildered steps backward.

 

Now my head was awash with confusion. My clothes were all upstairs. I can’t cross London in a pair of pants and nothing else! But I couldn’t go upstairs again either. What if I woke him? But, maybe if I did wake him, he’d explain it all away. Maybe it was all some confusion. But…maybe…but…but…

 

The heartbeat was speeding up. The rhythm was quicker, more noticeable. I continued to stare at it, frightened ideas quarrelling for attention in my already perplexed mind. Was it my imagination or was it still quickening? Was its rhythm changing? Was that sound behind me or was it the heart once more?

 

“I didn’t want you to have to see that,” said a calm but stern voice directly behind me.

 

I spun around, my arms still raised in shock, and stumbled into the half-dressed form of the mysterious homeowner. He snatched up my wrists in one hand and held me steady. His other hand held a slim clinical scalpel. As I gazed into his face his lips smiled but his eyes remained sad. I struggled half-heartedly but despite his sickly complexion he was strong, too strong for me to break free.

 

“It’s nothing personal, you know, I really do quite like you. If I didn’t have to do this we could’ve… y’know. But they wear out so fast. Especially these days. Too much fast food, not enough exercise… they’re all so weak… New one every month…” he trailed off, muttering inaudibly about all the noisome practicalities of his gruesome “condition”.

I felt my knees buckle. He wrapped an arm around my waist to support me. I felt too sick to struggle anymore as he raised his scalpel to my chest.

 

“Nothing personal,” he murmured again as he positioned the blade, “I’ll always remember you. You’re not like the others. You’ll always have a special place in my….heart…”