Mann_goswami

In a dusty bookstore, Mann, a reclusive poet with a penchant for broken things, encounters a woman he dubs "Cassette"-a muse whose hum pierces his silence and ignites an all-consuming love. As their romance deepens, fueled by shared literature, slow dances, and raw intimacy, Mann's devotion warps into obsession. Viewing her as a perfect cassette tape, he sees any interference -be it a crude law student, a suspicious friend, or a prying landlord-as "noise" or "scratches" marring her melody. One by one, he eliminates these threats with gruesome precision: a throat slit, a body drowned, a car compacted, a fire set, each kill a vow to keep her pure.

Cassette, unaware at first, is drawn

into his orbit, her own scars and trust

binding her to him. But when her friend

group stages an intervention, Mann's

violence peaks, and he tests her loyalty,

coaxing her to kill. She does, sealing

their dark duet-only for Mann to decide

her perfection can't endure life's decay.

Poisoning her tea with arsenic, he stops

her "tape," preserving her in a grotesque

ritual of lavender and glass eyes, their

love eternalized in stillness. As he

mourns her at a table set for two, his

gaze drifts to a new hum, hinting at a

cycle poised to rewind.

No one else can hear you

Her boss was a leech—sucking Cassette into the late hours of the night, growing red in the barked commands, leaving stains on her cheek when she thought Mann wouldn 't see it. "He dims your light, Cassette, a warp in your edge I'll erase," Mann vowed, watching her slump at the table of a kitchen with hands trembling around a cold mug. He'd fix it, burn her free and tracked her boss to his office-a sterile cube of glass and steel, ripe for ruin.

Mann chose poison - cyanide, a crystalline whisper he'd slipped into boss coffee thermos under the edge of bitterness dulled by sugar. Outside, copiously watching her boss sip it, he was looking through the window, lewdly loosed and barking into a phone. First was a twitching, frowning response followed suddenly by a crash against the desk of the coffee cup as he clutched his throat, and the coolness from his face turned purple, foam gurgled at his lips. He convulsed and shouted, emptied his chair, jerked his body like a broken doll—clawing at the air, rolling his eyeballs backward, swelling like black crud as the poison ate his breath. Mann watched, rapt; the window glared with his exhalation as her boss heaved his chest once, twice, and ceased being a marionette released, with foam dripping on the carpet, a silent puddle moted with death.

"He dulled your glow, Cassette; a shadow I dissolved. My love's a venom to let you shine, my star's only arc." Man left the scene pristine, the thermos a peaceful murderer, and returned to her that night, the act a secret fire in his blood. She sat quiet on a couch, barefoot, and let a sweater slip off one shoulder, and he swept her up, hands framing her face in that kiss-hungry, fierce, tongue claiming hers, tasting the tea and, of course, her sweetness. "You're free now, Cassette," he whispered, and she laughed softly, pulling him to the rug.

He knelt; and peeling off her sweater, lowered his lips to heat the bare skin of shoulder, throat pulse, pilgrimage as she sighed, pulling his shirt away. "You are my dawn, Cassette, burning bright," he howled as his fingers traced her curves to lift her skirt and kiss her thighs, her heat, slow and deep, her moans a melody he worshipped. Pulling him up, desperate enough, her legs wrapped around him as he pushed against her raw, romantic, a dance of sweat and need between the bodies. "Mann," she gasped, nails digging in and moved along with her, hard, tender; hands cradling her face, eyes locked as he whispered, "I'd poison the world for you," her release a shudder that sparked his own, breaths a shared hymn. He massaged her shoulders afterward, cooing, "You're my star, unshaded now," his love a dark flame she didn't yet fear, the cyanide's echo silent vow beneath his touch.

THE WARPED EDGE