Sehun covered my neck with feather-light kisses, which I could feel very clearly despite his unspeakably soft lips. Between every single kiss he breathlessly panted one syllable of my name into the silence of the evening. His voice sounded like the purest temptation, dangerous, arousing and my name ran like the most attractive sin over his sensual mouth. 

His hot, almost sweetish breath tickled my wet skin and gave me a surprisingly intense, unbelievably tingling sensation, causing goose bumps creeping and icy cold to spread over my neck, my shoulder and down to my collarbone, where Sehun's tender lips worked their way to and made me tremble.

»You’re a cheater!«

Sehun felt so good, much too much, that I could not and would not have wanted to pay attention to it or destroy this special moment between us with a single word, a single gesture. Because I had waited far too long for this. To a person who desired me despite my faults, who protected me without putting me in chains, who stood by my side in my darkest and coldest moment of weakness without ifs and buts. 

Yes, even though we were both two strangers who had met each other by chance, like two extremes colliding and not knowing very much about each other, I just knew it could only be him. That I wanted no one but him. All my life I had been waiting for him, Oh Sehun. Only he alone could be the one with whom even that shameful misstep felt right, perfectly right. Because such a magical crackling, so beautiful and yet innocent, just couldn't be wrong, could it?

»Hypocrite... like your mother...«

It was far too beautiful. I'm sure it was him but desperation suddenly came over me and made me take a sharp breath. Was it true? Was I like her - my mum? A sound left my throat. I didn't know whether it was despair or the desire for Sehun - but I chose the latter. No, when I noticed that his hand was constantly along my spine, it was not true! I was nothing like her!

»Then what are you doing here?« 

I swallowed. What was I doing here? I tried to ing forget! Just concentrate on this moment here at Sehun's side. Opening up my life in a new direction. Was I denied even that small gift? Why couldn't I be careless for even this brief, fleeting moment? Just for a few seconds at least...

»You know why.«

Barely noticeable I shook my head. No, I just don't know! What was so wrong with it? I opened my eyes a crack wide. The deep, dark blue of the evening sky, which became paler and paler the farther I looked towards the horizon, was reflected in the brightly polished windows of the nearby villa. The outer outline of a lonely, fluffy cloud that passed us by seemed to glow orange, heralding the approaching night like a harbinger. Due to the sunset. Orange, it came to my mind and an old memory suddenly pounced upon me.

It had been more than half a year already and yet not a single detail of this event seemed to ever fade away in my mind. Fresh and detailed, almost as if it was only yesterday. Yet I could not say that it was a pleasant memory for me. Rather, I wished it would finally be forgotten. I wished that she would stop torturing me so I could finally put it behind me. But in the end, I had no choice but to repress. Temporarily, like so many other things. As I said, it was some time ago - well before my vacation, before I learned the truth about my "parents". 

While I was still searching for explanations for Mum's rejection. In retrospect, however, it is frightening how clear the signals were already then - I just never wanted to believe them. There was a room in our house, nothing spectacular or extraordinary, but my mother always forbade me to ever enter this room. The door to this room was at the other end of the corridor, directly opposite mine, and every time I saw the dark wood or the silver door handle, thousands and thousands of little shivers flashed through my spine. 

It had always been very tempting to simply take a look inside without Mum's knowledge, but every time I stood in front of it, it was as if suffering, agonizing voices from inside were calling for redemption. Well, this might sound a bit exaggerated and too scary and scary, but I honestly felt like this every time. That's why I named that room the torture chamber. Sometimes I caught Mum, if she was ever at home, closing the door of the torture chamber behind her and disappearing inside for a few hours. 

I often imagined that she was dissecting corpses, torturing people, or doing other horrible things. Maybe it was a rack, an iron maiden or a horror movie-like 'laboratory' - my imagination has always been quite vivid. But that this was really true, that Mum actually did these things, it was just too quiet for that. There was never even the slightest noise that reached the outside of the hallway. Even if I stood just two steps away and tried to listen excitedly.

About half a year ago, I overheard my parents arguing. Half lying down, I leaned against the headboard of my bed with a book in my hand and tried to torment myself through the structure of the human brain, when the angry voices of my parents reached up to me. Dad was screaming so loudly that it was finally time to change the decor of this room that I understood what was being talked about. The torture chamber.

However, I did not understand why he was so upset about this. What was so bad about what was inside? The room wasn't used by anybody but Mum anyway, so he didn't give a damn about it, did he? My mum replied, as angry as dad, that it was out of the question. That it was none of his business and that she had her reasons. I was shocked, I admit it. Not because my parents were arguing with each other, as so often, but because I just didn't want to succeed in finding a plausible explanation for it. 

Because for a brief moment I had the vague fear that it might have been a torture chamber after all. As if stung by a tarantula, I jumped out of my bed suddenly and peppered my book carelessly and partly panicky into the next best corner. For some inexplicable reason I suddenly needed, after all these years, the certainty whether my assumptions, these absurd fantasies on my part, were true or not. Silently as possible I slipped out of my room and approached the door of the torture chamber. 

I perceived the walls around me only as if through a tunnel. It was as if I was on an express train whose speed blurred everything. Everything, except for the door that rose up in front of me and growled at me almost threateningly. I hesitated for an endlessly long moment while my heart was beating up to my neck, before I finally gently put my hand with trembling fingers on th