(Caelum's Private Journal – Unshared, Unfiltered)
She thinks I don't see her. That I'm just another face in the city's blur — a polite stranger who asked for the time, or the name of a book.
But Elara Wynn is impossible to miss.
She walks like someone trying to disappear but never quite managing it. Her body curves inward, tucked under coats and silence, but the way she moves… it speaks of a woman who knows she's being watched. A woman who secretly likes it.
She taps her thumb against book spines before removing them — always the same rhythm, a soft ritual only meant for her. Blinks three times when lying — I counted. She avoids direct eye contact for more than three seconds, unless her system is flooded with fear, or desire. She doesn't yet know the difference between the two. But she will.
She touches the inside pocket of her coat when she's anxious. Where the letter is. Where I am. She carries my words like a secret charm, like a fuse she's not ready to light — but can't bring herself to put down.
And the red scarf. Folded for 1,408 days. Untouched. A memory sealed away like a scar — until yesterday, when I watched her take it out. Hold it. Wrap it. It clung to her like confession.
She doesn't understand what that means yet.
But I do.
There's a fracture in her. I can feel it. Something cleanly split beneath the surface, buried under the routines and shadows she calls a life. Most would mistake her quietness for fragility, but it isn't fear that keeps her isolated.
It's choice.
She doesn't want connection. She wants control.
But not over others — over herself. Over her own hunger, her own thoughts, the parts of her she fears might not be acceptable. She's starved herself of touch, of need, of anything she can't filter or name. I've met women like her before.
But none as perfectly unfinished.
She's not broken.
She's unclaimed.
There's trauma there, yes. Old bruises under her skin, psychological welts left by hands I don't know — yet. An ex, perhaps. A family who taught her that silence is survival. That submission is weakness. That wanting more is selfish.
She knows better now. At least… a part of her does.
That's the part I want. The part that answers me without words.
She reacts not to comfort, but to structure. She obeys when it feels like discovery — not command. She needs to be led without knowing she's following. It excites her. The loss of control, when disguised as choice.
A brush to her wrist makes her breath catch.
Sandalwood makes her close her eyes like she's remembering something she never told anyone.
Certain piano chords — minor, hollow, aching — tighten her throat.
These are not accidents.
These are keys.
And I intend to use every one of them.
She doesn't want safety.She wants understanding — in the language no one else dared speak to her.She wants to be broken by someone who knows how to rebuild her.Not back to what she was — but into what she was always meant to be.
I've studied her carefully. I've watched the ways she tries to disappear, and the even more telling ways she begs to be seen.
And now she is seen.
She is catalogued. Understood. Filed. Mine.
They call men like me dangerous. They use words like stalker, predator, obsessive.
They don't understand what it means to curate.
I don't take. I don't force. I uncover.
Women like Elara are not hunted — they are revealed. Their cages were not built by me; I simply offer the key. And when they use it — when they step outside that quiet prison — they are never the same.
Obsession is a form of intimacy.And I am always intimate with what I study.
I have never chased anyone who didn't want to be caught.
And Elara? She's already started running in circles.
She is not an object. She is a mirror.The more I show her of me, the more she will find herself.
And when that mirror turns inward — when she finally sees what I see — she will belong to me completely.
Because I will be the only one who ever truly saw her.
I've written her a letter. Just one.
But it was enough.
Every time she touches it, every time she thinks about me without admitting it — she becomes mine a little more.
She doesn't know it yet, but she's already changing.And when I finally touch her — when I claim what's mine — she'll feel it in her bones.That I was never a stranger.I've been under her skin from the beginning.