Don’t be alarmed. I mean you no harm. Apologies if my sudden arrival and the way I look frighten you. My appearance may not be to your taste but I assure you that you are quite safe. I am not here to tear you apart and devour you, not physically anyway.

Would you prefer that kind of monster? The killer, the rampaging destructive beast that crushes skulls and feeds on mortal flesh while it still trembles?

Perhaps that kind of monster scares you less than me, standing here, on your doorstep, with these flowers, and romance in mind. I would like to take you to a candle-lit dinner, rather than to have you for my dinner. Would you care to join me? No! Why not?

Surely I am less monstrous than David, your previous lover. Oh, yes, I met him, and ate him. It’s from his mind screams that I first saw your image. I saw what he saw, and what he could never have. You were too beautiful for him. He couldn’t cope with your needs and your passion. That’s why he took to drink. That’s why he turned aggressive and beat you. The monster was always in him, and you must not blame yourself for the way it manifested. He hurt other women. Thanks to me, he will hurt no more of you. He has gone.

He didn’t mean to hurt you at first, though it became a habit because you tried to reach the man within the monster that had taken over from him. Ideally you should have left him the day he first took his fists to you. You gave him a second chance, and then another. You thought that if you could love him enough, you would reach through the angry blows and abuse to draw him back to you. Did you really think you could tame the beast he had become? He became a monster when he saw how weak and impotent he was as a man. In his frustration, fear and rage, he took it all out on you through violence. A leopard cannot change its spots. A cold-hearted selfish man cannot become a good, decent, loving man, though he can pretend to be one when it suits him. You thought your love could cure him, as a fairy tale Princess makes a man from an amphibian with her tender kiss. It doesn’t work that way.