At first I thought I'd imagined her aura from across the room simply because she was heart-stoppingly beautiful. Blamed a product of too many movie moments in my head: the slow-motion swish of her charcoal plait and an orchestral swell as her head turned, those malachite eyes connecting with mine, set atop high cheekbones. But on second look, the shimmering full-body halo remained. Singled her out from all the other guests. Love at first sight wasn't a myth, it seemed.

If only I'd known then what I know now I'd have probably walked away instead of allowing her magnetism to draw me across the room to introduce myself. How was I to know she was...

The inspector across the cheap melamine table cleared his throat. "Mr. Grantham? You were saying..."

I blinked. Refocused. The bare walls ahead and to my sides. The piece of thread on DI Carson's left shoulder that I desperately wanted to brush off, but daren't. The whirring tape recorder on the desk, strangely anachronistic in the digital world.

How could I be here? It wasn't just. Couldn't come to terms with it all. Instead I buried my head in my hands and shook, tears I was unaware I needed to shed streaming freely. "I loved her."

"Then why kill her?"

My hands slammed against the table almost of their own volition. "I didn't!"

"Then where is she?"

I stared into the hard steel of Carson's unwavering gaze, lashes and eyebrows the only hair on his entire head. Did he practice that look in front of the mirror every day? Metropolitan intimidation, rule 101: instil unease in the suspect. It worked. I broke the stare first, shaking my head. "You won't find her."

He snorted. "Is that a challenge?"

"Of course not. I'm saving you the wasted effort. She's just... not here any more."

"So where is she?"

No way would he believe me. I barely believed it myself. Didn't think in a billion years her story could possibly come true. Thought she was just being uptight, or scared of intimacy. I settled for the unoriginal: "You wouldn't understand."

"Try me. Start at the beginning."

I slumped in the plastic seat. Already having waived my right to legal representation, I had nowhere to go. Took a deep breath. "I met her at the party. Five days before Christmas. Queens Hotel."

I'd threaded my way through the tipsy and the bombastic, past too-tight suits and extravagant cocktail dresses to reach her. By comparison, she was effortlessly elegant, almost restrained, the emerald dress hugging her rakish features, revealing only a hint of calf each time the garment dusted the floor alongside her gold heels as she swayed to the music.

A brief wave of cold rushed through me. What was I doing approaching a woman so soon after Alicia? Desperation? Revenge? I ought to have listened to my instincts instead of just standing there for a good ten seconds staring at the magnetic woman's backside before lamely uttering, "Hello. You look lost."

She turned, even more striking up close, the jewels in her single-strand necklace sparkling all the way to a silver teardrop pendant nestling in the gentle swell of her cleavage, accentuated by the figure-hugging fabric. "So do you."

Quickly raising my gaze, I coloured. "Sorry, I..." There was no excuse. I fumbled some sort of introduction: "Saw you standing alone and wondered if you wanted to dance. I'm Chris, by the way."

She regarded me fully, head to toe and back up. Tilted her head to one side and then, seemingly satisfied with whatever criteria I befit, held out the back of her hand towards me. A gesture not of this era, which should have raised alarm bells if the next word from her luscious ruby lips hadn't: "Faye."

I never made the connection, libido clouding my judgement. Just reached for her soft hand and led her back between clusters of botox smiles to the dark wood dance floor, heart thudding in counterpoint to the hired orchestra.

We were hardly Strictly Come Dancing, but did what we could: one hand on each other's shoulder, fingers of the others entwined alongside our bodies at head height. Step, step, turn, step, each movement drawing her delicate perfume to me, forming complex associations in my limbic system, the most prominent being desire. She was absolutely angelic, especially when I let her twirl.

DI Carson interrupted my brief recap. "What did you say her surname was?"

"I didn't. She never mentioned it." I paused, the absurdity of the simple question unravelling and connecting previously independent tendrils of thought. "Ever."

"So, just Faye?"

"Just Faye."

With a cheap biro, he jotted it down and underlined it on a notepad, despite the tape recorder making that task largely redundant. "Continue."

Faye and I had spent a few hours in one another's company that evening. Dancing in the great hall. Laughing. Grazing on Christmas-themed nibbles. General chit-chat flowed about everything except the weather, which made a refreshing change from the default British topic. I'm unsure why I expected conversation with an accountant to be difficult, but her breezy demeanour made it easy. Until I made a mistake.

"You probably get told this all the time, but you're incredibly pretty. Sorry if that sounds cheesy, but it's true."

She looked away a second. "Thank you."

I took a sip of champagne, the sharp bubbles dancing across my palate. "You just have this... glow about you I find irresistible."

Something flickered across her face that I couldn't place. Concern? Curiosity? "You... you can-" she resorted to a whisper, "- see it?"

Like a fool, I nodded.

She pushed her chair back sharply, eyes narrowing. "Stay away from me."

Whirling from the table, I was treated to the sight of her perfect bum sashaying halfway across the room before coming to what I thought were my senses and setting off after her, catching the room's door as it was swinging shut.

Her heels clicked across the cavernous lobby at pace.

"Faye! Wait!"

Over her shoulder, she called back, "I mean it. Keep away."

"Why? I don't understand."

"You're better off not knowing."

I caught up and grappled her hand, spinning her to face me. "Faye, please."

She was shaking and twisted herself free. "No. I've survived this long. I'm not going back."

"Back where?" I asked. She shook her head resolutely, but I'm renowned for my persistence. "Come on. Please. Sit with me and forget I said anything about your…" I waved my hand. "It's Christmas and I enjoy your company. Please?"

After a little more cajoling we settled in the bar area on plush crimson armchairs. Just us and the barman, who could have been Jason Statham's stunt double. Soft Chopin wove delicately between the conversation peaks and valleys as I re-earned her trust while more Champagne, expensed on the corporate tab, scuffed the edges of her demeanour enough that I brought up her appearance again.

"So can anyone see your glow?"

"I thought I said..."

"I know, I know. Indulge me. I'm genuinely curious."

Eyeing me over the champagne flute, she sighed, "You're the first. At least, that I know of."

"And that's bad because?"

She gulped. "It means we're compatible."

"And that's bad because?"

"I could lose everything."

I started to laugh but stopped when it was clear she was serious. "Sorry. Bit dramatic though, you have to admit."

"I knew you wouldn't understand."

"So help me understand."

She finished the remainder of the effervescing liquid and set down her flute, fixing me with a slightly cross-eyed stare. "Not here."

"Where?"

"Are you sure you want to know? You can't un-know this."

I couldn't possibly imagine anything so dreadful it required this level of abstruseness. But then I'm only human, and when we were both standing in the centre of her hotel room with the lights out, she convinced me she wasn't.

DI Carson spluttered. "That's the best you've got? That she's an alien? Should I fetch Mulder?"

"I didn't say alien. I said not human."

"Same thing."

"It's not. May I continue?"

The inspector waved his hand dismissively, leaning back in his chair and lacing his hands behind his shiny head.

Faye's faint yellow-blue glow strengthened as our proximity increased. I reached out to see if I could feel it, and the hue intensified as I passed through the aura to stroke her shoulder, then temple.

"Incredible," I breathed.

Satisfaction crept across her heavenly features. "You should try being me. I haven't felt that in a long time. A long time."

I stepped close enough to detect the freshness of her skin beneath the perfume and we became bathed in yellow. Need surged through me with a potency I'd not felt for months. Maybe years if I was being honest. A powerful ebb that gripped my entire exoskeleton and filled me with warmth that spread from my lips to my stirring cock. Unsure if she'd try and stop me, I took a chance and moved closer still, our lips brushing then connecting. I tasted bittersweet champagne, waxy lipstick, and the promise of her body as the room lit almost like daytime.

A few enchanting seconds was the extent of our embrace before she pushed me away and the light shrank to just her silhouette. "We can't."

"I want to. You do too."

"I know. But we can't."

She melted into the shadows and once again I was treated to her rear leaving. How anyone could be so alluring from every angle and remain unattached was beyond belief. "Will I see you again?"

Her hand on the door handle, she called back, "Probably."

"How will I get in touch?"

"You won't. I need some time to think. I'll find you."

And with that, the glow faded and the auto-close mechanism swung the door shut.

It was three long days until I saw her again. Three days to try and process what I'd seen, yet more questions than answers remained. Google proved fucking useless. She was clearly not of this world, but that begged the question to which world did she belong? Spirits glowed, but as far as I could make out, couldn't be touched. I wondered if fallen angels might exhibit similar traits and watched Luc Besson's film Angel-A for perspective. It was good, but ultimately as helpful as the search engine. At one point I convinced myself that, so desperate for love after the shattering end to three years with the same two-timing bitch, I'd conjured a perfect apparition.

About to give up hope, I spotted her glow approaching from across the street. She was still radiant without the dress, somehow making jeans and a T-shirt sexy as she pushed open the café door and slid into the chair opposite me. I offered to buy her coffee. She chose a bottle of water and sipped it as smiling waitresses ferried drinks and cakes on trays between kitchen and patron.

I rested a sugar cube on my spoon and dipped the base of it into my drink, watching the brown seep upwards before fully stirring. "Have you had time to think?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"I don't know."

I deflated a little. "But you're here. That counts for something."

"I guess."

"How about we just do something normal? Like dinner and a movie? See how that goes."

She gazed out of the window and I watched her jaw clenching and unclenching in thought. "Okay. When?"

"Tonight?"

"Okay."

"Seven?"

"Sure. I'll find you."

"How?"

She smiled. "We're compatible, remember."

That afternoon, a nervous energy nibbled at my mind, escalating to complete edginess as evening rolled in. Spent half an hour trying on outfits like a damn woman, deciding which combination worked best. Didn't want to under-dress in case she wore something elegant. Didn't want a full suit in case she chose jeans. In the end I went halfway, settling on smart trousers and a fine-checked shirt that Alicia had bought me for my recent twenty-sixth. I'd only worn it that one time. Alicia, adorned in nothing but expensive plum lingerie, had unbuttoned it on her way to her knees and sucked me to fullness. Spinning around on all fours, she'd then invited me to screw her arse in honour of my birthday because she knew it was a long-held fantasy of mine. Like a fool I believed I'd been her first there. Turned out she'd already been practising.

The meal with Faye was Italian, simple, and memorable. In contrast, the movie was American, complicated and forgettable. But I'd be the first to admit I wasn't exactly focused, distracted mainly by her off-white blouse and above-the-knee pencil skirt, imagining what was beneath, and whether I'd see it any time soon. The bottle of Chardonnay during dinner went down easily and the movie was followed by tequila shots at a rowdy bar full of university students. Horny students it seemed, many of them flirting with Faye, but she deflected their advances with ease. Like she was used to it.

As the empty shot glasses lined up, the conversation naturally turned to sex, but she remained cagey about her past. Ended up with me doing most of the talking, and her most of the giggling as I bad-mouthed my exes or recounted failed conquests, like the time I leaned over to admire Zoe Spalding's tropical fish and dropped a lump of kebab into the tank. I'm glad I'd refined my cuisine choices since.

With linked arms, Faye and I ambled from the noisy bar on far weaker legs than those upon which we entered. Hardly noticed the drizzle and endless throngs of the lecherous and the horny, hailing cabs towards clubs or one-night stands. We came to a junction and I asked which way I should walk her home.

"Not my place."

"Mine then?"

"No." She looked up to the sky as if searching for something, letting the light rain spatter her face. "Let's get a room. Neutral ground."

"Uhhh, sure."

Malmaison had a spare, even at that hour. Pricey, but with my Drunken Reasoning hat on, I haggled an upgrade for the same rack rate in cold cash, ignoring the judgemental glances from the assistant receptionist.

Upon my return from the ATM, I found Faye perusing the paintings in the reception area. Some Jackson Pollock-style shit that looked as if someone had puked on the canvas and called it art. “You like that?”

“It's disorganised chaos.”

“It's disorganised crap. Three more tequilas and I'll paint you one just like it.”

She laughed, reached for my hand and we headed for the elevator, her luminescence changing intensity as we ascended, in response to what I hoped were X-rated thoughts.

The room was extravagant but worth the price.

Not that I noticed much of it until morning. Our damp outer clothes hit the floor within minutes of entering and we used her light from our kisses to disrobe to nothing.

Her body was flawless. The faintest pinch from modest cups into taut waist, flaring a handful of inches to curvy hips between which nestled a delicate triangle of fuzzy hair, and onward to firm legs atop dainty feet. I stepped back to admire her, searching for the 'made in heaven' label, then trailed my hand across her hips, drawing her to me.

The next kiss ignited something in us both. She glimmered. I grew. Stroking her smooth skin made her sigh. Nuzzling her neck elicited groans. Bending to suckle each of her glorious nipples in turn had her panting. Sinking to my knees, she hurriedly assisted me to stand again, whereby she ran her hand along my rigid, bulbous length that bobbed between us, then hopped up into my arms, wrapping her legs around me. She weighed next to nothing, looked down into my eyes with what can only be described as wide-eyed lust and lowered herself onto my solid erection.

Gripping my shoulders, she bounced, her already wet insides as exquisite and soft as out. Plunging into her molten core and hearing her angelic sighs bouncing off the walls had me close to coming in no time. I had to slow us down by pulling her into a kiss to avoid filling her right then. The pause helped me back away from my precipice and allowed us to build up a rhythm again, her soft moans growing with each thrust. Leaning into her perky breasts and drawing a rosy nipple into my mouth resulted in a series of deep mews, her head tipping back, groaning to the ceiling. I kept it up, switching breasts, licking, nibbling, biting, absolutely in love with her heightened arousal.

The room was lit only by her. By us. As I reared away from her succulent chest I caught a glimpse in the mirror of her plait swishing fiercely between her alabaster shoulders. I held them as she did mine and arched my back, our bodies forming the shape of a cocktail glass. She ground against my steel erection and I could no longer hold back, unleashing a thick torrent of hot sperm inside her buttery channel.

Her arms wrapped me, held me tight to her heaving chest and I felt her heartbeat gradually slow against my cheek. Despite our short courtship, the intimacy was palpable, real, the degree of connectedness between us overwhelming me to the extent that she reached out to wipe a stray tear from my cheek after I'd returned her to the carpet. We just stood facing one another, holding hands in the middle of the room as her afterglow faded. She led me to bed, we climbed in and the tequila made short work of our cuddling before drifting off to sleep.

I was awoken by the urban dawn chorus: dustmen crashing bins in the street below, and a car alarm. Alongside me was nobody. Not even a trace of her remained, and once again I wondered if it had all been a fantasy. Rolling onto my back and prising chunks of sleep from the corners of my eyes I caught a faint echo of her perfume drifting from beneath the sheets. I smiled and breathed in, eager to reminisce over our impassioned union.

I didn't give DI Carson all the sordid details of course. Just said we "made love" and then added "a lot," which was as close to the truth as he needed to know. The reality involved us meeting regularly. Sometimes two or three times a week, a different hotel each time. She'd find me, we'd get a room, fling our clothes off and screw madly. I'd come, she wouldn't. We'd fall asleep in one another's arms, wake up in the dead of night, do it again, I'd come, she wouldn't. And by morning I'd awake every time to find her gone. Vanished. No note. No evidence she'd even been there besides the rumpled bed sheets and stench of sex, both in the air and mixed with her perfume on my skin. Once I swore that the door lock was still engaged as I left for home, but put it down to the hangover.

Every encounter was magical. A delight. I loved that she loved being filled with my hot spunk. I never even questioned why she was always horny and never seemed to have a period. Just took everything she had to give and reciprocated with hot, passionate, hard sex. The kind that left a glow inside me as bright as hers.

And yet I yearned to make her come. Those had been my defining moments during my sham relationship with Alicia. Despite all the 'late night working' and 'tradeshows' she visited while doing the horizontal mambo with Paul fucking Whitehead, I knew the times I'd gone down on her weren't fake. She really had enjoyed my tongue and finger work, and I adored the creamy wetness she allowed me to taste during and after her 'starshine' moments, as she called them. Each orgasm I drew from her convulsing, panting, sweaty body made me happier than the sex that followed. Perhaps that was why she strung me along for so long. Maybe Shitehead had a big dick, but was crap at delivering starshine.

At least Faye didn't seem to have any qualms about my decidedly average six-and-a-half, but every time I tried to go down on her she would stop me or pull away. "Not my magic button," she'd pleaded on a couple of occasions.

Even though the inspector was characteristically sceptical over that particular point of the story, I'd thought the term was cute. I asked her once: "Why not? Nothing would give me more pleasure than circling your magic button. I want to paint you with my tongue. Hear you lose control and sigh and rain beautiful juices onto my waiting lips."

"I know."

"Please Faye. Let me make you come."

She shook. "I can't. Please don't ask again."

It frustrated me. Despite every other wonderful emotion we shared, I needed to know I was able to bring her utmost joy. As far as I was concerned, sex without orgasm was rhubarb crumble without custard; delicious in its own right, but the combination utterly mouth-watering.

Some say patience is a virtue. I'd say that persistence is the true virtue. Different approaches, different tactics, different situations, different drinks. The first time I got close to tasting her was after we'd shared an unhealthy quantity of gin and tonic. We stumbled into the hotel room, laughing at the uncoordinated effort it required to remove each other's clothes and flopped on the bed, kissing and stroking one another. I rolled her onto her back and straddled her perfect form, kissed her sweet lips and trailed to her neck, which she adored. Especially beneath my fledgling stubble. She moaned and ran her hand through my hair, guiding me alongside her pendant, lolling her head side to side as I brought a flush to her upper chest.

Moving to her sensitive nipples made her more vocal. But still her hand on the nape of my neck kept me from roaming further south. I sat up and drew the pads of my fingers from her hips to her breasts, massaging them tenderly, tweaking the marshmallow caps that hardened beneath my touch. Shuffling down her body inch by inch with each stroke, I knelt between her legs and sailed my lips to her chest, setting off her moaning as I increased the pressure from licks to grazing the nubs with my teeth.

While she was writhing on the starched bed sheets I worked my way down, kissing over her silky abdomen, chin brushing the fluffy hairs guarding her womanhood. Instead of the usual tensing and excuses, her legs parted a fraction and I continued until I was facing her lustrous pussy. The aroma was intoxicating, her outer lips already splayed, juices matting the surrounding dark bush. It was simply heaven to extend my tongue and draw it the full length of her pink slit. She sighed as I licked and lapped, pressed my tongue inside her wet folds and tasted the slippery elixir oozing from her centre. Fuck rhubarb and custard, she was Kir Royal. Fruity. Full-bodied. Smooth. I drank everything, unsure how long I would be permitted to sample her delicious cream, flicked my tongue over her proud clit and heard her gasp loudly. Once more when I drew my tongue along one side and circled her tip.

That's when she clamped. "Chris, no. I mean yes… but no. You can't. I love you too much."

I put my hands on her thighs trying to ease them apart again. "Then let me show you how much I love you back."

She rolled away, the peach of her behind inviting my gaze and placating the disappointment at being so close yet so far to delivering her true joy. I slithered alongside and stroked her body. A tear ran down her cheek and was absorbed by the bedclothes. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.

"Don't be."

She drew her face close to mine and kissed me, then eased away, the tension draining from her features. "Is that what I taste like? I'd forgotten."

"You mean, you don't… y'know, taste yourself after you finish? When alone?"

"I don't touch myself any more. I daren't."

"What? How long since…" I left the sentence hanging.

She shrugged. "Way before I met you, maybe a year or so."

I whistled. Could hardly comprehend the level of discipline it would take to abstain. Especially given how horny she was otherwise. Ably demonstrated by her rearing up, rolling me onto my back, sliding her soaked pussy back and forth along the length of my cock until I was rock hard, then mounting me fully. I reached up and squeezed her breasts, watching her face contorting in pleasure and the teardrop pendant rocking as she rode me until I came. She didn't.

DI Carson sounded impatient. "When are you going to conclude this fairytale and tell me where she is?"

"I’m getting to that."

"Well hurry it up."

The next time we fucked she seemed different. More relaxed. Even more beautiful. I put it down to finally being at my place. With her plait shaken out, her hair brushed her butt and my thighs as she straddled me and tipped her head back. I came inside her to the familiar sound of wetness between our bodies, but then she surprised me. Inching up my body leaving a trail of my semen in her wake, she looked down into my eyes, bit her lip and brought her pussy over my face. It was the sexiest mess I'd ever seen, her lips red, distended, splotched with my come and so very wet. Hooking my hands over her thighs I drew her to me and tasted us.

She sighed deeply. "Yesss."

With a seeming all-access pass, I lapped her entrance, excitement tingling my entire body at her escalating need. She rolled off and I cried out in frustration, but she simply sprawled alongside me, parted her legs and smiled from across the bed. I raised my eyebrow and she nodded quickly. Without a second's further hesitation I sprang between her thighs and returned my tongue to her core.

Every lick, every tap brought a whimper from her throat, gradually increasing in frequency and pitch. I wanted her to experience it all. A year or more of pent-up release in one almighty orgasm. So I orbited her hot slit, kissed her damp thighs, slid my tongue inside her soaking pussy and drew my tongue up to her 'magic button'.

"Faye, you're so beautiful. I love you."

"I know. I love you too."

My tongue connected with her protruding clit, circled it, fluttered and then I lapped. Her body shook, luminosity intensifying, more yellow than I'd ever witnessed and her cries became closer together. As I licked, they rose in pitch. Juices drizzled onto my tongue and I drank every drop, flicking and circling her hitherto forbidden centre with every stroke I knew.

The noise she made was incredible as she neared boiling point. Shrill, soprano shrieks, faster and faster until they resembled the Indian battle cries from Sunday afternoon Westerns. I jumped as one of the champagne flutes on the bedside table shattered, she gasped one final time, held my head and went rigid, the silence unnatural as her pussy contracted rhythmically and I was saturated with her come.

Her radiance engulfed the entire room, making me blink in the brilliant white as she panted over and over, "I love you. I love you," hips writhing beneath my grip.

That moment was what I lived for. I knew then I craved more times like that with her, despite the cost of glassware. Her come was an exquisite syrup. Nothing like I'd ever tasted.

My gaze found her eyes dancing, alive through the blinding light, satisfaction etched onto every millimetre of her face. Then a tear trickled down her cheek as the glow faded along with her presence and I was left staring at nothing but a pool of her sticky come on the sheets.

Honestly I wasn't surprised when the police showed up half an hour later. The neighbours probably thought I'd murdered someone. Carson wasn't impressed wasting his day on a case that was clearly above his experience. And I wasn't in the mood to relive the vision of her tortured excitement playing back in my mind amid the sinking sensation I would never see her again. But with no evidence besides my crackpot story, the constabulary eventually released me with a curt, "We'll be in touch."

Back in my house I paced like a caged animal. Furious for having ended something so beautiful through such a selfish act. Kept telling myself I'd done it for her as much as me, but it didn't patch the hole in my heart.

To some extent, the letter did. Handwritten. On my dresser. I hurriedly tore it open and tipped her glowing teardrop pendant into my palm, a lump forming in my throat as I unfolded the notepaper that smelled of her:

My darling Chris,

If you're reading this I am far away. Back in my world to face the Elders who banished me to this life on Earth without love. Without lust. Without what you and I shared.

My crime was simple: I fell in love outside my species. An act that I have now repeated with you, despite my best efforts to contain my emotions for both our sakes.

Instead of living without true happiness any longer I have chosen to experience it one last time. With you. I shall confront the Elders and try to convince them they are wrong: love cannot be contained, compartmentalised and controlled. It should be free.

Keep the pendant safe. If I'm ever released it shall guide me to you.

Thank you for loving and trusting me. Eternally yours,

Fae.