4.

Stagnero went to the coffee table and picked up the shoelace.
It was brand new, hardly a strand out of place.
He slowly rubbed his fingers against the plastic tip,
his feeble attempt to begin the slow understatement of
death.
After a few seconds passed, he got bored and
rumaged through the magazines on the table.
All of these faces I will never kiss, he thought.
All of these women I will never own.
When in reality, he was the one who wanted to feel "owned",
the man tied up in the realms of a real, suffocating presence.
To be needed.
To be desired.
And he was on page 34, when Tendon woke up.