Catalina.

Twas deep into a moonless night when sleep was hard to find,
The man tossed restless on his bed and tried to dull his mind,
He lay and stared at shadows gathered darkly in the room
When movement caught his vision coming subtlely from the gloom.
Within the blackness he could see the strangest swirl of light
And sweat broke out upon his brow as he felt a stir of fright,
Then from the darkness She appeared, a girl so young and fair,
And tho' twas dark he plainly saw the starlight in her hair.
A smile was playing on her lips as she moved across the floor,
And he had the oddest feeling that he'd seen this girl before.
Finding voice, he asked her who she was and whence she came,
Coming beside him the girl replied "Catalina is my name."
As she shed her flowing robes, not another word was said,
He felt her flesh and drank her scent right there within his bed.
All too soon the dawn arrived, the sun shone on his face,
And tho' he searched hard for the girl, she'd gone without a trace.
When evening came around once more and light began to fade,
He yearned with fever in his blood to repossess the maid,
And Catalina came to him just as the night before,
In burning need he shed her robe and strew it on the floor.
Every night became the same, her hunger and his need,
Like a drug within his veins he was obsessed with greed,
Months went past within a haze, the man grew tired and weak,
His friends enquired if he was ill, to them he wouldn't speak,
Soon he didn't venture out, his health was now quite poor,
But still at night Catalina came demanding even more.
Then one day while all alone he came across a book,
Twas a journal he soon found, so sat to take a look,
Written many centuries past, its pages yellow with age,
He felt himself go rigid in shock as his fingers turned a page,
There before him he could see a portrait clear and bold,
Twas Catalina without doubt, and the book her story told.
His ancestor had met his death through Catalina's wiles,
She'd slowly drained away his life twas said during her trial,
Put to death tho' she had been, it had not ended then,
For to his bloodline she was still a curse on all the men.
He realised then that he would die, it would not take that long,
The only way to beat the curse was if he could stay strong,
So to a church he found his way and finally he could rest,
Regaining strength as he prepared to take the final test.
Confident now he would resist, he foolishly made his way
Back home where it had all began that distant, fateful day.
Sometime later his body was found, barely bones upon a chair,
There was no obvious cause of death - just a perfume in the air.