Dimensions

by Krystyne Price

  “I have some food if you’re hungry.”

  He dipped his head in acknowledgement, still unable to find words as he moved toward her.

  “My name is Jane,” she said softly, holding out her hand as she stepped around her small fire.

  His heart caught in his throat. That name…it was so familiar. Not trusting his own voice, Vasan closed the distance between them and reached out to take her offered hand. The moment they touched his senses reeled as though he’d been punched square in the jaw. Up close he could see her pink-peach skin, the upturned corners of her mouth, and the crinkles at the corners of her eyes when her smile turned into a grin.

  “Cat got your tongue?” she asked, making no move to release his hand.

  “Cat?” he repeated as though the word was entirely foreign to him.

  “Cat. Meow.” She cocked her head at him as his thumb moved along the back of her hand, an area which seemed to have transfixed him.

  Looking up at the same moment, their eyes met and he heard a small gasp from her. Fearing those eyes, which had done so much damage thanks to Jal’gonnoth who dwelled behind them, had frightened her, he jumped back as though burnt, releasing her hand.

  “I won’t bite,” she said.

  He almost barked out a laugh. She thought he was afraid of her? He swallowed hard and found his voice still didn’t want to cooperate. Perhaps, he thought, he should be afraid of her.

  “It’s okay. Come on, I have a good canned meal here. Beans and franks, if you can stand ‘em.”

  She opened a nearby knapsack and pulled out a bowl, then went to the fire over which a pot was hanging. He watched as she slowly stirred; saw the heat rising from its contents. The ladle came up and she poured some of this beans and franks concoction into the bowl she held. Returning to her knapsack, she pulled out a spoon, then turned and held it all out to him.

  “Come and sit with me. I don’t often get company,” she smiled.

  He swallowed the lump in his throat and thought how infantile his behavior had become. On the one hand, he was still the evil one who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. Whereas yesterday he would simply have grabbed this woman and carried her away, now he could only look at her in wonder.

  She busied herself with another bowl and was soon seated cross-legged next to him on the sand. The water provided their backdrop; the glow of the campfire warmed his body much as the sun had earlier in the day. The smell of the food became too much and he dug his spoon into it, nearly reaching his mouth before he felt compelled to speak.

  “Thank you.”

  She grinned. “You’re welcome.” Jane looked him up and down. “You don’t look like someone who’s meant to be out here wandering the Canyon. Are you lost?”

  Chewing and swallowing what he found to be a unique and almost heavenly taste in this beans and franks of hers, he met her eyes. “I was…” he responded, voice trailing off.

  “But now you’re not?” He shook his head, shoveling two more spoonfuls into his mouth. “There’s plenty more if you want it.” Gesturing first toward the pot, she then began to eat her own meal.

  He emptied the bowl, and moved to get more food from the fire. They finished the meal in silence. When the utensils and dishes had been placed to the side, he stretched his legs out in front of his body. I should tell her my name.

  The thought startled him. Well, what did it matter? This lone woman here in the middle of nowhere wouldn’t know him, wouldn’t care. He could tell her to call him Vasan. Yes, that’s what he would do; he would tell her his name.

  “I am Tao.”

  His eyes widened. Why on Earth had he given her that name? It was the name his mother had chosen for him, his true given name, and the name that only his brother and Xyza had ever dared call him. He had banished it from use after his mother’s murder. Now it was a forbidden sound that even he refused to acknowledge, so why had he told her this deeply buried word? A line of sweat appeared over his upper lip.

  “What an unusual name,” she said, looking up at him. “You seem embarrassed.”

  Embarrassed? Him? Was she kidding? But why did he feel like…why did he feel that…? He looked into her eyes. “Nobody knows that part of me,” he said simply.

  “Why do you keep it hidden?”

  “I must to survive.”

  She reached out and placed her hand upon his arm, then swept her other hand out to indicate their surroundings. “Nothing here threatens your survival.”

  “No,” he agreed, feeling as though his skin where she touched him was on fire. She was wrong. Something here was threatening his survival: Jane herself.

  He swallowed hard and tore his eyes from hers. He took in the small tent she had pitched but saw no other signs to indicate who she was or how she’d gotten here. Jane followed his gaze. “I hiked in from the road.”

  Whipping his head back to look at her, he wondered how she had known what he was thinking. Awkwardly he rose to his feet, tearing his arm from her hand. He was on dangerous ground. Something was happening, something wasn’t right; something that terrified even him…yet begged him to allow it to consume him…was closing in on him, making him feel claustrophobic, like there were walls that threatened to crush him.

  “Tao, are you all right?”

  “Don’t…call me that!” he whispered fiercely.

  She, too, came to her feet and took a step nearer. “But you said that was your name.”

  He turned to look at her as she came nearer. “You are not afraid of me,” his thickly accented voice proclaimed in wonder.

  “No. Should I be?”

  He nodded once, then shook his head, then just lowered it altogether. He was confused; everything was a jumble in his mind. A thousand voices screamed from his past, from the depths of the underworld, from his endless future. Squeezing his eyes shut, he balled his fists, almost physically battling that which threatened to overwhelm him.

  And then he felt her again. Felt her body close, felt her hands reach out and touch the insides of his elbows. He shuddered almost violently. Slowly his eyes opened as her fingers ran down his arms and disappeared into his much larger hands.

  “You’ve been hurt,” she said softly, raising her eyes to meet his. “Badly.”

  If only she knew. If only she knew that he was the one who had hurt others so badly. If only she could see into his mind. She would be scared. She would be frightened.

  “You’ve hurt others,” she said and his eyes widened. Could she read his thoughts? “Come back to the fire, Tao, I won’t hurt you.”

  “But I may hurt you.” There. He’d said it. He had no idea how to talk to people; how to really talk to them. He knew how to bamboozle, order, chant, incant and utter the most evil curses known to this realm. But he had not a clue how to have a normal everyday conversation.

  Jane pulled him back to the fire and gently prodded him to sit, which he did. She sat next to him, their legs touching, keeping one hand on his left arm. “You won’t hurt me. If you wanted to hurt me, I’d be dead already. I’m not even half your size, Tao. I’m no match for you.”

  He knew it as soon as she’d uttered the words. That was the problem! She was a match for him. The realization hit him with such force that he expelled every bit of air in his lungs.

  “You’re really fighting some serious demons, aren’t you?”

  His eyes moved to hers so fast he was sure he’d gotten whiplash. “How…?”

  She smiled. “It’s okay, just sit here and look into the fire. It’s mesmerizing. It’s tranquil; peaceful. It will help relax you.”

  Stunned into silence, he turned to face the fire as suggested and stared into its flames. The last time he’d stared into fire was at the Gates of Hell. He shuddered again. He simply could not forget who and what he was. Yes, this woman was in danger.

  But so was he.

  That first night had passed quietly enough. Eventually she’d gone to her tent, zipping it slowly, leaving him out in the open at his own requ
est. For a time he’d wandered the banks of the Colorado, but eventually he’d settled down alongside the dying campfire. When he awoke at dawn the next morning, it was to find a thick wool blanket was covering him and a soft down jacket was beneath his head as a pillow.

  It unnerved him and he shot to his feet, looking wildly around. A rustling from the tent, the sound of the zipper, and she emerged, fully clothed, her hands covered by gloves, her breath hanging in the chill morning air.

  “Good morning!” she chirped, going behind the tent. “I hope you slept okay out here.”

  Hoped he slept okay? Why would she care how he did or did not sleep?

  “I figured that blanket would keep you snug as a bug in a rug,” she finished as she emerged with an armful of chopped wood and kindling. “I have to haul this with me from the road, but it’s worth it when it gets this cold!” she smiled.

  Snug as a bug in a—he shook his head. He wasn’t even going to try to figure that one out. “Yes, it served its purpose. Thank you.”

  Scratching the back of his bald head, he watched as she laid the logs into the pit just so, arranged kindling over top of them and then went back to her tent. She returned quickly with two crumpled pieces of paper upon which words had been hand-written. She knelt and started shoving one of them under the kindling.

  He had no idea where it had come from, but suddenly the words on that piece of paper were as important to him as oxygen itself. He moved so quickly that Jane yelped in surprise. Snatching the papers from her hand, he backed away as he smoothed them open.

  “No, don’t!” she cried, but made no move to stop him.

  His eyes widened as he began to read:

  I have never seen one before who isn’t aware of his own humanity. It’s as if he’s been lost in another world his whole life, and only just now begins to realize he is flesh and blood. He says his name is Tao but doesn’t want to hear the word, as though it’s poison to him. But then when he looks at me, the wall he’s so carefully constructed seems to crumble and for a moment that passes far too quickly, I can see into his soul.

  What I have seen frightens me.

  “Why,” he breathed, looking up from the page. “Why did you write this?”

  She shrugged. “I keep a journal. The reason I come on these solitary trips is to clear my head, to get away from the hustle and bustle of life. I work through things.”

  Work through things? What things?

  He slid the first page behind the second and smoothed it out more. The words written in blue ink leapt from the page and straight into his chest like a hundred knives stabbing him all at once. He couldn’t even breathe.

  But even though it frightens me, I know he won’t hurt me. Deep down he wants to be free of whatever demons have plagued him. I think maybe I was here at this very moment for a reason. But he’s almost like a wild animal. So hungry it would risk its life to come close to a human for sustenance; so afraid of the human it approaches that it would rather starve than live.

  I’d like to help him. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because he needs me.

  Perhaps it’s because I need him.

  The papers fluttered to the sand at his feet. It took a few seconds for him to start breathing again, and a few more before he looked up to where she stood watching him. He wanted to demand answers from her. How could she possibly know what he was feeling? How could she decode him so quickly, so thoroughly? Why did he need her? Did he need her? Why did she need him? What did any of this mean?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  That’s what he’d always done, was demand things. Answers, money, secrets, blood, sweat, tears. All his life, he’d never asked for anything. Even when he’d summoned Jal’gonnoth for the first time, he hadn’t asked her to help him; he’d demanded she help him.

  “I don’t understand.”

  She smiled. “Good, because neither do I. Now, I was going to head back this morning, so I didn’t bring anything for breakfast.”

  “Back?”

  “Yeah. Home. It’s Sunday. I have to go to work tomorrow.”

  “Work?”

  She laughed. “You keep repeating everything I say like a parrot.”

  He was about to say the word parrot but snapped his mouth shut, making her laugh all the harder. Only then did he realize why she was laughing, and he felt his mouth turn upwards in…a smile? Was that really a smile?

  He bent over and picked the papers back up off the ground. Moving to the fire she’d laid out, he stuffed the papers in and was about to just snap the thumb and forefinger of his left hand to light it, when she was suddenly next to him with a book of matches.

  “If you want to start learning to be human,” she said softly, “then you need to start acting human.”

  “What makes you say I’m not human?” he asked, genuinely wanting to know.

  Jane got the two pieces of paper lit and slowly fanned the flames with her hands to allow the kindling to catch. “Every time I look into your eyes I can see you’re not. At least, you don’t think you are.”

  “You know nothing about me.”

  Satisfied with her work, she rose to her feet, dusting her hands over the growing fire. She turned to look at him. “I know you come from money. Those boots, those jeans, even that tee shirt you’re wearing are top name labels. Nobody who’s poor or middle class wears five hundred dollar jeans, Tao.”

  He flinched when she said that word.

  “You have an unusual accent, too, but your English is perfect. Almost too perfect. This leads me to believe you’re highly educated.”

  “I am that, but not in the traditional manner.”

  She half-smiled, looking once more into his eyes as she continued. “There is something very dark inside you. That’s what I see in your eyes. Something I know I should be frightened of.”

  “Yes,” he replied with a slight nod of his head. She was as intuitive as she was beautiful. Even with her silky hair tied behind her head and covered with a hat she took his breath away. “I must walk,” he said gruffly, and turned toward the river bank.

  And that was how they spent the day. It was hard at first to wrap his head around her words, around how he was supposed to respond, but he had learned…somewhat. He made her laugh throughout the morning and by the time mid-afternoon had rolled around he had found that sensation again; that feeling of peace.

  “You know, we haven’t eaten a thing all day. How about we head to the nearest roach coach for a bite?”

  “Roach coach…what is this?”

  She laughed and laughed. What was so funny about a coach that held roaches? The confusion on his face made her laugh even harder and he felt the corners of his mouth turn up again. She was doubled over, holding her sides and suddenly whined “Owwwwwww!” as she kept on laughing.

  He took it as a sign she was in pain and every fiber of his being wanted to help. He grasped her forearms and stood her straight up. His body was against hers and to steady herself, she placed the open palms of her hands on his chest.

  “What has happened?” he asked. “Are you injured?”

  She panted and laughed and then took a deep breath and giggled and then finally looked up into his face. What she saw there made her laugh and her smile disappear. Her mouth hung open just slightly.

  “I’m not hurt, Tao.”

  “But you said…” his voice trailed off. He became aware. Fully aware. Every nerve ending seemed to light up. He felt her heaving breaths moving her chest, her body, into his and then ever so slightly away. He felt his own lips part, his own breathing become ragged. “You said…ow,” he finally finished.

  “It’s just that laughing so hard made my sides hurt.”

  “Sides? Here?” he asked, his large hands moving from her back to either side of her stomach.

  She nodded, their eyes still locked on each other.

  “Why does laughter make them hurt?”

  “It…stretches the muscles,” she replied. “Don’t you ever start aching from laugh
ter?”

  “I do not laugh.”

  “What? Ever?”

  “No.”

  “You are a strange one,” she breathed. Her hands moved up to his shoulders; she had to stand on tiptoe to reach them. Slowly she traced her right index finger up his neck and along his jaw. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, but made no move to stop.

  For his part, words once again would not come. Her touch electrified him. Excited him. His body would soon betray him, he knew, but he was frozen to the spot…frozen in this embrace. He closed his eyes when her finger found his lips, and reopened them as she traced up his cheek.

  He wanted her. His body made that crystal clear as denim tightened painfully around his middle. She stood as tall as her small frame would allow, reaching her hand behind his neck.

  “You are playing with fire,” he managed to get out as he allowed her to lower his head.

  “Maybe I want to get burned.”

  He moved the last few inches and found her lips, expecting nothing more than he had experienced with any number of slaves or captured women over the years. But he had been mistaken. She really was playing with fire. And so too, he knew, was he.

  But he didn’t care. He lifted her easily, crushing her to his body as her tongue slid along his lips. This wasn’t right. But it was. Opening his mouth, he devoured her, demanding as he always did that she surrender. But he felt her back away, her hands pushing her head apart from his.

  Vasan felt wild. He felt alive.

  “No.”

  How many times had he heard someone say that to him in his life? More than he could ever count, but it had never stopped him. It wasn’t about what they wanted; it was about what he was going to take from them.

  “Tao, no.”

  He flinched again, his automatic response to hearing that name. He set her down, confused, his blood racing, heart pounding, jeans growing even tighter across his groin.

  “No?” he asked, as though the word were from a language he’d never heard before.

  She shook her head as he lowered her to the ground. “You don’t just take. You have to give as well.”