by Kari Chaplin
The sun was peering through my window; therefore, it must have been around seven in the morning when I found Demien in my room, leaning against the same wall as a few nights before.
“The flowers are beautiful. Thank you.”
“It’s the least I could do.”
“I’m sorry for freaking out,” I said to him. He was suddenly next to me in bed, propped up on one elbow.
He picked up the orchid, which still hadn’t bloomed, and held it in my line of vision. I waited in anticipation, unsure what to expect. Slowly, the flower showed a tiny slice of white. Then, ever so slowly, the flower presented a little whiter, until it was a full bloom of overwhelming beauty. Every petal was a perfect, bright white. There were no imperfections that I could see anywhere. It was beautiful. I couldn’t believe it. That species of flower only bloomed once in their lifetime, glowing in the darkness of the night; and then would die within a few hours after blooming. This night orchid was not ready to bloom, but there it was in full bloom, filling my room with its glorious aroma.
“You have good reason not to trust me. I believe I have warned you several times. It’s good to know somewhere deep down you’ve seen the wisdom.” He didn’t sound particularly happy with me, nor did he sound angry.
“But you’re not bad,” I stated matter-of-factly. I raised my left eyebrow as an invitation to challenge me.
He glared at me with a confused façade as I stood my ground. “You have no idea, Vanessa,” he finally whispered.
“I know you.”
“Go back to sleep,” he suggested in a soft whisper. You have to be up in a few hours,” He pulled my body against his as I slept in the comfort of his embrace.
Nineteen
After the nightly meeting, a few of the other waitresses asked Myra for a ride home.
“I don’t have enough room. I’m sorry,” she said.
“Myra, I can take Ves home. That’ll free up a spot for you. They will all fit perfectly.” Demien’s eyes darkened, saying he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“Um, okay, if that’s okay with Ves.”
“It’s fine,” I replied.
“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Myra said, waving to us as we left.
“That’s nice of you,” I remarked, eyeing him as he hoisted me into his Hummer.
He threw it into drive and headed toward my house. The clouds were covering the moon, making the night even darker. He said nothing.
We sat in silence as the scenery passed by in a haze.
Finally, he looked at me from the corner of his eye. “Yeah, well, don’t point that out to anyone else. Besides, I had selfish, evil reasons to drive you home.” He took his eyes off the road long enough to show me a profoundly seductive smile.
The butterflies came back. “Oh, yeah? What are these selfish and evil reasons?” I asked, batting my eyes.
“To get you alone.” His face turned dark and menacing, quickly pulling me back into my nightmares.
The butterflies vanished as the color flushed out of my skin. He hadn’t said that lightly. He wanted to scare me. I inched closer to the Hummer’s passenger door. He looked at me with a humorless smile. I didn’t ask what that meant, and I didn’t want to know.
The intelligent, self-preserving part of my brain was telling me to be afraid and find an escape, but my heart was trying to persuade me otherwise. This entire situation scared the hell out of me, yet drew me in like prey. I couldn’t understand anything going on, except I wanted to be with him. I had to be with him. How can you love someone so much when you are horribly afraid of him at the moment? Love? Did I really think that? That was ridiculous. I didn’t know him enough to “love” him. Infatuation was probably a better term in our case.
The Hummer turned on to a side road I didn’t recognize before. He traveled down a backwoods, gravel road for several miles until we could no longer see the main road. There was nothing in sight, not even a house. Then, he pulled the Hummer over to the side.
“Why are we stopping?” I asked, trying to feign ‘calm and collected.’
His eyes turned shiny, pitch black, again. It hit me like a ton of bricks… I was his prey. I half expected his tongue to slither like a snake at any minute. My heart started to pound. I should have listened to the voice in my head. I began looking around trying to plan an escape. I could start running toward the main road. I had a feeling I wouldn’t get too far.
“I wouldn’t try it. You’re right; you won’t get far.” He stared out the driver’s side window into nothingness. He seemed so calm.
It happened much too quickly to process or fight. He slithered out of the driver seat and on top of me. His eyes were the mysterious and frightening shiny black. His hands wrapped around my neck, cutting off my ability to breathe. I fought him off as hard as I could, but I was no comparison to his strength. I never stood a chance at all. My consciousness faded in and out.
“You used to be good,” I struggled to say, only producing a hushed whisper.
Twenty
I woke up in a dark room on a dirty, noisy metal frame bed. It was more like a cot. My head hurt beyond tolerable, providing fuzzy vision. I touched my throbbing neck. The pain and swelling was so intense that I couldn’t swallow without wincing.
The door creaked open.
I strained to point out, “You used to be good. I know you still are. You always save me, not destroy me.” Whoa, where did that come from? Who was I kidding? I was getting used to outlandish-ass thoughts rolling off my tongue. Still, I stood my ground.
He whipped his head in my direction with a confused veneer. “Wait, what? What did you say?” His eyes softened a bit.
I didn’t say anything, just shrugged. I wasn’t sure what I was saying. It just popped out.
“Do you ever dream about me?”
I just stared at him, biting my nails, trying to calm my nerves. I wasn’t going to admit that I dreamt about him, especially, that I had dreamt of him my entire life. Especially not after he had tried to kill me.
His eyes were deep black. “This is important. I don’t mean regular everyday dreams. Do you have unexplainable dreams that have followed you your entire life?” He had every intention of getting information out of me. He seemed to have a disturbing power over me when he really unleashed himself onto me. He was frightening. At the moment, after what he did, he had never been more frightening. I had a deep sense that meant more than I realized.
He slowly walked toward me, extending his arm toward me. I pulled back against a wall. I wasn’t going to let him touch me again.
“Okay, have it your way.” He took his arm back. “Here.” He tossed an unopened bottle of aspirin and a bottle of water. “For what it’s worth, I am truly sorry. I should have known. Well, I suspected at least.”
I wanted to ask him why he tried to kill me. I wanted to know why he took up the profession of an assassin; at least, I assumed that was why he tried to kill me. I couldn’t believe that he just picked me out of a phone book, researched me, and then found me. He knew way too much about me from the time we met, and he seemed to have been more invested than a random killing spree. But I looked away and rolled my eyes.
Audibly exhaling, I said, “Yes, I have had dreams about you. What does that have to do with anything?” My voice was rough and barely audible. I swallowed a few aspirin and washed them back with water. The water was soothing yet burning at the same time.
He shook his head. “You never understand. You can never see the significance.” He rolled his eyes back at me. “What do you look like in these dreams?” he continued, not answering my questions.
This one I could answer. “Once in a while, I look like me. Sandy color hair, hazel eyes, ivory skin, medium height and thin. Me.” I paused, allowing my sore throat to rest. I took a swig of water and said, “But most of the time, I look like someone else. Let me think, I have blonde hair and bright, green eyes that sparkle in the sun.” I paused longer for a rest. He stood in front of me patiently
waiting, never interrupting my breaks. “My eyes are so bright they are almost transparent, as if they hold some angelic power or something. I’m about five feet, nine inches, lean and muscular. My skin is a light caramel color.”
His whole body tensed; he started to shake. He didn’t say anything for a few minutes.
I continued to babble on. “I wish I could look like her in real life. She’s gorgeous. I mean, like, supermodel gorgeous.”
“This isn’t good. I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you. I never should’ve agreed to this. Damn it, Zanj. He knew all along. They all knew.” Whispering to himself, he started rapidly mumbling. It was so quick and low I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I’m sure it wasn’t in a language I recognized, and he yelled a few choice curse words here and there.
“I am going to let you get some rest. For reasons, you may or may not comprehend right now; I am going to have to lock you in this room. It’s for your own good.”
“I doubt that.” I glared him straight into his grey-almost-clear eyes.
His features were soft, offering an expression filled with sympathy. “I know this all seems a bit confusing. I realize that this moment I am conducting myself in a manner of an abusive, controlling boyfriend, but,” he paused and took a deep breath. “I’d rather you not die.”
His words provoked rage within me. “Oh, so you start to strangle me, change your mind about that, and then decide that you don’t want me to die after all? It seems to me that if I stay in this room I may very well die since, you know, you tried to kill me earlier, just sayin’.” My tone was patronizing and offensive. I probably should have kept quiet, but my mouth rarely stayed shut in tense situations.
“You have no idea what has been unleashed?”
My eyes rolled as the key turned in the lock. I lay back on the bed and mulled over my situation. I had always had trust issues for a reason. I would add this to the list. I exhaled. What now, I thought. My eyes felt heavy as I succumbed to the back of my eyelids.
Twenty-One
“I’m sorry… for… well, back there,” Demien offered.
“What was that?” I wearily asked.
His eyes softened. His tone was warm and supple. “I wish I could tell you.” He exhaled. He held out one hand, beckoning me. A seemingly uncontrollable force easily glided my body toward him.
I accepted his stretched out embrace, and he pulled me in close, supporting the small of my back with his ridiculously strong arm, holding my other arm in a dance stance. It felt right. I knew I had found what I had been looking for my entire life. I wanted to stay in his embrace forever. All my questions, all my fears, had melted away in that instant.
“Kiss me,” he whispered. I was looking at him as he spoke, but his lips never moved and he wasn’t at my ear. I didn’t bother ruining the moment by asking him how he did that, but I was aching to know.
Demien touched my throbbing neck. The pain deepened from the inside out or was it--the other way around. I couldn’t tell. It just hurt a lot. He pulled me up to his face with one arm around my waist, the other arm wrapped around my shoulders, and our lips met. He was full of love and admiration. His lips were soft; his kiss was respectful and passionate. He was still tense though.
He released my arm and placed it around his neck to meet my other arm that had already found its resting place there.
The pain in my throat was gone. My neck no longer was tender. I felt us slowly twirling.
“Don’t open your eyes. Just take everything in through your other senses,” he whispered.
I could feel the cool breeze on my face, smell rain in the atmosphere. His skin was warm despite the chill that encircled our bodies. The bouquet of spicy cinnamon, sweet honey and rich earth radiated from Demien. I could catch a hint of another scent, but couldn’t quite decide what it was. The fragrance was rich and airy. The closest thing I could compare it to was a stormy, humid night. Whatever it was, I was in love with it. I was hopelessly in love with this man.
I had a sensation of floating sideways and upwards, gently twirling and fluttering, like in my dreams. I could hear soft, whispered flapping. I wondered if birds were near.
Then, all too soon, his lips left mine. The ground seemed much too hard under my feet.
He brushed my hair out of my face. Gently kissing my neck, he said with a strained voice, “You can open your eyes now.”
I slowly opened my eyes, catching my breath, to see his beautiful face full of angst. “What’s wrong?”
Looking around, I noticed we were standing beside his vehicle, parked in a place I didn’t recognize. Due to the grim of the night, I couldn’t see many details of our surroundings. The moon was covered by clouds, giving the appearance of a pitch-black night. I felt the coarseness of gravel under my slip-on sandal. One foot was standing on top of a gravel road and the other foot stood on softer ground, grass, I’d assumed.
“We have to go.” His eyes were darting all over the place as he grabbed my hand, practically dragging me to the passenger seat.
Literally a second later he closed his door, started the engine and threw it into reverse. It all happened in one quick, effortless motion. I sat frozen in fear and shock.
I felt ignorant and embarrassed. I didn’t understand anything that was going on, except I was right where I was supposed to be, with Demien.
Demien shifted back into park and slowly released his foot off the brake. He went on babbling to himself. All I could understand was “I have time. Yes, I have time. Damn it, not this. Not again. I could have killed her, and this would be over.” Other than hearing that several times at different spots of his internal conversation, everything else was gibberish. I was sure he was speaking a different language, and I don’t mean pig Latin.
Finally, I pointed out, “You know I have no idea what’s going on. And you are acting mental right now. Are you going to explain to me in English what the hell is going on?”
“Exactly that,” Demien’s laugh was humorless and dry. “Hell,” he mumbled. He looked at me with a pained expression. “I am deciding on where to take you.”
“Where can you take me?” I was really getting scared now.
“Not sure,” he murmured, more to himself than to me.
“You could take me home,” I suggested. I folded my arms over my chest and rolled my eyes at him.
His face softened. “Let me think.”
I scowled at him.
“Of course you’re going to fight me. You always do.” He laughed, shaking his head. “Look, there are things far bigger than you and me at this moment. I know you don’t understand anything I’m talking about, and, due to various reasons, I can’t explain them.”
“Always cryptic.” I shook my head.
“We have time before...” He trailed off. “I’ll take you home for now until I have a better plan.” He looked in my direction, “But I’m not leaving you, I’ll always be close. I am counting on a few days before…”
“A few days before what? You should tell me,” I pressed. Even though I was upset and scared, a profound understanding stirred in my soul. I had been in this situation before. I had no idea why I felt that way.
“I can’t. I really want to.” His features softened as he huffed under his breath.
“You should anyway.”
He pulled me closer to him, as close as the console between us would allow. “I will take care of you.” He placed a finger under my chin and slowly guided my head upward. Leaning into the embrace of a kiss, he effortlessly pulled me over the middle console and onto him. I found myself straddling him. He raised his hand behind my head and pulled my lips to his. There was a deep hunger for his kiss. He took my lower lip into his wet, warm mouth. The sensation was electrifying. Sucking on my lower lip, his mouth sent explosions ripping through my frame. My blood boiled, and my hips moved on their own, rubbing against him. Moans escaped deep within me. I could feel his longing for me. My hands ventured down to his belt. Our bodies uncontrollably vibra
ted against each other as desire took over.
Bang!
I slipped open his belt and unbuttoned his jeans.
Tap, tap, bang!
Stopping to catch my breath, I looked up to see Myra. I instantly slid off Demien. Red filled my cheeks. Damn, I thought.
Demien’s head hit the headrest, and he rubbed his face from frustration.
Myra opened the door and said, “Didn’t you hear my car door slam shut, like, twice?”
I guess I heard some noises in the background, but I was a little preoccupied to notice too much. I slid out of the Hummer, not saying a word.
As soon as we were safely inside, Demien closed the door behind him. Myra went straight to my room to put down her belongings.
Demien stopped in the middle of the kitchen and lightly held my chin. “Look, I have some…” he paused, looking around. “Things to take care of. I won’t be far.” He grabbed my waist and pulled me in close to him. With his lips to my ear, he whispered, “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Between the heat of our desire and his body pressed against mine so tightly, our bodies threatened to melt into one another, akin to molten chocolate. I wanted to melt into him. I wanted to become one with him right then. I really didn’t care about the apparent impending danger. I just wanted him to give me his everything.
I closed my eyes. “Don’t go,” I breathed, but was too late. I felt him disappear as warmth was replaced with the sting of cold. I opened my eyes to an empty living room.