by Gabi Moore
He looked into the fire.
“That’s all,” he said, and spat.
The fire dipped and roared back up again, eating up everyone’s confessions. I had partied in my youth, God knows, but I had never …done whatever it is that they were doing. My head buzzed. Soon, it would be my turn.
“I feel like I’ve lost who I am”. Spit.
“Yesterday, I said something very cruel to my mother, and I meant every word of it.” Spit.
“Sometimes I wish I had cancer or something so that at least I would have an excuse.” Spit.
Then it was my turn. My heart was pumping wildly. I had never met these people before in my life. I hardly even knew all of their names. And now I had to tell them some deep dark secret? This was ridiculous. What were they smoking, anyway?
“I …I don’t really have a secret,” I muttered.
Sounds of disapproval came from the circle. I looked down to see Adam’s hand on my knee, and nearly fainted from the distraction.
“No, really …I’ve been a bad girl in the past, I guess. But I’m different now. I don’t have anything to confess. I don’t have anything to say…”
Even the fire itself seemed angry with this answer.
Adam squeezed my leg and sent my heart fluttering.
“We’re all friends here, Nyx. We’re all in it together. We want to hear whatever you have to say…” he said, and I looked over to see his deep, imploring eyes on me. They did things to me, those eyes. I flashed a glance over to the fire.
How could I say anything to the people here? Could I tell them how many nights of my life I had woken up in a house I didn’t recognize, half my clothing missing and no memory of the night before? Could I tell them that I had messed up every good chance I had ever been given? Or that since my father and mother died, a part of me died with them and I didn’t think it would ever come back?
The fire felt hot against my eyes. The circle waited and waited for me to say something. My palms felt clammy. I opened my lips to speak but the words seemed stuck. Adam’s hand was firm on my leg. I wanted him to never, ever stop touching me.
“I’m afraid that there’s nothing left in the world that will make me happy,” I said at last. “Sometimes I’m scared that I’ve already done everything there is to do, and now what’s left is boring and soul-destroying. That’s what I feel. That’s my secret,” I said. Then I spat in the fire.
The group murmured their approval.
“Have you ever ridden an ostrich?” the small girl asked.
“What?”
“Well, that seems like something you haven’t done yet.”
“Have you eaten at Jaipur deli? The one near Adam’s house?” said Andrew.
I stammered to answer.
“Have you ever done calligraphy? Have you ever been to the Rio carnival? Have you ever gone skinny dipping at the beginning of spring in Finland?” said a girl who up until now had been rather quiet.
I laughed.
“No, I guess there are still technically some things in this world that could make me happy…” I said, and colored heavily. I turned to look at Adam, who was smiling strangely at me.
“Have you ever fallen in love?” he said.
The room went silent again. I stared hard at him, at those dark, treacly eyes and all the things they seemed to be saying.
“Have you ever loved someone so much,” he continued, “that you felt like the whole world only made sense the moment after you watched them sleeping? Have you ever loved someone with your whole self, your heart, your soul, your blood, your bones, all of it? Have you cried with them and laughed with them and stared into the abyss with them? Have you ever come so hard that you felt you’d almost die, orgasmed so much that it was as though you stared in the face of God himself?”
My heart was beating in my ears. My mouth hung open.
“I …well, I…”
“No? Then there’s still plenty in the world that will make you happy then,” he said quickly, squeezed my knee and turned to peer into the fire again.
I was gobsmacked. Where the hell had all of that come from?
“All right guys, jeez, enough with the group therapy, yeah?”
It was Andrew, laughing and clapping his hands together, releasing the strange tension that had gathered around Adam’s words.
“Now that we’ve all established we’re a bunch of fucking weirdos, can we get back to our regular programming please?” Andrew said in a cheerful voice, then pulled something out of his jacket pocket. “And speaking of have-you-ever, I’ve got here something I’m sure none of you freaks have ever tried,” he said, and waggled a small plastic baggie at us.
Thankfully, everyone tore their interest from me and my embarrassing confession and turned to look at the black capsules in the baggie.
“What’s that?” the small girl asked.
“Only one way to find out, isn’t there?” he said and winked.
Everyone held out their hands and he carefully placed a single black capsule into each opened palm, one by one.
No. Not now. It must be getting close to 11. I had to get back home.
“And one for you, oh great Goddess of the eyeliner?” Andrew said playfully and held out a pill for me.
“I’m …not for me,” I said meekly.
He frowned.
I gave a pleading look to Adam. Aunt Lila would suffer a stroke if she knew I was up to my old tricks again, so soon after I had sworn blind that this time would be different. The capsule looked so sleek and glossy, held so carefully between his thumb and forefinger. There it was. Such a tiny thing, and yet I already knew that that was all it would take. I felt my stomach churn.
Adam tilted his head and looked at me strangely.
“You don’t want to, Nyx?” he said softly.
Oh, that wasn’t the question. I wanted to all right. More than anything in the world. In fact, at that moment, I was a hair’s breadth away from greedily swallowing that pill and seeing all the delicious things it held inside, the promise of painlessness, of something beautiful, of escape. Did I want it? I wanted it so bad it ached.
“I …I shouldn’t take it,” I said. That was the best answer I could come up with.
“Why not?” Adam said.
Everything, everyone in the room retreated a little and soon there was only the glossy black of the pill and the glossy black of Adam’s eyes. Fuck, he was hot. I bit my lips.
“Because …because ...”
Words stuck in my throat. Because I didn’t trust myself. Because I was aunt Lila’s slave. Because that was behind me now, and I had to be sober going ahead. Clear-headed. Good and decent and well-behaved.
Adam reached out and took the pill from Andrew and looked at it closely. I stopped breathing. He seemed like a magician to me, and I was spellbound. I felt it in my throat. In my spine. I felt it pulsing between my legs. Slowly, he lifted the pill to his own lips, gently stuck out the pink pad of his tongue and perched the capsule on it, just so. He closed his lips slightly around it again, and half-smiled.
Then I felt it. ‘Kiss me,’ his eyes said.
I leaned forward, drawn in by delicious threads. I placed soft, tentative lips against his. The pill passed into my mouth. I gasped; the pill went down into my throat. He held me there between his lips, a moment frozen in tenderness. I sighed. His hand went to the back of my neck and he kissed me more deeply. Electricity shot straight through my body. Though his lips were soft and warm, their effect on me was explosive.
He pulled back and looked at me again, the light of the fire glinting on the wetness on his lower lips. In spite of myself, I smiled, giddy.
“Aw, Adam, can I get a snog too, huh?” Andrew teased. It felt easy to laugh with everyone. The fire kept burning. I took off my black wings and …forgot.
Chapter Six
Pigeon legs. Grey pigeon legs, as scaly as a dinosaur’s, stalking up and down, right in front of me. I opened my eyes and watched in the broad daylight. The pi
geon picked erratically at nothing on the floor, looked wide-eyed at me then flapped off, leaving a few feathers behind. I groaned and blinked hard. The air was so cold it almost smelt metallic.
I looked down: a hand draped over my waist. I was on a hard floor, resting on a nest of jackets and coats; Adam curled up behind me, his arm linked round my middle.
Slowly, I remembered.
The night had been long and strange. But I remembered it all. Every last smile. Every laugh and joke and …I remembered dancing around the fire, roaring with laughter and making shadows on the walls with everyone. I remember how Andrew had showed us some yoga poses, and then walked over the hot coals to show it wouldn’t hurt him. I remember that we had made a raucous song about it, and had part-sung part-laughed that song over and over, like dervishes in the night. We had all stretched out on the floor and talked about our life and how crazy it was and that this was special, this moment right now, in Andrew’s shitty house. And then we had hugged and cried and danced some more.
And I had gazed into Adam’s eyes. All night. For eons, really. We had kissed again and again, first strangely, then as old friends, then teasingly, then back to strange again, until we had tried out every kind of kiss with one another.
His handsome face came alive, in the flicker of that fire, as the night wore on. He had kissed me delicately, placing the tenderest fingertip on my lip as he explored me with his tongue. And he kissed me savagely, both hands gripping me close, devouring me one hungry caress after another.
I took in a deep, cold breath and held it in my lungs, feeling my body waking up on the inside. This was a strange feeling. It took me a while, lying there on our strange morning nest, to realize what the feeling was: peace.
I tilted my head and saw a few bodies strewn in sleep all over the floor, in a jumble of coats and scarves. The fire, filled with our darkest fears and burdens, was now cold and ash-white, finished and unnecessary in the clean morning light.
“Good morning, glory.”
His voice was deep and soft, like wet earth. I turned round and nuzzled into his chest, breathing in his scent. He was unlike any man I had ever met before. His skin was so warm, and I could smell him under the smoke-tinged fabric of his cotton shirt. He was the most delicious thing in the world to me at that moment. His hand rested on my hips.
I remembered more.
I had wanted him, all night. He had teased me and laughed. I squeezed my eyes shut and saw his gleaming face in my memory.
“Steady on, you’re trying to get into my pants, aren’t you?” I had laughed. It was bliss.
Another strange feeling: I didn’t need to sleep with him. Well, not yet at least.
I took in another deep breath and gently curled my hips against his. He groaned quietly and pulled me in close, nestling his lips against the top of my head.
“You’re beautiful,” he breathed.
“You’re …mad” I said and laughed.
He kissed me again.
“Do we really have to wake up, do you think? Let’s just lie here until it’s night again,” he said.
Then I remembered.
Tamara.
The early morning meeting.
“Oh shit!”
I jumped up.
“What’s the time? Oh fuck, I have a thing with Tamara this morning!” I said. My frantic voice stirred someone in the corner, who mumbled something, rolled over and went back to sleep.
“Oh God, Adam this was so stupid. Do you know where my bag is?” I was scrambling through the great pile of scarves and coats, everything reeking of fire and ash.
“And the wings!” I exclaimed, noticing that they weren’t where I had left them.
Adam was quickly on his feet and rubbing his face. He yanked a phone out of his pocket and looked at it quizzically, then came over to me and gripped me by the arms.
“OK, just relax, OK? When is your meeting?” His features were cooling and hardening before my very eyes.
“It’s uh… oh God, I can’t even remember …it’s uh, at nine I think? Yes, at nine. What time is it now?”
“It’s 8:50.”
“Fuck!” I scrambled to find my shoes and flung on my coat. “Where are those goddam wings?”
Adam was hurrying behind me, shrugging on his own jumper and raking nervous fingers through his hair. When he opened the glass-paned kitchen door, a gust of cool air came rushing in.
“Come on, let’s go, I’ll drive you,” he said.
“You have a car? Oh thank God,” I mumbled, and tossed my bag over my shoulder. “I just have to find those wings…”
“Forget the wings, Nyx, you’re hopelessly late already. If we leave now, we’ll get there maybe 10 minutes late. We can still save this. Let’s just go.”
I scowled. Where could they have gotten to? I couldn’t have just lost them.
“But let me just…”
“Nyx, let’s go!”
He marched over, grabbed me round my waist and before I knew it, he had pitched me over his shoulder, cave-man style, my messy hair hanging long down his back. I squealed and laughed, but he was off, expertly picking his way down the iron staircase, crunching through a gravel parking lot and then flinging me down in the passenger seat of his car. I looked up at him, half-smiling, my hair tousled.
“Good grief you’re strong,” I said.
“I know,” he winked naughtily at me and shut the door, and soon we were whizzing through town, both of us praying we wouldn’t be caught by morning traffic.
I tapped nervously on my phone as he drove, perched all the way on the very edge of his car seat. I sent Tamara a message and then tried to call, but it went straight to voicemail. It was my first big meeting with Tamara. The one where I’d pitch my big ideas, and show her that although I might be one of the newest and youngest members on the team, that I would manage, that I’d show her and that she could trust me …except now I was going to be fucking late.
We finally pulled up at the college and parked. It was 9:16. Shit. I could make out tiny beads of sweat on Adam’s face; he had focused solely on driving, and I had just stared ahead at the road, trying to gather my thoughts.
We both slammed our car doors shut and took the stairs two at a time, and immediately saw Tamara standing outside the main hall, having a smoke break. She blew a plume of smoke, looked us both up and down and then dropped the cigarette onto the floor and twisted it out with her boot. Expressionless, she turned on her heel and headed back inside.
“OK, I have to go now,” I stammered. “thanks for the ride Adam.”
“No problem, we’ll chat later.”
How the hell could he be smiling at a time like this?
“Oh God…”
“What now?” he said.
“My notebook. I haven’t brought any of my work. I have nothing to show her,” I said. I felt the tears welling up in my throat. He looked at me with a glimmer of mischief in his eyes.
“Hey, Nyx, can I tell you something quickly?”
“What?”
“Your drawings and stuff?”
“Yeah?”
“They’re not that great anyway.”
“What the fuck?”
“I’m saying, you can do without them. You don’t need them. Everything’s in here, right?” He placed his fingertip against my temple. I shook it away, a rash of anger coming over me.
“No, no it isn’t. I’m screwed. Oh God, I can’t believe I let this happen…”
I started to whine. My head began to feel like sandpaper. He grabbed me by the shoulders again and held me firmly.
“Nyx, listen to me …are you listening?”
“Yes, what?”
“You got this,” he said, and again pierced me with those eyes of his. “You have a gift. Go in there and have fun with it, OK?”
“OK,” I said quietly.
He gave my butt a playful slap as I scrambled the rest of the way up the stairs and went to find Tamara. I turned to wave him goodbye but he had a
lready taken off. I took a deep breath, opened the door and made my way to Tamara’s office.
Chapter Seven
I tried desperately to wipe the weird ash on my fingers off on the back of my clothing.
Turning up at an important meeting wearing a day-old velvet dress, heels, and stale make-up was definitely something that the old Nyx would have done. But now…?
I stood in Tamara’s office, unprepared and nearly shaking with nerves. My palms were sweating, and still the weird dirt on them from rummaging around in Andrew’s weird apartment looking for my wings was not coming off.
It had been a magical night. I dare say, the most fun I had had in …well, maybe ever. I had felt free. Happy. Accepted. Like a great burden had been lifted from me. And now Tamara was sitting in her faux-leather seat, mouth tight with irritation, hands clasped in front of her and waiting for me to explain myself.
I sat down and tried to smooth out the weird wrinkles in my lap. Have fun with it? Easy for him to say, he wasn’t sitting here, in the hot seat, his exclusive drama college dream basically over before it had even started.
“Unfortunately, it’s been a bit of a rush this morning for me and I’ve forgotten my folder at home,” I said quietly, trying a nervous smile.
She glared at me.
She had said on that first day, “don’t let him rattle you” and here I was anyway, thoroughly rattled. What I hadn’t been prepared for was the fact that being rattled by him would feel so, so good.
“We don’t have all day though, so just share with me what you’ve done,” she said coldly.
Tamara was a pretty woman, not terribly much older than me but far more put together, something of a fashionable viciousness in her demeanor that looked like it belonged on a Vogue model.
“Yes, well, OK then,” I said, and wrung my hands together. Just have fun with it. OK. Sure. Fun.
“So, to begin with, I wanted to base everything off of primary colors. Nicky is making everything Bluebeard wears some kind of blue, so I wanted the surrounds - especially his bed chambers, which are the most important – a blend of yellow and red. The yellow will mostly be the candle light, leaving most of the room red, which will foreshadow the bloody chamber nicely…”