Beast: An Anthology

by Amanda Richardson

  I supposed it was for the better of all parties involved. At least, that’s what I told myself as I stormed into my house and slammed our large wooden door loud enough to bring attention to myself. My mother always kept the house in pristine shape, which required the help of the various staff. We had housekeepers, chefs, gardeners; although she prided herself on her garden. I’d also been raised with an education in cultivating plants and flowers, something Bellamy both made fun of and admired deeply when we were young. Because I needed a distraction, I went to my room with my bags in tow and began to change into shorts and a white t-shirt.

  Once out in the yard, I looked over my mother’s labyrinth garden. It was basically the only sibling I’d ever had since my parents couldn’t conceive after I was born, and my mother literally threw herself into creating a maze she could get lost in. It was where she went when she was angry with my father, when she needed some space from me in my angry teen years, or even just to weep over the other children she never had. It was also where she and my father would hide away for private lunches or dinners when they wanted to rekindle their youthful affections. But what I remembered most about the labyrinth were my times with Bellamy.

  Bellamy Charmant. The love of my life.

  She and I had a complicated history, one I’d sowed and reaped on the day I’d left. Seeing her awoke a part of me that I’d always carried, but tried my best to ignore.

  We were always sweethearts. Little loves since elementary school, that forged into pretend enemies in our juvenile years, only to become high school sweethearts before I’d run away. She was my everything. The voice I couldn’t get enough of, yet simultaneously ignored when she was right. The face I saw in my dreams and the same one I worried about in my nightmares. My life had been forged with hers until I dismantled myself from Faluk and all the things I didn’t really want to leave behind.

  So why did I leave? Why would I purposely banish myself from these ties?

  It’s an odd tale. One that doesn’t make much sense, but has shaken me to my core since it happened.

  ***

  Towards the end of our senior year, our high school art teacher took the entire class to a Renaissance festival visiting near Faluk. She forced us all to dress in theme for the time period, and despite the heat that spring, all the girls in our grade had rented ball gowns from local shops and wore hooped skirts through narrow streets and gardens. But not my Bellamy. No, she opted to dress as a peasant girl, and while most of her female classmates judged her for it, their opinions were rooted in jealousy. She looked lovely and feminine, the thinner layers of her burgundy dress hugging her soft curves perfectly. Even the wreath of flowers on her head made her look ethereal.

  I’d donned the traditional leggings of Italian Renaissance men and prided myself in the way it fit my muscular legs and showed off my crotch. I’d worn a cup to avoid seeming indecent, but Bellamy still picked on me.

  “You just want the girls to know what they’re missing, huh?” She winked.

  “It’s not like you’ve seen it,” I teased back. Though I wished she had already. I was dying to be with her like that.

  Her delicate jaw dropped and she bit her lower lip. Approaching me, she leaned in close and whispered against my lips. “Maybe I will soon.” And then she walked away, unraveling my resolve in the process.

  Like the trained puppy that I was, I followed my girl through all the booths and shows. We’d seen a man that ate swords, an artist that drew a caricature of us both, and even witnessed men racing with women on their backs. It was insanity. While Bellamy’s favorite part was the jewelry shopping and antique book selection, mine was the food. I’d had lamb and gigantic turkey legs all day, and I’d even tried themed delicacies. She and I had enjoyed the day so much, we didn’t mind the heat or the crowds. We simply enjoyed being with each other. It was as easy as breathing, and in some ways, it had always been.

  On our way out, we passed a final booth that was covered with purple curtains with golden beading. There was a sign outside that read “Hear Your Fortune, Test The Fates!” and Bellamy couldn’t resist. She turned back to me and grabbed my hands, squeezing them in excitement. “Oh, Ollie! I have to go in. I’ve always wanted to do this.”

  I didn’t think anything of it and handed her the cash immediately.

  “No, you have to come too!”

  I tugged back. “I’m not into knowing my future, Bells. You go, enjoy it.”

  She knew me well enough not to push, handed me her bag of used books she couldn’t resist, and ran in whispering, “Spoil sport.”

  I’d hung around the booth for what felt like forever. What could a phony like her possibly come up with? It took too long. But then Bellamy came out with a big smile on her face that spread all the way to the corners of her eyes. She was so elated from whatever she’d heard that she couldn’t contain it and marched straight towards me, grabbed my face with her dainty hands and tugged me down for a wet kiss. I felt it all over my body, but especially in my groin that was constrained by the cup. It was so intense I had to pull back and stop her before I embarrassed myself with massive wood at the Renaissance festival.

  “Bells, not that I’m turned off by this enthusiasm, but what’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” She snickered. “I just love you, Ollie.”

  Looking down into the various blues of her eyes, I saw my future there. I didn’t need some phony fortune teller to tell me that Bellamy was it for me. I kissed her once more, pressing her full, perfect lips against mine and replied against them too. “I love you, Bellamy. Always.”

  It was yet another perfect moment in our times together. Or at least it was until a wrinkled, freckly hand snaked its way through the curtain and parted the fabric. Out from behind it came a woman in her late forties, with jet black hair and electric green eyes. Her face was youthful, much younger looking than the hands attached to her body appeared. She was beautiful in an exotic way, I suppose. Still, something in those eyes left me unsettled. They were staring at me, assessing everything beneath the surface. My heart rate accelerated.

  “You,” she mumbled.

  Both Bellamy and I looked at her unsure of who she was addressing.

  “You,” she demanded, much louder this time with one crooked finger pointed at me. Her blood red nail polish was a sharp contrast to her pale skin.

  “Me?” I hooked my thumb into my chest and all she did was nod.

  “No, thank you.” I chuckled.

  “Yes, you must. It is vital. I will not charge.”

  In truth, I wasn’t worried about paying. I had enough money to live multiple lifetimes. I just didn’t want to waste any of those lifetimes on frivolous imaginings.

  “Ollie go in, it’s so cool. Don’t be such a chicken.”

  “I’m not afraid of it, babe. I just don’t believe it.” I tried whispering it to her so the woman wouldn’t hear us. Somehow she’d managed to.

  “That is because you don’t know any better, boy.”

  Her voice was croaky and taunting.

  “Fine.” I threw my hands up in the air. “I’ll do it just to spite you.”

  The woman’s mouth curved up on one side in a wicked smirk before she turned back into her little tent. I followed her in with a grunt. Once inside, I noticed a small round table filled with tarot cards and the cliché crystal ball. I half expected her to use one of them on me, but she scooped up her cards and put the pile on the corner table in the back, and covered the ball with a sheer cloth. Indicating with her hand, she said, “Sit, boy.”

  “I’m not a boy,” I argued, already annoyed by her.

  “You are. What you will hear in this room will determine whether you will actually become a man. You see, making choices,” she leaned closer. “The hard choices life proposes, that is what makes a man. Not the wealth in your family’s pocket or the stunning girl on your arm.”

  I tried to hide my surprise that she knew my family was rich. It could’ve been a lucky guess, yet it st
ill set goose bumps along my skin. The whole setting around her did. It felt like an eerie, surreal joke. Except no one was laughing, especially not me.

  “I have three things to tell you, Oliver Bertrand. None of them are about you. But if you do not heed my warnings, you will suffer the most.”

  “How do you know-”

  She cut me off, “Your name?” Tilting her head back, she howled with laughter. “I know everything, Oliver. I know that your mother wanted another child, and your labor stole that chance from her. I can tell you that your father wishes you would take interest in his career. I even know that you are on top of the world right now and that I am about to snatch that pedestal from beneath your feet. You will get into all the schools you wanted and succeed in all you do, but only if you listen. Are you listening now?”

  I swallowed, but didn’t answer.

  “Good. Now pay attention.”

  “What’s your name?” I demanded.

  “It is Fezia. Now let us begin...”

  Reaching across the table, she grabbed my hands and looked at my palms. Just as abruptly, she let them go and closed her eyes to deliver her message.

  “The girl that you love is not yours to keep. If you try to keep her for yourself, she will suffer, but so will you. Bellamy will be the prom queen of your class. She will also be the valedictorian. But the most important thing I will tell you is that her mother will die shortly after. She will die suddenly, cruelly even. Withering away like a rose does, the dry petals crumbling because life is cruel and beautiful things cannot last forever. Finally, if you do see these signs and finally, believe me, Oliver Bertrand, you must take this final warning. If you try to stay with Bellamy even after all these events occur, and trust me they will, then she will die too. She will be stolen from you and buried beneath the ground so deep, not even her soul will leave this place. You must leave her.” She opened her eyes and snatched my hands with aggression, her nails clawing into my wrists. “YOU MUST LEAVE HER!” She shrieked and tilted her head back in laughter. I ran the hell out of there with her cackle trailing behind me.

  Bellamy was outside and I almost knocked her over into the dirt road.

  “Ollie, what is it?” Her hand touched my sweat covered cheek.

  “Nothing, that witch is crazy. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  And we did. We barely made it to the bus back to campus where I spent the whole drive obsessing over what I’d just heard.

  At first, I thought it was bullshit. It certainly sounded like it. Like some made up story.

  But then it all started happening.

  A week before our final school dance, Bellamy got the news that she was named our valedictorian and nominated for prom queen. I took it as a coincidence, but then she won prom queen. And it terrified me. I kept hearing Fezia’s voice and replayed the fortune in my sleep. I’d never been superstitious, but she knew about me and she’d already predicted two things for Bellamy. But for her, I tried to enjoy the dance. I tried feigning content at the end of our studies and the next steps of our lives.

  My parents were away on business that night and I took Bellamy home with me, partially because I didn’t want to be apart from her knowing I may actually have to leave her forever, and partially because I was terrified if I left her alone something would happen to her. I selfishly wanted to hold her forever, to cage her like a bird or a prize and keep her coveted and safe. But that night I grew too quiet and since she knew me better than anyone, she noticed. She kept coaxing me to say things, to explain why I wasn’t as jovial as she was. Why I didn’t float on happiness the way she was that night. She was breathing elation, bubbly and effervescent in her golden gown. We were at a great point in our lives. In fact, our lives were still ahead of us, and Bellamy simply didn’t understand that I suddenly felt like mine was stuck. Like there was a train coming at me and I couldn’t move from the tracks.

  After the dance, we walked around in my mother’s garden. My mother’s garden was Bellamy’s favorite part of my house besides our library. She enjoyed the occasional luxury of working outside with my mother and the flowers because she said the product was always beautiful and predictable. “What you reap is what you sow” she’d say. In particular, she loved my mother’s dark, crimson roses that bloomed every spring.

  On this night, she was so happy, she began to run into the maze and yelled, “Chase me, Ollie! I bet you won’t find me even though you claim to know this maze by heart!”

  “Bellamy!” I called after her, but it was no use, she was gone. So I began to track her. She’d plucked a rose from the walls of flowers and left petals along the floor to lead or mislead me. I wasn’t sure. The only thing I could do was follow her voice. She would say things like “Over here, Ollie,” or “I’m all alone, Ollie. I need your kiss, Ollie.”

  The further into the maze she got, the more provocative her calls became. My name a sinful moan on her lips. “Oliver, I’m undoing my corset. I need your help.”

  So I started walking faster. It was pure torture imagining her as she undressed, the moonlight kissing her skin in places I’d felt but hadn’t seen. We came from traditional families, and I was always taught never to lead in that respect, but to follow a girl’s path. I never felt like I had to hold back with her, and yet I respected her too much to push. It didn’t matter that I was a teenager desperate for that kind of touch. Besides, Bellamy and I had messed around in other ways. That night, though, the breathy tone of her voice, the way she said my name over and over, like a song she couldn’t stop singing, it pushed me over the edge.

  I finally found her in the center of the labyrinth, her body strewn across the bench. The straps of her dress were slipping from her shoulders thanks to her now loosened corset. She had one petal left in her hand and she pressed it against her plump lips that matched its color. Her hand pulled away from her mouth and let the petal fall down to the ground.

  “You found me, now what are you going to do?”

  I want to say that I resisted. That I told her to stop and considered my next actions because it wouldn’t be fair to take this from her, to give it to me, if I knew I’d be leaving her soon. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I trod toward her and joined her on the bench, trying my best not to touch her. She looked so exquisite. Her dress made her look like a fallen star or comet, leaving her creamy skin to glow against it. Her red mouth, a color of lust and passion taunted me, begging me to touch her and reveal all the loveliness beneath her gown.

  Bellamy made the first move, in part because I wouldn’t, and in part, because I had always let her. She touched my cheek and stroked my jaw before leaning forward to kiss it. I couldn’t see myself, but I imagined her lip rouge leaving trails all over my skin as she continued to kiss her way down my neck before returning to my lips. I grabbed her wrist, her hand still on my face and begged, “Bellamy, stop.”

  Her neck craned back to meet my eyes. Even in the darkness, the blue shone brightly, almost hauntingly. “Don’t you want this with me? I want this with you. I have for so long, Ollie.” Her hand trailed down my chest all the way to my belt.

  “Of course I do, but we don’t have to.”

  “Yes,” she leaned closer, her lips lingering over mine. “We do. I don’t want anything else but you.”

  And then she kissed me, differently than she ever had. This wasn’t a teenage kiss that was filled with puppy-love or tenderness. This was a kiss exploding with want, need, passion and desperation. This was a kiss that wordlessly told me I was the one she wanted forever, and she was going to make sure I understood that. Except forever wasn’t promised. Not anymore.

  I couldn’t resist. I couldn’t avoid kissing her. I loved her. I was devoted to her. She was my best friend, but also the women I pictured by my side as I grew old. She was the girl I hoped would become the mother of my children, my partner in all things. Was it selfish of me to give into her? Yes. Of course, it was. But I was human. I was hers and she was mine, and that night I didn’t want to entertai
n the notion that one day, that might not be.

  I gripped her face in both my hands and kissed her back. I melded my mouth to hers and tethered my soul so that it would intertwine with hers even for just one evening. I demanded that fate leave us be for a while, even just a few hours. We laid in the middle of the labyrinth and made love slowly, in a devoted, inexperienced worshiping of one another’s bodies. I didn’t rush our first time, savoring every touch, kiss, and look as if I were burning them into my memory. Her sounds would be the cruel song I’d replay when I was lonely and the “I love you’s” we whispered over and over would haunt me for years. They were no truer words that night, for I loved her then, before, and after. I loved her as if it were breathing. I just couldn’t keep her. That night left me black and blue inside. The adoration I had for her bruised my heart, my insides, even the moment felt tender because being inside her and having her all around me, it destroyed my resolve. I knew she was forever a part of me, and that I’d cursed her to always keep a part of me within herself. It was as though I’d drowned us both, pulling our intertwined bodies and hearts under the waves of Faluk and into the abyss of love. The fortune I didn’t want to believe told me that my only choice was to let her go and sink with the riptide.

  ***

  After being outside for hours, I headed in for a shower and some catching up. I spent the afternoon secluded in my father’s library. Where my mother had her garden to retreat to, my father had his books. It was where he went to work from home, where he would occasionally smoke a cigar, and where he went to figure out any problem he had. Part of me was mimicking his habit of finding solutions amongst pages of stories and words. I wasn’t having much luck.

  Every time I made progress through my father’s papers, I’d grow distracted and pace through the various dark wood shelves. I’d think of Bellamy and Preston’s hand around her waist. I’d imagine them together, the way we were, and grow infuriated. At one point I threw files all over the floor and spent half an hour picking them up. At least I could pick up that mess. The one in my head and heart wasn’t so simple.