by Tshombe
“I hadn’t ever known love before. To be honest, I’d never really thought about it. I had come to believe that love was something I’d never know. But after that moment with Shadow, I began to wonder what it looked like, what it felt like. I started to think maybe I could have it too.
“That night when I came home she’d made me dinner. We ate mostly in silence, keeping our mouths filled with food until all of it was gone. Words of acknowledgment and appreciation punctuated the silence. I felt like I didn’t know her. Clearing the table, she began talking about where she came from as though she could read my mind.
“She’d grown up in a home with her mother and her stepfather, a minister. She hated her stepfather and from the look on her face when she said it I knew why. I sat on the couch. She put her head on my lap. I felt uncomfortably aroused. When she paused in her story I told her I had to go to bed. She stared at me knowing I was lying. I went in my room. That room right there, Charles. I went in that room and waited because I knew she was coming. I fell asleep and when I woke up during the night I was lying naked beside her. She was naked too with her arm around me and her head on my chest. No more sleep that night. I just stared at her until she woke up. The warmth between our eyes was all the good morning we needed. I asked her what her parents thought about her leaving. Stretching and yawning she told me the minister didn’t care and her mother encouraged her to leave. That pulled me from bliss. Shadow’s warning, a sign of death disguised as love.
“Eva and I weren’t talking very much. She was hard to reach at times, still trying to piece her life back together. When we did talk it was only about her stuff. I knew she wouldn’t want to hear this, so I had no one to confide in about Rio. Rio and I continued our dinners in silence. She watched me as I ate my food and I watched her as she ate hers until flashes of her naked body race through my mind. I wanted her so bad. I hadn’t ever wanted a woman before. I fled. This time she smiled at my escape to the room. Knowing she was coming, I’d wait for her, but she only came after I fell asleep. The next morning, I lay naked beside her experiencing the various temperatures of our smooth bodies where they touched. Everything was finally completely perfect! I let my mind drift, lost in a comfort. Feelings I had never felt before were somehow still familiar. I realized I was smiling at her, thinking this can’t be temporary, it felt too good, too real.
“Rio was so happy. She wanted me to pose so she could paint me. I had never done anything like that before, I went to the couch and posed. The way she moved her body while painting the canvas made it feel like the air around us was making love to every inch of my body. Her vision consumed me from every angle. I felt utterly naked as she peered into the depths of my heart. In the span of an afternoon, she’d finished her work. Before me was nothing I could have imagined. There I was, lying on a bed of snakes, one head though my face was blurry and divided, part happy and part sad. With the snakes around me, what looked like a lunar eclipse hung in the background, but I swear it was Shadow in the middle of clouds. Presiding over the whole image sat an angel resembling Rio arching her wings. I screamed, ‘It’s not me! It’s not me!’ until I woke up beside her, again naked.
“Do you see the painting Charles? Charles! Do you see the portrait? It’s hanging on the wall! Charles, she painted this for me!”
The dead man’s last breath had escaped moments ago. His body was still warm when she doled out her final vicious slap, sending the mucus which had hung thick from his nose across the room. His only response was the involuntary slumping of his body; fighting against the ropes still binding his wrists and ankles to the chair. The weight of his body won as the chair tipped and fell, his head landing with a heavy crack against the edge of the hearth.
She wished he wasn’t dead. “Charles, you’re making me angry. Stop joking. Now listen, while I finish telling this story.”
“I walked into the sunlit kitchen singing when the horrid painting caught my eye from the living room. From the other room it taunted me with Rio’s vision of me. I made her cover the painting. I could not bear to look at a picture that screamed my secrets and seemed to capture my whole life. I know the lunar eclipse is the face of Shadow. How could she know?
“The next evening after dinner, she stopped me as I tried to go to bed. Her hands gripped my shoulder. I felt chills on my arm as I tried to find my breath. ‘Please sit down.’ I didn’t want to hear what she had to say. I was scared of what she knew. She stroked my hair gently as I nestled on the floor between her legs.
“She told me a story a story about a princess who had never known love. The princess lived in a magnificent castle in a beautiful kingdom. The only problem was that her father would not touch or talk to her, and he forbade her mother to see her for fear of a curse that had been placed on the family. If the King or Queen displayed any love to the princess she would die and if anyone else loved her, the royal family would lose their kingdom. So, at night the King would leave two guard dogs tied in front of her door so that no one could enter her chambers while the family was sleeping. Life for the princess was sad. No one would talk to her much less look at her. Her life was worse than a prisoner’s.
“One night while she was sleeping, a beautiful, dark angel came to her window. It was the most beautiful thing that the princess had ever seen. The angel told the princess that she was here to watch over her, and she would always be safe as long as they were together; but the only way they could be together was if the princess trusted her enough to jump out of the tower window. The princess was afraid. The angel assured her that she would not be hurt if she jumped, but still the princess was unsure. The angel promised that she would love the princess and take care of her forever, but only if she trusted her enough to jump. The princess refused, and the angel disappeared.
“The next day the princess spent as usual, but the day seemed different. All she could think about was the angel, the beautiful angel with dark wings who promised to love her and take care of her forever. No one had ever promised to love her.
“That night in her chambers she waited, awake, all night but the angel never came. The princess woke next morning heartbroken. She hadn’t ever felt this type of pain before. Again, another night she waited in her chambers for the angel and again the angel did not come. By the third night, the princess had given up all hope of seeing her again. As she started to fall asleep, she heard a voice whisper, ‘Jump!’ The princess was hopeful her angel had returned. Again, it said, ‘Jump!’ The princess rushed from the bed to the window hoping to see the angel, but the angel was not there. The princess stood at the window feeling the cool breeze of the night. She decided to step out onto the ledge. The stone wall was cold under her feet. She looked toward the ground knowing that if she was not caught, she would die. She jumped! She jumped off the ledge falling fast to the ground. In seconds, she would be no more, but she had never felt more alive. She closed her eyes as she headed to what she knew would be her doom. Then, she felt the softness of her angel’s skin and they began to fly. She was in the arms of her angel who kept the promise to take care of and love the princess forever.
“When the King came to let his daughter out the next morning, to his surprise she was gone. He looked all over her chambers and found her nowhere. He leaned out of the tower window to alert the guards and to his horror he found his daughter lying dead. She had fallen to her death from the tower window. For the first time he wept for his daughter, and his tears remained relentless. Everywhere the King went, at some point he cried. His wife could not bear the loss of their daughter and she too jumped out of the same tower window. The beautiful kingdom was lost forever, but the princess had found love.
“That’s a beautiful story isn’t it, Charles?”
“I fell asleep as Rio brushed my hair. The soft smooth skin of her legs around me lulled me into a deep sleep. I went to a place that was absolutely beautiful. There, in this beautiful place, sat my angel atop a giant cloud. The cloud glowed with brilliant colors of red, yellow, and gold. Rio�
��s wings were soft and fluffy. She opened them to embrace me. I was compelled by a force I cannot explain. I had no choice but to move in the direction of her embrace. I put my arms through her soft feathers expecting to push my arms through to the other side of her wings, but there was no end. My arms were stretched out inside her feathers as her wings began to move. The massive, fluffy wings closed around me covering us in darkness. At first, the darkness scared me but as I felt the warmth of her body next to me, the darkness became soothing. Her wings were like soft pillows caressing and massaging my back. I was in ecstasy. I floated there for a while in pure bliss. I tried to move but I couldn’t. The embrace became tighter. I tried to move again, and it tightened even more. It seemed as if every breath I took made the embrace tighter. Suddenly I was having trouble breathing. I wanted to panic, but couldn’t, for it would surely seal my fate. I began to wonder why, and she answered, ‘I love you.’ Her love was killing me.
“When I woke up she was standing over me smiling. The hideous picture I begged her to cover up loomed behind her. She stared deep into my eyes as if knowing that I had just dreamt about her. She laughed then said, ‘Good Morning, Princess. Shadow has a message for you.’
In Death
“Charles. Charles,” she said as though she expected him to answer. “When I first saw you, I knew that we would become close. Eva told me not to trust you, but I didn’t listen to her. Even though you didn’t notice me, I saw you.”
She crawled over and kissed the dead man on the lips. The green foam from his regurgitation clung to her mouth in threads as she pulled away. She licked her lips and smiled.
“I’m sure you can imagine my surprise when I learned that she knew of Shadow. She claimed to know where to find him. I was eager to make that journey.
“We traveled on foot through the streets and into the forest. We left during the day, reaching the forest covered in darkness at night. Unfamiliar sounds echoed through the woods. The wind carries a more sinister sound in the forest after dark. I started to ask Rio how much further, but my words were replaced with crushing pain at the back of my head then everything went black.
“I woke up in a clearing of the forest, finally able to see the sky, again covered in diamonds. The great Shadow stood over me. Happy to see him I motioned to get up but was quickly restrained and blindfolded by two women I had never seen before. The great Shadow spoke, ‘For years I climbed this mountain of obstacles and pain not knowing what my reward would be for reaching the top. Many days I thought about giving up. Some days I thought I would not make it. One day I reached my destination; the top of the mountain. Finally, at the top I searched for my reward, but all I found was me. My journey allowed me to find myself. This journey, all must take. Reach inside yourself and answer the question of what you are here for!’
“Hands began to disrobe me; so many more than just Shadow and the two women. Shadow then said to me, ‘If you know the touch of your love, call out to her when you feel her caress. If love is not touching you and you call out, love will disappear forever!’ The multitude of hands massaged my body from head to toe, so many hands touching, I couldn’t figure out which ones were hers. I began to cry because I knew that if I guessed wrong she would be gone forever. I called out to her as a plea. I screamed her name thinking it would be the last time she’d hear me, and the hands stopped. All the hands disappeared except for one over my heart and one over my head. The blindfold was removed. Rio’s eyes were the first thing I saw. We made love in front of the great Shadow. I had found what I was here for - her.
“We spent the next few weeks with only each other. Every moment seemed to bring us closer. Every second seemed to be filled with something to treasure. Then the landlord came around for the rent money and we didn’t have it. One day I had just stopped going to work at the diner. I don’t even remember when. I told Rio that I could get the money. She knew about my past. She knew I knew how to survive and she refused to let me do it. She went out the next day early in the morning looking for a job. I sat at home waiting for her, angry that the time she would spend working was time we couldn’t be together.”
“I want to tell this part of the story, Cassandra.” Eva interrupted.
“Eva, I don’t want to stop talking now.”
“I said shut up, Cassandra! We are still playing the game. It’s your turn to be quiet.” She crawled over to the dead man and shook her head. “You dumb ass bitch. He’s dead! You’ve been telling the story to a dead man. He will never get to hear the best part of how I saved the day and came up with this plan. If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be walking around like a lovesick puppy.”
“That’s not true, Eva! Rio and I were fine until you came back. You came back and ruined everything.”
“You ungrateful little bitch! I’ve taken care of you since you were a little girl, and this is the thanks I get? You tell me that this is all my fault? I saved you! What happened when Rio came home that day? What happened?”
“Eva, stop!”
“Stop? Why? You’re so eager to keep talking. Now you can. Since you seem to think this is my fault, tell me what happened when she came home!”
“I – I hate you, Eva. I can’t wait until this is over.” Sobbed Cassandra.
“Neither can I! Go ahead, finish the story!”
With a deep breath, Cassandra stood up and began the end of their story.
“Rio came home happy that day. She rushed through that door with energy I had never seen before. She hugged me tight, kissed me, and said she’d found a job. I was happy that she was happy, but I couldn’t hide my selfish disappointment. Rio asked me what was wrong. I told her I didn’t look forward to spending time apart and I couldn’t understand how she could be so happy about it.
“My tears brought her tears and we both contributed to the salty puddles before us. She apologized for thinking only of the rent, and not the time it forced us apart. I knew how important it was for her to take care of us. Each feeling selfish for not seeing through the other’s eyes, we ate dinner, and then went to sleep.
“That night I had a dream Rio and I were being held apart by a wall. I could hear her calling me and I desperately wanted to get to her. I tried to climb the wall, but it only got bigger as I moved. I chiseled at the wall but the holes I created filled up once I got close to the other side. I called out to her as I pounded the stone with all my strength. On my first strike I cracked it, and just like that the wall came crashing down. As the dust settled I called out to Rio but I heard nothing. I called to her again, still nothing. Finally, the dust cleared, and I could see. On the other side of the wall was a church filled with people looking at me. At the pulpit stood a boy in a football uniform and Rio in a beautiful wedding dress. She turned around and said she never loved me. Vengefully I grabbed at her, catching her veil, I pulled her back toward me. Her neck split in half and I was covered in her blood. I dropped to my knees screaming and that’s how I woke up, screaming all alone in the bed. Rio had already left for her first day at work.”
“Is that what you wanted to hear, Eva?”
“No Cassandra, that’s not what I wanted to hear. I wanted you to hear it ‘cause you seem to be blaming me for what happened, yet I don’t hear my name in any of this story. I remember keeping you company while you waited for her to come home. I remember helping you plan, prepare, and cook dinner for her. I also remember having to hide because you didn’t want her to know I was there. Do you want to know a secret? She knew I was there. The nights you can’t remember are the nights that I do. You have no idea what kind of passion Rio & I shared on those nights you don’t remember when you woke up naked the next morning. I got chills every time she touched me. We made love every time you blacked out and had those ridiculous dreams. You always upset me with those stupid dreams.
“I want you to remember something. What happened after a few weeks of Rio working? Who told you to go down to her job and see how she’s doing? Who?”
“That’s what I mean, Eva! I should have never gone down there! I should have never gone to see her there!”
“Why not, Cassandra? Why shouldn’t you have gone down there? Why?”
“Because Eva! Because …”
The woman dropped to her knees, vomiting until she was weak and drained. She lay on the floor unable to move herself out of the pool of her own vomit. The pill she’d taken earlier had begun to take hold of her spirit. Mumbling, she continued where she’d left off.
“Because I saw him… I saw Charles. I knew when I saw him that he was the reason why she was coming home late, the reason why she wouldn’t touch me anymore. I listened to you Eva, I went there many nights and watched them, heartbroken. I listened to you and I said nothing to her about what I saw, or what I felt. I just lay there at night hoping she would touch me, and she never did.”
The woman dry-heaved in anguish until she produced a thick clot of mucus wrapped in blood.
“When I told Rio about my dream with the wall she was silent. Then she cried. She told me that’s why she left. She’d left to get away from the pain of not being able to with her first love.”
A tear rolled down the woman’s face, into her puddle of vomit. Her body convulsed and spasmed as it tried in vain to rid itself of the poison.
“I wasn’t her first love. I – I did not know my own love. The thought of someone else having my love instead of me… And you, Eva, you filled my mind with horrible thoughts. You – you told me that it was all Charles’ fault and that we had to do away with him. You told me that if he died, then I would possess love. Well, he’s dead and I still don’t have her!”
“You stupid little bitch! You poisoned me! You’re going to kill us, Cassandra? Why… Why? We made him pay. Rio will love us again. We still haven’t found what we’re looking for. We are still playing the game.”
“Eva, the game is over. We have both lost and I don’t want to play anymore.”