by Luna Lacour
“Hi, Kaitlyn,” he said, waving. Like we were nothing more than acquaintances. As if there weren’t a huge bet waged between the two of us; something that could very potentially destroy everything.
We never really learn, I thought to myself. We never really listen. At least, not until it’s far too late.
“Hi, Marius,” I said. “Goodnight.”
THIRTEEN
Vivian was yawning when I sat down at the breakfast table; yawning and lazily running a finger over the lacquered surface. A small single-serving of Bailey’s rested next to the mug.
Marius was jabbing his fork into a thoroughly-diced egg; the yolk, a sickening yellow, was oozing all over the plate.
My father carved his steak tips quietly; he chewed with a particular, slow carefulness. Each swallow seemed measured.
“We’re going to Long Island,” she declared, glancing at my father. “Your father, well, he’s just an absolute doll. There’s this lovely estate by the water that we’ll be staying at. I think we might even do some sailing.”
I sat down, scraping my chair back and draping the single white napkin over my lap.
“You know who also enjoys sailing,” I said mildly. “My mother. I believe her new husband is quite fond of both buying and selling yachts, in fact.”
My father cleared his throat. Marius looked at me, still in his pajamas; his eyes still cloudy with sleep.
“Are you going with them?” I asked Marius.
“He’ll be visiting his father this evening,” Vivian answered, eyes narrowing. “I’m not sure what they’ll be doing. What do you normally do with your father, Marius?”
“Like you actually care,” he said. “Listen, I know he fucked some other woman while he was still married to you; but you were no prize, either. For God’s sake, you talk about the man as if he was a damned stranger.”
Nobody said a word. Marius dropped his fork.
“I’m just fucking sick of it,” he muttered. “I mean, I’m right here. I’m his son.”
“I know,” Vivian said quietly.
“He’s my father,” Marius said. “Stop fucking talking about him as if you never loved him at all. You did. At one point, you did. But that’s the way this game works, doesn’t it? Until death just really means until the feelings go away or things just get too real and fucked to want to deal with anymore.”
My father slammed his hand on the table. I felt the quaking rattle beneath my palms.
“I think that’s enough,” he said. “Marius, I think you’ve quite made your point.”
He glowered for a moment longer before sliding out of his seat, gripping the edge of the table briefly, then storming off. Last night’s cologne hung in the air in a faint aftermath; a poltergeist that was still seated across from me, eyes lowered, infuriated but not daring to say a single word.
Vivian excused herself, following Marius up the stairs; and for the first time in what felt like a stretch of years, I was alone with my father.
“Was that what it was like with my mother?” I asked him. “You just gave up.”
“You’re eighteen, Kaitlyn,” my father said. “Don’t you dare try to talk as if you could possibly understand. People change. Situations change. The ideas you once had of love and life and relationships change.”
“Break,” I said to him. “They break. I mean, I get it. I get what you’re saying.”
“Then why are you pressing me, Kaitlyn?”
My father looked at me. Not as the man who had played some part in the fact that I was seated at that table; alive and breathing and full of that same intangible possibility that still tickled my fingertips in a deceivingly close, painful sort of way. He looked at me as a man, and only a man. Someone who was once just like me; a child, staring into their parents’ eyes with that same unanswerable question of what it means to let go.
“Did it have to break?” I asked him. “Was there really no saving it?”
He carved another sliver of steak; chewed, swallowed, set his fork down. His fingers curled into fists.
“No,” he finally answered. “No, there was no saving it. Your mother and I haven’t been in contact since she left, and you know that. She left. I’m sorry that things resulted as they have; you didn’t deserve to have to live without your mother. But no, there was no saving it.”
I could hear Marius and his mother yelling at one another. Both were speaking French, which was a rarity; Marius was fluent, having learned from his mother whom, although born in the United States, was the daughter of parents born in the South of France.
Marius never spoke a word of it to me, though. In fact, I had only heard him speak in the foreign tongue on occasions that had nothing to do with me; where I, the simple passerby, stood at a distance. He used the language for two things, and two things only: seducing women, and fighting with his mother.
Footsteps thundered down the stairs. Marius was dressed; hair combed back; adjusting the buttons of his jacket as he gave one last glance into the dining room.
We looked at each other; his gaze softened, and glancing at my father he retreated into the kitchen.
Vivian was crying; my father, sighing, rubbed his temples. His gaze was on the tablecloth.
“Why has she never gotten in touch?” I asked quietly. “Not once. Not once since leaving has she bothered to even have the decency to give me a phone call. Nothing.”
My father stood, touching my cheek with a feeling of tenderness so foreign that it resulted in a queasy settling in my stomach.
“Do you want the truth?” he asked.
No, I thought. Nobody ever does.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I want the truth.”
His eyes fell on the window, where tire marks had burned a line into the already dark, mineral-speckled driveway.
“She didn’t want this anymore,” he answered. “She didn’t want to be my wife. She didn’t want to be a mother. She was tired of it, and although I will never entirely understand, she was one of those rare women capable of walking away without a single feeling of regret or remorse.”
My blood ran cold; my throat tightened. His hand fell, and in that span of time I wasn’t quite sure what to feel anymore. What emotions were proper, or how I could piece these puzzles together in the most efficient, quickest way possible so that I might be able to comprehend something, anything.
And yet, at the core of this anguished struggle, I acknowledged as I watched my father walk away that all of these inconsistencies, in their utter pain and fury, were the very fragile essence of being a teenager. Nothing quite made sense in that space between skull and brain; in the inner-workings of cells and neurons and the wires that sent every piece of information firing into action: a kiss, a scream.
The one thing I lacked was the one thing that made the most sense out of all the beautific horror that was my life.
When my father came downstairs, suitcase in tow, I looked at him.
“Thank you,” I chose to say, even though I didn’t exactly mean it or feel anything behind the two words. They simply slipped out. “I’m excited for Yale in the fall.”
He kissed my forehead; Vivian eventually came downstairs, still blotting away tears. After several moments spent between Vivian and my father half-bickering over where they would be going for dinner that evening, they departed for some estate situated across sprawling lawns and equally-sprawling skies.
The house rang with a dull silence; I closed my eyes and reminded myself to breathe. The action felt hollow; pelted by pixelated thoughts that were strewn throughout my head in a clash of past and present images.
My mother’s smile; white lilacs, ornate combs.
My father weeping.
My standing in a sea of shattered glass; broken angels and bellows through open windows.
A white-lace ball; a wooden cross; a chastity pledge made in vain.
Henry’s eyes tilted to the ground, a final farewell.
Marius floating in the pool of azure light; a crooked sm
ile directed towards a shadowed sky that hung like heavy bruises amidst the occasional dusting of stars.
White roses; a silver ring; an orgasm beneath scalding water.
Tyler’s laughter; his wrinkled tie; the firefly flicker of hope that rang throughout his entire disposition as the two of us were spinning in the blitz of colored light.
Mr. Tennant’s smile; eyes like two ink-stained fingertips pressed on white paper. Soft and sullen, perpetually pensive. His scent like crushed leaves.
A bet. A wager with more than just my own virtue at stake.
“Kaitlyn.”
Marius touched the back of my head gently, and I tilted my wilted, swollen face just enough to give him some kind of recognition. The tablecloth, white linen, was damp.
“Don’t take this as a sign of weakness,” I told him. “I fully intend on winning this.”
He stood quietly; idling as he knelt down to wipe away one of those tears that wanted to hang around forever.
“What are we?” I asked him. “What is this really about?”
“Pardon?” A single utterance of his foreign tongue. A sole gracing of the language I’d never know to speak or understand. “This is about you, and your freedom, and my ability to help make all your pretty, lovely dreams come true.”
I sat up, letting out a shuddering sigh.
“I just can’t bear the thought of ruining an innocent man’s life. I’m already feeling so tired.”
Marius chuckled, removing a pair of sunglasses from his back pocket and balancing them on two fingers.
“I wonder if he says the same thing about you,” Marius said. “If he’s so concerned about ruining your life when he gives you those over-the-moon eyes during stage practice, or the two of you are swept up doing whatever it is you do when you’re away from this place. Obviously not fucking. No, it’s something else.”
I stared at him. He slid the sunglasses on, his mouth twisting into something foul. Something unreadable.
“Choice,” Marius said, after pausing for a length of time that seemed slightly too drawn out. As if he were carefully selecting his next move; the piece to slide across a chessboard. “It’s more than just a word. It’s an action. It’s perhaps the one thing that joins all of us together in this little deviant game.”
I stood, reaching up and removing the sunglasses. Marius didn’t stop me; his hands, white-knuckled and clenched with forced intensity, slowly relaxed.
He touched my face, and I didn’t stop him.
“Would you really do it, though?” I asked him. “Would you really touch me?”
Marius stepped closer, his breath hinting of the hidden bottles of vodka that he kept particularly well-hidden.
“I am touching you,” he said, trailing his finger down my cheek and pausing at my throat. “And you’re touching me.”
I stepped away, and he stiffened; his black-clad frame resembling just a blank pigment of the boy who seemed so capable of filling an entire room with his arrogant, narcissistic smoke.
“Don’t go falling in love,” he said. “Nothing good comes out of letting emotions choke you.”
“You were always so good with humor,” I muttered. “Enjoy your father. At least he still wants you around.”
Marius grabbed his coat, our figures separated by a blade of light that cut through the floor-to-ceiling window. As he opened the door, he smiled at me with an expression that seemed to forget the exchange of words from only moments prior. Marius St. Vincent’s selective memory at its finest.
“And you were so sure about not having a heart,” he said. “Whatever. Ciao.”
With the sound of a door slamming and the loud peeling of tires against pavement, he was gone.
In my bedroom, I sifted through the series of text-messages between Mr. Tennant and I; amused, truthfully, at how tame everything was between us – all things considered. There were no lude confessions; no erotic exchanges about every little thing that we wanted to expose one another to. The things we wanted to do to each other.
I caught my expression in the mirror; dark hair surrounding alabaster skin; bled of any color from the bout of tears that still stained the tablecloth. My eyes were wide, surprised by the girl staring straight into her own reflection. Staring into the face of someone who was about to go the lengths of soaring past the delegated lines of student and teacher. All for the sake of freedom. All for the sake of something else, too. Something deeper.
It started with a game.
But now, I wasn’t sure what this was anymore.
I walked all the way to Mr. Tennant’s, pausing only to regard with an unshakeable uneasiness the emptiness of the park across the street. Even the swings were still; the bars void of any climbing, gleeful children.
I rang the bell, and he met me downstairs. He wore a sleepy smile along with his mess of black licorice hair; his T-shirt rumpled in spots. I figured he might have been napping.
“That park,” I said, pressing my lips together. “It always seems so empty.”
“Is that a suggestion?” he offered. “The park. Being empty.”
I smiled. We linked hands, and in the darkness I let my teacher push me on the swing-set; a delightful laughter singing along with the ribbon-whipping wind. The air smelled of smoke and grease, of all the things that one might be trying to avoid during an excursion to the park. The inescapable things.
When we went inside, he ordered Chinese; we ate out of the cartons using forks instead of chopsticks. Every time I noticed the visible sheen on his lips from oil or sauce, I kissed him. He smiled and kissed me back, our eyes both unfocused; glued to the projector screen that was playing Adrian Lyne’s Lolita, which Will adored.
Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin. My soul.
Lo-lee-ta.
As he was clearing the littered cartons, I softened and let myself seep in the familiar surroundings like a sea sponge. Soaking in the tang of dust polish and the sound of that damned, ticking clock.
I looked at the photos once more; at the girl with the light-brown hair and cordial-sweet face.
Will touched the back of my neck, and I closed my eyes, instantly flooded with a painstaking need to throw him down on the floor and have him right there. His touch, even the smallest brushing of skin against skin, had come to produce a maddening reaction that I both craved and resented. It was never enough.
“You’re awful quiet about your past,” I said softly. “About the people in your life before you came here.”
He smiled weakly.
“Would you care for a little more transparency, or would that be too much?”
“Would it?” I asked. “I don’t know. I don’t know much right now.”
Will stepped closer, his hands running down the sides of my face with an intricate, trembling tenderness. He wiped the stray strands from my eyes and kissed the lids when they fell in response; my sight giving way in exchange for the subtle touch of warm breath against my skin.
“Something’s wrong,” he said. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing and everything all at once.”
His fingers traced down my jawline, stopping at my chin, then drawing away. When I could no longer stand the sound of the giant ticking clock, I walked towards his bedroom; he followed, several paces behind, seeming hesitant. Uncertain.
We sat down on his unmade bed; gray cotton sheets and a white down comforter. The kind that makes you feel like you’re falling asleep on a cloud. I grabbed the single pillow and hugged it to my chest. It smelled of Will, and I buried my face into the fabric.
“Are you going to talk to me?” he asked quietly.
I looked at him, as he sat with his legs crossed; completely formal, with not a single hint of a man who wanted to get me out of my clothes or under the covers. There was an invisible wall, albeit saran-wrap thin, between us.
“Do you remember that night I first kissed you,” I said. His eyes lit up. “When I told you that I was a monster.”
�
��Yes,” he answered. “You said we both were.”
“Right.”
“Is that what you’re trying to tell me?” he asked. “That you’re some kind of monster?”
“I just -” I paused, swallowing. I thought briefly about the girl in the photograph, situated beneath the constant-ticking clock. I thought of the past; of string-sewn words and brash actions, and whether transparency was really valued as something worth valuing. As something worth throwing yourself on the line; or worse, hurting another person. Another human being. “I need to tell you something. Something about myself.”
Mr. Tennant touched the tips of my fingers with his own, his eyes on the white comforter.
“You don’t have to,” he said, after a minute or so had passed. “I don’t need to know.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “You don’t want to know?”
“I mean,” he said, pausing. His hair had fallen over his eyes; now shaggy, borderline too long. Too long to seem professional, and more fitting for the part of the moody musician. “I mean I already know.”
“And what is that?” I shifted closer, feeling his fingers enclose around a thin wrist. “What do you think you know?”
Will swallowed; his eyes darting briefly to my left hand, to the ring, before falling again on my face.
“You suffer, too,” he finally said. “You and me. We both do.”
A stark chill hung in the room, and yet an undeniable warmth radiated between our two bodies. A hungry, barren pull that seemed to draw the two of us together as it always had; and what stemmed it, exactly? The fact that he was a superior; a man arguably beyond my senior. That I was his student, his pupil; his minor even given the technical legalities. That I was, all things considered, an adult on paper.
We both suffered.
He was looking at me when my chin finally tilted upwards. Each movement, every centimeter that his fingers crept across my skin, was slow and agonizing.
“I want you,” I told him. “I want you right here. Right now.”