by Carol Robi
“You don’t believe me,” he finally says.
“You just.. your story has holes, Gauthier.” He laughs lightly at this while I sip at my water.
“What holes?”
“I can’t quite place my hands on it. But it does.” Now he laughs more openly, staring at me over his glass of water.
“You’re clever,” he says. “I like that.”
It’s my turn to chuckle.
“You thought I was stupid?” I ask with a frown.
“I hoped you weren’t,” he says.
“So why exactly did you ask me out anyway? Are you one of those shallow cute boys for whom looks is all that tips the scales on whom they want to date?”
“I am glad you think me a cute boy,” he surprises me by saying. I shake my head now, unable to resist the urge to smile. “And no,” he proceeds to say. “I’m not as superficial as that.”
I make the mistake of meeting his eyes, and I’m completely unable to look away this time.
“You- I was interested, ‘tis all,” he simply explains, interlocking his gloved fingers together against the edge of the table.
“Interested in what?” I ask him, my eyes never straying from his, our food forgotten, going cold on our plates.
“To learn more about you,” he says. “Now please eat up, because I have something to show you.”
It’s a struggle to look away, but I eventually do, and resume eating in silence.
“What do you want for dessert?” He asks.
“I’m too stuffed for dessert,” I tell him, laughing nervously.
“Come on. No one forgets to leave room for dessert!”
“I do,” I say laughing, making the mistake of meeting his eyes again.
“Oh Yeah? You do that often?”
“Yes, I do.” I admit, unable to break the trance his gaze holds me in. “More often than I should.”
He now smiles, a happy one, rather than a confident one, and for the first time I see him blink and look away. It is the first time he’s visibly shown that I too do have an unnerving effect on him.
He clears his throat.
“Then come on. There’s a place I’d like to show you,” he says, and my interest is piqued.
“What place?” I ask, rising from my seat as he does so too. I then notice that he doesn’t move to pay, and none of the staff raise a question about that. Maybe his family does indeed own the place.
“Where are we going?” I ask, rushing to keep up with him as he zigzags his way between the tables and heads towards what must be the service area. Nobody stops us when we walk through steel doors labelled Personnel Only. Not even when we walk through a very busy kitchen area, where people call out hellos to him in the middle of all the helter-skelter of activities, my burning necessity to be close to him the only thing that expertly manouvers me safely between the hectic traffic after him, until we burst through large steel doors once again, and emerge into a long empty corridor with dim lighting.
An unsettling silence settles over us once the steel doors swing shut behind us, and suddenly cold air slaps me, greatly contrasting the warm air of the kitchen we’ve just been rushing through. That and the dim lighting and overly shadowed corners of this empty corridor quickens the apprehension settling into my senses. My heart begins to pick up its pace almost immediately, and my goosebumps rise. An involuntary shiver courses through me, as my head screams at me to stop. I do stop.
My whole being, my mind and body, scream at me to run, to run as far away and as fast as I can. So I start to turn, and do just that, right before he speaks.
“Stop.” The word is said so simply, so low, that I’d never have taken any heed of it if my whole body had not frozen on the spot. And try what I may, I am unable to move a single inch.
Panic pumps in my blood, hot and thick, and my mind runs wild as I realise I am dreaming again. I must be. There is no other explanation. Why am I dreaming again? Why now? When did the dream start? Did I ever come for a date? Did I ever meet Gauthier? When did the dream really start? Does Gauthier even exist? What’s the last thing I remember before sleeping?
I feel the same pull again, the pull of my dreams, much stronger than before. More intense this time.
“Please,” he says softly. “Come to me.”
I turn to him curiously, involuntarily, studying him, as the words he says swim around me, arresting me from going anywhere else, forcing my feet to take a step closer to him, and yet another, until the loose hem of my sweatshirt is brushing against his well-fitting pants.
“Am I dreaming?” I ask him with a shaky voice. My heart plummets even lower when he shakes his head before he answers.
“No,” he says. “You aren’t dreaming.”
“I don’t understand.” My voice has a calmness in it that is not my own. My whole being wants to revolt, scream, lash out, but I’m imprisoned by his gaze. Immobilised in place.
“I know,” he tells me, with eyes so sad and dark.
“What’s happening to me? Who are you?”
“I’ll explain later. I promise to explain it all. Right now I need you to come with me.” I look at him in panic when I feel myself lean even closer to him, despite all my wishes, my mind crying out unheard, my limbs acting on their own accord. I feel like a marionette. A mindless puppet.
“I have no choice.” My voice is barely a whisper.
“No, no you don’t,” he admits sadly.
“Why not?”
“Because I.. because you couldn’t resist me even if you tried.” He must have seen the way my face falls at this, or the flash of panic in my eyes. “Don’t worry. I’ll never- I’d never.. no harm will come to you. I promise you..”
“I want to go home,” I urge again in a whisper. I am screaming inside, but he is controlling me against raising my voice. I feel the restriction, though I can’t quite place a finger to it.
“I know you want to go home. And you will. Just not at this moment,” he says before stepping forward, turning behind to look at me, before proceeding. And despite all my inhibitions, my feet start moving, and I follow him.
The dark corridor is long, painfully long and silent. Long enough for all sets of scenarios to cross my mind, silent enough for me to hear the constant thumping of my heart against my chest. The echo of our footsteps is like a timer of my impending doom. The deeper in the corridor we go, the further we keep walking, the less I believe that I’ll ever make it back into my mother’s protective hands.
We have been walking for a while when I see a door approaching ahead. An identical door, steel double doors, to the one we left behind. It is that realization that causes me to relax a little, a suspicion that I could be dreaming after all. Gauthier could be a figment of my imagination. A coping mechanism, that my psychiatrists are always so eager to talk about. My heart slows down as we walk the last few steps to the door, and my mind embraces the idea that this might be the hoop I need to jump in order to wake up from this new nightmare. I just need to go through the door, and it will all be alright. I’ll wake up.
I stop the very moment Gauthier stops. He has an unexplainable hold over me. One that forces my limbs to do as he wishes, and ignore my own.
“You’re not scared anymore,” he says, turning towards me hopefully. “You trust me.” This second part he says hesitantly. I shake my head at him in answer.
“No, I don’t trust you. But I believe that when I walk out through those doors, I’ll wake up,” I tell him happily. His face falls. His eyes darken with sadness again.
“No, leman.” I start at the use of the name I first heard in my dream at the lake some weeks ago. “You aren’t dreaming,” is all he says before he pulls the doors open.
A wave of warmth and music blasts out, slapping at my figure, overpowering the rising tide of fear in me, drawing me inside despite the incessant screams in my head to step back.
I feel the wetness on my cheeks before I realize that I am crying when Gauthier stops just inside of the storage
room we find ourselves in, the doors slipping shut behind us.
“Don’t fight it,” he says, a voice so pained as though he understands how I feel. How could he? How could anyone?
“Trust me,” he proceeds to say again. “I’ll never hurt you. I’ll never let anyone hurt you,” he whispers, stepping closer to me, brushing a tear away with a hanky that he pulls from his pant pockets, draped over the tip of his gloved fingers, leaving behind a trail of a burning sensation where it grazes my skin. “Soon you’ll understand,” he says before proceeding to walk on, my feet following him obediently.
“Good evening, Mr. Cynebald!” A guy that bursts through a door ahead calls when he sees us, bearing in his hands a large box of something.
“Good evening, Hunter! How often must I tell you to just call me Gauthier?”
“Sorry,” the guy says smiling.
“Slow night?” Gauthier asks, not missing a step.
“Yeah, luckily,” he answers with a smile, before dropping the box onto an empty pallet on the floor and walking out the doors again.
See, I tell myself. That guy looked normal enough. He looked free, not like a puppet at all. Gauthier may not kill you after all.
The storage area is large, and we are still crossing it when another young man, just slightly older than us, bursts through the doors and walks over to us, a curious expression on his face. He stops right before us, assesses me, no studies me, with the same intensity in his eyes that Gauthier tends to have. He studies me from head to toe, stopping at my eyes when he’s finally done.
“She looks scared,” he says, an almost amused look playing at his lips. I take an instinctive step closer to Gauthier, which surprises all of us, and in his eyes there flashes something akin to pleasant surprise.
“Of course she is,” Gauthier answers the dark eyed stranger, whose long wavy hair fans his face, eyes burning with interest.
“She’s beautiful too,” the stranger chuckles under his breath, producing an unnerving sound that causes my lips to visibly tremble. He starts lifting a finger as though to touch my face, a gloved hand too, I note, but Gauthier moves quickly and slaps it away.
“Don’t touch her, Hemming!” He says in a near growl that surprises me. I’ve never heard him speak like that before.
The stranger chuckles again.
“You like her already. It would be unfortunate if she’s not the one..”
“She’s the one!” Gauthier snaps, the whispered voice that says these words has a chilling effect on me. The stranger chuckles yet again, clearly amused by Gauthier’s reaction.
“Calm down, tiger! Come on,” he says turning. “Father will be glad to meet her.”
I turn to Gauthier questioningly, but he’s already walking again, is soon pushing the door ahead open, and I am forced to follow. I hurry after him, the stranger walking behind me scaring me, the music now blaring even louder in the narrow corridor we find ourselves in, and I realize we must be in a nightclub of sorts.
I was right. We are in a nightclub, I now confirm when we emerge from the door at the end of the narrow corridor into a dance floor that I’d describe as very busy on one side, contrary to what Hunter had said, and a raised VIP section of sorts on the other side, separated by an empty floor space that we now find ourselves standing in.
My feet fight to keep up with their commander, as he walks forward briskly, every now and then sending a pained gaze my way. I note how some skimpily dressed women in the club send him longing come-hither looks, and it infuriates me so much that my fists clench possessively, surprising myself at my jealousy reaction.
There’s is a fury about me in my intent to remain by his side that scares me. It feels as though it is the most important thing in the world. As though the idea of anyone touching him in any way will drive me utterly insane. I do not want any of the women, or men, in the club to get any ideas.
Gauthier is mine! I want to scream. My leman! The sentiment scares me, and the use of a word whose meaning I am unfamiliar with shocks me, causing me to hesitate just long enough that my feet stop following after him. Gauthier stops too, and turns to give me a reassuring nod just barely noticeable in the dim lighting.
“Come,” he says, beckoning me with an outstretched hand. “It’s alright. You’re with me now. I’ll never let anything happen to you.”
I then take a step forward and lift my face to look up.
Chapter 9
I see him. The king. The father. I know he is the one. Sitting there at the head of the table, next to a middle-aged woman and man on one side, and Hemming, the guy I met earlier who now rushes to sit at his father’s other side.
Looking at them, I now know that Gauthier is not like me. Neither is Hemming, nor that woman. There is something off with these people- these beings. Something untoward. Something different. Something not fitting.
“Father!” Gauthier calls, and the man, the being, rises to his feet, the rest of them on that table stop their conversation, drop their hands, and turn to face us.
My eyes sweep through them, but no detail of their being registers in my mind for my attention once again reverts to the man that is at the centre of the table- the centre of the whole room. I take note of his dark long hair also held in a loose ponytail, before I trace the hard angles of his face with my eyes, which then zoom in to his eyes and I start back with shock.
Bleeding orange eyes look back at me. The eyes in my nightmare.
I squirm inside, and though nothing of my stance changes, Gauthier impossibly senses my emotions, and steps closer to me.
“Gauthier,” I cry in a whisper, and he turns to look at me curiously. His face registers concern when he sees the fear in my eyes.
“What’s wrong, leman?” He asks endearingly.
“His eyes,” I say in a whisper, my voice trembling, my courage gone.
“I know,” he says. “Don’t be scared..”
“He is my nightmare..” I say, looking up to Gauthier’s face, searching his eyes, begging them for help.
“No, love,” Gauthier now says quietly, tracing a gloved finger covered by the hanky in his hand across my cheek to capture yet another tear I hadn’t known had escaped me.
“I am,” he simply says instead, and his dark eyes change into the same bleeding orange that causes my breath to catch at my throat in panic, my head to scream so loud, cry, the wailing inside me resonating in time with the throbbing in my veins, as all I want is to flee, but my body fails me. Betrays me. I never make a sound.
“Don’t be frightened,” he whispers, but his control of my muscles does not transfer to my mind. My mental faculties are still my own. And I am not frightened, I am terrified!
“Sophia,” he tries again, his voice heartbreakingly soft, but I am beyond his persuasions right now. I am not only panic-stricken, I hate him. I hate him for terrorizing me this way. For taking away my control, for making me feel so helpless and vulnerable. For coming into my life and scattering it into a million pieces again, just when I’d begun to gather them together after dad. I hate him.
“Gauthier, my son.” The firm voice that sounds causes me to turn away from his eyes and hurt expression, to catch his father approaching with arms spread out, enclosing him in a warm hug when he reaches up to us.
“Father,” is all Gauthier say in answer against his father’s arms, and I just make out his forehead under the dark coat his father wears.
They pull back from the embrace, but his father keeps holding his shoulders, keeping him close as they speak.
“You finally found her,” the father says.
“I did,” the son answers. I note to myself that the father doesn’t look that much older than his son. He doesn’t look much like his son either.
“After all these centuries.” My face clouds at those words, my heart throbs, as my mind ponders over the implication of those words.
“Yes, father. I really think she’s the one.”
The older man’s attention now turns towards m
e, releasing his grip on his son’s shoulders and stepping closer to me. My attempts to step away are once again futile as I find myself arrested in place, dreading his proximity.
“She’s a beauty,” the father says, leaning his head to his side as he studies me some more, and I feel myself as though a lab specimen. It unnerves me that the party at the nightclub goes on behind me, as though no one can see us, is seeing what is going on here.
“What’s your name, child?” His father asks me. I will myself to remain quiet, my jaw moves to speak regardless. Traitorous body.
“Sophia. Sophia Torres,” I say.
“Sophia,” the older man repeats. “That’s a beautiful name,” this he says to his son beside me.
“It is,” Gauthier confirms.
“Have you touched her?” He asks.
“No. But I got as close as I could.”
“And.”
“I nearly tore myself apart trying to keep away,” he rasps with what sounds like great torture. My breath catches at my throat when he says this. I turn to stare at him, finding it hard to believe that it’s me bringing such strong sentiments to his voice.
I then think back to the night at the lake when a strange boy had emerged in the shadows and tried to touch my face, only stopping short. I remember how he’d struggled. Blessed heavens! He’d cussed in a whisper. My presence had affected him greatly. Maybe he is as much enslaved to me as I am now to him.
“You’re greatly affected,” father tells son.
“Greatly so,” son admits uninhibited. “She’s breathtaking.”
“That she is,” father says, reaching out his gloved hands towards my face, then stopping just an inch away, as though changing his mind.
“My son tells me you’re the vixen he’s been waiting for all his life,” this he directs to me, his face changing angles as he slowly walks around me, his face held so close to mine that his warm breath fans me.
“I.. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.
“You don’t, do you now?” I don’t answer him, for I doubt he expects an answer. “Look at you, so scared,” he continues. “Wondering what we could possibly want to do to you.”