The Innocent

by Candice Raquel Lee

  “I’m tired,” she lied, shaking her head. She leaned against the window, away from me.

  She was leaving me. I would drop her off, and she would cancel tomorrow’s date, never to see me again and then she would die. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t. I knew that now. Even if she hated me, even if she became the most rabid succubus, I needed her to live. She had to live, so I could.

  “So what do you want to do tomorrow?” I asked, testing.

  “Tomorrow?” She said the word as though it would never come. She still stared out the window. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you want to do? I’m ready for anything,” I begged.

  She shook her head. I reached out and touched her hair. I had to pull her back.

  “Hey, hey,” I said, “Look at me.”

  She turned around, and there was such weariness in her expression. She was begging me to let her go, as if I could. As if when I drove her back to her dorm that would sever the tie between us. Even if I had the power to do it, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. If I could resist, I would be dead now. I’d defied the grave to be with her. I wasn’t letting her go, not for anything, not even for her.

  “It’s okay,” I said, and pulled her to me. I put an arm around her and kissed her hair. I held her. I could feel her breathing me in.

  “I don’t want to let you go yet,” I said, and then something happened. She clung to me, and I was certain tonight was the last night. I would be banished back to darkness. “Let’s go somewhere and talk.”

  “Where?”

  “Nobody is home at my place. We could sit on the couch.”

  She stopped moving.

  “It’s past one. Nothing else is open,” I told her.

  She looked up at me, then at the stores closing on the strip.

  “When are you going to trust me?” I asked her.

  She bit her lips. “I guess tonight.”

  I tried to smile past the bile and triumph mixing in my gut. I started the car. I drove one handed all the way home, with the other around her. I parked in my space in the underground lot then opened the car door for her. She looked around as though the place were haunted.

  “Boo,” I said to make her laugh.

  I led her to the elevator. We rode up in silence to the eleventh floor. I opened my apartment door, turned on the lights. Right before she stepped over the threshold, I picked her up and carried her over. It was the best I could do.

  Quia Amore

  He carried me into the living room. I’d been to his apartment once before for a few minutes when he had forgotten his cell phone. It was in a lovely old Gothic revival building that looked like a castle. Even the name of the place was great: Weatherfield. Inside, the apartment was all wood, old but new, modern with high ceilings and recessed lighting, but with dark cherry wainscoting. Four olive couches sat two on each side of a heavy coffee table.

  I loved his place. I had a secret hope of living here one day with him. Already, I was thinking that his car was mine. And now with his apartment, I couldn’t see anyone else in it but me. While he carried me, I wondered what it would be like to be his wife.

  “Can I get you anything?” he asked, setting me down on the closest couch.

  “Water would be nice.”

  “Sure.” He disappeared into the kitchen. I heard him washing a glass.

  Art covered the walls and hung over the fireplace—paintings of castles, knights and ladies—all originals. I studied them again. Then I walked over to the built-in bookcases that bracketed the living room. They were full from ceiling to floor. He had a thousand times more books than I did. I was a book nerd, but he was a bibliophile. I got up to read the titles. I was surprised to find that many of them were not in Modern English. There were medieval works and tomes in Latin, what could have been Ancient Greek, and other ancient languages. I didn’t dare touch them. He tapped my back with the cool glass, and I jumped. I hadn’t even heard him come back.

  I took the water, and he turned me around to the shelves again. “See anything you like? I know you love books. You may borrow as many as you want.”

  I perused but said nothing, knowing tonight to be my last night with him. I was too weak. I would fall into bed with him, and my mother would disown me. She had told me as much.

  Then Cristien put his arms around me. His touch made something howl in answer deep inside me. I felt so empty as if he were the only one who could fill me up. I couldn’t think when I was with him. All I wanted was for Cristien to hold me forever.

  But it was the wrong time in my life. I still had things to do. I had no time for love. Already I was way behind in my work. My midterm grades were less than stellar. I hardly looked at any of my pre-med texts anymore. I couldn’t concentrate on them. I was going to fail. I had to spend spring break studying or I would lose my scholarship, everything. I had to face the facts. I couldn’t be with him.

  In the past, I never had to worry. Guys didn’t seem to notice me, and I didn’t know they existed. But with Cristien, there was something beyond my control that kept me coming back to him, that tied me against my will to him.

  My mother would never understand. She would say Jewish girls just don’t do it. But what if you are a Jewish girl in love? All because I was a smart didn’t mean I didn’t feel, I didn’t want. Shylock had cried out in excess of pain, “If you prick us, do we not bleed!” But a Jewish girl was not allowed to be human, to say “you make me melt” and still have her mind want something else entirely?

  It was brain against body, and my brain had to win. I only hoped that there would be someone out there in my future who would make me feel the same way Cristien did.

  He would treat me like his favorite novel, a book worth reading over and over again and again. Sure, he liked my cover. I wanted him to, but I wanted him to like everything else too.

  I imagined him buying the book, studying it, quoting it, memorizing his favorite parts. He’d keep it with him always, like a Bible, hold it sacred even when the cover fell off and the book became bent with age and use. Maybe, he’d be buried with it. That’s all I wanted.

  I wished Cristien was that man, was my B’shert, but he wasn’t. Except, because Destiny had a wicked sense of humor, here I was with him holding me, and I was loving it. I knew it was the wrong, and yet biology wouldn’t let me go. I had learned all about the chemicals of lust. Dopamine. Norepinephrine. Serotonin. They flooded your system when it thought you had found an excellent gene carrier, a guy who would help you make strong healthy kids. That was all this was, a temporary insanity. It would go away. It wasn’t love. My body wanted him. That was all.

  I wasn’t teasing anyone but myself. I wasn’t torturing anyone but myself. Every time I tried to get away from him, it was like a bee stinging in self-defense. To defend myself I would have to disembowel myself. I would have to die.

  I knew I should tell him to take me home now. Right now. But I couldn’t find the words. I couldn’t make myself do it because when I left here I would never see him again. I couldn’t. The bee may die, bees by the hundreds, but as long as the Queen survived, the colony would go on. You could sacrifice everything but the Queen. I could sacrifice everything but my future. “Take me home now” was all I had to say. I only had to open my mouth and say it, say:

  “I didn’t know you read Latin.”

  “Quia amore langueo,” he recited, kissing my neck.

  “For love I languish,” I translated, shutting my eyes and shrugging from the thrills going up and down my spine. I was struggling to remember what I had learned about the poem in class, trying to think. “It’s about God’s love for the soul.”

  “I will wait till she be ready,” he whispered. “I will plead if she says no; if she is careless I will be greedy, if she is dangerous I will her pray; if she weep, then stay I no more: Mine arm been spread to pull her to me. Cry once, I come, now, soul assay! Quia amore langueo.”

  His lips reached for mine. I let them. I tasted them, wanting to cap
ture their flavor one last time. One last time to feel their soft fullness. With everything human in me crying no, no this cannot be the end, my fingers became claws in his shirt, daring me to try and open them.

  “Alexa. Alexa,” he sighed, his hands beginning to wander.

  I rubbed my cheek against his rough one, my nose against his neck. No, I couldn’t do this again. I had to start letting him go. I had to get out of his arms and start moving toward the door.

  “You haven’t shown me the rest of your place,” I said, disconnecting. “Then I should go.”

  He reluctantly released me and led the way. He took me to the kitchen, dragging me by the hand. The cabinets were cherry wood like the living room. The walls were painted a soft gray. The room was huge and a mess. I laughed at him, at the pile of dirty dishes and the empty pizza boxes on the black granite counter and island.

  “Three guys live here,” he said in explanation. Then he led me to the dining room. It was respectable, elegant, painted dark red and filled with century furniture. It stood opposite the kitchen and across the way from the living room. He led me back past the couches.

  “Down the hall is my study,” he told me, pulling me toward it.

  I stared down the dark corridor. There were probably a lot of things down that hall. He started walking. I kept still.

  “Come on,” he called. “Then we’ll leave.”

  He pulled me forward.

  “That’s Abe’s room,” he said pointing to the second closed door. Then he pointed to the third, “and that’s Lance’s. And this is mine.”

  He pushed open the first door in the hall and pulled me inside. He turned on the light. The walls of his room were wood paneled up to the coffered ceiling and edged by crown molding. It was dominated by a giant four poster bed.

  “I thought we were going to your study,” I said, hanging back.

  “It’s in my room,” he told me, waving his hand at a dark wood chair and desk. “My study.”

  The giant king-size bed was definitely the real feature. It was old, carved of solid wood, dark and beautiful, covered in ancient symbolic carvings. The sheets were pale blue. He let go of me and threw himself on the mattress, putting his hands behind his head.

  “Cristien?”

  “Lie down with me.”

  “I have to go,” I said.

  He was up and pulling me to the bed. “Sit and talk with me.”

  “About what?” I asked, when he dragged me down by him.

  “About our day tomorrow,” he said, facing me, “you still haven’t told me what you want to do. I’m dying to know.”

  I hated lying to him. I looked down, “I still don’t know.”

  “No suggestions, no desires? I’m not letting you go until you tell me,” he said, laughing and pulling me on top of him.

  “Cristien!” I scrambled to get up.

  He held me, pushed an errant hair from my face. “Kiss me. Kiss me one last time.”

  My heart stopped. I tried to read his eyes. Did he know what I was thinking? Did he know this was goodbye?

  “One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I’m after a prize tonight,” he said softly, kissing my eyes, my nose, my lips as he quoted “The Highwayman.” “But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light; yet if they press me sharply and harry me through the day, then watch for me by moonlight I’ll come to thee by moonlight though hell should bar the way.”

  He said the last part with such intensity, almost from between his teeth, and yet he didn’t frighten me at all. He was perfect. That was all I could think, and he knew all my favorite poems. I gave up. I kissed him in return. He inhaled sharply and crushed me. My resolve to go vanished.

  His hands were desperate, in my hair, over my face. Then he pulled us up to our knees. He tore off his shirt and pants and started after my dress. He was so beautiful. I had never seen anything like him, bathed in the light of his room, in his full glory. There was no idol as perfect. And I, I was a mere supplicant, a poor worshiper, beguiled and befuddled by the holy architecture. I admired with my hands.

  He tossed me down on the bed. I didn’t know myself when I was with him. I became another Alexa, a different animal. My body moved, and I came along. I had no mind. I was the flute upon his lips, according to his touch, his breath, I yielded. I was determined to trust him. Or maybe it had nothing to do with trust.

  He was leading me down the garden path. I had no idea what was at the end. I had never been there. I was curious. Perhaps I wanted a peek. And he was my gorgeous guide, through the madness of my body. He turned me. He lifted me. I tried to keep up. It was like falling through the air. There was nothing to hold on to. All I could do was feel him all around me, rushing past me. I never wanted it to stop. He moved his body over mine, and still I trusted. He knew that I would only let him take me so far.

  Yet we went farther than ever. A part of me wondered how I could. But I had no choice. I wanted something more than anything, and it wasn’t my virginity. I wanted to know he loved me as much as I loved him.

  I had drawn a line in the sand. A line I would not cross. A line I trusted that he wouldn’t try to cross either. I was betting that he cared for me more than he knew. I was betting that I was right to love him as much as I did and that I was right to trust him. I would give him a chance. For that, I would go to the brink.

  Maybe I shouldn’t risk it. Maybe it made no sense. Maybe what I was asking of him was beyond human endurance. I didn’t know. All I knew was that it wasn’t beyond me. I would wait until he proved himself worthy, and only then I would give him my body, my soul, my heart. So, what I was asking of Cristien was a price, a price for my ability to love him forever. It was that nothing would be beyond him, especially respecting my one wish. We would have to be equals.

  I knew that people said love should be unconditional, given like a dog gives to its master, but what Being could give that way? What could love though it had been kicked and beaten? What could go kissing the hand of its tormenter with upturned eyes? I didn’t know. Perhaps Jesus, perhaps the Dalai Lama, but I couldn’t. I had a condition, the way life has conditions to live, the body must have certain conditions to grow, and Cristien had to meet mine or I could not live. I could not.

  I felt him over me, his lips over me, his hands over me. His body pressing against the door to my body. I was losing awareness of everything but the pleasure of that rhythmic pressure blazing through me, and something was happening to me, something that had never happened before. I felt his hand slip down to remove my underwear.

  “Cristien?” He didn’t answer me. “Cristien. Stop,” I said, kicking and hitting him until he climbed off.

  “Alexa, please. You don’t understand,” he said.

  Oh, I understood. He didn’t love me. He just wanted sex. Now, I knew. Now, I had my answer. I put on my clothes and ran back to the living room. I had left my purse on the couch. I had to dial for a cab. I couldn’t fall apart yet.

  “Alexa where are you going?” he called. “Nothing happened.”

  Didn’t it? I thought. You took any hope I had that you cared for me. You took away my dream of us forever together. You’ve hurt me more than anyone else could because I’ve never loved anyone else. You’ve destroyed me. I gambled, and I lost. I was insane, and I was a fool. I let you touch me, and now I could never forget or ever let you do it again. I wanted to die.

  “I’ll take you home,” he said, pulling his shirt on as he came up beside me.

  I kept my eyes on my bag, searching for my phone. I found it. My hands were shaking. I started dialing 411. He took it from me and put it back in my bag.

  “I said I’ll take you home.”

  I looked up at him.

  “Come on.” He opened the door. I followed. He held the elevator for me. I wanted to sneer at him—what a gentleman—but I was beyond sarcasm at this point. I was beyond everything civil and sane. We got into his car. He opened my door then walked over to his side and got in. He pulled into the
street.

  “Alexa. I have to tell you something . . .” he began, but I cut him off.

  “If you wanted to steal something from me, why didn’t you just come out and take my money? At least that would be kinder. Maybe you could have started with my watch, or my purse, or my shoes. At least, I would have known who I was dealing with then.” And because I no longer knew what I was saying or doing, I started throwing things at him. “If you’re going to be a thief why don’t you take it all?”

  I wanted to hit him, hurt him, but I didn’t want to touch him. I threw the contents of my bag at him. He turned away, but he did not defend himself. He let the things hit him. After he parked in front of my dorm, he gathered up everything and returned them to me. I took them, opened the car door and left.

  I couldn’t wait for the elevator. He was watching, and I didn’t want him to see me fall apart. I ran to the stairs and bolted up two at a time. By the second floor, I lost momentum and collapsed sobbing on the filthy steps. I don’t know how long I lay there. It took several attempts and some crawling to get back to my room. I fell on my bed, clutched CJ. Sobs ripped through me. I don’t remember much after that.

  Unfortunately, morning came. The first thing I did was call my mother and ask if I could come home. It was Friday. This week was Spring Break. I was going to stay in here and study and . . . I couldn’t stay in my room all that time alone.

  “What’s the matter, honey?” My mother asked when she picked up.

  “Nothing. I just want to come home for spring break.”

  She paused. I could hear her thinking, but she said, “Of course, dear. You know you don’t have to ask.”

  I took a cab to the express bus and rode down to Brooklyn. My home was more than an hour away. I looked out the window and silently wiped at my tears the whole time while the city faded away to bleak gray houses. My mom was waiting for me at the bus stop.

  As the bus pulled up, I could see she was still wearing her work clothes, a black jacket and dress. She always kept her blonde hair cut short though she’d look prettier with longer hair. She was shorter than me and heavy set, good for hugging if she didn’t hate physical contact.