The Innocent

by Candice Raquel Lee

  “Turn around,” he whispered, saying those two words as if they were one.

  I turned my eyes down.

  “Look at me. I want you to live in my eyes from now on,” he told me.

  I looked up, and there I was, bound in green, captured by his love. He lifted me again, carried me to the bed and laid me down. I slipped under the covers quickly. He started undoing his clothes. He undid his tie, tossed his shirt, but got caught in his cummerbund.

  “Help me,” he called.

  I unfastened and threw it away. We tore away his pants, starting to laugh. I flung his dark socks across the room. There was one piece left. With a jerk of his hand his underwear was gone, and then he knelt for a moment looking really proud. I hadn’t seen Longfellow in broad daylight before. He was even more impressive than he had felt.

  “It’s about time we formally introduce Miss Emily Dickinson to Mr. Wadsworth Longfellow, don’t you think?” he said, lying down beside me. He waited for me to pull him down, to kiss his mouth.

  “Don’t close your eyes,” he whispered and began to tease me until I was mindless and moaning.

  Still, I must admit some part of me was scared to pieces. I was not actually looking forward to sex. I’d seen a program on PBS when I was twelve that showed an old-fashioned Middle Eastern wedding where the bride and groom left for five minutes after the wedding and came back. The bride was screaming and crying in agony when she returned, and the men were celebrating with the bloody sheet. So, I was simply hoping to survive this night without throwing up.

  But Cristien was gentle, gentler than rain falling on my skin. After he had finished kissing my breasts, he went lower between my thighs. It felt shockingly good, almost overwhelming. I was so sensitive there. I cried out, clawed his shoulders, and pulled his hair.

  This was the pleasurable part, but like everything, the pleasure had to end. Cristien slid over me and placed himself against the doorway of my body. Slowly, achingly he made his way inside me. I felt the burning and stretching, the pain.

  Nobody knew why there was pain the first time. Many men had speculated. But now that I lay under Cristien, our bodies becoming one, as mine made room for him, as he gave and I took, I think I understood. The first time with someone was not about sex. It was about trust, that I had trusted the right man to understand what I was sacrificing.

  The pain was significant. It made this about love, how much I loved him that I would even suffer a little for him, that he loved me enough not to give in to his unbridled lust. He would control himself for my sake and make it as easy on me as it could be: the give and take of love. Even in this the most physical moment of my life, spiritual love had made a difference.

  And then everything changed. I felt it, a deep pleasurable movement in my own body, heard it, a groan from Cristien’s throat, an impossibility in his eyes. Then the physical and spiritual met and obliterated each other. It destroyed the difference between him and me. I don’t know what happened to us, but there was no us. There was only one thing, beyond joy, pain, and death. He fell into me, and I into him like two droplets of water. We melded. It was the pleasure of every cell, every atom singing a hymn to the stars. It was an explosion, an implosion. It was an eternity of bliss.

  I woke to myself, seemingly when my soul returned to my body. And the raptures of the day before came back to me. All I could think was how? How had I survived that? How had I remained conscious? Would it always be that way? I hoped so. It was better than anything I had ever experienced. It was beyond human bearing. It was enlightenment. Then I remembered a Buddhist koan I had learned years ago: “Before enlightenment, sweep, clean, cook. After enlightenment, sleep, clean, cook.”

  It was time to get up. I stretched a little, not wanting to wake Alexa. I could feel her near my side. I rolled toward her. I peeled her hair from her face. Her cheeks were rosy. She was my blushing bride, I mused. I put my hand lightly across her skin and felt the heat radiating from it.

  “Alexa?” I touched the sheet over her. It was sopping wet. I lifted her from the bed. Her head fell back.

  “Alexa?” I patted her cheek. “Honey, can you hear me?”

  She didn’t respond. I checked her pulse: slow but alive. I laid her back down, raced to the bathroom that was connected to our room. I grabbed a towel and ran cold water on it. I returned to her and rubbed it over Alexa’s face, over her chest and wrists. I left it on her head while I looked for a phone. I stood staring at my cell, not being able to remember Chandraswami’s number. I had to go to the internet to get it. It rang too many times before he picked up.

  “Hello?”

  “Alexa’s sick,” I told him. You said it would be all right. I trusted you. You said I had nothing to fear.

  “Cristien?”

  “She’s not waking up. She’s burning up.” She can’t die because of me. Not like the others did.

  “What is her temperature?”

  “I don’t know. It isn’t normal.” Please help her.

  “I have to see her. Can you bring her here?”

  “I’m in the Hamptons.”

  “What are you doing there?”

  “Having my honeymoon. I’ll meet you in an hour or so, as soon as I can in Manhattan, at my place.” I gave him the directions. “Apt 11F.”

  “Yes. I’ll be there.”

  I hung up. I went back to Alexa. I turned the cloth on her head to the cooler side. I dialed Lance.

  “Huh?” he said sleepily.

  “Alexa’s sick. I’m meeting the doc over there in an hour.”

  I heard him sit up. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. She won’t wake up.”

  “What did the doctor say?”

  “He wants to see her. I’ve got to go. I’ve got to hurry.”

  “Okay, dude. I’ll be waiting.”

  I got dressed in a T-shirt and blue jeans, the first things my hands touched. I ran to the garage to get my fastest car, a blue Bugatti Chiron. Then I wrapped the sheet around Alexa and carried her downstairs. I put her in the front seat and strapped her in. Then I hit the gas and didn’t take my foot off until I was in Manhattan. I raced by cops. I made sure their radar guns would not have picked up anything anyway, and besides that I killed their engines as I whizzed by. I was in Manhattan exactly an hour later. I rushed into the elevator of my building with Alexa still limp in my arms. When the doors opened on my floor, Lance was there waiting.

  “He’s here,” he said, ushering me in.

  I put Alexa on the couch. The doctor moved in immediately, his delicate fingers going to her neck. A frown shadowed his face. He picked up her hands, rubbed them together. Then he rubbed her feet. He turned her over, pulled the sheet from her spine. He waved his hand up and down. I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “What’s wrong?” I demanded.

  “Quiet,” he said, moving his hand up and down again. Alexa moaned. Then she said my name.

  “I’m here,” I said, kneeling by her though I didn’t deserve to be that close to her.

  Chandraswami laid her back down.

  “How are you?” he asked me.

  I shook my head in confusion. I wasn’t the one unconscious, “Fine.”

  “Your wings?”

  “It’s daylight,” I told him.

  “Try,” he said.

  I took off my shirt and they came out behind me. Wings in the day? I turned around. They looked whiter than usual.

  “Whoa,” Lance said. “When did you get feathers?”

  “Feathers?” I stretched one out, touched it. I had feathers like an angel.

  Chandraswami came over to inspect me, “Hmm, good. Healthy, clean. Very good.”

  He turned back to Alexa and lifted her up again, turned her so her back was to him. He touched places on her spine, and her wings emerged, but they were malformed, only half feathered and patchy, not full wings but something in between an angel’s wings and a succubus’. He touched her again, and they were gone. He laid her back down.<
br />
  “She was still a bit human when the change came. It is harder for her to assimilate the divine energy. Her human part is resisting. For you, it is easier. You have lived with divine energy for so long. Your body craves it. For her, it is more difficult. And then, your older energy is more powerful than if you had been a younger incubus. It is a potent draught for her, but she will be fine. She is coming along nicely, better perhaps than would be expected.”

  “I don’t understand. If it’s spiritual energy, why is she physically sick?” I asked, though I was relieved. It was not my fault. I hadn’t hurt her. I hadn’t hurt her.

  “The physical is a manifestation of the spiritual. All illness, all pain is first the outcry of the spirit.”

  “Is she going to be okay?” I asked.

  “Oh yes. I said so,” Chandraswami remarked, going through his bag. “I will make you a few medicines. They will help speed the process. I wish you could have brought her to the clinic. I do not have all I need. But I will make something now, and then you can get the other later.”

  He took out his colorful vials and started mixing. I wondered if it would taste like me to Alexa. He brought his concoction to her lips. A wispy red smoke came from her mouth when she drank. Her body lost some of its tension, and her eyes fluttered open.

  “Honey,” I cried, moving into her sight.

  “Cristien?” she asked. Then she looked at Chandraswami and Lance. “What are they doing here on our honeymoon?”

  “We actually came back to bother Lance a little earlier than we expected to.”

  “I feel hot,” she said, touching her face.

  “I could make a joke right now,” I said. “But I think I’ll refrain till you’re feeling better.”

  “What’s wrong with me?”

  Chandraswami put his hand on the top of her head in a fatherly fashion.

  “Nothing. You are simply becoming a demigoddess,” he told her cheerfully.

  “Oh,” she said, then, “Sleepy now.” She closed her eyes.

  “Is that normal?” I asked him.

  “I put her to sleep,” he told me. “It is best that she sleeps now. The change will go more easily.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “A few days, a week,” he shrugged. “I don’t really know. I have never heard of such a case where a mortal has become a demigoddess in one step. She is very special and unique. She must have very good karma. Don’t tell her though. It will only feed her ego, which we all must conquer.”

  With that, he got up and collected his things. He put a hand on my shoulder. “My friend, you still have not come to my house for dinner. I will hold you to that.”

  He nodded to Lance. Then he stopped, looked from Alexa to Lance again.

  “Don’t,” I told him.

  “But, perhaps you don’t know . . .”

  “Believe me. We know,” I said, ushering him to the door.

  “But their energy is so similar,” he continued. “And she has his nose.”

  “They aren’t ready,” I whispered to him.

  “We are never ready for the truth.”

  “Maybe after she’s better,” I suggested.

  Chandraswami shrugged then clasped my hand. “Call me if anything changes and come for the medicine. Oh, and feed her soup. When she is stronger, when she fully wakes, she may have cravings. Get her whatever foods she wants, as much as she wants. Yes, I think that is all. Yes, I am going now.”

  He walked to the stairs and disappeared.

  Listening

  I carried Alexa to our old room, laid her down, made her comfortable, then went to make soup. Lance was waiting for me in the living room. I grabbed my shirt, got rid of my wings and put it on. He followed me to the kitchen.

  “Sorry,” I told him. “I didn’t mean to come back this soon.”

  “I’m glad you did. It’s kind of quiet around here,” he said, staring at me.

  “What?” I asked when he continued to watch me.

  “What what?” he asked in return.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “You look different,” he said, squinting.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re brighter. It hurts the eyes a little.”

  “Oh, sorry.” I didn’t know what to do about that. “Do you want us to leave?

  He shook his head. “Not at all, but it’s weird being a poor little incubus among gods.”

  “Demigods,” I corrected.

  “You don’t see me any differently?”

  “No, you’re Lance, like always. You okay?”

  “I guess so. It just doesn’t seem right. My daughter has made it to a higher plane than me. Isn’t there an order to these things?”

  “Your daughter?”

  “Why fight fate?” he said, shrugging.

  “So, I’m your son-in-law?”

  “Yeah, and did you ask me for her hand in marriage? I want some more respect from you, dude, or else.”

  “Or else what?” I asked.

  “I’ll turn my daughter against you,” he smiled.

  “Easier for me to turn her against you.”

  “True,” he sighed. “I have some charming to do, but she caught me off guard. So did her mom.” He leaned against the counter, stunned. I started pulling vegetables from the fridge.

  “I don’t envy your situation,” I told him, while I washed a stalk of celery.

  “Dude, I’ve been around, what, fifty years, and I have one kid I know of. You’ve been around eight-hundred years. Do the math.”

  “But I don’t remember anyone that made me look twice.”

  “I didn’t remember her either until I saw her again. That was a good time though,” he said dreamily. “She was so hot and eager.”

  “See, I’ve had no good times. And don’t let Alexa ever hear you say that.”

  He laughed roguishly. “Come on, you’re kidding. Not one woman? Alexa’s asleep. You can be honest.”

  “With her dad? You are joking? As far as you’re concerned I was a virgin on our wedding night,” I said, taking a knife and starting to dice a carrot. Then the laughing face of Gela, a Lenape girl with gray eyes like Alexa’s came to me. She had known what I was and still welcomed me to her bed. Then she and her people were gone. Wiped out in a day. I blinked and the memory faded. “Get a pot and fill it with water, will you? Make yourself useful.”

  “This is my house. I don’t have to do anything,” Lance said, getting the pot, filling it with water and putting it on the stove.

  “I’m glad I’m home,” I said.

  “Me too,” he yawned and turned up the flame under the pot.

  Alexa slept most of the day. I got my unpacked luggage from the car, the clean laundry her mother had sent with her and her teddy bear. I still hated him, but since she loved him so much I let him live. Still, his days were numbered. I told him I was going to be the only thing she slept with, held all night and played with from now on. He still looked quite smug when I put him in her arms.

  She woke around lunchtime for an hour, finished half a bowl of soup and passed out again. This was not how I had envisioned my honeymoon. Well, the watching her was the same, and some of the writhing on her part, but I had pictured me in bed with her, being watched and writhing too. I went to get the meds from Chandraswami. I left Lance with her. He was sleeping in a chair by her bed when I closed the door.

  It sounded like a train was going by or maybe they were doing construction somewhere. I wanted to ignore it, I was so tired, but it got louder and louder, until I woke up. I found Lance’s sitting by my bed snoring.

  “Hey,” I yelled. “Hey!”

  It only made him snore louder. I threw Cristien’s pillow at his face, and he finally opened his eyes.

  “You’re snoring,” I accused.

  “I never snore,” he said, sitting up and wiping his mouth on the pillow. “You know snoring is hereditary.”

  “I don’t snore,” I said, rubbing my e
yes.

  “That’s not how Cristien tells it.”

  “Are you trying to get him in trouble?” I asked, struggling to sit up. He gave me a hand and fluffed my pillow.

  “Yes,” he smiled, sitting down again. “Besides, he didn’t have to say anything. I heard you every night.”

  “Aw, you need pointers? Is that why you had your ear glued to the wall?”

  “No. I could hear you in the elevator when I was coming home,” he grinned.

  “Why don’t you lay off the Viagra and then maybe you could sleep.”

  “Okay. I’ll give my pills to Cristien. It might help things between you.”

  “That’s okay, you keep them,” I smiled. “I hear you need them much, much more.”

  “That’s not what your mother said.”

  We locked eyes then, gray-blue against blue-gray, and he waited. I sat there staring into his boyish face. He hardly looked any older than me. Logic dictated that he could not be my father, and yet . . . It was too much to tackle.

  “I thought we were going to pretend that never happened,” I said, folding my arms.

  He turned his head and looked at me seriously. “I like you. I’ve liked you from the first moment I saw you. Not in the usual way but in a sister-brother kind of way. You look like my little sister. The way I see it, since you’re my best friend’s wife, it’s good that I feel in a family way toward you. You know, we Nephilim are a pretty freaky group—everything goes. It’s good if I think of you as my daughter. It’s better than thinking of you as anything else if you see my point.”

  I did. “Yeah,” I said.

  “Good girl,” he told me, taking off his shoes, putting his feet up on the bed and getting comfortable.

  Lance was my father. My father. “You know I’ve had issues about not having a father for a long time. Are you sure you want me as a daughter?” I said through my clenched teeth.