by T. Isilwath
When the meal was over, they took the long way back to their room by way of the beautifully decorated common rooms in all their Victorian Christmas finery, and the softly lit stone terrace that looked out over the grounds. By the time they made it back upstairs, it was almost nine o’clock, and she had been riding a roller coaster of wild emotions for hours.
Part of her dreaded going back to the room because she knew what came next. Michael was going to want to make love. He had been giving her subtle signals all evening, and she didn’t know what she was going to do. It wasn’t that she wanted to refuse him; it was just that she was so confused and worried about Akihiro, and grieving with the belief that he was dead, that she didn’t feel that she could be intimate with him.
When they got back to the room, she went into the bathroom to take off her make-up. She took her time, delaying the inevitable as long as possible, until she couldn’t keep it off any longer. She came out of the bathroom so see that Michael had turned off all the lights but one, and he’d covered that with a drape of yellow cloth to soften the harsh glare. He’d taken off his shoes and shirt, and stood barefoot in the soft glow of the covered lamp.
She stopped and looked at him, holding her breath. She had always found him incredibly handsome and attractive, but now his beauty was marred by the ugliness she felt inside. He smiled and came towards her, his hands outstretched. When he reached her, she closed her eyes and shivered.
He touched her hair, his fingers deftly removing the strands of beads and undoing the intricate hairstyle he had worked so hard to create. The hair fell in cascades as it came free, and she felt him running his hands through the long tresses, brushing through them and smoothing them with his palms. Feather-light brushes of his fingertips teased the nape of her neck as he bent his lips to the soft spot behind her ear. She trembled, waves of heat and cold running through her body.
“You are so beautiful,” she heard him murmur, his lips against her hair.
She let out a small gasp as his teeth nipped her earlobe.
“Joanna…”
The word was a moan, and she felt him slip his hand under the edge of Long Person’s shawl and push it off. It fell to the carpet in a heap of swirling color as he moved closer. She could feel the heat of his body, sense his desire, and her heart beat faster. She wanted him. She wanted to give in. She wanted to melt into his arms and let him make her forget. She leaned towards him, aching, needing…
He lifted the shirt from her waist and drew it over her head. She heard it land on the floor next to its counterpart. Then the sound of a zipper being un-done told her that he had released his pants, and the soft rustle of cloth said that they had joined the growing pile of clothes on the carpet. She moaned as he caressed her arms. His lips kissed the base of her throat, his nose pressing into the hollow of her neck, as his hands slid lower, his thumbs hooking into the waistband of Long Person’s skirt and pushing it down.
He drew her close as the skirt fell and she stepped out of it, now dressed in only her underwear and nylons. Her hands found his shoulders and she arched her neck, letting him lick her sensitive skin. She could feel his heat all around her, embracing her like his arms, and she sunk deeper into him. She groaned and heard Michael’s soft, animal growl in answer.
Unbidden, Akihiro’s face flashed before her, and her eyes snapped open suddenly, all of her ardor forgotten as she realized what she was doing. Struggling with her own conflicting emotions, she shook her head and put her hands on Michael’s shoulders, pushing him away. His confused and wounded look cut her to the bone, and she felt her control slipping.
“Michael… I… I can’t…” she gasped, trying to find the words. “I’m sorry.”
He reached for her again and enfolded her in his arms, but this time to comfort and not to seduce. “Shhh. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, pressing her face to his chest as he pulled her closer.
“I understand. It’s all right,” he murmured, stroking her hair.
“No… no, it’s not all right. It’ll never be all right,” she choked.
“Whatever it is, Jo-Jo, we’ll get through it. We’ve been through worse.
We’ll get through this.”
His tender reassurance broke through the last of her control and she fell apart, sobbing helplessly the same way she had done on the day he had driven her back to Elisi’s after she had been released from Fort Bragg. Only this time words came with the tears and, once they started, she couldn’t stop them.
“No. You don’t understand,” she sobbed. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
Almost painfully, she ripped the story out of her, telling him everything and sparing no detail. She told him about the time travel, about how she’d been sent back five hundred years to Feudal Japan. She told him about the Others, and the giant spiders, and all of the things that had happened to her. And she told him about Akihiro. She told him everything about Akihiro.
She slumped to the mattress, still crying, and he sat next to her, a towel draped across his lap and his arm around her as she unburdened herself of her grief and fear. She told him about how she had rescued Akihiro and nursed him back to health, about how they had become friends, and how she had come to love him. She described how she had tried to get away when she knew she was going to die, and how he had found her and kept her alive until the engineers found her. Then she told him about Akihiro’s promise, about her promise to him, and how she now feared that he was dead.
“The worst part is,” she admitted between gasps as she roughly wiped her face, “I don’t know. I don’t know if he’s dead or trapped or lost somewhere. I don’t know if he suffered or if he died trying to reach me or if he’s struggling to find me now. I don’t know and I may never know. I was so sure he’d be here waiting for me, but he’s not, and I don’t know what happened to him.” She broke down again, crying into her hands, feeling horrible and ashamed all at once. Michael stayed by her side, the same way he had done for the past eleven years, and that only made her feel worse.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to hurt you. I don’t ever want to hurt you. I love you, but I love him too, and he’s lost to me, and I miss him. And I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she blurted. “Please don’t hate me. Please.” Michael reached up and tenderly wiped the tears from her cheek with his thumb. His face was gentle and loving, and he showed no sign of pain from her betrayal.
“Hate you? My beloved, I could never hate you. Don’t you know how long I have waited for you to say those words to me?”
She sniffed and stared at him. “What?”
He smiled, his hands going to the back of the choker around his neck, the one he never took off, and she heard a click as the clasp came free.
The Feel hit her first, the familiar sense of Other at the back of her neck that she had come to associate with her fox. Then she watched as his black hair shortened and faded to russet red, and his brown eyes lightened to amber. His small human ears slid upward to become two furry, black-tipped triangles on the top of his head, and his face elongated, his nose narrowing as his chin became more pointed. Two sharp canines peeked out from underneath his upper lip.
“Joanna-sama,” Akihiro breathed as he dropped the fox bone choker to the bedspread.
She stared, not believing what she was seeing.
“Aki? Akihiro?” she gasped, shocked.
“Yes, my beloved, it is I,” he answered, reaching for her. “You don’t know how long I have waited…”
“Akihiro?” she repeated.
“Joanna-sama.”
She looked around the room in desperation, horrified by the ramifications of him being there instead of Michael. She jumped up and took a step back.
“Akihiro? Michael? Oh my god… Oh my god!”
“Joanna?” he asked, confused, his brow creased with worry and concern.
He stood and moved to approach her, but she skittered out of the way.
“Michael
! What have you done with Michael? ”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Michael! What have you done with Michael?”
“What have I done…? Joanna, I am Michael!” Akihiro insisted.
She stopped short, her panic giving way to confusion and anger. “What?
What do you mean you’re Michael?” she demanded.
He took a deep breath and put his hands out in a calming gesture. “I’m Michael. I’ve been Michael.”
“Since when?” she countered.
He gave her an exasperated look that was all Michael and none of Akihiro.
“Since September 14, 1988. Joanna, I’ve always been Michael.” She stood there, speechless, and he took the opportunity to approach her.
He had the towel wrapped around his waist, but she could see his fox tail swishing behind him. It looked like there might be two of them now, but she wasn’t sure. He came close enough to touch her, his eyes soft and loving, and he raised his hand, his sharp-nailed hand, to brush her cheek with the back of his palm in a tender caress.
“I kept my promise, my vixen. I lived and I found you again.”
“Akihiro? You’re… you’re Michael?” she whispered in disbelief.
He smiled. “Yes. I’ve been with you all these years, waiting for this day when I could reveal myself to you.”
She didn’t know what he expected her to think or feel, but the true scope of what he had done began to sink in. At first she was ecstatic. If Akihiro and Michael were the same person, then she didn’t have to choose between them. But if Akihiro and Michael were the same person, then he’d known all along what was going to happen to her, and she didn’t like that one bit.
“All these years…”
“Yes, my beloved.”
“All these years you’ve been lying to me.”
His face belied his confusion and he shook his head. “What?”
“All these years I thought you were Michael, but you weren’t. You were someone else.”
She moved away from him, not wanting to be so close.
“Joanna, I am Michael.”
“No you’re not! Michael is human. Michael is Cherokee!” she snapped, wounded by his revelation and cut to the quick.
His nostrils flared with anger, and she saw him lift his upper lip. “I am
Cherokee! I went on the Trail of Tears. I walked with them! I kept as many of them alive as I could. I helped build the communities and towns in Oklahoma. I watched over the ones who would become my family. I’ve lived among them for 174 years. If there is anyone who can say he is Cherokee, it is me! ” he stated harshly, as if her words deeply offended him.
The strength and conviction of his words gave her pause, that and her own knowledge of Cherokee traditions. The Cherokee were one of the most open tribes, and people of many races were welcomed. Who was she to say that they would not welcome a half-kitsune? But all of that did nothing to assuage her growing sense of betrayal.
“You still lied to me!” she accused, rebounding.
“I have never lied to you. Not once. I have never told you an untruth,” he insisted.
She looked to the ceiling and raised her arms in exasperation. “What do you call all of this? You knew what was going to happen! You knew that the Gate would send me back in time!”
“What could I tell you? By the way, beloved, the Gate’s going to malfunction, and you’re going to be thrown back in time almost 500 years to Feudal Japan where you will meet me,” he countered, flustered. “How could I tell you something like that?”
“You could have warned me!”
“I couldn’t warn you without telling you everything,” he argued. “I did the best I could. I made sure your pack was stocked and you had the things you’d need. I even put a glamour on the frying pan so it wouldn’t get picked up by security.”
“And that made it okay? To send me off knowing what was going to happen? Knowing what awaited me?”
“I awaited you. I knew I was going to be there for you. I knew that I would take care of you. I knew that you were going to be okay.” His words, so callous and meaningless, only served to make her even more angry and upset.
“Okay? Okay! For five months I prayed. For five months I lived in the hell of not knowing, of facing the reality that I was going to die. I got bit by a giant spider! I almost drowned. I went into a diabetic coma!” she cried, the tears already starting.
“But I knew you were going to live! I knew that you would be found and saved. I even told you that it was going to be all right,” he argued.
“All right? Akihiro, my kidneys are damaged! I have neuropathy in both feet! I’m going blind! ”
“Joanna…”
“My God, how could you do this to me!” she yelled. “How could you put me through that!”
He looked stricken, completely abashed, but his pain didn’t soften her own agony. Her soul was screaming, and she was nearly incoherent from it. His mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for breath, but she didn’t want to hear anything he had to say.
She grabbed the jeans and sweater she had been wearing when they had arrived at the Inn and hastily pulled them on.
“Where are you going?” he demanded, taking a step towards her.
“Don’t come near me!” she ordered, putting up her hands.
“Joanna…”
There was a knock at the door and they both turned to face it.
“Security,” a voice announced, and before either of them could move, the door opened and a uniformed guard stepped in. “We’ve had reports of a disturbance. Is everything all right?”
Even though she was furious with him, she whipped her head around to see what he would do. He’d been naked a moment ago, and without his fox bone choker, but now he looked like Michael again, and she realized that he’d re-cast the illusion. It only served to remind her of his deception.
“Everything is fine, Officer,” Michael, Akihiro, or whoever he was, said calmly.
The guard turned to her and looked at her warily. “Are you okay, Miss?
Other guests on this floor heard you yelling.”
“I’m fine, but I was just leaving,” she stated angrily.
The guard stood watch as she gathered up her clothes and shoved them into her bag, including Long Person. Michael stared at her while she packed and opened his mouth when she reached for her purse and coat.
“Joanna…” he began, but she put out a hand.
“Don’t. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to see you,” she warned, then looked at her right hand and saw the engagement ring. She took it off and threw it at him. “Take this. I won’t be needing it anymore.” The look on his face when she threw the ring fell on a hardened heart, but even the guard gave him a sympathetic glance.
“Goodbye, whoever you are,” she said, heading for the door with what was left of her pride.
“Joanna,” he called, and the tone of his voice made her stop.
She turned in time to catch the set of keys he’d tossed at her.
“Take the truck. I’ll find my own way back.”
A small part of her was deeply touched that he would still care about how she would get home even after she had been so horribly cruel to him, but that part was silenced by the part that was so hurt by his lies.
“I’ll leave it at the apartment. I won’t be living there anymore.” She pocketed the keys and left with the guard. The last image she had of Michael was of him sitting on the bed with his head in his hands.
The guard escorted her to the lobby and called a valet to bring the truck around. She gave the driver a dollar tip and headed out. She didn’t know how she got to Cullowhee in one piece because she spent the majority of the trip in tears. By the time she got to the apartment complex, it was midnight and she was exhausted, but she wasn’t about to stay there. She threw Long Person on the bed because she’d be damned if she was going to keep it, and took a few minutes to stuff some of her personal things in a couple of plastic
shopping bags. Then she picked up the keys to her all-wheel-drive sedan and headed down to the parking lot.
Her car was a 2010 Dodge Caliber hatchback that Michael had named “Turbo Eggbeater” as a joke. He’d told her that he’d been keeping it in running order while she was gone so that it would be ready for when she got back. In hindsight, his comments held new meaning now that she knew he was Akihiro in disguise.
Disguise. All this time he had been maintaining an illusion. An illusion she had loved. An illusion she had slept with. An illusion she had bared her soul to and agreed to marry. He had sat in her grandmother’s house and eaten her food, and all the while no one was the wiser that he was anything except what he claimed to be. How had he managed to keep it up for so long without anyone discovering his dirty little secret?
‘The fox bone choker must be the focus. The spell is in the bones, and it works as long as he is wearing it.’ She started to cry. ‘I can’t believe he would deceive me so terribly. I loved him! I loved him as Akihiro and as Michael.
How could he lie to me like that?’
She left the apartment, but kept her key because she knew she still had some of her belongings there that she’d have to pick up later, and went down to her car. It started on the first try, and soon she was back on the road, heading towards her grandmother’s.
It was after one in the morning when she finally made it back to Elisi’s, and she tried to enter silently so as not to wake the old woman, but, as it turned out, her grandmother was already awake and waiting for her in the living room.
As soon as she saw Joanna come in, she picked up the cordless phone that was sitting on the table and dialed a number. When the person on the other end answered, she spoke in Tsalagi.
“She is here safely.”
There was a pause and Joanna knew Elisi was talking to Michael.
“Yes. Thank you. Goodnight.”
Elisi hung up the phone.
“That was Michael?” she asked. Just saying his name choked her and made the tears threaten again.
Her grandmother nodded. “It was.”