by Q. Zayne
The dress fell to the knee, as modest as he’d promised. It looked posh compared to anything else I’d worn, yet I might have picked it myself if my budget extended to buying new clothes in a high-end boutique. If fit and suited me well: midnight blue with buttons up the front. Was it a test? Did he wonder if I’d leave any buttons unbuttoned at the bodice or at the knee? I did not. The mirror showed me a normal young woman with long, shining blonde hair and startled eyes. I looked like a cornered animal, but I was dressed well. I’d fit in when we went to lunch. No one would guess I’d been found napping in the dirt.
I stepped into midnight blue pumps. The soft leather molded to my feet. I’d never had shoes that fit so well. I blessed Gabe for not getting heels that were too high. I’d never known how anyone could walk in those. These accentuated my calves but didn’t make me wobble. The man was a miracle worker. He’d transformed my day and my appearance. Privacy, a shower, good toiletries, a full outfit. I took a deep breath. I smelled good; a subtle jasmine scent lingered on me from the shampoo.
I dug into the last bags. A toothbrush, a hair brush, a purse in fine leather that matched the shoes, a compact of makeup that matched my face — and a lipstick. I stared at it, leaving it in the bottom of the bag as though it was a deadly snake, one of Cleopatra’s asps.
In school once, I let another girl paint my lips. I forgot I was wearing it. My mother took me by the hair and scrubbed my mouth with a pumice stone, one of those lava rock things for removing calluses. My lips bled when she’d finished removing the lipstick, punishing me and making sure I’d never do it again. I never had, never.
But the strange man, the man who bought all this, wanted me to wear it. Why else would it be in the bag? Or maybe he was just thorough. Many a woman of his era wouldn’t leave the house without ‘putting on her face.’ I eyed the lipstick. I reached into the bag. He’d gone to such effort for me.
With shaking fingers I opened the tube and extended the tip. I let out my breath. The shade complemented my coloring, a soft rose, only a little darker than my lips. Shuddering inside, I put it on. The glide of it across my lips felt sensual. I pressed my lips together.
I looked at myself. Would he want to kiss me? Would it feel — I made myself stop. For just a while, I wanted to believe the fantasy. I wanted to be Cinderella heading to the ball. I wanted to believe a man could be good. I wanted to feel safe and okay, and as he said, normal. I didn’t want to hope or fear anything about his motivation.
What could I hope for? Perhaps that we’d have lunch and there’d be no hidden expectations of anything inappropriate, such as sexual favors. I folded my clothes and put them in one of the shopping bags.
After a moment’s thought, I folded the other bags and put them in there, too. In case I had to ask him to return everything. If he thought the outfit was a down payment on something I wouldn’t sell, I’d come back up to the room, take it all off and send it back to him. I had enough money to tip someone to take the packages to him so I wouldn’t have to set eyes on him again. Because even though I’d known him such a brief time, if he disappointed me, it would hurt.
I put the cosmetics, the brush, and the key card in the purse along with my worn wallet. I didn’t have anything else. Once I brushed my teeth and hair, I squared my shoulders and headed to the door. Chin up. I was heading out for lunch with a charming, handsome man, not an appointment with a firing squad. It was an effort to take each step. I was scared. What was he going to propose? How did he think he could help me? What was I good for? Besides the one thing men wanted, according to Mom?
At the last minute I put the shopping bag next to the door. Difficult to leave my clothes behind, but I had the key card in the lovely new purse. I’d feel silly taking the bags to lunch. Gabe had put such thought and care into allowing me to look and feel like a normal person, showing up acting like a bag lady who had to guard her possessions at all times would defeat the purpose.
I closed the door with a pang and rushed to the lobby.
As I approached, Gabe looked up from a newspaper. He smiled at me. Wings beat in my chest. Lamp light cast a glow and pleasing shadows on his strong, even features. He could have starred in a movie from nearly any era. His well-cut European suit accented his toned physique. At close range, I saw the dove gray tie’s pattern: small Egyptian eyes that matched his. He sat with one long leg resting at the ankle across the other. My favorite actors from old Hollywood came to mind. He had that ease, the confidence and charisma that actors project, and the basic, unbeaten masculinity of an earlier time. I could love him.
I stopped the thought, stopped mid-stride. Gabe was a stranger. I had to stop mooning like a school girl.
What did he think of me in the outfit he’d chosen? My hands felt slippery and my breath caught as his gaze scanned me from my hair to the shoes. Was he disappointed I buttoned all the buttons?
He rose from the club chair and smiled down at me. “An enchanting transformation.” He gave me his arm.
Shaking inside, I took it. His arm felt warm and muscular. Whatever he did, this man didn’t sit at a desk all day. His narrow waist told of an active life. I glanced away from the bulge below his belt. His close presence burned me. He exuded a light forest scent and his own male essence. Intoxicating.
He had, in such a short space of time, overridden my repetitive thoughts and sense memory of my priest. How had the good father smelled? It didn’t matter. I stopped comparing them.
The priest was an impossibility for me. Right. That simple truth released me. For right then, my life was new.
I kept stride with Gabe and he led me into the hotel’s restaurant. Or one of them. The place was so huge, they might offer dining on every floor. I had no idea. This was a world unlike any other I’d entered.
The mouth-watering smells made my stomach rumble. Mortified, I put my purse over my belly in hopes of muffling it.
An efficient man in black led us to a window seat in a quiet corner, seated us, and handed us a menu. I stared at the prices and blinked.
“My treat. And no strings attached.” He crossed his heart with his finger. “You are free to go your way after lunch, or at any time, with no obligation of any kind.” He smiled. “Now decide what you want.”
I returned his suave smile and complied.
The meal arrived soon, to my great relief. Eating it with him became an orgy of sensual indulgence. I’d never eaten such delicious, high-quality, well-prepared food. I took delight in every morsel and Gabe’s face reflected my pleasure. He truly enjoyed giving me this experience. I shoved my guilt and anxiety firmly into a hat box and mentally sat on it. I didn’t want anything to intrude on the marvelous experience.
He insisted on dessert. The cart of outrageous confections evoked visions of prancing devils with pitchforks.
“I shouldn’t. I’m stuffed.”
“We can share,” he whispered. “Choose.”
“The creme brulee is exquisite,” the waiter offered, perhaps suspecting it might take me the rest of the afternoon to decide between the wicked treats. I nodded, bemused.
He returned with the custard and a blowtorch. I stared at him, leaning closer to Gabe. He fired the top of it, releasing a heady caramel scent. I laughed and clapped my hands like a child. Was this how a soul was won? Gabe kept making me think of Satan. So diabolically attractive — and seductive, what little I knew of that concept. I’d never — even in my private thoughts I felt shy to admit it — I’d never known a man. In the Biblical sense of knowing, as in what people did before they beget their offspring. He went in to so and so and knew her. None of that for me, ever. I endeavored to avoid thinking the details of how it was done, what that knowing entailed, other than that it had something to do with down there, where I’d burned and become wet for my priest and where Gabe’s mysterious bulge shifted the fine draping of his slacks.
No doubt I was going to Hell.
The blue-green flame danced in Gabe’s eyes. He laughed with me. The disconcerte
d waiter turned away, taking the blowtorch with him.
Gabe offered me a spoon. I pushed through the crisped sugar into the cream, put it in my mouth. Caramelized sugar dissolved, flavoring the light custard on my tongue. I took my time, savoring it. Gabe watched me.
“The whole world feels new to you, doesn’t it?”
I nodded, my eyes brimming. My happiness made me emotional. I wanted the marvelous moments with the mysterious man to continue, to simply tick on one after the other into a long future, to never stop. Was that too greedy?
San Francisco’s skyline jutted unevenly outside the window. Its quirky architecture with its remnants of the last century dominated by ugly, recent monoliths looked off-kilter, so unplanned and aggressive. A once elegant vision defiled by stupidity and greed, the way most of the rest of the planet had been violated for short-term gain. I’d hoped to make a home there, but it was just a city. The locus of my failure. It hurt me to look at it.
Gabe’s face offered more of a challenge than the city. Those deep, probing eyes in an improbable shade of blue green. The lines radiating out from them in a tan that looked natural. As little as I knew of him, I was certain he wouldn’t endure the absurdity of a tanning bed. He looked like a sailor or explorer, and like a man who owned the world, all in one. His suit fit him so well it shaped to him with every movement, accenting his broad chest, big shoulders, and the bulging anaconda muscles of his powerful arms. This man wasn’t a figurehead. He wielded power in every sense.
He took a bite and closed his eyes, savoring the dessert as I did.
I couldn’t get past the unsettling sense that he could see into me, see through me. That with Gabe, there would be no point in lying or holding back. I sensed he’d unpeeled me, gone through all my layers, penetrated to the heart of my dark and secret places, not only my forbidden longing for my priest, but back to the earliest times I’d felt things down there, the wrong touches I couldn’t tell Mom about. Anything that happened could be a reason for her to slap me or beat me. If I told, she might have killed me.
Gabe sat so near I felt his warmth. My heartbeat surged when he smiled at me. I made dessert last, bite by sinful bite.
He ordered coffee and relief rushed through me. I wasn’t being greedy. He wasn’t in a hurry to go. Maybe he did, for whatever reason of his own, want to spend time with me.
He reached out and stroked my hair. It surprised me, but didn’t scare me.
“Such beautiful hair.” He grimaced, as though lanced with some horrible pain. He took his hand back.
“Forgive me. That wasn’t intended as —.”
“I know.” Somehow, despite my inexperience, I could tell he wasn’t making a move. He looked more like a man who’d seen a ghost.
He took a sip of coffee, ran his hand through his silver-streaked hair.
“What is it?”
He shook his head, took a breath that made his chest muscles pull at his shirt buttons. Shell buttons, no doubt.
“It’s safe to tell me.” I wanted to help him.
Perhaps he was a man beset by demons, not a demon himself. In that case, wasn’t it my duty to relieve his suffering? But not my duty any more. Why not, though? Just because I was no longer a nun didn’t mean I couldn’t practice caring as a human being. I wasn’t sure how that was done, especially between a man and a woman, especially in a cozy, private corner of an expensive restaurant. But I had to try.
He blinked, rubbed his big, weathered hand across his face. “You remind me of someone. Cliche, I know.” His mouth turned down and he looked older. His timeless face could belong to a weathered man in his 30s or a well-preserved one going into his sixth decade. Or was he beyond time? Was my fanciful instinct that Gabe wasn’t a normal man right? That was crazy. Yet maybe that’s why he assured me I was normal. Because he wasn’t. Because he had the deep sight I kept sensing. That while he said he wouldn’t pry, he couldn’t help it, it was in his nature to know more about others than normal mortals ever saw. Except those who, damned like Mom always said I was, had glimpses. A gift or curse I never asked for and wished I didn’t have. It made me fear him, and long for him, and sense a commonality and connection with another human being I’d never expected to find. I wanted to touch him. I didn’t.
“Who was she?” His face already told me she was dead. I didn’t have to be psychic to know that.
“My fiancee. Natalie.” He sounded like something tore the name out of him, a great bird’s talons taking out his heart. Such a wound in him. “I saw her killed. Right before we were going to be married. Days. Days before she would have become my wife.”
I put my hand over his. He looked down at it, spoke to the table.
“She left to drive my car home. She delighted in overseeing the wedding details.” His indulgent smile flickered and fled. “I had a meeting, so I let her go alone. We said goodbye in front of my building. A quick kiss. The wind blew her hair across my face.” He glanced at my hair, looked away. “She ran across the street and got in my car. Waved again, blew me a kiss. She turned the key. The car exploded.” His hand tightened into a fist. “I ran through traffic. Horrible charred smell, metal bits falling. Too late. Gobbets of flesh, shrapnel. Gone. Natalie was gone, blown to bits by a bomb meant for me.”
I let the silence be. I squeezed his iron-hard fist. He relaxed his hand.
“It wasn’t your fault. Whoever planted the bomb, her death is on him. You aren’t responsible for what happened.”
“Aren’t I? By being who I am, I put the lives of everyone near me at risk. Perhaps more than their lives.” He gave me an appraising look.
Was he after my soul, after all?
“That must have been a huge shock, losing her like that.”
“I was numb for a long time. Useless. I had to have my staff handle all the details, calling our wedding guests all over the world to explain why the wedding was canceled. Exchanging wedding reservations for a funeral. I couldn’t be in the same room during any of it, couldn’t read the condolences. I stopped reading the paper for a long time.”
“Do you know who it was?”
“Who it was?” He raised his head, pulled out of the mire of the past, and looked at me.
“Who it was who killed Natalie.”
He stared at me. He turned his hand over and squeezed mine.
“No. No I don’t.” He looked at our hands. “I have so many enemies. And the forensics team found nothing of use. There were no leads. No one claimed responsibility. Not like TV drama crime where someone has to gloat.”
“I understand.” I saw it ignited in his eyes, the desire to find the killer. Another reason to come farther back to life from the walking death of grief. I didn’t condone vengeance, yet anger gave more energy than pain. Gabe needed his anger, even if it meant that for a while he might be consumed with the desire to get even with whoever took Natalie from him.
“You’re good,” he whispered.
“Thanks.” I felt awkward. I had a sense it wasn’t a compliment, that he didn’t like me being good, that it unsettled him in a deep way.
“Too good. You should get away from me.” He shifted in his chair, looked out the window, his side to me. He pulled his hand away.
I swallowed, kept still, watching him.
“What if I don’t want to go?” I shocked myself, saying that to a strange man — and Gabe was a truly strange man — but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want to go. He opened the door into his tight-shut places just enough to give me a glimpse. I supposed I was greedy. I took the last spoonful of creme brulee, sure that gentleman that he was, Gabe left it for me.
At the sound of the spoon, he turned to me.
The final bite dissolved on my tongue into a puddle of sweet cream. I swallowed and licked my lips. Gabe watched me, his pupils growing from snake-like to large and dark as the orbs of some ancient being. If I got too close, if I went into the dark secrets hinted at in his eyes, I might drown.
“Then you’re in trouble.” He fin
ished his coffee and set the cup down, keeping the depths of his eyes to himself.
Revelation
I got into his Jaguar, making myself behave as though the whole day was my real life. Gabe navigated through the labyrinthine parking structure in silence and seemed deep in thought.
He tapped his long fingers on the steering wheel and cast a quick look at me.
“Where we go is up to you. If you want, I’ll help you lose your guilt and inhibitions. It’s time for you to come to life, dear girl.”
“What do you mean, where we go?” Had he waited to have me alone in his car to make his proposition?
He drove his purring car to the parking garage’s exit, stopped, and looked both ways. How could I look both ways in this situation when I didn’t know what was on offer?
“The only way to stay with me is to be a whole lot less good, angel — or become good in a different way.” He reached over and tucked my hair behind my ear. “Lovely girl. I don’t think the life of a fallen angel would suit you any more than the life of a nun. Or ex-nun, is it now?”
His appraising look would have been a leer from a less refined man. We were getting to the part that worried me. I didn’t think Gabe would be pleased to learn how good I was, how pure. It was a liability, but I couldn’t help it.
“I think of myself as a former nun. Ex nun sounds negative to me somehow, and I’m not out to cut that part of my life, that part of me, away. No denial. That was my choice and I embraced it. When I could no longer live that life in honor, I left.” I plucked at the hem of the dress. Not meaning to, I unbuttoned the lowest button. I let it stay open, exposing my knee. “I felt it would have been wrong to stay. And maybe it was time for me to become new, even if that meant going through a horrible time when I was lost, when I fell beyond society’s limits to become one of the people most people won’t acknowledge with eye contact or speech. It was awful. I felt so self-conscious all the time, thinking everyone looked down at me. Because people did. Most people liked to think they’re better than everyone else. Once, in a cafe, several people I knew started making mean comments about homeless people, ugly things. I felt mortified. I don’t think they knew, because I didn’t fit their ignorant stereotypes. But I was so shocked by their small minds, their mean hearts, I never went back there. The cafe owner was one of the most vigorous and outrageous in her exaggerated, vitriolic portrait of homeless people as coddled leeches. I didn’t want to give her another dollar. I didn’t say a word. I left and never went back.”