by Mason, Renea
“Stop! Can’t you see I’m trying to protect you?”
I stopped and faced him. “From what? You? You’re not that scary; I’m not that stupid and I’ll never be a damsel in distress. Someone once protected me from the truth and you see how that worked out. I hate to correct you, Doctor, but hope isn’t a gift, it’s a torture. And since you can’t possibly save me from that, I have no choice but to save myself. If you can’t share the truth with me then this has all been a game and I fold. Good night, Doctor.”
I was tired of him running. The only way to stop it was to force the issue, hoping he’d follow to gain back his control. The irony of the situation was not lost on me. My stomach churned. What if he didn’t? What if this was the last time I saw him? I turned back around and continued my exit.
“Where are you going?” he shouted, anger accenting every word until they echoed through the corridor.
I didn’t answer. If he wasn’t going to talk, I might as well see Paris. It was time someone stopped taking his direction. I increased my pace.
The bevy of patrons flooded the lobby and I weaved between them. I resisted the urge to look back to see if he trailed.
I pushed open the heavy iron doors and was greeted by cool night air. Where should I go, the Louvre? Better yet, the Paris Opera House; I had always wanted to see it.
Pierre noticed me and exited the driver’s door. How serendipitous that he was still on site. He mumbled something in French and I hoped that the doctor’s directive to take me wherever I wanted still stood. I was lucky that he understood me when I said ‘opera house.’ He opened the car door for me and I stepped inside. He closed the door and I buried my face in my hands, hoping somewhere deep down that all of Xavier’s declarations were true and that this wouldn’t be the end.
Pierre’s door closed and the engine started. When the car pulled out my heart fell. At the end of the semicircular entrance to the hall the car stopped. The door opened, allowing a flood of cold air in, just before Xavier bounded through the door.
He slammed it closed behind him. Never looking at me, he faced forward and adjusted the sleeves on his jacket. His jaw was clenched tight.
He leaned back and ran his fingers through his lush hair. With sharp, crisp words he asked, “Where are we going?”
I cupped my hands in my lap. “I’m heading to the Paris Opera House. It might be closed, but at least I can see it from the outside.”
He growled. “This is why your visit is only a week. I didn’t want to have to explain this.” He looked as though he’d aged ten years in the past thirty minutes.
“You don’t have to. It’s not my business.” The movement of the car jostled me from side to side. I crossed my arms.
He rubbed his hands on his thighs. “No. No. It’s not that. I just wanted this to be perfect. A week in time where the demons behaved.” He stopped and turned to me with a penetrating gaze. “Is it wrong that I wanted you to see me for the man I want to be, not the one I am? I never wanted to see your face when you learned the truth.”
“No, it’s not wrong. But I realized back in the hallway, I have no interest in a fairytale. I had one of those and when you close the book, it disappears. I want you to trust me enough to let me know who you are. But none of it matters, it all ends soon enough.”
“What if I don’t want you to take this with you?” There was no humor in his tone.
“Was your plan to bring me here and make me fall in love with a character? Some fantasy you dreamed up? That seems cruel. Besides, far too many people have already done that. Don’t you think it’s time you find someone to fall in love with you? The flawed, real, imperfect you?”
He raised an eyebrow.
It was my turn to sigh. “Yes, Xavier Vincent, I know you’re human. You pretend you’re in control, but you’re not. Your past is pulling your strings. If I were to fall in love, it would be with you and every tie that binds you. So what’s your story? Just how understanding would I need to be?”
“No one is that understanding.”
“Lydia had to be.”
His eyes narrowed to a glare. I’d hit a nerve. That was good. If he felt the need to justify himself, he’d get to the point faster.
“I mean, she had to love you unconditionally, right? She knew all your secrets.”
His head slumped forward and after a long moment, one where I thought perhaps I’d gone too far, he started on a whisper. “I was fifteen. And as with everything, I didn’t do anything halfway, even then.” He paused and released his hair, shooting me the most intense gaze. The moment of silence hung in the air thick with tension. “When I love, Elaine, it’s with my soul. I love so deeply that I’m consumed. I’m like that with most things.”
I was so dedicated to hearing his story; I didn’t notice the car had stopped.
He looked up, and reached into his pocket and fished out his phone. “One moment…” A swipe of the screen, and a few number sequences later and he was carrying out a conversation in French. It had something to do with the opera house.
The door opened, he stepped out and then reached for my hand, “Come on.”
I stared out the window at the ornate structure. “It looks closed.”
“It is, but I’m a big patron. They are going to let us in.” He leaned in, grabbed my arm and pulled, until I unfolded and gave him my hand.
Once outside the car, he laced his fingers with mine and led me toward the beautiful building. It was so large and opulent it was impossible to find words to describe. Sculpted, golden angels, supported by large stone pillars, stood watch over patrons from the rooftop. The street was quiet except for a couple laughing near a lamppost. Up a small set of stairs, under a stone archway and through an iron gate, stood large, gilded doors. As we approached one opened, slowly revealing a man with dark hair and fair skin, wearing blue overalls. Xavier spoke with the man in French and we slipped through the door.
All I could do was stare. Everywhere I looked, something to catch the eye. The echo of the man’s footsteps died somewhere in the high gold leaf ceilings.
“Come on. I’ll show you where I usually sit.”
I was thankful he didn’t want to continue our conversation as we passed through the hall of chandeliers or when we scaled the grand staircase. It was too easy to be distracted by our surroundings. But even with all the abounding beauty, I kept coming back to the feel of his warm hand holding mine.
More stairs and then finally a small corridor filled with narrow, brown doors, each with a small round window and gold lettering.
“This is it.” He opened the door and revealed a small room with an opening to the theater. Red velvet chairs had been scattered haphazardly throughout the space.
The doctor moved a settee to the front of the box, just behind the intricate gold-leaf banister. His movement echoed through the cavernous empty space. The heavy, red curtains with golden trim obscuring the stage were not enough to absorb the sound.
He took a seat and patted the space beside him. “Join me.”
I did as he asked and continued to stare across the massive room, considering the time and effort it must have taken to construct the building.
He grabbed my hand and squeezed it.
“Her name was Samantha. We were both fifteen. As I told you in the car, when I love I go all in.” He focused his attention on me.
I smiled, trying to picture a fifteen-year-old Xavier Vincent. “Teenage love can be intense.”
“No. You don’t understand. It still happens.” He didn’t pause long enough for me to comment and even though we were alone, he whispered to reduce the echo. “Anyway, I was in love, but I was being pursued by universities for early admission. My test scores were off the charts. My parents were poor and uneducated, so they didn’t understand the importance of what was happening. They just wanted to make sure they got their check and didn’t owe anything. A guidance counselor at school was my advocate and I was enrolled at Harvard before my sixteenth birthday.”
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“Wow, so you and Marco have a lot in common.”
He laughed. “I think that’s the only point, but yes, I understand the struggles of early admission. He’s much more of a punk than I was.”
It was good to see his smile even if it only lasted a few seconds.
“I was afraid of leaving Samantha. I figured if we had sex and I was the one to take her virginity, she’d have a stronger reason to wait for me. Fifteen-year-old male logic at its finest.”
It was my turn to chuckle. “It’s been my experience that most men don’t progress past that.”
“Yes. I guess you’re right. Only when they’re older, they drag you off to Paris.”
We stared at each other for a moment. Gazes locked. Why did I want him to say it? To tell me he loved me, when in the end it amounted to nothing more than something else that would haunt me when I was long gone from France.
He folded his hands in his lap and turned his gaze back to the elaborate boxes on the other side of the theater. “We had it all planned. Her parents would be away the weekend before I left. Even the timing of her cycle was perfect: I didn’t want to get her pregnant.” He cleared his throat. “Being teenagers, things were awkward. I remember fumbling with her clothes and penetrating her for the first time, the grimace on her face that turned quickly to a smile is etched in my mind, but I remember nothing after that.”
“What happened?”
“Lydia diagnosed it as transient global amnesia brought on by orgasm. Basically, I lose memories before and after. Supposedly, I get confused too. But like I said, I don’t remember any of it.”
“Wait. Lydia diagnosed you? But I’ve seen you orgasm and you were perfectly in control.”
“Hang on, I’m getting there.” He sighed patted my leg with our entwined hands. “The next memory I have is lying naked on top of Samantha, my hands around her throat, choking her already lifeless body.”
I gasped.
“I tried to revive her, but she was dead. I called 911 and when the authorities arrived, I was arrested. I still can’t believe I did it. I loved her, Elaine. I never wanted to hurt her. I didn’t know I was capable of hurting anyone like that and especially not her.” The sincerity in his voice broke my heart.
“I didn’t fight the charges and my parents went on a campaign to get me convicted. You see my father had been sexually abusing me and was afraid I would expose him, so discrediting me protected him.”
“Oh, my god. I’m so sorry.”
His sarcastic laugh filled the hall. “I just told you I killed a woman while fucking her and you feel sorry for me. Don’t. The reason Annie keeps torturing me is because she is right. I got off easy. And if you want to know what Samantha looked like, picture Annie twenty years ago, before the drugs and hard living. They were identical twins.”
“How terrible that must be to keep seeing her face.”
He turned to me, anger marking his brow. “Why are you doing that? There should be no sympathy for me. I didn’t do a day of jail time. The same powers that paved the way for my education covered it all up. My parents gave up custody. I was adopted by the Lenoir’s—a wealthy family with ties to the university. Samantha’s family was paid off and no one ever spoke of it again. Except Annie. As guilty as I am of Samantha’s death, I’m also guilty for Annie being collateral damage.” He let go of my hand and clenched his fists. “Security assured me that they would be on the lookout for her.”
“So that’s the real reason you won’t have sex with anyone?”
“Yes. I won’t risk anyone else. There must be some kind of monster in me for that to happen, so I have to keep it in control at all times. That’s why I don’t participate and I always have at least one more person present. So if you want to leave, I won’t stop you.”
But he was not a monster. I knew what a monster looked like. My father’s despondent stare when he was arrested was unmistakably evil. He wore his role of father like a mask, but when it came off, there was no denying what he was. My father had always been perfect because it was a role. So stereotypical because that’s what he needed to be. Xavier was too raw and unrehearsed to be hiding a demon. Regardless of what had happened on that night or whether he did real time or not, he had paid for his crime. “Xavier, look at me.”
He did, but there was reluctance in his movements.
I searched his eyes for anything that hinted at deception, but I was met with grief, guilt, regret and fear in the red-rimmed eyes that refused to cry, but wanted to so desperately. There was no hint of what I’d seen in my father’s eyes—neither the perfection nor the chaos. “I’m not leaving. I’ve seen monsters. You are not one of them.”
“You can’t argue with truth.”
I placed my hand on his thigh. “You’re right. You have a condition that caused a tragedy. You could have as easily been a narcoleptic and fallen asleep at the wheel of a car. You had no intent to kill her. A monster is someone who looks for a victim, chooses his prey and hides the bodies, all while eating dinner with his family every night and attending children’s soccer games. Just so when the headlines hit the paper, they can call him the perfect family man.”
“Your father?’
“Yes, Daniel Simon Watkins, otherwise known as the Basement Killer. All of his victims were found bound and tortured in their own basements. And just to add a little interest to the game, he hacked off various pieces of them and hid them in random locations just to make the investigation more entertaining. He didn’t stop killing. He’d still be arranging hunting trips today if he could. Yes, that sick bastard hid everything from us. That is a monster. Not you.”
“I’m so sorry, Elaine.”
I threw back his words. “Oh, don’t feel sorry for me. Had I paid a little more attention, had I questioned a few strange coincidences, the toolbox in his car that didn’t make sense, those women would be alive. I could have stopped him. But I was so wrapped up in what I wanted to believe that I didn’t see the truth. I feel responsible for all of them.”
He grabbed my hand and squeezed.
“I decided that day, the day he admitted to it all to save his life, to open my eyes. To watch what goes on around me. It was my sister who saved me. My mother was killed in a car accident when I was eight. My father played the perfect grieving widower. My sister is everything to me, and if you had gone to prison, if your life had taken any other course, she’d be dead. So forgive me, I don’t mean to be callous, but I think you’ve more than atoned for your sins. You may have taken a life, but you have saved so many more. And most importantly, when I look in your eyes, I see nothing but compassion.”
“Elaine…” He said my name as though it were an apology. “Now do you see why I wanted to let you go home?”
“I see why you made that ridiculous choice, but I still don’t agree with it.”
He turned sideways, facing me full-on. “You can’t be serious.”
I returned his stare. “Why?”
“I just told you I murdered someone.”
“And I just told you that my negligence lead to the deaths of countless women who were raped, tortured, hacked into pieces and left to die in their own basements. We all have our demons. It’s all about whether or not you rise above them. Besides, we all walk away, right? Secrets intact.” I blinked and it occurred to me. “Wait. I’m sorry. Maybe you don’t want me after learning the truth.”
“Nothing could be further from the truth.”
I leaned in just close enough that I could feel his breath, but not close enough to touch his lips to mine. “Xavier?”
He released his response on a breathy whisper. “Yes.”
“I want to make something clear.”
“Yes.”
I inhaled and held my breath, slightly longer than comfortable. “I want you.”
My lips collided with his. His hand clutched the back of my head, holding me to him.
“Fuck. Do you know how much I’ve wanted to hear you say that?”
I
wanted to forget. I needed him to forget. Time was running out.
I glided my hands over his thigh and across to his zipper, and our tongues danced. I rubbed his length and he hardened in my hand; I squeezed and stroked with slow, seductive caresses.
He took long shaky breaths.
“If it were just the two of us…tonight…and we…we were uninhibited. What would you do to me?”
He moved his hand to rest on my breast and his lips peppered kisses along my neck. “I dream the same dream about you every night. I have since that conference where you delivered that idiot a hard dose of reality in front of everyone.”
He nipped my neck with his teeth.
“The first thing I’d do is bury my head between your legs and lick you until you screamed my name.” He pressed me closer to him. “Every time you’re aroused…it’s like my body knows and I can barely focus. You are not good for my concentration, Ms. Watkins.”
“Are you saying that I’m standing in the way of medical progress, Doctor?”
“I should be focused on molecules and cells; instead all I can think of is how much I want to make love to you. I want so badly to make you come.”
“Well, rest assured I have no intention of impeding medical progress.”
I stood, hiked up my dress and slid my panties down my legs
“What are you doing?” He rubbed his hands on his pants.
“Consider it my contribution to science.” I handed him the undergarment.
He rolled it up and placed it in his pocket just as he did in the restaurant earlier in the week.
“Elaine, I can’t…”
I extended my hand encouraging him to stand. Once he did, I turned him, placing his back to the banister and reached up and pressed down on his shoulders.
“What…?”
“On your knees, Doctor.” He took the hint and fell to his knees.