by Alana Davis
My fingers, now slightly warmer, worked much better with the fireplace. There was a process that I had to do before I could light the fire and it was a welcome distraction from thinking about how close Leon Christensen was to me, his perfect body only covered with a single blanket.
First, I had to light a single piece of paper. With the flute of the fireplace open, I shoved the burning paper up the flute so that it would start to draw air. If I missed this crucial step, the whole room would fill with smoke when I lit the fireplace. As I held up the burning paper, I could feel Leon’s eyes on me. Bent over, I wondered if he was studying my ass lustfully.
The fireplace began to draw air, the smoke from the burning paper sucked up into the chimney. I then struck a match and started to light the kindling that I had placed under the logs. Fire sparked and danced from the kindling, cracks of burning wood filling the silence. I blew on the kindling and watched the flames grow with every breath. Soon, the logs began to burn and the fire roared before us.
Refreshing warmth pushed against my face. I sat back a few feet from Leon, the warmth of the fire feeling wonderful against my still-wet clothes. Leon stared into the fire, red and orange flames dancing in his eyes.
“When I was thirteen, I was sent to a boarding school in England. Kevin Bowers was a friend of mine.”
I listened carefully. Leon was speaking now, slowly and quietly, but he was telling me something important. The fire cracked and popped before us, filling the room with fresh warmth that felt good. The mystery in the cemetery loomed in my mind. Kevin Bowers died today; Leon Christensen was about to tell me why.
“He was a lot like me, you know? Rich kid. Trust fund babies, that was us. Our friendship was one of those things that was instant. When young kids meet, it often works like that. One minute, you’re strangers, and the next, you’re best friends for life. With Kevin, it was like that. On the first day of boarding school we met and we were as close as two boys can get.”
Leon fell silent for a full two minutes, studying the fire. I remained silent, not wanting to push him to continue. Maybe it was enough to know that Kevin had been his best friend. Maybe it was enough to explain his behavior now that he lost his best friend when he was only sixteen.
I was about to rise and make some coffee for us when Leon spoke again, stopping me dead in my tracks.
“He fell in love, that dumbass,” Leon said, smiling now for the first time. “Her name was Cassandra. She was beautiful, maybe the best looking girl we had ever seen. She was into Kevin immediately, too. It was like Kevin was the best thing she had ever seen. For six months, those two were inseparable.”
I turned myself to face Leon, my right side now facing the fire. It warmed my skin and I reveled in the newfound warmth to regions previously chilled by rainwater.
“I still saw Kevin, sure, but he was just so wrapped up in this girl. It was cool at first. I mean, this girl was gorgeous and she liked my buddy, so it was all good with me. Then it became kind of annoying. She was always there, always hanging out. When I got to see Kevin alone, he would always make comments like ‘Oh, Cassie would love this!’ or ‘Dude, Cassie said the funniest thing yesterday.’ It was always about her, and I was too young to realize that it was pretty normal.”
I listened with fierce intensity, determined to take every single word into my memory. I wanted his words to burn into my memory like a film. If only I had a notebook right here. But I knew that if I had a notebook and started writing, it might break the free-flow of thoughts that Leon was letting me in on.
“I mean, this was a new girl who was his first girlfriend. Of course he was obsessed! Who wouldn’t have been? But when you’re sixteen, you’re not exactly aware of a whole lot above your waist,” Leon said. A hint of humor was returning to his voice, emulating the Leon that I had come to know in our unpleasant interactions. Yet his voice was still soft, warm, and honest. This was a whole new side of the man who I had come to lust after in my dreams and deplore in the real world.
“She was from a neighboring school. I’d go with him to see her, and yeah, it was fun, but Kevin was only interested in her. I met a lot of girls and got wrapped up in myself, so I didn’t see what was coming down the pike. Cassie was losing interest. While Kevin grew more and more attached, she was pulling away.”
Leon stopped talking again. His face turned blank. A wrinkle cut slowly across his forehead as he struggled to remember his story, as though it was too painful to remember.
“She broke it off with him on a Thursday night. I remember it clearly because Kevin just didn’t show up to morning classes on Friday. When I went to go look for him, he was just laying on his bed, sulking. I tried everything to get him up, but eventually I just sat next to him and watched movies all night with him. Saturday was the same. I was able to convince him to come out to the dining hall, but he barely touched his food. He only seemed to cheer up when I was able to buy a bottle of whiskey off a senior who owed me a favor.
“We drank heavily on Saturday night, and Kevin cried, a lot. He said he could never love again. She was the one for him; she was perfect; and she was everything, all that kind of stuff. I reassured him that he was handsome and rich; he’d be pushing the girls away soon enough, but he didn’t listen. The booze had been a terrible idea and I had to calm him down after we were pretty drunk so he wouldn’t get us caught. Eventually, he fell asleep, fully clothed and tears wet on his face.”
Leon looked over to me and stared right into my eyes.
“Can I have something to drink?” he asked.
I nodded my head. “Yes, of course. I can make you tea or coffee if you’d like.”
“Tea would be wonderful,” Leon said flatly.
I rose silently and walked into the kitchen. My clothes cooled immediately in the wake of the warm fire and I looked over at it longingly as I poured water into the tea kettle. I put out two coffee mugs with packets of green tea in them and poured just a little honey into both mugs. I hurried back over to the fireplace, hoping that Leon would fall back into his story.
Flames sent light dancing across Leon’s furrowed brow. He looked worried, as though the memory itself was a dangerous thing, poised to strike if roused. I wanted badly to lean over and rub his shoulder, tell him everything was fine, and to continue. I resisted, knowing that I might offend him or close him off. I waited patiently and soon enough, Leon continued.
“Each day got worse. I started to feel pissed off at him for so many reasons. I told myself he shouldn’t have let some random girl get that close to him so she could hurt him like that. I felt like he should get over it and stop being such a baby about it. There were a ton of girls at that school anyway, and a lot of them were absolutely show-stopping hot.
“But Kevin didn’t get any better. I didn’t know what to do. He just sulked all day. When he went back to classes, even the teachers yelling at him for skipping didn’t have any effect. It was like he was shut off from the world. I had never seen anything like it. My anger soon fell away and I was just kind of scared for the guy, but not scared enough, as it turns out.”
Kevin Bowers was dead at sixteen. The thought reverberated in my head when Leon spoke.
“Kevin died on a Friday morning. I was the one who found his body.”
There was a long silence that hung over those words. I was left speechless. Leon continued to look at the fire, the flames crackling and popping the wood in the void after he stopped speaking. I searched for something to say and my mind gave me nothing. What was there to say after something like that?
Tears formed in Leon’s eyes, visible as they reflected light from the blazing fire.
“I found my best friend hanging from the fucking ceiling by his belt. He tied it to the ceiling fan and kicked out a chair. He didn’t even leave a note. I suppose he didn’t have to,” Leon said, his voice cracking as he spoke.
“It was my fault,” Leon said with a finality that was surprising. There was not even a hint of doubt or longing to be disp
roven.
“On the Thursday before he killed himself, we had a falling out. A major falling out. I was scared; I didn’t know what to do about my friend who seemed to be losing his mind over some stupid girl. I yelled at him to stop. I yelled for him to be a fucking man and take some responsibility. Who cared what she thought. I told him that she was never coming back.”
Leon lowered his head in shame. He ran his hands through his hair and lifted his head back up. Tears streaked his face. His voice returned to normal as he continued on.
“Kevin must have believed me. God, sixteen year-olds are fucking stupid. And I mean me, too. We didn’t know anything. All I knew was my friend was bumming out over a girl and I wanted him to be his old self again. If I had known! If I had even the slightest inclination that he would do something like that I could have saved him. I should have saved him.”
Leon wiped his eyes harshly with the bottom of his palms. I felt tears grow in my eyes as I listened to his story, his pain becoming my pain. The tea kettle began to whistle behind us and I cursed it silently in my head. I could not get up at this moment, this tender moment of Leon’s confession.
“The tea is ready,” Leon said, smiling wanly at me.
I nodded and reached out to touch his shoulder. I rubbed gently, a consoling rub that said what I couldn’t think to actually say. I got up quickly and ran over to the stove, removing the tea kettle and pouring the boiling water over our tea bags so quickly that scalding hot water splashed up and on my hands. I shook them out quickly, the burning sensation quickly dissipating as I did so. Then I hurried back over to where Leon sat before the fire and handed him a cup.
A moment of clarity dawned on me. I was sitting with a client, the client naked and wrapped in a sheet, drinking tea before a roaring fire in my own home. It felt surreal, but when Leon began to speak again, my reservations quickly gave way to curiosity. I had to hear this story. I wanted to hear this story. I needed to hear it.
I sat closer to Leon, my arm rubbing his upper back. More than anything, I wanted to console him, make him feel that everything was alright. I wanted to make up for the cruel words I had said to him earlier in his office.
“Kevin had believed me, it’s as simple as that. He knew that Cassie wasn’t coming back. I confirmed it and helped him end his own life. She was everything to him, and with her gone, he killed himself. I told my best friend the very thing that would push him over the edge.”
Leon drank his tea, pausing in thought.
“I found him in his room. He had been dead for hours; I knew it immediately. Yet I tried to save him. I pulled him down and tried to resuscitate him. At least, that’s what some of my other friends told me afterwards. They heard me screaming his name over and over and rushed to see what the problem was. When the medics showed up, they had to have me restrained. I don’t remember any of that though. All I remember is Kevin hanging there and how his face looked. I can never forget that.”
We sat in silence for a long time after that. I got up and put some more logs on the fire and blew into it, stoking the fire. The room was warm now, but sat in front of the fire, our faces growing hot from the flames. I let tears fall down my face without shame and when I turned to Leon, I saw he was silently crying.
The silence continued. Leon stared into the fire, his face blank. I threw another log on the fire and watched the flames grow as they consumed the fresh wood. I felt the urge to do something, to make this all right, but I couldn’t think of anything to do or to say. It was as though every time I searched for something to say, all my words fell short.
Time ceased to matter. It grew late until it passed into morning. I didn’t bother to check the time; it didn’t matter. Leon sat before the fire. My clothes were still soaking wet against my back yet dry on the front. I sat a foot away from Leon in watching the fire eat away at the logs and throw heat in our faces.
Leon leaned his head on his forearms, his eyes closing finally. I almost hoped he had fallen asleep, but when he opened his eyes, I saw they were fully alert. Sleep would provide Leon Christensen no reprieve from his sufferings tonight.
I inched closer to him, not exactly knowing why. He had fallen into his head again, the silence washing over the confession that had pained him to make. My heart had warmed to this man; I couldn’t deny that. Even my anger over his past transgressions against me dissolved immediately after he confessed his greatest childhood sin. My impression of Leon Christensen turned from misogynistic asshole into a wounded man.
I kept inching closer to Leon until our hips were almost touching. The fire felt great against my skin, but my back was still freezing. I wanted to turn myself around, but I resisted; I did not want to be so close to Leon and face him eye to eye. Instead, I wrapped the inadequately small towel around my back in a vain attempt at warming myself.
The fire crackled and popped before us. Patters of rain danced against the roof in a steady drumbeat that sped up and slowed down without any warning. When was the last time it had rained like this in Beverly Hills? I thought.
I looked over to Leon. He maintained his statuesque posture, staring into the fire, but now I saw his eyes. They carried so much sorrow in them, so much pain. Kevin’s death weighed down this man every day of his life, and this was the anniversary. It was a culmination of guilt and loss that I could only begin to empathize with.
A tear streaked down Leon’s face. I felt tears well up in my eyes and I fought them back. Even the sight of this man crying was almost too much to bear. It was at that moment that any feelings of distance towards this person dissipated. Leon Christensen was no longer simply a client; he was a real person that I had some modicum of feelings towards.
I put my arm around him and gripped his shoulder firmly. The impulse overtook me and without hesitation I had moved to embrace him. It hadn’t been any kind of romantic pass. No, I had simply needed to show this hurt person that they were not alone in this moment. Sometimes, all we need is the embrace of another person to help us through our pain.
Leon turned to look at me. Our faces were inches away, so close that it made it hard to focus in on each other’s eyes. A new alertness came over his face as though he had just woken up with a slight startle. I gave him a friendly smile and rubbed his shoulder gently.
“You’re wet,” Leon said softly.
I shrugged my shoulders and smiled. Yes, I was still wet and somewhat cold, but it didn’t matter in this moment. With the fire blazing before us and the rhythm of rainwater above us, I felt completely at peace. Moving to get out of my clothes might have broken this almost perfect moment, which I fought against with every instinct.
Leon’s eyebrows rose as he smiled wanly. He shook his head slightly in disagreement, almost as though he were reading my thoughts. I rubbed his upper back, noticing just how firm the muscle was against my caress. When I returned my arm to his shoulder, I gripped it firmly and the muscle barely gave way. Leon Christensen’s muscles were practically carved from wood.
I imagined the countless hours that Leon spent in a gym, sweating profusely as he pushed his muscles to their breaking point. How many of those hours had he spent cursing himself, punishing himself for the sins of his youth? How much weight had he pushed up in rage against himself? His body had not swelled to bodybuilder proportions, but his muscles were woven with strands of cement, firm and unyielding.
Caressing his shoulder gently, imagining the tearing of his muscles as a form of punishment, Leon stared at me.
“You shouldn’t stay wet,” he said tenderly. “You’ll get sick.”
Leon’s right arm caressed my lower back, feeling the shirt that still clung to my skin. Sparks flew through every nerve in my body at his touch. I felt my hair stand on end and my toes curled in my socks as though I had been shocked. I looked at Leon and maintained my composure.
I nodded slowly in agreement, frowning slightly.
“You need to get out of these clothes,” he said softly, his eyes staring straight into mine.
“Ok,” I mouthed breathlessly. I sat still, completely motionless.
Leon slipped my arm off his shoulder gently, holding it softly as he did so. He shifted himself sideways so that he faced me directly, and the blanket slid of him slightly, exposing his upper body. My eyes fell on the crumpled mass of the blanket that had gathered in his crotch.
Leon pushed the blouse off the back of my shoulders and a chill ran through me as the air struck the wet fabric. We stared at each other, maintaining eye contact in an ever increasing intensity of vibration. I shook slightly and Leon’s hands gently rubbed my arms to warm me. A shadow of a smile adorned his lips. Red lined his eyes that had only just ceased to drop tears down his face.