by Gabi Moore
He pulled back and looked at me again, the light of the fire glinting on the wetness on his lower lips. In spite of myself, I smiled, giddy.
“Aw, Adam, can I get a snog too, huh?” Andrew teased. It felt easy to laugh with everyone. The fire kept burning. I took off my black wings and …forgot.
Chapter 6
Pigeon legs. Grey pigeon legs, as scaly as a dinosaur’s, stalking up and down, right in front of me. I opened my eyes and watched in the broad daylight. The pigeon picked erratically at nothing on the floor, looked wide-eyed at me then flapped off, leaving a few feathers behind. I groaned and blinked hard. The air was so cold it almost smelt metallic.
I looked down: a hand draped over my waist. I was on a hard floor, resting on a nest of jackets and coats; Adam curled up behind me, his arm linked round my middle.
Slowly, I remembered.
The night had been long and strange. But I remembered it all. Every last smile. Every laugh and joke and …I remembered dancing around the fire, roaring with laughter and making shadows on the walls with everyone. I remember how Andrew had showed us some yoga poses, and then walked over the hot coals to show it wouldn’t hurt him. I remember that we had made a raucous song about it, and had part-sung part-laughed that song over and over, like dervishes in the night. We had all stretched out on the floor and talked about our life and how crazy it was and that this was special, this moment right now, in Andrew’s shitty house. And then we had hugged and cried and danced some more.
And I had gazed into Adam’s eyes. All night. For eons, really. We had kissed again and again, first strangely, then as old friends, then teasingly, then back to strange again, until we had tried out every kind of kiss with one another.
His handsome face came alive, in the flicker of that fire, as the night wore on. He had kissed me delicately, placing the tenderest fingertip on my lip as he explored me with his tongue. And he kissed me savagely, both hands gripping me close, devouring me one hungry caress after another.
I took in a deep, cold breath and held it in my lungs, feeling my body waking up on the inside. This was a strange feeling. It took me a while, lying there on our strange morning nest, to realize what the feeling was: peace.
I tilted my head and saw a few bodies strewn in sleep all over the floor, in a jumble of coats and scarves. The fire, filled with our darkest fears and burdens, was now cold and ash-white, finished and unnecessary in the clean morning light.
“Good morning, glory.”
His voice was deep and soft, like wet earth. I turned round and nuzzled into his chest, breathing in his scent. He was unlike any man I had ever met before. His skin was so warm, and I could smell him under the smoke-tinged fabric of his cotton shirt. He was the most delicious thing in the world to me at that moment. His hand rested on my hips.
I remembered more.
I had wanted him, all night. He had teased me and laughed. I squeezed my eyes shut and saw his gleaming face in my memory.
“Steady on, you’re trying to get into my pants, aren’t you?” I had laughed. It was bliss.
Another strange feeling: I didn’t need to sleep with him. Well, not yet at least.
I took in another deep breath and gently curled my hips against his. He groaned quietly and pulled me in close, nestling his lips against the top of my head.
“You’re beautiful,” he breathed.
“You’re …mad” I said and laughed.
He kissed me again.
“Do we really have to wake up, do you think? Let’s just lie here until it’s night again,” he said.
Then I remembered.
Tamara.
The early morning meeting.
“Oh shit!”
I jumped up.
“What’s the time? Oh fuck, I have a thing with Tamara this morning!” I said. My frantic voice stirred someone in the corner, who mumbled something, rolled over and went back to sleep.
“Oh God, Adam this was so stupid. Do you know where my bag is?” I was scrambling through the great pile of scarves and coats, everything reeking of fire and ash.
“And the wings!” I exclaimed, noticing that they weren’t where I had left them.
Adam was quickly on his feet and rubbing his face. He yanked a phone out of his pocket and looked at it quizzically, then came over to me and gripped me by the arms.
“OK, just relax, OK? When is your meeting?” His features were cooling and hardening before my very eyes.
“It’s uh… oh God, I can’t even remember …it’s uh, at nine I think? Yes, at nine. What time is it now?”
“It’s 8:50.”
“Fuck!” I scrambled to find my shoes and flung on my coat. “Where are those goddam wings?”
Adam was hurrying behind me, shrugging on his own jumper and raking nervous fingers through his hair. When he opened the glass-paned kitchen door, a gust of cool air came rushing in.
“Come on, let’s go, I’ll drive you,” he said.
“You have a car? Oh thank God,” I mumbled, and tossed my bag over my shoulder. “I just have to find those wings…”
“Forget the wings, Nyx, you’re hopelessly late already. If we leave now, we’ll get there maybe 10 minutes late. We can still save this. Let’s just go.”
I scowled. Where could they have gotten to? I couldn’t have just lost them.
“But let me just…”
“Nyx, let’s go!”
He marched over, grabbed me round my waist and before I knew it, he had pitched me over his shoulder, cave-man style, my messy hair hanging long down his back. I squealed and laughed, but he was off, expertly picking his way down the iron staircase, crunching through a gravel parking lot and then flinging me down in the passenger seat of his car. I looked up at him, half-smiling, my hair tousled.
“Good grief you’re strong,” I said.
“I know,” he winked naughtily at me and shut the door, and soon we were whizzing through town, both of us praying we wouldn’t be caught by morning traffic.
I tapped nervously on my phone as he drove, perched all the way on the very edge of his car seat. I sent Tamara a message and then tried to call, but it went straight to voicemail. It was my first big meeting with Tamara. The one where I’d pitch my big ideas, and show her that although I might be one of the newest and youngest members on the team, that I would manage, that I’d show her and that she could trust me …except now I was going to be fucking late.
We finally pulled up at the college and parked. It was 9:16. Shit. I could make out tiny beads of sweat on Adam’s face; he had focused solely on driving, and I had just stared ahead at the road, trying to gather my thoughts.
We both slammed our car doors shut and took the stairs two at a time, and immediately saw Tamara standing outside the main hall, having a smoke break. She blew a plume of smoke, looked us both up and down and then dropped the cigarette onto the floor and twisted it out with her boot. Expressionless, she turned on her heel and headed back inside.
“OK, I have to go now,” I stammered. “thanks for the ride Adam.”
“No problem, we’ll chat later.”
How the hell could he be smiling at a time like this?
“Oh God…”
“What now?” he said.
“My notebook. I haven’t brought any of my work. I have nothing to show her,” I said. I felt the tears welling up in my throat. He looked at me with a glimmer of mischief in his eyes.
“Hey, Nyx, can I tell you something quickly?”
“What?”
“Your drawings and stuff?”
“Yeah?”
“They’re not that great anyway.”
“What the fuck?”
“I’m saying, you can do without them. You don’t need them. Everything’s in here, right?” He placed his fingertip against my temple. I shook it away, a rash of anger coming over me.
“No, no it isn’t. I’m screwed. Oh God, I can’t believe I let this happen…”
I started to whine. My head bega
n to feel like sandpaper. He grabbed me by the shoulders again and held me firmly.
“Nyx, listen to me …are you listening?”
“Yes, what?”
“You got this,” he said, and again pierced me with those eyes of his. “You have a gift. Go in there and have fun with it, OK?”
“OK,” I said quietly.
He gave my butt a playful slap as I scrambled the rest of the way up the stairs and went to find Tamara. I turned to wave him goodbye but he had already taken off. I took a deep breath, opened the door and made my way to Tamara’s office.
Chapter 7
I tried desperately to wipe the weird ash on my fingers off on the back of my clothing.
Turning up at an important meeting wearing a day-old velvet dress, heels, and stale make-up was definitely something that the old Nyx would have done. But now…?
I stood in Tamara’s office, unprepared and nearly shaking with nerves. My palms were sweating, and still the weird dirt on them from rummaging around in Andrew’s weird apartment looking for my wings was not coming off.
It had been a magical night. I dare say, the most fun I had had in …well, maybe ever. I had felt free. Happy. Accepted. Like a great burden had been lifted from me. And now Tamara was sitting in her faux-leather seat, mouth tight with irritation, hands clasped in front of her and waiting for me to explain myself.
I sat down and tried to smooth out the weird wrinkles in my lap. Have fun with it? Easy for him to say, he wasn’t sitting here, in the hot seat, his exclusive drama college dream basically over before it had even started.
“Unfortunately, it’s been a bit of a rush this morning for me and I’ve forgotten my folder at home,” I said quietly, trying a nervous smile.
She glared at me.
She had said on that first day, “don’t let him rattle you” and here I was anyway, thoroughly rattled. What I hadn’t been prepared for was the fact that being rattled by him would feel so, so good.
“We don’t have all day though, so just share with me what you’ve done,” she said coldly.
Tamara was a pretty woman, not terribly much older than me but far more put together, something of a fashionable viciousness in her demeanor that looked like it belonged on a Vogue model.
“Yes, well, OK then,” I said, and wrung my hands together. Just have fun with it. OK. Sure. Fun.
“So, to begin with, I wanted to base everything off of primary colors. Nicky is making everything Bluebeard wears some kind of blue, so I wanted the surrounds - especially his bed chambers, which are the most important – a blend of yellow and red. The yellow will mostly be the candle light, leaving most of the room red, which will foreshadow the bloody chamber nicely…”
She looked unimpressed, like she was waiting for the punchline of a joke that had gone on too long.
“There’ll be a carpet at the very center,” I continued, “serving as a sort of stage within a stage…”
Her face didn’t budge an inch.
I felt hot. Almost sick.
“Actually, can I be honest?” I said.
She raised an eyebrow at me.
I straightened in my seat and looked her full on. This was hopeless. I had messed it up completely, and there was no hope for me, not now. So, why not have fun with it then? What did I have to lose? I took a deep, shuddering breath and leaned forward in my chair.
“What I really want to do is try something a little less …Disney,” I said.
A small smile flickered on her lips.
“Go on.”
“Well, I could make Bluebeard’s bed chamber a ruin. Like, the little that’s left over of a room after a big tragedy happens to it,” I said, getting a tiny bit excited. “I’m thinking, all the walls inside his great manor are all torn down. I’m thinking, destroyed, derelict aristocracy, a crumbling grandeur and something seedy, something frightening visible under the surface.”
I started waving my hands around.
“Picture smashed through walls, but on each raw edge of the wall, there are tons of candles wedged into the open brickwork, all bleeding their wax down, and the floor is bare under this old, faded carpet. It used to be something noble and beautiful, but now…” I flashed mischievous eyes at her.
Was I having fun? Tamara followed my every word.
“I want it to be dark, Tamara. No skulls and crossbones. Bluebeard attracted his victim some way, didn’t he? He did it because he’s fucking hot,” I said under my breath.
The smile on her face was slow and surprised.
“So the squalor we see is sexy squalor. I’ll do broken beer bottles. It’s dirty. No fireplace – only a blackened circle right in the middle, where a fire once was,” I said, and traced a big, excited circle in the air with my arms.
She broke out into a grin.
“Yes I …I think I see that,” she said, and I could tell she was trying to picture what I was describing. In my smoky velvet dress and tousled hair, I chatted with her for a while longer, getting carried away with myself. She seemed less angry, and after a while even a little curious. Maybe Adam was right. Maybe I did have this.
She glanced at her watch and frowned.
“OK, let’s wrap this up, Nyx. I have to be honest; I like what you’re going for, and kudos to you for pushing the envelope a little. We like to see that here. Too many students don’t take risks,” she said, standing up. I stood up too, feeling infinitely lighter than when I had come in.
“Good work,” she said and shook my hand.
“Thank you,” I said and turned to leave.
“Oh, and Nyx?”
“Yes?”
“Your aunt has campaigned heavily for you in this course, you know that, right?”
I suddenly felt as cold and dead as the fire in Andrew’s shitty house.
“Yes, I know.”
“She’s a smart lady, and she’s gone to great lengths to try and convince everyone that you have a talent…”
Silence.
“I happen to agree with her. But don’t think for a second that talent is enough.”
I looked at her, my hand shaking on the doorknob.
“I mean it, Nyx. I don’t care how talented you are, it doesn’t mean you can waste my time.”
I swallowed hard. Stared at the floor. “I apologize, Tamara,” I said. I closed the door behind me and made my way outside, adrenaline coursing through me. I was alive. I wasn’t going to get thrown off campus or disowned by aunt Lila after all. In fact, Tamara had said I was talented. Talented.
I would never have been in this awkward mess were it not for Adam, and were it not for that evil black pill and were it not for the fire, and the wings …
But then again, maybe I would have stuck with my boring folder of boring ideas, pitching them to Tamara in clean, ironed clothes this morning, well behaved and predictable …and untalented.
I stood on the college steps and peered around, noticing how crisp the morning light was. I had an appointment with some carpenters later on that afternoon. But for now? Now I wanted to speak to Adam.
I ran down the steps, heels clacking on the concrete.
I hadn’t quite decided yet if I wanted to yell at him …or thank him. But being spontaneous was working well for me so far, wasn’t it? So, let’s just say I wasn’t trying too hard to decide.
Chapter 8
“Are you at home?” I texted him.
The reply was instant.
“Yes.”
“I’m coming over.”
The screen was still for a while then his reply popped up, simply his address and nothing more. He stayed only a few minutes’ walk from campus. My feet were beginning to hurt, but I walked quickly anyway, blood still full of adrenaline.
I buzzed at an unassuming block of flats and the door buzzed back at me and clicked open. My heels clacked over to his door and I buzzed again. When he opened it, it took me a few moments to take him all in again, just to look at him again. Nope, he wasn’t something I had dreamt. He was
n’t a drug-induced hallucination. And yup, his eyes really did look like that, even now in the ordinary light of day.
“Come in,” he said, and stood aside.
My body brushed against his as I walked in. He was wearing nothing but a super-comfy looking pair of track bottoms, chest bare, feet bare. Eyes bare.
I tossed down my bag and coat on a side table and watched him close and lock the door.
A few hours ago, I had been whirling around a fire with him, hands linked, peals of laughter echoing in a strange abandoned lot and the relentless, beautiful feeling of raw energy, of something new and wonderful happening… And now we were in an ordinary flat, with a regular carpet. The only memory of that weird night was my long-suffering velvet dress.
“Adam Morgan, you nearly got me into so much trouble,” I said at last.
He lifted an eyebrow at me and said nothing. I followed him into the living room.
“Only nearly?” he said, and settled down onto a sofa. I followed suit, folding my legs tightly underneath me.
“Yes, only nearly, and thank God.”
“What happened?”
“I had to wing it. I just rattled off whatever came to mind. I mean, I look like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards and I probably smell worse, and I just totally winged it and said whatever came to mind.”
“And she liked it, didn’t she?”
I frowned.
“Well, yes, she did actually. Thank goodness.”
He didn’t seem at all concerned. In fact, I was beginning to wonder why I myself was still so stressed.
“I guess you were right,” I said. “It was too Disney.”
His smile was broad and warm.
“Are you still sore about that?” he laughed.
“Well, you were right after all. My other ideas were very …dull. I don’t know why I didn’t …anyway, I’m going to try a new direction. You were right. Bluebeard’s a really frightening guy. He needs a truly frightening bed chamber. You were right…” I said again, and the more I said it, the more the tension seemed to be melting from my shoulders.