Seer

by Robin Roseau

  And so I did. In return, she kissed me. “I want you to practice those.”

  “Does my accent hurt your ears?”

  “We’ll worry about your accent later,” she said. She smiled. Then she began speaking slowly and carefully to me, in French, and I knew my lessons had begun in earnest.

  It was Wednesday. We left Thursday evening and spent the weekend in the mountains, exactly as she said we would. She didn’t address a single word of English to me the entire trip. Instead, she spoke slowly and carefully in French the entire time.

  It was beautiful, and I could listen to her for hours.

  Some of it was simple conversation, and I grew accustomed to the sound of the words. I realized that was as important as anything else.

  At other times, she might hold something up, and she would say a word, then wait for me to repeat it. The first time she did it, I asked her, “Are you going to torment me if I pronounce it wrong?” She shook her head. “Are you going to quiz me later?” That earned me a nod. “Are you going to torment me if I forget?” She shook her head again.

  Then she waved the apple. “Une pomme,” she said.

  I repeated it. She pronounced it again and I repeated again. I was sure my accent was terrible.

  She held up a second apple. “Deux pommes.”

  And so, I learned the words for some of the foods we ate, and for most of my body parts. That was a particularly enjoyable lesson, as she first got me entirely naked, laid me out on the bed, and then began stroking a body part, saying the word several times until I repeated it.

  She did torment me a little during that lesson. She would stroke or kiss me, and I was to say the word. If I got it right, she rewarded me with more strokes and kisses, but if I used the wrong word, she bit the part I had named instead.

  I loved it, anyway.

  Luckily, because of my German, I already understood the idea of words having gender and how to conjugate a verb. Unfortunately, German is not one of the Romance languages, and so my knowledge of German was otherwise little help learning French. However, French nouns are either masculine or feminine; there is no neutral gender like there is in German, reducing some of the complexity of the language.

  We had a lovely weekend, and I enjoyed my language lessons as well. At one point, when I was feeling particularly dense, I asked Solange, “Aren’t you going to get frustrated?”

  She answered simply, “Non.”

  Blessedly, the dreams left me alone, but they returned with a vengeance once we returned.

  * * * *

  I followed Solange, first as a bird, following her car as she drove from her home. I was surprised when she pulled into a farm yard, coming to a stop at the entrance to the barn. There was a pause, and the barn doors slid open. My view swooped down into the barn as she pulled in and parked. The doors closed automatically.

  Solange got out of the car. I saw few details of the barn, but my view shifted, and I was Solange. She stepped to the back of the barn, and there was what I presumed was a utility room in the back corner. There was a touchpad next to the door. Solange removed a card key from her purse, swiped it through the card reader, then punched an eight-digit code into the touchpad. A moment later, a green light lit, and there was a buzzing sound. Solange opened the wooden door beside the touchpad, and I saw it was much thicker than I would have expected.

  But instead of a room, there was a shining metal door, the door to an elevator. Solange waited, and after several seconds, the door slid open.

  She turned around, and there was the typical elevator control panel, but there were only two buttons. The top button was labeled, “Heaven”, and the lower button was labeled, “Hell”. Solange pushed the lower button. The elevator doors closed, and we began to descend.

  The dream ended, and I woke up.

  I lay on my side in the dark. I felt a cat near my feet and Solange at my back, our bottoms pressed together.

  “Solange?” I whispered. There was no answer. I wanted her to hold me, but not enough to wake her, so I rolled around myself and pressed against her body. “Je t’aime,” I whispered.

  The dream repeated two days later, but this time, Aubree was with her.

  Three days later, the dream lasted much longer. Aubree and Solange were both there, and in the dream, I followed them as they stepped out of the elevator. They entered into a cavernous room. Directly in front of us was a clear walkway. To the right was a wall with doorways appearing periodically. To the left were the rows of bodies hanging inside their plastic cocoons.

  Solange and Aubree ignored the bodies. Instead, they walked forward past two of the doors, stopping at a third. Solange used her card key again and entered her code, and then the two stepped into a storage room. The walls were lined with shelves, and there were crates on the shelves. In the center of the room was a table with two more crates waiting.

  The two talked, but their words didn’t register.

  Solange stepped up to the table and opened one of the boxes. She pulled out what looked like a bottle of beer, but it was corked like a wine bottle. Aubree handed her a corkscrew, and Solange easily opened the bottle. Then Aubree presented two glass tumblers. Solange divided the blood red contents of the bottle between the two glasses, sliding one back to Aubree.

  The two of them drank. Aubree didn’t quite make a face, but she frowned.

  “I know,” Solange said. “It’s better fresh.”

  “I can still taste the drugs.”

  “It’s better than it was,” Solange said. “And it’s better than the alternative. The council is very interested in what we’re doing here.” They drank again. “Can you taste the preservative?”

  “Is that what that is?”

  “The aftertaste,” Solange said.

  “The report said we get a six-week shelf life now.”

  Solange nodded and pointed to the second case. “Those are aged. We’ll try one next, then we’ll ship the rest.”

  They finished their glasses. Aubree opened the second case, removed a bottle, and divided the contents.

  “It’s not any better aged,” Aubree declared.

  “No, but it’s not any worse, either. And it’s life.”

  “It’s better fresh,” Aubree said, repeating Solange’s words. “Have you bitten the little programmer yet?” I would have gasped at her words, if I could.

  “No,” Solange said. “It’s been close a few times. She smells so intoxicating. And is Dolores’ neck unmarred?”

  “Of course it is,” Aubree said. “You know the only time I see her are when you and Sidney invite us both. Besides, Sidney insists she’s straight.”

  “You could seduce a gay priest,” Solange said, “and make him think it was his idea besides.”

  “Leave Dolores alone!” I wanted to scream.

  “In fact,” Solange added, “I seem to recall you did just that.”

  “Yeah, but he tasted worse than this.” Aubree nodded to her glass. “If Dolores wants to date, she’s going to have to follow Sidney’s lead.”

  “I don’t think Dolores is the type to ask first, Aubree.”

  “Well, I like her,” Aubree said, “But this life is a little too intense if she isn’t sure she knows what she wants. Now Sidney… that one knows what she wants, Solange. When are you going to tell her?”

  “I don’t know. She’s hinting about marriage.”

  “And? Are you going to ask her?”

  “How can I ask her when she doesn’t know about this?” Solange held up the glass. “Forever is a long time.”

  “You can trust her, Solange. Tell her.”

  “I don’t know,” Solange said slowly. “She’s keeping something from me.”

  “It is exceedingly unlikely any of her secrets are as big as yours,” Aubree said. “Don’t be a hypocrite.”

  “Trouble is coming.”

  “Changing the topic?”

  “She’s a seer. We could use her help.”

  “All the more reason to b
ind her to you.”

  “She needs to know about this.” Solange indicated her glass.

  “And how about that?” Aubree hooked her thumb over her shoulder.

  “No. That she definitely does not need to know about.”

  “Tell her, Solange.”

  “I’m afraid.”

  * * * *

  The dream faded. When I woke, I was alone, just me and two cats. Solange’s side of the bed was cold.

  * * * *

  “Tell me a secret,” I said to Solange while cooking dinner two evenings later. “Your deepest, darkest secret.”

  “I don’t have any deep, dark secrets.”

  “Everyone has secrets,” I told her.

  “Not me,” she said.

  I turned to her, putting down the knife I was holding. “You don’t, hmm? I bet you do.”

  “Oh? What secrets do you think I have?”

  “I’m not sure, but I bet if I throw out ideas, you’ll admit to some of them.”

  “Oh, you think so, do you?” She was sitting on one of the stools on the other side of the kitchen island. She had her computer with her and had been working while keeping me company. She closed it and set it aside before turning back to me. “You propose a game?”

  “Sure,” I said. “If I guess any, will you admit to them?”

  “I might,” she said.

  “This game would be more fun if you agree to be a little more forthcoming,” I said.

  “You might ask about secrets that aren’t mine.”

  “I’m not talking about client secrets. I’m talking about your personal secrets, Solange.”

  “But if I haven’t told you about them by now, there must be a reason.”

  “Ah ha!” I said. “So you admit you have them!”

  She frowned. “I admit no such thing. I was speaking hypothetically.”

  “You’re a lawyer,” I pointed out, “and you have a history of speaking very carefully.”

  “I was distracted.”

  “Uh huh.” I paused. “You know, you can tell me anything, Solange.”

  “Like you tell me about your dreams?” she threw back.

  “I don’t talk to you about my dreams because they’re disturbing, and I don’t want to linger over them.”

  “Is that the entire reason?”

  “And because they’re crazy, sometimes. They don’t make sense.”

  “So? That’s the nature of dreams. You should tell me anyway. Maybe they’ll make sense to me.”

  “I think we should go back to talking about your secrets, not my screwed up dreams. I think I should get ten guesses, and if I get any right, or close to right, you be honest about them.”

  “No.”

  I stared at her. “What?”

  “I’ll give you ten guesses, but I don’t promise to tell you if you get any right.”

  “Why not?”

  “What if you guess about something I am not ready to tell you? If I’ve promised to be completely honest, then I either have to tell you when I’m not ready to talk about it, or else I have to lie to you. I haven’t lied to you yet, and I don’t want to start today.”

  “So you admit there are things you aren’t ready to tell me?” I sighed. “Why not.”

  “I didn’t say that. But I don’t know what you might guess. Maybe you’re going to ask about something illegal I’ve done, and if I tell you about it, then you’re an accessory after the fact.”

  I paused. “All right. We’ll play it your way. But you know, you can tell me anything. You can even tell me about the bodies you buried.”

  “Accessory after the fact.”

  “So you admit you buried some bodies!”

  “Is that one of your guesses?”

  “Hell no,” I said. “Ten guesses?” She nodded. “I need paper.”

  I dried my hands while Solange grabbed paper and pen for me. I took my time, writing down my guesses, but I didn’t let her see the list. I divided the list into categories as I wrote it. About half the list was about how she saw me or what she wanted from our relationship. I turned to her. She was watching me carefully.

  “First one,” I said. “You intentionally didn’t ask me out first and were waiting for me to ask you.”

  She laughed. “That one is true.”

  “Why did you wait?”

  “I don’t know if this is a complete answer,” she said, “but I can be hard to say ‘no’ to. If we went out, I wanted it to be at least as much your idea as mine. I think I needed to know that, and not let myself believe you were just along for the ride.”

  “Is that part of the money thing?” I asked.

  “Probably.”

  “Number two,” I said. “You wish I were submissive and would just do what you tell me to do.”

  She frowned.

  “What?”

  “I am deciding if I want to establish a pattern of admitting or denying each of these. I don’t want to inadvertently tell you something when I refuse to comment.”

  “Ah. How about this? You will answer some of them, but we also agree that you specifically won’t comment on some, and thus I am not allowed to take a ‘no comment’ as anything one way or the other.”

  “All right. Do you believe that one is true?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Sometimes, anyway.”

  “It is entirely false. If you were submissive, we would have a different relationship than we have. Not better, not worse. Different. I want you to be you. You occasionally have self-esteem issues, and I wish you didn’t. But otherwise, I wouldn’t change a thing about you.”

  I thought that was really sweet, and I came around the counter to give her a hug. We held each other for a minute before I pulled away and returned to my side of the island.

  “Three. You have fantasies about things you’d like to do to me in bed.”

  “Oh please,” she said. “Of course I do. If you want a real answer, you’re going to need to get more specific than that. And I am pretty sure you have fantasies, too. Everyone has fantasies.”

  “All right,” I said. “Regardless of whether you want me submissive in other ways, I think you have fantasies where you dominate me, perhaps tie me down, perhaps do lots of kinky things to me.”

  She didn’t answer. I waited to see what she would say. “I think I’m not going to address this one,” she said. “But I want to ask: do you believe that one.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you think I don’t share them with you?”

  “Because you’re afraid of freaking me out.”

  “Would I?”

  “No,” I said, “as long as they don’t involve anyone else, and you don’t hurt me.” I smiled. “And you don’t do anything you wouldn’t let me to do you.”

  “Maybe I know that, and that’s why I don’t ask to do them.”

  I studied her. I didn’t have a clue what was true on this one. “Maybe I’d suspend that rule.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to do anything to you that you don’t want.”

  “Maybe I’d like it.”

  “Maybe I’ll take that under advisement.”

  We grinned at each other.

  “Four. You ran a background check on me.”

  Her expression gave her away, but then she schooled her features. “No comment.”

  “Five. You hate the cats and wish I didn’t have them.”

  “I’ll address that one,” she said. “I don’t like your cats a whole lot more than they like me, but I’m glad you had company before we met. And I know they’re important to you, so I don’t wish them ill. If something happened to you, I wouldn’t take them to the humane society, but I might see if your other friends wanted them. Do you think they know that, and that’s why they don’t like me?”

  “I doubt it. Cats typically love to torment people who don’t like them. I think they’re jealous. They haven’t liked…” I closed my mouth.

  “Oh ho!” she crowed. “A secret you aren’t sharing?”
r />   “No,” I said. “It’s just bad form to talk about past girlfriends with the current girlfriend.”

  “Oh go ahead.”

  “Fine. They haven’t liked my past girlfriends that much, either.”

  “They like Dolores.”

  “They know Dolores is just a friend.” I consulted my list. “Number six. You are afraid of my dreams. More specifically, you’re afraid I might discover things about you that you would rather I didn’t.”

  “No comment,” she replied. I laughed.

  “Seven. Sometime in your past, perhaps more than once, you have been seriously physically hurt.”

  “Like a car accident?”

  “Like rape, assault, attempted murder.”

  She eyed me carefully before she said, “No comment.”

  “You know, Solange, you can talk to me about it.”

  “Moving on.”

  “Eight. You have hurt people yourself.”

  “I’m a lawyer,” she pointed out.

  “I don’t mean that, and I don’t mean an ex-girlfriend. I mean physically hurt them.”

  “No comment.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because either you’re right, and I wouldn’t want to make you an accessory, or you’re wrong, but it goes back to not giving you clues for nine and ten.”

  “Nine.” I looked away before sharing it. “You are currently engaged in some sort of illegal activity.”

  She stared at me. “No comment.”

  “Ten,” I said. I smiled. “You and Aubree are some sort of day-walking, blood-drinking vampire. Sometimes you take it straight from the source.” I touched my neck. “Sometimes you take it from the bottle or bag, like from a blood bank.”

  She laughed. “That’s number ten?”

  “Sure.”

  “Are there such things as day walking vampires? I thought vampires couldn’t eat real food or abide sunlight.” She pointed to the food I was preparing. “Are you sure you don’t want to come up with something more plausible?”

  “I dunno,” I said. “Maybe that first dream wasn’t so metaphoric. If so, you have to admit that would be a pretty big secret.” I smiled. “You can tell me, Solange. I won’t judge.”

  She laughed again. “I’m afraid, my love, that if I’m some sort of vampire, I’m just going to leave you guessing about it.”