Her Designer Baby

by Shawna Washington

  Now that he’s done it, I feel like hesitating. I’ve literally just left Alexei less than an hour ago. But then again, why not, I think. It’s not his fault his timing is a little off. Or, actually, it’s not his fault his timing has been perfect. An hour ago, I’d been on the verge of sobbing. He’s made me smile. He’s been nothing but polite. And sweet. So many men would have taken the opportunity to really hit on me, and he hadn’t, not in anyway that made me uncomfortable. And it’s so good to talk to someone who seems to understand. Those are the things I tell myself. That’s how I explain it away, this sudden feeling of excitement stirring through my stomach.

  Even if I’m developing a little crush, so what? Why can’t I enjoy this?

  “Yes,” I tell him. Then I laugh. The breeze blows my hair into fluttering against my cheek. “I mean, no! I mean, yes. Oh, you know what I mean!” Laughing harder, I give up. And I say the only thing that matters. “Yes, you can have my number.”

  He pulls his phone out of his pocket and I give him my number...he puts it under my name too, not something like ‘pretty lady number 101.’ Which, as good looking as he is, I don’t doubt could be totally plausible.

  His eyes are twinkling as he puts his phone away and he turns to the street to hail a cab. When one of the yellow taxis pulls up to the curb, he opens the door for me, waits for me climb in, and then sets the bag on the seat beside me. Gently, as though it’s something he doesn’t want to do, he closes the door.

  “The Hilton, please,” I tell the driver, and the cab starts to pull away towards the traffic. I’ll call Carla later and see if I can stay with her for a few days. Even though I know she wouldn’t mind, I don’t want to just show up at her place unannounced. Besides, after tonight, I just want to be alone. I just want to sink into a bed without having to answer any questions. Not any questions about Alexei.

  Not any questions about why I might be crying. Or, oddly enough now, I really don’t want to answer any questions about why I might be smiling.

  A light tap against the side of the car makes the driver stop just before he pulls out into the street. Surprised, I look up, through the half open window.

  Emilio is looking down at me. He’s smiling. Behind him, the soft glow of the neon signs flash. They light the side of his face, making him impossibly seem even more handsome. “I just wanted to tell you I’ve made a decision.”

  Confused, I arch my eyebrow at him. What on earth is he talking about? I’m sure the cabbie, who is leaning over the front seat, looking back expectantly, is wondering the very same thing.

  “I’ve decided that I’m going to call you tomorrow, Radiah.” His little smirk softens. “If you don’t mind, that is.”

  My heart flutters with a small stirring of excitement. I don’t think through my answer. I just tell him what I want. I just tell him what I feel.

  “Yes. Call me,” I say, and the driver pulls forward into the traffic. I turn my head, just enough so our eyes linger for a moment because he’s still looking too. His face gets smaller and smaller as we pull further down the street.

  Then, he is gone.

  But he’d said it.

  I’ve decided that I’m going to call you tomorrow, Radiah.

  I’m surprised at how much I want him to do just that. I want him to call me. I do, and I’m surprised at the small flutter of anticipation I feel because I want him to do it. It’s a kind of excitement I haven’t had for another men since I’d first met Alexei, and the feeling itself makes me both sad and hopeful. I never thought I’d feel that kind of excitement about another man. I’d thought Alexei and I were going to be forever. I love Alexei, I know I do, but I also know that it’s time I face the facts. Alexei and I don’t want the same things in life. Today that became painfully, irrevocably, clear. But I know now that I’m also not alone in what I want. There are other people who want the same things that I do. There are men who want the same things I do. Maybe I never really doubted that, but at the same time, Alexei has been my world for so long, it’s sometimes hard to think outside of his context.

  But there is a whole world that has nothing to do with Alexei. It’s something I’m sure of now.

  Alexei

  I stand at the window. Across the street, the buildings glint silver in the late afternoon sunlight. It is a warm day, but there is nothing warm in this room. Nothing in this office that would set it apart from any other. Cold, clinical, a few chairs, and a nondescript desk. Leave no trace is how we operate. We are nameless men, in many ways. In others, we are too well known.

  In a sense, there is nowhere for men like us to hide.

  Reaching into my pocket, I pull out my phone. She has not called; she has not texted. I’ve sent her one text. I’ve asked her where she is. I cannot protect her when I don’t know where she is. It is infuriating to me. She knows this. She knows there is little that gets to me more than when she leaves herself vulnerable.

  In my hand, the phone hums. I tell myself it most likely won’t be her. I don’t want to feel this hopeful feeling every time my phone makes one kind of damn sound or another.

  But it is her. Finally. It’s her. A text message.

  I’m staying with Carla, it reads, which is the answer to the question I’ve asked her. The phone hums again. I turn my eyes aside. I’m not sure I want to read whatever else she might have to say. Not now. Not when I’m about to have a meeting.

  I’m sure it won’t be what I want to read. I’m sure, but I can’t stop myself from looking down again.

  Leave me alone, Alexei. We’re through. And I don’t want anything to do with you anymore.

  I read those words over and over again. They don’t make sense to me. It’s almost as though I can’t, or won’t, let myself comprehend them. I think I’d expected to argue. I think I’d expected to sleep on the couch for a few nights. I think I’d expected the cold shoulder. But not this. Not an ending.

  I feel the tension rising through my back. My shoulders bunch. She cannot just say that, cannot just do that. She is my woman. Still, today, the scent of her lingers, her image fills my mind, and those things fill me with a hunger.

  I would do anything for her, and she knows it. She should know it. I’ve tried to give her the world. Anything she wants, I want to give to her. And yet I know how little all of those things mean. Material things don’t impress her. The time I give to her must seem paltry compared to the time I don’t give her.

  She doesn’t know it. Because I haven’t given the one thing she wants more than anything. I know this too. And my inability to do it is both frustrating and infuriating. Because that inability is caused by fear, it is a thing I feel ashamed for.

  I’m going to lose her because I’m afraid to give her what she wants. I’m afraid to look at what I might want because I think I know the answer to the question: can I do it?

  Radiah is the best thing in my life and I cannot bear the thought of losing her. She’s the one thing that feels entirely mine, and mine alone.

  She’s the only person that has ever made me feel like I belong to someone else. The only person that I’ve wanted to belong to.

  And probably the only person who has wanted me for more than money, or for sex. More than just those things I’m actually good at.

  Shoving the phone back in my pocket, I pace a few steps. And then I turn back and pace a few steps the other way. I am not good with this, not good with trying to decipher my feelings. I know exactly what I want; I always do. But here, I don’t know how to make it happen. I don’t know how to keep Radiah, how to make her happy without abandoning the organization that has been my livelihood, my family.

  They’d saved me from death. Maybe had saved me from a fate much worse than death. I feel I cannot turn my back on them. Money, power, comfort, those are all things I can do without. It is not those things that keep me loyal. It is the fact that Ivan trusted me like a son and not that he left me his fortune which keeps me loyal. They were there for me when I had nothing. They were there for me
when I was too angry and too lost to know which way to go. I owe them my life, they have literally been my life, and I am willing to sacrifice for them. As much as I’ve told Radiah, there are so many things she does not know. Things I do not want anyone to know.

  Things like the reason I do not need comfort, nor expect it. My childhood was hard. It was loveless, and it was cold, and it was terrifying. Only Radiah knows a little of it. And even her, I keep in the dark. Maybe especially her, I keep in the dark. I keep her in the dark because the dark inside of myself, because that screaming, because those fists, because that empty place is a space I don’t want to think about. I don’t think about it, and I don’t let it affect me and I don’t want anyone’s empathy.

  I don’t want their sympathy.

  I think about striding across the room to open the door. I’m thinking about things now that I don’t want to think about. I don’t want the smallness of this space. I don’t want the way the walls seem to narrow.

  I don’t want the corners.

  The cold space of the small room is suddenly too small. Without remembering, without my consent, I am there again.

  I am pushed, pressed hard against the coldness of the floor. I am turning over, onto my back. Not because I want to turn over, but because he is turning me. I am holding my hand up. My father's face is there, between the cracks of my fingers. His face is mottled, splotchy maroon and livid with white. His eyes glare. The knuckles on his fist are already bruised. His fist is purple with hitting and his fist is red, bloodied with my face.

  He hits, and he hits again, and even when I curl up into a ball, even when I do finally start to cry, he doesn’t stop. Then, she screams. She screams too and I want to stand up. I want to stand up and I want to make him stop but everything hurts too much.

  My temple starts to throb. I make the memory go away. Ruthlessly, I shove it down. I put that stupid little boy who cannot get up away. I will leave him in the dark. I don’t want to know him. I want to forget him. He can rot there, on that floor with his bleeding face and his helpless hands.

  Sometimes, I think Radiah knows more than she lets on. When she talks about favorite memories, or about birthdays, she sometimes asks me, ‘what about you, Alexei?’ She asks me so earnestly. She wants me to tell her stories about my favorite Christmas.

  The Christmas he didn’t come home is my favorite; I haven’t had the heart to tell her.

  I have very little I can honestly tell her. By the time I was a twelve, I was big, and I was broad, and I was strong. I was drinking by the time I was twelve. By the time I was twelve, I was in the streets, fighting for money. I would come out of the bars and I would eye down the nearest woman and I’d learned very quickly I could have any of them I wanted. They let me sleep in their homes where it was warm. They cooked for me. And all I had to do was to make them feel good.

  Even when Radiah says to me, ‘how did you learn to do that, Alexei,’ I feel a shame in me.

  I told myself I liked it. And I did. I do. But I’d been young. Too young. I know that now. Now I know I’d been too young, and too alone.

  I had no direction. I had no guidance. I didn’t care. Not about myself, and not about anyone else. I hurt them, and they hurt me. And I didn’t give a fuck. I was bad. I told myself that. I was bad. And I liked being bad. I liked fighting. I liked fucking.

  Without the organization, I don’t know what would have become of that boy. Without the organization, I don’t know what I am, or what I will be. Yes, I will sacrifice for them. Without hesitation.

  But. Can I lose her? I want to fight for her, and I don’t know even know where to start.

  Without Radiah, I don’t know what will become of this man I am today. My path is still dark. She is my light. She is my compass. I try to tell her in the ways that I know how to say those things. I know I don’t say enough of it though. I know I don’t say enough of anything at all.

  ‘Talk to me’ is something Radiah has said to me, over and over again.

  ‘I am talking,’ I have snapped back at her. I don’t mean to snap it. But I know I do. I do it out of frustration. Because I am trying. I’m trying, and it’s not good enough and I don’t know if anything I do will ever be good enough. It’s not because she’s wanting too much. It’s because I don’t know if I have it in me to give her the things she wants. Or the things that she deserves.

  I talk, but we both know the things I say are very much empty of anything with real meaning. We both know the things I say don’t carry the weight she wants them to. I don’t talk to her about work. I can’t. I don’t talk to her about my past. I can’t. We talk about her day. Or we talk about her past. Or we talk about little things that don’t say the things she wants to hear.

  I’ve been asking Radiah to sacrifice for my work the way I do and now, because of it, I am losing her. I am losing the one thing I do not want to lose. I am losing the one thing that is mine and mine alone. Before Radiah, women were an endless parade of faces. I could have had any woman and I did. I always made it clear to them that they only had me for the moment. I made it clear that I wanted them for only a moment.

  Radiah is different. She’s the first woman I’ve wanted for more than a moment, and for more than a night. She is the first, and the only woman I have wanted to have forever.

  Forever. The word used to terrify me. Now, the idea of not having forever with her is terrifying.

  She is my woman. She is mine, and yet, there is nothing in me that wants to force her to be with me. I want her to want to be with me. She does, she has said. Or she did.

  My woman wants me to leave the only life I have ever known.

  If I don’t, I will lose her.

  No, I correct myself. I have already lost her. According to her text, it is over. The thought of it makes me take another turn across the floor. Am I too late? Is there even a way I can fight for her? Is she already gone? I know when she is emotional, she says things from her heart. Maybe this is how her heart feels now. I’m too late. I didn’t see the signs. Or I saw them and I didn’t know what to do with them.

  My thoughts fly at me hard and fast. Again, the way I don’t want it to, my mind wanders to memory:

  I remember the first time I saw her. I saw her standing across a crowded room. Seeing her was like looking through the lens of a telescope. Suddenly, seeing her, I saw no one else. Suddenly, seeing her, I saw nothing else. When I walked towards her it felt like I was being pulled in that direction by some kind of unseen current.

  She’d been wearing blue, a dark blue that had made her dark skin seem flawless. Her eyes had been bright. And her smile...

  She hadn’t been looking at me; she hadn’t even been looking in my direction. I don’t think she’d noticed the way so many men were watching her. She’d been talking to another woman, and she’d rarely stopped smiling. It was her smile that had set her apart from every other beautiful woman in the room.

  Only once I was there, in front of her, had her eyes turned. Her pretty mouth had made a small circle of surprise.

  ‘Hello,’ I’d said down to her.

  She’d smiled up at me. Her smile had been beautiful. I knew then, looking down at her, that I would have her. I knew I’d stop at nothing to make her mine.

  Mine had meant something different back then. When it came to women, mine had been a transient thing. I thought in terms of nights. Sometimes, I thought in terms of weeks. Very rarely, mine meant months.

  What I hadn’t known then was that the desire I felt for her had no intention of dissipating, had no intention of disappearing. The more I had her, the more I wanted her. It was the kind of attraction I’d never experienced—an attraction that increased its appetite every time I felt any kind of satisfaction.

  I don’t know what I’m going to do. This is not a feeling I am familiar with, at all. Usually, I make my decisions and I don’t second guess them. Usually, I know exactly what I’m going to do, and I know when and how I’m going to do it. Then, I do it until it is done. F
ailure is never an option.

  Here, I feel as though all I am doing is failing. I am failing her. I am failing us.

  The pressure in my chest feels like a physical thing. I want to go to the gym, to lift and to lift until I’m so exhausted I can’t think anymore. I want to do something, anything, to take this helpless feeling out of myself. It feels like a void, or like an abyss, and it feels like I’m falling and like I don’t know to catch myself.

  I don’t know what to do without her. For someone who's never had to depend on anyone, for someone who, even young, only depended on himself, it is a terrifying feeling.

  Fear isn’t something I’ve experienced often either. This is what Radiah does to me. She makes me feel alive.

  I don’t even know if alive is what I want to feel. Life, I’d learned early on, was pain.