Naked or Dead

by Murphy, A. E.

  “You’re not going to punch me in the face if I bug you, are you?” Mack hides behind her fingers playfully peeking at me from between them.

  “Only if you try to fuck my boyfriend. You’re safe otherwise.”

  She leans forward to look at Nokosi suggestively. “I mean…”

  I know she’s joking but when Nokosi wags his brows at her I dig my fingers into both their thighs until they both yelp. Mackenzie thinks it’s hilarious.

  I’ll be keeping a close eye on them from now on.

  When we get to town and drop her at her house, I turn to Nokosi and declare, “If you fuck anybody while we’re together, I will genuinely run you both over and throw your bodies off a cliff.”

  “Why the hell would I?” he asks, smiling from ear to ear at my jealousy. “Have you seen you?”

  I narrow my eyes on him until I’m confident he’s received the message loud and clear and then he touches me intimately, uncaring who sees, and devours my mouth until I too fully accept his message.

  Which was what again?

  Willow

  I look at the white walls. They need a second coat, maybe even a third.

  I’m stalling for time.

  “Looks good,” Nokosi says around a loud yawn. I know how he feels, these days I constantly feel as though I’m fighting to stay awake.

  “It could be better.”

  “Does it matter? She’s painting over it soon anyway,” he grumbles and yawns again.

  I look at him, it’s only ten but he’s clearly exhausted. “You can go.”

  He raises a brow. “Are you dismissing me?”

  “Could you maybe take me to the store first? I’ve got a major craving for some Hershey’s.”

  Hesitating, he seems to think about it for a moment before looking around the room. It’s pure brilliant white though you can’t tell in the dim lighting. We only have an old lantern that was left behind by the prior tenants. “Sure, why not?”

  “Yes!” I cheer and take the arm he offers. “Thanks, Nok.”

  “No problem, I figured that the nicer I am to you the more likely you are to stay.”

  Laughing I slap his chest and shake my head. “Everybody has an agenda I guess.”

  “Of course, life would be shit without one. Can you imagine not having a goal in life?” He shrugs his shoulders. “I bet you have an extensive bucket list.”

  He has no idea. “There’s just one thing left on my list.” Pulling open the truck’s passenger door, he grips my hips to help me inside and for the first time ever I don’t feel repulsed by his touch. I don’t fully welcome it either but it doesn’t make me feel sick.

  “What’s that?” he asks after rounding the truck and climbing in.

  I tap my nose and look ahead.

  “Maybe I can help you achieve it? Maybe we all can?”

  “I doubt it,” I mutter and check my pocket for my wallet. “How are things with my sister now? She’s hardly been home for the past couple of days.”

  “Good. We got past whatever happened, she’s happy again.” He looks me up and down when we stop at a red light. “Are you happy? You can always join us.”

  “One step at a time,” I say, placing my hand on his for a few seconds, until he clears his throat and pulls his away.

  Well, he’s definitely loyal to my sister.

  I start coughing, I can’t stop. It’s not so much that anything is on my chest it’s just what happens sometimes. My chest feels so tight. I stagger on a breath that I try to pull in and pain pops in my throat.

  This sucks.

  “Fuck, Willow, are you okay?” He rubs my back until I’ve calmed myself, his eyes shining with concern.

  I nod and sit back. “Fuck this illness, man. I’m done. I feel like I’m fading away.”

  We don’t speak for a while. What is there to say? I’m dying. There’s only so many times one can tell me how sorry they are as I suffer through the symptoms and side effects of my ailment, and the drugs I have to take for it.

  “I have an idea… it’s unconventional and it defies the laws of modern medicine… but…” He suddenly pulls over, startling me and I tense, not liking being taken by surprise. But then he taps on his phone screen and puts it to his ear. “Auntie, is Elisi awake?” After a pause where he listens to a feminine voice reply, he starts speaking in another language and at the end he’s smiling.

  “What’s going on?” I ask weakly, trying not to cough again.

  He puts the car in drive and makes a U-turn. “How’d you like to meet my grandmother on the res?”

  My breath catches in my throat. “I don’t know… I’m not good around people.”

  “She’s a healer,” he insists gently. “Not the kind you know but she’s saved lives. I don’t believe in it more than a placebo but if it can help you then isn’t it worth a try?”

  “I guess,” I mutter, suddenly feeling like a lost little girl again. I don’t have a weapon, or mace spray, or even my phone. “Will you… protect me?”

  “Protect you? From what?”

  “Everybody?”

  His brows pull together with confusion and his hand goes to my thigh. “I promise, nobody will hurt you while I’m with you.”

  Resting my forehead against the cool glass, I take a deep breath and mutter, “Okay. I’ll go.”

  “Did somebody hurt you before? Is that why you don’t go anywhere?”

  I consider telling him to fuck off. I consider berating him for prying. But something inside of me screams to let it out, to trust somebody with just a tiny part of me. It begs me to. It begs me to feel human again.

  “Not just me, but my sister too.”

  He tenses, his body becomes cement. “Somebody hurt Lilith?”

  I nod once, trying not to let the grief I feel overwhelm me and trigger my own anxiety. Lilith isn’t the only one with issues.

  “What happened?” he asks urgently. “Who hurt you?”

  “It doesn’t matter… they can’t hurt us anymore.”

  His urgency becomes concern and confusion. “Willow… what did you do?”

  I don’t reply and that in itself is reply enough if one is smart enough to read into the silence. Nokosi is definitely smart enough to do that. He’s also smart enough to let it end there. He doesn’t push or pry and I respect that.

  No more questions are asked, and we drive through the trees to the woodsy part of the reservation, away from town by far. It’s quiet in the truck for the longest time. Nothing but potent pain swirling between us, making the atmosphere thick and heavy.

  “Still like me?” I ask, unable to control myself. For some reason the thought of him not liking me makes me feel things I don’t want to feel. I don’t care what he thinks. I don’t care what anybody thinks. Or at least… I didn’t.

  “Somebody hurt me once too,” he confesses quietly. “So whatever you did, or whatever you wanted to do, I get it.”

  Somebody hurt him too.

  We share a look in the darkness when we pull to a stop, lighting up a dark house with strong headlights.

  “Wait here.” Pushing open the door, he jumps out of the truck landing steadily on both feet. The door to the one-story home opens as he crosses the distance with powerful strides. I spy an older lady with a hunched back and white hair pulled back into a tight bun. It’s difficult to make out her features.

  Nokosi speaks to her for a moment as another woman appears behind the older one. I’m guessing it’s his grandmother and aunt, but I can’t say for sure.

  He comes running back after a long moment of me scanning the dark area with tired eyes. There are more homes in the distance, all different shapes and sizes to this one. I wonder if they were built by them.

  “Come on,” Nokosi urges after opening my door. He takes my hand and helps me down, then keeps hold of me as we make the journey to his grandmother’s home. I approach cautiously. I don’t feel secure anymore. I feel on edge and guarded. Like I’m being watched and judged silently by devi
ls in the trees, ready to take my soul to the underworld and torture me for an eternity.

  It’s a silly thought but it’s a true one and I almost can’t breathe.

  “What is she going to do?” I ask quietly.

  “You’ll see,” he replies.

  “Hi,” I greet meekly as we make our final few steps, crossing what felt like a long distance in no time at all.

  “Sorry it’s late, Elisi,” Nokosi says, kissing her cheek.

  The old lady’s eyes don’t leave me, she looks as cautious as I feel. Her pale eyes, so light it makes them fade into the white, scan me up and down. The woman beside her urges her on, a cigar-like object in her hand and a matchbox in the other.

  “Elisi,” she utters and finally the old woman holds out her hand to me.

  It’s trembling visibly, shaking like beads in a bowl during an earthquake. She hesitates and so do I.

  “I don’t think…” I whisper to Nok, pulling back but the old lady moves quickly and snatches my hand before I can go anywhere.

  Her other hand closes over the top and her eyes hold mine.

  I wish I’d run because the noise she makes has my heart racing and my palms sweating. She screams into the night startling us all and then she glares at me.

  “DEMON!” she bellows, her voice croaky but strong.

  “Elisi,” Nokosi tries but she throws my hand back at me and grabs her grandson, clinging to him desperately.

  “Evil!” she hisses as Nok battles to free his shirt from her grasp. She yells at him in her native tongue, throwing around words I don’t understand all the while keeping him in a tight grip. They argue back and forth loudly as I back away to the truck, feeling shaken and mad that I ever let Nok bring me here.

  He promised me he’d protect me.

  “No! You mustn’t be alone with her,” Elisi begs, clinging to him for dear life. “She is death. She is evil. She wants to harm you!”

  “You’re being silly, Elisi, it’s Willow, Lilith’s sister… you love Lilith,” he tries, looking at me sadly. “Please try to heal her…”

  “No,” the old woman snarls and spits at my feet. “The sooner this one dies, the better.”

  “Elisi,” Nokosi gasps and so does the woman by her side. He says something else in his own tongue and then turns to me after prying her from his body. “Come on, let’s get you home.”

  The woman shrieks after us but his aunt guides her away, soothing her with kind-sounding words and a soft tone. But the despair and panic that I can hear in the old woman’s voice is genuine fear. She really is magic. She was so right about everything she said.

  Maybe she could have healed me if I were a better person.

  Maybe I do need to die. Maybe she does for speaking to me like that.

  He guides me back to his truck, both of us visibly shaken, and helps me inside. He even leans across me to strap me in and I get a strong whiff of his hair. It smells like coconut and pineapple. So sweet.

  “I am so sorry; I don’t know what came over her. She has never done that before.”

  I don’t reply, I just want him to drive us home so I can forget this ever happened. He drives and we sit in the dark silence for a while, not even the radio crackles in the background.

  “Maybe… I mean… I don’t know,” he stammers for the right thing to say but at this point, what can be said? “I wish I’d never taken you. I should have left it all alone and just taken flowers to your funeral like a normal person.”

  Despite my racing heart and confusion, I laugh because that was a bit funny. I love dry humor and Nokosi comes with barrels of it.

  His hand closes over mine on my thigh and my skin beneath it quivers and tightens at his touch. I remain impassive, trying to deny the fact that his hands can make me feel anything.

  I hate men.

  I hate him.

  He pulls over at the side of the dirt road we’re on, the headlights highlight the trees and I see the eyes of animals in the far distance, glowing like the tiny demons I feared back at his grandmother’s house. Really, I’m the scariest thing in these woods, and both I and the old lady know it.

  “I’m really sorry, Willow,” he whispers, squeezing my hand tighter. “I feel… I’m not one to feel bad usually but I feel fucking awful right now.”

  I turn to look at him in the truck, chewing on the corner of my mouth.

  “I know you are,” I breathe and place my hand over his, holding him in place. “Old people are crazy… but… maybe your grandmother was right.”

  His light brown eyes scan my face in the darkness, and I wonder what he sees in the shadows of my profile.

  “I’ve done bad things, Nokosi, when I die I know I’m not going to heaven and I’ve made my peace with that.” My voice is but a whisper in the silence.

  “I’m sure you did what you had to do, Willow.”

  I shake my head sadly. “I didn’t. I did a lot that I never had to do.”

  “Maybe you can redeem yourself before… before you go?” His hand is still on mine, on my thigh, and I’m still coiling inside. I’ve never felt like this before.

  I shift in my seat and feel his fingertips brush my inner thigh. My entire body shivers, my soul lights a fire that hasn’t burned for so long.

  This isn’t okay. I don’t want to feel this way. Not about him, not about anybody.

  He has his hooks in my sister, but not me. No…

  I could do it now. I could end him and take my sister away forever… but she’d never forgive me, would she?

  Because I’m finally starting to understand what she sees in him.

  “There’s no redeeming me…”

  He wets his lips gently, eyes still on mine. “Was she right?”

  “About?”

  “About you wanting to hurt me?”

  I laugh lightly and look ahead again. The silence stretches between us endlessly. “Do you love my sister?”

  “I—”

  “Do you love her?” I demand, my lips a flat line. “Would you protect her with your life?”

  He takes a moment and clicks his tongue against his palate, then he sighs and rubs his face with both hands, releasing my thigh to do so, making me feel cold and alone again. “Love is… not something I understand… or something I ever understood. I get familial love for my sibling and father. I get loss love for the mother I never knew but even that’s shadowed by guilt over the fact I killed her as she birthed me. But soppy love between two people that hardly know each other, it’s not something I ever believed in or wanted. When I met your sister I thought…”

  He laughs gently and looks away.

  “I thought she was a pain in the ass, and I’d take what I could while she let me. But I don’t know… now I feel like if she ever walks away from me I’ll be a shadow of the person I am now. I’m young, I get told this by Anetúte a lot. But not so young that I can’t feel a connection to her and know what it means.” He smiles at me, slightly embarrassed. “And I know without a doubt that I would die for her before I ever let anybody take her from me. And I know that as much as she’ll deny it, she’d die for me too. There are only a handful of people in my life, even less so, that I would trust with my very soul, your sister is one of them. She was made for me, I don’t care how fucked up that sounds. She was made for me and she is mine.”

  Fuck…

  “So,” he continues, grinning at me now, pink tinging his cinnamon-colored cheeks. “Was Elisi correct in thinking you want to hurt me?”

  I stare at him, openmouthed like a fish, eyes brimming with tears. His words affected me more than I’d ever like to admit. My sister is safe. My sister is loved. My sister loves.

  This is the moment I’ll remember forever, until my body is no more and my memories are all I have in the abyss.

  “Willow?” he urges, looking nervous now.

  I wipe away a stray tear that trickles down my cheek. “I don’t want to hurt you, Nokosi.” He looks relieved by that fact. But then I finish, “I want
to kiss you.”

  * * *

  Lilith

  I hold back my sister’s hair as she vomits into the basin. She’s deteriorating at a rapid pace and Mom is worried. She wants to take her to a hospice to live out her final days, but I just can’t bear it.

  “Go,” Willow tells me when she’s stopped puking and is feeling a bit better. “Mom’s got me. Just go.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “You’ve been planning this beach trip for days. Please just go,” she gives me a strong shove and grins at me. “Please… it would make me happy if you would go.”

  “Let me get you comfortable first.”

  Mom takes her other arm and we guide her to bed where I set her up with her laptop and phone.

  Mom sits by her bedside, not looking at me, unspeaking. She’s not taking this well.

  “I should stay.”

  “No!” Willow yells and I can tell I’ve annoyed her. “Just go. Be with Nok. You’ve abandoned him enough for me lately.”

  I’m surprised she’s suddenly on his side, up until now she has only ever spoken about him with animosity. I wonder what changed. Maybe she’s finally willing to stay?

  “Besides, I’ve got shit to figure out. I don’t need you breathing down my neck.”

  “What shit?”

  The look she gives me has me raising my hands in surrender. “Okay, okay… sorry I asked.” But then I panic and swing back around. “Wait… please don’t tell me you’re going to…”

  “No,” she replies, frowning. “Nothing like that. It’s just something I need to know about. Something unrelated.”

  Satisfied with her answer, I head out. My sister has never been a liar, not with me. She evades the truth but she doesn’t lie. I trust her that much. That and as selfish as it is, I really want to go to the beach.

  It’s cold, I mean, it’s February so of course it is, but they like to build a bonfire with driftwood and some of them surf while the rest of us watch. Though I can see myself surfing if we can rent a wetsuit. I’ve never surfed before and I love a thrill.