“Christian?”
As the familiar green and red eyes gazed at her from underneath strands of messy midnight hair, Lilith slowly relaxed.
“I’m sorry.” Christian sounded contrite. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“No, no.” Lilith shook her head. The shaking increased. “It’s okay. I was just… just a little startled, is all.”
“Are you okay?”
“Fine.” Lilith sniffed. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you’re crying.”
It was only after the words were spoken that Lilith felt it, the wetness running down her cheeks. She brought a hand up to her face and tried to wipe away her tears to no avail. Like a small stream that never ceased, her tears refused to be stopped.
“Sorry…” she apologized in a soft whisper, still wiping her eyes. “I must look unsightly.”
“You don’t need to apologize, and I don’t think it’s possible for you to look unsightly.” Christian walked up to Lilith, causing her to tense. When nothing happened, she relaxed again. She looked into his eyes and saw nothing but concern for her. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
Lilith started to nod her head, only to quickly change the motion and begin shaking it. Along with shaking her head, the rest of her body shook as well. She wrapped her arms around her waist, as if doing so would cause the shaking to cease. It didn’t.
“I… I was so scared,” Lilith whispered. “When those men surrounded us… I was so afraid. I didn’t know what to do. If you hadn’t been there…”
“Has it always been like this?” Christian made a vague gesture toward the exit. “Are most men always that crazy around you?”
“Yes.” Lilith sniffled as she sank back to the ground. She brought her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “It’s been like that ever since I turned thirteen. I hadn’t noticed it at first, the stares, but eventually people began coming on to me: boys, men, students, teachers. It wasn’t so bad at first. I even used to think getting all that attention was nice.”
Christian walked over and sat down beside her, his back also against the wall. Lilith didn’t look up at him. Her eyes gazed at the ground, but they weren’t looking at the ground. They were distant, staring, lost in memories of a past that she wished to erase.
“What changed?” he asked.
For a few moments, his question was met with silence. The only sounds that permeated the small alley were Lilith’s sniffles and hiccups as she relived the past that she’d tried so hard to forget.
“It was just after I turned fourteen.” she started. “It was after school, and one of my teachers said that he wanted to talk to me about something. When I got there, he asked me to sit down. I didn’t think anything was wrong at the time, so I did what he asked of me. It was only after he started talking that I realized something was wrong. He kept… touching my leg, and every time I pushed it off, he would put it back on and begin rubbing me. I got really uncomfortable and told him so, but he just laughed and said that there was nothing to be uncomfortable about… and then he… then he…”
As she trailed off, the tears in her eyes turned into full-fledged waterworks. They poured down her cheeks like a river. She tried stopping the flow, but they refused to end.
“Here.”
Lilith blinked through blurry eyes as a shirt-covered arm appeared in her view. After several seconds of staring at the dark-black fabric of the sleeve, she turned her head to look at Christian, who looked at something off to their left. He seemed uncomfortable.
“I don’t have a handkerchief or anything for you to dry your eyes with,” he explained, as if he could tell that she was staring at him, even though he wasn’t looking in her direction. “You can just use my shirt instead.”
After several more seconds of staring, Lilith made a noise that was half-hiccup, half-giggle. Christian looked at her, but she just shook her head. She grabbed the fabric in both hands, and hesitantly used it to wipe the tears from her eyes.
“Feel better?” Christian asked, as she let go of his shirt.
“I do.” She knew that she probably didn't look good right now, her eyes felt puffy and irritated, and they were probably bloodshot, too. Despite that, she smiled at him. “Thank you.”
“Anytime.” Christian’s half-smile was surprisingly endearing.
She looked back at the alley. Trash littered the ground. Several sheets of crumpled paper fluttered in the air, as a soft breeze blew through the small space between buildings.
“That teacher—” Christian choked on the words. Lilith looked at him curiously. He hesitated, and then coughed into his hand and continued. “He … he didn’t … rape you, did he?”
“No.” Lilith’s long blond locks swayed in front of her face as she shook her head negatively. “He tried. He almost succeeded, but a passing teacher heard me scream and came in. The teacher who tried to rape me was arrested, and I never saw him again.”
“I’m sorry,” Christian said sincerely. “I can’t imagine how hard that must have been to deal with.”
Lilith smiled at him but didn’t say anything. She looked up to stare at the clear blue sky wistfully. The cloudless sky with the sun shining its radiance unto the world presented a stark contrast to her own tumultuous emotional state.
“Ever since that moment, I’ve been deathly afraid of men.” She paused, then shook her head. “No, that’s not quite true. There was one guy that I thought I liked once, but he turned out to be even worse than that teacher.” She frowned, but quickly got back on track before Christian could ask her to elaborate. “After that I’ve always been frightened of men and took great pains to avoid them. The few times that I had no choice but to interact with them, they would try doing… things to me, and I became even more afraid as a result.”
“Sounds like a vicious cycle.”
“It is,” Lilith agreed. “To be honest, I’m afraid of what will happen to me once I graduate college. Right now, my teachers let me do most of my work at home, and then I send all of my assignments to me via e-mail. I don’t think an employer would let me do that, though.”
Christian nodded. “Probably not. Considering how afraid you are of men, I’m actually surprised you’re even talking to me.”
Lilith was startled by the observation. Not just because he made it, but because she agreed with it. Why was she talking to him? Why had she asked him out? It didn’t make sense.
“I couldn’t tell you why, either,” she admitted. “I don’t know why I can talk to you, or why I’m spending time with you. I guess… I guess it’s because I don’t feel afraid. It’s weird, but when I’m with you, the fear that I normally feel whenever I’m around a man isn’t there.”
“I see.”
Silence engulfed them for a time. A slight breeze kicked up a sheet of paper that blew down the alley. It flew into the street and was whisked away by a passing car.
“I guess this date was a bust.” Lilith felt oddly dejected. “And I was actually looking forward to today, too.”
“You were?” Christian asked in surprise.
“Well, yeah.” Lilith could feel her cheeks becoming warm as Christian glanced at her. “I-I mean, you’re the first man I’ve spoken to in years. And you… you haven’t stared at me, or tried doing anything untoward to me, so I… I was kind of… really looking forward to this.”
“I-I see.” Christian coughed into his hand. Lilith thought the way that his cheeks lit up in a blush was cute. “Anyway, I wouldn’t say this day has been completely ruined.” She felt her confusion mount, but then he turned and presented her with a small, sincere smile that made her want to melt. “I mean, it’s still pretty early, right? We could still do something.”
“I-I don’t know what we could do,” she admitted. “I’ve never done this before.”
Christian gave an eloquent shrug in response to her words. “I haven’t either, so why don’t we just do something that you want to do?”
“Something that I
want to do?”
“Yeah. What do you like doing when you go out?”
Lilith thought about all the activities that she enjoyed doing. There weren’t that many—at least, none that involved going out. She didn’t like going out. There were too many men in public, especially the more populated places like the mall and the movie theater, and don’t even get her started on the clubs. The few times that she had hit the town were all at Maria’s behest, and her only consolation about those times was that her best friend had been present.
Maria had no trouble pounding in the face of any man who came too close. Her friend was really strong. She also had a mean right hook.
That still didn’t solve her problem, namely, figuring out what she and Christian should do on their date.
Thinking on it, there was really only one thing that Lilith truly enjoyed doing. And fortunately for her, she already knew that the young man sitting by her side also happened to appreciate this singular activity.
“Well”—an idea formed within her mind— “there is one thing that we can do.”
Chapter 16
Jason Stolle sighed. He stood behind the counter in the comic book shop and surveyed the small store. Nothing exciting ever happened here. Man, what he wouldn’t give for something interesting to come along, if only to break this monotonous life.
The chime of a bell signaled the arrival of a customer. He turned his head to greet whoever had just entered … and his jaw promptly dropped.
Two people had entered the store. One of them was a young man with unruly black hair and two different colored eyes. He wore blue jeans and a black, long-sleeved shirt. While the man was noteworthy thanks to those freaky eyes of his, he wasn’t the person who had attracted Jason’s attention. No. That particular feat belonged to the man’s companion.
The girl walking at the man’s side was the most gorgeous creature that he had ever seen. Better than any of those girls that he saw in those pornos that he illegally downloaded off the Internet. Her long blond hair cascaded past her shoulders, framing a face that was simply too beautiful to be human. As corny as it may have sounded, her face had the alluring innocence of a fairy-tale princess and the unblemished perfection that could only be found on a goddess.
It wasn’t her face that he admired the most, however. Why would he look at her facial features, attractive as they were, when there were much better things to look at? Like her rack. He had never seen a girl in real life who had such beautiful boobs. They were big, but not too big. They sat high on her chest, perky and proud, and they also looked real. God, what he wouldn’t give to grab those things on her chest, stick his face in them, and…
As if noticing the eyes on her, the young woman looked at him. He noticed how her body began shaking, or rather, he noticed how the shaking of her body caused her breasts to shake. God, he was getting so hard. His dick could probably cut glass!
Just as that thought entered his mind, a strange sensation came over him, like a weight was pushing down on his soul. It snapped him out of whatever trance had been caused by the sight of such a sexy woman, forcing him to look away and seek out the source of this feeling.
And that’s when he saw it.
His mind froze as two glowing orbs bored into his soul. One was green and the other possessed the color of fresh blood. Terror washed over him as those eyes glared into his own. It felt like he was being drowned, smothered. Images filled his mind. He saw himself getting slashed apart by a pair of gleaming swords, of being shot several times by two handguns, one a gleaming silver and the other darker than a black hole.
He saw blood…
He saw death…
He saw his death…
And then, just like that, the feeling disappeared, the images vanished from his mind like a wavering breeze, a dark fantasy caused by playing one too many hack-n-slash video games. All he saw was a young man with black hair and two different colored eyes glaring at him, and a beautiful young woman practically burying herself into the guy’s back. Another moment passed before the young man led the beautiful woman farther into the store, tossing him one final glare.
With the threatening presence of the raven-haired man gone, Jason fell face first onto the counter, his breathing heavy and his chest heaving. Sweat poured from his scalp like a river, running down his face and pooling onto the counter.
That had been the single most terrifying confrontation of his existence.
His bladder seemed to agree.
***
Christian led Lilith past the store clerk, who lay shivering face down on the counter. They wove through several miniature bookshelves with a variety of comics lining them. He recognized some of them, but as American comics weren’t really his thing, he only vaguely recognized the more mainstream ones like DC Comics and Marvel. The rest he couldn’t make heads or tails of.
“What just happened?” Lilith asked. “What did you do to him?”
“That guy?” Christian looked back at the boy, who appeared to have released his bladder. He turned back around and shrugged. “Nothing really. I just didn't like the way he was looking at you. Maybe my glares are just really frightening.”
He didn't tell Lilith that what he'd done was release his killing intent—the physical manifestation of someone's intent to kill or cause harm. All sentient beings could do it, even humans, though it took years of training. Christian didn't release killing intent often, but he could when he felt it was necessary.
“Thank you for doing that, Christian,” Lilith said softly. He looked at Lilith, and couldn’t help but gently smile at her.
“It’s no problem. I know how much you dislike it when men ogle you, and I didn’t like how he was looking at you either.”
Lilith giggled, causing him to quirk an eyebrow. She squeaked and hid her face against his arm, which he noticed she had been clutching ever since they’d left that alley.
He wondered why she was still holding his arm, but figured it was simply because of the safety his presence offered. He decided not to let it bother him too much, even though he felt uncomfortable with her being so close. He could put up with it. The discomfort that he felt was probably nothing compared to how she must feel, especially when in the presence of people like that teen manning the front.
“So what exactly are we doing in here?” he asked.
“I sometimes come here to buy more light novels when I finish reading the ones I already have,” Lilith told him. “I… usually come in disguise, which is probably why that boy didn’t recognize me.”
Christian filed away the knowledge that she apparently disguised herself whenever she went out. He then put the information off to the side with a reminder to ask her about it later. There was something else she had said that he felt was more important at the moment.
“There are light novels in this store?”
“Uh-huh.” Lilith finally began taking the lead. She grabbed his hand in what Christian felt was an unconscious gesture, because he highly doubted she realized she was doing it, and led him to a small corner of the store. “This is the only place that sells them. None of the mainstream bookstores have any.”
The light novel section consisted of several shelves in the back corner of the room. There were many titles that Christian recognized. Some he’d already read, and others were on his To Read list. He even saw a few that he’d never heard of.
Lilith seemed to know a good deal about all of the light novels present, though, and she was more than happy to let him know which ones she liked, and which she felt were not worth reading.
“Is This a Zombie? is okay, but it’s not very original,” she told him. “Sword Art Online is also decent, but Accel World is a much better series and written by the same author. Of course, if you want something truly original, then you should read The Devil is a Part-Timer.”
They stayed there for nearly an hour, discussing light novels and looking for something that one of them might like to buy. Christian had a lot of fun. He couldn’t remem
ber the last time he’d been in a bookstore, and he’d never entered one with another person. He discovered that shopping for something that he actually enjoyed, with a person who shared his passion to be a novel experience. It made the whole activity several times more enjoyable.
They eventually settled on buying the sixth volume of Spice and Wolf, and were soon standing in front of the cash register, where the teenager rang up their purchase with shaking hands. The clerk looked torn between staring at Lilith in obvious lust, or Christian in abject terror. Every time the teen’s eyes strayed to Lilith, who responded by hiding further behind Christian, he glared at him, dousing the pimply child with a healthy dose of his irritation.
They soon left the store, and the nearly comatose clerk, behind them.
***
Upon leaving the comic store Christian and Lilith went in search of a nice, quiet place to read their new acquisition. After much searching, they found a park several miles from the store. Only a few children were playing there and, more importantly, there were no men in the vicinity.
Christian felt some ironic amusement when he noticed that the park they’d chosen was the same park where he and Lilith had met for the second time. This feeling of déjà vu peaked when Lilith led him to exact tree that he had been sitting under the last time he’d been there.
The grass was slightly damp, but neither of them minded. They sat side by side, shoulder to shoulder, as Christian pulled out the light novel they had bought and flipped it open to the first page. He and Lilith soon lost themselves in the story of a merchant and the wolf deity who accompanied him—or at least, Lilith did.
Why am I doing this?
Christian carefully flipped the page as Lilith gently tugged on the sleeve of his shirt, letting him know that she had finished reading. She smiled at him in thanks, and then became engrossed in the story once again.
I shouldn’t be getting so close to this girl.
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