Lady in Red Page 2

  “Where have you been?” My mother sounded like her usual annoyed self when I walked in.

  “Having dinner with a friend, Mom. I’m tired. Good-night.” Our conversations were short out of necessity. Every word surpassing the tolerated limit exponentially heightened my chances of ending up as the victim in a senseless shouting match. I looked forward to the day when I would have a place to call my own and no longer have to explain every absence in detail. I avoided doing so anyway. My lie didn’t do much. She honestly never seemed to care; she just liked swearing and cursing and calling me names out of habit as if I, her daughter, were nothing more than a verbal punching bag. She would take it out on me when she was pissed off at someone, anyone who had rubbed her the wrong way that day, but to whom she would never dare defend herself. Whenever I walked in, I transformed into her enemy of the day.

  Anyway, my life never interested her much, although this particular detail, this particular piece of truth, would surely have resulted in a swearing war. Dinner with Milo? I could only imagine how much it would bother her, and what she would say. Because she had one particular trait in common with Deb: she believed all she read. Hearing meant believing. The gossip wouldn’t be the worst thing; his age would be. I would never hear the end of that one, so instead I said nothing and crawled into my bed. What a night. It made me ponder and want to live my life differently. Better to regret what I had actually done than regret what I hadn’t had the courage to do. The shadow of our kiss was still palpable on my lips and, strangely enough, also on my neck. I turned back to that vast world inside my mind to revisit the evening, the sole instance of living I had done in all these years.

  The vibrations coming from beneath my pillow violently drew me back into reality.

  Good-night, darling. Kiss.

  The tenderness of his words was quite surprising. The determination I had tasted and felt earlier that evening was only a faint presence this time. I sank back into the state of inebriation that his smile awakened in me time and time again, a flush of sweet contradictions and satisfaction resulting in enhanced desire. I didn’t know what to make of it. How could I? I was still a kid in many ways. I didn’t know and, even now, I still don’t. What was it about this man that drove me so insane? I spent time thinking, pondering, obsessing about it, but there was no logic, no book, and no knowledge in this world that could ever provide an answer to my question. I thought, maybe I should stop brooding. Just stop and give in.

  Estelle, you poor little girl, you couldn’t possibly be serious and surrender yourself to a man many years the wiser. What was I obsessing for anyway? This was nothing, a kiss. That’s all. No, not all—it was an excruciatingly liberating kind of kiss. So it hadn’t been just a kiss, but apart from that, nothing more. Should I proceed with living my new philosophy of life? It didn’t feel like a choice I could make. Heck, it didn’t even feel like a choice at all. He’d made that decision for me hours ago. So, I would let loose, let the future unfold, without drowning in idle thinking; that senseless activity I had grown so fond of was what kept me from living. Following his instructions, I guided my fingers and folded them around my neck. My head sank back into my shoulders, and I tightened my grasp, sensing a quickening pulse ticking against the thin skin connecting my index finger and thumb. My lips parted willingly, and a jet of fresh air hugged them on its way in. Milo. My hand lost its grip, and a wave of salvation tingled down with the release of that four-letter word of magic. Milo.

  Chapter Three

  “Has everyone prepared for today’s class?” Crap, I had completely forgotten about that. “Who is willing to offer me their insight on today’s subject?”

  Please not me. Please not me. The wood of my once-varnished folding seat moaned under my nervous wiggling and betrayed me.

  “Estelle?” Of course! Of course, Professor Weil picked me. “What is the theme in Symposium?”

  As if I would have had a clue, even if I actually had read it. To avoid a total disaster, not to mention the unrelenting shame that would follow, I found myself spewing a generic answer that could, I thought, be applicable and turned around to fit the actual answer I should be giving.

  “Um…the human condition…and the relation between the ego and the rest of its…its surroundings…the others, the world.”

  The slight dent forming in the eyebrow of my professor was a reliable indication that the trembling sound of my voice had hardly gone unnoticed. I felt shame and looked back, fully aware of the unmistakable question marks in my eyes. They were so visible they might as well have been in flashing neon. The silence weighed heavily in the air of the auditorium. Desperation bubbled up, and tears shot into my eyes. My phone buzzed in my back pocket. I held my breath. My hands sank into my lap, while everybody, without exception, stared at me in wonder. So cruel was the collective gaze that I wished I could perish and vaporize in my seat. The row right in front of me had turned around, staring at me with scary, tilted heads. My right hand tried to crunch every bone of my left fist, while I nervously tapped the floor with my toes. The pressure was building up in my lungs, pushing through to my throat and mouth. They opened ever so slightly, but no air came in. I was sitting there, absolutely mute, as if I had turned to stone.

  “Are you sure of your answer, Miss?”

  A small gasp of air was sufficient to enable me to mumble back, “I think so.” The heads in front of me turned around with the frightening synchronicity of a North Korean army.

  “That always seems to be an underlying thought when one is talking about the human desire for immortality.”

  With just one sentence, Weil had put me out of my misery. Relief set in, and I dared to breathe again, although I didn’t have the mind-set to concentrate any longer. My curiosity was burning a hole in my jeans. When will it end? Wait. That was my only option. I had had my portion of accusing stares for one day. My legs had given me away once again with that darn trembling. They were nothing short of diabolical, betraying me like that. A single minute seemed to take nine more. In fact, all time seemed to have been stretched out in multiples of ten. As soon as I got the tiniest opportunity, I subtly glanced down at my watch. Until, finally, the bell sounded salvation through the hallways. Finally. Everyone scraped together their papers and gnawed-on ballpoint pens. The unseemly auditorium chairs clapped with liberation, and I stood up and dove into my back pocket for my phone.

  “Estelle?” My hand halted with disappointment. “Never allow yourself to doubt your words or thoughts when anyone tries to throw you for a loop or goes against what you intuitively feel is right. Deal?” I nodded back at my professor, completely at a loss. I filled my bag, and as I walked out of the auditorium, I remembered that I still hadn’t looked at my phone. I took it out and opened the blinking envelope on the screen.

  Hi, darling. Class today? Coffee this afternoon? Kiss, M.

  It remains a mystery why I agreed to it in the first place. My astonishment had baffled my brain, I suppose, while I had sent out a quick confirmation. Maybe it was because the entire situation didn’t feel real at the time, like a life from another dimension almost, or that of another person, in which I was merely a spectator. That was exactly how it felt. His question was simple enough, and yet it hadn’t read like a question in my mind but, rather, like a kind of command. A command one agrees to obey. Just like that, without rehashing or thinking or wondering.

  I crossed the hallway connecting the two main buildings on campus and found Deb in the same place I found her every single noon: in the lounge section of the main hall, slouching in one of the black leather couches with her arms stretched out to reach her laptop on the table.

  “What are you doing this afternoon?” My voice let me down yet again and trembled treacherously.

  “Whatever you want. Having lunch together. Same old…but why are you acting weird? Something is off. You have that pensive look of yours all over your face again.” She frowned; and ever
y time she did that, I noticed her brown eyebrows didn’t exactly match her peroxide-blond hair. She tried to analyze me from her couch.

  I gathered the little courage I had. “Could you drop me off somewhere later?” I hadn’t really thought about the details when I had agreed to Milo’s proposal, even though I was quite sure Deb would taxi me around. Yet I didn’t feel comfortable asking her. I didn’t have a car, so it wasn’t like I had another option, aside from a real cab. The less people knew about this—whatever this was—the better, especially in the case of a gossip rag like my dear friend. But it was already too late; there was no time left to start looking for the number of a cab company. Besides, I had already given away too much information by asking the question in the first place, and knowing Deb, she wasn’t going to let it slide without getting to the root of things. If she ever loved anything more than she did herself, it was a good mystery.

  “Where did you have in mind?” she inquired casually. But I saw the gears in her head turning at full speed.

  “Movie theater.”

  She stared back at me and started investigating my eyes, plucking away at my irises as if she saw my nerves bulging wildly beneath the surface. “You’re meeting him, aren’t you?” My silence at that point said more than a million words. “Finally. This calls for celebration. The ice queen is thawing! I never hoped to live to see the day. Of course, my dear, why didn’t you just say so? If anyone can bring you into the world of the living, I am more than willing to assist in the process.”

  “Thanks.” That was all I could handle as an answer. I didn’t really know if I could’ve done better. In a way, I was happy to have found a helper, but her knowing made me somewhat nauseous. What the hell is wrong with me? I don’t know anything. I don’t know him, so why was my head working overtime? This thing was happening at least 99 percent in my head. The chance was gigantic that Milo did not care much, probably not at all, but I just couldn’t seem to silence the voices inside my silly head. Maybe he just saw women as victories, lines on his list of achievements or an extra stripe on a uniform. That realization was there. If only it would sink into my head and ground me. What if my insecurity was nothing more than the reaction to a stream of gossip, based nowhere near reality? What if my mind once again caused me to miss out on something big, something I would later regret?

  “Estelle? You are doing it again. I can see you doing it again. Stop thinking. Live a little, for crying out loud.” Deb’s words brought me back to my seat, where I had spent the last ten minutes staring at the cheese sandwich in front of me. We sat at our regular table at our regular lunch stop, and somehow I had managed to get there and buy my usual without really noticing, probably out of habit, a human version of daily robotic actions. Once more, Deb was determined to kick some living sense into me. “All of that rubble up there—the suppositions and the possible alternatives and whatever the hell is roaming around up there—is holding you back. Why do you always want to rush to see the bigger picture? Sometimes you only know as you experience things. Trust me. Just this once.”

  I sighed deeply and scratched my head. My lunch remained untouched on the tray in front of me. A distinctly oppressive feeling was growing in my stomach once more. It was not so much nausea as fear. Something about Milo made me very anxious, but I didn’t know what caused it or why I felt this way; I only knew it made me hold my breath at his every message, his every phone call, his every single word. That petrifying fear had also put me into a global state of confusion. So why didn’t it stop me? Why was it pushing me right back to its source? Why did it look like it was leading me to liberation in some very twisted way?

  By the time I got out of the car, my nerves had decided to have another party. My heart was pounding in my ears so loudly that I couldn’t even recall how I had ended up in one of the bar’s weirdly cute little bucket seats. Our coffees released their steamy little clouds into the air on the low table between us. The emptiness of the room was comforting. It was just us—me and Milo, and the bartender, of course. That casual look in Milo’s eyes, as he sipped away at his coffee, enveloped me like a fuzzy cape of peaceful calm. The quietness reminded me of the sacred comfort of snuggling up on the couch, covered by a fuzzy, plaid blanket, with a cup of hot chocolate, looking through the window at the falling snow. Exactly that kind of quiet was hanging there, suspended in his aquamarine-colored irises.

  The topic of our conversation eludes me almost completely, but I can still hear the pleasant sounds of Cat Stevens’s voice in the background. That was something Milo had pointed out—the name of the singer in the background, who was just a sweet, unknown voice to me at the time. Now it meant nothing less to me than the sound associated with having my first coffee with Milo. For that reason alone, I will never forget the name Cat Stevens. It’s funny how some totally trivial things, the most unimportant details, collide in my head, like the names of songs and whiffs of scent, along with the momentous memory of that cup of coffee. Or the memory of how shameless I was in tilting my head and watching him trot off to the little boys’ room. I did exactly that, and I know at least one friend who would reply to this confession with a very sincere, “you make me so proud.” Milo had excused himself to go to the bathroom, and my eyes audaciously tracked his backside; I admired the wonders of his ass with every single step he took. Even today, I feel indebted to the cosmic powers for Milo’s exquisite choice of table and for its angle. I quickly recovered my feelings of shame upon recognizing that the grinning bartender had noticed my fascination. My doubts were trotted over, like road kill left on the wooden floorboards of the café. And there it was again, the fire.

  A new day equals a new opportunity for coffee. And so, I decided to trade in that Tuesday afternoon of philosophy, within the confines of a stuffy auditorium, for the altogether hotter life lessons learned in steamy cups of coffee at Milo’s place. The fluffy pillows of the couch were a definite improvement over the university’s hard, worn-out, wooden folding seats, which were hardly more comfortable than sitting on a bag of rocks. I think back, smiling—it still has that effect on me—when my demigod discovered a slightly threatening biotope of mold in his espresso machine. The look on his face was a strange mixture of wonder and shame, as he rinsed off the whole thing, unaware that this example of his humanity was a lovely scene to watch. Even then, performing trivial acts like that one was all he needed to do to charm me. I am quite convinced that on that particular occasion it was not exactly intentional, but he had always been masterfully alluring, and with terrifying ease.

  Soon after, we curled up on opposite ends of his cozy couch, and I can’t say it was the coffee, or his eyes, or even that effortless charm, but the only thought in my otherwise chaotic mind was resting my head on his shoulder. With an almost divine delicacy, his fingertips slid from my ear down along my jawbone. Impulsively, I nestled myself against him. His hand brushed gently downward, stopping just long enough for his thumb to feel the curves of the tiny nook between my collarbones. The desire for him to continue made me stop breathing. Willingly, I turned my head, hoping for a kiss, just to check if the fire of the previous one was still there, that I hadn’t dreamed it up somehow. His hand came to my knee and crept up my thigh with a startling determination. There it was, that wretched desire again, and with it shimmers of a darkness still unknown. Recklessly, I slid my body into his lap and my tongue into his mouth. It would not be long before Milo decided to guide me up the stairs. Every step was one step closer to the beginning of the end of my reasonable innocence. I wasn’t untouched—I knew about the mechanics—but I wasn’t aware of passion. That was something I would come to realize later on: before that day, though, my soul had been untouched.

  There were distinct tickles, rendering me unguarded, even before the first piece of clothing touched the ground. Milo’s kisses came to rest on my lips with the tender restraint one might expect of graceful, bright-colored butterflies. Before each kiss fluttered its way farther down, Mi
lo peeled a layer of clothing from my skin. He peered at my body as if he could see more in me than I ever could by looking in a mirror. His look was filled with an awe that was, though in my mind highly misplaced, extremely flattering and surreal, so much so that my world shrank until it was the size of the particular room we were in. Nothing existed on the other side of that door. Nothing existed anymore, except for Milo, me, and the tiny world he’d created. I wanted to have a similar effect on him, but felt so powerless in his hands that I didn’t even have the strength or dexterity to undo a single one of his shirt buttons. I would come to regret that later on. Every notion of time and space just evaporated. Gone. I stood there completely dazed, looking at him, and letting him guide me. It was a moment so intense, so thoughtless, that even at this early stage I knew the experience was going to be so unique I would never forget it, not even if I ever wanted to.

  The next thing I remember is sitting on top of him, feeling his hand slide along my body. I was imprisoned by his eyes, and an urge brooded inside me, making my loins boil. Uncontrollably, it streamed into my fingers. Impassioned by the twilight redness of the room, I clawed into his hair and bent toward him so close that the tip of his nose brushed against mine. Eye to eye, I whispered, “I want it harder.”

  I was startled at the sound of my own voice and the words it had spoken, but I saw a fire ignite in his eyes. Almost immediately, my boldness was served its answer. The effort was visible on his face as he squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth, and I loved the sight of him. Reading the effect of my instructions on his body made me sigh and tilt my head back in surrender. Synchronized in a way that is only possible when something is done from pure instinct, his hands climbed their way up my thighs to my ass. My startled amazement decreased, losing its grip on me, and I panted again, “Harder, dear.” His nails pierced my buttocks at once, and he picked up the pace. This tasted and felt like nature—pure, raw, and untainted. A hint of the primitive. And I was enjoying every single crude second of it. I got caught in the heat, dragging me down, silently but violently raging under my skin, a burning sensation that somehow both numbed and heightened my senses. The next shred of memory I have is of standing next to the bed, Milo behind me with his caveman hands folded around the curves of my ass. And the yearning continued unabated.