Chapter 12: 1970s
“So you’re telling me you’ve never gone out dancing” Zander laughed sitting next to me on the sofa, slapping his thigh with one hand as he held his wine glass in the other. As the night swept across the city, we had transferred our banter to the living room over the second bottle of wine and a charcuterie board which he helped make in the kitchen cutting up the cold meats and cheese as I gathered the components of the board.
“Don’t look at me like I'm some sort of uncivilized caveman, I know how to dance I just never went out dancing” I defended myself. By now my half undone hair was unpinned and loose flowing down behind my neck and past my shoulders.
“It’s just that no one ever asked me to go to” rather I never agreed to no one. No one but you.
“Rat bastards, we are going to have to change that! But first come one, let me test your dancing skills” he said, placing the wine glass on the table beside the charcuterie board and pulling me up from where I sat on the sofa next to him.
“Now, with this music?” I asked him with wide eyes, he can’t be serious.
“You’re right, so for tonight, it’s my lady’s choice” he answered, doing a proper gentry bow this time before going towards the radio and shutting the songs of this decade as he called it. I rolled my eyes at him and finished my glass of wine before walking over to my collection to choose dance appropriate music. Given his state of inebriation and the last time I had danced with a partner, I opted for a slow one, one that has always been close to my heart the moment I heard it on the halls of the theater being performed.
“I’m sure you’re familiar with the waltz?” I asked without turning my back to him as I put on Claude Debussy’s Claire De Lune.
“How can I forget? My teachers made sure the dance was ingrained in me. I was so sure I could do the waltz in my sleep” he said, his breath upon my neck, as held one hand and twirled me to face him. No formal bows, no curtsies of the olden days, just the movements of two bodies, dancing as one.
“This isn’t how it’s danced-” but when I looked up at him, the playfulness from earlier was replaced by this intense heated stare that left me speechless and breathless as he pressed me close to him as he lay his hand on my hips. Much lower and much closer than the standards of a waltz dance, but I didn’t care as I closed my eyes and laid my head on his shoulder, I let him lead me into the sway of the music, I could feel his chest rise as he breathes, the beat of his heart as it thumps against his chest, he is alive and in my arms and everything was alright.
What I would give to live and die this way. To be in his arms, warm in his embrace.
I could feel him lower his head on my hair before inhaling deeply and pulling me closer to him. In the middle of the song, he stopped dancing and I looked at him, he was already staring down at me, as if he was waiting for me. He gently led my arms around his torso as he caressed my face with both hands, pushing the stray hair away from my face.
“Laura, I know there are some things that you are not willing to share yet, probably painful probably, angry memories, things about who you are that you are not yet ready to share and I am not going to force you to tell me if you’re not ready. I just want you to know, no matter what, no matter when, I will be here for you, and I am here to stay” Zander laid out his heart and intentions, and without asking for me to return any of his sentiments, he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and kissed my neck tenderly.
“Now that I’ve said that, I best be on my way the nights not getting any younger” Zander kissed my forehead once again before giving me a squeeze.
“I’ll walk you out,” I said and held on his hand. At the door I helped him put on his suit jacket.
“Good night, my lady” He faced me once more.
“You know, you don’t have to leave,”
“Laura, my darling, I would love nothing more than to spend the night here with you, but I told you before I was sincere with how I feel about you, and if I am going to do this, I want to do this right. I’m not spending the night with you because I don’t want to but because I don’t know if I can trust myself to be able to control myself around you” Zander leaned down as he caressed my cheek pressing his forehead on mine. His breath fanned on my face as our noses kissed ever so slightly, until he pulled away and pressed a kiss on my forehead instead.
“You’re starting to make a habit of that” I jested, holding on his hands caressing my cheeks.
“As long as you would allow me, my lady” he whispered, his lips rubbing against my forehead as he spoke.
“Good night” he bid one last time before leaving through the door and closing it behind him. I leaned against the door, clutching my heart in my chest. My head stuck in dreamland as I cleaned up after us. I was ready to turn in for the night, removing the pins on my hair, when my face paled. In the mirror, there was a scratch on my chest, lined with dry blood, but a perfectly clear smooth skin underneath. I tore my blouse off, letting the buttons fly across the bathroom sink.
Did he see it? Did he notice it? Is that when he meant when he said that he knows that there are things I couldn’t say? My mind raised as I ran to the fireplace, throwing my shirt on it, I turned to the ascend table next to the couch, grappling for a lighter with shaking hands. Of all the times that the lighter wouldn’t light it had to be known, my mind was shaking and sweating when the lighter finally lit I threw the entire thing in the fireplace.
I raked my hand through my hair as I bit on my index finger hard so hard I drew blood. I withdraw my finger from my hand. Thick blood coated my finger, but beneath it the wound had healed. Swept up by anger, I grabbed and threw the almost finished bottle of wine into the fire. I slumped down on the couch, both my hands covering my eyes, covering them twice, they were watching me, they were probably laughing at me, and I would never ever give them the satisfaction of letting them see me like this.
“Brothers and sisters, you’ve done nothing but punish the man I love the only other person I ever loved, and torture me with his pain and his death” I felt my anger grow, I have been living my life in peace, alone, I was content to live my life alone, an eternity alone, so he can live his lifetimes in peace. And now they deliver him to me on a silver plate, then giving me a wicked reminder, that I am still cursed, still shunned, and so his suffering will still continue.
I gathered myself and walked towards the closed window overlooking the park in front of my apartment building. I shut the windows and pressed my hand on the glass, glaring right at the reflection of my eyes.
Humans say that the eyes are the windows to their souls, ever wonder what beholds in the eyes of people who live an immortal life?
“You may have forgotten, you may have exiled me here, but I am still one of you and I will keep reminding you who I am so long as you keep reminding don’t push me” I growled under my breath until slowly very slowly the glass cracked and burst under the feather touch of my hands. All the trees and plants in the park grew older in an instant, leaves began to wither and brown, falling off their branches, not by their accord, but mine.
I raised my hand, as thick blood coated it and waved it across the room, as everything returned into their former unbroken pristine glory and watched as my blood slowly returned back in my veins, the skin of my hands slowly closing in on itself. This is who I am, a bitter reminder that no matter how much I participate in mundane activities of humans, I will never be one of them.