Savage Beauty Ch. 1

  I sometimes wonder if I had just remembered to grab my sweater from Sashas’ bed room if I’d have ever met him at all. Though truth be told, he could have found me any time he wanted, but when I look back, I see that moment as the pivot of my life. When things suddenly began to swing in a different direction.

      The sun had just set and I was going back to retrieve the sweater I had left there only an hour ago. The last rays of the sun had faded from the now inky blue sky, and a sliver of a moon was peering down at me. Summer twilight was always my favorite thing.

         I didn’t hear his footsteps behind me, only I had a sense of someone suddenly being there. The hairs on the back of my neck rose with instinctual fear. I stopped walking, and tried to explore the sudden fear that had come over me. I wanted to turn around, had to, needed to, but my brain wouldn’t let me. It was screaming for me to run. But I never listened to common sense.

         I turned so slowly, moving one foot, then the other, then my torso, my head last. He was standing there looking at me. No. Looking in to me. His eyes, a fiery green, were piercing and shone brilliantly. His skin pale, so deathly pale, contrasted beautifully with his short mop of black hair. He wore dark clothes, though the details of them slip my mind. I only remember that they were impeccable. And while all my animal instincts were telling me to run, I found myself moving towards him. He was simply the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I knew right off that he wasn’t human. 

         My mouth worked to form words, and I knew I looked like a gaping fish. My throat closed convulsively as I swallowed. My mind whirled in a torrent of thoughts and images as my brain attempted to make my limbs move. He merely smiled at me, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. It was meant as a superficial comfort, as if to say that everything was alright. The longer we stood there in silence, the more pensive his expression became. Finally, words burst from my mouth in a great gush, as if being pulled by a string.

         “When I was seven I stole a pack of gum from the grocery store.” Even as I said it, I felt horror and embarrassment flood me. What had just happened? Why the hell did I say that? I vaguely remember the incident, and didn’t give it any importance, but somehow it had been ripped from my mind. Embarrassment and confusion colored my face red.

He didn’t respond to this sudden outburst, only peered at me curiously. And then, a true smile lit up his near statue-like features. It made me forget how to breathe. And with that, he was gone, as if he faded into nothing.

         I don’t remember how I made it to my friend Sasha’s house after. I don’t remember her mother opening the door in alarm as I moved like a zombie up the staircase to Sasha’s bedroom. I suddenly snapped out of it when I heard Sasha’s voice.

         “Lillith! What in the name of all that is sacred happened?” I looked up at her, trying to speak. It took my brain a few minutes to remember how to form words.

         “Sasha… do you remember that conversation we had only a month ago? When you stayed the night at my house?” She nodded, an intense look of concern and curiosity on her pixie-like face. How could either of us forget that? My parents were away that weekend and she stayed to keep me company. We had snuck some of the wine out of my fathers’ cabinet, and were very nearly drunk, but the conversation itself was lucid and fantastical. We had been talking about vampires.

         We both vehemently believed in them, especially Sasha, who swore up and down she saw one once in the city. “I’d like to meet one.” I had declared in a slur, causing Sasha to fall into fits of giggling. “Well, I would!” I said indignantly. She instantly became thoughtful. “Yes,” she had said, “so would I, but not alone. I’d prefer it be with you.” I agreed, because we vowed to do everything together.

         She continued to study me as I tried to find the words to describe the experience to her. Her brows creased in a frown, and I knew she was trying to connect the dots in her head. Trying to make the connection to my current state and the conversation we had had. Then, I saw the light bulb turn on as she hit upon the answer.

         “Lillith…are you trying to tell me that you met one?” She asked in an intense whisper. I stared up at her and managed a nod, before finally speaking. “I think so.” And then I relayed to her the entire experience. She listened carefully, her grey-blue eyes intense. They were unsettling and beautiful, those eyes. They could go from being childish and delighted to serious and dark within a matter of seconds. 

         She sat deep in thought while I attempted to get a hold of myself. What puzzled me the most was my sudden confession. What had I been thinking to say such a thing? Had I been addled by his presence? I looked up at Sasha as if she knew all the answers. Quiet, intellectual Sasha; she always had a cooler head than me. She looked down at me, her face darkening with worry.

         “Are you alright? You’re not hurt are you?” She asked in hushed tones, for her mother had just come up the stairs and was out in the hallway. I swallowed, trying to find my voice again. “I’m fine. He didn’t lay a hand on me. I’m just….shaken up, that’s all.”

         “Tell me everything again.” She said, and I again described the experience to her. She too seemed puzzled by what I had said to him. “Why would you say that to him of all things?” She asked, but I didn’t know. We sat brooding in her tiny bedroom until her mother came in and asked if I was staying for dinner. I looked at Sasha, who looked at me carefully. “No,” I said, “thank you though, Mrs. Nightingale. I really should be getting home.” Sasha threw me a worried look, and I instantly knew that she didn’t want me walking home alone.

         “I’ll drive you home.” She said with the finality of someone who wouldn’t tolerate an argument. She handed me the sweater I had originally come for and had completely forgotten about. We climbed into her car and she drove down the winding, dusty streets towards my home. While her expression was calm, I could tell that she was nervous. Her knuckles whitening as she gripped the steering wheel too hard, her eyes scanning the road too carefully. She was scared as shitless as I was, but thank the gods she believed me.

         “Lillith, if anything happens tonight, anything at all, I demand you call me immediately. Actually, maybe I should stay the night here.” She mused. “No, really Sasha, I’m okay. After all, he didn’t hurt me and he very well could have if he had wanted to.” Her mouth twisted into a confused frown.

         “True, but what did he want, then? Why even show him self to you?” She asked. I shrugged, just as lost as she was. “Fine, I won’t stay the night, but I expect you to call me in the morning so I know he didn’t come slipping in through your window and murder you in your sleep. Though knowing you, I have the feeling if he did come into your room in the middle of the night you wouldn’t exactly send him away.” She finished with a smirk. I burst out laughing, feeling some of my normal mental state return.

         “Ha, ha.” I said with a wry smile. She had pulled into my driveway by this point, and left the car idling. “Are you sure you don’t need me to stay?” She asked, the worry creeping back into her voice. I nodded with certainty. If anything did happen I wanted her as far away from danger as I could get her. “I’ll be fine, I promise.” I hugged her goodbye and jogged up the driveway to my front door.

         “That took a while.” My father said as I entered the kitchen. My mother looked up from whatever concoction she was stirring on the stove top. I shrugged nonchalantly as I sat down next to my dad at the kitchen table as my mother took the pot off of the stove. I wasn’t hungry, far from it, but I knew my parents wouldn’t let me get away with not eating dinner. Not eating in this house was an unforgivable sin, especially after what happened to Alice.

         My poor, deranged older sister. We had no idea what she was doing until it was too late to save her. She explained off her weightless and gaunt look as pre-exam stress. She had been starving herself for months, barely eating anything for days at a time. I found her in the bathroom that first time, puking out the half of an orange I had seen her eat earlier. She was naked and had bloody claw marks all over her stomach. She looked up at me as I entered, her dark hair a stringy, sweaty mess all over her face. Her eyes, which were blue-green like mine, were wild and wide in her pale face.

         “No matter what I do, it won’t all leave my body.” She whispered hoarsely, tears beginning to pour down her face, begging me to sympathize with this deranged statement. I think I screamed, I don’t remember, but in an instant my mom and dad were at my side. I think my father was the one who called 911, while my mother simply stood there saying “Oh my god…” over and over. I was the only one who held onto Alice; I bather her face with a wet rag; I held a cup of water to her lips and begged her to drink it. She clung to me and her hands felt like thin, disfigured claws.

         When we brought her home from the psychiatric hospital six months later, we thought everything was fine. We were the peachy-keen family we had always been. Alice smiled and laughed like her old self. How could anything have been wrong? She was eighteen and had just been accepted into Harvard Law School. She was a beaming, bright beacon of light that the whole family showered love and pride on. The morning she was supposed to leave for Harvard I found her in the bathroom again.

         She was laying half way onto the toilet seat, stiff and unmoving. I knelt down and shook her, stupidly thinking that I had to wake her up. When I touched her she fell to the floor, her eyes wide open and unseeing, her mouth wide open and reeking of vomit. Later, the post-mortem confirmed death by intentionally taking rat poison. I couldn’t move or make a sound; I sat there until my mother found us both. I was only ten years old.

         I ate the whole bowl of stew my mom had made, though it made my already uneasy stomach sick. I made some half-hearted excuse to leave the table and wandered upstairs to my bedroom. I was edgy and quite restless, but I wasn’t going to leave the house again. What did he want? And what had made me say what I did? Go figure, the one time I meet a vampire and I make an idiot out of myself! I pounded my pillow in confusion and frustration, and lay angry on my bed until I finally fell asleep.



         I called Sasha when I woke up that morning, and I wasn’t surprised by the obvious anxiety in her voice. “Thank God, I was just about to call you. I know you usually sleep late but I was getting anxious. Lillith, something was at my window last night.” She said in one long breath. I froze, letting that sink in.

         “What!? What do you mean? What was it?” I nearly shouted. I heard her take a deep breath before she continued. “I was in bed and it had to be about 1:00 AM, and I heard this faint rustling at my window. I tried to pass it off as my blinds moving in the breeze, but when I looked over I saw that it couldn’t be because they were drawn up, and oh my God, Lillith, there was this black shape outside my window. I couldn’t see anything but just as I got up to get closer it vanished.” I cursed myself for going to her. If I hadn’t then she wouldn’t have been in any danger. As if following my brain waves, as Sasha was apt to do, she then said. “Don’t go blaming yourself, I’m fine. Whatever it, he, whatever, was, I wasn’t hurt. Perhaps he was just curious.” I considered this a moment, still angry at myself. I should have never gone to her!

         “Look, Lillith, I’m coming over.” She said, and I could hear her rummaging around in her room as she spoke, probably getting dressed. I opened my mouth to argue, but reading my mind again, she said simply, “No arguments. I’ll be right there.” and hung up.

         I sighed, bowing to the inevitable, and crawled out of my bed. I looked at my reflection in the standing mirror beside my dresser and was instantly dismayed. My eyes had dark circles beneath them as if I hadn’t gotten any sleep at all. My dark brown hair was a complete wreck, matted on one side, sticking up in disarray on the other. I grabbed my brush and began to wage war on it. Just as I claimed a painful victory, I heard Sashas’ car pull into the driveway. 

         I opened the front door, and she promptly stepped inside and pulled me into a tight hug. She was wearing a light fragrance, lavender perhaps, and I was embarrassed to see that she was smartly dressed while I was still bumming it in my pajamas. She always looked so damn good, even when she just rolls out of bed.

         I led her into the kitchen, and she sat down while I brewed coffee. We remained in intense silence until I set her cup down in front of her. She looked at me, concern tracing a line between her eyebrows. “You look like hell.” She said bluntly. I gave a dismayed version of a smile.

         “So….” She continued, “What do we do now?” I grimaced into my coffee cup over her use of the word ‘we.’ I didn’t want her involved, not when there was a chance she could get hurt. But I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that whatever insane situation I was involved in included her. She was like a persistent, stubborn and loyal guardian.

“I honestly don’t know.” I said quietly, looking up at her. Her pale face was framed by a few errant locks of her black hair, the rest of which was pulled into a knot at the nape of her neck. I laid my hand on the table, and she laid her own on top of it and gave me a tentative but radiant smile.

“I don’t think you should be going out alone at night, Lillith. Not until we know what’s going on. I know he didn’t hurt you, or me, but we don’t know what he wants. Maybe he stakes out his meals before eating them.” She added the last bit with an attempt to make me smile, which I did. He hand clasped mine in a gentle entreaty to promise her I’d be careful. I gave a sigh of resignation, to which she replied with a smile. 

I felt a surge of warmth seep through that minuet connection. A rush of affection with an undercurrent of heat linked us. Her eyes instantly darkened, changing her playful expression into an intense one. An unspoken, mutual love passed between us.

I never knew I had the capacity to feel like this until the day I met her. Until I met her, life was one monogamous show of stupidity and falsehoods. My parents’ marriage was already falling apart. I had already been through a parade of idiotic boyfriends and had lost my virginity almost as carelessly as I lost a pair of socks. Not that I didn’t like men, I did. But I felt more obliged to do so, and I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t know I had other options. I didn’t know that she existed.

Four years ago, when I was thirteen, I saw her. It was after the school day had already ended and I was walking out the doors to go home. I had heard that we had a new girl, but had yet to see her. Truthfully I wasn’t even that concerned with it.

She was standing on the front steps, waiting for a ride it seemed. As soon as the door closed, announcing my presence, she turned around. I felt rooted to the spot as her eyes, vast blue seas of emotion, locked on to mine. She then gave me a small, tentative smile, her dark eyes instantly changing from a storm-tossed sea to a laughing river. I felt my own lips curving in response. I think that I must have been in love with her from that first instant.

She had a certain smile; a certain way of taking my hand that made it seem as if she alone understood what it was like to be watching your life rather than living it. It was as if she was telling me she knew. She knew and everything was just so damn funny, but everything will be alright, won’t it? You’ve got me now.

My promise seemed to have signaled a brief pause in our conversation. She held my hand in hers, rubbing the pad of her thumb along my knuckles almost absent-mindedly. My parents had probably left for work hours ago, thankfully, because I did not know what would happen if they caught wind of what really went on between us.

“Why don’t we try and relax for a bit, we don’t need to have corresponding nervous break downs.” Sasha said while standing up, keeping my hand in hers. We made our way towards the living room and devoted the rest of the afternoon to junk T.V. During that time she had gradually leaned into me, resting her head on my shoulder with one arm around my waist. Her soft hair was like a dark curtain shrouding her face, so I couldn’t see her expression when I kissed the top of her head. This was all our romance was. In four years we hadn’t yet dared breach that dark, forbidden line of intimacy. While sex didn’t bother me, I was a little terrified of going that final distance. As for Sasha, she was a virgin in almost every aspect and I didn’t want to push her.

The sound of my fathers’ car pulling in made us jump, and we quickly broke apart and assumed a casual distance before he came through the front door. He hardly glanced up at us as he walked by, but then paused when he noticed Sasha.

“Are you staying over tonight, Sasha?” He asked, and I felt a rising tide of embarrassment when I noticed that his eyes didn’t quite meet hers, but were focused on something a little lower down. I scowled, but Sasha casually crossed her arms over her chest as if nothing at all was wrong.

“Yes, Mr. Hawthorne. I hope you don’t mind.” She said in a voice that suggested he would.

“Of course not.” He smiled. I wanted to kick him. He’d been cheating on my mom for 6 years, and didn’t even bother to hide it. My mother, never right since my sisters death, didn’t even seem to care, or notice for that matter. My dad disappeared from the room, leaving us alone again. I groaned and hid my face in my hands. Sasha laughed, patting me on the back.

“Come one, let’s go upstairs.” I said, hurrying before my dad could come back and embarrass me further. I locked my bedroom door behind me, and turned to see Sasha sprawled out on my bed.

“My parents are pushing that awful boy on me again.” She said in a sigh, turning to face me. I frowned and sat down next to her.

“Not again. What’s his name? Pompous Mc. Self-absorbed?” She laughed, sitting up beside me.

“Joshua Irving. Ugh.” She gave a shudder of repugnance. “My parents brought me out to dinner the other night and just guess who we happened to have table reservations with? His family. God, by the end of the night I was ready to stick my steak knife into my heart. All he can seem to do is talk about himself and stare at my chest.” I grimaced, giving her a consoling pat on the shoulder.

“They really want you to marry this jerk, huh? Well, thankfully for you, as soon as you hit eighteen you get your grandmothers’ inheritance and you can tell them all to fuck off.” She smiled in a dreamy sort of way, and closed her eyes. Her family was filthy rich, and apparently trying to force her into marrying into money. Snobs.

“Yes, and I’m taking you with me when I get the hell out of here.” We both lay back down on my bed, my head resting on her chest as she absently stroked my hair. It was a reoccurring fantasy of ours. Sasha and I gaining our independence, moving to a city somewhere. No, a mansion! No wait, the west coast! It varied each time, but no matter where we went, we would be free; free and together.

Her parents knew about her preference for women. They just ignored it and insisted on parading pushy, rich men in front of her. She had been this way since she could remember, and had mistakenly told her mother when she was nine. Her mothers’ reaction had been to stare blankly at her daughter, stand up and walk away as if Sasha hadn’t said a word. The incident was immediately forgotten, and any attempts on Sashas’ part to bring it up again were shot down with glares and hastily changed subjects.

I wondered if and how our relationship would change when we moved away together. We were constantly afraid of being walked in on while in a compromising position, so we refrained from anything more than a chaste kiss. We learned to be careful the hard way. Once, when at Sashas’ house, a simple peck on the lips turned into a more heated embrace. Right in the full throws of it, her mother walked into her bedroom. The three of us stared silently at each other, and a look of mingled shock and alarm had passed over her mothers face. Her mother then turned around and closed the door, and moments later we heard her Rolls Royce pulling out of the driveway. Ever since that moment, her mother never failed to spare me a scornful glance whenever I came over to visit.

We lay quietly on my bed as the sun sunk lower down in the sky, bathing my room in a golden light. I realize as I look back on my human life, that every peaceful moment occurring after Alice’s death was with Sasha. She was like a balm on my internal wounds; a slow, quiet way to heal without the pressure and guilt of my parents accusing stares. Their golden girl had died, leaving them only this twisted and warped version of the daughter they really wanted. With Sasha, all of that hatred faded into the background as if it were nothing more than the sound of a passing car.

At the sound of someone in the hallway, we hastily separated. I sat up just as my mother knocked on my door, saying in her hollow voice that dinner was ready. We rose in unison to go downstairs and start the show all over again. When my family was in the same room together, it was hard to decide which was more embarrassing; my dad trying painstakingly to make conversation, or my mother not trying at all.