Complete Sin

I followed him, knowing I should get back to work, knowing I should let him disappear as quietly as he had come. Still, I felt that if I did what I should, I would always wonder what I was missing. My partner absent for the day and my bosses purposefully ignorant of my activities as they pursued chickadees of their own on company time, I followed unhindred.

We slipped through my crowded section like hair through a comb, silent, parting and tangling. Finally we reached the large red metal double doors, half-obscured by large displays of restored farm equipment and other farming commodities the FFA kids had made to display. He opened one door and went in, letting it almost close behind him. I hated it when he held doors for me; I never allowed it. I slipped through easily before the door could close.

We were now in the small hidden breezeway between halls in the large wing I cleaned. The area was used for storage, although it also hosted several closed judgings throughout the fair. A tabletop lectern collected dust beside the generator door. The opposite wall was lined with stacks of cheaply upholstered convention-style chairs with their silver-coated legs and headrests that only looked like wood from afar.

On one side of the hall were two more red double doors, which I had always found to be locked, protecting the generator room should anyone venture into that forgotten corridor. The mystery had intrigued me, plastered with regulatory warnings about electrocution and other hazards it posed.

He stared at me a moment as he leaned back against a stack of chairs, looking as serenely hopeless as ever. Nervous about being alone with the unreadable man and the situation’s possibilities, I edged forward until I was resting an elbow on the seat atop the stack nearest to his. I stared at him, trying to penetrate his heavy guard, waiting for something to happen. It had always been such a tense game for us—how long had we been playing? I caught my breath at the realization it was just short of two years to the day. It was almost our would-be anniversary, a fact I felt sure he was aware of.

My unintentional gasp seemed the right punctuation to end the stillness. He stopped examining the pointed toes of his scuffed black cowboy boots, slowly raising his gaze to my anxious visage, noting my trembling smile.

The next moments remain a mystery, for I saw him slide toward me like an alligator on a silty bank, and I believe I felt myself draw nearer, my hand already close to his sparse but well-muscled arm. The bicep bulges felt taut, familiar. I recalled his many speculations about how his heritage somehow included Greek, his toned hardness bringing to mind a flawed, somewhat diminished statue. He was not a handsome man, but I once consented to follow him anywhere, and now it seemed I might again, if but for a short time.

He raised an arm around the back of my shoulders, pulling me close, although we did not immediately embrace. He pushed me against the stack, chair legs imprinting unforgiving against my body, no longer soft from the hundred pounds of baby weight I had carefully starved away while we were together despite his many protests and attempts to force me to eat in a normal fashion as I stubbornly whittled away toward a more lovely corpse, a task not achieved until well after I had left him. I savored the strong ache, bolts or screws threatening to pierce my flesh through sloppy clothing. I had hurt him so thoroughly, I desired this unintentional retaliation. Still I pushed back against him, against the chair, against reason.

All the while he kissed me. It was not the kiss of longed-for passion. In his unexpected savagery I sensed he was trying to rebel, possibly even to kill something. I wanted it to be me just so I could be his most dangerous passion, knowing he could never hurt me despite a violent past.

He apparently had a thing for security guards, since he was unable to pursue a career in law enforcement like he wanted after becoming a felon for other crimes. His security guard girlfriend cheated on him. Their confrontation got physical. She lost some teeth during the altercation. She found vengeance by spiking his beer with sleeping pills, making it necessary for his stomach to be pumped. The team in the emergency room lost him twice in the process. Believing he saw Hell in those moments, he soon changed his ways and became quite religious, a conviction which I never took as seriously as would be respectful. This was something else entirely. My head racing, I pushed further into his sloppy, unskilled kisses, desperate for acquaintance at a level we had not previously reached. For once I did not shudder as he licked my lips, mauling me harder. This was complete sin.

The kissing and pushing escalated as he pressed against me with his entire body hunched forward to close the six-inch height difference, his lips finding a foreign rhythm, his pants growing tight at the crotch positioned firmly against my thigh. His hands clawed at the front of my shirt until they found their way beneath, where they kneaded with cruel desire. Uncertain how things would go and what I would do, I urged him forward anyway, ready to whisper my shamed request for him to stop at any moment but too curious to actually do it. We had never gone this far, and I honestly never intended to let this happen, perpetually turned off by his blatant desire for children when I secretly felt finished after bearing my daughter, but reason was quickly becoming something I could no longer count on.

Then as suddenly as it began, it stopped. His mouth froze back into its customary frown. His eyes opened and stared once more at the large beige floor tiles. I tried to push myself upon him with the audacity of infantile experience, but he took a large step back, grimacing.

“This is a mistake. I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can,” I urged, wanting him to continue what I knew he was already chastising himself for. I myself would feel like a terrible person later. Perhaps I would go home and cut my wrist a little until I felt better, satisfied I would be punished by every abrasive movement of my watch on the damaged flesh until the shallow wound would heal about a week later if it was bad enough, within a few days otherwise. In the end I decided against it. I had done much worse lately.

“This is wrong,” he said, the guilt cutting the words at flat angles.

“I know.” I touched his arm; he quickly pulled away as if I were a harlot.

“I got somebody,” he ventured, probably believing I was simply confused.

“Me too. I won’t say anything. They won’t know.”

“I’m sorry.” He leaned once more against the chairs, retreating inward for protection. “This shouldn’t have happened.”

“I know,” I said quietly, following his gaze until I made it my own. My blood sufficiently cooled with defeat, I became curious about how he had spent the year that had passed since I had last talked to him. We only spoke to one another while we were working at the fair because it was simply too risky. He might pursue me again; my parents would find out and disown me, probably taking my daughter from me in the process; I would hurt him worse. A million things could happen in my quest to satisfy my curiosity, and none of them seemed worth it, so I was more or less satisfied with the few updates I could worm out of him.

“You’re going out with someone?” I finally asked, not as much looking for the answer I already knew as a way in.

“Yeah.”

“What’s her name?”

“Tracy.” He said her name with no emotion, no attachment.

“That’s good,” I smiled. At least he wasn’t alone. “Do you like her a lot?”

“She’s there.” He lit a cheap cigarette. Apparently he was still failing at quitting. After a few long drags, he added softly, “She’s not you.”

I was struck silent. This was one of the most heartbreaking things I had heard. There was nothing I could say or do.

“She got pregnant right after we met, but she lost it. She didn’t tell me for a few months—said she was scared. Don’t know why.” He examined the ceiling panels, splotched yellow from water damage and the type of grime that is expected in a “former” smoking facility. “What about you?”

Feeling guilty, I shuffled my feet and wriggled my back. I wanted to tell him I was just as miserable as he was, but I was actually happy to be dating someone for the first time in my life. “I’ve been going out with Sam for about a year now. We met at school because we had a lot of the same classes and did the same kinds of things. He’s really great.”

He nodded and finished the cigarette, which he examined distastefully every now and then. We stood there a long time in silent misery. I merely watched him, waiting. Finally he finished.

“I should probably get back in case they’re looking for me,” he apologized, looking at his thick-banded black leather watch that reminded me of truckers, bikers, and other harsh sorts. He had been a trucker before he met me and would have been once more, but he stayed behind because of me.

“Yeah. I need to go do rounds and make sure everything’s picked up around here.”
He gazed upon me one last time as if he might never see me again. Then he turned and left, letting the door shut heavily behind him, a barrier never meant to be explored again. In time I returned to my duties as well, laboring extra to repent for the discretion which undoubtedly caused his temporary switch to day shift for the remainder of my time there. Sometimes I saw him hurry out of the clock room towards the employee parking lot after his shift, but I could never catch up. I was alone again.