Enigma: The Rise of an Urban Legend

by Ryan Schow

  “A surprise, if you can handle that.”

  “I can.”

  “Good, then it’s time for you to go home because it sounds like it’s going to be a big day tomorrow.”

  6

  The next morning I pick him up early and we catch a flight out of LAX to New York. I’d like to say he was a good sport all the way, but when we made the turn off Highway 1 onto Century Blvd heading to LAX, he said, “Where are we going?” and I said, “Someplace marvelous,” to which he replied, “I don’t know about this,” so I was like, “Don’t pee in my Cheerio-O’s,” and that was the end of the conversation. From then on, he sort of took every step in wonderment.

  “New York?” he says, as we’re checking our bags.

  “Yep. I want you to see my world.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that.”

  “I’m sort of on call in three days,” he says.

  “Gonna be hard to get to work on time when you’re on the opposite side of the country. But don’t worry, we can stay as long as you like. The minute you’re ready to come home, just say the word and we’ll hop on a plane and come back.”

  He kind of gets a bit jittery when I buy our tickets on Virgin Airlines and the blonde lady helping us says it’s just over two grand round trip.

  “Savannah,” he says, “that’s a lot of money. We can just—”

  “You forget I’m a successful writer, besides, what good is having a bunch of money if you have no one interesting to share it with? I’d try to tell you not to worry about it, but it would do no good, so just trust me, this is a real treat for me.”

  “Okay,” he says, running his hand through his hair again, as if it’s some sort of trigger he has for warning himself to stay calm, or to let something go.

  We drop into New York after dark and honestly, there’s nothing as beautiful or as serene as flying into New York at night. The glittering skyline simply takes your breath away!

  “I’ve never been here before,” he admits, his eyes glued to the window and the lights below in awe.

  “I know.”

  “Did I tell you that?”

  “You have the same look on your face that I had on mine when I first came in.”

  So when we get to my condo, looking at the place wide eyed with wonder, he seriously threatens to have a heart attack the way he just stops breathing for a second. I bump off his mind, but not on purpose. It’s my curiosity I suppose. He’s swimming with jealousy and downright inferiority, and this stills me. I swear there’s almost nothing I can say.

  “This place must cost a fortune,” he says, unconscious as he looks around.

  “One million three hundred and ninety-seven thousand eBooks, to be precise. If we’re talking in terms of eBook commerce.”

  “But we’re not talking eBooks,” he says, catching on.

  He’s gazing out the towering windows, letting his eyes travel up the staircase to my bedroom at the open loft above, tilting his head back to look at the box beam ceiling. He’s looking at the dark hardwood floors and asking if he should take his shoes off.

  I tell him no.

  “You ever wish you could go back in time, take everything you know about right now, and our more recent past, and bet on the future?” I ask. “Like, how amazing would it be to buy Microsoft when it was dirt cheap? Or Google? Can you imagine buying stock in Yahoo on day one?”

  “Yeah, that’d be crazy.”

  “It’s like that. But it’s nothing like that at all. You know what I mean?”

  “So this is really your place?”

  “It is.”

  “And you paid for it?”

  “With cash.”

  “I run a surf shop I don’t own.”

  “So?”

  “I can’t even pay for my ticket here,” he replies. God, he’s already trying to talk his way out of a possible relationship with me based on what I own.

  Ugh…guys and their tiny emotional dicks!

  “That’s one of the things I like about you,” I tell him. The entitlement issues of the trust fund babies of the world makes me want to shit alligators. “People who have a lot of money can be real assholes sometimes. You’re not like that.”

  “I’m not an asshole,” he says, “and I don’t have money.”

  Waving him off, I say, “In every erotica book you read—and I get that you’ve never read one, but trust me on this—there’s some rich egomaniac who sees the young damsel in distress and he swoops in to save her and control her, and he’s quiet and powerful, he’s brooding and moody. Never a guy you’d want to fall in love with, just one you’d want to fuck the ever-living daylight out of you for a few days before you’re like, alright mister, see yourself out.”

  He blanches when I drop the f-bomb, but whatever. I’m too old and tenured in this life to self-censor all the time.

  “That guy’s a fantasy, never a reality.”

  “And that’s how rich guys are?” he asks.

  “If you shelve the erotica in favor of a good love story, chances are you’ll read about the common man who’s unaffected by power and money, who is unmoved by things like corporate greed and scandal. Our hero won’t be dying to plow through fields of twenty year old vaginas, and he won’t cheat because honoring his values supersedes his more carnal desires. In these stories, women are strong by themselves, but stronger with a good man because a good man knows how to be vulnerable, how to stay faithful to one woman, how to be polite, respectful, sincere.”

  “Wow,” he says, truly taken aback. “I can see why you do well as a writer.”

  I have to laugh. It almost makes me happy to see men impressed by me. I spent my youth watching the boys I wanted to be with act wholly unimpressed with me all the time. The treatment I received by the Jacob Brantley’s of the world, that’s the kind of treatment that leaves scar tissue.

  But not anymore. I’m not that woman. And, it doesn’t hurt to feel good about yourself every so often. In fact, we deserve it!

  “I understand women, and I have a decent understanding of men,” I tell him. “That’s why I like you. You’re not trying to impress me, even though you’re attracted to me. You might have been able to have me last night, but you were a gentleman instead.”

  “I absolutely wanted you last night.”

  “And you’re concerned about Raven, whom you haven’t talked to in days. You made a commitment to her, and even though you have me with you now, and perhaps—if you’re amazing and don’t screw this up—you can have me later, too, but you’re still thinking of Raven. Considering her feelings. Wondering where this will go, if anywhere, and how it will effect your relations with her.”

  “I am.”

  “You haven’t seen New York during the day, and though you’re impressed, you know this life isn’t for you, that I’m not for you.”

  “It’s not that—”

  “But all this is a bit overwhelming. Too much, in fact. And it’s making you wonder if you can get past dirty Darren and his misdeeds to the woman you once thought you’d marry.”

  “Jesus,” he says, clearly stricken. “It’s a man’s mind you’re in, but not mine.”

  “Sorry. I’m a writer. I’m observant and I tend to write my own beginnings, middles and ends.”

  “You’re mostly wrong about me. I’m thrilled by this life, and maybe a bit taken aback. But I’m mesmerized by what you’ve accomplished at such a young age. Corrine is trying to get back together with me, and she told me about your confrontation—which I’m still trying to wrap my head around—but I know me enough to know I can’t get past what she did. As for Raven, we were a one-time thing that could be more, but she won’t call me back and I’m tired of worrying. It’s exhausting. I like you. I’m sort of intimidated by you, but not enough that I can’t let go and appreciate the way you’ve so beautifully provided for yourself.”

  “So are we going to have sex then?” I ask, giddy.

  “No.”

  “Wh
at?”

  “I don’t know, maybe.”

  “Maybe?” I smirk. Then, raising an eyebrow at him, I say, “Okay, I can live with that.”

  It sort of sounds like I’m conceding, but in the back of my mind, I’m like, thanks for the opening. In the back of my mind, I’m like, you just wait…

  “So I don’t have a guest bed,” I say.

  “Well I’m not couching it,” he replies, piping up. Even though he’s looking at the couches and thinking about how comfortable they must be.

  “It’s a full,” I warn him.

  “Better to snuggle in on cold nights like these.”

  Outside the sky has a pinkish hue and the clouds are low and full. The airline pilot, upon landing, said there was a sixty percent chance of snow. God I hope it snows. Oh, how I love winter in New York!

  “Yeah, well you’re going to have to snuggle hard because it gets bone chilling around one A.M.”

  “So what’s for dinner then?”

  Dinner was take out. We ended up watching Fifty Shades of Grey after all, which was pretty good, but maybe just because I’d been expecting it to be so bad (ah, the power of low expectations!), and then we ended up kissing, which ended up with a trail of our clothes on the staircase and the floor leading to the bed, and that ended up with us having the absolute best sex I’d had in over a decade.

  I think somewhere along the way I saw God.

  How he went after me, how he really gave it his all, I totally felt worth the effort. While we were lying there, breathless and sated, the cool air hardening my skin into goosebumps as he wrapped his arms around me, I felt like I’d finally found heaven.

  I’m in heaven.

  Outside, the snow started to fall, which left me feeling euphoric and wrapped in the warmth of a perfect night.

  “I love the way the snow looks in the dark, against the street lights. How you just want to bundle up in a hat, a coat, mittens and a scarf and walk through it.”

  “We should do it,” he says, kissing me, letting his forearm drift over the goose-bumped flesh of my two swollen breasts.

  “It’s better as a fantasy. See how the snow is falling at the slightest angle?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That little breeze is cool at first, then cold. After about ten minutes the cold turns bitter and the insides of your bones start to hurt, and your teeth start to chatter. Then it all goes downhill from there. Best we watch from inside, where it’s warm and we can be naked together.”

  “You have an amazing body,” he says, looking me over.

  When are you going to see tits like this on a ninety year old broad?

  Um…never.

  I lay my head on his chest, feel his heart beating in my ear, feel the resonance of it setting a welcomed rhythm in my core. My hands on his chest…this is a dream I’ve seldom let myself have. But here we are.

  Here he is.

  My fingertips wander his body, eventually drifting down below his navel where he awaits me. His hands are on me, too, exploring, grazing, teasing me where I’m swollen, where I’m wet, where I’m most sensitive. When neither of us can take it anymore, he moves on top of me and takes me again, slowly, purposefully, but with strength and control. His eyes are on mine the whole time, like he’s just dying to know who I am behind this mask, underneath this genetically perfect body. He has no idea the power I hold inside me, and this thrills me.

  Oh how I love all my little secrets!

  When we’re done with round two (which is amazing as well!), when we’re spent and laying there, holding hands, he tells me he wants to take a shower, so I point him to the bathroom and say, “Close the door, though, otherwise the lady across the way can practically see inside the shower.”

  He starts to get up and stops. I grin and say, “No I will not turn away, and yes, I’m going to watch you walk all the way to the bathroom.” He flips the blankets back, climbs out of bed, then I say, “Wait a sec.” He stops. I hand him my cell phone and say, “The battery’s dead. There’s a charger in the second drawer down.”

  He takes my phone and true to my word, I watch him walk every little step, my hands on myself, just to spark the moment a little more.

  Oh sweet Jesus, how long has it been since I’ve been this happy?

  Years? Decades?

  Drawing a deep breath, I steady myself, count to ten and then say, “Alright, you can come up now.”

  That’s when the girl struts up the staircase into view and I say, “What in the hell are you wearing? And what’s with the rifle?”

  From Here to There in the Pocket of Time

  1

  These are the things I didn’t know. The things I should’ve known. The things I had no way of knowing as I stared at this post-apocalyptic looking girl with a long gun.

  If I hadn’t been so hypnotized by the ridiculously cool steampunk look of her, I should have known that while Sebastian was heating the shower he was peeing, and checking his phone for a text from Raven.

  What I should have known was that when he plugged in my phone, it began charging immediately, that it wasn’t quite dead, that I just assumed it was because it was low earlier that day.

  The thing I thought about but dismissed, and the thing I should’ve known, was that even though we just had the most amazing sex, the way I did him reminded him of the way Raven did him and that had him texting Raven right there with hot piss in the toilet, the slick drying-out-film of my sex all over his business, and the shower now running hot.

  I didn’t hear my phone beep when Sebastian text Raven, the former me with the same phone I had when I was her, so I couldn’t have known that Sebastian would check my phone and find his own text on my phone. All of his texts.

  All addressed to Raven.

  He wrapped a towel around himself while I was staring at this girl with a long rifle in hand, a rifle that looked both old and new at the same time. A bolt action rifle that was the same brown as her corset. She was sleeveless with toned arms, and on her hat were the kind of heavy goggles you’d wear if you were traveling through heat and wind in a burned out dystopian future. She had one fingerless leather glove on her right hand, some light wrist armor and a bicep band that looked more than anything like functionless body décor.

  While Sebastian was freaking out, trying hard not to pass out, to just breathe, I was asking my uninvited guest where in the hell she got such cool boots, and if she was wearing underwear underneath her battle skirt, this little black number you could really kick ass in.

  Me and future girl, we can’t stop looking at each other. In answer to my question about her undergarments, she lifts the front of the skirt to an unshaved vagina and right then I know the underwear answer: she’s not wearing any.

  “Gosh damn!” I exclaim.

  “I know, right?”

  “What the fuck?”

  “You’ll see. But about this outfit. I stole it off some dead chick just outside a bar that was blown to shit by a car bomb. Took about three days of soaking the leather just to get her guts off it. But wouldn’t you know it? It’s softer and more comfortable than ever now.”

  “I was talking about your bush,” I said.

  That’s when he came out and saw us. Me and her. No, me and future me.

  “What the hell? I thought you lived alone.”

  “I do.”

  “Then who’s that?” he asks, pointing to future me. I’m sitting in bed, the sheet covering my boobs, the sides tucked under my arms.

  “Hi, Sebastian,” future me says.

  He can hardly speak. He’s holding my phone like an accusation. No, he’s holding our phone. Glancing over at me, setting the gun down on the butt end and leaning it against a pillar, future me says, “He found our phone and he’s wanting to know why Raven’s texts are on it.”

  “How—?” Just putting the question into words has him stepping on needles. I bump off his brain and it’s sheer confusion.

  “You should tell him, Savannah,” future me says.
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  Looking from her to him, my stomach charging hard up my throat, I blink twice, swallow, then say, “Are you familiar with the concept of Copernican heliocentrism?”

  “Are you twins?” he asks, dry mouthed and swallowing hard.

  “Answer the question, Sebastian. Have you heard of Copernican heliocentrism?”

  “No, why would I? And what does this Copernican…whatever, have to do with…oh my God…you are twins.”

  The way he’s gripping my phone, part of me is afraid he’ll crack it.

  “In 1543 Nicolaus Copernicus presented the idea that the sun was the center of the universe and that it remained motionless while the planets revolved around it. This was a point of monumental controversy, especially with the Catholic Church, since back then it was believed that the earth was the center of the universe and to think otherwise was heretical.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” he asks. He can’t stop looking at future me, and I have to admit, she looks freaking cool in her outfit. Actually, she looks sexy AF, pubic hair not withstanding.

  “Just wait,” future me tells Sebastian, “it’ll all make sense.” So I guess future me knows exactly what I’m about to say. What I’ve been saying and why.

  “The earth being the center of the universe, it was a common thought until Galileo Galilei, the famous scientist, astronomer, philosopher and writer began floating around the idea that heliocentrism was theoretically provable if one were to study the phases of Venus and the moons of Jupiter. He was officially warned by the Catholic Church in 1616 that to hold or defend the Copernican System would be tantamount to heresy. Galileo, however, was not easily intimidated, for as an old man, he penned the work, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which not only detailed heliocentrism, but created a growing audience that was receptive to his radical philosophy. The following year, the Roman inquisition tried him and found him ‘vehemently suspect of heresy.’ They confined him to his house indefinitely where he remained until his death in 1642.”

  “So how does that relate to you having Raven’s phone? And her car? And why do you kiss like she does, and have sex like she does?”