Ourselves
Page 8
Stell nodded and the whole room seemed to exhale as one. Forty-five minutes later, after Louis had joined them for breakfast, the phone rang. Tomas raced to pick it up and went into the next room to talk. When he returned, his cheeks glowed with spots of high color.
“I’ve got the appointment. Thirty-three days from today.”
“Thirty-three days?” Richard asked. “Why so long?”
“The Storyteller who does the interviews is in San Francisco right now and that’s the soonest he’ll be out this way. His name is Albion.”
Louis reached into the fruit bowl for an apple. “So what are you going to do for thirty-three days?”
Chapter Four:
OSVIAT
Osviat: literally, to disappear; also liberated; figuratively, the point at which, due to slowed aging, parents and children must assume identities separate from each other; also used to describe the general separation of generations by lifestyle
“I’m hungry.”
“There’s a Denny’s down the street.”
“That’s not what I’m hungry for.”
Tomas rolled over and looked at Stell, sprawled naked on top of the sheets beside him. He ran his hand along the tender skin of her inner thigh. “Then let’s get you something to eat.”
They had spent two days holed up in a roadside motel just over the Virginia border, unable to keep their hands off of each other. It had been obvious to all involved that they couldn’t stay with Tomas’s parents and so they had decided to take a road trip of their own. Free at last to be together, they shut out the world. Only blood could break the spell. They left the room littered with damp sheets, soda cans, and candy bar wrappers and headed back onto the road.
Wilson’s Kool Stop had the same jukebox selection Tomas had heard in every bar across the country. Bon Jovi, Alan Jackson, and The Allman Brothers were never more than two songs away. He and Louis had entered countless bars like this as rednecks, foreigners, and drunken college students looking for a fight. Entering a dive bar in Virginia with a woman changed the dynamic. He caught the admiring looks Stell received as she sidled up to the bar and Stell let the bartender lean in closer than necessary to take her order.
Tomas slid his hand against the small of her back. “Better rein that in a little before we have a gangbang on our hands.”
Stell leaned in to Tomas, looking out over the small crowd, and whispered in his ear. “I don’t know what a gangbang is, but I think I’ll like it. When do we start?”
“Drink your beer, hot stuff. Let’s just see how the night goes.”
It was the first bar Stell had ever been in. Still early in the evening, the men were sober enough to be friendly, the women’s clothes and makeup were still fresh. Fascinated by the activity around her, Stell peppered Tomas with questions. How did they get their hair so fluffy? Should she also wear that kind of short skirt and the boots with the pointy toes? Would Tomas rather she wore the tiny t-shirt that showed her belly? Would he teach her to dance?
Tomas laughed and answered her questions as best he could. He told her he would buy her a belly shirt at the next opportunity and begged her not to wear makeup. He watched her profile as she watched the bar. The faint throbbing of her pulse below her jawline beckoned to him. Unable to resist, he placed his lips on her throat, feeling her heartbeat.
Her pulse quickened at his touch. “When do we eat?”
“Anyone here strike your fancy?” Tomas had several choices picked out.
“Who’s the man at the end of the bar?”
Tomas didn’t need to look to see who she meant. “People avoid him. Good choice.”
Stell bit her lip. “He’s really big.”
Tomas leaned close and bit her lip as well. “Big enough for two?”
He whispered his plan into her ear.
“Do you understand?” She nodded. Tomas rose, sliding his hands out from beneath her shirt, where he’d been rubbing her back. “Then I’m going to go play some pool. All that sugar you’ve been holding in? This would be a good time to let a little out.” He winked at her then turned to join the men playing pool across the room.
Stell let her body sway to the southern rock pulsing from the speakers. Nerves gave way to anticipation. She and Tomas were together now; this was her life, her future. She let the smells and sounds wash over her, move through her.
The room had gotten considerably drunker as the night wore on and several women were dancing together suggestively. Stell watched them, studying their hip swings and hair tosses as she made her way down the bar. When she reached the man sitting alone, she leaned against the bar.
He turned to look at her, his dark eyes cool. His nose was large and slightly hooked, caramel colored skin smooth over high cheekbones. Stell admired the planes of his face.
“Are you an Indian?”
“You figure that out by yourself, sugar britches?”
“I’ve never met an Indian before.”
“You still haven’t.” He turned back to his beer and Stell giggled. She took a deep drink from her beer and leaned in closer.
“Do you want to dance?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
He looked over his shoulder at the pool game across the room. “On how big a piece your pretty boyfriend over there is carrying.” Stell laughed out loud, her breath sweet on his face.
At six foot five, John Running Deer knew he was big enough to handle most drunken bar fighters. At forty-two years of age, he had seen more than his share of drunken bar whores getting horny as the night grew old. Plus he was not especially attracted to white women, their pasty skin reminding him of something cold and dead. Still, there was something about this particular white girl that kept him from leaving.
Her eyes were the palest blue he had ever seen, almost diamond-like in the darkened bar and her skin was so white and unmarked as to seem flawless. But it was the way she moved that held his attention. She didn’t dance, didn’t sway drunkenly. She seemed to undulate within herself, moving ever closer to him. Hell, he figured, maybe he was just horny, but John Running Deer decided to let this little girl give it her best shot.
She placed her hand on his shoulder, running her fingers along the seam of his denim shirt. “My boyfriend’s not carrying a gun.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
She giggled again and the sound sent a bolt of electricity down his spine.
“I don’t think he’d mind if we danced.”
“Dance with your boyfriend.”
“I want to dance with you.”
Running Deer glanced past her and saw Tomas staring directly at them.
“I don’t think your boyfriend would like that.”
“You’d be surprised what my boyfriend likes.” She put her lips to his ear, her tongue flicking his earlobe. “He likes to watch.”
John Running Deer waged a brief internal war then quickly resolved the issue. Grabbing her ass roughly with one hand, he pulled her to him as he rose to his feet. She pressed the length of her body against him, her head at his chest.
“Then let’s get out of here and give him something to see.”
They slammed into the side of the pick-up truck, her legs wrapped around his waist, her hands pulling his shirt free of his jeans. He had one arm underneath her holding her up as the other arm was braced to keep them upright.
“Right here. This is our truck.”
“Where are we going?”
Stell reached over and flipped open the tailgate. He tossed her into the truck bed and watched as she slid out of her jeans. “You are one crazy bitch.” He grinned as he unbuttoned his jeans and climbed in beside her.
Even knowing what was coming, knowing it was only a common, it was still difficult to watch another man’s hands clutching Stell’s body. The light of the distant streetlamps was enough for him to see the muscles in the large man’s back working as he moved on top of Stell. Tomas stepped closer to the truck and rested his arms on
the side of the bed. Stell sank her teeth into her lover’s shoulder and stared directly into Tomas’s eyes. The look he saw there dispelled every trace of jealousy and he felt his body stir. Sensing a presence, the large man threw his head up and saw Tomas.
“Shit.” His voice was hoarse but level. He held himself still above Stell and stared at Tomas. “We have a problem?”
Tomas shook his head. “I just like to watch.”
He had to see the way Tomas’s eyes moved over his body. Beneath him, Stell smiled, arching her back, her hips moving against him. He held Tomas’s gaze for a moment then resumed his rhythmic dance inside the girl. He spoke aloud to no one. “This is fucking weird.”
Tomas chuckled. “It’s going to get a lot weirder.”
They shared a wound on his right arm. As Tomas drank, Stell moved to the other side of the truck bed and ran her hands over the sleeping man’s body.
“He’s very smooth. Are all Indians this smooth?”
Tomas lifted his mouth from the wound. “Gee, Stell, I don’t know. This is the first time I’ve shared an Indian in a parking lot.”
She ignored his sarcasm. “I don’t like it when they’re really hairy. Sometimes they feel like bears. I like smooth skin like this.”
Tomas closed the wound and looked up at Stell. “Then maybe next time we’ll get a woman. I think I’d like that better. A lot better.”
She ran her fingers down the brown skin of his stomach, over his pelvis and traced the part of him that was now soft. “He’s really big.” At Tomas’s cry of protest, Stell laughed and leaned across to kiss him on the mouth. “Don’t worry. I still like yours better.”
Tomas bit her lower lip. “I should say so.”
She leaned back against the side of the truck, grinning. “But he was really big.”
Tomas threw her jeans at her, laughing. “Next time we’re definitely sharing a woman.”
They slept all the next day and as the sun went down, followed the highway a few towns down and stopped at another bar on a small side road.
“It’s just like that place last night,” Stell marveled.
“They’re all like that place last night.”
As promised, Stell let Tomas pick out their target, and as promised, he picked out a shapely young woman named Caroline in a tight t-shirt that read “I <3
“I am not putting my mouth there.” Caroline’s legs were spread wide and Tomas was preparing to make a small cut in her upper thigh.
Tomas laughed. “This is what you get for picking that big Indian last night.”
“I didn’t make you touch his thing!”
“No, you just waved it around saying how big it was!”
Stell shoved Tomas playfully and he wrestled her down next to the unconscious Caroline. “I’m not doing it,” she said.
He kissed her deeply, his tongue teasing hers. When he pulled back she could smell the desire on his breath. “Do it for me.” She rolled her eyes as beside them Caroline stirred slightly.
“Just this one time. And I’m giving her a bruise.”
Tomas grinned and settled back to watch the show.
By the time they crossed the North Carolina border they had come to an agreement. They would feed on couples or not at all. Tomas taught Stell to drive the truck as they made their way through the rolling mountains. She thrived on his company. She learned the songs on the radio and laughed at all of his jokes. The air was getting cold in the mountains and the trees were exploding with color. One night they slept under blankets in the back of the truck, deep in the forest. Stell’s skin was as hot as a charcoal as she curled up beside him.
“In all my life, I never thought I could feel like this. I never thought I would be off Calstow Mountain.”
Stell hadn’t told him about the circumstances that led to her fleeing the congregation. Although she didn’t doubt his feelings for her, she wasn’t ready to risk his reaction to her killing urge. She leaned up on one elbow and looked down into his face.
“Why were your parents so upset? What does a Storyteller do?”
He caught a piece of her hair in his hand and twined it around his finger. “Didn’t you have any Nahan contact up on Calstow Mountain?” Stell shook her head. “No Council? No heritage classes? I can’t imagine what that would be like.”
“It was like living with a bag over your head.” She bent down to kiss Tomas. “Don’t change the subject. What does a Storyteller do?”
“I’m not exactly sure.”
“Then how do you know you want to be one?”
“It’s just a feeling, you know? And once I let it into my head, it wouldn’t let me go. The Storytellers are the ones who see the big picture. They’re the ones who oversee where the Nahan are in the world. They oversee identity flips. Not the little stuff, not like us going from Parkers to Wilkinsons, but big moves. Big situations.”
“Charles made it sound as if Storytellers are strange, different from everyone else.”
Tomas nodded. “That’s what they say. They say that they hold the whole Nahan world inside of them, that they know all the stories that’ll ever be told.” He watched the leaves move in the night breeze. “Everyone’s scared of the Storytellers because they’re supposed to be so weird but I’ve always felt weird. Sometimes it’s like what I see isn’t the same as what everyone else does. When people talk, I hear them speak but it’s like I hear something underneath their voice, some echo or something and I can tell things about them that they haven’t told me. And the longer I’m out, the more I feed, the stronger the feeling gets.” He looked into her eyes. “Do you think I’m nuts?”
She shook her head. “So tell me, Storyteller, what do you see when you look at me?”
Tomas laughed. “Here’s where it gets really crazy and probably blows a hole right in my ambition. From the first minute I met you, I never heard a thing from you. When I look at you, it’s like all the world goes dark and you stand out clear and bright. I can’t come up with a single story for you. I hope this doesn’t mean you are my undoing.”
They spent a week in Greensboro then circled around to Asheville. Stell loved North Carolina. She loved the green mountains that were transforming into red, orange, and yellow jewels. The air was cold and, although it made her miss Calstow Mountain, it also made her feel at home. Tomas shared with her his insight into the people around her, his ability to divine hidden secrets growing every time they fed.
Feeding was easy in the small college town; there were plenty of people coming and going. They moved from hotels to motels to bed-and-breakfasts, never staying more than a night or two, always paying cash. Sometimes they drove out to the edge of town and slept under the stars, in the truck.
Stell felt strong and alive. There were moments, however, when she felt a tug deep down in her gut, a hunger she tried to ignore. She knew she couldn’t do so indefinitely any more than she could hide it from Tomas much longer. Night after night, as they fed and laughed and made love, she could feel this dark part of her rising ever closer to the surface.
“You’re thinking about going back to Deerfield, aren’t you?” Tomas watched Stell as she dried off after a shower. She had been quieter than usual all day. “It won’t always be that tense. After I meet with the Storyteller, I’ll have some idea about what plans we can make but I promise we won’t stay at my parents’ house.”
Stell nodded as she tossed the towel onto the bed. She slipped into a pair of jeans and rummaged around in her bag for a shirt. She wanted to talk to Tomas about what she was feeling, what she was hungering for, but couldn’t find the words. So much of what she had learned of the Nahan culture she had learned from him. Everything she had learned about the common she had learned from him. If the hunger within her was something she alone felt, if it was maybe some sort o
f aberration from her years in the True Family, she wanted to wait as long as possible to reveal it to Tomas. She pulled the t-shirt over her head and saw him watching her.
“Promise me something, Tomas.”
“Anything.”
“Promise me you’ll never send me away.”
Tomas laughed. “Send you away? I’d die first.”
“Promise me anyway.”
“I promise.” He kissed her.
For their last night on the road, Stell wanted to go to a highway bar, somewhere away from the small town’s center. Tomas obliged and within a half an hour they pulled up to Shirley’s Chatterbox Bar and Grill. Tomas hesitated at the word grill but a few sniffs in the air assured them both that Shirley’s grilling days were long behind her. The bar was mostly for bikers and the sort of people who were not particularly stimulated by the college bar scene.
Tomas took a quick mental sweep of the room but was distracted by Stell, who clung to his side more tightly than usual. He nearly tripped over her feet as she walked in step beside him, her breath in his ear confessing her hunger and edginess.
“What’s the matter, Stell? Is something in here frightening you?”
She shook her head against his neck and allowed herself to be settled at the bar. Tomas made small talk with the bartender, watching the scene behind him in the mirror. Occasionally he would whisper some ideas for the night in Stell’s ear, rubbing her leg reassuringly. Shortly after they arrived, a young couple came in and settled down beside them.
“I didn’t think I’d ever get out of the freaking car.” The man stretched his arms over his head, swaying his back. Already over six feet, the move made him seem enormous.
“Pull your shirt down, Virgil. These people don’t want to see your hairy belly poking out at them.” The woman smiled past Virgil at Stell. She was in her mid-twenties with blond hair that fell down her back in tattered dreadlocks. “Don’t mind us. We’re from Ontario; been driving forever. We’ve been in the car for eight hours today, which is like four days when you’re Virgil’s size and you’re in a Honda. You gonna make it, old man?” Virgil groaned and excused himself to the bathroom. The woman ordered two beers and held out her hand.