Until the Devil Weeps

by W E DeVore

  Motherfucking super detective, goddamn.

  January: Rationalization

  Thunder clapped in the middle of the night and Q woke up to rain pounding down on the tin roof overhead. The temperature had dropped significantly and she shivered under Sanger’s comforter, staring up at the ceiling, listening to the raindrops hit as they rattled the metal above and trickled down to the gutter, falling to their brethren on the ground below in an endless dance.

  In the weeks following Christmas at the Bordelons, Sanger and Q had started a dance of their own, swirling around each other in a strange push and pull that was a new dynamic to their years of friendship. Some days, Q could hardly think of anything but the way Sanger smelled, her mind drifting back to morning conversations with him and away from the mixes she was supposed to be listening to at Son of Perdition. Other days, she raced to the studio to escape him.

  Echoing her own behavior, Sanger would pull her near, leaving the door ajar while he showered so that he could continue to talk to her, only to leave for work with barely a word and return after he knew she’d gone to sleep. Today had been one of those days.

  As she lay in bed, she tried to concentrate on the flow of rain creating its rhythmic dance above instead of the increasing cold. After debating for ten solid minutes, she finally pushed herself out from under the covers to find Sanger and ask where the extra blankets were. He was curled in the center of the thin pull-out bed, shivering under his own quilt. The house was too dark and she realized that the power had gone out and, like most houses of a certain age in New Orleans, his had insufficient insulation to protect them from the rapidly plummeting temperature.

  She sat on the edge of the bed, trembling in the thin Ramzet t-shirt she was wearing that barely covered her bellybutton, watching him in the dark. Standing back up, she retrieved the comforter from the bedroom and spread it over him, making him sigh as his body relaxed into the warmth. She crawled under the blankets beside him, curling her body next to his.

  He gripped her to him and said into her ear, “Holy fuck, it’s freezing.”

  “The power went out, cowboy.” She pressed her body back into him, closing her eyes, comforted by the nearness of him.

  “Great. That means the furnace is out, too.” Sanger pulled her closer, shivering against the heat of her body. “I’ll get you another blanket in a minute. Just let me steal some of your warmth.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, I’m staying here with you. I’ve already brought the comforter from the bed. Go back to sleep.” Q yawned and rested back into his chest, savoring the warmth and the affection.

  Sanger hesitated. “I don’t know if this is a good idea, Clementine.”

  “Look, cowboy, I’m not stupid enough to want to sleep alone in this ice box when there’s a perfectly good 98.6˚ space heater right next to me. Your bedroom is cold enough on a good night.” She pushed herself into him for emphasis. “Jesus, Sanger, I’ve held my own against that superpower of yours for five years, one more night seems doable. Despite what you may think, it is possible for a woman to resist you.”

  “You win,” he said, laughing, before he jumped out of bed and raced into the hallway, returning with another blanket. He spread it over the bed and climbed under the covers. She sank back into his waiting arms. His warmth combined with the heat of the double blankets and spread through her like morphine, sliding her down into the barely conscious stage before a deep sleep. As she drifted lower into a dream, she watched the sun set through the storefront window in the memory flickering through her mind.

  They’d been tied up together. Sanger had been shot and was struggling to remain awake while they waited for their captor to return to burn the building down and them with it. She heard Sanger’s voice say in her mind, If you’re asking me, you're a little too easy to love.

  At the time, he’d said he was lying to her. Distracting her from her fear. But comprehension crashed over her, and she admitted the fact she’d been denying for the last two years. She opened her eyes and stared at the water running down one glass pane to another on the darkened window. Biting her lower lip and swallowing hard against the sudden dryness of her mouth, she whispered, “Aaron, you were telling me the truth, weren’t you?”

  He cuddled nearer and slid his hand under her shirt to rest on her stomach. The warmth was having the same narcotic effect on him, and his voice sounded drowsy. He yawned.

  “I usually do. What are you talking about?”

  She trembled against the realization that the first time they’d played his favorite childhood game, he hadn’t lied to her. “Do you remember that day at Mikey’s Music Emporium? When you got shot and we were tied up?”

  “Of course, I do.”

  “You told me you were in love with me,” she whispered. She faltered, not sure if this was a secret she really wanted to know. “But then you said it was a lie. To keep me from being so scared. But you weren’t lying, were you?”

  He started to move away and she held his arms around her body.

  “Don’t let me go, I’m freezing,” she said.

  “Go to sleep, Clementine,” he replied.

  “Answer the question. I want to know.”

  Sanger brushed her hair away from her neck, resting his chin on her shoulder. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Go to sleep.”

  “I think it might matter. I think it might matter a lot.”

  “Why do you care?” he asked. “It was years ago. What made you think of that?”

  “Last month at Christmas, Lila told me that you were the one who called everyone after I was shot. That you wouldn’t leave me while I was in a coma. That you wouldn’t sleep or eat or talk to anybody. Is that true?”

  Sanger swallowed and exhaled.

  “Yes, it’s true,” he finally replied.

  “Why did you stay with me like that?”

  “I didn’t want you to be alone.”

  “But I wasn’t alone,” she argued. “Bubbe was there, Daddy, Ben’s family…”

  “I couldn’t leave you…” He stopped himself from speaking and whispered, “Please, Clementine, just go to sleep. I don’t want to talk about this.”

  Again, he tried to move away and again, she held him to her. “Tell me. I want to know.”

  “Why are you doing this?” he asked. A small sob escaped his throat and she held his hand more tightly, clutching it to her body.

  “I want you to tell me the truth. I want to know why you stayed. Why you took all that time off work. Why you ended it with Elaine. You’re keeping something from me and I want to know what it is. Tell me what happened the day I was shot, Aaron,” she whispered.

  “Does it matter?” he asked.

  “It does to me.”

  He took a jagged inhale before saying, “I’d just dropped Elaine off, she got pulled into work on a case. Rex called me. Said a 911 call had come in. Shots fired at your address. I got there just after they cut the gate open, followed the paramedics up onto the porch. Ben’s heart had already stopped. You were convulsing from the shock. They didn’t know about the blood thinners you were injecting. You were hemorrhaging. Ben was hemorrhaging. There was blood everywhere. Your heart stopped and they worked on you for ten minutes to get it to start again. I rode with you to the hospital. Trying to keep it together and answer as many questions as I could. I called Yvie. Told her to call Ben’s parents and meet me at the hospital. I didn’t know what to do. I had to do something and I didn’t know what to do. I just knew I couldn’t leave you. They took you into surgery and I kept thinking that I was going to lose you, like Avi, like my mom, like Ben, and I couldn’t… I had to find a way to hold on to you. I couldn’t leave you. So, I just sat there, praying the same fucking prayer over and over.”

  His thumb stroked her stomach and she was surrounded by the comfort of him. Watching that line they weren’t supposed to cross drawing nearer by the minute, she wondered if Derek was right; that maybe it wasn’t a line at all, but a door that could be opened and clos
ed at will.

  “Lila said you were begging God not to take me from you. Is she right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  He shivered slightly and his arms tensed around her body. “Because I didn’t want you to die without knowing what this felt like, Clementine.”

  She turned to look at him. His eyes were closed, his lips parted slightly and she tentatively brushed her lips against his mouth, feeling their breath merge, wondering just how far to take this new aspect of their relationship. When he didn’t respond, she lay against him. Entwining her fingers through his, she brought his hand under her shirt to cup her breast. He sighed and kissed the back of her neck.

  As his tongue brushed against the base of her jaw, Q gasped and began to tremble. She nestled back into his body, moving her hips to rest closer to him, threading her bare legs through his while he continued to kiss the back of her neck, his tongue grazing her hairline, making her body shudder. She pulled him closer, holding his hand securely to her breast and moving her hips against him until she felt him respond. “Tell me why you said you were in love with me that day at Mike’s.”

  His hand clasped around the soft flesh beneath it and he moved closer still. She moaned quietly and turned her face to him. His eyes were open now and he was staring at her in the dark. “I said it because it was true.”

  “Still?” she asked.

  “What do you think, Clementine?”

  She let go of his hand and reached to caress his jaw with the back of her fingers. As they watched each other, their breathing grew more rapid with anticipation, and she whispered the one word she knew they’d never return from. His eyes pleaded with her to understand.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Sanger held her gaze, moving closer a breath at a time. Suddenly, he wrapped both arms around her and pulled her to him, holding her to his chest and covering her mouth with his. Q cried out as her body opened for him. He slid his hands down to her hips and clutched her to him, digging his fingers into her thighs.

  He rolled onto his back, carrying her with him as she tasted him with her tongue, holding his face in her hands, feeling his jaw move against her fingers. She straddled him, violently shoving away the fabric that separated them to bring him inside her. Sanger moaned as he penetrated her fully, grasping her hips, and rocking her body in a slow, steady motion. She continued holding onto his face as they watched each other shudder closer to climax.

  Q whispered his name and dozens of prayers and affirmations as her orgasm shattered through her. Tears rained down her face and she continued to move. He held her to him, gasping as his own release built until he emptied inside her, shaking against her body.

  She rested her head against his shoulder, keeping him inside her, not wanting to be separated. She wiped away the tears that continued to flow while Sanger stroked her hair.

  “You feel so good,” she sighed. “I can’t tell where you stop and I begin.”

  He held her more tightly, whispering, “Ken, ahuvati. Eynn lezeh sof. Ani ohev otakh. Elohim, ani ohev otakh.”

  Her eyes grew heavy as her body relaxed deeper, melding with his in the warmth.

  “Don’t let me go, Aaron.”

  “La'olam lo e'ezov otakh. Lechi lishon, ahuvati.”

  She smiled and kissed his neck. “You’re speaking in the wrong language again, cowboy.”

  He held her tighter. “Go to sleep, my love,” he whispered. “I won’t let you go.”

  “Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  “There is no end to this, Aaron,” she murmured as her eyelids grew heavy.

  His voice broke as he said, “No, my love. There is no end. Go to sleep now.”

  Fatigue finally won out and she yawned, slipping into unconsciousness as Sanger whispered words she didn’t need to understand to know what he was telling her. Her eyelids clamped shut and she tumbled down into the world of serenity that Aaron Sanger’s embrace offered her.

  ◆◆◆

  Q blinked open her eyes and stretched, yawning, reaching for Sanger. She found herself alone, as usual. She stared at the sunlight streaming in through the windows next to the front door. Ice crystals spread over the glass, refracting the light into blinding fragments. Someone moved in the kitchen behind her and Sanger’s voice drifted to her ears, singing an old Ray Charles tune. She closed her eyes to listen.

  “I got a woman… she’s been good to me.”

  She grinned and covered her mouth with both hands, surprised at the unexpected joy she felt as soon as she woke up. Visions of the night before flashed through her mind and she wondered if she’d dreamt the whole thing. Judging from the awkward angle her underwear still rested on her hips and the tender damp beneath, very little of what had happened during the night had been in her imagination.

  Ben’s words from her dream popped into her brain and she realized that, for the first morning since the shooting, his death wasn’t the first thing to come into her mind.

  If you think you’re alone, you’re not paying attention.

  She rolled onto her other side to silently admire Sanger humming to himself at the stove. Trembling in the cold, she debated what her first morning greeting for her new lover should be and decided that an old standard would do the trick nicely. “Good morning, cowboy.”

  He turned and smiled. “Good morning, Clementine.”

  Q got out of bed and instantly regretted the decision. The floor did little to conceal the fact that the ground beneath was in some state of frozen. She shivered over to him and pushed between his body and the stove to gain some warmth. “What the fuck happened? It’s freezing.”

  He wrapped one arm around her waist, continuing to stir the scrambled eggs on the stove with his other hand. “Power’s still out. That storm knocked out over half the city. It’s twenty degrees outside. The streets are like glass. You cold?”

  She wrapped her hand around the back of his thigh and pulled him nearer. “What do you think? Come back to bed and warm me up.”

  “You go on. I managed to relight the pilot light in the stove, so at least we’ll have a hot breakfast, but it’ll be another day at least until we have power.”

  Taking the spoon from his hand, she set it in the pan before turning to put both her arms around his neck. “I’m sure we can figure out a few different ways to stay warm, aren’t you?”

  “We should have a talk. Go back to bed. I’ll be there in a minute,” he said, kissing the top of her head and pushing her towards the living room.

  A fleeting flash of concern crossed her mind, but she quickly shoved it back down; telling herself that, of course, it would be a little awkward this morning and, of course, they should discuss what happened last night in the clear light of day.

  Climbing under the blankets, she breathed in the cedar smell of Aaron Sanger and bit her lip in expectation. As she lay back on the pillows, watching him move around the kitchen, she knew that the invisible line standing between her and her best friend had been crossed. The door had been opened wide. Whatever boundary they’d trespassed had been torn down and as far as she was concerned, it never needed to be rebuilt.

  As Sanger finished breakfast, she thought about Ben and wondered how he’d feel about her moving on without him. While she wasn’t entirely sure if she was ready to be with a man who wasn’t her late husband, she knew for certain if she was, that man would be Aaron Sanger. Besides, Ben was in no position to argue with that decision.

  This was either a really good idea or a really bad one.

  Sanger soon joined her, carrying two mugs of tea and a large bowl of scrambled eggs. He handed her a mug and set the bowl on the end table next to her. Taking his own cup, he walked around to the other side of the bed and climbed in beside her. He sat against the backrest and she lay against his chest, sipping her tea.

  “Last night was the first time I slept since Ben died,” she said. “Like really slept. All the way through the night. I can’t remember
the last time I slept like that, I barely remember closing my eyes.”

  He quietly sipped his tea for a few minutes. “I don’t think either of us moved all night… I haven’t slept since it happened, either. Guess fatigue finally won out.”

  She set her mug on the floor and curled into him, sliding her hand under his shirt. “Maybe we just needed each other to hold onto.”

  This is a good idea. The best idea, I’ve had in a while.

  Sanger quietly sipped his tea and said, “You can’t stay here anymore. I know I said you could stay as long as you wanted, but you’ve got to go home or move in with Constance or the Bordelons. Last night was a mistake. We can’t do this. We should just forget it happened.”