“I don’t want to get hurt,” I whisper, barely able to breathe. Open up? Is he talking about cutting me? I don’t understand.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” The mattress sinks down next to me when he moves closer.
I gasp and shrink away. “But you will.”
His grip around my wrist is soft but unyielding, scorching me and soothing me at the same time.
“Eve, you’re… Your skin is so smooth, you smell so fucking good…” His groan is one of pain and not lecherous pleasure.
“Don’t hurt me, please, Adam. I’ve never—” I snap my mouth closed. I know it’s too freaky, and I don’t want to say it. It’s as abnormal to never have been touched by a man at my age as it is to be touching anyone at all these days.
Adam goes still. The faint whisper of his breaths is all I hear. He holds my wrist. Not hard. Unless he tightens his grip, I can probably break loose, but I don’t want to free myself. I want him to keep holding me. It’s his skin. It’s warm and odd. It does things to me. The strangest things. If I put my own naked forearms together, it doesn’t create this sensation of something swelling inside me that I feel with this foreigner’s skin on mine. It doesn’t burn like the sharp stinging pain from when I’m not being careful with the kiln. Adam’s skin has the heat of a thousand suns and the power to disintegrate me.
I didn’t know that this was touch. The quick hard hugs from my mother, and even my grandmother, were all I ever knew. I didn’t know it awakens a hunger inside that feels like it will dissolve my organs. It’s as if acid runs through my veins, and I hurt. Bad. Thirty-eight years of not knowing condensed into the sudden realization of what I have missed steals my remaining sanity. A wail rises in my chest, bubbles up through my throat and is released in the quiet chamber accompanied by a fountain of tears.
He speaks.
I cry.
I don’t hear his words, but his voice is a non-stop soothing murmur. Curling up into a ball, I feel him circle his arms around me, cocooning me with his eerie heat and surreal strength. The hunger in his breath has changed, from primitive and dangerous to curious and needy. His large hands rub along my back, demanding, dangerous, but he doesn’t take, he doesn’t hurt me, he just keeps molding me to him, pulling me closer until we lie like one body. I feel like the wounded bird I cradled in my hand one summer after I heard it flap helplessly on our doorstep. I never told Mother or Father. I found an old shoebox and made a little nest for it. I didn’t know to water it or feed it, and I had no one to ask.
It died.
So will I.
Everything dies.
Why do I beg him not to hurt me when I have lived and breathed pain my whole life? Maybe Adam will bring change? Another kind of agony? Why did Mother warn me of being with a man? She is gone. I can never ask. I don’t ever want to ask. I hope I will never meet her again.
My heart slows, but instead it thuds heavier. Adam’s strokes become rougher, more demanding, pulling me closer and closer with each move. His breaths rasp in his windpipe, sounding tormented. His hand comes to a stop on my hip, pulling me tight to him, then he slides it to the small of my back, clutches the fabric of my dress so that it rides up a little along my leg. I freeze, and struggle to push it back to cover me.
“No,” I breathe.
His answer is a guttural groan that makes the hair on my nape stand. “Do you know how fucking sexy you are?”
Despite my half-panic, laughter bubbles up in my chest. He’s delirious.
“I wish you could see what I see,” he mutters.
I raise a hand to my face, trace my nose, my lips, my chin. I have no bumps on my face. My nose is wide and flat, like my whole family’s. My chin is narrow, my forehead high. My eyes lie deep in their sockets and I have lots of upper eyelid showing even when my eyes are open. People have told me I have pale hair and skin, but it doesn’t mean anything to me. I must have seen myself before I lost my eyesight, but I was too young. I don’t remember it.
I hold out my hand and hover it closer to where his face should be. “Can I see you?”
“What do you mean?” His hand takes mine, but then he just holds it.
“Can I…touch your face? Make an image of you?”
“Do you want to make a statue out of me after? Screaming in agony?”
“Maybe,” I say. “Is there agony in you that wants out?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t know half of it.”
“Try me. Can I?” I tense my fingers and spread them, increasingly eager to trace the pattern that are his features, to build a map of Adam. Yes, maybe I’ll make art out of him if I get the chance, but I need to learn him first.
Adam releases my hand and moves. He pulls me up and shuffles around until we sit in front of each other on the bed.
“Go for it. What do you want me to do?”
“Close your eyes unless you want me to poke them.”
“Right,” he says with a scoff. “That’d be the last thing you did.” The words are threatening, but he sounds playful. He’s a man full of surprises.
“Well, then keep them closed. And stay still.” I hold out both my arms and let my hands descend on his head.
I’ve touched people’s faces before. Plenty. But this one is different. Adam has heat radiating off him, a special kind of warmth that makes my skin tingle. His hair is silky where mine is rough. I don’t know why I know it, but he comes off as dark haired. His head is a little rounder than mine, and larger. He has fuller ears.
And he twitches.
“Hold still.”
“It tickles, dude!”
“Don’t be such a boy.”
“You’re awfully brave all of a sudden.”
“I can’t see you if you’re all twitchy.” My fingertips rest loosely against the sides of his jaw. His muscles work as he seems to grind his teeth.
“Get on with it. But no tickling.”
I stroke along a squared jaw, covered in rough stubble that pricks my skin. The stubble continues down, down, down, to where the neckline of his shirt stops my exploring.
“If you want me to get undressed, just let me know.”
I slap him. Lightly. On instinct. “Hey, you monkey.” He is a monkey. So hairy. I put my hands back on the top of his head. I just have to check something. His hair doesn’t stop in his nape. It goes on forever. I find a tail and let it slide between my fingers until I finally reach the end on his mid-back.
“Satisfied?” he rumbles.
“Shh.”
I move along the sides of his face until I find his nose, broad, but not wide like mine. His nose protrudes more and has a little bump. I brush across long eyelashes, bushy eyebrows and a strong horizontal ridge along his lower forehead. I don’t know what ‘beautiful’ is, but I like his features. They speak to me.
I let my hands fall, gasping when he catches them mid-air.
“You forgot something.”
“What?”
“My mouth.”
His words send a bolt through my belly. I didn’t forget his lips as much as I pushed their existence out of my mind.
“I already touched it.”
“It doesn’t count.”
I have no resistance when he raises my hands and puts the tips of my fingers against his soft full lips. “I don’t need—” I say faintly.
“Would you rather explore with your tongue right away?”
I swallow hard and lick my lips, my mouth desert dry, then I nod and tense my fingers, following the soft-hard plump swelling of his lower lip to the corner of his mouth, then along his upper lip, past his cupid’s bow and all the way to the other corner. I’ve never touched anyone like this. This is not how you do it. This is a game that builds a thick energy between us, an energy that feeds our hunger and brings heat to the surface of our skins. I feel it in my own. I feel it reflected in his.
Finally, I pull back. I know him now. Yes, I could sculpt his face from this. I don’t know about his inner scream, though, about his pain.
“What are you?” I ask. His face doesn’t make sense to me. I have mostly spent my time with my own race. Kiki has a Spanish heritage, but she is a woman. I can’t relate to his face.
“My parents were Mexican. Do you know what you are?”
I frown. “Of course. I’m Black.”
“But you know that—”
“I’m albino. I know I’m white. I look like a freak.” I shrink back a little. For a few hours I have not felt freakish in the presence of another human being, but here we go again.
“You look like an angel, Eve. You’re the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
I jerk as if he hit me. My hands fly up to my face. Adam takes them in his, replaces my fingers with his, traces my lips, my nose, under my eyes, along my eyebrows, hairline, ears. It does tickle.
Beautiful. No one has ever called me beautiful. Ever.
My skin seems to reach for his. The little hairs stand up, needing more of his warm, strong hands.
My stomach growls. Loudly. I put my hand over it and laugh, embarrassed. The magic breaks.
Adam groans. “Fuck. It’s afternoon.” The mattress bounces, and he’s up, out of my reach. “I’ve gotta… When did you eat last time?”
I try to think. Yesterday. That doesn’t sound good. “Breakfast,” I say. It sounds more reasonable.
“Come.” He takes my hand. “I’ll fix us something. I have things to do.”
My body isn’t my own anymore. Something inside me has awoken. There is tingling and heat. There is a thrill, fear, and a need I never knew I had.
I want more of the touch.
I think he broke me.
Chapter Seven
Adam
I can’t keep my hands off her. She twitches, recoils, but then she comes back for more. I want to pull up that huge fucking dress to her waist and explore more of that smooth, pale skin. I’ve had a sip from her lips, and it’s not enough. I want to drink all of her. I want to bury my face between her legs and pull screams of pleasure out of her while I taste her.
The stolen truck, my predicament with the drenched radio, Coran, even little Toad. I have forgotten about everything. I’ve been pulled into Eve’s fucked-up world, her condensed reality as twisted as the wordlessly screaming faces in her workshop.
With her hand in mine, I grab the radio off the bed in the other room on the way to the kitchen. I press the button. Still dead. I’ll try to find a screwdriver and see if I can get it open and dry it out.
“Sit.” I guide her to a chair. “I’ll make us something.”
“I can do that,” she says.
I scoff. “Do you even know what you’re eating half the time?”
“Always.” She grins. “After I’ve put it in my mouth.”
I shake my head. “Sit tight, angel. I have higher demands.”
“I’m not sure I can meet them.”
My pants tighten as my cock thickens from the images her innocent words conjure up. I stop in my tracks, one hand on the fridge door handle, and look her over. She’s facing me. Her eyes are clear, open and curious, but as distant as ever. Would she like what she saw if she could use them? Would she like me? With my scars and my twice-broken nose?
“Oh, I’m sure you can,” I say, then wince and curse myself. She’s clearly inexperienced as fuck and won’t get the double entendre. A blush creeps up her cheeks, and I’m less sure she was talking about food. My heart somersaults. Well fuck me. I can have her. What’s stopping me? I’m a man – she’s a woman. We have parts that fit. We’re stuck together until I either find a way to contact my people, or until tomorrow, when her friend comes by. Naturally, she’s wary of me, but she’s more curious than afraid, which makes me oddly pleased. Inhaling a shaky breath, I tear my gaze from her and go in search of something edible.
Food.
Radio.
Sleep.
She speaks, but I’m so caught up in my own mind I miss what she says. “What was that?”
“I’m not an angel.”
Canned beans. Ravioli. Canned ham. No fresh fruit or vegetables. No fresh meat. I put the cans on the counter and turn to her. “What makes you say that?”
She turns down her face, her long spindly fingers keep finding each other like in prayer, then she unties them and balls her hands into fists. “Not an angel,” she mumbles.
“Angels are overrated anyway,” I mutter.
I go to work on opening the cans and putting the content on plates. My insides ache a little as I think of what we have at the compound. We’re exchanging services of fresh water, electricity, and protection with local farmers. We have milk, lettuce and cucumber, avocado, meat. My son gets the best this world can offer. I know people are suffering, but knowing and seeing are two different things. Standing in the bright kitchen in Eve’s run down, too-large house, old and new collide, what we used to have and what we don’t have anymore, and the realization hurts. The microwave oven beeps for the second plate, and I pull it out, placing both plates on the table along with forks and glasses of water that I sniffed suspiciously before I poured it.
Eve sits absolutely still, her entire body intent on me and my whereabouts.
“Do you have a toolbox?”
Her hand trembles as she picks up the fork and taps it on the plate in a circle, taking stock of where the food is, before she brings the first bite to her mouth. She chews, then her face cracks open in a wide grin.
“It’s ravioli. That’s all I’ve eaten in the last week.”
“You find that funny?”
She chews. Swallows. “No. It’s horrible. But you sounded like you were going to make us a gourmet meal.”
“Are you teasing me?” I make my voice stern, but seeing her smile is the most beautiful thing I can remember witnessing, and I’m not mad in the least. “It’s your stocks, sugar, not mine.”
Her smile falters, and I miss it immediately. “I didn’t think I’d have a guest,” she says quietly.
The grim reality washes over me like a tsunami of cold, muddy water. “I didn’t plan on staying.” I shove in a few bites and swallow without tasting while I look at the radio, my one hope. “Do you have a working phone?”
She shakes her head.
“Car?”
She laughs then slaps a delicate hand over her mouth. “No.” The word comes out half-choked. “There should be tools in the shed. I don’t know what you need—”
“Who are your neighbors?”
Her face turns into stone. It’s as if she flicks an off switch.
I put two fingers under her chin. “Tell me about your neighbors.”
“I don’t know them.”
I frown. “I got the impression you’ve lived here your whole life.”
“I don’t know them,” she repeats, her voice devoid of all emotion. An eerie chill spreads along my neck, as if we’re being watched. I spin around and look out the window, at the street and past it, at the house on the other side. A few cars passed while I sat in the tower. A few people hurried past, their faces meticulously covered. Our truck hasn’t returned, though, and neither has Coran. I’m concerned that he hasn’t come looking for me. Something is holding him up, and it can’t be good, whatever it is.
I turn back to the mysterious Eve. “The kids yesterday?”
“I don’t know them,” she says again.
I know she’s not right in the head. I saw the sculptures. She’s a thirty-eight-year-old, possibly virgin, who lost her sight due to her parents’ neglect.
“Have you been outside?”
“No!” She looks horrified.
“But before… I mean, before the plague.”
Eve turns her head to the side, her jaw working. It’s my turn to be overwhelmed by horror.
“Never?”
“I have,” she whispers. “I sat in the garden.”
“But…people? School?”
“Mother didn’t think I would fit in public school, and there was no other option discussed that I
know of.”
The ravioli threatens to come back up when I realize she is one with this chipped old house. I was brought up the only surviving son of proud Mexican immigrants who raised me as the heir to their dry-cleaning business, cherished like a prince. My twin brother died when we were only two months old, and his ghost remained a constant in my childhood home. I wasn’t a son to hold dear. I was an ungrateful fucking brat. Standing behind a counter, saying please and thank you to a never-ending line of customers wasn’t what I wanted. When I came back to them, a wreck, filled with longing and regret, it was too late. The black wind had blown across the world. No one needs dry cleaning today. I got to bury them in shiny caskets. Then I burned the store to the ground, high on all the drugs I could find, tore through the rival gangs on the street, met Coran – a man with a plan – and formed our emporium. Somewhere in the absolute mess that I was, I also fucked every willing piece of meat who spread their legs for me. I didn’t care about catching the virus. I wanted to go in style. Until Toad. My little one. He’s mine to the tee. I have no doubt. He looks like a carbon copy of me at that age.
I was always loved. It didn’t save me from myself and my destructive soul.
Eve, on the other hand…
Eve has been protected, hidden away like a deformity, but not because she was loved. I sense no love in this house, only control. Still, there’s a light in her, and the darkness in me is increasingly pulled toward it the more time I spend with her.
“Will you…sculpt my scream?” I ask.
“Can I shape you?” she asks simultaneously.
We both snap our mouths shut.
“You carry sorrow,” she says.
I stand a little too fast, my stomach churning. The fork rattle against the plate. Eve jumps.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I don’t know you. I don’t know what came over me.”
“Never mind. I need to go look at that shed, see what you’ve got in there. I’ll take care of the dishes. You go…do whatever it is you do all day.”
I hate that she looks hurt. I want to wipe that frown off her forehead, kiss it away, but I can’t promise her any salvation. She’s fucked. I’m fucked. We’re all lonely in this hell our lives have been thrown into. I stalk off toward the back door, preferring a more hidden route through the garden.
I Am Eve Page 5
