The Innocent

by Candice Raquel Lee

  I ran to her and put my arms around her and held on for long as I possible, half a minute max before she pushed me away. Then she frowned at my lack of laundry. I forgot to bring it. Complaining all the way, she drove me home. When I saw our house again, it was the most beautiful little red brick rectangle. The white rose bushes in front were so welcoming. I was home. I was safe.

  “You okay, sweetheart?” she asked, pulling into the driveway.

  I wanted to say “no”, but what was the use? I knew what she would say. I couldn’t tell her the truth. She would blame me for getting in such a mess. And I was kicking myself enough for being so stupid. But how do you know Mr. Right until he comes and proves himself? How can you be anything but a fool until he does?

  “I think I’m getting the flu.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, you should be more careful,” she said, and we walked into my house.

  “Yes, I should be.”

  I spent the weekend with my blinds drawn, staring at the pink tear-blurred walls of my room and sitting on my queen-sized bed. I glared at my endless shelves full of books, full of other people’s happy endings. I hated them. I hated them all. He made me hate books. I pulled down Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, The Mysteries of Udolpho, all of my favorites and left them strewn on the carpet, so I could step on them.

  I moved around my house like a ghost. I didn’t eat. I barely spoke to my mother. There was nothing inside me except raw pain. I hated everything. Nothing was good anymore. Nothing was right. Everything hurt. I had lost everything. All I could think about was that it was over, whatever it had been. As terrible, as reckless, as stupid as it had been, as dangerous as it was to be near him, I still missed Cristien. I missed him. My body missed him. It felt like it was starving to death, like I was dying but couldn’t die. I was in hell. I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t go on.

  I cried on the floor of my living room when my mother went out. I screamed and pounded and kicked the wood, fighting to exorcize him, but nothing helped. Nothing was what I saw in my future. Nothing would feel like him, nothing would smell, sound, touch like him. He was wrong. I was right. No means no. He shouldn’t have even tried. Oh God, please help me, I love him so much! Please help me, I prayed. But no answer came, only the sick ache in my heart that never stopped even when I slept. I would wake up sobbing, knowing I had to die soon. It hurt so much.

  And where were my dreams of him, dreams that had come every night? Where were they? No solace even then, no angel to climb under my heavy lids and test my resolve now that I had none left.

  Where was he? Did he care that I was falling apart, or had he found someone else more willing, someone he could have? Was she pretty? Did he ever remember me? I couldn’t make myself believe he did. I couldn’t make myself contemplate that he had cared anything for me.

  I punished myself with images of him dancing with another, kissing her, loving her. I scored my heart, trying to win it back from him, trying to stuff it with bitterness. To glut it so there would be no place for him in it. But my heart was larger than I could ever guess. There was room for bitterness, for self-reproach and love.

  When I had to leave my room, my home boys noticed me. I just wanted to be left alone. They were not the right guy. They didn’t know poetry. They did not look like Cristien or smell like him or sound like him. I didn’t want them. Some of them tried to flirt. Some took my misery as a challenge.

  “Hey baby,” a guy in jeans and a blue shirt called from across the street one day.

  I kept walking.

  “What? You think you’re too good to talk to me or something?” He crossed in front of me, stopped. “Don’t be rude. Speak when you’re spoken to.”

  I tried to go around him. He grabbed my arm.

  “Let. Me. Go,” I said, pushing him from me. He went flying across the street, hit a car and lay on the asphalt crumpled. We stared at each other, both shocked. Then we both ran away.

  How could I have done that? Adrenaline? Gamma rays? I walked home in a daze. I slept for hours afterward. When I woke up, I convinced myself I had dreamed it. No one could do that. I stayed in the house even more. I barely left my room.

  I returned to school Tuesday morning. The drive to the bus and bus ride to the dorm, I don’t remember. I don’t remember what my mother told me not to forget when I was getting on the bus. I dumped my clean things on the floor, put CJ on my bed, and stumbled into class.

  Unfortunately, we were continuing with Clarissa. I couldn’t sit there and discuss her rape and suicidal death. I got up in the middle of class and left. I didn’t know where I was going when I left the building. I just started walking. I didn’t care where. Life wouldn’t give me what I wanted, so what did I care what happened to me anymore? What did I care about a Life when it took away everything that made it worth living?

  I walked through Manhattan, down streets I had never traveled. Cracked cement passed under my feet. Taxis beeped me, lights changed, people stared. I didn’t know anything. I didn’t care. I crossed a street; there was nowhere to go anymore. I stood on a bridge. It overlooked an overpass, asphalt twenty or so feet below. To mark this place was a sign that read “The End.” I looked down at the traffic. I leaned on the railing. Cars whizzed by below. It would be so easy to fall, to end it.

  Nephilim

  She called me a thief. A thief. That’s all I could think while she walked away. My car door was still open, I could hear the warning sound, but I did nothing. A thief. That was what I had called Lily, so long ago.

  “Thief,” I spat, “Whore! You’ve taken everything from me and given me nothing in return! I had God and Heaven in my grasp, and you beguiled me into trading it for lust and filth. I denounce you and your master. Do your worst, but you’ll have no more of me!”

  “Master?” She had blinked at me and started laughing, her tiny white teeth flashing as her head fell back. Her dark waves bounced over the shoulders of her shift. She smelled of sex, and it hadn’t been with me.

  “Oh, my lord, you mistake me,” she said, amused.

  “I mistake nothing, harlot!”

  “But I swear by all that is holy that I have done nothing to vex you.”

  “And I swear by the rood that you have, but your spell is broken as of this moment. Begone from me!”

  “You cannot return on the road from which you have turned,” she told me. “It is barred. There is no way back, only forward with me.” She put out her little, waxy hand.

  “I shall never take another step with you though I die, but you will fall beside me. Enough,” I said, drawing my sword.

  She shrugged, laughed, and left. She left me with an appetite for death that took me over a hundred years to conquer. I wanted to kill her that night and many others, but I couldn’t. I wanted to be with Alexa tonight, but I couldn’t. I had plans to ignite her, to finish this lie and begin fresh with truth. We were on the verge. I almost had her underwear off. I only had to keep going no matter what, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t force her even to save her life. I was all kinds of monsters but not that kind. I was no Lovelace. I had let her go because she wanted me to, but I was still a failure. She was still going to die.

  I wanted to be angry, to blame her for wanting a dream life when all I could give her was a nightmare. I wanted to hate Alexa the way I hated Lily. I wanted to distance myself from her, to stop the pain, but I couldn’t. The wretchedness came. It drowned me. With a howl, I got out of my car and slammed the door. I tore off my shirt and took off. I don’t know if anyone saw me. And I didn’t care.

  I flew to Alexa’s window, but she wasn’t there. I waited. I wanted to see her face, the same cold expression she had given me in the car. If I could see her hate, maybe I could hate her back. But when she did return, all I saw was her pain. She was crying, crying because of me.

  I was a monster. I wanted to come through the window. I wanted to tear it from the casement. I wanted to hold her, but she wouldn’t want me to. So, I flew back to my apartment, headed to my room;
but recent events barred me from there. I just sat on the couch. I was still sitting and staring when Lance came home.

  “Dude?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Where’s your Phantom? You didn’t just leave a $400,000 car on the streets of New York, did you?”

  I didn’t answer, so he turned around and went back out. I didn’t know what I looked like, but I knew how I felt, and I couldn’t talk. Lance returned later. He tossed my parking ticket onto the couch. It landed beside me, and he kept going. Abe came home before dawn. He walked past without even seeing me and entered his room. The sun rose and moved across the sky, and I sat. The sun fell, and Abe left, and Lance left, but I didn’t go anywhere. I had no desire to move or eat.

  And then around midnight, her image that had been in my mind burning it to ash all day brightened, and I sought relief. I flew to her room, but she wasn’t there. It was midnight, and she wasn’t there. I sat on the window sill until it was almost dawn, and then I opened her window and went inside. I didn’t know what I was doing, what I would do if she came back. I didn’t care. I would tell her everything now. But where the hell was she?

  What happened to her? All kinds of scenarios were going through my mind. Had she been hurt? Had someone hurt her? Had she gotten sick? Was she dead? Dying? I was flagellating myself for leaving her alone. I was praying that she was all right. I prayed God: “Do anything to me. Take my life. I don’t care. Only don’t let anything happen to her!”

  When I looked up from kneeling beside her bed I realized her teddy bear was missing: that ubiquitous nuisance that she always held at night, that piece of cloth I was jealous of because she caressed it so tenderly and admitted it to her bed so freely. Where would she take it? Then I noticed her laptop was gone too. She had gone home? Relief flooded through me only to have it run back out again like a low tide.

  I had to find her. She needed me. I looked through her drawers. I found her schedule. I checked the dates. It was Spring Break? She would only return in a week? No, the Tuesday after that when her classes started. How could she live until then without me? How could I live until then without her? I searched every corner of her room until I discovered her address written on her laundry bag.

  I drove to her home and parked up the street. It was a little red brick row house, narrow, two-storied with a tiny front-yard. I waited for the day to end, watching women and men, wives and husbands come home to warmly lit rooms. When night fell I flew to her window. I peered in to make sure she was still alive. She looked as miserable as I felt, but her energy was still stable. Thank God. I went to sit on her flat roof like a gargoyle. Kids played in the street then came in for dinner. Boys picked up girls for dates and dropped them off again later. Life went by me. In the morning, I went home and sat on my couch. I lived this way for nearly a week. Then on Sunday night, Lance stopped in front of me.

  “Dude, what happened?”

  I shook my head. He sighed.

  “Have you eaten? You look like shit.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” he said. “You have to eat.”

  I shook my head. I had no appetite.

  “It can’t be that bad,” he told me.

  No. It was worse. I got up and walked away from him to my room. I closed and locked the door behind me. Then I slid to the floor with my back against it. My attention was on my unmade bed, now her bed. I would forever feel her in it, forever smell her, touch her. I fell asleep finally after days of being awake. I don’t remember the specifics of what I dreamt, but I know it was about her. I woke to the feeling of Lance and Abe pushing my door open. Lance climbed through the crack and pulled me to my feet.

  “Come on. Let’s go,” he said.

  “What day is it?” I asked.

  “Tuesday,” he said. I had lost consciousness for a whole day?

  “Let me go. I have to find Alexa. I have to protect her.” I tried to sprout wings but failed.

  “It’s day. You’re going to the doctor.” Lance threw a blanket over me.

  “No. I have to see if she’s alright.” I lunged toward the living room.

  “She’s fine,” Lance said, holding on to my arm. “She’s home. I got her address online for ninety-nine cents. I drove over. She’s safe. I stayed until morning. Her energy’s stable, but yours isn’t. You need help,” he growled.

  I collapsed, let them drag me to my car and toss me in the back seat. Lance drove. Abe took shotgun. Bastard.

  I lay there, eyes closed. I wanted to sleep until nightfall. Then I would go to her. I didn’t care if she hated me, if she told me no. I would lie down at the foot of her bed. Maybe I would die. At least I would be near her. Lance woke me up again. He pulled me from the car and took me inside to Chandraswami’s place.

  “What happened to him?” he asked after stepping from behind the curtain.

  “Doc,” Lance began, “the Compulsion’s made him crazy. He hasn’t eaten for days.”

  “Bring him in here,” the doctor said, motioning for Lance to drag me around the counter and through the curtain. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go in there, to see the wizard’s workshop, but I had no choice. The doctor led us down a dark hall. He opened the last of many doors. Inside was a bright, clean examining room.

  “Put him there.”

  The doctor left us alone, and Lance made me sit on the paper-covered table. I pulled off the blanket. I leaned my head on my hand.

  The doctor came back with several bottles. He put them beside me on the table. He took my arm and looked at it, then at my eyes. He shook the bottles he had brought then started mixing them in an empty one. “Drink this, slowly.”

  I took it more out of politeness than anything and put it to my lips. It tasted like Alexa. I lifted the bottle, but the doctor caught my hand.

  “Slowly,” he said.

  I tried. I took mouthfuls at a time, but after a while I was able to savor it, wait between tastes.

  “Hey, he looks better already,” Lance said. “I thought he was a goner for sure.”

  “You know we have a higher suicide rate than Mormons and dentists,” the doctor said to him.

  “Really?” Lance asked.

  “Yes. Now, please leave.”

  “What?”

  “We must talk. It is confidential. I do not think he wants you to hear this.”

  “I don’t think I should leave him,” Lance mumbled.

  “Has he told you anything yet?” the doctor asked.

  Lance made a face. “No.”

  “He must tell me everything. I am his doctor. You are his friend. He will give you the cleaned-up version when he is ready. Be a friend, again, and please get out.”

  Lance looked at me. I nodded.

  “Whatever you want, I’m here for you, Brother,” he said, raising a fist toward me. I nodded, and he left.

  “So, tell me what happened with the Innocent?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You haven’t had relations yet?” he asked, raising his brows.

  “No.”

  “No? Why not?”

  I frowned, “Because she doesn’t want to.”

  “She doesn’t like you?”

  “I think she does . . . did.”

  “Did?”

  “She wants a soulmate. She wants to get married, and live happily ever after.”

  “And you don’t?” Again the eyebrows lifted.

  “I’m an incubus. We don’t have soulmates. We don’t get married,” I told him. It was like I was talking to an idiot.

  “Why not?”

  I scratched my head, “Well, I would think the nightly infidelity would get in the way.”

  Chandraswami laughed a boyish laugh. “What infidelity?”

  This is ridiculous. Was he a doctor or a moron? “We feed off sex at first. She’ll be after men night and day. Besides, when the Compulsion wears off, I’ll feel nothing for her.”

  “What Compulsion?”

  I s
tared at him. I spoke slowly: “She’s an Innocent. The Compulsion is driving me to be with her.”

  “It is quite obvious that there is no Compulsion, strictly speaking, in what is happening here,” he told me.

  “Oh, really? Then what is happening here?”

  “You don’t know?” he asked, like I was the stupid one.

  I shook my head, waiting for his enlightening response.

  “You are in love with the girl. That is obvious.”

  I blinked maybe ten times. “But the Compulsion is making me . . .”

  He put up his hand. “No. The Compulsion attracts you to a nascent succubus’ energy; that is all. But since love at first sight and Compulsion have similar symptoms initially it is hard to diagnose properly. But now, you have not eaten food of any kind for several days because of her? This is Love. Have you eaten from anyone but her recently?”

  “No,” I said. Her attackers had disappeared, and I hadn’t even been hungry. Love? The word was almost a foreign term. I didn’t think I could love. “But doesn’t the Compulsion . . .”

  “Listen to me. Compulsion is attraction without reason, yes, but it fades after a few days at most and it is gone. This is why I told you to hurry. You would be missing an experience of a lifetime, an enriching experience, a life-giving experience.”

  “I’ve been going out with her for nearly two months,” I said, awed.

  “Yes, that is why I say it is not Compulsion. First, this has lasted too long. She should have died or changed by now. Second, you have not been feeding on others. If you are not eating or having sex, then the energy you are consuming must be the energy of her love for you. She is stable because of your love for her.”

  “She loves me?” Alexa loves me? I thought incredulously. I sat back on the examining table, my head light again.

  “Yes.”

  “Me?” I repeated, blinking in wonder, and feeling my heart light up and glow. I laughed. “And I love her? I didn’t think incubi could love.”

  Chandraswami laughed. “Yes. There is confusion because Innocents have little interest in humans. They cannot access their energy. That is why they are usually virgins. Then later when they mature, they hunt humans as food, so it is said that they do not love. But Nephilim are half god, half man. Love is found in both man and god, yes? Then of course, in Nephilim.”