The Innocent

by Candice Raquel Lee

  I’m a winged succubus who is engaged to an eight hundred-year-old incubus with an even older ex. Cristien had dropped me off late morning. He had errands to do for the day he would pop the question. I asked him when the errands would end. I know I was barely one week into the month, but I wanted to know when. Middle month? Late month? I hoped middle month. Nobody should make you wait until the end because then it’s like you know it’s coming. And it’s almost a little disappointing when it does because you’ve been on hyper-red-alert the whole time and nothing happened.

  I got engaged to an eight hundred-year-old incubus after a few months of knowing him. He said he still had a lot to do. So, I was thinking hopefully in a few weeks. It did take a long time to make arrangements, find and get a ring, book a restaurant. This was New York. It took two weeks to make a reservation for the latest flavor of doughnut.

  His ex likes to show up every two-hundred years. Okay, that’s it. I couldn’t take the internal monologue that was happening in my mind anymore. Was I nuts or something? Who gets engaged after a couple of months to an eight-hundred-year-old guy? Then I thought about it. I wasn’t exactly a who anymore, as in a human who. I was a what engaged to another what, as in “what a couple of freaks!” So, did that mean I could throw human cautions to the wind? I loved him. I think I loved him from the first night. My fate seemed to be sealed. And instead of the dread I assumed I would feel at that door-closing statement, I felt relief, joy and safety.

  Nobody knew the future. Nothing guarantees it. I, the winged succubus, should know that better than anyone. I could wait years fighting to wrench out every detail of Cristien’s life from him before I said yes, but would I know him better then? Probably not. So, where did that leave me? I sat at my computer. I did a search for the term “succubus.”

  Besides a site selling pink succubus wings, there was little to find amusing. According to Wikipedia, succubus was defined as a demon in the shape of a woman who had sex with sleeping men. In the shape of a woman? That hurt. I read further. The article went on to say that one of the characteristics of a succubus was that they liked cunnilingus. Yeah, but who didn’t? That would make most women succubi by association.

  Then the article went on to say that the original succubus was Lilith, Adam’s first wife. Lilith? I remembered her from Yeshiva. She ran away from him and the Garden of Eden because she wanted to be on top during sex. So, God cursed her with having monster babies, and in revenge she ate other people’s babies. Succubi ergo were baby eaters. Who wrote these things? Didn’t they think that people had feelings?

  I sat reeling from the implications of it all. So, I was Lilith’s kin. I was now the bad guy. Great. Everything I had learned turned against me. I mean, I never liked the story of Lilith any way, it was sexist, but now it was also personal.

  How could I still be Jewish? My people would tear me to pieces. Religions made people seriously xenophobic; if someone was different looking, acting or believing, they were demonized. The Bible was full of stories about killing people who just wanted to follow other beliefs.

  It wasn’t as if I could help having wings. They weren’t even covered in the Torah except for Malachim or angels. Those were the only winged things, but I wasn’t one of those. Why did difference always beget fear, hatred and murder? Why couldn’t people see beyond exteriors?

  As I began editing the heck out of article, I did more research and found out that Lilith was Babylonian in origin. She was part of their mythology first before she became a part of Jewish myth. She was a storm spirit. The young and wild untamed female energy. So, Lilith was just a myth? She didn’t exist. I shut the tab.

  Then I did a search for demigods, I came up with the heroes Hercules and Theseus. Not the kind I was talking about. The Internet was the source of all knowledge, my ass. I continued to search for answers though. I kept looking until I came across an article on Joseph Campbell. He was a mythographer, a guy who actually studied myths for a living. Cool job.

  He hypothesized that what we call myths were religious or socially important stories to an ancient people. It was his idea that all religious stories were mythic, not lies, but stories that helped our ancestors understand and cope with the uncertain world around them.

  The site said that even the Big Bang theory was a myth because it was an unprovable belief. So, religions were just trying to help people survive and navigate in an uncertain world by giving them rules and laws to live by.

  Campbell had written about something called the Hero Cycle. It was a pattern that all heroes followed from Hercules to Moses to Jesus. They had special births, crossed a threshold, faced challenges, had their darkest moments, got a special reward and came back to share it with their people. These themes were in all religious works, all good stories. All male heroes, I noticed.

  Then I remembered Psyche and her journey from the beginning of the term. She had done all those things. Even Lilith had had her adventure. Life was a cycle for women and men. Campbell said, the hero’s journey never ended. There was always another adventure. That was life.

  Well, I had had my ups and downs recently, and it was good to hear that that was normal. My mom wanted my life to be a straight line. Instead, it was like a heartbeat, up and down, up and down. I realized then that that was the only way we lived. My mother’s way was not living. A straight line was death.

  From what I could understood, life was a series of challenges that never ended and the only difference between heroes and the rest of us was that they never gave up. No matter what, even death didn’t stop them. I laughed. I didn’t know if that was true, but like Campbell said, they were just stories.

  So, what would I do with all the Jewish stories that had made up my life until a few weeks ago but now seemed to be turning against me? Could I just walk away from them? The Sabbath candles, the New Moon celebrations, the dancing, the singing, the joy, the holidays, matzah, being a People, my whole history gone because of one night.

  My mother spent one night away from her horrible husband with a stranger who made her feel loved, or had something else happened? Stories could bring us together or tear us apart. Whose story was true? Would I ever know what happened the night of my conception? Why her husband left? Was it because of me like I had feared or was it really because of them?

  Suddenly a biblical saying came to me, as cruel as a dagger: “the iniquity of parents is visited upon the children and children’s children, to the third and fourth generations” My heart felt like it was cracking, breaking between the old stories I had been taught and the new story that was being written with my every action. I was scared down to my bones.

  What if I was really bad? What if I was damned and evil? What if it all was a made-up lie like Abe had said? No, I countered. Cristien loves me. “Isn’t that the defense of every demon who makes excuses for being evil?” my upbringing asked.

  But what have I done that was evil, except love and forgive? I asked. How can love be evil? After all I had been through I was willing to take a leap of faith in myself, since I had no one else, nor any religion to tell me what to do. And even if it is all a lie, I thought, it’s a nice one. Like all the stories about how the universe was made. No one knows really if they are true. They can’t be proven. Still, we believe our stories because they make us happy. So, I would believe in Cristien and me because the idea of us made me happy.

  Every night, I was where I wanted to be, in Cristien’s arms and loving it. Every night, maybe forever. Forever? I couldn’t even imagine what that was like. That sounded like myth. I couldn’t even imagine what eight-hundred years was like. They were only words to me. Like infinity or the national debt being in the trillions. It was beyond comprehension, and yet I yearned for it. However long it was, I wanted to spend that much time with Cristien. It felt like there was no amount of time that would ever be enough.

  When I was with him, I wanted to hold each moment like it was the last one, never letting it leave my hands. My memory could not capture enough deta
ils. Nothing was sharp enough or true enough. I had to keep going back again and again to the font of his beauty and drinking deeply. My thirst was never sated. My eyes never tired of gazing into his depths. My fingers dipped and dipped again into the pool of his love. I could lay beside the well of his heart and never rise again. My beloved oasis. So, I had my answer. I was going to marry Cristien.

  I opened my laptop again, started Word and wrote a poem for him. I would give this one to him tonight.

  “How I have missed you my love,” it began. “How I have missed your touch, your breath against my cheek, your arms, which bring storm in times of calm. I miss you so, that words fail in their duty to express that which my soul dares to feel. And with much felt and little said, I wish you well in all endeavored things, but in my heart I wish you home on Angel’s wings.”

  Afterward, I forced myself to do some homework. I was still behind in my Pre-med readings. I had until five o’clock, just enough time to catch up, but my mind was not working very well anymore. I read, but every other word in my head was Cristien. I finished chapters, but the only thing I retained were scenes of Cristien. Books fell from my hands while I dreamed of him, how he had smiled, or smelled, or laughed or felt. I caught myself time and again staring at the screen of my laptop after I had drifted off into another memory of him. I was getting nowhere fast. Time lagged, I kept trudging through but not retaining any information that my eyes fell upon. I tried again.

  This time I opened my Literature of Love text to the translation of the romance of Tristan and Iseult, by Beroul. It was due for next my next class. I mused over the fact that it was as old as Cristien. It was supposed to be utterly romantic so I hoped it would hold my attention. I read of Tristan’s birth, how his parents had both died and so his name meant “sadness.” I read of how they met and then “drank love and death together.” I read of Tristan’s feats, and all I saw was Cristien. I read of Iseult’s tears and longing for her friend, and I thought of myself.

  How they suffered to be together. They wanted each other so much but could never truly have what they wanted since she was married. I read of his death, of the treachery of his unloved wife, and of Iseult’s death after. “Lady, rise and let me come by him; I have more right to mourn him than have you — believe me. I loved him more,” Iseult had said simply. Tristan died thinking Iseult had ceased to love him. And she had died of grief lying down beside him.

  I read the last lines of the book, meant to “greet those who are cast down, and those in heart, those troubled and those filled with desire, those who are overjoyed and those disconsolate, all lovers. May all herein find strength against inconstancy, against unfairness and despite and loss and pain and the bitterness of loving.”

  I closed the book and knew I would never be the same. I turned to the clock. It was five. I had to see Cristien. My soul ached for him. I had to tell him I didn’t care about his age, about anything but him. I had to be his, and he had to be mine. I didn’t want to mar this singular opportunity with any unhappiness. I showered. I put on my makeup then slipped the black dress over my head carefully so it wouldn’t be mussed. It was stunning, but I only had eyes for him. I sat unmoving, the poem in my purse, waiting for the hands of time to catch up with my heart.

  At 5:58, I ran downstairs. Cristien was there. He was wearing a tux. He ran his hand through his hair. And all around him was a dark green glow with hints of gold. I didn’t know if it was my eyes or because I was drunk on love. I walked slowly up to him.

  “You’re beautiful,” I said.

  “Isn’t that my line?” he told me, sweeping away the errant curl that was somehow in my face again.

  “Sorry,” I said, and then because I couldn’t help it, because he had just died without knowing, I said, “I love you.”

  He touched my cheek, gently, with his fingertips. He gazed into my eyes. His were so pure, so clear, so true. I fell into them like they were a green sea. I wanted to submerge myself in them, breathe their water like a fish and never come up. They spoke to me. Some words came to his lips but were not expressed. They disappeared into a quick smile, and his eyes glinted.

  “Come on,” he said, putting his arm around me.

  I touched my purse, wanting to give him my poem, but thinking of what a poor offering it was. I dropped my hand. He led me to the car, opened the door for me. There were a dozen red roses on my seat and hundreds more all over the back of the car. A thought came to me, and I turned to him.

  “What’s the occasion?” I asked.

  “The opera, of course,” he smiled, as I slid inside.

  I put the roses on my lap.

  “You really like the opera, don’t you?” I said, inhaling the heady spice of the flowers while he got into the driver’s seat.

  “You wouldn’t believe how much,” he said, closing the door and pressing the start button. “Actually, the occasion is you in that dress.”

  I laughed.

  “Did you miss me today?” he smiled.

  “Terribly, changer of subjects.”

  He took my hand and kissed it.

  “Where are we going for dinner?” I asked, as he drove. We never seemed to catch any red lights. I started to wonder about that.

  “You’ll see.”

  “Okay,” I said, not wanting to get too excited. I changed the subject this time: “I have wings. Are there any other things I’m going to get?” Like seeing auras?

  “Like a tail, perhaps?” he teased.

  “No, like the ability to make lights change at will.”

  “Oh, so you noticed that, did you?” he grinned.

  “I was wondering. Nobody is that lucky.”

  “Nope. No one but me.”

  “Will I get to do that?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What else will I get to do?” I asked eagerly.

  “I don’t know,” he said, and then he turned to me. “This demigod thing is virgin territory for me too.”

  “Ha, ha,” I said. “But what do succubi do, besides the obvious . . .” then I remembered something: “How many people have you been with anyway?”

  “You’re ruining the mood, Alexa,” he said, sounding more than a bit flustered.

  “Okay,” I sighed, “What do you want to talk about?”

  “How much you missed me today,” he said, smiling again.

  “So much it hurt,” I told him honestly. I took my poem out and handed it to him.

  He turned the light red. The car stopped. He read my poem while my heart beat unsteadily. I hoped he liked it. He finished and turned to me.

  “Thank you,” he said, quietly, searching my face. “A thief deserves no such reward.”

  “They always belonged to you,” I told him. “Do you like it?”

  “Like it? How could I only like it? It’s perfect.” He put his hand behind my head and pulled me toward him for a kiss. It started out softly enough. I don’t know how long it took, but cars started to beep.

  “Oops,” he said, as we drove through the green, “Lost my concentration.”

  “That’s a handy gift,” I smiled.

  He slipped my poem into his breast pocket.

  “I’ve only begun to truly enjoy all its facets.”

  We caused several more traffic jams and got the finger from a driver who couldn’t wait and raced around us.

  “That’s okay. I’ll have Lance do his wife,” Cristien told me.

  Finally, we reached our destination. He drove by South Street Seaport where we had gone the first night we had met. He parked nearby, and we walked hand in hand over the cobbled streets. It was warmer this evening, and the salty air was thicker. Also, everything was lit up. There were strings of white lights on all surfaces of the Seaport. He walked me through the noisy crowds inside the plaza shopping center and past expensive shops. We took an escalator to the second level. There was a dark, romantic-looking restaurant in the corner. We went inside.

  The maître d’ lifted his head as we entered. He had a p
rodigious book open in front of him.

  “LaRoche,” Cristien said.

  The man smiled eagerly. “This way, sir.”

  He led us through the crowd of diners to the balcony which was cordoned off. The maître d’ pulled up the rope to let us pass. The six private tables were set with roses and tea lights. Ours was nearest to the railing. I could see down to the water and the single moored ship. Cristien held my chair for me while I sat. He took his, and the waiter set down our menus.

  Cristien gestured to him. He whispered something to the waiter. He bowed and walked away but returned quickly with a bottle in a silver ice bucket. The waiter showed it to Cristien, who nodded. Then he set it down and left again.

  Cristien pulled out the bottle. It read “Champagne Krug.”

  I laughed at the gross-sounding name as he poured it into my glass. It was delicious.

  “What would you like to eat?” he asked after my second sip.

  I opened the menu, took a breath while flipping through the many pages. It was not a menu. It was a novella in a foreign language. There were jus, coulis, and reductions. The last I assumed explained the size of the food that usually came. On top of that, I was never good at ordering. I usually ended trading dinners with my mother because I couldn’t eat what I had gotten.

  “What do you suggest?” I asked Cristien.

  “Hmm,” he said, “how about the French onion soup to start, with the main being chicken cordon bleu, and cheese cake for dinner.”

  “How did you know I love cheese?” I asked.

  “Because since you’ve been to my house, we have no more,” he said bluntly.

  “Oh.” I didn’t think he had noticed my late-night robberies.

  The waiter returned and Cristien ordered for us. I took a breath of salt air and looked up at the distant stars while we waited for our food. He reached over and took my hand. My heart jumped.

  “I wanted to tell you how lovely you are in that dress,” he said.

  “Thank you,” I gushed.

  “No, thank you for wearing it, for forgiving me everything, for being with me tonight.”